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The 8x8 Meter Demountable House by Jean Prouvé
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Introduction The accelerating life pace in contemporary society and issues such as urban sprawl and housing crisis in cities has brought the topic of mobility to discussions. In fact, some avantgarde architects have developed the idea of nomadism long before —— Le Corbusier and Gropius started to make analogies of buildings to automobile, ships and aeroplanes in the early nineties. In addition, the industrialization has made possible mass-production and prefabrication in building industry. Architecture today is also facing the danger of being affected by the ‘society of the spectacle’ and its scenography being consumed by the postmodernism, Kenneth Frampton (2002) discussed the possibility of avoiding this problem by paying attention to building tectonics. Under this background, this essay in going to discuss the French designer Jean Prouvé’s 8 x 8 demountable house designed in 1945. Prouvé has designed a series of these demountable, transportable and economically optimised houses in various modules since the 1930s. First involving the problem of wars, then attempted to inhabit post-war refuges before advertising them as holiday homes, it is one of the earliest models of industrial buildings are worth looking into in today’s context; in fact, several exhibitions were curated in the past few years to introduce his design. Arguably, in Jean Prouvé’s design, there are always evidences of thoughtfully designed structural elements which could be considered ‘tectonic’. In making this connection, the author is also wanting to explore the potential connection between the industrial building and tectonic strategy, which may back up for mass-production and the eliminating ‘aura’ in industrial architecture. The essay is going to first put the 8-meter by 8-meter house in context, and then attempt to define it on several different occasions --- involving a discussion about object and thing. In order to understand how the house might be regard as a ‘thing’, the tectonic thinking in design and its focuses on the materiality and ‘thingness’ will be examined. After that, ActorNetwork Theory will be applied to the case as a methodology to better understand the demountable house in three perspectives, namely design process, construction and human interaction. Eventually, after critically analyzed the notion of building and dwelling with the help of different literatures, the possible improvement of the design will be suggested. By investigating into this example of prefabricated, demountable architecture in the topic of material culture and design, the paper aims to analyze the pros and cons, as well as the poetic side of this kind of structure. With the understanding of its limits, there is a potential possibility to optimized the design which may eventually accelerate the innovation of building industry.
Background - Post-war, Mass-production and Prefabrication As early as 1851, The Crystal Palace build with cast-iron and plate glass celebrated the achievements of the Industrial Revolution. Instead of the actual building, people have learned even more from its building system and method. In 1936, new construction methods based on the use of steel appeared in buildings as a marked architectural feature.(Vegesack et al., 2006, p102)
!2 In 1939 Jean Prouvé was commissioned in the context of wartime, to produce 300 housing units which are compact, prefabricated, and easy to assemble. With the help of Mougenot, Prouvé designed 8x8 and 8x12 house, with plans and technical drawings, were made. However, inefficient communication and the distraction of establishing Maxeville Factory has led to the abolishment of the project. In 1944, Jean Prouvé changed the demountable houses’ module to 6x6, by which he won a competition for emergency housing for the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning. The original purpose was to reallocate the war refugees in Lorraine, and the idea of rapid construction and dismantle as well as easily transported made the scheme stands out. The structure is mainly metal and timber, and the whole house will only take two builders a day to build. The materials were shipped directly to bomb-devastated places, to enable the fastest reallocation. Unluckily, the production of these prefab houses has never gone beyond initial experimental production, with the official government stated that they will have their focus more on permanent housing. With the belief that this model of demountable houses could turn into models for permanent buildings in mind, Prouvé designed a developed model of the 8 x 8-meter house with axial frame in the centre in 1945. The design has two prototypes which providing alternative options. With the metal shortage at that time, the façade material was designed to be timber panels with sash windows (See Fig.1).
Fig.1
The 8x8 Meter Demountable House ---- Object or Thing?
‘We have to overcome people’s habits and assumptions, and show the public that ‘factoried’ houses are comfortable houses’ ---Jean Prouvé, ‘We Need Factoried Houses’ (Vegesack et al., 2006)
!3 The 8X8 demountable house is a collective entity, consists of an assemblage of objects ---from visible building materials to less visible structural components. When assembled, it can also be viewed as a building, a house. The issues of defining the 8X8 demountable house involve its 5 forms of existence:
I. In the first form, the house exists as stacks of wood panels, metal components, roof, doors, windows and components that are manufactured in the factory. These components are divided into groups by their material and functions, they can be packaged and transported to a site (See Fig.2). II. Then, the construction workers start to assemble the components according to the designer’s manual. The objects may be joint and disjoint, and only certain kind of connection can be made among the objects ---- if any part is missing or assembled wrong, the building cannot reach the third stage as a house. III. When the object is assembled, it is stabilized, no matter for how long, on the site. Now, the object can be seen as a shelter, a house, a building to be inhabited, as defined by Heidegger, but not yet a dwelling (Heidegger,1971 ),. IV. As soon as human inhabitation exists in the building, it then arguably becomes a ‘dwelling’.(Heidegger, 1971) Its inhabitant will also change the house according to their needs. V. When the building needs to be moved, it will be demounted, categorized as components, and ready to be assembled again on a different site.
Therefore, the 8X8 demountable house is an assemblage of heterogeneous objects, a building (house), a dwelling according to its different forms and various level of human interactions.
In fact, to think about the nature of a mobile structure is almost against the inherent characteristic of a building----being stable and responding to the specific site. Some argue that it may evoke a nomadic lifestyle while others find it uncomfortable or even unacceptable. In ‘We Need Factoried Houses’, Prouvé stated clearly that he is responding to the economic problem in building industry, or broadly speaking, the efficiency and environmental concern. Worrying that building industry is not at all innovative as automobile or aeroplane, he also disagreed with the public concerns about the prefab houses not being sound-proofing and well-insulated. He criticized some people from the public for not thoroughly understanding the object before judging it, and provided evidence on the house been sound and weather-proof. (Vegesack et al., 2006, p.176)
To distinguish the house from ‘object’ and ‘thing’ is of significance here. In Heidegger’s terminology, ‘things’ are more than mere objects, and to think things as objects diminish the importance of being. A ceramic jug, concentrating the effort of craftsmen making earth into an art, can be considered as a ‘thing’, while the industrially produced coke bottle can be only viewed as ‘object’. He suggested that things are perceived mainly through their involvement
!4 in people’s everyday life (Heidegger, 1971, p.167). When the house is redefined as a thing rather than an object, it suggests itself is much more than a stable structure. It is a process of design evolution; it involves human interactions including designing, producing, building and inhabiting; it is a result of a group of connections ---- relationship between the building components, and also the connection between different communities of people and the building (Latour, 2005).
Fig.2
(Prouvé and Coley, 2013, p34-35)
From Materiality and Thingness to a Tectonic Approach It can be argued that this 8x8 demountable house should be viewed as a ‘thing’ in Heidegger’s term since its ‘thingness’ appears in its tectonic thinking both in the overall architecture and in the building components. Although meant to be factory-made, components of the 8X8 demountable house are designed thoughtfully. Prouvé once manifested that ‘Every object that is to be formed requires at the outset a ‘constructional conception’, capable of being implemented in the strictest sense.’ For example, the axial portal frame has evolved many times and it is not only a structural element but also an avant-garde interior moment (See Fig. 3). In 1946, uncontested recognitions were given after the axial portal frame was featured on the cover of ‘Architecture d’aujourd’hui’s special issue on prefabrication, while the whole model was assembled and displayed at the Salon d’Automne. In fact, the consciousness of structural elements can be traced in Jean Prouvé’s design -- furniture and architecture alike. This is believed to have a close link with Prouvé’s personal experience: growing up in a family that deeply involved with art and industry, his grandfather was Emile Galle, a well-known artist who promote innovative technical art with glass. Moreover, Prouvé’s father is also a celebrated designer and artist at that time. Being a metal worker in the earlier days, Jean Prouvé’s interest on metal has shifted from initially working with cast-iron to steel ---contrasted with the tubular steel system of Bauhaus’s invention, Prouvé’s interest is accumulated on bent sheet steel (Vegesack et al., 2006). As Prouvé himself claimed, he
!5 focused more on integrity and the design's functionality than on the general form. When designing furniture and architecture, his starting point would always be the material itself and the functionality (ibid).
Fig.3
(Prouvé and Coley, 2013, p16-17)
Tectonic in architecture is defined as "the science or art of construction, both in relation to use and artistic design” in the dictionary. Tectonic thinking is paying significant attention to the physicality of the building —- its structure, materiality, detailing, assembly method and construction process, while it is also largely dependent on how the building is put together, i.e., the joints and bindings, etc. (See Fig.4) In a word, a tectonic approach gives fundamental respect to the construction of the building and how it is physically reflected. Fig.4
(Prouvé and Coley, 2013)
In this light, Prouvé’s primary care for material and structure implies a tectonic thinking in his design. Nevertheless, the focus on the material and structural element do not mean to reveal the mechanical part of a building but to pursuit a poetic expression of structure. This kind of design logic can also be tracked in his furniture design, for example, the standard chair, with its rear leg bearing most the weight form its user, is clearly reflected in the form (See Fig.5). In addition, the standard chair is also designed to be demountable with the joints of the chair designed to be very visible. The active connection between architecture, furniture design and his later avant-garde interior is self-evident; It can even be argued that his design sometimes unconsciously appeals to Art Nouveau and later to Art Deco (Vegesack et al., 2006).
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Fig.5 The architecture historian and critic Kenneth Frampton (2002) has written on tectonic with the concern that in the modern world, architecture has the tendency toward scenographic representation, while also in the danger of being packaged as a commodity in the bourgeois world. He suggested that architecture, instead of a subject relying on the surface, volume and plan, is indeed foremost a construction act. With this thinking, the built form can be regarded as ontological instead of representational. In Heidegger's term, it is a ‘thing’ instead of a ‘sign’. (Frampton, 2002, p93). Take a joint in the building as an example, instead of being merely a component for connection, some of Prouvé’s design has given it much attention that its ‘thingness’ was evoked (See Fig.6). Similarly, the moment of ‘break’ and ‘dis-joint’ is also significant. Following this logic, disassembling is just as meaningful as assembling (Frampton, 2002, p102). Brown (2001) would argue that this is the moment when we may confront the ‘thingness’ since it has stopped working for us. Likewise, Benjamin (1978) in Brown (2001) suggested that only when the objects get outmoded, the separation between the function of the object and the desire set there. To argue Prouvé’s design has the potential to stop architecture from its general reduction to commodity may be paradoxical since it was designed to be mass-produced and sell as products. However, with the tectonic strategy and artistic consideration applied to the design, one may see it more than being merely a commodity. Nilsson (2007) has brought out the idea that industrial architecture may be regarded as a tectonic approach. He indicated that prefabrication today can also be distinctive and excellent with the aids of new technology. More possibilities of architecture industry may then be opened up for buildings to have both appealing tectonic expression as well as low cost.
Fig.6
(Prouvé and Coley, 2013)
!7 (Prouvé and Coley, 2013) It could be argued that the materiality and thingness evoked from the conscious presence of the structural elements can tell the story of the building’s own – with the components’ form designed under the aesthetic influence at that time. By emphasizing the physical qualities of the architecture, i.e., its structure, materials, detail, as well as its process of assembly and constructional technique may enlighten the building into a metaphysical presence: a ‘thing’ rather than a ‘sign’. By defining the 8x8 demountable house as a ‘thing’, the author hopes to contextualize the building in time and space, to have its presence beyond the material object. It could be argued that this also breaks the dualism between subject-object relationships, which leads to re-consider the building in Actor-Network Theory, in which non-human entities also have agencies.
Jean Prouvé’s 8X8 Meter house in Actor Network Theory (ANT) Actor-network theory (ANT), not as its name suggesting, is rather a social method than a theory, and it pays attention to the socio-technical hybrid connection that not to distinguish the difference between social and technological, object and subject. In ANT, the association of heterogeneous entities —— both human and non-human has replaced the dualism of subject-object relationship. The actors are called ‘actants’, of which human and non-human objects all have agency (Latour, 2005). In Reassembling the Social, Latour identified the ANT as a method for ‘sociology of associations’, in which the assemblage of heterogeneous elements and their association forms an unstable social (Latour, 2005, p.1-17). There are academics who also looked into architecture from the perspective of ANT, among which the discussion focused quite a lot on the construction phase of the buildings, the user’s engagement, materiality and transformation as well as the design process. Yaneva (2009) said the way ANT constructs the connection between materiality and meaning is to decode the objects’ hidden connotation and their expectation from society. This section is going to look at the 8X8 demountable house from its design process, its construction stage and then the human engagement, within the idea and framework of ANT.
1. Design Process
‘I detest designing without building.’ Jean Prouvé, 1979 Partly due to his initial metal-worker identity, the process of actually making and building influences Jean Prouvé’s design fundamentally, and this is certainly also reflected in the case of the 8X8 demountable house. First of all, the 8 meters module is not only based on the picture of a reasonable domestic living space, but largely based on the bending press’s capacity in his workshop, in which he developed sheets of steel in the size of 4 meters, and produce the house’s frame and building envelope from it (Prouvé and Coley, 2013, p.9). Later in the wartime, because of the metal shortage, he then
!8 tries to make the structure mostly from timber (ibid). His design thinking may also be traced from his sketches ---- a lot of his sketches are the design and optimisation of details and joints of the house instead of the volume, façade and spacial consideration (Fig. 7). Viewing from an ANT perspective, this focus and respect paid to the material may demonstrate the agency of materials, i.e. ‘the act of an object’. In fact, this idea is never new in the field of architecture, with Louis Kahn’s famous conversation with the brick:
‘Louis Kahn: ‘What do you want, Brick?’ Brick: ‘I like an Arch.’ Louis Kahn: ‘Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you. What do you think of that, Brick?’ Brick: ‘I like an Arch.’’ This example demonstrates how an architect typically interacts with his material and building components in the design process, in which one may perceive an elimination of subjectobject division. It may also back up for ANT against a lot of the critiques for blaming the idea of objects having agency. In this example, objects obtain their act/agency with the respect paying to their materiality in the design process. Nevertheless, the undeniable fact that most of the building are static reduces the possibilities of its audience being able to conceive the design thinking and process work that designer devoted through investing time in sketching, drawing, model-making and experiments with materials. In Give Me A Gun and I Will Make All Building Move’, Latour and Yaneva (2008) criticized the trend in architecture theory that paying most of the effort to link architecture with the philosophical theory rather than focuses on the earthly aspects of the building and its design process. Instead of seeing the building as a static object, they suggested the building is a process that needs to be viewed with the fourth dimension — time.
Fig.7
(Prouvé and Coley, 2013)
!9 In addition to this, people shall also identify the involvement of different groups and communities during the design process. Just as Le Corbusier put it: ‘The architect is an organizer, not a designer of objects’. If we see the process of producing a building as a network, certainly the architect will be the primary human actor, but the participation of drafters, model-makers, construction workers, planners and etc are vital. In Jean Prouvé’s case, the presence of workers are always somehow fundamental, it is evident both in photos and writings from him and his projects (Fig. 8). At that time, Prouvé was also known to work closely with other designers such as Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret. They influence each other and also have each other’s presence in the form of their designed objects.
Fig.8
(Prouvé and Coley, 2013)
2. Construction / Build In fact, Latour (2003) demonstrated a specific interest on construction stage of building, since it is indeed a co-production of human and non-human actors. If we place ourselves on the construction site of a building, apart from the workers, we may see the pouring concrete that is taking time to set, the sparks of soldiering metal components, and scaffolders being built and unbuilt to help the construction process. But these were not all ---- weather can influence the process, for example, the condition of the in-situ concrete, and so does time. All these heterogeneous ingredients co-work in a network, influencing while influenced by each other, is very much a magical thing. This compelling and powerful activity is designed to be visible in Jean Prouvé’s 8X8 demountable house ---- the assembly of the house only requires a half day of two builders (Fig. 9). It is not hard to picture the excitement of a family that bought the demountable house and build it by themselves out on somewhere they have chosen collectively ---- more or less resemble the logic of building a tent, except the tent being insulted and can last much longer. To probe into construction and the formation of a building is actually far more complex than investigating the human and non-human actors’ association, it also involves speculation beyond the architecture’s physical form.
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Fig.9
(Prouvé and Coley, 2013)
3. Human Interaction John Law sees ANT as a ‘theory of action’, it could be argued that architecture in action happens when human actors start to inhabit or influences/ influenced by the non-human actors of the building. The connections between home and identity might then become relevant.Not only inhabitants have this form of agency, its neighbours, visitors, cleaners, or even pets will all be applicable. Just as Prouvé stated, with the consideration of the function as well as the comfort of living, these houses are made of standard components of the same size, and thanks to the sliding metal plate, the interior space can be flexibly partitioned as needed. In this light, dwellers will have the agency to transform their domestic environment by arranging the party walls according to their wish. Despite this imagined situation, according to the memory of Jean Prouvé’s daughter Catherine Prouvé, their family has once transported the demountable house to a site for holiday. During their stay the weather was in bad condition, Charlotte recalling that her mum was constantly worrying about the house being blow away by the storm. Perhaps, even solid connections are made through the design, construction and inhabitation, people may still have the problem of ontological security towards their dwellings.
Dwelling through Building – A Poetic Interpretation Modernist avant-garde architects have been quite often got obsessed with the idea of nomadic living and mobile structure, as it not only provides potentials of innovative architectural design but may solve certain social crisis such as housing shortage. Nevertheless, to live at a high level of mobility has never been accepted by the majority. Maybe the idea of living in a demountable structure requires a certain level of poetic thinking. Martin Heidegger in ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking’ suggested that a physical structure is to house the co-existence of heaven, earth, mortal and immortal (Heidegger, 1971). In Heidegger’s term, to dwell is far more than to physically occupying a building, to temporarily stay in place or to work and travel (ibid). Following his logic of dwelling, a man would have
!11 ‘lived’ the place through interactions with a ‘thing’ of an assemblage of ‘things’ that is near him. ‘For building is not merely a means and a way toward dwelling – to build is in itself already to dwell’. In this light, we might see the 8X8 demountable house to provide us such possibility that we inhabit the place where heaven, earth, mortal and immortal are all housed in the building through our own interaction with the building components. However, one may also argue that Heidegger would blame Prouvé’s design for not being site-specific and not ‘growing from the place’ since he found the essence of a building is to construct a relationship between the site, the architecture and the people. I would argue differently as the flexibility of a mobile structure actually allows dynamic relationships between building sites and the architecture. The construction process is of crucial meaning here, without it, the connection would not be built. Moreover, perhaps the design will be improved better is it has more options to choose from which allows more different response to different locations – suggesting a move from mass-production to mass-customization.
Conclusion This essay has chosen to analyse the 8X8 demountable house designed by the French designer Jean Prouvé, who is better known as furniture and interior designer worked closely with Le Corbusier. In fact, when Prouvé thinks about furniture, he thinks structurally and therefore architecturally. His way of design thinking arguably breaks the boundaries between furniture and architecture which makes possible a series design of transportable and demountable houses, marking the beginning of nomadic architecture. This early attempt of factory-produced, movable structures which are able to be built quickly and cheaply was partly a result of the advanced technology and industrial thinking trend in the post-war era. Nevertheless, even people may agree on the idea that city is never fixed and we could have structures at a high level of mobility, the avant-garde concept of home being a movable and demountable good did not survive judgements and concerns of the public (Vegesack et al., 2006, p271). Just as John Law (1999) puts: ‘interaction is all that there is’, with an ANT perspective, the essay argued that through the different levels of interactions – between both human and non-human actors, the house, although being designed as a commodity, is, in fact, a ‘thing’ in Heidegger’s term. This is not only because of the tectonic strategies applied in the design thinking, but also the network that it was associated with. The house can be argued to have its meta-physical presence rooted in time from analyzing the actual design process, construction phase, and human involvement.
To end this topic, with the poetic inspiration from Heidegger’s concept of ‘dwelling’, perhaps a new system would have improved the design by taking other factors of different sites into consideration. Clearly, Prouvé had also thought about this adaptability potential by designing new models such as 6x6 house and the tropical house, etc. But all these different designs were not in an interchangeable system which may allow maximum customization of the home-owners. This improvement may have the potential to shift Prouvé’s mass-production house to a mass-customization house, which adapts to different situations with the maximum involvement of the inhabitants in the design process.
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Bibliography:
Bill Brown. (2001): “Thing Theory,” Critical Inquiry 28, no. 1 De Certeau, Michel. (1984). Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kjetil,F.(2008) “Architecture in action: Traveling with actor-network theory in the land of architectural research.” Architectural Theory Review 13.1 80–96. FRAMPTON, K. (2002). Labour, work and architecture: collected essays on architecture and design. London [u.a.], Phaidon.
Gendlin, E.T. (1967). An analysis of What is a thing? In M. Heidegger, What is a thing? (W.B. Barton & V. Deutsch, Trans.), pp. 247-296. Chicago: Henry Regnery. From http:// www.focusing.org/gendlin/docs/gol_2041.html Giedion, Siegfried. (2007) “Industrialization as a Fundamental Event.” Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory. Eds. William Braham and Jonathan Hale. London/New York: Routledge,. 75–05.
Law, John; Hassard, John (1999). Actor network theory and after. Oxford England Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell/Sociological Review. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: an Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Latour,B.(2003). ‘Promises of Constructivism,’ in Don Ihde and Evan Selinger (eds), Chasing Technoscience – Matrix for Materiality, Blooming: Indiana University Press. Latour, B & Yaneva, A. (2008). “Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move”: an ANT's view of architecture. . Heidegger, M. (1971). Building Dwelling Thinking, Robert, M. (2013). Tectonics in architecture : from the physical to the meta-physical. . Nilsson F. (2007).New technology, new tectonics? - on architectural and structural expressions with digital tools, International Conference:Tectonics Making Meaning, University of Eindhoven.
!13 Prouvé, J. and Coley, C. (2013). Maison démontable 8x8 =. Paris: Galerie Patrick Seguin. PROUVÉ, J., VEGESACK, A. V., REICHLIN, B., & DUMONT D'AYOT, C. (2006). Jean Prouvé: the poetics of the technical object. Weil am Rhein, Vitra Design Stiftung.
Illustrations not cited in text:
Fig.1 http://designdo.se/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2013/12/Jean-Prouve-8x8-Demountablehouse-process-6.png Fig.5 http://www.vandasye.com/?p=152