Julia A. Turner Architecture & Design Graduate Student Portfolio Fall 2017 - Fall 2019
Julia A. Turner
Graduate Student Portfolio Purpose
This portfolio highlights my architectural investigations over the course of five semesters in the Masters of Architecture program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The work is organized by project and is arranged from newest to oldest. The work selected represents more speculative and theoretical projects. Examples of my technical work is availble upon request. All work presented is soley my own unless otherwise noted.
jturne34@uic.edu | 312.545.3244
Graduate Student Portfolio Contents
Ornamental Structure Studio Project, Sam Jacobs + Paul Andersen Fall 2019
Blue Guitar Seminar, Thomas Kelley Spring 2019
Infrastructure and GRace Studio Project, Stewart Hicks Spring 2019
Nested Homes Studio Project, Grant Gibson + Julia Capomaggi Fall 2018
Common Cores Studio Project, Francesco Marullo Spring 2018
Interior interiors Theory Class, Julia Capomaggi Spring 2018
Studio: The Federal Plaza Sam Jacobs and Paul Andersen Fall 2019
grids + Frames
This project reimagines Chicago’s Federal Plaza designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1967. In homage to Mies’ steel towers and rigid-grid plans, the studio commenced with explorations into grids, gridscapes, and frames to generate an alternative proposal for the Federal Plaza.
Grid studies This series of grids explores the ambiguity between plane and field and the resulting optical effects. These studies influenced the arangement of the plans in the final project.
Gridscape Studies Through merging rigid and formulaic grids with looser and more natural landscapes, these gridscapes represent an investigation in organized chaos. The studies incorporated traditional representational techniques of landscapes and forced them in to a logic of a grid. The study below blends pastoral agricultural scenes with an urban block system. On the opposite page, stylistic features from maps of early American colonial settlements are mashed into a rigid regularity.
Frame studies These early studies looked at framing as ornament in domestic buildings and scaled them up to become urban structures.
Right: There is a geometric beauty inherent in prefabricated roof trusses. By taking available trusses found on the Menards website and arranging them in non-traditional structural formations, these studies explored geometric designs created through structural members.
images from menards.com
Below: The facades of half-timber houses use structural elements to create geometric ornamentation. While some of the elements displayed on the facade directly connect with the structural system within, much of it is purely ornament made from the structural system--unlike many forms of ornamentation which covers the structural details. In many modern steel frame buildings, the frame is the ornament, however, the simplicity of frame does not include any of the purely ornamental structural details seen in half-timber frames. By scaling up and regularizing ornamentation techniques from half-timber houses, these studies imagine ornamental structure on an urban scale.
images from trekearth.com
ornamental Structure The use of frames as facade and ornament was the driving design force for this project. Unlike the minimalism of Mies’ existing plaza, this project incorporates a variety of framing systems, including domestic timber frames and prefabricated trusses to create ornate structural systems. Using the domestic precedent of half-timber frames, this project scales up their form to create an urban tower. The semiotics of a domestic frame at an urban scale creates a sublime sense of size, making the passerby feel like Lilliputians. The size of the frame become large enough that it can house smaller framing system and creates a sense of interior urbanism. On the interior of the structure, the facade details continue into the frame systems within in varied ways. Each layer of the facade corresponds to a different floor plan. The arches on the facade are replicated on the interior structure and create a cathedral sense of grandeur in the lower atrium. Contrastingly, steel and glass towers are housed within the structure. The frames of the mini-towers align with the larger frame of the building but also create their own rules. For each layer, the sectional qualities of the structure were considered to allow for playful voids and interactions between the various frame systems in the building. Early research into grids and composition were used to help generate the floor plans. The structure was lifted off the ground to create an open plaza to host public events such as political demonstrations, farmers markets and festivals. By raising the structure, above the ground, there is a symbolic nod to the bureaucratic functions of the federal plaza.
Left: Model photo, South view below: Model detail, first atrium
plans
as they align to the facade
below: Model photo, detail tower facade. below: Model photo, detail second atrium.
Above Model photo, second atrium view right: Model detail, ground level
plans
as they align to the facade
SOUTH CLARK STREET
WEST QUINCY STREET SOUTH STATE STREET
WEST ADAMS STREET
WEST JACKSON STREET
SOUTH DEARBORN STREET
Seminar: The Blue Guitar Thomas Kelley Spring 2019
the
BLUE
guitar:
Object oriented Ontologies In 1977, David Hockney produced a portfolio consisting of 18 etchings inspired by the 1937 poem by Wallace Stevens, The Man with the Blue Guitar, which many believe was inspired by the 1903 painting by Pablo Picasso, The Old Guitarist. Hockney’s etchings exhibit a diverse range of representational techniques including Cubism, Surrealism, Symbolism and collage. These renderings were created by examining techniques and representational styles in one of Hockney’s etchings in combination with the work of an artist or architect. The results created strange images where objects take on their own narratives in strange scenes.
On it may stay his eye Far left: Detail drawing of Farnsworth, taken from columbia.edu left: On it may stay his eye from The Blue Guitar by David Hockney, accessed on moma.org
This rendering foregrounds the often overlooked threshold. It pairs Hockney’s etching with a door detail from Farnsworth house, as Mies was not one to overlook a door detail. By examining representations of barriers from a close view, this exercise honed representational techniques of glass and stone and blurred the lines between a technical detail drawing and a representational perspective.
in a chiaroscuro
Louis Kahn (1901–1974), Sketch for a mural, 1951 – 1953. Ink on paper, 298 × 400 mm.
In a Chiaroscuro from The Blue Guitar by David Hockney, accessed on artic.org
Hockney’s In a Chiaroscuro utilizes multiple methods of shading to create depth in his etching. Louis Kahn’s sketches creates depth using high contrast compositions of light and shadow. This rendering uses compositional elements from Kahn’s sketches to create gradients of grays through material, light sources, and shadow.
It picks its way
Border Table, designed for EYE OF GYRE by Nendo. (2015) Photograph from Dezeen.com “Nendo’s sketch-like Border tables fit the contours of a Tokyo gallery.”
It Picks its Way from The Blue Guitar by David Hockney, accessed on artic.org
Both Nendo’s Border Tables and Hockney’s It Picks its Way represent the materialization of a line. The lines in the source images take on weight and form blurring the border between two and three dimensional. The rendering to the right is influenced by the rigid grid alignment present in Mies’ work. The lines created by voids in the pavers become columns and structure of the building while remaining visually similar.
discourd merely magnifies
Photo 54: ur 7 ATELIER, Gregory Schneider, taken from gregor-schnier. de
Discord Merely Magnifies from The Blue Guitar by David Hockney, accessed on moma.org
Drawing inspiration from the exclamative light bulb in Discord Merely Magnifies, this render focused on the representational techniques of light fixtures. Using the sterile and surreal images of Gregor Schneider, this rendering plays with elements of the mundane and the uncanny to capture feelings of an empty set.
Studio: Late Entries for Harold Washington Library Stewart Hicks Spring 2019
a late entry for the
h a r o l d
w a s h i n g t o n
l i b r a r y
Thomas Beeby describes his design for the Harold Washington Library in Chicago as part Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve, part shopping mall, and part Monadnock Building. This projects uses Beeby’s mashup formula of high precedent, low precedent and local precedent to create a “late entry” to the competition for the Harold Washington Library, using the original parameters of the 1987 competition.
High Precedent: Bibliotheque Nationale henri labrouste
ethereal reading room
MECHANISTIC BOOK STACkS
resultant traits
**photos taken from arch.mcgill.ca
greenery motifs
warehouse with atrium industrial finishes
lofted ceilings with iron and glass interioir greenery
Low precedent: Chicago Infrastructure Chicago Transit stations + Grid
shifting and hidden ground plane
small entrances to large spaces
repetitive
Roosevelt Station Lorem ipsum CTA Red, Orange and Green Lines
Subway Red Line
Merchandise Mart Brown and Purple Line
grids
platforms and voids entrances with changes in elevation
perspectival aspects
perspectival views
Infrastructure + Grace This projects draws from the beauty of industrial infrastructure to create a shared civic space which celebrates both the humanistic achievements of civilization through the cultural function of the library in addition to the urban infrastructure which in part allowed for this cultural growth. By taking on characteristics of Chicago’s transit system, the building connects to the city using its own language. The massive concrete building is at once formidable and friendly. Like entering an ‘L’ station, the entrance to the library is at the end of a series of stairs. Within the building, a similar procession through rooms using stairs and ramps creates a feeling of a journey through changes in ceiling height and floor. Like Labrouste’s Biblioteque National, the majority of books are stored in dense warehouse-like floors underground. These floors are utilitarian with sparse ornamentation. The above ground levels are programed for city services, reading rooms, administration, events, and a jazz cafe. At the top of the structure sits a large ethereal reading room and winter garden. The long and slender room circulates around the perimeter of the building’s top providing varied views of the city..
typical middle floor plan
0’
east section
50’
100’
first floor entrance
ground floor
typical basement floor
top floor - winter garden
east elevation
0’
50’
100’
0’
50’
100’
west elevation
0’
50’
100’
southwest axon
massing model
Studio: Two Homes in One House Grant Gibson and Julia Capomaggi Fall 2018
A house with two homes A studio on housing, this project began from by examining how furniture creates spaces and expanded outwards to create a house for two sets of occupants based on the exploration of space-creating furniture. This project’s investigation began with sunken-in furniture and the effects that it had on the space directly below it.
nested homes The sunken furniture and a ring enfilade construct a reversible game of familiar presences in both homes. Built-in furniture in vertical and horizontal surfaces defines the functional roles of each area and affect the ones immediate bellow or adjacent. Walls, floors, and ceilings turn into active surfaces that hold furniture, spaces, and protrusions which translate into something different on the other side. The two homes are intrinsically locked, affecting and defining each other but never really mixing. The effect is translated into a relationship between users of maximum autonomy and, at the same time, extreme interdependence. Each user has access to one outer body and one inner body in two different levels. The homes interrupt each other to get natural light in the inner body, the walls splay out and touch the exterior wall to form a window. This creates a slanted ceiling for the inhabitant in the ring. In both units the kitchen space is placed in the center. In the top floor, the cooking area descends into the floor and protrudes into the cooking area of the other tenant. The extrusion is then mirrored on the ground of the bottom user to create a cooking and eating counter. One of the units is inhabited by a family of four, while the other is a one bedroom, almost penthouse apartment for a single person or a couple. The faรงade of the house is a series of cut-out shingles overlain on a frame of steel and concrete, two elements that felt both urban and suburban. The shingles, as well as other elements in the house, contain a floral decal which ties the house to its natural setting in addition to allowing light into the house. The cutouts of the shingles also replicate the effect of seeing the trace of the other by only allowing a glimpse. The house is lifted off the ground to free up the space and provides a minimal footprint on the natural setting to take full advantage of the green space within the city. The lofting of the house also allows an entrance into the both units without disrupting the circular enfilade of the ring. The ground floor programming is kept at a minimum so that the land can inhabit the elements of a natural park as much as possible. Thus, the house becomes a treehouse. The house was placed among the other houses which desired a more natural setting so the house, like its inner chambers, becomes a hidden presence in the larger ring of the site.
This house seeks to eliminate the dualism and differences between two separate units while avoiding two identical homes. The two homes are similar to each other, there are traces of the objects, furniture, and ways of living of one house on the other. They reflect and intersect each other, but they never interfere.
diagram of usage:
Single Bedroom Apartment
Family Apartment
Second floor
First floor
ground floor
0’
16’
The floral cut-out on the shingles creates a screen which provides dispersed lighting and privacy based on program.
Above: Model Photo. Second floor social and relaxation area. Right: Model Photo. First floor entrance, social and relaxation area. Bottom: East and West Sections
0’
16’
The sunken seating pit on the opposite page descends through the ceiling of the other apartment and is reflected as a couch directly below it.
On the adjacent page, a double bed retreats into the floor of the apartment for a couple. In the master bedroom of the family apartment, the double bed of the other tenants becomes a volumetric protrusion which punches an indentically shaped bed into the floor.
0’
16’
Left: Model Photo. First floor bathing, master sleeping, and patio areas. Above: Model Photo. Second floor sleeping area, patio and social spaces. Bottom: South, West, North, and East Elevations.
The mint bathtub of the apartment for the couple seen on this page appears on the ceiling of the opposite page where it sits above one of the twin beds in the children’s sleeping area.
Left: Model Photo. Second floor bathing and dressing chaimber. Above: Model Photo. First floor child sleeping area, patio, and adult spleeping chaimber (near to far).
Studio: The Double Francesco Marullo Spring 2018
The
D o u b l e A studio influenced by Fydor Dostoevsky’s novel The Double, this work reflected the recognition of oneself in the other through a shared element, be it experience, physical likeness, or otherwise. In each project, structures contain a common core but are articulated differently as they expanded towards the perimeter. Though sharing a similar theme, each project is unique and is based on a different narrative which determined how the layers of the project developed.
1. Golyadkin’s bed 2. Petrushka’s bed 3. Intellectual labor area 4. Reproductive labor area 5. Dinning space 6. Water closet
Plan
AXON
Master and Servant (One Room)
The master/servant dialectic occurs within multiple layers of The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky. On the most literal level, there is Golyadkin’s relationship with Petrushka his servant. There is also the relationship between Golyadkin and his double, which begins when the double humbly applies the Golyadkin for assistance. Golyadkin is made vulnerable to his double by the double’s application for support. In both his relationship with his servant and the double, Golyadkin positions himself as a kind master and sets expectations and ego on this belief. However, it is clear within both relationships, that Golyadkin’s positioning of master and servant do not align with who holds power. His mental health and identity relies on both of their views of him in ways in which neither of them shares. In designing a room to embody the theme of the master/servant, I separated the area by types of labor and created a space for Petrushka (4) and a space for one or multiple Golyadkins (3). Golyadkin’s area (1), is accessible through the front door. It contains a larger bed and wardrobe, as well as a desk, arm chair, and bookcase for the performance of intellectual labor. Petrushka’s quarters (2) are tucked in the back and are not visible or accessible through the front door. They contain a kitchen, washing machine, and his small bed with minimal storage. The center contains a table for eating (5) and a restroom (6), as eating as these actions will be performed by both. It is the human core which both share. The division of space is shaped by overlapped squares, the shape of the room. The servant’s living area is able to complete itself as square without the master’s, however, the master’s area is dependent on the servant’s area to complete the shape and in functionality.
7.
1. Kitchen 2. Dinning room 3. Recreation hall 4. Extended guest dormitory 5. Aunts dormitory 6. Bathroom 7. Garden 8. Stables
1.
5
8.
6.
8.
2.
4. 3.
plan
axon
The aunt’s house (nine square)
There is a dwelling on the edge of the forest of Chaux that is called the ‘Aunt House’ by the villagers. The house can accommodate six to ten women and some children. About half of the dwellers live their permanently and are known as the ‘Aunts.’ The Aunts do not have any children and have never married. Many of the Aunts have coupled together, though some remain single and every now and then the pairings shift within the house. The other inhabitants are more temporary. Often women and their children come to the house as a safe space as they transition out of their current situation. Every now and again a women will stay and become an aunt, or else the aunts will get together with some women in town and build a woman and her dependents a humble shelter nearby. The Aunt House is almost entirely self-sustainable. The aunts have a garden, chicken coup, and large brick oven where they bake bread and rolls (A, G). Moreover, a few of the aunts are skilled hunters and the forests of Chaux to provide the carnivorous occupants with meat. To supply what they cannot produce themselves, such as flour and cloth, the aunts trade and sell their bread and vegetables. There is a rustic loggia in the front of the house where the Aunts and women sell their produce and their decadent baked goods. The building itself is not quite so polished as the other buildings in town, as it was build by the aunts themselves and they were not allowed to formally train in schools. Nonetheless, it replicates the classical elements of Ledoux’s Chaux at a more simple, modest scale. The house is laid out in concentric Ls, creating a mise-en-abyme. The spaces get progressively more private as you move toward the center. Each floor is slightly more underground, so the building sinks inward on itself. On the exterior Ls there is the kitchen / dining room (A, B) and the salon and entrance hall (C). The next ring includes two dormitories, one that is for the Aunt (E) and one that is for the less permanent members of the house (D). Two L-shaped bathroom surround the square room which contains an staircase to a hidden room below. No one who hasn’t been there knows what goes on down there. It is a space the aunts protect dearly, it is rumored to have hold the power to heal and give strength.
axon
the network (27 room) Popping up in metropolises across the United States are new forms of ‘collecting living’ spaces that are designed to build communities of young creative urbanites who are looking to network, to grow their social value through forming a large net of acquaintances of “like-minds.” These spaces overtake existing building and transform them into high-end furnished dorms with amenities such as exercise studios, chef kitchens, and media rooms. The best-known brand of these ventures is called We-Live. We-live recently decided to open a shared dwelling space in Texas and purchased the villa like, House One, designed by John Hejduk and began to convert it into a shared dwelling space for young urban professionals. On the grounds, a pool, parking garage, yoga and cycling studio were added for the inhabitants. In the original space, a cross is laid over a square, and spaces grow smaller and more private as the move towards the perimeter. In expanding the structure, the cross shape is continued through all three floors and serves as the common area. On the second and third floors, individual rooms wrap around the core. In the center of the structure is a sunlit atrium with a tree and pond on the ground floor. The atrium connects all three floors and is the natural potential of shared collective, while the shared spaces that surround it form the social. Because the work and struggle is not share, the collective is never formed in place of the social.
a. entrance b. shared kitchen c. shared kitchen d. shared kitchen e. shared kitchen f. pond g. atrium garden
ground floor
a. single bedroom b. single bedroom c. bathroom d. double bedroom e. double bedroom f. bathroom g. single bedroom h. shared living space i. shared living space j. atrium k. shared living space l. single bedroom m. single bedroom n. bathroom o. double bedroom p. double bedroom q. bathroom r. single bedroom s. single bedroom
first floor
0’
16’
a. single bedroom b. single bedroom c. bathroom d. roof top garden e. bathroom f. single bedroom g. single bedroom h. shared living space i. atrium j. shared living space k. single bedroom l. single bedroom m. bathroom n. rooftop garden o. bathroom p. single bedroom q. single bedroom
second floor
axon
the dispossessed hotel (many rooms) From each according to her ability, to each according to her need.
While there are as many causes and issues relating to people without permanent residences, there are those that would prefer to sleep under a bridge than to work one or many minimum-wage jobs in the service industry barely surviving. Though capitalism offers those with unending grit the opportunity to rise in society and obtain social influence and material wealth, there are many who would prefer a peaceful life on a modest scale at a slower pace where new friends and not new products were valued. The Dispossessed Hotel is the brother to the capitalistic Madnodnock building. It is a temporary – permanent housing project run by its inhabitants. The structure offers three types of accommodations separated by floors: dormitories, small/partial collective spaces, and large collective floors. Space is provided according to the individuals means and desires. While money is accepted and often used to rent beds for travelers and students, many of the inhabitants’ trade services in the community for their rent. The beds in the dormitory floors required the least amount of money or work trade, while the top floors require the most. One the first floor of the building is a canteen which feeds not only those staying in the dormitory but provides low/ no cost meals to anyone in the city needing one. One the other side of the floor is a used-goods retail shop, that received outside donations. The canteen, retail store, laundry, cleaning services, and administration is all run by inhabitants. While the work is unskilled, it directly relates back to the subsistence and live of those performing it, connecting the individual to their labor. Moreover, it is necessary only for a person to work a minimum for their rent, a person wanting less work can take out a dorm bed which I imagine would be 3 – 4 hours of work 4 -6 days a week.
typical plan floor 10 -13
first floor
ground floor
0’
64’
Axonometric section
Seminar: Interior Interiors Julia Capomaggi Spring 2018
interior interiors
Above: Perspective drawing. Boudior d’une grande vedette by Josef Hoffman, Paris World Exhibition, 1937
The blurring of art and life: Total design and the projective exhibition Interiors which are created for exhibition offer their architects the opportunity for more complete control than when designing for a client. Beyond that, exhibitions are spaces where a single idea or concept can be pursued and explored more diligently and by the same means presented as hypothesis at a grand scale, the blurring of art and life. In examining the 1929 Salon d’Automne exhibition by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanerette and Charlotte Perriand juxtaposed with Josef Hoffman’s Boudoir d’une grande vedette, which was created for the Paris World Exhibition in 1937, you see two interiors where exquisite control over detail comes into play at multiple scales.1 Though the machine-like, cool and clean space of Le Corbusier and Perriand’s Salon d’Automne ’29 seem to be in opposition to the lush, ethereal, ornate space created by Hoffman the two spaces share both speak in a unity of design and in reaction to modernity and industrialization. Both rooms are case studies in total design, however each locates art and architecture with a different lens. In his discussion of total design, Mark Wigley defines two iterations of the concept that were prevalent in early 20th century which he distinguishes as the ‘explosion of design’ and the ‘implosion of design.’ In implosive design, the domestic interior is separated from the chaos of the world and is subjected to a unifying vision of an architect who designs or supervises the production of everything, including furniture, floor and wall coverings, doorknobs, light fixtures, and even silverware in order to make the room into a ‘total work of art.’2 Hoffman, along with Henry van der Velde, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, among others sought to achieve gersamtkunstwek, literally “the total work of art,’ by bringing together architecture and decorative arts to achieve a singular experience.3 In gersamtkunstwerk, all pieces in the room tie together to produce the room at a piece of art, a specific, contextual moment of lived art. In the photographs documenting Boudior d’une grande vedette, the unity of Hoffman’s design is striking. The textured glass paneling of the walls and ceilings are in conversation with the mirrored tiles on the floors which expand the space of the rooms through their reflections. The reflective glass table and the chrome legs of the furniture help complete the near total covering of the room in ethereal silver mirrors which is offset by the soft white plush of the sheepskin rug. The curvaceous furniture on the shag rug appear to float within the room as if on a cloud. All the objects in the room firmly belong in the space and work together to complete the room as an experiential work of art. Yet it is an implosive one, confined by its walls and inward looking. Wigley contrasts the implosion of design embodied by Hoffman to a more outward looking explosion of design. Wigley cites Walter Gropius’ concept of ‘total architecture’ to describe how architects began to see architecture and design on all scales “from the teaspoon to the city.”4 This ideology is echoed in the writings of Le Corbusier around the time he and his team designed their exhibit at le Salon d’Automne. Corbusier writes, “architectures is in the 1 Though Hoffman’s Boudoir d’une grande vedette occurs nearly a decade after Corbusier and Perriand’s Salon d’Automne, Hoffman himself is a generation before Le Corbusier and was influential on the early career of Le Corbusier. “Josef Hoffmann.” Wikipedia. February 10, 2018. Accessed February 10, 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Hoffmann. 2 Mark Wigley. “Whatever happened to total design”. Harvard Design Magazine 5 (Summer 1999) Cambridge, Massachusettes. 3 Spark, Penny, “The new interior”, The Modern Interior, Reaktion Book, London England, p. 37 4 Ibid. Wigley.
smallest things and extends to everything man makes.”5 For Corbusier, art is directly linked to the application of knowledge and the realization of an idea. There is no art without utility, and beauty and utility are linked with perfected design. He admires the precision of design required in complex machinery. Corbusier and Gropius where more concerned with creating typologies and mass exporting them into all areas of life. Instead of creating a moment of art as in gersamtkunserk, were all is unified, the explosion of art sought to create a world of precisely designed objects that themselves we art and mass producing them. In this way the explosion of design was more democratic and sought to design for the whole world not just the wealthy elite. The architectural elements of the ’29 Salon d’Automne were meticulously designed and tie seemlessly in with the furniture within the space. There is a graphic unity between the tiling of the floor and the square paneling of the wall and ceiling. The rectilinear structures speak the same formalist language, which creates a strong unity and coherence in the space. Like Hofman’s Boudoir, the only curves in the room come from the furniture, which absorbed the spotlight of the exhibition. The LC furniture series created by Le Corbusier, Perriand and Jeanerret, was first displayed at le Salon d’Automne still remains in production today. Each piece of furniture was designed as a machine for sitting with obsessive precision in aim of utility and design. The four chairs where each designed with a specific function, such as conversation, comfort, or inward reflection. The machine-like sensibility carries into the aesthetic articulation of the chairs in the choice of material. The sleek chrome and exposed structural elements announce their modernity. While the space achieved a strong unity, it is an outward looking one. The Salon d’Automne was creating a projection for new forms of living and siting, one where quality design based on utility was linked with quality of life. The two exhibits were both pieces of art in their form of display. The Boudoir by Hoffman showed an exquisite composition united by a single vision. There is a luxurious sensibility in the space that is particular. Moreover, the room is not in direct conversation with other rooms outside of itself. It is a discrete piece of art that is inhabitable, yet it is hard to imagine life occurring without disrupting the beauty of the space. In contrast, the three-quarter walls of Corbusier’s Salon Automne make it easier to imagine the room as usable and hint towards other areas of a dwelling. The machine-like simplicity on the design is more universal in its form and are not attached to a class or gender. The language of the room is meant to exist outside of itself and project its users into a moral functionalism.
5 Le Corbusier, “The Decorative Arts Today” from The Decorative Art of Today, James I Dunnet trans. Architectural Press, London England 1987.
Above: Perspective drawing. 1929 Salon d’Automne by Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, and Pierre Jeanerret
Above: Perspective drawing. Charles Beistegui Apartment: roof. Le Corbusier. Paris, 1937
Blurred Boundaries: Inverting semiotic conventions of interior spaces The primary function of the primitive hut was to create protection from the outside. In this sense, the separation between inside and outside, or interior and exterior, is perhaps the most fundamental of architecture. Structurally, this division between interior and exterior is accomplished through walls and a roof which form a boundary and barrier to delineate and protect the interior space from the outside. From these barriers and because of them, further distinction is made using materials, objects, and furniture. The textures and textiles of objects and materials that are designed for the interior contrast those which belong to the exterior through a softness and delicacy which would not withstand the effects of weather. Through convention and practicality, objects, furniture, textures, and forms have taken on a semiotic language of interior or exterior—a gilded mirror, for example, firmly belongs in a particular interior space. The creation of such associations allows for their playful disruption when a masterful architect inverts or blurs the language of materiality and structure which distinguish interior and exterior. This essay will explore two spaces which use materials, objects, and structure to confuse the language of the interior with the exterior to very different ends. In 1929 Le Corbusier accepted a commission from the eccentric millionaire art collector Charles Beistegui to build his penthouse on le Champs-Elysees. The collaboration was remarkable in that the two men’s tastes and personalities were near opposites. Le Corbusier’s style at that period was utilitarian and mechanistic while Beistegui’s was one of eclectic extravagance. The variance in style is manifested fantastically in the rooftop garden of the apartment. As noted above, the apartment was located on the Champs-Elysees and offered unbeatable views of Paris. What is extraordinary in Le Corbusier’s design for the space is he surrounded the rooftop garden with 5-foot-tall white walls that obscures the majority of the cityscape. Over the top of each of the four walls, an iconic Paris structure pokes out so that wall linearly connects the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame. The enclosing white walls create a feeling of interiority which is amplified by the ornate baroque fireplace. The walls and fireplace transform the grass into lush carpet and the Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur and Notre Dame into trinkets that sit on the ledge of the structure. The influence of Beistegui’s taste on the space further muddies the exteriority of the space through his furniture and decorative objects. In many photographs depicting the space, a gilded mirror is placed above the fireplace so that sits halfway above the datum of the wall and half below, connecting the sky to the wall as if the wall was merely a wainscot and the sky wallpaper. The baroque fireplace is joined by baroque chairs and dressers and is topped with candlesticks and an ornate clock. The ornate decorative elements not only contrast Le Corbusier’s architecture, but also subverts the exteriority of the space by their firm associations with interior spaces. The confused language of interior and exterior in the space creates a surrealistic dreamscape. While Le Corbusier and Beustegui bought elements of the interior into an exterior space in a Paris apartment, Jorn Uzton invites the exterior into his interiors through large windows and a coarse materiality in the living spaces of his Mallorca retreat Can Lis. Can Lis was built as a summer home for Uzton and his family after he resigned from the Sydney Opera House. The getaway has none of the organic curves of Uzton’s most iconic building and was instead built with rectilinear fundamentals. The structure is firmly tied to its location, unlike the Beistegui apartment which drolly plays with its prime location. Can Lis is constructed out of pink sandstone that is native to the landscape. The pink gritty stone forms not only the walls and floors but also the furniture which are erected into the building. The stone is never covered in the interior by art, draping, or dry wall. It connects the walls, ceiling and floor surfaces to form an open cave with a sensibility of ancient ruins or an abstract monument. In each room, human-sized recessed windows open on to the cliff ledge on which the structure is built. The large win-
dows are not cluttered by window panes or frames but remain entirely open to the air. The design of the interior space incorporates the space’s the exposure to the sea air. The dwelling is built as five distinct structures which are connected through paths and courtyards. The furniture in the interior spaces uses the same elements of the benches and seating in the exterior courtyards extending the serenity of the courtyard into the interior. As previously noted, the majority of the furniture is constructed out of the same pink stone of the exterior and is lightly covered with patterned tiling. In the living room, which most strikingly balances elements of interior and exterior, a large crescent couch with crisp white cushions is built into the rear-center of the room. The couch is placed in proximity to the unassuming fireplace and is just far enough away from the large windows to best view them. The coach, coffee table and fire place have an austere durability that could withstand natural elements. They do not have the plush feel that bourgeois interior Walter Benjamin famously articulated that molds to the inhabitant’s form. The interior spaces in Can Lis embrace a universal aesthetic more than one of particularity. The lack of ornaments and objects remove it from the over coded language of interior spaces and creates a grounded and peaceful environment. If at moments it feels a bit ascetic, it follows from the function to space to be one of a healing retreat. To bring the language of the interior into the exterior, as seen in the Beistegui apartment, is to take objects loaded with semiotic value out of their context and create playful friction. To see objects such as an ornate clock in the open air signals a temporality, as the objects must be taken back inside or will be ruined. Looking at the baroque fireplace, my mind imagines the wear from wind and rain it occurred after the photos were taken of it. The space reads as a fleeting composite of contradictory meanings, it is playful and mnemonic. In bringing the materiality of the exterior into the interior, Uzton removes the subjective from the space. It creates a quietude that connects with its natural surrounding rather than excluding them. The monastic simplicity of sandstone structure creates a feeling of permanence, as if has been sitting on that cliff for hundreds of years. In both cases, the blurring of the interior and exterior create a striking and unforgettable space.
Above: Perspective drawing. Can Lis. Jorn Uzton. Mallorca, 1977
Above: Perspective drawing. Garden and House. Ryue Nishizawar. Tokyo, 2006.
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