The omni-directional, round or cruciform column use as a prop is a mine. Strucutre was not used as an illustration of building systems engineering but as an architectural device which, torgther with the free-standing screens, describes the perpetuity of space. The visible continuity of the arcading is constant interrupted by the screen which have been slide as internvetions into the horizontal space that separate floor from ceiling. Now hownstand beam is allowed to interfere with the plane over hear For mies a more exact and new architecture had logically evolved out of his recent acquainteance with the steel frame.
The grid of mullions, spandrels and columns appears to umpoase denser, more opaque perimeter wall to the building. The presence of the columns at the edge of the building appears to impart the wall with a thickness approximating to the thickness of the column itself. Likewise, internally, for the same reasons Mies tried to avoid a hald column projecting from a wall. What is interesting to note is that Mies, whether using steel concrete, frequently detailed both materials as if they has equally plastic properties. Steel prefers to be dry connected by bolting. There are never any visible bolted connections in Mies work.
Analysis of attitude towards materials Steel enabled Mies to erect a building as reductively clear as it was palpably constructive. (112, A). The wall plane could be optimally glazed, thus combining transparency with a sense of weightlessness. Most important, the interior could be kept free of columns, with the result that space opened up, functioning in a reciprocal relationship with the supporting frame. There was no detaliling, Mies gave architecture a new twist The Tugendhats gave Mies and . Llilly Reich the freeom they needed to explore the aesthetic of the ‘Velvet and Silk cafi
In a luxurious house. And at Brno they gave a demonstration of an elegance, combined with a sensuousness, that Mies alone ailed to achieve either before or after their collaboration. The stylisheness of this classic modern interior can be attributed to Lilly Reich. The fame of the Tudendhat House rests largely on the use of materials and the handling of space in the main living-cum-dining area-a huge room measuring 50 feet by 80 feet. The plan derived from the Brick Country house project of 1923, was articulate by a straight screen of onyx and a curved screen of macassar ebony.
Symbolic and historical associations in the work Mies Analysis and description of spatial organization and character In these and others, the dynamic movement of the free-standing walls cmmon to his European buildings gave way to a near-total interior emptiness, the ineluctable expressive counterpart of the sbusttance of the external frame. All of this, moreover, was best achiteve when least obviously materialized. Mies was occupied by horizontal space. In all his work, the vertical emphasis of any structure was depended upon the number of single-storey spaces that were stacked on top of each other.
Nevertheless, in each case the predominant statement remains a major space floating above a minor. The truth of one single space connecting the two is thinly disguised. The ceiling acts as the upper definition of the interior space, which is established by postionion the trusses outside, above the roof which hands beneath the, suggesting a downward force which squeezes the space horizontally. The horizontal pressure of space is again exaggerated by the transparency of the all-glass perimeter wall plane through which the space escapes to the outside.
Upon a staircase, Mies suppresses any suggestion of vertical contiguity with imperceptibale, mimimalist stell tubed or bar handrails which incise their way precisely through the floor. The silk screens, free standing in a single volume, were not interruptions of space but allowed space to flow around, between, and in some cases over the display, giving continuity to the compostion. A serioes of minor spaces became impilictly defined within the total space. Space becomes moderated by scree and odered by column, the column arcading is used torientate and counter the flow space.
The syncopation of screen with screen and scree with column maintsain a dynamic which prevents the space from being concluded and come to rest. During the years 1928-29, Mies worked on four projects for office buildings, all of which reveal simplifications and refinements of his early experiments in glass buildings. In doing so he incorporated many characteristics of his earlier work…. But it allowed to flow continuously…. The independent walls and flowing space are developments of motifs which Mies first evolved in the brick country house and on which heas has been composing variations ever since.
Whre space can be said to flow only on the main floor. Here the overall plan, devised to meet the needs of a growing family, is closed rather than open. Analysis of plan organization the interiors of his own building of the late 1920’s, including the Tugendant House, drive from his earlier work in the open plan. If Mies was preoccupied with undisguised construction and reflectivity in the high rise designs, it was the layout of the interior space that he explored in the villas, producing one of the most daring variations on a concept, the open plan, that occupied architects throughout the 1920s.
In the Brick country house of 1924, walls do not enclose rooms, or for that matter space, so much as they define the flow of space. Each is masterly example of sparely but sensitively compose external frame within which a serenely flowing space is developed out of the open plan. Each was assembled of exceptionally patrician materials and equipped with some of the most elegant furniture of the 20th century. Each has inspired an abundance of memorable and insightful critical comment.
