In the first half of the 1930s, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began a typological research on the courtyard house, merging previous experiences – constructing with thin steel pillars and organizing of living space – in an original manner and pregnant with potential developments, which would however never find any practical applications. Mies was interested in the topic under various aspects: significantly on the didactic level, when in 1930 – as newly appointed director of the Bauhaus – he assigns the courtyard house as an exercise for the students, who until then had always worked on collective housing; but perhaps, as Iñaki Ábalos suggested, this theoretical speculation, and the rarefied and aristocratic domestic atmosphere which it engenders, also intersects events in his personal life. The contribution we propose presents the first results of an ongoing departmental research, investigating what is perhaps the least studied aspect of Mies’s courtyard houses, namely the relationship between building type and urban form. The few existing drawings of possible aggregations of several units to form an urban fabric seem to be subtended by a very precise idea and specific city, with a very low population density (about 36 inhabitants per hectare, FAR is about 0,26), cut across by natural areas and with a decisive ecological component, intimately linked with the daily living and inward life, perhaps even more than the spectacular and contemplative forms of the villas to come a few years later. The visual simulations give rise to an urban form emblematic of a bridge between the European avant-garde and the suburban vast expanses of the North American territory.

Lebboroni, C., Longobardi, G., Spadafora, G. (2022). The courtyard house: type and urban form. In M.F. M. Caja (a cura di), MIES VAN DER ROHE. THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY Theory and Architecture (pp. 437-443). Padova : Il Poligrafo.

The courtyard house: type and urban form

Camilla Lebboroni;Giovanni Longobardi;Giovanna Spadafora
2022-01-01

Abstract

In the first half of the 1930s, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe began a typological research on the courtyard house, merging previous experiences – constructing with thin steel pillars and organizing of living space – in an original manner and pregnant with potential developments, which would however never find any practical applications. Mies was interested in the topic under various aspects: significantly on the didactic level, when in 1930 – as newly appointed director of the Bauhaus – he assigns the courtyard house as an exercise for the students, who until then had always worked on collective housing; but perhaps, as Iñaki Ábalos suggested, this theoretical speculation, and the rarefied and aristocratic domestic atmosphere which it engenders, also intersects events in his personal life. The contribution we propose presents the first results of an ongoing departmental research, investigating what is perhaps the least studied aspect of Mies’s courtyard houses, namely the relationship between building type and urban form. The few existing drawings of possible aggregations of several units to form an urban fabric seem to be subtended by a very precise idea and specific city, with a very low population density (about 36 inhabitants per hectare, FAR is about 0,26), cut across by natural areas and with a decisive ecological component, intimately linked with the daily living and inward life, perhaps even more than the spectacular and contemplative forms of the villas to come a few years later. The visual simulations give rise to an urban form emblematic of a bridge between the European avant-garde and the suburban vast expanses of the North American territory.
2022
978-88-9387-204-1
Lebboroni, C., Longobardi, G., Spadafora, G. (2022). The courtyard house: type and urban form. In M.F. M. Caja (a cura di), MIES VAN DER ROHE. THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CITY Theory and Architecture (pp. 437-443). Padova : Il Poligrafo.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11590/356856
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