The Space of Connections

The Space of Connections Critical Written Reflection 31th of March 2017

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Signe Ravnholt 4th semester Unit D: Habitation

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The Space of Connections

Herman Hertzberger defines the treshold area, as an area that “provides the key to the transition and connections between areas with divergent territorial claims and, as a place in its own right, it constitutes, essentially, the spatial condition for the meeting and dialogue between areas of different orders”1. How does this area of connections affect a form which is polyvalent?

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Polyvalence occurs as a reaction to flexibility. Flexibility is a word which usually has positive connotations, but the structuralists points out that the flexible plan is so neutral that it lacks identity and provides no fulfilling solution to the problem of surviving the changes of time. Polyvalence on the other hand, provides a state of continuous changeability. Hertzberger describes it as “(…) a form that can be put to different uses without having to undergo changes itself”2. This form, Hertzberger talks about, is a product of a structuralism, which a design method that Hertzberger and Aldo van Eyck fathered in the 1960s. Structuralism is a system, which Hertzberger, Herman, ‘Space and Learning’, p. 49, 2008 Hertzberger, Herman, ‘Lessons for Students in Architecture’, p. 146, 1991

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Examples of the physical form that the threshold can take.1

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defines the relationship between parts or elements and how they relate two each other, when placed together in an entirety3. How the elements are placed together is determined by a set of rules but also by possibilities. These rules and possibilities that the structure provides, also decides how changes will be integrated. Hertzberger emphasises the relationship between a universal form and the interpretation of the individual, and here the threshold occurs. The threshold is an in-between space, but it has a physical boundary. A few steps, a low wall. But does the threshold have to be a defined by physical elements?

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While structuralism deals with a physical form the frame can also be a space, a boundary or a field. Barnard Cache describes it as a territorium, a space filled with possibilities4. The term frame is understood not as a boundary but as a frame, which relates to both is content and what surrounds it. Cache talks about a field. The field is, much like HertzbergBundgaard, Charlotte, “Montagepositioner - en ny tænkning af industrialiseret arkitektur”, p. 52-69, 2011 4 Bundgaard, Charlotte, “Montagepositioner - en ny tænkning af industrialiseret arkitektur”, p. 52-69, 2011 3

“An interval separates the order of causes from that of effects. But the more a frame shows itself to be independent from its content or its functions, the more one must bring out the principles of its formal autonomy”5

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Collage from the research semester of a characteristic space with no specific function. The light is the frame of the space.

er’s threshold area, a space in-between, but Caches territory is not defined by the relationship between the collective and the individual, but by the character of the frame: “An interval separates the order of causes from that of effects. But the more a frame shows itself to be independent from its content or its functions, the more one must bring out the principles of its formal autonomy”5. If Caches frame is not directly a physical element, then it must be a certain feeling, atmosphere or ‘code of conduct’ that the space contains.

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At the library in the northwestern part of Copenhagen the in-between area occurs in the void between the old and the new building. The area is merely a gap at the ground floor, but it is activated by the activities on both sides. The gap between those two sides is articulated by shifts in materials. The material of the in-between area is glass. Depending on whether you define glass as immaterial or not, this space is either a threshold area or a field framed by the meeting of two Bundgaard, Charlotte, “Montagepositioner - en ny tænkning af industrialiseret arkitektur”, p. 52-69, 2011 5

The library by COBE + TRANSFORM. Meeting of matials.

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The culture house extention by Dorte Mandrup. Threshold and frame.

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spaces. This area can accommodate different functions and can contain many spaces within itself without having to undergo change. The in-between space is therefore polyvalent, but is it the threshold that defines the characteristics of the polyvalent space? Is the threshold area or the frame that makes a space specific and not uniform?

�The room becomes a space with out psychical boundaries, it becomes a space of ritual. A sacred place where the divine is the atmosphere, which the room contains. The transition is there to emphasise the importance of that atmosphere.

In the transition you shall leave the worries and the mood of everyday and tread into the room cleared and open, to feel, listen and smell the thick atmosphere�.6

In another part of Copenhagen lies a different library, which also functions as a culture house. This house has an extension, which is a terminal room. This room is a physical, three dimensional frame, a double squared room on pillars. The room is almost empty and accommodates several different functions. If considering only the effects of the materials and not on the materials themselves, the space merely consisting of a heavy smell of pine wood, resonating sound and grey light from the sky. This is the character of the space. This is the frame. The threshold is very clearly articulated as a transition, a small hallway with a crooked Atmosferic essay inspired by Peter Zumpthor written inside the culture house extenstion by Dorte Mandrup.

9th of March 2017, Signe Ravnholt.

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angle, which binds together the exiting building and the extension. The threshold is emphasised by the change in height of the room, the change in material and in amount of light. This threshold defines the frame, the polyvalent space, and makes it specific, but is not it self able to change function. But will the threshold change characteristic if the spaces, which the threshold connects, changes? Or is it, because of its inherent functions, the permanent factor in Hertzbergers theory of polyvalens?

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The permanent factor is that which can survive time, because of its program, but a physical, distinctive threshold as the hallway in the culture house seems to accommodate only one function. The territorium of the extension has a thick atmosphere and a distinctive character, which the threshold contributes to. This contribution is necessary, I think, in the creating of a polyvalent space. A polyvalent space can be created within a frame.

A frame which gives the space freedom

“provides the key to the transition and connections between areas with divergent territorial claims and, as a place in its own right, it constitutes, essentially, the spatial condition for the meeting and dialogue between areas of different orders�1

Collage from the research semester of a transtion space, a passage. The material and the form creates a threshold. A meeting between the collective street and the individual building.

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but with responsibility. The frame then provides territories that can function without physical boundaries. The characteristics of space is then given by the threshold between the territories or between frames. The physical boundaries of the threshold might not change with time, but as what surrounds it changes, the affect of the threshold will adapt to the new functions of the polyvalent spaces. This space of connections is the permanent factor, which makes a space a place.

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