rationalist architecture

[rationalistarchitecture]

Update

I intend to eventually continue exploring the themes of this blog on a new instagram page which you can follow here.

[rationalistarchitecture]

Förstberg Ling

Twelve Houses, Malmö, Sweden, 2022

"The composition of the facades are the same on the front and back of the houses; six openings of the same width covering three levels – aligning vertically and horizontally. The functions of the openings vary – window, garage doors, terrace – and the simple form gets a varied programming. Everyday life turns the rational specific."

[finn-wilkie]

Barrault Pressacco, Social Housing in Massive Stone, Paris, 2018

www.barraultpressacco.com/

[rationalistarchitecture]

Sergison Bates

Cadix Harbour Building, Antwerp, Belgium, 2021.

[finn-wilkie]

WYSWYG, Maison à Montélimar, Drôme, 2018

www.wyswyg.fr/

[rationalistarchitecture]

Johannes Götz Architekt with Guido Lohmann

Haus Jax, Trier, Germany, 2007

[rationalistarchitecture]

Architecture Bureau Bart Dehane

House, Desselgem, Belgium, 2003

This house seeks to allude to a tradtional farm building, archetypal elements are used but subtly resized and reinterpreted to create a familiar but contrasting image.

The openings on the front and rear elevation are regular in height, creating a sense of order, whereas on the side they are organised in a looser composition.

Internally the rooms are organised around a central staircase with a rooflight above - a device intended to make the spaces adaptable over time.

[rationalistarchitecture]

Uwe Schröder Architects

Blömer-Feldmann House, Bonn-Venusberg, Germany, 1996

This suburban house is at the same scale as its neighbours but establishes a rigorous order on its elevations, although front and rear respond differently to their outlooks. The open internal space is divided up by the service core, this method of dividing up a singular space into more discrete areas is similar to that seen in modernist houses such as Meis van der Rohe's Farnsworth house - although in this case the centrality of the core reinforces the overall order that is so fundamental to this project.

[rationalistarchitecture]

Vogel Architekten

New Build House, Potsdam, Germany, 2013

[rationalistarchitecture]

Kahlfeldt Architekten

Haus W, Munich, Germany, 2005

[rationalistarchitecture]

OM Ungers

Villa Glashütte, Utscheid, Germany, 1988

“OM Ungers was an architect who, unlike many of his contemporaries, never saw the need to disconnect himself from the past. He referred, however, to the history of ideas, not to the history of styles. Looking for the basis of his thoughts and creativity in classical sources, he did not repeat certain forms, figures, and rigid functional schemes. Still, he focused on the issue of order within architecture.”

[rationalistarchitecture]

Versa Architecture

Housing Building, Brussels, Belgium

This housing project faces a small public space. The vertical windows and horizontal articulation provide an appropriate and dignified urban response. 

The facade is slightly faceted which seems to reduce the apparent scale of the elevation but also to subjugate the building itself in favour of its role as part of the urban fabric.

Canopies mark the entrances - one is formed by a balcony and the other runs counter to the geometry of the building, subtly highlighting its faceted nature.

On the top storey the rythym of the regular windows is dirsupted by a larger opening to a corner balcony.

[ofhouses]

866. Luigi Snozzi /// Barbarossa House /// Minusio, Switzerland /// 1985-87

OfHouses presents Heroes V: Luigi Snozzi. (Source: Luigi Snozzi, ‘Buildings And Projects 1958-1993′, Lugano: ADV, 1994.)

[rationalistarchitecture]

Kees Kaan and Felix Claus once described their endeavour as the desire to breach the barrier between low practice and high theory, between architecture that serves its immediate purpose and architecture that addresses itself, over the heads of the users, to fellow-architects and critics

Hard and Soft, Hans Ibelings, an essay in ‘Claus en Kaan, Building, NAi Publishers,.’

[rationalistarchitecture]

Meier Unger Architekten

House Erler, Fockendorf, Germany, 2020

This village house, along with an outbuilding and carport forms a small ensemble focused on a central courtyard. This space is analogous to an informal village square and the design of the house addresses it in a direct and appropriate way. Through its symmetry, articulation and relief the facade is forming as much a facade to the courtyard as to the house. The abstracted columns and lintel mark the transition between inside and out and suggest an almost civic relationship between exterior and interior.

[rationalistarchitecture]

...the heroic modernists held to represent progressive values and technological innovation are, in energy terms, the very last models we should be emulating.

Barnabas Calder (in conversation with Daniel A Barber), Limit and Licence, Architecture Today

[rationalistarchitecture]

Carles Oliver, Alfonso Reina, Antonio Martìn, Xim Moyà and Mª Antònia Garcìas

Social Dwellings. Palma de Mallorca, Spain, 2020

Following on from a post on the Perraudin Architecture social housing project this is another modest project built from load bearing stone structure.  Situated in a relatively poor area of Palma this project consists of five dwellings and is constructed from the local sandstone - a material once eschewed for the ubiquitous concrete. 

In contrast to the massive stone construction of the french project the walls in this case consist of two layers of stone with insulation in the cavity for thermal comfort. The stark interiors are a product of the budget but they also remind us of the sustainability and elemental nature of the construction.