Good afternoon. Considering the temperature in this room I
think it would be a good idea to get started, even if it's a few minutes early. And the room is packed, it's so great to see
this room filled with people. This is the third lecture in the series on
the subject of the architectural facade. The remaining three lecturers will be taking
place after spring break. Following tonight's lecture, there would be
Alexander [indiscernible], then followed by a husband and wife architectural office known
as ensemble from Madrid, and then we will finish the series with a lecture by Daniel
Leboskein. So so I would encourage you to keep your eyes
posted for announcements about those lectures after spring break. Well, it is a distinct pleasure of mine tonight
to be able to introduce our lecturer. Ken Frampton was I long time friend and my
first employer. When I finished my undergraduate studies in
New York, Ken had received a commission to do a housing project in Brooklyn, which today
is known as Marcus Garvey Village. It was a groundbreaking project, I think it
was a test project for the viability of low rise, high density housing and it went on
to I think receive quite a bit of accolade. It was exhibited in fact in the museum of
modern art in New York back around 1973, '74, I believe. So very fortuitously I secured this position
as a kind of draftsman model builder for Ken Frampton, and the experience of working with
him that summer was I can tell you a formative one. Of. Kenneth Frampton was born in the United Kingdom
and trained as an architect at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. After practicing for a number of years in
the United Kingdom and in Israel, he served as the editor of the British magazine
Architectural Design. In 1972–73 he was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard’s
Graduate School of Design. Kenneth Frampton is currently the Ware Professor
of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP, where he has taught since 1972. In addition to Columbia,
Professor Frampton has taught at a number of leading institutions, including the Royal
College of Art in London, the ETH in Zurich,
the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, the EPFL in Lausanne,
the Accademia di Architectura in Mendrisio
and Princeton University. In the 1970s, he was instrumental in the development
of the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York and a co founding editor
of its magazine Oppositions. His essay "Towards a Critical Regionalism"
of 1983 was seminal in defining architectural thought throughout the 1980s. Over the years he has been a leading voice
in the history of modernist architecture. Professor Frampton has lectured around the
world. He is the author of numerous articles and
a number of well known books including Modern Architecture and the Critical Present, Modern
Architecture: A Critical History (for which he is currently working on a 5th
addition) and Studies in Tectonic Cultural, each of
which represent cornerstones of his work. In 2005 he received the President’s Medal
from the Architectural League of New York. In 2012 he was the recipient of the Schelling
Architecture Theory Prize and in 2014 he was awarded the Millennium
Lifetime Achievement Award at the Lisbon Triennale. It is my great pleasure to welcome Professor
Kenneth Frampton. [ Applause ]
>> Good evening. It's a lot of people. Small space, relatively. Yes. Well, this facade, I've never ever spoken
on this topic before, and of course Randall Korman is the figure that entered that I might
try it for once, and so here I am first time. And beginning with the facade, but it's worth
a face in any case, that's Gottfried Semper, sort of 1855 when he was the director in Zurich
having been in London along with Richard Redgrave and the Crystal Palace and previously of course
to that in Frankfurt and in Dresden. And but before I get fully into the stuff,
I think I should say that I found it necessary to write this entire thing out, and you will
be happy to hear I'm not going to read it, but in any case, I sort of tried to plod my
way through this task of speaking about the facade, and it led me to because actually
I sort of very preoccupied with Semper, I, you know, he the book studies in tectonic
culture takes a lot from Semper, but early in his career he was recommended as an architect
to the court in Dresden, and there he meets one called whose name was Klem and Klem was
a librarian in this professional German court, in the royal court librarian. As he was royal cart architect, and as Wagner
was the kapellmeister to the same court. And these images are of tattoos faces of course
from the South Pacific, I think, and they appear a book, an early anthropological book
written by Klem, I think it's called the history of mankind. And so, you know, here we have a face of course
that is decorated. It's made into a facade in a way. And for essentialismer this question of architecture
and clothing was extremely important and also the adornment of the body, for semper, for
him, the primordial architectural work is the dress, in fact, the clothing of the human
animal, so to speak. And, you know, in German that I think the
word is giband, and related to the German word for weaving. And so there is this connection between the
dress of course adornment and this is also I think from Klem, you know, the Syrian warrior
who is also it's hard to imagine fighting in this gear, but anyway, he is also very,
very dressed up, you know. And of course one thinks I could have included
but I think a bit now, I'm always amazed by Japanese armor, how it is on one hand of course
also involving a mask, rather terrifying but also extremely ritualistic, ornate, woven,
also it's woven, of course, as was chainmail, for that matter. This is not exactly a mask, but of course
on the topic of war it is a it's covering a face and echos, you know, the face, the
mask and the face, that is the title I gave to this talk, I think. And in some ways Semper says there should
be a kind of authentic relationship between the face and the mask. The mask is of no quality if it doesn't have
some poetic and structural relationship to the face. So and it brings this African textile of course,
it brings up I'm putting it here simply to emphasize this question of weaving, you know. Because the emphasis he places on weaving
and on dress and the very word cladding in architecture, for example, is also connected
to the German word, which is also dress in a way. And Semper, when he writes he's part of this
kind of cotary that are the brains behind the Crystal Palace, that is to say the brains
behind the great exhibition and the aim of the great exhibition, they're not really the
brains behind the building itself because that is of course Joseph Paxton. But, I mean, the interesting thing about the
Crystal Palace, which is also a kind of woven building in a way is it's extremely dematerialized. And I only recently rediscovered this image,
which I which is actually in a book that I was involved in, published by Futagowa, I'd
forgotten this image completely. I didn't actually find the image in the first
place in any case, but I've never seen this image elsewhere very often, which shows the
palace, you know, this totally dematerialize cage full of people but no objects. And up with of the objects in the palace was
this Caribbean hut which which Semper claims this was an inspiration for him in formulating
his idea of the four elements of architecture, which was in 1852, you know, virtually the
same time as the palace. And we see that this thing point? Yes. Of we see of course well, first of all it
divides in a way into two elements, which is the roof work on the one hand and the earth
work on the other, raising the house out of the ground. And then the roof work is seen as one with
the framework supporting the roof. And the that's one element. And the second element as I already said,
it's the earth work. And the third element is the fireplace and
the fire. That is one of the most extraordinary things
about it. And of course gives it this sort of anthropological
authority in a way. And the final element is the internal wall,
which is the woven wall. And he then associates different crafts with
the different elements, so that the framework and roof is of course the craft of carpentry. The earth work is the craft of masonry in
a way or something equivalent to that, you know, piling up, compressing blocks or, you
know, making a frame in this case and packing it with earth. And the fire then is associated with ceramics
and with metalsmithing and so on, jewelry, et cetera. And then of course we come back to weaving
in the case of the wool, and the importance he attaches to the knot, actually. Because which he sees as the primordial joint,
you know? And so this brings me to a sort of slight
hiatus, actually, which ends me up in the Palladian Olympico shown here. Semper conceived of the mask as a poetic fiction
with which to overcome through ritual, the harsh reality of human existence and the finality
of death. In this way both the mask and clothing and
the primordial hut are each dedicated to the creation and representation of an artificial
microcosmos in order to establish human culture against the always threatening chaos of nature. This conjunction brings us to the origin and
the development of the theater and to its use of costumes and scenery and even the mask,
to represent a relatively short lived illusory microcosmos. In terms of occidental cultural history we
cannot separate the stage from the invention of perspective as rationalized sight from
the middle of the 15th century onwards and this takes us immediately to Andrea Palladio’s
Teatro Olympico constructed in Vicenza in 1584 and to the fixed perspectival stage sets
of the period. Which I will show you in a minute. And of course the big issue here is the fact
that this is the illusory built constructive perspective, this is the false stage, the
only part in which the actors can actually act, you know, because obviously on the sloping
floor of the perspectival stage they cannot. And here you see the channels of this constructed
perspective, which of course you can see how that construction allows, you know, figures
in different parts of the auditorium to have the same more or less the same illusion. And here we see it in reality. And here and of course we do see of course
in a Renaissance facade, architectural facade, and here is transsection of the same thing. And this is the one other one which is in
Sabionetta. Constructed for the Duke of Mantior, much
smaller theater. But also well with the facade or anyway the
kind of columnated amphitheater, equally architectural as the facade. This is the plan of that stage, you know,
and here this again, constructed, it's much rougher, of course, in the delineation, the
representation of the thing is much rougher in these drawings than in the one that I showed
you. And the one in Vincenza. This rapport between facade architecture and
the stage in that moment with when the lower leaf facade expresses a flattened depth. One recalls this conjunction, the architecture
intellectual. Giulio Carlo Argan, who in his book
The Renaissance City argued that the Renaissance City as such never existed
and that what existed instead was the time honored labyrinthic of medieval urban fabric
In which which set pieces were inserted, yes, by princes, feudal princes, which were recreations
of triumphant battles that were associated with the myth of their power or they were
equestrian ballets or actually of course tournaments taking place. And sometimes they were set against, you know,
temporary facades and quasi theatrical settings. And other times they were Mrs. the Palazo
Piti with the roof over the top. And from the action of the rain. And this whole thing is a kind of recreation
of some kind of horrific battle, you know. As an entertainment with the audience piled
up in the periphery of the palace itself. And the ultimate kind of Renaissance facade,
the most refined Renaissance facade is surely, you know, the san Lorenzo, Michelangelo's
library, this being the kind of entry and then what is extraordinary is the rhythmic
low relief, you know, that yes creates a kind of concatenation of classical motifs, you
know, in held into work of art in itself in fact. Almost musical you could say. And this the library of course and this the
staircase feeding up into the library. And all of it being the same syntax basically,
variations of the same syntax. Anyway, the earliest use of the word facade
in the English language referring to the representational front of a building occurs in 1657. This date virtually coincides with Inigo Jones'
Renaissance architecture into Britain, and this is the banquet hall in White hall where
it's like a straight transposition of an Italian Renaissance facade to British scene. Which takes us back in a way to Palladio,
and to this villa Malcontenta, that it was one of Palladio's masterpieces. Vis à vis facade in front, I mean, this is
clearly an honorific front with this sort of deluded idea that it's a kind recreation
of a Roman house with monumental staircases going up on both sides. A building, the substance of which the prism
is made out of brook. The portico is made out of stone, but the
body of the building itself is made out of brick and plaster and then the plaster's worked
and scribed so as to simulate dressed stonework. But in fact also that is a sort of facade
on top of the actual built fabric. And that would be and all of I think I've
got these slightly out of order because that should I've lost an image here. What the hell did I do with it? It vanished. But anyway, there's a back to this building,
and somewhere that's the issue I wanted to make is that in all of Palladio's villas,
there is this facade as front and kind of very austere much less rhetorical back so
that the style of course goes on the front of the building in this point of which this
is the canal and the it's the honorific entrance from the Brenta canal. And that would apply to all of his villas
except this one. The villa Caparolla. Yes, it has four temple fronts on four facades
consecutively. So there is no back, really, it's just a series
of endless fronts, you know. And we see it here in plan. And we this is the transposition of exactly
that idea in the 18th century, quite a while later, by Richard Boyle, otherwise known as
Lord Bellington to London, this is the Chisick house and the transposition of Palladioism
somewhat after Jones into the British scene. So this yes, finally, the back. Right? This is the back of the one that, you know,
you enter from the canal. And it takes me, this whole question of facade
and these theatrical aspect of facade and also going back to Semper's emphasis upon
theater, this poetic fiction as he calls it, making a micro cosmos out of the poetic fiction,
to ultimately you know from Palladio's Olympico and the perspective, to this building, which
is the plan of Wagner's opera house in Byrite, it's a total work of arm, the German term
Gesamtkunstwerk, where poetry, music setting, costumes would be synthesized to create this
overwhelming total work of art that also should was intended also to be life transforming
as a program conceived in this book that that he wrote called the outlook of the future. But the two interesting things about it are
the orchestra pit. And I think maybe and I'm not completely sure
of this, it's he who invents the idea of an orchestra pit, but you don't see the orchestra
at all, you know. And the point being that his etherial music
should arise sort of out of nowhere out of the pit. And contribute to this illusion of opera that
is then carried out on a enormous stage where of course displacement in space can be easily
achieved through literal displacement of space without constructive perspective. But where perspective is still floating around
is here, you know, this very strange provision of these blades coming out with columns on
the ends of them. And because and why, because what he wanted
to do is to kind of he wanted to reduce the rupture of the persenium arch and make the
audience think that each of these edges are really the same edge. That somehow or other there is no final edge
before you are thrust into this unworldly scene of the total work of art. And here you see it, this is a this is what
it looks like, you know, these blades are with their columns, their little classical
pieces to this point. I don't have an exterior of the stupidly,
of the building because that is actually the most utilitarian thing you ever set your eyes
on, there is no temple front no, nothing. All the money and the energy goes into this
to create this interior to complete his illusion, so to speak. And what you realize is that Wagner's total
work of art is, you know, the beginning of the twentieth century the cinema, film will
take over from Wagner's total work of art, the orchestra will disappear, the audience
will forget the edges of the screen, you know. They will the moving image and then of course
sound gets to be added to it will complete the Wagnerian project, really. And because what I'm showing here is a still
from the Lili Riefenstahl's the triumph of the will, and with this architecture and this
in Nuremberg, this is I think circa 1936, you know, all of this is designed by Albert
Speer, but it's designed as with the idea of this mass still even today, I mean, unbelievable
sight, you know, the film is unbelievable, it's the film, the triumph of the wheel is
really worth seeing because of its extreme rhetorical power, I think. And it okay. Now we come back to something quite different
because, you know, the creation of the music drama, the flying Dutchman is his first opera
of a series of operas, coincides within a year or two of Philip Webb's house for William
Morris in Kent, which you see here. And here, you know, of course it's totally
and utterly anti classical, anti Renaissance, it there is no the worst thing that could
happen to the this architect is for a facade to come into existence, you know? [ Laughter ]
Because all of these the free juxtaposition of the different roofers coming to different
heights, all of this in a way was inspired by gothic revival where the assembly the idea
was of course the English farmhouse, the random additive, irregular assembly of traditional
English farmhouse. Here of course self consciously created where
the windows are like particularly this window is by no means medieval, it's a kind of relatively
modern sash window, you know, as opposed to anything medieval, though there is a kind
of medieval well head. Anyway, that's what he Philip Webb created
this so William Morrison and we see that plan is this irregular plan and the beginning of
the modern free plan. And in fact the work of this period is called
English freestyle. It's another term for it other than arts and
crafts. You enter here, you know, and this is the
stair hall already. The stair hall is as a void had in it going
up through the whole extent of the building. This asymmetrically placed stair hall is also
part of the whole story. And the plan, you know, is this L shaped somewhat
irregular plan with bits sticking out as though and you see the stairs, change of level here. It's as though the whole thing has been accrued
over time, you know. It's an aggregation in a way. Or it pretends to be an aggregation. And ten years later in 1869 Richard Norman
Shaw creates this building in Sussex for some obviously extremely wealthy Victorian gentleman. And here, you know, you get I suppose things
that might be facades, such as this, but it's a again, it's a totally irregular, random
plan with chimneys all over the place. It's a picturesque composition to an extraordinary
degree, and this is this is the other side which is even more extraordinary and more
romantic. These are drawings by Richard Norman Shaw
himself and the chimneys of course and the bay windows, all of this is extremely brilliant
in a way, you know. And I should have at this point, and I have
to confess another missing item, is maybe a shingle style building or two, you know,
that might make an appropriate transition to what I but I somehow forgot. To this. Which is Frank Lloyd Wright in 1901. First ladies home journal house. And it's also can be seen as the especially
embryonic liberative free plan. So that you enter here, you know, you this
is the door, this is the kind of foyer, really, rather elaborate foyer and the stair hall. And then the central fireplace, but the most
important aspect of all of this is this continuity between the library, the living room, and
the dining room, and of course there's a terrace that you can go out onto in summer. And behind a rather cramped in fact are the
service facilities. And the architecture is reserved for multiple
front so that this symmetry here in relation to the library or this symmetry in the hip
roof in relation to the living and again the terrace in relation to the dining, you know,
are there's definitely an earth work in all of this, for example, and a roof work going
to Semper's categories. But when you get to here, you know, you can
see that this is just walls with pierce windows, I mean, he's no longer interested it's no
longer architecture at that point, you know. And the other thing about Wright's domestic
work is it's not so easy to find the entrance. I suppose maybe you can get the message this
is the entrance, but in a way it's unclear where the entrance is, and of course along
with this goes which is also really against the facade because this long roof and this
roof, you know, this whole obsession horizontality, and long windows, in fact, create this situation
in which there is no facade and the sheer emphasis on the horizon is against the frontality
of the facade. Though it's still using some classical elements,
you know, these sort of basins and of course these string courses. But we see as in the first this is 1909, it's
eight years after the lady's home journal house, and you do have this open plan, not
so much maybe a free plan as on open plan around this central double sided fireplace. You have two levels, one is the billiard room,
children's playroom, and you enter at this level but you see the way you enter is not
so self evident. It's kind of hidden, in a way, and the staircase
is here. And well, the staircase is the main servant
stair and primary stair, mixed up with the chimney. And then the main roof of course was hipped
form emphasizes again the two primary spaces on the floor above, which are also open plan. But when we come to this part, although there's
still a hip roof on this part, you can see how the quality of the expression of the building
somehow is reduced. It's not this is where the garage is, of course
here, you know, there's a court really and the boiler room, laundry, garage, and then
above, kitchen and so on, service elements and they're treated in that way. While this is just a beautiful shot of this
house, which is still masterpiece, but here you feel or emphasizes the way in which you
don't quite know how to get into this building, you know. You have to kind of find the entrance. That brings me to the other thing, which is
that relatively speaking with his horizontal windows and his outriding terraces and hip
roofs, Wright's buildings were open to nature. And had, you know, invited invited a kind
of rapport with nature. It saw nature as a yes, as a benevolent context. But when it came to his public buildings,
which and they do public buildings, this is unity temple, do have vestiges of a facade,
actually, it's a very strange texture on this image, which is ridiculous because it makes
you think it's made of brick, but it isn't, it's made of concrete. And actually it's for him a bad experience. He I've been getting quality of finish out
of the concrete was something he found very difficult to do and he generally put him off
concrete for a long time. This is actually 1906. But the expressive representational facade
is in fact within. It's not without. This is true of all of Wright's public buildings,
I think. That the and I've often wondered why is this,
you know? It occurs again of course in the unity temple
where there is some representative features on the outside of the building, but in it's
largely blank, you know? And that also then applies to the contrast
is also here. This is this internal atrium. And up here are inscriptions and capitals,
you know, the representative facade is really on the inside of the building and not the
outside. And that will remain case until the end of
his life. So that the Guggenheim, you know, while there's
some expressivity, for some people of course too much expressivity, but in fact it's still
not well, first of all, it's still not a facade, it can't be a facade because of the plan shape
and the whole idea, but it's also somewhat empty, you know, there's no content, really,
compared to, let's say, the Renaissance facade. And inside of course it has spiraling space
up in the inside. And the richer kind of core experiences again
within rather than without. It's one little detail which might be of interest
is that the image is based on kind of spiraling pyramid. This is the word well, he actually turns it
here I think he turns it around. This is the word zigorat and he turns it into
targoriz on this drawing. It's like a it relates to his strong automobile
object in the middle of the Midwest as a sort of object to which he would drive for a Sunday
afternoon. Which brings me to of course how could I couldn't
avoid him much longer. No, that's the interior. Right, there you are. So the richer interior is even this of course
is very simple, there's no ornament. But there is a symbolic pool at the bottom
of this. A kind of containing, you know, representation
the Louis Sullivan's seed germ. This of course has it's totally and utterly
removed from all of this. Also against facade. I could and a ought to have elaborated on
this guy at great length, which is Adolf Loos, the this isn't the steina villa, it's a degree
zero of architecture. It's a cubic form plastered over, it's white,
and this building, which is in the same moment, you know, is also a cubic form plastered over
white. And the richness is on the interior. You can't really call it's not of course Loos
is concept of the round or space plan is certainly not a facade but it's still you know, the
more interesting part of the building is the volume, is the liberative dynamic space inside. And I think modernity going back to Wright's
first moves towards an open plan and involving also of course the idea of the five elements
of a new architecture, you know, and also these four compositions, the five elements
of a new architecture is 926 and the four compositions are 929. And the fact that space is the all important
thing. The exterior of the building is a kind of
degree zero. The space which is of course well, the five
points are of course the free plan, the free facade, the long window, the pilotis, the
columns underneath the house, and the roof garden are the five points. And the connection between this and classism
is very fascinating because at some point when they are first published there are six
points. And one of these points is the elimination
of the cornice. And he gets rid of that point. Because he wants there's no text that proves
this, but I do know [ Laughter ]
I do know there are six points and then there are five points. And the the one that's eliminated is the one
that talks about eliminating the cornice. And it's my supposition that one of the reasons
he does this is he wants to present the five points as though they are technological, scientific,
consequential new architecture based on modern principles. Well, if you talk about eliminating cornices
you already reveal your dependency on the classical past, so I think he gets rid of
it. But in these four compositions he actually
shows here, you know, in this so called and I never know quite why, Pyramidal composition,
this additive plan very much like the Anglo American or Anglo Saxon free plan arts and
crafts house. And then here he shows had this second proposition,
which is just a cubic proposition and he just writes very difficult, satisfying to the spirit,
you know. This one is very convenient, easy, picturesque,
one can easily place clearly all the different functional parts according to the hierarchy. And then of course the free plan pilotis,
and the irregular the fact that the subdivision of the space is completely independent of
the load bearing aspect, because the load bearing is carried by the columns, allows
him to combine, you see, he puts these two together, composition cubi, cubic purism. This of course is the [indiscernible] in 1939,
this is otherwise known as the [indiscernible] of 927, 27, 29, and here this what you could
say in the sense is this additive picturesque configuration is reinserted into the top of
the prism. And he has a lot to say about this, very generous,
affirming in the interior, satisfying to the intentions and all the functional needs, insulation,
et cetera, et cetera. So he in the late '20s posits this ultimate
abstract modernity. In 1948 Rudolf Wittkower publishes a book
architectural principles in the age of humanism. Which is an analysis of the work of Palladio. And in that same year, and I think scandal
beyond scandal, even before the book itself is published his prime pupil, Colin Rowe,
published the mathematics of the ideal villa. I think he beats the old man to it, actually. And all of the argumention of Colin Rowe is
derived from [indiscernible] but it is anyway as a stroke of extraordinary brilliance. And it changes then the entire view of it,
and I think it is a fact that he acknowledges the validity of the argument, I guess there's
no way for him to have refuted it. But the point being that it's the comparison
between the Villa Malcontenta. By the way, this image better than the one
I previously showed you, shows only too clearly how this is brickwork and the plaster still
here but it's fallen off this part, you know, closer to the water, et cetera, et cetera. You know? So that the poetic fiction of a building faced
in stone is here wearing a bit thin. But this is the issue, because this is I'm
sure you probably are familiar with it, but I'm probably going over old ground, but this
is the plan of the villa Malcontenta, the staircases and so on. And this is the plan of the Villa Stein De
Monzie, most extraordinary of all a, it's structural base, two, one, two, one, two. And of course it's the same structural bay
in the villa Malcontenta, in other direction with the free plan these are cantilevers so
it's .5 of a module. And then something fallen off here, but it's
1.5, 1.5, 1.5. And here .5 again. So there's cantilevers front and back, which
of course are not present on the Palladium villa. And this brings me up I should have and I
don't have, you know, the I'm going back, one second. The garden facade the entry facade here of
the Villa Stein de Monzie is absolutely flat, there's only a large cantilevered wing like
form that comes out to indicate what is the main entrance. But the you know, the fact is that the smaller
bay carry staircases, even this smaller bay would have carried another staircase but the
staircase is displaced to one side in order to allow it to function as a sort of major
staircase as opposed to a service staircase. But anyway, the approach to the building is
not, you know, if you establish the idea of the front and the back in the palladium as
soon as and the front is the temple portico and the front is the back non rhetorical face
and you enter through the ideally you enter through the front through the from the canal
through the portico, the temple portico. Here, you know, you're entering from the back,
vis à vis this idea of front and back, and the front faces the garden. This is the front. And on the front the dynamic organization
of the space inside means that, you know, you're looking at an asymmetrical building
and also with enormous special displacement, the terrace is is set back into the facade. These are these glass windows advanced. And this drawing is beautiful because it sort
of combines the rhythm of the Palladium plan where he has to contrive like mad to make
the staircase have the same angle to correspond to the diagonal of the golden section. And that is you'd think it is the more rhetorical
front. But it's the back. So the back and the front get to be inverted. And
where am I going with this? Good question. All right. Well, I think I okay. Let me another image would be helpful, I think,
yes, okay. So this is Bernard Hoeshi, close colleague
of Colin Rowe, who makes this drawing which is a sort of yes, it's an axe in a metric
showing the planes that are compose the garden facade. This is the staircase, these are advanceds,
the terrace is is going back here, and these are additional planes as you go back finally
to the rear facade. And he likens that to the same layering of
space in this purist painting in 1920, still life with a pile of plates, where the illusion
that brings up the issue of cubism. You see it's clear that cubism was categorically
anti prospectival. And the idea was to flatten the picture plain
as much as possible and of course purism deliberately categorically influenced by cubism and denounced
as a sort of alternative in the yes, in [ Laughter ]
good moment. Yes. It posits itself as an alternative to cubism. Yes. [ Laughter ]
Yeah, because it's still this idea of flattened space. And what Hoeshi does is show the illusory
space of the purist painting is to the actually placements inside the house. That's the whole point of these two diagrams. And the only other thing to be added to it
is as opposed to cubism, they were trying to represent there is a representational function,
you know, the anonymous objects produced by industrial machined civilization, you know,
the industrial produced wine bottles and clay pipes and plates and into which is woven a
guitar, of course, kind of almost obligatory cubist icon. Which brings me to this. Which is this comparison between two buildings,
the I've used this comparison on many occasions
and in fact this comes from this book genealogy of modern architecture. And where I tried to put together the results
of a course that I gave over a long period of time on comparative critical analysis,
in which I asked students to compare different types of buildings answering more or less
the same program, institutionally comparable programs. In this case of course what is in a way the
equivalent of a municipal administration under fascism, the casa del Fascio, and in the Swedish
case, both kind of institutional buildings, and in this case both involving facades. And both involving asymmetrical facades. Which I think relates to the symmetry of their
plan formation. You know, in other words, they both embody
a kind of dynamic deliberative space inside them and this dynamic liberative space ostensibly
functional is what is the driving force of the asymmetrical character. And you can see that in the case of the casa
del fascio what am I doing that? That's the wrong thing. Back. Do I have that still? Yes. You can see the three bay entry, for example,
corresponds to a courtyard inside the building, an atrium. This corresponds to a terrace on the roof,
which is also virtually void on top of the atrium so that the presence of this atrium
inside the building is indicated on the facade and is part of the asymmetry of the facade. And here the asymmetry arises in large part
of course out of the fact this is an addition to an existing neoclassical building. This is the addition. And inside this addition there is also a kind
of atrium space, which is indicated by these four panels and also by these low relief sculptural
panels, the doors open inwards and form a kind of little I know set balcony. And of course in this case, you know, there's
a masonry base and it's actually fire proof steel frame construction and there's even
detailed moulding at the top and sort of echos classical base and capital. And here also of course we're using stone. Dressed stone. And so and the two buildings relate to public
space in an interesting way because this one is related to the back of the cathedral in
Como here it's a kind of sort of axial relationship. And here it's this is the neoclassical building,
this is a public square, you can see it here, for example, this is the public square and
there's a canal that goes by. And this is actually the Gustophplats, so
they are both situated somewhat classically in relation to the fabric, and right. So and when you compare the two plans you
can see that these four windows, which I spoke about before, you know, are meant to represent
this space behind them. This atrium space, top lit or partly top lit
paved in stone and, you know, you pass through the old building and you turn here through
a revolving door. And there's another elevation here which I
suppose one really couldn't call a facade, which is much simplified in relation to the
classical facades that surround it. And so you see that here, for example. These are the classical facades. And for a long time tried to give the addition
its own kind of front equal to the classical front, many alternative schemes go in that
direction. And here, you know, the facade is I think
one has to think about the elevation, you know, I mean, this of course is strictly speaking
the facade, but then it's cutaway at this point with dressed stone underneath, and there
is a battery of electrically operated doors, which permit the militia to come from the
interior of the building and sort of rush out into the street, you know, you enter just
from here normally and there's a control point here. With a major staircase in this position. And you can see from this drawing, for example,
that there is this strange kind of tension between the three bays of the atrium, although
the atrium is in fact more than three bays wide at this point, you know. But the three bays are designed to represent
the atrium. This is actually an early projection of the
atrium. And, yes, so when you go up the big staircase
here and all well, blue shows public. These plans have been coded so that the public
space is shown blue. Semi public is shown green. The private is shown yellow. The argument, the distinguishing between private
and semi public and public is the public space is a space like this space, for example, where
a number of people gathering together, you know, they're kind of they are caught, they
are in fact courtrooms in each case here. This is a small courtroom. And so that they are collective. They are public in the sense that they are
collective, you know. And the same applies in this building because
although you could raise you can sort of raise a question about the coding, the endless problems
I got into with students arguing over what is public and what is private, you know, and
when I look that the drawing I think I don't think we got this right because this space
here is this space here. It's the main meeting room of the the casa
del Fascio, and this relief, all the rest, this is a facade, and I think when I look
at it from this distance again I think it should have been blue, you know? Because I mean, yes, what involved here of
course is the idea of private, meaning exclusive and the idea of private referring to a kind
of condition, you know, where you have like two people in an office or but here, you know,
again, the question is with this number of people in this space should this have really
been considered also public, in the sense that public is sort of quasi political space. Here I think it works it's consistent in the
case of the court. This is the facade I was talking about, the
kind of degree zero glass wall that is, you know, in where where am I here? I have to go back again. Where am I now? Yes. This is the degree zero glass wall is here. Right. And so now in a way I've kind of talked myself
out of facade altogether. Because this and I think it brings up the
issue that the kind of dynamic liberative space that was the driving force of the modern
movement and is still very much present is one that is always in conflict with the idea
of a facade, you know. And so it makes a modern facade a complex
thing to achieve, I think. And so vis à vis talking myself out of facades
altogether. Here I'm discussing this comparison is really
comparing two different staircases and two different spaces, you know. So of course this staircase is entirely enclosed
and also made out of dressed stone with glass ballistrade and so on with glass block and
is very kind of precise and you can see that from the way that is this thing yes, this
thing here. This bent glass. And this one is uses wood and the ballistrading,
the actually going of the staircase is extremely gentle. It has a particularly relationship to the
structure, which is also cantilevered going to the upper level here. And so they are very different interiors and
very different the detailing is different, the space form
is different, but they all have a certain of dynamic space form. And one of the things that I do in showing
because I don't have the exterior image, but here you see this is the plan, the pent ultimate
plan of the building, and here is a staircase that brings you up to the pentultimate floor. And there is one floor above which is served
only by this staircase. And then the space that was previously occupied
by the stair is covered over with an office. But in fact if you study the elevation, this
is also still a glass block wall. So the glass block wall that signified the
stair in this case here is the is a glass is continued but what's behind the glass if
you say, you know, the glass block wall represented the stair, the main stair, then at the top
of the building the glass block wall is continued for four more reasons, but the main stair,
the relationship between the mask and the face, so to speak, is now one and the same. And the detailing, very very contrasted at
the level of detailing, of course detailing of this ballistrade versus the main stair. And then, you know, facade to facade, the
difference between this facade and this low relief above the wooden fenestration, plaster
and also two different kinds of plaster used to indicate the main structural frame and
the infill. And here it's all faced in dressed stone. And there are also wooden windows. But it depends upon the rhythmic articulation
of the stone. Here of course there's also glass block being
used. But the material is very different. I mean, here you see that the steel frame
is enclosed in this fashion in the at the lower level to give this kind of organic columnal
support to the building. And that I mean, it's fascinating that the
original idea for this space, you know, was a kind of almost neoclassical idea of this
space, you know, before it's developed further. And here the facade is combined with a photo
montage, a photo montage of the two things. Photo montage of these militia in the foreground
and actual I think the project was never carried out, but this was a project for pasting up
party leaders onto the stone face of the building. I mean, making a kind of graphic out of it. And you can see from this, you know, with
this slogan order, authority justice, militia, the med Mussolini, the iconography is is all
of the piece, including this extraordinary photograph, where it's no longer facade, it's
an image, of course. And anyway, all of these are images, but this
typewriter, in fact, you know, is shown as floating on this glass plane where the cathedral
is reflected in the glass top of the desk of the administration. The relationship between the church and the
state of course in that case. And then the furniture follows through on
that, you know, the values implicit in the wooden furniture of designed by Asplund which
also relates to tradition, or the organic light fittings, and this use of a glass, this
is a water fountain. Or the fact that the workers that built the
building put their initials into this tapestry, it was embroidered, their individual signatures
were individual yes, the letters of their name were embroidered into the tapestry. So the attitude there are two there are definite
different political attitudes involved here. You know, the a that you aretoriry general
fascist state on the one hand, and the social democratic Swedish state on the other. And here of course I'm making some connection
between Decurico's metaphysical painting and the way Teranni would project it when it was
first put together. All right. So that's my little no, I didn't quite finish. No, no. [ Laughter ]
No, I didn't. Because yes. Louis Kahn, all right. We get into this problem of the front and
the back. Because this is the hypothetical front of
the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. And this is this rather beautiful shot, which
I think is actually a shot I took myself. I can't believe it. Anyway
[ Laughter ] I mean, I don't think I can do this anymore. Meaning I don't think I can take photographs
anymore. I'm not sure I can lecture anymore either. But
[ Laughter ] this in fact, you know, I received my obituary
today, you know. My wife is going to love that. I mean, I think I should sort of keep that
under wraps. [ Laughter ]
You know. I have a year to go, you know? That's it. It's over. All right. Well, this is the front and I suppose it wouldn't
rate by common standards this would not be a facade, however, it is a front. It is a kind of facade. And it has this honorific grove of Holly trees
and also they're put on top of gravel so when you walk, actually these maybe you know it,
but these galleries, corridors open. They have a stone floor, of course, and there's
an echo in the inside of the vault. So you hear your footsteps as you walk towards
the center axis where all the youpon Holly trees shoulder height and a kind of sandy
gravel. So when you come off, the echo ceases. And also your own body, the gait of your body
is thrown off because, you know, you're walking on gravel after having walked on very resonance
stone paving. And you're thrown off, you know, and also
the trees are it's a slightly strange it's a very it's a kind of one could say it's a
kind of mystical entry. And the thing is that, you know, this is the
park I ought to say this was park because they made an addition, I don't have that plan,
and because this is the honorific entrance to the building, this is the front in this
sense, rhetorically speaking. But of course it's the suburbs, after all,
and people drive to this building, mostly they drive. And they enter here, you see, into this parking
lot. The front is over here. You know. And this part, very beautiful, in fact, this
relationship between the front and the park, which in a sense has gone. It's gone because Renzo added to to the building
and the to all intents and purposes, the park no longer exists. And this yeah, well, this shows you how you
well, I just described, you're walking and also the sound of the water. It's acoustically very special place. And of course it involves travertine and also
concrete shell. This space here. And but by car you enter here into this black
hole, you know, and you go up a staircase, you don't see this in the section, and you
arrive at the same point as if you'd come from the park through the main entrance. If you as if you had come through this entrance,
you know. And so you enter a bit like the Villa Stein
de Monzie, enter the back in you come by automobile, and you don't enter through the honorific
front mostly. And this is the kind of contradiction of the
building. You know, I Kahn never drove a car, he hated
automobiles, I think. I once probably with good reason. You know, I once spoke to a young student
who came from Harvard to go to visit Lou Kahn and he told me Kahn said to him take the train,
don't come by the plane. And he said I never understood why did he
tell me that, I could never understand. I said I think I know why. For Kahn you could only enter Philadelphia,
his beloved Philadelphia through the Bozar hall of thirtieth street station. You couldn't enter it from the airport because
there was no point in which you ever entered it, you know, you just that kind of and I
think he must have known when he designed Kimbell that, you know, most of the people
are going to come by car. He had to provide for this entrance by automobile
and so on. And I think what did I say here? I do have something this is the last word,
so to speak. I can't hardly read it. Because as always of course I don't have my
where is it? Do I have it? No. Don't think I have everything else but. [ Laughter ]
I just give up. [ Laughter ]
I'll just read it. All right. I can still read it despite the fact that
I'm disappearing next year. [ Laughter ]
Oh, God. Randy reminded me it's 20 years since I've
been here. I think I'm not coming again. [ Laughter ]
Oh, dear God. All right. And unfortunately of course another slide
missing is Renzo's extension, because he actually amazing piece. Anyway I'll read it. Very clever. He did long span laminated wood beams instead
of long span concrete vaults or bent beams as they are in the main body of the building. And anyway, let me read okay. It is bizarre irony that
Renzo Piano's addition to Kimbell comprising a massive provision of subterranean
parking at an even lower level should enable the automotive visitor to confront the main
principal of the original building from the Parking for the first time. Because before they had to come, you know,
up the stairs from behind, but now they pop out there's an enormous amount of parking
provided, much more than before, and the elevator coming to the primary level and the doors
open and the visitor sees the Loos main honorific facade for the first time, you know, relatively
speaking if they had previously come by car to Kimbell, you know. And I wrote this is the last. All of which was achieved
one might note, at the price of loss the park. The one that gave the Kahn honorific entry
from the land scape it's ultimate meaning. Thanks. [ Applause ]
>> Folks, it's getting a little late and it's warm in here, but Professor Frampton would
be happy to entertain two or three questions, after which we will adjourn to the atrium
where there is a wonderful buffet and reception waiting for you down there. Where you can continue to meet with Professor
Frampton if you wish. So any questions then? We must mic the questions because there are
people in 402 upstairs that will not hear you if you don't speak into the microphone. So any questions? Can you turn this microphone on, please? Just raise your hand if you have a question. >> Too hot. >> I think they're ready for that reception
downstairs. >> Yes, well
>> Good. >> Okay, wonderful. >> Thank you, Ken. [ Applause ]
