tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3795208825742635713.post1074194104433030384..comments2024-03-27T06:20:06.991+00:00Comments on fantastic journal: Why Do Architects Design Uncomfortable Houses?Charles Hollandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08749776401395551607noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3795208825742635713.post-53454269317816075212008-08-13T09:04:00.000+00:002008-08-13T09:04:00.000+00:00Ah, apologies for the error. I will have to go bac...Ah, apologies for the error. I will have to go back to my Eisenman books and look at the real House X. There is a book on House VI (to give it the correct number) which is written by the clients and is quite interesting in relation to their continued tolerance for Eisenman's design. <BR/><BR/>I've always liked House VI's 'narrative' moments but then I am a literal sort of fella. The attempt to empty architecture of itself and its own history seems somewhat doomed and that's why I liked it when he seemed to give up and re-load it back up with the symbolism of the cut in half bed etc. But I shall look at the project you mention with renewed interest now. Thanks for your comment.Charles Hollandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08749776401395551607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3795208825742635713.post-24817645376367999452008-08-11T22:55:00.000+00:002008-08-11T22:55:00.000+00:00Pedantry alert: The Eisenman house with the upside...Pedantry alert: The Eisenman house with the upside down staircase and the split bed was House VI, not House X. House VI deservedly receives a lot of criticism, basically because of the cliched critique it makes of domesticity - the diagonal axis of symmetry 'deconstructing' the figure-ground relationship, the split bed representing the fractured nature of contemporary society and the family unit (see Eisenman's professed conservatism, possibly a joke), and the column that interrupts the dining table. Eisenman notoriously had the house specifically furnished for the press photography, and then left the academic family who commissioned it alone to make it watertight and habitable (and not likely to kill their young child).<BR/><BR/>The unbuilt House X, on the other hand, is a very interesting essay in formalism, where every formal maneuver in a linear sequence of composition is also decomposed, leaving no formal 'storyline' as it were that could be followed properly from a simple diagram, while enclosing what was actually a fairly useful and comfortable (although we'll never know) series of programmatic spaces. It's perhaps the closest Eisenman ever got to 'deconstruction' philosophically, without getting involved in the cheap intellectual gimmicks that are his stock in trade (post-humanism and all that guff). Effectively, what House X did was enclose a perfectly comfortable american bourgeois domestic arrangement (swimming pool, garage, etc...) in architecture that 'said' nothing of domesticity whatsoever, which is actually quite interesting.Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11658628800390775081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3795208825742635713.post-40980524063296138752008-08-11T10:22:00.000+00:002008-08-11T10:22:00.000+00:00A.P. Yes, if I knew anything about graphic design ...A.P. Yes, if I knew anything about graphic design I would! But I take your point and it links to the idea of function - the role or the definition of function in arts that have for want of a better term a practical aspect. <BR/><BR/><BR/>O.H. I think you are probably right although you could equally say the picturesque and to some extent Arts and Crafts styles were about disguising wealth and modernity behind rustic variation and had far more hierarchical interiors (servant circulation, formal entertaining rooms) within. The opposite of the tendency you mention. Loos' houses though are interesting because although he follows the formal exterior/homely interior split, his interiors are far from straightforwardly comforting or even eccentric. And, of course, he proposed a lot (and built some) non-aristocratic housing. More of that to come though....Charles Hollandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08749776401395551607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3795208825742635713.post-16946559685167525802008-08-10T14:52:00.000+00:002008-08-10T14:52:00.000+00:00The exteriors pursued formal issues of abstraction...<EM>The exteriors pursued formal issues of abstraction and modernity, while the interiors contained the trappings of comfort</EM><BR/><BR/>...of course this is as old as Lord Burlington - the severe exterior with all manner of opulence, luxury and strangeness going on inside, cf Chiswick House, Syon etc etc. The interesting point is how this particular bit of 18th century aristocratic taste doesn't quite transfer to proletarian taste, for all manner of reasons, one of which surely being the crapness of many of aforementioned severe exteriors. (also perhaps old chestnut of the rich and/or old money finding the idea of signifying their riches faintly vulgar, and the poor and/or new money displaying every bit of tat they've got)owen hatherleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943115307136493045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3795208825742635713.post-53503626660132832952008-08-09T12:24:00.000+00:002008-08-09T12:24:00.000+00:00Don't want to carp, as this is a fine post, but th...Don't want to carp, as this is a fine post, but there seems to be something ever so slightly upside down about the last bit. <BR/><BR/>The 'hair-shirt tendency' in British Modernism (name names, go on!) seems to have very little to do with the denial of comfort as such. Even in the most drab and uninspiring of council blocks you have inside spacious, Parker Morris flats which are often decorated according to the aesthetic tastes and prejudices of the tenant. There's no denial of comfort in the interiors at all, no built-in Reitveld chairs or Eisenman-esque <EM>epater les clients</EM> strategies. The obnoxiousness is entirely at the level of the symbolic - how the <EM>exterior</EM> looks, how it relates to the area around and so on - and that doesn't seem to have much to do with comfort, aside perhaps from an aesthetic idea of warmth (rather than actual warmth - the last council flat I lived in had underfloor heating, a wonderful thing, albeit with a tendency to warp vinyl).owen hatherleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943115307136493045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3795208825742635713.post-18275524649991175782008-08-09T06:05:00.000+00:002008-08-09T06:05:00.000+00:00great post. Maybe the second installment of your s...great post. <BR/><BR/>Maybe the second installment of your series could be "Why do Graphic Designers design text that can't be read?"<BR/><BR/>...a social service...not a blog...David Barriehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07114277671238324182noreply@blogger.com