Monday, January 21, 2008

Notes on Pavilions and Geometry

This is a brief, very brief discussion about the history and the idea of the pavilion.

It does begin with Vitruvius when he outlines the Idea from which the temple arrises.

"They lay down entire trees flat on the ground to the right and the left, leaving between them a space to suit the length of the trees, and then place above these another pair of trees, resting on the ends of the former and at right angles with them. These four trees enclose the space for the dwelling. Then upon these they place sticks of timber, one after the other on the four sides, crossing each other at the angles, and so, proceeding with their walls of trees laid perpendicularly above the lowest, they build up high towers. The interstices, which are left on account of the thickness of the building material, are stopped up with chips and mud. As for the roofs, by cutting away the ends of the crossbeams and making them converge gradually as they lay them across, they bring them up to the top from the four sides in the shape of a pyramid"(II,1,4).

In a sense, this was a kind of Platonic Idea. Architecture copies the essence of nature in her Ideality.
The issue of the primitive hut marks most of 18th and 19th century debate about origins of architecture and the problem with mimesis (that is, immitation of the classical tradition).

The classical reference here is Laugier's, from Essai sur l'architecture.


Other theorists during the 18th century, added their versions, Claude Perrault, for example. During the 19th Century thought, a new range of thought exploded the pavilion crossdifferent paradigms and models of organization. Viollet le duc argued for a logical system of construction, noting that the shapr or the final result is the product of a series of operations and material intelligencen, not some top down form imposed by Nature. Semper argued along similar lines but in different terms, noting the the calculus of the emergence of form, which suggests that the architectural product is the result of a series of forces and indeed that the origina of architecture canbe fouind in the funcitons of weaving, stereotomy, etc. All of which were embodied in the primitive hut.


In the history of architecture, we have as it were , one of the most important but useless buildings for the discussion of the origin of architecture. The primitive hut is really a pavilion, which serves no particular purpose, and yet, presumably, is the origin, the model, for the logic of architecture. It is no wonder then that many of the most interesting and contemporary models that are experimental find their best expression in the pavilion.

In terms of Mies's pavilion, there were a couple of things that i wanted to reiterate. One was the rationalism of the cruciform column, the other was the way in which that column disappears becaukse of the steel chrome casing. But there is also the question of the spatial model, which explodes the classical vitruvian tradition of the primitive hut.








Since then, there have been countless designs and experiments for pavilions, the affects and geometrical and spatial logic of which are quite different.

One of the most interesting in terms of program is Tschumi's parc de la vilette





Ito's Brugge Pavilion


There is also Ito's collaboration with Balmond on the Serpetine Pavilion


There is also Acconci's pavilion in the Mur