The next step was to create an indexical sequence which allowed me to expand on the organizing principles I discovered in my formal analysis. This was hand drawn and then rendered in Rhino.
I found that the irregular terrace compared to the regular rooms create two overlapping grids, one orthogonal and the other curvilinear. These two conflicting grids is what made the Sea Lane House interesting. I based my indexical sequence off of this idea.
In my indexical I expanded and multiplied the L forms of the precedent house both vertically and horizontally. This was used as a guide for the horizontal lines surrounding the forms creating a orthogonal grid. The curvilinear lines that form the other grid are vertical and are also based off the rectangular forms. These two intersecting grids were generated in the second diagram but then multiplied in the third.
The first step was to take the original Sea Lane House and formally analyze it using the ordering principles of architecture. This was first hand drawn on trace paper and later rendered on Rhino and illustrator.
The first principle I noticed were the two axes that run both vertically and horizontally in the L-shaped plan. These create two directional elements guiding the organization in the house. There is also a third axis on the plan that is created by the hallway. This is a clear path that separates both the communal and private spheres of the house.
The plan also uses a 9-square arrangement. However, because of the intersection of the two bars, the center of the 9-squares is shifted into the top left corner. The 9-Squares form a grid organizing the house into different adjacent but separate spaces.
When analyzing I also noticed the geometry and proportion of the house. Many rooms are equal in both size and shape. The letters (A,B,C) represent the same dimensions of a room in the diagram. For example in the bedrooms there are 4 rooms that are the same size, separated by a smaller bathroom. The dining and living room, represented by letter B, are also the same dimensions. This systematic way of organizing creates regularity in the Sea Lane House.
The irregular terrace also displaces the center because of its hierarchal nature. Instead of the center being where the two wings intersect it is relocated to the terrace.
This plan is highly symmetrical without the terrace. When the two wings are split in the center the rooms are balanced on either side. This creates a predictable plan.
There are two spheres in which the Sea Lane House is organized. There is the private or the solid sphere and the public or void sphere. The private sphere consists of all the bedrooms whereas the public sphere is the living and dining room. The public sphere is considered void because of the limited seperation and parti’s and its openness to the outside terrace and environment, whereas the private sphere has confined closed off rooms.
This is the Breuer house I chose to work on for the rest of the semester.
Front Facade
Front Elevation
Facade View
Terrace View
Side Elevation
The Sea Lane House is the only building in britain designed by renowned FRS Yorke and Marcel Breuer. It was constructed in 1937 with a T-shaped floor plan. The long wing forming the stem of the T contains six bedrooms that take full advantage of the ocean view. Due to its 50 meter proximity to the ocean, orientation was a key factor in its design. It’s most innovative feature is that the entire bedroom wing stands on concrete columns that ensures a ocean view from all bedrooms. The graceful curving sun terrace also provides a ocean view and breaks up the rigid rectilinear modern style of the main base of the house. This marks the shift from Breuer’s modern approach to a more expressive style.
There are two spheres to this house. The ground floor provides a service area. It contains a maid’s room, utility room, two garages, a kitchen, and storage spaces. While all the bedrooms and living spaces are located upstairs. Because it is a vacation home there is a distinct separation of the working corridors from the relaxing and living areas. It was designed so that the service world had little interactions with the inhabitants upstairs.
The first floor includes a open fireplace and a dining room with full access to the sun terrace and garden. The two bathrooms, that lay adjacent to each other, are centered between the six bedrooms. All the rooms are perfectly rectangular feeding to its modern and simplistic form of the entirety of the house.
The entrance way does not lead to the ground floor (where the house workers reside) but rather to the first floor. The entrance is marked by a staircase that is conveniently located next to the garage providing little walking distance for the owners.
This house is highly organized in plan, with two distinct wings, one a sleeping area and the other a living and dining area. This was often seen in Breuers designs. The dining and living area are equal in size and shape adding to the precision of layout. Bedrooms 2, 3, 4, and the dressing area all share similar closet spaces and layouts. Rectangular forms are a repetitive pattern and are seen in every aspect of the house except for the columns and sun terrace.
The two story house is built with 11 inch brick walls. The bedroom wing is supported by reinforced concrete columns and floors. A continuous reinforced concrete beam runs around and encases the window openings. The entire house, including the stairs, is painted with a thick layer of white adding to the purist and minimalist modern look.
The house sits on a corner plot of land comfortably surround by a garden and large lawn adding to the relaxing and vacation atmosphere. The gardens generate a barrier to the outside world creating an illusion of seclusion. Where the lawn meets the house there are rectangular pathways of concrete that create a clean line that is repeated in the structure of the house.
Both the inside and outside of the house reflect the modern simplistic design of crisp straight lines. When proceeding from the outside to the inside the organization of the layout is expected, rectangular shaped rooms with similar sizes. On the elevation facing the ocean The windows are large but symmetrical following a predictable pattern. However on the opposite elevation there are clearstory windows located at the top. This was done on purpose because when ascending the stairs to enter the first floor, large windows on that wall would provide a intimate view of the inside to all the bedrooms. However, this is the only elevation that has clearstory windows as the other sides have vast windows to take in the view.
The house sits atop of concrete which is surrounded by grassy lawn. The bedroom wing that is supported by columns creates a roof entry way to the main garage. The roof has no apex and strictly consists of a continuous horizontal line. The windows on the ground floor, which are unable to see the ocean view, have no visibility but allow light to filter in.
Overall the sea lane house is an excellent example of a 20th century modern Architecture. The space serves its purpose as a family vacation home that reaps the benefits of its ocean view. But no one says it better than Breur who stated in an article published in the 1930’s that its “a seaside house for contemporary living… that owes… nothing to period mannerisms”.
Finally, in 1959 a Beach House Project was rendered by Venturi. This house echoed the guiding principles of what Venturi believed architecture should represent whether in his own work of the Venturi house or in Le Corbusier’s design of the postmodern Villa Savoye.
Because of the ocean’s proximity to the beach house, location and orientation play an important role in how its’ design functions. Thehouse’s architecture is simple based on the expectation that the residents will spend most of their time outside. When inside, the house’s design also reflects minimalism so as not to distract from the beauty of the beach.
There is a terrace on the front facade to maximize access to beach views. Similarly to the Venturi house, there are many different sized windows on the back facade. The two houses also share a dominant chimney. In the beach house, the chimney is vertically aligned to the doorway and rises high compared to the relative height of the house. Both the chimney and the back facade pronounce this building as a house.
Venturi designed this keeping in mind that he wanted only two prominent elevations, the front and the back. The sides are negligible, with no windows or defining features. The front differs dramatically from the back to emphasize the direction towards the ocean.
Like the Villa Savoye, the house also stands on thin beams giving it a floating effect which highlights its’ purpose as a beach house with close proximity to the water. Also similarly to the Villa Savoye, asymmetrical proportions are displayed on the exterior frame.
The chimney, for example, is off center. It also divides the roof, breaking it off at the highest point and creating the tension which Venturi keeps referring to. When you look at the roof your eye is usually directed to the apex, but the sudden intrusion of the chimney right above the doorway creates a more complex unexpected composition.
While the interior space is not elaborated on because the house was never actually constructed, the plan shows mostly open space with the largest area acting as the focal point facing the terrace looking out to the ocean.
Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye provides an entire accumulation of contradictions. Essentially, Le Corbusier’s plan of the Villa Savoye exemplifies crowded intricacies within a rigid frame. If we look at Villa Savoye from the outside, we can see thin beams supporting the box like structure.
This structure features a horizontal glass panel which encompasses the whole building. Irregular circular shaped structures lie on top of the geometrical box that forms the main body.
While the top structures on the exterior are the only hybrid forms that appear, the plan of the villa clearly shows asymmetry, flexibility, and most noticeably a ramp. The ramp rises straight ahead along the main axis of the building to the upper levels.
The ramp emerges on the first floor, the main living level of the house where the most formal and public spaces are situated. They stand around a roof terrace concealed from the exterior by a uniform strip window without glass. This catches the sun at any time during the day, which allows the house to be filled with light.
To the left of the ramp is a spiral staircase linking the servant zone to the world above. This architectural choice speaks to the hierarchy and the social relevance of the design. The servants are in a separate sphere than the owners of the house.
The top part of the villa savoye directs the eye towards an active dialogue with the sky, it is not a rigid straight roof. As a matter of fact, if you look at the Villa Savoye from above, you can observe that this structure on the top is not merely decorative but also functional. The two arched niches with the wall between encompass a space used by the owners. This space is connected to an interior staircase which leads to a sitting area that lacks a roof.
The spiral staircase and the curving structure located at the top of the building juxtaposes the rigid rectangular lines found in the main body of the building. Without these elements it would not have the contradiction Venturi looks for in Architecture.
The Venturi House was built by Venturi for his mother. This house recognizes complexities and contradictions. It is both “complex and simple, open and closed, big and little.” It achieves the difficult task of unifying such diverse parts.
When looking at the front facade of the Venturi house, it acts as a billboard for the nature of the building. The triangular roof clearly advertises this building as a home. Although the outside seems simple at first glance, a second look reveals complexities in the deceivingly minimalist design on both the outside and the inside. Widely considered to be the first postmodernist house, the Venturi house displays nonfunctional, even historical elements such as the arch motif – clearly breaking another modernist principle.
If we look at the interior, tension is centralized in the core of the house where the fireplace, the chimney, and the stair all compete for a dominant position. On one side, the fireplace and chimney distort in shape and shift in location, while on the other side the staircase constricts in width distorting the path.
We can clearly see that tension is a preference of Venturi, he says that “contradictory relationships express tension and give vitality. A valid architecture evokes many levels of meaning; its space and its elements become readable and workable in several ways at once”, so his manipulation of space is deliberate in order to achieve this meaningful relationship.
The architectural complexities and distortions inside are reflected on the seemingly simple outside. The varying locations, sizes, and shapes of the windows, as well as the off center location of the chimney, contradict the overall symmetry of the outside form and speak to the dynamic composition of the interior.
Venturi says; “I like elements which are hybrid rather than pure, compromising rather than clean, distorted rather than straightforward, ambiguous rather than articulated, perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as interesting”.
This is also reflected in the fact that it is a little house with oversized elements. For example the fireplace in considered too big and the mantel too high in relative proportion to the size of the room.
In back, the lunette window is big and dominating in shape and position. In front, the entrance is wide, high, and central. Its’ big size is emphasized by the contrast with the other smaller doors and windows.
The setting of the house is a flat open interior site, enclosed by trees. The house sits in the center with no foliage. Within its setting, the abstract composition of this building almost equally combines rectangular, diagonal, and curving elements in a balanced, interactive, dialogue.
When we look at the post modern complex design of the Venturi house, we can clearly see why Venturi argues for the post modern. The postmodern juxtaposition of elements challenges the eye with its’ contradictions and gives “meaning, vitality, and validity” to architecture.
As a group we analyzed Venturi and his guiding principles in which he created his revolutionary post modernist structures. He outlined his ideals and projects in his manifesto Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture.
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture was written by Robert Venturi as a criticism of modern architecture and an explanation of his views on the postmodernist movement.
Modern architects like Le Corbusier and Robert Venturi were critical of the social and urban effects of these designs, which is why they decided to critique it and to search for an architectural language that might overcome Modernism.
Taking into consideration the complexity achieved in past architectural designs, Venturi believed that the modernist movement in its attempt to break from tradition and start fresh, failed to maintain the intricacy in architecture. Therefore, in Venturi’s Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture he expounds on the reasons why the postmodernist movement revives this complexity in design.
Venturi demonstrates, through various designs, why he advocates the post modernist movement which attempts to include various requirements and their juxtapositions rather than the modernist approach of exclusion and separation.
We will highlight a selection of these buildings from Venturi’s book in an attempt to display his argument. These buildings include the (both-and) concept. This means that they embody contradiction and complexity in several ways, like the juxtaposition of a complex interior and a simple exterior, or the contrast between symmetry and asymmetry in one structure. These paradoxes result in a duality in plan, but create a unified space within the frame of contradiction.
All three houses which Venturi highlights in his book share the elements of complexity and contradiction that he looks for in Postmodern designs. He criticizes the modernist movement and its failure to provoke the eye. The houses he highlights bring forward alternative and new elements used in a complex context which breaks free of the restrictions of modern architecture.
