Four unpublished drawings by Mies van der Rohe A commentary KURT W. FORSTER ‘The drawings in figures 1 and 2 lustate Mies van der Rohe's concept of structure as predicated on regularly spaced supports—here in the shape of cruciform posts—connecting floor and ceiling." Together, the reticulation of this geometric forest of posts and the dimensions of the floor and ceiling slabs articulate a specific architectural idea, not just neutral ‘elements of a system ‘Much like the structure of the mature Brunelleschi's Santo Spirito in Florence, Mies's reticulation of suppots has no abvious limits. The forest of columns can be imagined as infinite, allowing one spatial cell to exterd ino the next, and s0 on, into infinity. Ifone thinks of this forest of columns as a cellular ordering of space, then every volume larger than a single call will necessaily be created by the elimination of columns, This 1s precisely what Brunelleschi did at Santo Spirto, where nave and transept are opened up by the removal of two rows of columns, and Mies did it in order to obtain lerger volumes (note the elimination of six columns in the lower left comer of figure 1, where a walled courtyard is envisaged). This modus operandi suggests that, for Mies, the openness of nature is of limitless height, whereas architectural spaces are always defined by floor and ceiling. As a simple analogy, one might suggest an ice cream sardwich: a volume held between two thin parallel wafers. Perhaps the clearest proposition of this concept of space takes shape in Mies's Farnsworth House of 1946-1951, completely free, asi is, of internal posts Hf nature's space is predominantly vertical, architecturally defined volume is horizontal: divided, bounded, and measured by posts and walls, Mies thereby thinks of space in terms of its etymological ‘001, as spatium of room, as that which is between things, the result of a clearing. In a brief note, written in 1983, Mies declared that “now we are able to order space freely, to open it up and connect it to the landscape. Now it is evident again what are walls and 1. The four drawings hee published forthe fst He ae part oa castoffourten assocated withthe Hubbe house projec inthe Collection ofthe ArcHives cf the History of A, The Gey Cester for the History of At and the Humaritis, Santa Mona, apertures, whet are floors and ceiings.”? Two years earlier he had narrowed the artistic essence of architecture to “the proportions among objects" (ibid., ». 375). The German version— Proportionen zwischen den Dingen —lays stress on the notion of a space, a clearing between two things, and Mies immediately qualifies this space as “essentially immaterial, or spiritual.” Space, then, is created not oniy by clearing solids but by abolishing even the notion of space as a primarily physical quantity. It reveals itseli as 2 Lebensraum rather than merely a Hohlraum (hollow space). Mies concluded his arguments in '931 with a sudden leap from philosophic to economic consi ‘zations. Keenly aware of the rigors imposed by the Depression, he put the highest store on something that in fact costs nothing: “tven in a time of material eprivation, we need not, and cannot, renounce this richness (of space).” The richness and splendor of a building ace to result from what falls between ts material definitions and enclosures. ‘patio turns into an alcove, an open view—like the \ista over the Elbe River as seen from the Hubbe house (fig. 3)—into a picture, all of which acquire spatial ‘depth and meesure when they are approached through architecturally defined volumes. Figure 2 includes 2 sketchy elevation of a project that is sill very much in flux. But its constitutive elements could not be more explicit: two walls enclose two volumes —to the left, a patio; to the right, a dining area—and between them the largest habitable volume reveals is presence through a wide interval of glass. The oculus in the wall to the right comesponds in shape to the circular dining table (indicated in the plan above). The round table centers an activity. Mies frequently reserved this shape for this purpose, as in the dining alcove of the Tugendhat house in Brno. Finally, our elevation indicates @ roof slab as a distinct horizontal layer 2. As reprinted in Friz Neumeyer, Mes van der Rohe: Das sansose Wor, Bein, 1986, p-478 fauhorswansiation) 3. bid, p. 375 4 bi, 5. i,66 RES 16 AUTUMN 88 Fee 1 and 2. Propartry scien nines pes psy erty ag ofthe FHitbe hana in Mapdebarp, poly md-1230, Pan cr ding paper. 74 12 Inches, Santa Moni, Te Gay Contr the Hist of andthe rane, Arches,arse Four urpublted drawings by Mis van dor Rohe 7 ‘guts 3 an 4. Two etches or the Hubbe house wit views lhe Elbe and st 1935. Fen and mk on dating pace, BY > 12 ree. Santa Mona, The ety Cente forthe History of tan! te Hamarites, Aches, 880205.RIS 16 AUTUMN @® ‘extending only two-thirds ofthe ene id, leaving the patio to the let uncovered “This small sketch speaks wth eracrdinary cary of three ciferet spaces (1 he fly enclosed inner space ‘ofthe ding area; (2) the wide-open volure ofthe antl living aea, punctuated by regularly spaced posts and bounded by a set of shifting walls; and (3) the patio as an architecttaly incomplete and vague space, half nature in open vertical), half ui in it bounding walls and paved loo, In many other shetches Mies liked to inser figures inno open Spatial intervals, aed res ino patios and beyond the building sie, lustating thereby how stationary and mobile forms of ie ishabit the wll of Iie spaces powerul image comes 10 mind: Alero Giacometts man walking between two untenanted boxlke contains, momentatily visible as he moves ‘fom one enclosure to another: Figurine ene deue Doites qu sont des maison, cast 9 1950 ti. 5). Mles actualy designed such a vir-box house with 2 Connecting wansparet volume in 1938.° Tho image of the vacant volume weld nat be complete without a mention ofthe famous photograph taken at alos ‘vac the same time as Giacomet fashioned his Figurine, in which Mies, seen from the hock, stands in ‘tonto the emp tel frame ofthe Farnswesth house: the vercaly of man under the open sky and the ‘Ycant horizontal volume of space, consisting a this Mie of “creeially tnmateria thing ating Newser Me Rey, ion oe, Wen Fee 5. Abao Gace, Seaver Two Hous, 1950 Stone and gs, 20 nce long. Pate collection, Par. Fon ‘Aber Ciacmea, Museu o Mosein Ar, New Yo, 1965, p58. By pension)