[Review] Aldo van Eyck – Shaping the New Reality From the In-between to the Aesthetics of Number

Review

Aldo van Eyck – Shaping the New Reality From the In-between to the Aesthetics of Number Francis Strauven

Aldo Van Eyck perplexed the many authors that attempted to situate his contributions to Architectural theory, which was evident from the variegated opinions of his work. These opinions spanned his contributions to idealistic traditions of the Modern Movement to the derivations of primitive culture, all of which are partially true. Strauven asserts that it is his application of ‘reconciling opposites’ throughout his career that earns Van Eyck such a vast repertoire. Then offers some of these polarities, which I resonate with through previous readings. past - present ...classic - modern ...archaic- avant garde ...organic - geometric ...smooth - striated ...classical, Modern tradition – idealism, utopianism

Figures (Clockwise from top-left): http://www.designishistory. com/1920/theo-van-doesberg/ Taos pueblo village http://www.adobegallery.com/metas/display/1541275 The Acropolis at Athens, Leo von Klenze https://in.pinterest.com/ pin/346214290075619141/

From a mostly classical training in Architecture, he was introduced to the modern tradition through art historian Carola Welcker. Closely following the development of an avant-garde modern movement in artists like Klee, Van Eyck saw these polarities to be complementary. A dialectic of opposing Mondrian, Brancusi, Arp and others, she saw a common ground in their efforts to reveal a new reality, -no longer to reproduce but to make visible forces was a necessary to achieve contemporary architecture.

(Klee), to disclose elementary forces in a complex interaction. She saw modIn the CIAM congress (1959) Van Eyck attributed his work to three distinct ern art to rediscover fundamentally opposite forces in a new non-exclusive traditions of the classical, modern and the archaic. He didn’t treat the three interaction. as separate ventures but suggested that they should be reconciled. A formal The presence of two contrasting forces, or multiple elementary forces, is complexity rich enough to ‘meet the complex reality of contemporary life’.

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Pulkit Mogha A/2397/2011 the new ground of exploration; for design, for science, for arts. It is their The playgrounds in Amsterdam (1947-78) see the use of elementary forms interaction that brings forth a new dynamic reality. One that became the in low concrete sandpits and stepping stones, arches, domes, tubes, somersubject of pursuit for artists like Brancusi, Arp, Giacommetti, and others sault frames that lent various kinds of childplay along with multiple meanat the time. I understand these opposing and multiple forces are but col- ings. Recognizable places with no centers, modestly achieved. ‘An architeclage. The idea of fundamental opposites is not new and is embraced time ture ‘that consisted not only of hard, tangible materials but also of immaterial and again in all theory, as would be seen from the Deleuze and Guattari materials.’(Georges Candilis).’ This particular project began the exploration (the Smooth and the Striated, the Rhizome) or in science in the Theory of of simple fundamental entities brought together to interact in a non-hierarchical manner, and produced successful, unique playgrounds with no Relativity (polycentric reality). centers.

Van Eyck took relativity as the fundamental value of 20th century science and art and sought to explore this further in the realm of contemporary architecture. [Also invaluable contributor was his exposure to archaic art which he saw akin to the work of Klee, Arp and Brancusi in their language of primeval human expression. ]

Figures (Clockwise from top-left): 1. Zeedijk, Amsterdam -Centrum, 1955, 1956. https://walkonwildsideanna.files.wordpress. com/2014/10/zeelijk-efter.jpg 2.http://www.iconeye.com/images/news_september2008_images/eyck4.gif 3.https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ a3/d0/fe/a3d0fe69afb6edbd70b87b6bae4e286c. jpg 4.http://www.architekturfuerkinder.ch/files/ gimgs/10_avehogendorpplein2.jpg 5.Laurierstraat, Amsterdam in the 1960s http:// www.uncubemagazine.com/sixcms/media. php/1323/Das%20Kind_Aldo%20van%20Eyck_ Spielplatz%20Laurierstraat.882807.jpg

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The Municipal Orphanage led Van Eyck to explore polarities of house-city, compact-polycentric, contemporary-traditional. Classical-modern-archaic traditions are each seen to impact the design.

insight into the development drawings is helpful in establishing tonalities.

An order in centering domes and running axis along a grid is observed as much as his efforts to de-center everywhere else, including in the interior court composition. Units that are distinctly open and closed. And so on. An

The first sketch points to a biomorphic attempt in relating to a spiral much like a snail, but the design further sees units assemble in two zigzag linear formations and the innercourt changes from the spiral to a two linked z-shape (isomorphism of part and whole) to an L after compactSource Author ing. Further explorations on account of asymmetry, rotation, mirror, and pulling the plan each with their own reasons are a very impactful learning on the design process.

Van Eyck’s investigations with Team 10 were on the in-between’ and the shaping of number. Team 10 emerged in opposition to the CIAM’s doctrine-rationalism of four functions which had become the premise of modern Architecture in the west.

The in-between was a common ground where polarities can complement and become a twin phenomenon. [I personally related this to Saskia Sassen’s ‘frontier zone’ which bears a similar appreciation for spaces where contrasts meet.] The interaction between opposites being more important than the opposites themselves, the space of this reconciliation shows an ambivalence that resonates with the ambivalence of a human being (breathes in and out).

Source Author

Thus I interpret the in-between as a humanist effort. I however fail to understand how the ambivalence of opposites offers any relief or solution or intervention to design. The author does not clearly answer some fundamental doubts,- what is it about the in-between that makes it desirable?

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How does it become a better approach than conceptual rooting to one, for example- to simplicity (simple concept, form), or to traditional (vernacular prototypes) or utopian designs(Disneyland, copy-paste cities) .

Or does the author simply imply that the contemporary exploration in design progressed beyond the singular to a dialectic and that doesn’t necessarily point to a better approach, but a progression or the creation of a new way.

Pulkit Mogha

A/2397/2011

The shaping of number stemmed from his design for the Village of Nagele, the Amsterdam Orphanage as well as Piet Blom’s Noah’s Ark. Inferences and inspiration was seen in his philosophy of house-city dynamism, in archaic textiles, or the works of Lohse. The shaping of number was seen to be an aesthetic in finding rhythm in a cluster of similar dissimilar forms, leading to ‘equilibrium of the plural’.

I personally observed that both admiration and criticism at the Team 10 meeting (1962) for Blom’s Noah’s ark seemed to be situated on the same reductive concerns that it tried to address or visiblize. Systematic and complex fabric, too literal, idealistic. The problem with ambivalence thus becomes that of the scale tipping one way or the other, and to such disastrous results! Blom and Van Eyck drifted apart. There is much to be gained from the possibilities and exploration of rhythm and equilibrium in a cluster. Eyck’s Sculpture Pavilion and Roman Catholic Church in Loosduinen continued as a celebration of the in-between. Blom’s configurative principle was lauded and incorporated by Le Corbuseir’s Studio in the Venice Hospital.

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