Sit ea A&P Smithson the ideal house is that which ono can make one’s own without altering anything. fake one’s own in the usual way, that is thin the limits of the fashion of the time, and without feeling any pressure either to ‘communicate one’s trivial uniqueness or to absurdly conform, That this is possible scarcely needs demonstrating in England, The most casual walk in Kensington or Bath . . .a look through open doors into an elegant hall or 2 Jaocoan of rusting prams ... the sounds floating out of upper windows... lights ‘onto lined curtains or the old 40 watt bulb ‘over a pensioners’ tea ... the smell of flowers, or old fat, or cats. The richness of the mix within an apparently static format is incredible The search for a style which can match this ideal has been the floating centre of our design effort — certainly since the mid-Economist years and explains the inulling-over of the Eames House and our Close-watching ofthe gradually evolving sublly modulated facades of late Mies. ‘What we would seem to be looking for is the gentlest of styles, which whilst still giving an adumbration of the measures of internal events and structures (rooms, activities, servicing arrangements, supports), leaves itself open to — even suggests interpretation, without itself being changed. That style should be a problem for us means that we have accepted at another level that ‘Aion and Pater Seithaon: Gorn Sze Sher — and 1929 Stockton on Tees. Both studied at Durham University, sot up in private practice when articles and Buildings by er apne “Houses in Priory Walk, London Mies van der Rohe buildings built in 1960. house designed by Mies van der Rohe on the °860" module ‘on 9/50GNS OF OCCURANGH: Inner court of the palace at Split (Yugoslavia), an adequate general format for ‘house’ or ‘office” has been evolved, that there is asit were & word in the form-language of architecture that can serve, For style isa special flavour of form-language, and itis form-language that is fundamental to architecture. A word which is solidly established in form language can help one to recognise self — and, at a practical level, it can tell one what a thing is and how itis to be used. For the Roman, for example, the portico, helped him to recognise the Romanness and at the same time it was sign for door-through-which-many-people (ora few important personages) are-expected-to-pass ithelped him to find his way around, The words ofa form language, in this case the word ‘portico’, are inventions; the evolution of the language not the work of a Palladio’s Villa Rotunda, outside Vicenza particular person but of whole period. In our period we can recognise certain needs that have been with us for years, and can reasonably be assumed to be a permanent aspect of our life, for which no appropriate forms have been invented. For example, the need for forms of building that ean keep out noise and cars from living places that are better off without them. In Disneyland, or Port Grimaud, they have no problems with this. At Port Grimaud, a continuous building face with only two arched gateways (with policemen) int. That wall of building says private, peaceful inside. ‘The arched gates say too small for articulated truck, traffic not encouraged. The idea of closed and gated town is easly read, The past form-language used is an instant communicator. The past style All photographs, unles othervise credited, by P. Smithson, (Provencal) engages a pleasant nostalgia In both Disneyland and Port Grimaud, streets widen at shops or levees, views are indicated by openings between buildings. ‘The form-language springs from an accepted notion of pleasurable use, the style from a real past — they are not pastiche. Today there are many now-seendiferently old.usages (fr to deliberately exclude traffic {snot the same as not having any), and there is also a whole mass of new usages for which Obviously no traditional formlanguage exists ‘or any previous styles, For example, what ate the pleasures and the appropriate format forthe journey from car park to supermart? the journey from garage to house or office? the Journey from carlo to terminal building’ the journey from underground railway station to office in the intensely used old city centres? > Fort Grimaud & the refound bond between Rouse and boat, stone and water, As of ody the ancient Toof tes ate reflected inthe smoodh waters of the als Each house ts open to both land and Water Gone ian: on he othe, our pate jy ona canal or on the conte lake where Your moored boat avatts you, extending the howe and Completing it the promise of endless exape and savente “At Port Grimaud, as in Venice, water fal around, you. The canals each fo the heart of the ay. Siovement is anely by’ boat, but electte motors have replaced the ferymen of old, sending the boats gliding nokselesty across the lagoon. ‘Several windmills, similar to those whose sis Saco thned on the filo Geumaude pump the Staers through the lagoon keeping them clear and limpid Areal Provencal village awaits you, with its shady squares playing fountains and lowering gardens Cook narow streets it by od gas amps invite Iesuely stroll their pence nd eal safeguarded by the absence of motor vehicles Which must be Tein the car parka the entrance €o the wage.” Publicity handoutVill Savoie, Possy, but by Le Corbusier between 1929 and 1931 ‘The house of Le Corbusier at Garches, or his truly named Maison des Heures Claires at Poissy; Mies’ staggeringly opulent Barcelona Pavilion, or his Tugendhiat House at Brno; were the Villa Rotundss of their time. (Gté de Refuge, Paris, as Bult by Le Corbusier between 1939 ind 1933. ‘One of the few to talk in terms of the form-language of the heroic period of moder architecture, both as indicator and as enhancer of everyday use, was Rex Martienssen. Of Le Corbusier's Salvation ‘Anmy building (La Cité de Refuge) in Paris he says: “The purpose of a Refuge’ involves a continuously changing population: tis at one andthe same’ time # monument, focal pint and an hotel We fre not concerned at present withthe general ‘Working arrangement bat in the approach ‘ements gateway, porch, badge, ve STTpraded succesion of eacloning o ), there ‘Mages that may be categorised as Constric vist. ‘The whole scheme, entrance, distribution, dormitories dining rooms, workshops stands out {rom its drab surmounding® with crystalline panty and the ‘monument attribute established in 2 werful yet elemental geometry. By the very ature of Ws treatment. withthe broad South-acing facade of fight andthe vigorous palychromy of he tll entzance porch, the Se Refuge Recomes focal posnt for those whom i ‘Welcomes The multiple requsements are cxacly Sajusted to an extremely unpromasing st. The Bulk accommodation stands out boldly and clearly insimple forms, but the approach ~ the adequate ison between the inhosplable steet and Ultimate protection ~ is achieved with greater complexity, with judgment and sensibility Finding s # fies satisfaction on the hyperpractical lane This graded approach is visually penetrable from the steet and provides wanstion whose change of direction an clastity of volume ae capable of inducing + high degre of senuble experince. The gateway of ware mesh encloses but does not obscure a small forecourt from which a short Might Ot steps carries one toa lofty. partially open porch of strictly cubic intention, whence a change in Section brings one, ata higher level, across bridgeway Co the circular vestibule. JE A description is necesarily inadequate to convey what are esteatally expenences of movement aad ive to compare such» the more common Blunt entry into an isolated volume without tapaon our wn tne. The Egan Greeks ind Romans were meticulous in providing fr small ‘works an ample zone of adjustment (Consteactvomy amd Architects, Sough African Architectural Record, buy 1941; 263). talk of wire mesh in this way as one would of a 17th Century bronze screen if a Cairo Mosque might seem ludicrous, but in fact What is described is what it really di Le Corbusier’ sensibility raised it from a necessity into architecture, into one of the pleasures of use, In any real architecture a visual description such as that made by Martienssen for the Cité de Refuge ofa Sequence of “preparations for entry’ could be matched by a description of the same sequence by the guided hand, or by a description of the experience of the way trodden by the foot, For the whole body is involved, Architects generally have allowed their sensibilities to become so far decayed that even a ‘Recreation Centre for the blind” is a conventional building, conventionally detailed, when even the stupidest person one ‘would suppose could imagine that for the blinds’ exceptionally developed sensory faculties a building specially pleasurable to those faculties could have been offered, even, if it was a little shocking to them at first, as the impact of the interior of a great barn is to the sighted. Detail of the timber screen encasing the hostel at St, Hilda's College, Oxford, designed by Alison and Peter Smithson, 1967-70. That we should accept that the things we are likely to touch should be pre-smoothed by human hand as it were, that things near to us should be flawless and undisturbing, pretty, that all materials and their ing should indicate and enhance use ms reasonable. For example, in a cold mate the things we intend people to handle should be warm, and things we would like people to keep off cold. The reverse in a warm climate. And of course with the control of air-temperature and air-movement a whole new source of possibilities for statement and indication are offered, Of course itis difficult for us to allow ‘ourselves to think like this, for the Modern Movement as a movement was puritanical — equating the hard with the good —and it ‘was committed to attitudes which because of the force of the founders we find difficult and unnatural and shake off, For example the Modern Movement was ‘committed to solving the problems of the ‘many, it accepted the idea of standardisation to the produce the numbers that ‘mass-production demanded; for them only ‘mass-production — then also in its heroic phase — could solve the problems of the many. That with standardisation a eertain sticulateness, imprecision, and even inconvenience could be involved they accepted for the greater good and because, more importantly to them then, standardisation really spoke of Fesprit Today no intellectual case for standardisation as such can be made, and ‘what it usually communicates is indifference —a kind of indolence. For machine processes can now make to the profiles and {to the degree of smoothness or hardness that use requires rather than needing to match. production processes, ‘That the degree of finish could tellus things was already spelled out in the early "50s by Le Corbusier's Unité at Marseilles with its ‘Container (rough — the urban framework), and the ‘contained”(welLfinished — the hhouse-ell)- and in Chicago by Mies van der Rohe's 860 Lake Shore Drive with its understated public face, and with places one ‘ean make one’s own inside. > Details of Mies van det Rohe’s Colonnade ‘Apartments, New dersey, 1959,Not that we in this way whe: through Disneyland and which are so unashamedly ple indicating forms that one suddenly b+ think of the language of present day atehitecture as a pretty inarticulate a To pursue Port Grimaud Much of the form-lang Grimaud is not available to us because the underlying uses cannot survive outside the very artificial circumstances ofa rich man’s play town, For example, the articulation of the street pattern, its shaping and enlivening with small shops and cafés with appropriate widenings of the largely vehicleless wall-to-wall streets cannot be transposed. ‘Those shops and cafés serve the many tourists, and the resident population is also there to enjoy itself ~ and to buy at smart shops and eat in expensive cafés is part o summer enjoyment. Those things are special to the situation, Those shops flourish. In the circumstances of ordinary urban housing the number of small shops is few cafés fewer. In fact, the whole marketing. trend of the industrialised countries is towards larger and fewer shops, for ease of delivery and so on — for marketing reasons. Larger and fewer means big-vehicle served and acres of customer car-parking. The average supermart is as enjoyable as the average tractor-parts factory, therefore Where there is real affluence the small shop reinvents itself as a delicatessen or speciality shop, but as far as England is concerned this degree of afiluence affects very few. For the many there are inevitably yards and yards of ‘just houses’ with no ready-made easy means With which to articulate, to enliven, it But this should not frighten us. There are few ‘comer-shops’ in Bath, but many hhundreds of yards of ‘justhouses’ as livable and relaxed as any where and this is achieved through a rich and flexible form-language entirely based on the use ‘house street/service street/service service buildings/gardens/houses’ ground. ‘As the builders of Bath decided that the terrace house form would work for them, we think that for city housing the streetdeck Format will serve us It is, we feel, a solidly established form capable of being articulated through its sub-forms towards a liveable and relaxed ‘ideal-house What we have tried to do in the development of the basic idea (connected street-decks giving choice of approach, choice of Companions; clearly stated groups of for mutual social support; ‘door-steps’ to protect and identify 96Eames says fait the objects we have seen and admired duing ‘ur visit to India the Lota, the simple vessel of tverylay se, stand oot perhaps the greatest the most beautiful ~ the vilage wornen have a process which, with the use of tamarind and ah, ach day turn this bras into gold. But how would one go about designing 2 Lota? First one would have to shut out all preconceived ideas on the subject and then begin 0 consider factor after factor ‘The optimum amount of liquid tobe fetched, Carried, poured, and stored in prescribed set of, ‘The sizeof strenth and gender ofthe hands (it hands) that would manipulate i ‘The way it sto be transported — head, hip, hand, basket, orca ‘The balance, the centre of gravity, when empty, when full, balance when rotated for pouring ‘The Muld dynamics of the problem not only when pouting, but when filing and cleaning, and under ‘he complicated mations of head earsying slow nd fasts Is sculpture ast fits the palm of the hand, the une of the hip, Its sculpture 2s complement t9 the ‘of walking ora static pose a the wel fhmic motion “The relation of opening to volume in terms of storage uses — and objects other than liquid. ‘The sizeof the opening and inner contour in terms of cleaning, “The texture inside and out in terms of cleaning and feeling. eat transfer — can it be grasped if the quid is hot! How pleasant does it eel, eyes closed, eyes open? How pleasant doos i sound when it strikes another ‘este isset down on ground or stone, empty or Fall ~ or being poured into? Whats the possible material? Whats its costin terms of working? Whatis its cost in terms of ultimate service? What kind of an investment does the material, provide, as product as salvage? How will the material affect the contents ete. et? How wilt look asthe sun reflects off its surface? How does it feet to posses it, to sellit, to ive i? ++ no one man designed the Lota, but many men ‘over many generations. Many individuals ‘oprosented in ther awn Way through something they may have added or may have zemoved, oF through some quality of Which they are particularly avare.* Interpreting Eames ~ form-language sets-up ‘a dialogue between object and user. The object suggests how it can be used, the user responds by using it well — the object improves; or itis used badly ~ the object is degraded, the dialogue ceases. SPart of an extract pubithed In Avchliecmal Design, September £586 97 aDem2 Tran of course revive for there isa secret and permanent life in things intensely made that can come alive for other uses, other generations — even when the damage is extremely severe; even when only a ruin or a fragment is left. But in its first period of life if iis to establish what it has in it, the object must have love, or at least, regard. ay eat To evolve a formlanguage for the architecture of an industrialised socity on a basis of the pleasures of common use is of course perfectly possible. In the heroic period J. J. P. Oud’s ‘De Kiefhoele in Rotterdam, an ordinary municipal housing estate, was built from the bottom up with a love that is stil shiningly obvious. Every bit of wood and length of tube is a8 deliberately shaped and placed as any in the old houses of Leyden or Gouda. Each change of road width, every set-back is made to speak of use. Yet, in our terms, ‘De Kiethoek’ is mass-housing on the smallest budget Oud built within the common technology of his time, for the social ethos of his time surely the facing up to the invention of a form-language of common use and the pleasures of common use for our period cannot be any more difficult than it was for Oud, ° September 1969: revised February/March 1970