Mies e a primazia das relações entre espaço, estrutura e fechamento

Abstract

Considering the key role played by the relations between space, structure and closure in the construction of modern form, this paper proposes to examine a set of of Mies van der Rohe’s houses
from its closing plans. Aim is to question how elements of structure and closure are combined to establish different ways of relating inner and outer spaces. We’ll analyze Mies’ façades, synthesizing his different ways of dealing with the resolution of
conflicts between space, structure and closure, in the following houses: the brick houses of the 1920s, such as Erich Wolf (1925-27) and Hermann Lange (1928), in which he eliminates the visible constructive elements by brick walls pierced by metal windows, giving walls the ambiguous value of behaving as massive constructive element and as light curtains; Tugendhat (1929-30) and Gericke (1932), where geometric order and continuous space are conceived independently of the structure; and finally, Farnsworth (1945-50) and Fifty by Fifty (1950-51), where structure imposes itself as an essential and synthetic resolution of architectural form, while space is reduced to absolute emptiness. We seek to investigate how these recurrent architectural themes have crossed his
work and developed over the decades.