Fundamentals PAGE 187

elements of
architecture

central
pavilion

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 187 11/05/14 11.23

 PAGE 188 elements of architecture

directed by
rem koolhaas

art direction and design

irma boom, ibo

developed with
amo

research and development

stephan trüby

research associate
manfredo di robilant

amo
federico martelli, james westcott
antonio barone, rebecca bego, janna bystrykh,
ben davis, giulia foscari, alice grégoire, caroline
james, sofia koutsenko, brigitta lenz, elizabeth
macwillie, mikel orbegozo, cédric van parys,
stephan petermann, todd reisz, annie wang,
eric williams, sergio zapata

research team
harvard university graduate school of design
cynthia dehlavi, stefan dileo, heather dunbar,
elizabeth eckels, elle gerdeman, andrew gipe,
patrick hamon, see jia ho, jenny hong, kangil ji,
alison kung, will lambeth, jingheng lao, alison
ledwith, difei ma, elizabeth macwillie, arthur liu,
jielu lu, kurt nieminen, tiffany maria obser,
nicholas potts, annie wang, eric williams,
max wong

thanks to
koos bosma, chris carrol, jean-louis
cohen, chris dercon, ekaterina golovatyuk,
bregtje van der haak, hou hanru, richard
ingersoll, sebastien marot, niklas maak, mohsen
mostafavi, charlotte newman, rotor, hans ulrich
obrist, antoine picon, werner sobek, abraham
thomas, ungers archive for architectural studies,
fang zhenning, zus zones urbaines sensibles

the following donors have generously

supported elements of architecture
gieskes-strijbis fonds
akzo nobel
v-a-c foundation
oscar engelbert
zublin
cisco
dress & sommer
schindler
harvard university graduate school of design

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 188 11/05/14 11.23

 Fundamentals PAGE 189

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 189 11/05/14 11.23

 PAGE 190 elements of architecture

“WHILST, O Caesar, your god-like mind “Surrounded as he was by the bodhistattvas possessed of the ten sak-
and genius were engaged in acquir- tis, attended by the chiefs of sura and asuras, garuḑa, yaksas, gand-
ing the dominion of the world, your harvas, pannagas, siddhas, vidyādharas, devas, kinnaras, hosts of ap-
enemies having been all subdued by sarases and in Nārada and other divine sages, Buddha, the Blessed
your unconquerable valour; whilst the One, Teacher, Lord of the World, who abounds in boundless joy and is
citizens were extolling your victories, holy and the purest, was in their midst when Mañjusrī, who was happily
and the conquered nations were await- seated among them, knower of the proper time for the exposition of the
ing your nod; whilst the Roman senate Doctrine, approached Him and asked Him with folded hands: ‘Pray, how
and people, freed from alarm, were en- is the birth of the vāstuśastra and the procedure with regard to the other
joying the benefit of your opinions and allied sciences, the various rules and their application?’”
counsel for their governance; I did not 5th–7th Century CE VĀSTUVIDYĀŚĀSTRA ASCRIBED TO MAÑJUSRĪ
presume, at so unfit a period, to trouble Translation E. W. Marasinghe, 1989
you, thus engaged, with my writings
on Architecture, lest I should have
incurred your displeasure.”
1st Century BCE THE ARCHITEC-
TURE OF MARCUS VITRUVIUS POLLIO
Translation 1826 (Gwilt)
“I heard that ‘roof above
and support below to
take shelter from rain and
wind’, in I Ching, is about
the era of ‘Da Zhuang’;
‘acquiring precise orien-
tation of south and north
when building the capital
city’ in Chou Rites, is a ceremony when the world is in peace. The name of the official
position ‘Gong Gong’ was given in the time of Shun. The official position ‘Da Jiang’ was
started in Han Dynasty. These offices have their responsibilities, and did their jobs. For
the capital city that is a thousand Li in length, and the palace that
has nine levels, the sequence and position of the buildings must “I offer obeisance to Ganesa, to the su-
be considered. The official buildings must be related to each other, preme energy begotten from Adigauri and
and set according to certain sequence. to Sambhu so as to accomplish the object
“To build a house with Dou, Gong and Column to build, must use of the successful completion of writing
compass, rulers, level-meter and ink-line at first. Using a variety of this treatise without any hindrance.“
materials, many buildings are completed. Gathering the workers on 12th Century CE PRASADA
schedule, then build the house that has a wing-like eave. MANDANA OF SUTRADHARA MANDANA
However, the worker’s hands, though dexterous, sometimes make
mistakes. And the administrators are unable to know all about the
technics. They don’t know how to use Cai to measure the building’s
proportion and scale. Some even the size of Dou to as a module to decide other lengths.
Faced with these problems, accumulated and lack inspection, if someone doesn’t have
adequate knowledge about architecture, how can he set new rules?
“The emperor ordered me to write a manual about architecture, and deliver it to be
reviewed. Though I have fished writing this manual, I feel that I have failed to live up to
his expectation, wasting a lot of time and having little contributions. The emperor is fru-
gal, benevolent, and born wise. Under his reign, the country is tranquil and the people
are settled, and everything is kept in order. The offices have capable people, and the
regulations are set. The bad climate like Duke Lu Zhuang’s time exists no more, and the
good climate like Da Yu’s time has revived.
“The emperor has decreed about construction, and consulted someone has little knowl-
edge like me. I looked into the old regulations, and gathered many people’s wisdom. I
set three grades of Gong (work), according to its level of craft need. Amount of labor is
calculated according to different daytime of different seasons. Even the softness of tim-
ber is categorized. Calculate the earthwork according to the distance, so the labor can
be easier to manage. Each issue is listed by category, and set with regulations. Though
I studied hard and thought deeply, the text may not be enough. So I made drawings
according to the regulations, and hope it will help in the future.”
1103 AD YINGZAO FASHI, LIE JIE

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 Fundamentals PAGE 191

“GREAT care ought to be taken, before a building is “Imitation is of so extensive and so varied an import,
begun, of the several parts of the plan and elevation when its relations and effects in all that falls within
of the whole edifice intended to be raised: For three the scope of the faculty of imitating are considered, a
things, according to VITRUVIUS, ought to be con- faculty which is one of the distinctive characteristics
sidered in every fabric, without which no edifice will of man, that ever to have a complete and exhaustive
deserve to be commended; and these are utility or treatise on the subject may well be despaired of.“
convenience, duration and beauty. That work there- 1837 AN ESSAY ON THE NATURE, THE END,
fore cannot be called perfect which should be useful AND THE MEANS OF IMITATION IN THE FINE ARTS
and not durable, or durable and not useful, or having QUATREMÈRE DE QUINCY Translation Levart
both there should be without beauty.” Lodge, 1837
1570 THE FOUR BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE
ANDREA PALLADIOTranslation 1997

“Our Ancestors have

left us many and various
Arts tending to the Pleas-
ure and Convenience of
Life, acquired with the
greatest Industry and
Diligence: Which Arts,
though they all pretend,
with a Kind of Emulation,
to have in. View the great End of being serviceable
to Mankind; yet we know that each of them in par- “Comrades! It is a long time since
ticular has something in it that seems to promise a we last had a National Conference
distinct and separate Fruit: Some Arts we follow for of Builders and there is now great
Necessity, some we approve for their Usefulness, need for such a conference. It is
and some we esteem because they lead us to the my opinion that the present meet-
Knowledge of Things that are delightful. What these ing will be to the great good not
Arts are, it is not necessary for me to enumerate; for just of construction, but of all our
e su- they are obvious.” work both in industry and in other
ri and 1485 THE ARCHITECTURE OF LEON BATISTA sectors of our national economy.”
object ALBERTI IN TEN BOOKS LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI 1954 INDUSTRIALIZED BUILDING
riting Translation 1755 SPEECH NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV

MANDANA

...ceasar, buddha, ganesha,

comrades, ancestors ...
all have had architectural
manifestos dedicated to
them...

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 191 11/05/14 11.23

 PAGE 192 elements of architecture

roof

6
balcony

floor 5 fireplace

corridor wall

façade
4 7
toilet

window
11 escalator

ceiling
3 1 8 14
9 12 15
10 13
16
2 17

main entrance

door stair ramp elevator

introduction from book

for architects

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 192 11/05/14 11.23

 Fundamentals PAGE 193

elements of architecture

elements of architecture looks at the fundamentals of A super short history of architectural elements
our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: could read:
the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the
window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the — From the age man discovered fire, primitive forms
fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, of habitat emerged—partly found, partly created by
the ramp... their own hands—that were slowly codified into a limited
number of elements...
Architecture is a strange mixture of obstinate persistence
and constant flux. Just as science has recently shown — From 5000–3000 BCE, the way these elements were
that all of us carry “inner” Neanderthal genes, each put together to express values suggests the birth of
element, too, carries long strands of junk DNA that dates a new art—architecture—focused on the best way to
from time immemorial... assemble these elements in new and deliberate ways
that are original, beautiful, and useful.
Some elements have barely changed in the last
3000–5000 years, others were (re)invented last week (but — In antiquity, this art developed to heights not
in architecture the appearance of a new element is rare; seen since then, to create cities and civic complexes
most inventions are reinventions...). The fact that where the role and intention of buildings were
elements change independently, according to different transparent, compelling, and unquestioned.
cycles and economies, and for different reasons, turns
each architectural project into a complex collage of the — After a long interval in which these societies
archaic and the current, of the standard and the unique, were brought down by barbarians (and their own
of mechanical smoothness and bricolage—a complexity decadence), the Renaissance resurrected and refined
revealed in its full extent only by looking at its constituent these qualities, adding a humanist emphasis on the
parts under a microscope. individuality of the creators. Each element was changed,
defined, modified, reinvented. Architects were part
Previous Biennales have looked at architecture as of a shared system, but also expected to challenge
a whole—trying to project the “full” picture, including the rules. Originality became an ambition.
context and politics. Here, we present micronarratives
revealed by focusing systematically on the scale of the — The Enlightenment, by emphasizing rationality,
detail or the fragment. We uncover not a single, unified revolutionized architecture... Function became
history of architecture, but the multiple histories, origins, the new beauty. Many elements were “improved”
contaminations, similarities, and differences of these very by adding technical, empirical, and regulatory
ancient elements and how they evolved into their current dimensions. New construction methods enabled
iterations through technological advances, regulatory a new lightness that, in turn, affected each element.
requirements, and new digital regimes.
— The steel frame and the elevator abruptly ended the
first chapter of the history of architecture—the one we
still dwell on—and opened a second modernity, bereft
of symbolism and any vestige of solidity. The new
provisional, standardized period of architecture has
massive repercussions for every element, driving some
to the point of extinction—fireplace—and inflating others
with exaggerated importance—airport security door.

— Onto this still largely unexplored and unfinished

chapter is now grafted a digital era, which offers
drastically improved levels of control to feed our
obsessive need for security and comfort, though
we have not even begun to confront the constantly
expanding vastness of its potential dark side...

rk

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 193 11/05/14 11.23

 PAGE 194 elements of architecture exhibition

An exhibition is not a book and a book is not an exhibition. The work

on elements of architecture ran parallel to the continuing work on
the book of the same title, with the Harvard Graduate School of
Design, which was initiated in September 2012.

In the exhibition we have looked for physical and tangible evidence

of the evolution of individual elements that we have recorded in the
book. To enable a back-and-forth between objects and narrative, we
first conceived of the book as a physical presence that would snake
across the rooms, settling in the end for three forms of presence: the
book as an enlarged pivoting book on the wall—inspired by Charlie
Koolhaas’s exhibition at Vitra, Dubai Next—the book as enlarged Dubai Next, Charlie Koolhaas
object on a stand—inspired by Irma Boom’s XXL—and as traditional
projections.

XXL (The Architecture of the Book), Irma Boom

Central Pavilion: Elements

FLOOR

CEILING

ESCALATOR/ INTERIOR/
ELEVATOR PARTITION
ENVELOPE (FAÇADE)
WALL

BALCONY

75m DOOR

RAMP

ROOF
INTRODUCTION

LIGHT
STAIR BATH (TOILET)

HEARTH
(CHIMNEY/HEATING) 41m
CORRIDOR

HISTORY
WINDOW

LOBBY

3m (each panel)

68m

The result of two years of work with the Harvard

0 5m 10m 20m book-in-space
Graduate School of Design, a new body of work initial idea to run the pages of the book through Gross Area: 4000m2

on the elements of architecture... the rooms of the Central Pavilion, like a snake

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 194 11/05/14 11.23

 Fundamentals PAGE 195

enlarged book
displayed on wall

enlarged big white book

as object on folded metal shelf

projection of turning pages in

the respective book chapters

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 195 11/05/14 11.24

 PAGE 196 elements of architecture introduction

A masharabiya bal-
cony connects the
balcony room to the
elements introduction room
movie by Davide Rapp Evolution of
182 architecture
the elements
advertisements

Library of historical
elemental studies
of architecture

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 196 11/05/14 14.51

 Fundamentals PAGE 197

contributors introduction
advertisements The central space in the Biennale’s Central Pavilion serves as an
manfredo di robilant introduction to a new body of work on the elements of architecture,
generated over two years of intensive research undertaken with the
research team Harvard Graduate School of Design and a host of collaborators from
iuav students: the building industry and academia. The intro space is where the
valeria muffato, matilde tessari; apparently mundane elements of architecture that surround us every
silvia dessenibus, michaela tarzariol day start resonating with possibilities.

elements featuring
davide rapp with lorenzo library of texts from around the world and throughout history that have
gangarossa, guido guerzoni looked at architecture through the lens of the elements
in association with film featuring the uncanny and constant cameos of the elements in the
kobalt entertainment movies as crucial actors
legal consultancy advertisements from a range of architecture magazines, showing how
milalegal, elisabetta mina, the elements were a locus of technological development, standardization,
letizia nuvoli and commodification over the course of the twentieth century
production coordinator evolution diagrams of the elements of architecture from pre-history to today,
elisa bramati mashrabiya protruding from the “balcony room” above, a type of balcony
film editor prone to mutations across different cultures, offering a unique view of
davide rapp the space
assistant editor
giorgio zangrandi
second assistant editors
mattia barilani,
graziano camelia
clip selectors
mattia barilani, marco belloni,
graziano camelia, carlotta
capobianco, minkyung han,
davide rapp, giorgio zangrandi
andrea zucchi
sound designers
luca bergomi,
massimiliano savino

with the technical support of

fantoni
iguzzini
knoll
kef
philips lighting

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 197 13/05/14 16:09

 PAGE 198 elements of architecture introduction

library: elements in treatises

Most historical writing on architecture was deeply concerned with its
fundamental components—the elements. A library and reading area
allows visitors to leaf through treatises and texts from different eras

decem libri, Vitruvius, Roman Empire

and different parts of the world, from De Architectura (Rome, first

1st century BCE De Architectura

century BCE) to The Hindu Architecture (Silpa-Sastra; India, 6th–7th
century CE), to the Yingzao Fashi (China, 1103) to Henry Wotton’s
Elements of Architecture (England, 1624) to Sigfried Giedion’s
Mechanization Takes Command (Switzerland, 1948).

PAGE 16 ROOF ROOF PAGE 1

TEXTQuis doloreped quateni simagnitate accatur alicil maiorem quodit quunt offic to con natustias ni res expli-
bus.
Cesero ent volupta turersp P71 Table of content
iendant.
Is natur? Qui quissim aionsedia-
1
tum volupidunt que sitiaectem 材 Module (Cai)

are used according to the building types.

In all types of construction, cai is the basic concept. There are eight hierarchical classes. They

YINGZAO FASHI Volume Four

dus quam re cum faccuptatem

Chapter One
Rules For Major Carpentry
quid ut arcitat ectios sit, omniet
hit eserspe optas eius do-
lupti num harci dem faccaestem
2
iderem voles ullessunt. Mod-
ule 拱 Arm (Gong)
Mus res nam vide sa ventibus.

Substructure Brackets(Ping-Zuo)

Block (Dou)

Cantilever (Ang)

Module (Cai)
Dolorpor sunture optation corit

There are three alternative names: 1. Regulation 2. Module 3. Timber Mesurement

aspedis preperferum escillique

the humble Li Jie, in accordance with the Emperor’s edict.

repairing and constructing Office Houses and various Military Buildings,

repairing and constructing Imperial and Royal Residences, specialised Superintendent for
Compiled and edited by the Court’s Gentleman for Comprehensive Duty charged with
plant, omnis quas molectatur,
nobis maximenit quam fuga. 5 3
1
Aquunti rescid et utatisi millatibus 昂 Cantilever (Ang)
3
et offic tesedipsum eum velit,
coreptatium dolest fuga. Nam

1485 CE Leon Battista Alberti, De Re

dus ent.
Impos et lacimi, ut pos mintius
6th–7th century CE Vastuvidyia,

evenet, sit et labor sunt alis 4

eriatus natus essi corero bea 爵头Bird Head
1103 CE Yingzao Fashi, China
Science of Architecture, India

doluptat.
Ximodi tem. Itassinci dolest ent
odi cullorecto omnimporro berest

General Assembly Order

Playing head (Jue Tou)

Arm (Gong)
rerchiliquis veliatia nus provid
5
et quos ditatint maionsed ea 枓Block (Dou)
quiae nonse con rercil is dellab 2
in pelecerianim sin rent eos et
Aedificatoria, Italy
lab ide officie nihilic iumque num
aritecaborum eveniat dolesenis
eaquamet voloritias ratate mi, ut 4 6
adis ut ra ium et quiate necabo. 总铺作次序
General Construction Sequence
Harchil itisint, ullit as rae volupit 6

as ilitis eaquate ctusame nihiliq

uossit aliam, non exped quiaect
orest, non nim fugit, sum que id
quia vendion seditatur si volor
autemqui ulparia spelit ad unt
faccatis quatem. Aquam ipsam
dolupture doloriorum dolor
7
restium quiam rehento esto molorpo rporere prorae corendessunt optistionsed quis velliquas re reperescim 平坐
explige nissimpos ut aruptature laceperehent aciendaecti dolorios cus volorum lis re sequi dolest omnimus. Substructure Bracket
Estrum suntur santis sum eicto berio inis accab ipid ulpa et eost, quaerchici occus elest et aliame corem eum
consequi ut lant ad minctibus volor ari omnis enes volor audi dolorehendit apient adit estium eosti ipsantint
odiae nihil inctotation cum fuga. Nihil ium et endit fuga. Nequat maiorroreri berchil landenditam quia destorio.
Explibus ea volendi re restio ipsanda plique minulpa riorerum eliquas quiasin ciendae ommo con nam voluptate
doloris itaspit aspiciasi aditibu sandelessed quiati optata nimusda vel eate cuptates pa quam, optate quidusam
et faceptiis dit harchicil maximin nonsenihil iligend aeperio necuptias perorum exped quis quodipi enissustiost
facerestiae lautem reped quam quo et, sus.
Berio idipis acid mos quiaectae rempost, volorup taspedit doles sendam eat ut eatende bitior sit, erspid ea
Collection of works on astronomy and mathematics,
mensuration of paraboloids, Thabit b. Qurra, Persia

1734 CE Qing Structural Regulations, China

12th century CE Treatises on Astrophysics:

9th–10th century CE Treatise on the

Rasa’el-e-Nojoumiyeh, Persia

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 198 14/05/14 11:05

 Fundamentals PAGE 199

elements in advertisements
A series of 182 enlarged advertisements for the elements lays bare the relationship
between architecture, industrialization, standardization, and luxury, revealing the
changing status of the element itself in face of modernity. The ceiling, door,
elevator, façade, floor, hearth, roof, toilet, and window all appear in their newest,
most advanced, most appealing forms, often as part of celebrated building
projects also featured in the ads. The ads are selected from thousands gathered
from some of the major architectural journals of the twentieth century: Architectural
Record and Pencil Points/Progressive Architecture from the US; Architectural
Review from England; L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui from France; Deutsche Baukunst
from Germany; Casabella, Domus, L’Architettura. Cronache e storia from Italy;
El Croquis from Spain.

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 PAGE 200 elements of architecture introduction

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 Fundamentals PAGE 201
elements in movies

elements is a movie montage of hundreds of short

architecture-related clips selected from different movies,
from the last hundred years of cinema. The combination of
the clips aims to show—through the eyes of a multitude of
directors and cinematographers—the fifteen elements of
architecture identified by Rem Koolhaas and OMA/AMO
and the Harvard Graduate School of Design: balcony,
ceiling, corridor, door, elevator, escalator, façade, floor,
fireplace, ramp, roof, stair, toilet, wall, and window.
elements is a film about space, a film as a set of spaces.
It incorporates scenes from different movie genres,
merging the clips one into the other in a continuous flow of
images, sounds, and actions. A movie montage is an
editing technique in which shots are composed in a fast-
paced fashion that compresses time and conveys a lot of
information in a relatively short period. The simple act of
juxtaposing separate shots of corridors, stairs, or façades
evokes connections that cannot be found in a single shot.
The various spaces of fiction exist simultaneously in a
continuous dynamic.
elements is a film without any plot, story, or characters.
Architecture in movies appears frequently as a background
of the action and it can be represented in many ways: top
views, one-point perspectives, frontal planes, long takes,
and close-ups. The framing highlights the proportions and
the geometries of the elements, while the presence—or the
absence—of sounds, noises, and scores unveils their
prerogatives and materialities.
elements asks the viewer to focus on the fifteen elements
through the fast transitions between the clips, revealing
contrasts and affinities, lines and shapes, recurring patterns
and motives, movements and rhythms. In this framework
each scene, cut out from the original movies, gets a new
meaning and unveils the close and ambivalent connections
between cinema and architecture.

Davide Rapp

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 201 11/05/14 11.24

 PAGE 202 elements of architecture ceiling

Recently restored decorated

ceiling by Galileo Chini, 1909

Contemporary drop ceiling including

systems and embedded projection screen
presenting drawings of decorated ceilings

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 Fundamentals PAGE 203

developed with
manfredo di robilant ceiling
contributors There are two types of ceilings: solid and hollow. In the solid kind,
the art institute of chicago, the ceiling is just the underside of the floor above, or it is an applied
bauhaus–archiv berlin, bojimans surface—a seal (an etymological origin of ceiling in some languages)—
van beuningen museum rotterdam, and it is typically iconographic. Solid ceilings are typically old, reassuring,
canadian center for architecture revered, considered honest. Hollow ceilings on the other hand are
montreal, casa buonarroti florence, modern, with a mysterious three dimensionality. Between the underside
centre pompidou mnam-cci, chicago of the floor above and panels hanging down from it, there is a large
history museum, cultural heritage inaccessible section used as storage space for services that aid the
administration of south korea seoul, technological performance of a building. Such a ceiling is considered
ezra stoller / esto new york, “false.” It is the sectional equivalent of poche—the cavity usually
gabinetto disegni e stampe degli considered only in plan, in relation to walls. This hidden ceiling space
uffizi florence, gta archive / eth has been off-limits to architecture—and to the imagination of the users
zürich, guido guidi, hedrich of buildings—since the middle of the twentieth century. False ceilings are
blessing, het nieuwe instituut supposed to be meaningless but contain mysteries beyond their banal
rotterdam, library of congress uniform modular surfaces; they also still harbor their own suppressed,
washington dc, the metropolitan unconscious iconography—of smoothness, comfort, convenience, even
museum new york, museum der humanity...
bildenden künste leipzig, petit
palais musée des beaux-arts de la The installation aims to represent the two opposite poles that have influenced
ville de paris, riba library drawings the ceiling through history: on the one hand, the ambition to display symbolical
& archives collections, scala meanings on its surface, on the other the need to respond to utilitarian demands.
florence, staatliche graphische The encounter of architecture with modernity dramatically increased the
sammlung munich, museum of imperatives of utility, usually at the expense of (explicit) symbolism. The first
modern art new york–the mies van pole is represented in the installation by the existing dome, decorated in 1909
der rohe archive, the trustees of the by the painter Galileo Chini. The second pole is represented by a temporary
british museum, kww architecture false (or “drop”) ceiling, with standard 60 x 60 cm panels. While the dome
has a height of 9.4 meters, the height of the false ceiling is 2.7 meters—the
with the support of standard for office buildings since the 1950s. The symbolic program displayed
zumtobel on the dome reflects the fashion of Art Nouveau. Each of the sections
represents a step in the evolution of art, from “The first smile of the human
with the technical support of beast” to “The new Civilization.” The temporary illumination of the dome
rockfon italia emphasizes the blues and the gold on which its palette is based, shifting from
daikin cold color temperatures to warmer ones.
zumtobel
By contrast, the drop ceiling (apparently) has no meanings. It is an interface
thanks to between the systems that are installed above and the space below its surface,
biblioteca centrale di architettura hosting air diffusers, smoke detectors, sprinklers, CCTV cameras, neon lights.
politecnico di torino, kmw Two screens are encapsulated in the lowered ceiling. In the first a series of
architecture roxbury ma drawings for decorated ceilings are projected, including Michelangelo’s mighty
first sketch for the Sistine vault. In the second a series of drawings and photos
of ceilings by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe are projected, suggesting how in
Modern architecture also the utilitarian ceiling has been treated sometimes as
an aesthetic theme... Utility vs Symbol but also Utility and Symbol, or Utility as a
Symbol.

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 PAGE 204 elements of architecture ceiling

iconography vs.

1769 Versailles

The ceiling was a plane

of iconography, symbolism, decoration,
influencing our lives from above.

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 FUNDAMENTALS PAGE 205

rationality

1950s Modern ceiling, Eni energy and

mining company, San Donato offices

It was replaced by the abstraction of the

current system ceiling, seemingly free of
iconography. But maybe its grids are equally
symbolic. Why are these grids reassuring?
Why do we need them? Will we go crazy
without this relentless abstraction overhead?

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 PAGE 206 elements of architecture ceiling

p Go

1686–1703 Print made by Daniel Marot I

Design for a trompe-l’oeil ceiling

2613–ca. 2494 BCE Reportage drawing by Louis-Pierre Baltard of the

Zodiac ceiling of the temple of Tentyris, Ancient Egypt 4th dynasty, 1802

Back to search results 1/1

1390s Namdaemun gate, Seoul: The dragon, from the ceiling,
welcomes visitors to the city

g the cup
ndow
round.

1858 Gottfried Semper, Ceiling for 1927 Theo van Doesburg

the Zurich Polytechnikum (now ETH) The Aubette: composition project
conference hall for the ceiling of the café-brasserie

ca. 1620 Peter Paul Rubens

The Last Supper, study for a ceiling
Large image

Image description

Image service:
Use image Request new photography
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 Fundamentals PAGE 207

1925 Haus Eichstaedt, Berlin, living room, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

1953 Convention Hall Chicago, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

1950 Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago,

living room, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

1958 Seagram Building, corner office

by Phillip Johnson (interior)

1954 Commons building at the IIT,

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

1958 Seagram Building, lobby (Philip Johnson interior design)

1958 Seagram Building, office
by light designer Richard Kelly

1958 Seagram Building, Philip Johnson’s office

1958 Seagram Building, restroom by light designer Richard Kelly

1968 Neue Nationalgalerie, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

ect
serie

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beauty vs.

reality

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 Fundamentals PAGE 209

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 PAGE 210 elements of architecture window

Windows and window section from

the Brooking National Collection

Yakutian Balagan windows

Sobinco mechanical
grinding machine

Sobinco window strength

test structure

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 Fundamentals PAGE 211

developed with
sobinco nv window
contributors The window used to make space, it asserted place-ness. Window seats,
the brooking national collection sills, bay windows, verandas, shutters, blinds, curtains all marked the
the russian museum of ethnography, position of the window on the façade and in the room. Since the twentieth
st. petersburg century, technological advances in window profiles and glass production
have allowed many of these nuanced local components to be internalized in
with the support of the window’s structures, magically invisible. Glass, which initially seemed
sobinco nv the perfect partner for the window, took over entirely, culminating in the
invention of the curtain wall—a Western invention, which allowed other
with the technical support of regions to stake a claim in architecture, liberated from its historic
barkow leibinger discourses...

thanks to sobinco
charles brooking An imported window factory from Belgium forms the basis of the installation,
zhanna chistyakova where real machines polish components and repeatedly test window fittings,
valentina gorbacheva against a backdrop of traditional English windows from the collection of
vladimir grusman Charles Brooking, salvaged from demolished English heritage, plus a rare
anna nikolaeva Yakutian window from Russia’s Far East, made from birch bark. One wall
remi van parys explores the surrender of the window to the curtain wall through the Seagram
building. The history and the contemporary condition of the window in one
space...

brooking national collection

The Brooking National Collection contains approximately 500,000 pieces,
5,000 of which are complete windows, 10,000 window sections, and 30,000
sash pulleys. For the Venice Biennale, the collection will show many variations
of windows, demonstrating the subtle and fascinating evolution of this
important architectural element. The originals are now fast disappearing with
the clamor for double glazing.

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 PAGE 212 elements of architecture window

2014 Small part of the window section of Charles

Brooking’s archive. Brooking: “It isn’t some nerd’s
collection of ironmongery sash pulley windows for
the sake of it—it is a useful resource.”

1910 Birch bark windows used by Yakutians in Balagian dwellings in

Russia’s far east. Typical Balagian dwellings have three small carved birch
bark windows. The bark is softened by cooking in cow’s milk, carved into
shape by male members of the family, and sewn together with tendons from
a horse or cow. Two windows, each of around 30cm square, are oriented
to the south and one to the west. With glass a precious import affordable
only by a few rich families, the birch bark window can be filled with oil paper,
fish membranes, mica, and in rare cases small glass shards. In the winter,
the carved window is removed from the punctured hole in the wall and
replaced by a thick sheet of ice in a wooden frame.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 213

2014 Sobinco’s window frame test structure, in their factory in Zulte, Belgium,
where ninety percent of their products are manufactured: chunks of aluminum
and zamak are cast, milled, ground, coated, and assembled into the fittings that
are typically hidden in the frame but make windows work... Every new fitting
is embedded in the window and fitted in the test structure, where it is opened
and closed up to 25,000 times by pneumatic machines.

2014 Sobinco mechanical

grinding machine for grips,
fittings and handles.

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 PAGE 214 elements of architecture window

the collector

2014 Charles Brooking began collecting parts of buildings at an early age to

express his passion for design and shape. With encouragement from a tutor,
Charles started rescuing those items that he deemed interesting and historically
relevant by various, often creative, means. The collection was founded in 1966
and was officially recognized as a charitable trust in 1985. Two London exhibi-
tions helped publicize this unique collection, which has since generated wide
interest and become an invaluable resource for conserving the built heritage.
The collection also contains doors, stairs, and other elements. The pieces are
primarily from the British Isles but with some from Europe for comparing
construction techniques.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 215
Engineer at work,
Sobinco factory.

or
the producer

2014 Remi Van Parys, founder of Sobinco. During the

late 1950s, Remi Van Parys became the director of a Belgian
ironmongery company in Congo. He travelled through
Congo, visiting window and door makers, and heard the
same complaint everywhere: the fittings they could buy
came from Germany and did not fit in Belgian windows.

In less than one year he conquered eighty percent of the

Congolese market with the first fittings specifically de-
signed for the imported Belgian steel windows. Then, in
1961, back in Belgium, implementing the same strategy,
he was the first to design fittings for steel and later for
aluminum windows, forming the company the family still
runs today, Sobinco (Société Belge de l’industrie et de la
commerce).

Over the past fifty years what began on small scale in the
owner’s back garden has grown into a leading company
with 30,000 square meters of production space, offices
in Belgium and Portugal and points of sale in Poland and
China, and with products exported over sixty countries. In
a globalized market of mass produced windows, Sobinco
is the only factory in Europe capable of producing every
moving part of a window—sixty-nine fittings is typical—in
one factory.

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 PAGE 216 elements of architecture corridor

Evacuation simulations Raumfolgen by Stephan Trüby’s

by One Simulations Walter Niedermayr History of the corridor

Smart corridor floor Video of the nineteenth-century corridors

by Desso and Phillips of Welbeck Abbey, by Claudi Cornaz
and Hans Werlemann

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 Fundamentals PAGE 217

developed with
stephan trüby & tu münchen

contributors
corridor
Originally, “corridore” referred to a person who ran to transfer a mes-
claudi cornaz sage, and later to the space for running on or next to city walls. When
walter niedermayr it first appeared in fourteenth-century Europe, the corridor was a rather
one simulations unique space outside buildings. Only later did it become a fundamental
the harley gallery, welbeck element of architecture in organizing space, finding its apotheosis in
hans werlemann the architecture of modernity (asylums, prisons, social housing projects,
etc.). Now, corridors are everywhere. They are the paths of trains, planes,
with the support of and cars, and they are the territories through which today’s economy is
gira sustained. The corridor became a global element, no longer arrested by
scale of architecture. And although the corridor is crystallized today as an
with the technical support of escape route through increasingly massive buildings, paradoxically, we
desso will never be able to escape from corridor.
gira
iguzzini The installation brings together exit signs from all over the world, five evacu-
kef ation simulations by One Simulations—of Rome’s Palazzo Venezia (built ca.
knoll 1466), Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary (1821–1836), the Pentagon,
phillips lighting Arlington County, Virginia (1941–1943), Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation,
Marseille (1947–1952), plus the Padiglione Centrale—a newly developed smart
thanks to floor by Desso and a selection of corridor photographs by Italian artist Walter
derek adlam Niedermayr (b. 1952). The selection of eight diptychs from Niedermayr’s Raum-
wolfgang a. herrmann folgen (1991–ongoing) deals with functional spaces in prisons and hospitals.
martin luce Corridors in this context work as in-between spaces which serve as guidance
robert mayo systems as well as meeting and exchange points for the people forced to be
william parente there.
welbeck estates company
sophie wolfrum All this is historically anchored in the filmic and photographic reconstruction of
the legendary underground corridor network built by William Cavendish-Scott-
Bentinck (1800–1879), the Fifth Duke of Portland, on his estate of Welbeck
Abbey in Sherwood Forest near Nottingham toward the end of the nineteenth
century (by Claudi Cornaz and Hans Werlemann). The Fifth Duke’s work at
Welbeck Abbey could be viewed as the culmination of corridor segregation,
that was pioneered in the building of prisons at the beginning of the nineteenth
century and further developed in the construction of country homes at the end
of the nineteenth century.

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 PAGE 218 elements of architecture corridor

apotheosis of the corridor

2014 Above and underground corridor network

built by William Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck
(1800–1879), the Fifth Duke of Portland, on his estate
of Welbeck Abbey in Sherwood Forest near
Nottingham toward the end of the nineteenth century.
Photos: Hans Werlemann.
W
d

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 Fundamentals PAGE 219

Welbeck Abbey has been the private family home of the Cavendish-Bentinck family since 1607. Guided tours of Welbeck Abbey’s State Rooms take place during August and September each year, offering a unique opportunity to view fine and
decorative arts from the internationally renowned Portland Collection in its historic setting. Call 0844 888 9991 or visit www.harleygallery.co.uk to book. Please note that these tours DO NOT include the Underground Ballroom or any tunnels.

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 PAGE 220 elements of architecture corridor

Raumfolgen 132 2005

Raumfolgen 164 2005

The selection of eight diptychs from the series Raumfolgen (1991–ongoing) by Italian artist
Walter Niedermayr (b. 1952) deals with functional spaces in prisons and hospitals.
Corridors in this context work as in-between spaces which serve as guidance systems
as well as meeting and exchange points for the people forced to be there.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 221

Raumfolgen 135 2001

Raumfolgen 115 2004

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 PAGE 222 elements of architecture corridor

exit strategy

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 Fundamentals PAGE 223

... computer programs visualize

our exit strategies: is there a sane
way to avoid the apocalypse?...

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 PAGE 224 elements of architecture floor

Floor fragments

Kiva systems robot

for warehouse
logistics
Energy floors
installation

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 Fundamentals PAGE 225

developed with
keller easterling floor
contributors Once a surface for symbolic expression—defining the way spaces are
the trustees of the british museum used, the “rules of the game”—floors in the twentieth century tended
fondazione musei civici di venezia, towards a purely Cartesian surface, rational, undecorated, unloved,
soprintendenza speciale per il always perfectly flat, ideally soundless. Simultaneously with our negli­
patrimonio storico, artistico ed gence of their programmatic, symbolic, and haptic potential, floorspace
etnoantropologico e per il polo became the dominant economic metaphor for architectural space: call
museale della città di venezia e dei it square meterism. But the square meter, in the parlance of real estate,
comuni della gronda lagunare— is really a three-dimensional volume through the entire space. And the
museo archeologico nazionale floor itself is actually a thick slab, sometimes a “false floor” containing
richard henry mysteries similar to those of the ceiling.
rijksmuseum
The floor room is entirely taken over by a typical, raised “false” floor used in
technical donors offices, in 60 x 60 cm panels. On top of this, an energy-harnessing dance floor
energy floors and video game recall the potential of the floor to trigger activity. A range of
kef objects from Afghani prayer rug featuring Russian helicopters to Uzbek tiling
kiva systems and local Venetian mosaics. A Kiva robot—which reads magnets in the floor to
nesite navigate the vast warehouses of Amazon and automatically retrieve products
from shelves—will be operating in one section of the room, literally taking its
special thanks to cues from the floor...
una helle
wobke hooites
neil macgregor
jill maggs
wim pijbes
paul van duin

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 PAGE 226 elements of architecture floor

Third–fourth century Recuperation: under a military prison

in Israel, the oldest Christian Church in the Holy Land is Telltale heart: in an unknown, high-tech office,
discovered in 2005 by an inmate working on the prison’s the apparently solid floor (designed by Kingspan)
expansion—which halted after the find. Dating from the becomes a secret cavity for hiding the building’s
end of the period when Christianity was illegal under the support systems, mostly wiring. The constant
Roman Empire, the revealed 6 x 9 meter mosaic features flexibility implied by the contemporary open plan
a medallion of fish and inscriptions in Greek, including: office requires a system for easy reengineering,
“The god-loving Akeptous has offered the table to finds its ally in the floor, formerly the most stable
God Jesus Christ as a memorial.” element, now also a symbol of impermanence.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 227

2012 Kiva Systems: shelves that come to you. Reading bar-

codes embedded in the floor, Kiva robots move like orange
pac-mans through Amazon’s enormous warehouses collecting
shelves and bringing them to human workers for selecting
and sorting. Algorithms determine which pod is sent to collect
2008 “If 2,000 people come to Club Watt and they which shelf to be brought to which workers, the system turn-
experience sustainability and say, hey man, this for ing “what is normally a serial process into a massively parallel
me was a new way to look at a sustainable lifestyle, process,” according to the manufacturers. KIVA systems,
this for me is the ideal night,” says Michel Smit of founded in 2003 by a team of three engineers in Woburn,
Sustainable Dance Club (now Energy Floors), which Massachusetts, are installing the orange robot systems
manufactured the world’s first energy-producing dance throughout ecommerce logistics centers around the world. In
floor, harnessing the movement of Rotterdam’s 2012, Amazon, their biggest customer, bought the company
revelers. It boasts a maximum output of twenty watts outright. KIVA claims its robots, taking over the floor entirely,
per dancer—enough to generate flashing lights, triple the speed of order-fulfillment, reducing staffing needs
though not enough yet to power the club itself. by two thirds...

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 Fundamentals PAGE 229

...will human beings soon

be exiled from the floor?
Visit by appointment only?

On a factory floor, circular wheel tracks

betray the minuet with transponders
executed by the Kiva robots, used to
retrieve products from shelves in Amazon
warehouses; humans are banished from
areas where Kiva operates.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 231

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 PAGE 232 elements of architecture balcony

1954 Balcony by
Fernand Pouillon, Models of political
Diar-es-Saada, Algiers balconies

19th century
Cast Iron Haussmann
Balcony
1715 Mashrabiya,
Lima, Peru
1926 Bauhaus,
Dessau, Germany

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 Fundamentals PAGE 233

developed with
tom avermaete with chair of
methods and analysis, faculty
balcony
of architecture, tu delft: klaske Intruder, civilizer, “fake appetizer,” (Quatremère de Quincy), but also
havik, hans teerds, jorge mejia, modern architectural element par-excellence—the balcony has always
hernandez, willemijn willems-floet, held a special position within architectural discourse and practice. It has
herman prast, mike schäfer, ivan not only been a prime site of architectural innovation and expression, but
thung, agniezska batkiewicz, also a heavily charged element that mediates between public and private
antje adriaens realms. In the installation, the visitor experiences the transparency of a
modernist balcony and the screened character of a vernacular balcony.
with the technical support of In addition, three narrative lines are presented:
ege carpets
hollandridderkerk the political balcony
A worldwide geography illuminates how balconies are stages for major political
speeches and actions (macropolitical), but also accommodators of everyday
appropriations or small protests by inhabitants (micropolitical). Well-known
balcony scenes, such as the 1951 speech of Eva Perón in Buenos Aires and the
first public address of the liberated Nelson Mandela at the Cape Town City Hall
in 1990, are combined with more everyday, but no less political, uses in the
same cities.

milestones
The balcony has marked several turning points in architectural culture: a full-size
model of the typical Haussmann balcony, which articulated a new bourgeois
public sphere in nineteenth-century Paris, is confronted with the transparency of
a modernist version at the Bauhaus Dessau and an Algerian balcony by Fernand
Pouillon, in which vernacular and modern definitions of the public sphere
coincide.

limitations
A gallery of social housing projects illustrates how the balcony has been
super-charged with the responsibility of mediating between interior and exterior,
individual and collective, and private and public realms.

The installation is an invitation to rethink the balcony as a full-fledged liminal

architectural element, with its own formal semantics, cultural charge, and
experiential complexity...

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 PAGE 234 elements of architecture balcony

1871 1947
Ecce Homo, Antonio Ciseri Queens Elizabeth + Prince Phillip weddi

invented at Bell Labs in 1916

The condenser microphone,
1914 1947
Kaiser Wilhem II + Prince Phillip Charles Lindbergh

...without the balcony,

there would have been
no history...

1918 1952
Lenin, Moscow Winston Churchill, Whitehall

1917 1960
Bolshevik Revolutionary Mao Propoganda Poster
Television Broadcast
1941 First

1939 1963
Benito Mussolini JFK Inauguration

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 Fundamentals PAGE 235

1965 1973
Prince Phillip wedding LBJ Inaugeration Nixon + Brezhnev

1970 1989
Mishima Protest, Tokyo Bucharest, Romania

1970 1989
Whitehall Emperor Hirohito Václav Havel, Prague
d

1970 2012
Poster Dissed and disused: Palazzo Venezia circa 1970s Julian Assange, Ecuador Embassy London
Television Broadcasting
1972 Completion of Colorcasting

1972 2012
Munich Olympic Games Royal Wedding, Buckingham Palace

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 PAGE 236 elements of architecture balcony

from open...
1907 Queen Alexandra sanitarium, Davos, with canopied
balconies to provide consumptive guests with maximum
exposure to curative fresh air. One of the inspirations
for Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain... “Hans
Castorp stayed out on his balcony, looking down on the
bewitched valley until late into the night... His splendid
lounge chair with its three cushions and neck roll had been
pulled up close to the wooden railing, topped along its full
length by a little pillow of snow; on the white table at his
side stood a lighted electric lamp, a pile of books, and a
glass of creamy milk, the ‘evening milk’ that was served to
all the residents of the Berghof in their rooms each night
and into which Hans Castorp would pour a shot of cognac
to make it more palatable.”
—Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, 1924

from dense...
1890s City of balconies: mashrabiyas of Lahore
(now Pakistan) define the entire urban realm.
Upper right: two boys peek from an openable hatch.

from social democratic...

1927 Parallel to the political exploitation of the balcony
in the twentieth century as an instrument to exert power,
the balcony is discovered by politicians and architects
as a tool of mass emancipation. Already associated with
bourgeois leisure and health, the balcony is the obvious
element for architects to disseminate in their newfound
social mission, transforming it into an emblem of social
democracy. Generously balanced Karl Marx-Hof, Vienna,
by Karl Ehn: largest single block of apartments in the
world.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 237

...to closed...
Hanoi’s contemporary balconies—referred to as
“tiger cages,” boxed in by mesh and corrugated
metal to enclose the space but still allow air-flow
—subject to overspill from increasingly prosperous
lives and crammed living spaces...

PAGE 142 BALCONY

DUBAI’S HIGH END BALCONIES: SYMPTOM OF THINNING
Low intensity of use in our cities – a thinning of the urban substance in terms of population and
activity – is not just a sad proof of uselessness but simply the presence of a future usefulness.
Infrastructure is an announcement of future inhabitation; landscape is already indicated but it’s not
inhabited. In many parts of the world, we have entirely finished cities that suggest an incredible
density, but they don’t achieve it and they’re also not intended to ever achieve it. In Dubai, there is a
significant gap between intention and reality. A huge amount of building goes on but we are
incapable of inhabiting these conditions in a traditional way. Signs of inhabitation in finished
buildings can be difficult to find; when they are absent, you can at least find signs of irregularity,
things that aren’t completely perfect anymore. The balcony is the giveaway.

...to sparse... table and chair

dubai’s high-end balconies: table

chair

symptom of thinning chair

More and more cities are inhabited on a provisional
coffee table
basis. Their low intensity of use is not sad proof of
uselessness but the promise of a future usefulness.
In Dubai life is registered not by human occupation,
but by signs of irregularity on the finished towers— table chairs
usually on the balconies.
lounge chair
houseplants

chairs clothes drying

rack
chairs

human

...to social media...

2005 VM Homes, Copenhagen, by PLOT Architects
(Bjarke Ingels and Julien de Smidt): each protrusion
a transparent platform on which to fabricate,
display, and overlook individual identity—realization
of the balcony as a type of social network...

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 PAGE 238 elements of architecture fireplace

2010 a 3D print of a Piranesi fireplace

featuring goat’s heads and angel’s heads.
Piranesi’s etching of a fire survives in
the computer modeling...
Fondazione Cini, Venice, Italy

2014 Local Warming, by MIT’s SENSEable Cities

Lab: a sensor detects motion, and a series of
infrared lasers encapsulate and follow the ben-
eficiary in a moving bubble of warmth, leaving
the rest of the space in the cold...
228000 BCE Southern Europe’s Earliest
Fireplaces
Part real, part fake: hearths from Bolomor Cave,
Spain, postexcavation, made into a cast made so
loose objects—stones, bones—can be removed
and analyzed; then the (real) section of hearth is
further scraped away in hopes of finding older
evidence further down. While the composition of
soil is then lost forever, the cast is filled in, and
the original stones and bones placed back.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 239

contributors
factum arte, madrid and fondazione
giorgio cini, venice
fireplace
museu de prehistoria The promethean technology of the fireplace—one of the many elements
de valencia competing for origin-of-architecture status—has now more or less
disappeared as a discrete object or place within architecture, and we
mit senseable cities laboratory with have hardly noticed this erasure. The former tasks of the fireplace—
carlo ratti, assaf biderman, yaniv heating, cooking, lighting, a gathering place and focal point for media and
jacob turgeman, leigh christie, culture—have been divided up among multiple devices, and/or spread
miriam roure, matthew claudel, like tentacles throughout various building systems. The hearth may
thomas altmann, matthias danzmayr, become the first architectural element to become extinct, necessarily so.
chris green, elyud ismail, sam judd,
kristopher swick The fireplace installation is divided into three acts, showing the primal origins
of this element (a real excavated 228,000-year-old fireplace, the oldest found
mit computer science and artificial in Southern Europe), its evolution into a venerable decorative feature in the
intelligence lab with dina katabi, aristocratic home (a 3D printed realization of one of Piranesi’s fantastical
deepak vasisht and jue wang fireplaces), and “Local Warming,” a project by MIT’s SENSEable Cities lab
that sets out a possible future for the fireplace: inverting at least 200,000 years
with the support of of history, they propose that, instead of people going to the source of heat, and
nest labs instead of trying to maintain the temperature of entire spaces, heat will now be
programmed to follow individuals... A sensor detects motion, and a series of
with the technical support of infrared lasers encapsulates the beneficiary in a moving bubble of warmth,
kef leaving the rest of the space in the cold, and no escape for the warmed
knoll person...
maya romanoff

thanks to
josep fernandez

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 PAGE 240 elements of architecture fireplace

...no element split off in so many

different directions—what started barbecue
with fire became through the shift /
translation into electricity, the most
ubiquitious element of all...

wall fireplace

fire
fireplace
floor
ground place

pit

smoking

candle

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 Fundamentals PAGE 241

oven
microwave

toaster

kettle
electric range

gas range

nuclear power plant

coal power plant p.#

fuel range
hot air furnace forced air

HVAC
ing
ok

stove
ing
co

at

boiler
he

“learning”
thermostat
thermostat

radiant heating
oil heater
radiator

mobile heat beams

nintendo wii

radio
TV laptop

electric fireplace smartphone

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 PAGE 242 elements of architecture fireplace

local warming
A staggering amount of energy is wasted on heating
empty offices, homes, and partially occupied buildings.
Local warming addresses this asymmetry in a radical way,
by synchronizing human presence with climate control.
A rank of responsive infrared heating elements are guided
by sophisticated motion tracking, creating a precise
personal (and personalized) climate for each occupant.
Individual thermal “clouds” follow people through space,
ensuring ubiquitous comfort while improving overall
energy efficiency by orders of magnitude.

From grotto to fire pit, from Victorian pipes to central

heating and suburban thermostats, man exerts more
and more control over his temperature.

“The fireside circle could no longer serve as social glue.

The old social fabric—tied together by enforced com­mon­
alities of location and schedule—no longer coheres. What
shall replace it?” (William J. Mitchell). A new paradigm of local
warming could spark vibrant encounters as people share
their personal climates. The radical inversion of the hearth
is complete: man no longer seeks heat—heat seeks man.

MIT SENSEable Cities Lab

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 Fundamentals PAGE 243

the thermostat achieves consciousness: the Nest

Learning Thermostat, the first domestic device to be part of
the internet of things, records patterns of usage, receives
remote instructions from your smartphone, uses motion
sensors to detect when users are at home... From this data,
the Nest creates a heating program that automatically
saves energy when the occupant is away or asleep, and
incentivizes the user to adopt more sustainable heating
habits... Its design is in the lineage of the classic Honeywell
Round (1953) and also of the iPod (2001)—the device has
been designed by former Apple designer Tony Fadell, who
comments: “Nest’s algorithms are common, but the output
of the algorithms are highly personalized, based on habits
of the home, the weather around the home, the thermal
constants of the home, as well as the heating and cooling
systems. All of these things are learned, and we adapt
those as we get more data points over the life of the
product.”

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 PAGE 244 elements of architecture façade

Wallpaper of news
stories with implications
ELEMENTS OF ARCHITECTURE
for the development
PAGE 13
of the façade

Selection of
contemporary
façade mock-ups

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 Fundamentals PAGE 245

developed with
alejandro zaera-polo, princeton
university school of architecture,
façade
ignacio fernández solla Over the past hundred years, the façade has seen the explosive growth of
a number of distinct species, each with their own environmental niche,
exhibition design and installation cultural context, virtues and vices, histories, and dynamically evolving
jeffrey anderson narratives. Some species have appeared suddenly, proliferating
seemingly overnight, some have taken years of development to achieve
research a degree of fitness, while others have enjoyed a period of interest and
britt eversole, erik hermann, then fallen into obscurity, and even extinction.
gabriel fries-briggs, hans tursack
ian starling, jeffrey anderson, The environmental stressors which drive these changes are often forgotten,
and phi v. pan hidden behind a literally superficial understanding of the façade, which has
traditionally focused on style, composition, and representation. Technological
contributors advances, cultural contingencies, social orders, economic cycles, and political
arup ideologies are not so much represented in the façades as literally embodied in
permasteelisa group a layered, three-dimensional entanglement of matter. The understanding of
these processes requires us to address material embodiment rather than
with the support of material representation as the core architectural understanding of the building
acción cultural española (ac/e) envelope. These are processes which have less to do with a historical sequence
cricursa of moments of invention than with the understanding of dynamic ecologies
dott. gallina of materials and technologies, their diffusion, application, and environmental
everlite concept adaptation. They cannot be understood as singular artifacts frozen in time
permasteelisa group and space: they sit within a historical fabric that includes other architectural
materials and assemblages that inform our understanding of the evolution
of envelope technologies.

The façade installation features real samples of twelve façade assemblages or

species which have been developed over the last century. Some of them are
generic and some unique. This collection of disembodied façades will be
presented alongside materials which aim to capture the cultural, political,
and social contexts which they embody rather than represent. Newspaper
clippings, film stills, advertising posters, a parade of heroes and villains will
reveal a texture of attachments to the physical embodiments in the assem­
blages. The full scale and high resolution of these artifacts eschews a super­
ficial understanding of the façade as a representation in favor of a series of
material ecologies belonging to each assemblage.

Alejandro Zaera Polo

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 245 13/05/14 16:33

rma Trading SRL
gland

Architects
ma Trading SRL (TEXO Structure)

PRECAST CONCRETE:
PAGE 246 SIN AND
elements REDEMPTION
of architecture façade

Facade Sample: EDF Archives Center

Courtesy of: Jousselin + LAN
Location: Bure-Saudron, France
Year: 2011
Architect: LAN

material façades
Manufacturer: Jousselin

1940s During World War II, as natural rubber supplies 1960s Precast façade technology was deployed on a 1970s Insulated façades are closly tied to economic
from Southeast Asia were cut off, the United States massive scale in the post-War era as social programs cycling. Scarcity and abundance are always reflected
government undertook a massive program to develop were developed to quickly house the masses. This in a thickening or thinning of the wall. The oil crises
a synthetic rubber to fuel its war engine. As a result of technology has since seen a rebirth as a tool to of the 1970s saw a boom in insulating technology,
this program, many plastics that we know today were produce phenomenal effects, taking advantage of the so much so that supply could not meet demand as
invented and developed. adaptable, moldable, and “fake” nature of concrete. homeowners scrambled to insulate their property.

TH

2012 tensile fabric façade by Base Structures + 2011 precast façade by Jouselin + LAN 2014 insulated façade by LUMAR
Tensoforma + Wilkinson Eyre Architects

Olympic Basketball Arena (Representation) EDF Archives Center Lumar PASSIV PassivHaus wall
London, England Bure-Saudron, France

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 Fundamentals PAGE 247

barrier façades

1910s A boom in airtight technologies arose during 1960s In post-War America, social programs such 1980s Cold War suspicion and mistrust made com-
THE M
the twentieth century as the exterior environment was as the G.I. Bill and the R.F.C. encouraged economic monplace a practice of putting up false façades.
increasingly perceived of as toxic. During World War
I, the German army’s use of chlorine and mustard
growth in many ways, including increased home own-
ership. At this time, prefabricated metal houses, such
Lies, espionage, and secretive government agencies
promised another truth hidden just beneath the sur- Faca
gas instilled the fear of weaponized air in the public as the Lustron House, were seen as the house of the face. In the wake of the cold war, inexpensive titanium
psyche and brought about a lasting airtight mentality. future, and highly desireable for the modern family. made the rainscreen a popular building technology. Co

1949 airtight façade by Jean Prouve 2014 watertight façade by A. Zahner Company 2010 rainscreen façade by Agrob Buchtal GmbH +
Herzog and de Meuron

Fédération du Bâtiment Zahner Engineered Profiled Panel System Museum der Kulturen
Paris, France Basel, Switzerland

Rain Penetration and its Control

Originally published April 1963.
G. K. Garden

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 247 11/05/14 11.28

Rain penetration of building walls occurs all too frequently despite advances in building technology. Through-wall
or complete penetration may damage building contents as well as cause stains and deterioration of interior
finishes; uncontrolled partial penetration, which is less frequently recognized, can permit undesirable quantities of
water within the wall. Water, in excess, is a key factor in most cases of deterioration of walls or wall materials
(CBD 30) and one source of this water is rain. Although a number of traditional wall systems have had a measure
of success, it is only recently that scientific studies have been undertaken to explain the mechanisms of rain
penetration. Through better understanding of these mechanisms it should be possible to design and construct
walls from which the problem is virtually eliminated.
 PAGE 248 elements of architecture façade UNITED NAT

1998
UNITED NATIONS

1998

glass façades

1960s The all-glass façade has always been associ- 1970s Increasing environmental conscientiousness 1980s The curtain wall as we know it today was
ated with democratic and societal transparency, resulting from multiple ecological disasters and the oil formalized by post-War American corporations.
though it also has a history in exhibition and consum- crises of the 1970s led to a boom in passive building Mistrust in corporate power has lead to a recent
erism. Advanced glassmaking technology has made technology. At first representing a kind of antisocietal boom in curtain walls which not only block or transmit
available increasingly large and strong panes of glass, trend, passive climatic mediation technologies were light in a certain way, but also tend to warp or distort
allowing the façade to disappear nearly entirely. quickly adopted by corporations. views, providing new and unique perspectives.

DOUBLE FACA
CLIMATE INCORPO
Facade Sample: Deutsch
Courtesy of: Permasteelis
Location: Eschborn, Germany
Year: 2010

CURRE
Architect: KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten
Manufacturer: Permasteelisa Group

2014 all-glass façade by Octatube 2010 double façade by Permasteelisa + KSP Jürgen 2003 curtain wall façade by Cricursa + Permasteelisa
Engel Architekten + Herzog and de Meuron

Quattro Node Supports Deutsche Börse Prada Aoyama

Eschborn, Germany Tokyo, Japan

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 Fundamentals PAGE 249

immaterial façades

1900s The media façade is often associated with 1930s The kinetic façade has always been a dream 1970s Green façades have become popular in recent
advertising and signage, but it also has a history of architects. In the 1930s, as an onslaught of tiny years as “green” has become increasingly desirable
involving massive cultural gatherings and entertain- motors invaded the American home, mechanizing win- and necessary. This shift has come as the result of
ment program. Coney Island, Las Vegas, and music dows, garage doors, heating and cooling, architects policy changes and environmental movements dating
festivals all feature media façades not only conveying desired a fully mechanized home. However, it is only back to the 1970s becoming increasingly influential in
information but also generating atmosphere. in recent years that this has become possible. the public consciousness.

VEGETATED FACADES:
GREENWASHED
Facade Sample: Modular Vertical Planters + ACTIVE Ceramic
Courtesy of: MAQLA-adiu + Air-Garden + Gruppo Fiandre Iris
Location: n/a
Year: 2014
Architect: MAQLA-adiu (Emilio Llobat)
Manufacturer: Air-Garden + Gruppo Fiandre Iris Ceramica

2014 media façade by StandardVision 1962 kinetic façade by Jean Prouve 2014 green façade by Air-Garden + Gruppo Fiandre
Iris Ceramica + MAQLA-adiu

LED Light Blade System Cité Scolaire de La Dullague Vertical Planters + ACTIVE Ceramic
Béziers, France

14MIA_187-249_Elements1_ENG.indd 249 11/05/14 11.29

 PAGE 250 elements of architecture roof

d
t
b
f
j
j
m

s
Translation and construction of 陈
a roof based on the first Chinese b
treatise on architecture Yingzao
Fashi (1103 CE)
y
z
玮
h
翔
思
叶
朱
y

c
a
g
m
t
n
a
z

w
n

w
b
k
f

t
a
o
m
u
j
n
j
Mix of traditional
Indonesian roofs r
and their advanced j
geometry relatives
f
r
k
v

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 Fundamentals PAGE 251

developed with
the shenzhen & hong kong bi-city
biennale of urbanism\architecture
roof
fang zhenning Perhaps as a result of our gratitude to the roof-over-our-head, it has
jia zhao always been super-charged with local cultural meaning. The paradox of
jiren feng the roof is that this indelible regionalism—styles are ultrarecognizable
marieke van den heuvel (the Black Forest roof, the Chinese roof...)—coexists with universal
principles and physical structures that must be adhered to in order to
students keep out the weather. In the twenty-first century, while most elements are
陈姗婈 chen shanling, 邓博仁 deng becoming homogenized, a consensus has yet to emerge about the roof.
boren, 何子聪 he zicong, 罗祎倩 luo
yiqian, 谢天阳 xie tianyang, 朱远志 The roof room features a unique project to produce the first ever English
zhu yuanzhi 邓博仁 deng boren, 韩 translation of the 1103 Chinese architectural manual the Yingzao Fashi, and an
玮 han wei, 黄嘉懿 huang jiayi, 黄敏堃 attempt to follow its instructions for the assembly of a standard Chinese roof
huang minkun, 梁媛 liang yuan, 刘竞 using blue foam. Juxtaposed with this endeavor: a collection of models from
翔 liu jingxiang, 罗祎倩 luo yiqian, 伍 Amsterdam’s Tropical Museum of traditional Indonesian dwellings, and
思泓 wu sihong, 谢天阳 xie tianyang, advanced geometry roofs being built all over the world today...
叶青 ye qing, 郑贤发 zheng xiangfa,
朱远志 zhu yuanzhi, 庄燕珊 zhuang
yanshan

contributors
ateliers jean nouvel
gta archive /eth zürich
mecanoo architecten
the trustees of the british museum
national museum of world cultures,
amsterdam, the netherlands
zaha hadid architects

with the support of

nl fund for creative industries

with the technical support of

barkow leibinger
kef
fondazione prada

thanks to
alpha suen
ole bouman
martijn j. de ruijter
una helle
jorn konijn
neil macgregor
jill maggs
rj models shenzhen
jan willem sieburgh
floortje timmerman
richard van alphen
koos van brakel
vivian zuidhof

14MIA_250-312_Elements2_ENG.indd 251 11/05/14 11.48

 PAGE 252 elements of architecture roof

Confronted with a our ignorance of ancient Chinese architecture, AMO consulted

the Yingzao Fashi, the first complete treatise of Chinese architecture, written in
1103 CE. Only rediscovered in the the 1920s by historian and architect Liang
Sicheng, there is still no complete translation into English. AMO, supported by
a team of experts including Jiren Feng, Fang Zhening, Jia Zhao, Marieke van
den Heuvel, and students from Harvard, Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, gave
it a first stab. Following intricately detailed and precise language, the team set
up a workshop at the Shenzhen Hong Kong biennale to reprototype a roof
structure described in the Yingzao Fashi in blue foam...

Early twentieth century

depiction of a Song
Dynasty bracket set

1. cap block
2. mud-line arm
3. flower arm
4. long arm
5. melon arm
6. second jump flower arm
7. regular arm
8. long arm
9. regular arm
10. playing head
11. inclined cantilever
12. long arm
13. regular arm
14. playing head
16 15 15. lined square head
11 16. locking pins
10 9 8 12 13 14
17. connection block
18. mid block
6 5 4 7
19. end block

3 2
1

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 Fundamentals PAGE 253

A “full heart” construction 計心造 and a “stolen-heart”

construction 偷心造 are the Yingzao Fashi technical terms
for two types of bracketing structures, which figure as an
early form of value engineering.

Amidst technical and bureaucratic descriptions, we found a set of

architectural elements developed over centuries to prevent corruption and
include value engineering, while embracing complexity and elegance...

14MIA_250-312_Elements2_ENG.indd 253 11/05/14 11.48

 PAGE 254 elements of architecture roof

from the vernacular

5900 BCE–4000 BCE < 1949 < 1887

Tell Al-’Ubaid, Iraq Tongkonan Model of an Indian hut
British Museum Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands Tropenmuseum

< 1913 1852–1857 < 1821

Rumah balai-balai Batak-landen Model of a Karo-Batak skull house
Tropenmuseum Tropenmuseum Tropenmuseum

< 1927 < 1927 1980 2

Roemah godjak makaram lojang Sungai Mandala, Negara Model of a house W
Tropenmuseum Tropenmuseum Tropenmuseum M

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 Fundamentals PAGE 255

to the parametric

1956 1970–1980
Parroquia de San Antonio de las Huerta. Miguel Hidalgo, Mexico. Bubble System Fargeau Ponthierry; Büro-Pavillon;
Enrique de la Mora, Fernando López Carmona, Félix Candela Club-Lokal, Heinz Isler Archive
Loan courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects

1983 Unknown
Opera house in Paris, Heinz Isler Unnamed model
Heinz Isler Archive Zaha Hadid Architects

2006 2007
Wei Wu Ying Center Heydar Aliyev Center
Mecanoo Zaha Hadid Architects

14MIA_250-312_Elements2_ENG.indd 255 11/05/14 11.48

 PAGE 256 elements of architecture door

c
a
b
f
f
h
j
r
r

w
f
Airport security
diorama j

w
b
c
s
e
程
k

t
h
g
t
998 Doors by m
Het Nieuwe Instituut
t
w
s
t

Hochosterwitz castle
diorama 1:1 mock-ups of doors from A short history of door
various architecture treatises handles by FSB and
Rainer W. Leonhardt

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 Fundamentals PAGE 257

contributors
assa abloy
burg hochosterwitz
door
frank van brunschot A traditional element once invested with physical heft and graphic icono-
fsb graphy has turned into a dematerialized zone, a gradual transition be-
het nieuwe instituut, rotterdam tween conditions registered by ephemeral technologies (metal detector,
jeld wen germany card readers, body scanners) rather than physical objects. The transfor-
rainer w. leonhardt mation took place concurrently with a transformation in society: whereas
rapid studio isolation was once the desired condition, our aspirations now are for
movement, flow, transparency, accessibility—which the door, by definition,
with the support of stands in the way of.
fsb
jeld wen The door room contains 1:1 mock-ups of a series of highly symbolic doors
from various architectural texts from around the world, plus a host of relics
with the technical support of from two essentially similar door systems: the fourteen gates of Hochosterwitz
barkow leibinger Castle, Austria, constructed in the fifteenth century, each gate with its own
ceia security measure (trap doors with spikes, windows for pouring hot oil...) and the
suzhou xiegu construction contemporary airport, where travelers run a gauntlet of more or less insidious,
engineering co. ltd (苏州市楔古营造工 biometric security devices. On the walls: a collection of historic architectural
程有限公司) drawings of venerable Dutch doors from the Netherlands Institute of Architec-
kef ture, and a vignette on the “handshake of the building”: the door handle.

thanks to
hetty berens
guus beumer
tobias buch
mathias fuchs
tian miao
wolfgang reul
sophia ungers
talitha van dijk

14MIA_250-312_Elements2_ENG.indd 257 13/05/14 17:02

 PAGE 258 elements of architecture door

China India
1103 CE twelfth century

MINIATURE NICHE-SHRINES

CATERPILLAR-LIKE ARC
BUTTERFLY ROOF TILE

LINTEL

UPPER FILLET & FASCIA

ATTIC PILLAR
NAME PLATE

LOWER FILLET & FASCIA

HEADSILL

ECHINUS

BATTEN DOOR
PILLAR SHAFT

GATEHOUSE

SOCLE

Yingzao Fashi, Qing Structural Regulations, Chinese treatises Aparajitaprccha (appr.), West Indian text (one of the Vastusastras)
1103 CE–1734 CE late twelfth–early thirteenth century

Long lasting tradition of Chinese gate production here depicted Based on Sanskrit descriptions, the Uttunga torana
by Yao Chenzu following the Western practice of architectural as depicted in The Torana In Indian And Southeast
treatises or building guides, written in 1929, published in 1959 Asian Architecture by Parul Pandya Dhar, 2010

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 Fundamentals PAGE 259

Italy United States

1551 2008

CORNICE

FRIEZE
ARCHITRAVE

DOOR ROUGH OPENING

HEAD

FIXED WOOD JAMB

RUSTIC FASCIA
STOP
FASCIA
COLUMN
CASING

HARDWARE

THRESHOLD

PEDESTAL

OPERATION
tras) The Extraordinary Book of Doors, Italy Building Construction Illustrated, United States
Sebastiano Serlio, 1551 Francis D. K. Ching, 2008

“The desire came into my mind to form in a visible design “Doors and doorways provide access from the outside into
several gateways in the Rustic styles, but which were mixed the interior of a building as well as passage between interior
with different Orders, that is, Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, spaces. Doorways should therefore be large enough to move
and Composite... And I advanced so far as to make a total of through easily and accommodate the moving of furnishings
XXX, almost carried away by an architectural frenzy... for the and equipment. They should be located so that the patterns
common benefit not only of this fine Kingdom of France... of movement they create between and within spaces are
but also for the benefit of all inhabited countries...” appropriate to the uses and activities housed by the spaces...
From an exterior point of view, doors and windows are important
compositional elements in the design of building façades.
The manner in which they punctuate or divide exterior wall
surfaces affects the massing, visual weight, scale, and
articulation of the building form.”

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 PAGE 260 elements of architecture door

Xiegu Construction will build a late Qing dynasty (nineteenth century) gateway
in front of the Central Pavilion. Coming from Suzhou, China, it is a five-meter
high granite and brick replica of a gateway demolished in 1999 in the city,
recreated by local masters with vivid carvings of unicorns, dragons, waving
grass, and calligraphy reading that good virtue brings good luck and
commanding all who pass to do good...

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 Fundamentals PAGE 261

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 PAGE 262 elements of architecture door

2 12 14
13
3

4
11 10
5

9
6
8
7

Burg Hochosterwitz: fourteen-door security 1582 Burg Hochosterwitz,

St. Georgen am Längsee, Austria
As the Ottoman Empire presses west in the sisteenth century against
the borders of the Austrian monarchy, a frenzy of fortification-
building began. The Khevenhuller family assumes control of the
moutaintop Burg Hochosterwitz in 1571, retaining Domenico
dell’Aglio, a celebrated Italian designer of fortifications, with the aim
of designing an impenetrable system to protect the castle road:
fourteen gates, representing the fourteen Stations of the Cross.

1 shooting holes
2 murder hole, vats of boiling oil
3 shooting holes
4 retractable footbridge, shooting holes
5 retractable footbridge
6 marksman’s windows, murder hole
7 lattice porticulus, vats of boiling oil, murder hole
8 false floor
9 shooting holes
10 watchtower, hot oil windows
11 murder hole
12 drawbridge
13 shooting holes, hot oil windows
14 drawbridge, retractable porticulus,
murder holes, vats of boiling oil

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 Fundamentals PAGE 263

US airports: twenty-layer security 2014 TSA Airport Security

As logical entrance and exit points to the city for millions of travelers, airports
represent the modern equivalent of the city gate, bearing all its symbolic weight.
In the Jet Age 1960s, airports are built as glamorous places; even through the
1970s, after the first modern hijackings, security in­volves relatively lightweight
X-ray equipment. In the US, 9/11 provoked a dramatic escalation of ever more
demand­ing procedures, with each subsequent terror scare provok­ing new
rituals: the removal of shoes, bans on liquids, full body scans. “While security
represented 5 – 8 percent of airport operating costs a decade ago,” notes the
Interna­tional Air Transport Association, “that figure has increased to as much
as 35 percent at some airports today and there can be no confidence that this
trend will change...” Today, the Transportation Safety Authority boasts no less
than twenty separate checks on travelers. Screenings, search­es, and scannings
are only the most obvious manifesta­tions of a procedure that extends well be-
fore and well after arrival. The airport becomes an endless door stretch­ing out
ahead of travelers...

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 PAGE 264 elements of architecture door

conservator–restorer

Julia Ludwar M.A. conservator–restorer, at the Bavarian building

preservation and restoration advice center...

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 Fundamentals PAGE 265

curator

2013 Paul van Duijn, senior curator of furniture at

the Rijksmuseum storage in Lelystad looking for doors...

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 PAGE 266 elements of architecture wall

2014 Shoji sliding 2014 Translucent 2014 Mud wall, Atelier 1740 Period wall seventeenth
partition by Lixil, Japan concrete wall, Lucem, Kéré, Accademia reproduction, Neil century
Germany di Architettura England with Sarah Dutch oak paneling,
di Mendrisio, Mayfield, England Rijksmuseum,
Switzerland– Netherlands
Burkina Faso

1 HR RA TED PTN
2 HR RA TED PTN
FURRED PT N

FA LSE PT N
MET STUD
Section showing the differ

Elements of Architecture
- Kinetic Wall
This installation revisits the utopian dream of an architecture that can choreography enables endless surfaces patterns, which emerge
move, kinetically, first realized in the 20th century through modernism. slowly then recede and change. This visual/ surface effect is further
This addition culminates an historical evolution of wall making (stone, enhanced by the two layers of gridded fabric which when shifted over
brick, cavity, glass partition etc.) in the context of the Wall Room at each other produce a moiré effect, a second scale of movement, that
the Elements of Architecture Exhibition for the 14th International
Architecture Biennale, Fundamentals, in Venice. Floor pattern (hidden) showing
is translucent/ ephemeral. This surface supported by a space frame
containing a mechanical plenum produces a new kind of malleable
poché.

earlier demolished walls

Surface (wall) movement is activated by a series of motorized points
which extend and retract that transform an elastic (stretched)
translucent synthetic fabric into a topographical section of peaks and
A lightweight laminated timber scaffolding (space frame) is an
anchoring framework for the fabric and houses the mechanisms that

in the room...
valleys. This movement transforms the exhibition visitor’s corridor activate the surface. The wall has an apparent front and back but one
between the kinetic wall and the adjacent (glass) partition wall into a where both sides of the skin are visible simultenesouly. A kinetic
differentiated arch-like space. The limited and changing width of the wall offers an alternative future, an architecture that is materially and
passage ensures an immediate, intimate, and corporal relationship spatially dynamic of both natural and synthetic/recycled materials.
with the viewer/ visitor experientially. A digitally controlled

Axonometric view of the different wall constructions

3’

24
4
15

3 16

AMO VIGNETTE
17
2

PAGE 86 W ALL W ALL PAGE 87

THE EPHEMERAL PARTITION

2014 Concertina fire 2013 4Akustik, 2013 SC&A glass 2014 Kinetic skin wall, 2014 Brick wall
curtain, Coopers Fire, acoustic paneling, partition system, Barkow Leibinger, 1732 CE 1765 CE 1770 CE 1846 CE 1895 CE 1897 CE

England Fantoni, Italy Unifor, Italy Germany

3’
2

1780 CE 1788 CE 1792 CE 1910 CE 1914 CE 1926 CE

1732 - 1833 CE 1846-2013 CE

THE BANK OF ENGLAND: Between 1732 and OVERL AY: Superimposition reveals the complexity
1793 CE 1795 CE 1797 CE 1830, the building gained increasing complexit y, of the partition changes in the Central Pavillion. 1932 CE 1952 CE 1968 CE
as growth was resolved through connections
between adjacent building projects.

24 1798 CE 1799 CE 1803 CE

Walls, which divide spaces with a solemn aura of

1970 CE 1972 CE 1982 CE

permanence, trigger a chaos of internal transformation in

the most permanent-seeming buildings. The Bank of
England evolved through three different architects and
dozens of transformations over a century through the
accretion of new spaces built of masonry walls.

1806 CE 1807 C E 1810 CE Thanks to the lightweight partition wall, what was once an 1986 CE
anomaly is now a common, intentional design feature.

14MIA_250-312_Elements2_ENG.indd 266 14/05/14 11:15

The Central Pavilion, home to the Venice Biennale, uses
partition to match the exhibit space to the current fashion.
 Fundamentals PAGE 267

contributors
atelier kéré, accademia
di architettura di mendrisio
wall
cultural heritage agency of the The meaning of the wall is just as diverse as the uses of vertical surface
netherlands can be, but there are at least two essential functions: providing structure,
neil england’s company and dividing space. The two can be separated, and thus the wall itself
rijksmuseum divides into two, as the bearing wall and the partition wall: the “neces-
the russian museum of ethnography, sary” wall, separating roof from ground; and the contingent wall, organ-
st. petersburg izing movement within the resulting container. The former, it would seem,
unifor is as stable as the human need for shelter; the latter as changeable as our
forms of sociability. Seen in time-lapse, the history of the world’s architec-
wih the support of tural plans would be the history of changing forms of civilization, as new
lixil corporation segmentation of spaces is demanded by new forms of society. The single-
unifor cell house, with occupants huddled in shared space (probably around a
central fireplace), gives way to ever more complex configurations of boxes
wih the technical support of within boxes. Increasing standards of modesty and individualism demand
barkow leibinger new walls around new bedrooms; new family norms even divide off the
coopers fire nursery. With the advance of technology, the wall, no matter how tempo-
fantoni rary or flimsy, becomes more and more permeated with wiring and plumb-
lucem ing, insulation and acoustic engineering, even as outwardly it becomes
increasingly bare, minimal, even transparent.
thanks to
zhanna chistyakova Walls always have to be made of something. The installation aims to reveal the
dirk-jan de vries hidden complexity in the section of the wall—the part we typically never see—
peter don through showcasing a series of different wall types, from solid to insubstantial,
vladimir grusman including a seventeenth-century stone wall from the Huis Huydecoper in the
wobke hooites Netherlands, a brick wall made on site in the Central Pavilion, a Russian Yurta
sarah mayfield mesh partition, and a retractable fire curtain, among others...
anna nikolaeva
kayoko ota The installation also explores the history of the Central Pavilion itself, stripping
olga starostina back the existing plasterboard walls, revealing the solid brick behind, and mark-
università della svizzera italiana ing on the floor the shifting positions of the room’s partition walls since the late
paul van duin nineteenth century...

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 PAGE 268 elements of architecture wall
3. shangarak (dome) is
lifted from the center of the
structure, with the help of a
special pole called a bakan.

4. seventy uuks (spokes)

are put in place to hold
up the dome. The top end
of the uuk is inserted in a
specially crafted recess in
building a yurta
the edge of the shangarak ,
the lower end is tied to the
1. door jambs and leaves
top edge of the keregi.
are the first elements to be
put in place.

2. six keregi (foldable

walls) are tied to the door
jambs in a circle. When
5. ropes + decorated folded the height of a
bands are used to pull keregi is app 1.7 m, and
the structure together they can be stretched
and secure. as needed, adjusting
the height of the whole
6. thatch the walls are 1902 installing a yurta, Turkmens, Trans-Caspian region. structure.
wrapped with thatch braid-
ed with colored threads.

7. woollen coverings
the whole structure is
wrapped in five woollen
coverings.

Constructed in two to three

hours, yurtas today are
an integral part of life for
Kazakhs, nomadic Uzbeks
and Turkmens as a dwell-
ing, summer home, and 1906 Kazakhs, Semipalatinsk region.
for rituals. Manufacturing
of a yurta’s core elements
is done by special crafts-
men; all other elements are 8. decorated bands
the dome and the walls of
produced by women of the interior are covered with
the family. The structural decorated bands which
elements can last up to 150 play a structural as well as
an important aesthetic role.
years, woollen coverings
up to 100 years. For some
1,500 years, the structural
elements of a yurta have
remained unchanged.

1902 Interior of a wealthy Kirkiz yurta, Alai valley.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 269
1639–1943–2014 Huydecoper House
In 1943, a British military plane crashes into one of
the most impressive homes in Amsterdam’s canal
district, the Huydecoper House. Built between
1639 and 1642 for city nobleman Joan Huydecoper
and designed by famed Dutch classicist architect
Philips Vingsboon, the façade is highly un-Dutch. In
the context of the brick-based architecture of the
Nether­lands, this Bentheimer sandstone façade,
thirty centimeters thick, is a marvel of its time. After
the plane crash, the city council launched an effort
to preserve the façade of the building. After an initial
period of storage, the façade fragments were moved
to several locations throughout the city and were
finally dumped in an open storage facility in the late
1980s where the fragments began to rapidly disap-
pear. After failed attempts at reconstructing the origi-
nal façade, since 2003 they have been in the Dutch
Cultural Heritage collection, where only fourty-three
fragments remain rep­resenting less than ten percent
of the original...

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 WALL PAGE 71 WALL WALL PAGE 73
PAGE 270 elements of architecture wall
avilions

glione
Biennale,

1922 CE 1932 CE
EXPOSITION GALLERY-STYLE

1928 CE 1958 CE
RESIDENTIAL WHITE BOX

1928 CE 2013 CE
SALON-STYLE
Changing scenography of the Venice WHITE BOX

Biennale’s Central Pavilion.

...anyone looking at a wall today looks at

a riddle: is it an immutable object—of heft,
solidity, weight—or is it a provisional
assembly that can be removed or changed
without particular effort...
Plan of all the walls that have radically
changed the character of the wall
room in the course of 169 years in
the Central Pavilion...

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 Fundamentals PAGE 271

1846–2014 Central Pavilion,

Venice Biennale shifting walls.

1846 1895 1897

1910 1914 1926

1932 1952 1968

1970 1972 1982

1986

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 PAGE 272 elements of architecture wall

beijing 2013
dismantling as industry

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 Fundamentals PAGE 273

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 PAGE 274 elements of architecture stair

Archival records of staircase

Selection of research and publications
staircase models by Friedrich Mielke

Reconstruction of
historical staircases
Staircase parts: steps,
balusatrades collected
by Friedrich Mielke

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 Fundamentals PAGE 275

developed with
friedrich-mielke-institut für
scalalogie, ostbayerische
stair
technische hochschule regensburg, The diktat of the fifteenth-century architectural theorist Leon Battista
fakultät architektur and stephan Alberti—“The fewer staircases that are in a house, and the less room
trüby with thekla schulz-brize, they take up, the more convenient they are esteem’d”—has proved to be
joachim wienbreyer a prophesy for the contemporary condition. The staircase is considered
dangerous—safety requirements limit architects’ ambitions—and is pos-
mielke documentary sibly endangered, only still in existence in order to fulfill the requirement
discipline and passion: of having an exit strategy, though the stair may be making something of a
by stephan trüby with amo comeback as an aid to fitness.
claudi cornaz
hans werlemann Yet the stair has an illustrious history as a physically and architecturally de-
tomas koolhaas manding element allowing ascent—to upper chambers and heightened spiritual
states. According to Friedrich Mielke (born 1921), the stair is “the queen of
with the technical support of architecture,” though it never gets the attention it deserves. After sixty years
fondazione prada of measuring and theorizing staircases around Europe, authoring twenty-eight
iguzzini books on the staircase, and founding the science of Scalology (staircase stud-
kef ies), Mielke has developed a formidable archive of stairs, models, balustrades,
knoll drawings, books, and documentatio—imported in its entirety to the Central
Pavilion. A new documentary film made for the biennale on Mielke explores the
thanks to biographical basis for his devotion to stairs and the intricacy of attention
wolfgang baier, alois bräu, andreas to this formerly noble element...
emminger, martin forster, mirko
jakschik, sabine lange, friedrich
mielke, michael salberg, birgit
scheuerer, sophie schlosser, ihsan
yeneroglu, annika zeitler, daniel
zwangsleitner

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 PAGE 276 elements of architecture stair

2014 Friedrich Mielke interviewed on his life’s work on the staircase.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 277

venice statement
No one can possibly climb a flight of stairs without making contact
with one’s foot. Foot and Step are dependent on each other.
Their interdependence marks the defining characteristic of Scalology.

In Europe we have adjusted to a riser measuring eighteen to twenty

centimeters in height. For the ancient Romans, twenty-five- to thirty-
centimeters high risers were considered normal. Meanwhile the steps on
the Mayan pyramids measure 40 to 50 cm in height.

Following from these relationships is the theory that cultures are

significantly affected by the measurements of their stairs. This is true not
only for peoples as a whole, but also for their internal social hierarchies,
which are made visible by the steps. Analogous to Scalology, one
can, purely based on the measurements and idiosyncracies of a stair,
draw conclusions relating to the manufacturer, the user, and all other
circumstances surrounding its creation.

Scalology may benefit both builders and clients, manufacturers and users,
artists and art historians, psychologists and physiologists, anthropologists
and medical doctors, teachers and students.

Scalology differentiates itself in spirit from the purely technical surveying

methods employed by Stair Research. Scalology creates the philosophical
superstructure to cover all profane accomplishments.

Friedrich Mielke, 2014

Friedrich Mielke (b. 1921) with sixty years of measuring and

theorizing staircases around Europe, authoring twenty-eight
books on the staircase, and founding the science of Scalology,
Mielke can be considered the godfather of the stair.

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 PAGE 278 elements of architecture stair

Catalogue of stair types: German terminology

Collected diagrams and definitions

Gerade zweiläufig Gerade zweiläufige Gerade sechsarmige

Gerade einläufig Gerade einläufig Treppenanlage mit divergierende Treppen- Treppenanlage mit 3 Armen Treppenanlage mit
einarmige Treppe zweiarmige Treppe mit 3 geraden Armen anlage mit gemeinsamen und einem Wendepodest zentralem Verteilerpodest
Längspodest und 1 Podest Antrittsarm und (Imperiale Treppe)
Zwischen-podest

Symmetrische Treppen- Gerade zweiläufige Gerade zweiläufige

Gerade zweiläufig parallele Gerade einläufigzweiarmige Gerade einläufige Treppe anlage mit 2 Läufen zu je Treppenanlage mit 3 Armen Treppenanlage mit
Treppenanlage ohne Treppe mit Eckpodest mit Wendepodest 2 geraden Armen und und einem Wendepodest 4 kreuzförmig
Längspodest einem Verteilerpodest (Imperiale Treppe) angeordneten Arment und
mit einem zentralen
Wendepodest

Spiraltreppe in einem
Kegelstumpf mit gleich-
bleibender Laufbreite und Einläufige Wendeltreppe, Wendeltreppen mit
einem Auge, das sich nach im Brunnen oder dick­ zylindrischer Spindel auf
oben verengt wandigen Gehäuse, mit quadratischem Grundriß
Auge

Symmetrische Treppen- Symmetrische Treppen- Spiraltreppe in einem

anlagen mit zwei anlagen mit einem geraden Kegelstumpf mit steigend
gewundenen Läufen Antrittsarm und zwei verringerter Laufbreite und Treppentürme— Wendeltreppe mit Einläufige Wendeltreppe
gewundenen mit gleichbleibendem Turm-Grundrisse zylindrischer Spindel auf mit Hohlspindel und
Austrittsarmen Durchmesser des Auges kreisförmigem Grundriß Wangen-säulchen

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 Fundamentals PAGE 279

Treppenanlage mit 2 und Treppenanlage mit

mehr geraden parallelen 2 geraden symmetrisch
Läufen und mit entgegen-gesetzten Angewendelte, und An- und Ausgewendelte Gerade vierarmige Treppe Pyramidentreppe
Längspodesten Läufen und gemeinsamen Ausgewendelte Treppen Treppe mit 3 Eckpodesten
Hauptpodest

Symmetrische Treppen- Treppenanlage mit

anlage mit 2 Läufen zu je 2 geraden parallelen
2 geraden Armen und Läufen in entgegen­ Treppenanlage mit Gerade dreiarmige Treppe Negative Pyramidentreppe Doppelpyramidentreppe
2 Wendepodesten, sowie gesetzter Steige-richtung 3 geraden, konträr gerich- mit 2 Eckpodesten
1 gemeinsamen Haupt- teten Läufen ohne Längs-
podest podeste

Einläufige linksgewendelte Monozentrisch disparadiale Einläufige poly-zentrisch Zweiläufig duozentrische Dreiläufige Wendeltreppen- Vierläufige Wendeltreppen-
Wendeltreppe mit Spindel- Wendeltreppe mit 2 Läufen gestaffelte Wendeltreppe Wendeltreppenanlage - anlage mit 3 Zentren anlage mit 4 Zentren
zylinder Zwillingswendeltreppe (Trizentrisch) ‑ Entwurf (Quattrozentrisch)—
Entwurf

Monozentrisch isoradiale
Wendeltreppen mit Auge,
Einläufige rechts­ mit 2, 3, und 4 Läufen Einläufig duozentrische Zweiläufig duozentrische Zweiläufig duozentrische Kegeltreppe,
gewendelte Wendeltreppe (Doppel-Trippel- und Wendeltreppenanlage Wendeltreppenanlage Wendeltreppenanlage mit Hohl-kegeltreppe
mit offenem Spindelzylinder Quadrupelwendeltreppen) Zwischengang (negative Kegeltreppe) und
Doppel-kegeltreppe

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 PAGE 280 elements of architecture stair

Balustrade archive at Friedrich-Mielke-Institut für Scalalogie, OTH Regensburg.

1990 “Laurin” stair developed with Friedrich Mielke and the sculptor Werner
Bäumler, with steps gradually increasing and, in the end, decreasing in height.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 281

2014 Staircase models at the

Friedrich-Mielke-Institut für Scalalogie.

Folders with dossiers on staircases in One of several wheeled storage cabinets full
Swiss farmhouses from the Friedrich-Mielke-Institut. of records of the world’s staircases...

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 PAGE 282 elements of architecture RAMP

Reconstruction of Claude Parent’s

oblique Neuilly house

Reconstruction of the first

wheelchair ramp, by Tim Nugent...

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 Fundamentals PAGE 283

developed with
claude parent
tim nugent
ramp
A utilitarian device that actually has the potential to liberate floors from
contributors their separate identity, used first for cattle and horses and gaining
centre pompidou—mnam— urgency with the car, the ramp has the potential to fulfill the long-held
bibliothèque kandinsky desire to have a life of uninterrupted continuity. The parametric drive can
collection de fonds régional pour le claim the ramp as a legitimate part of its repertoire: an all-encompassing
centre d’art contemporain, orléans, smooth surface that attempts to eliminate differences between spaces
france and elements. At its moment of greatest dissemination, the ramp is at
siaf/cité de l’architecture et du the same time severely limited by building codes: codes that make it
patrimoine/archives d’architecture impossible to handle the ramp architecturally, allowing only the most
du xxe siècle gradual angle of inclination; and codes that exploit the ramp merely as a
tate liverpool provisional, temporary-seeming gesture towards universal accessibility.
university of illinois at urbana- The ramp is a speculative springboard, constantly pulled down by
champaign realities...
vito acconci & claire lehmann
The ramp installation explores the work of two key, and opposing, pioneers of
with the support of the ramp of the twentieth century: Tim Nugent, inventor of the disbility access
kvadrat soft cell ramp, and Claude Parent, master of the oblique...

with the technical support of

kvadrat soft cell
ruckstuhl

thanks to
marie-ange brayer
michel carrade
naad parent
loïc prat
sonnabend gallery
helen sullivan

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 PAGE 284 elements of architecture RAMP

1923

Tim Nugent (b. 1923), an American World War II veteran of the who
pioneered research into accessibility ramps and campaigned for their universal
implementation—a life’s work that has impacted architecture everywhere—is
interviewed, his technical work exhibited, and his ideal, low-inclination ramp
recreated.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 285

1923
Claude Parent (b. 1923), an architect who imagined daily life lived on a series
of domestic ramps, is interviewed, his archive investigated, and his ideal ramp
system—betraying a huge optimism about steepness—for his own living room
in Neuilly, reconstructed.

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 PAGE 286 elements of architecture RAMP

1950s Wheelchair access ramp designed and built by Tim Nugent

at the Urbana–Champaign campus of the University of Illinois.
Nugent pursues a career researching wheelchair ramp design
and advocating for disability access.

1961 Inclination limit, Tim Nugent.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 287

1974 Claude Parent’s sloping living room in his house in Neuilly.

1966 “Angle of maximum human adherence,” Claude Parent.

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 PAGE 288 elements of architecture toilet

Wallpaper based on
Alexander Kira’s 1976 Films: Peter Greenaway’s 26
book The Bathroom. Bathrooms (1985) and William
E. Jones’s Mansfield 1962.

Collection of historic toilets

including an ancient Roman
toilet, a baroque urinal,
and a toilet developed for
the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation’s “Reinvent the
Toilet Challenge.”

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 Fundamentals PAGE 289

contributors
alexander kira
jpg toilets
toilet
peter greenaway No architectural treatise cites the toilet as the primordial element of
laufen bathrooms ag on loan from architecture, but the toilet is today the fundamental zone of interaction
peter stieg, vienna between humans and architecture on the most intimate level. Once a
eoos / eawag respectable communal activity in Roman cities, going to the toilet gradu-
the trustees of the british museum ally became privatized, enclosed within architecture. In the nineteenth
laufen bathrooms ag on loan from century, enabled by flush technology, the S-trap, and modern plumbing,
thomas engele, innsbruck the toilet united in a single room with the bath—a union of the dirty and
toilet museum, laufen bathrooms ag the clean that had only been safely achieved a handful of times in his-
weald and downland open air tory. The domestication, privatization, and proliferation of the toilet is the
museum great unspoken driver behind much architecture and urban planning. But
william e. jones at the moment where the globalization of the Euro-American toilet and its
lixil corporation attendant behavior is on the brink of completion, the model it depends
on—abundant water, sophisticated plumbing, large-scale sewage and
with the support of purification systems—is increasingly untenable and unaffordable. The
lixil corporation toilet is at once the most private and the most political element, subject to
government interference at least since King Francois’ 1539 edict instruct-
with the technical support of ing the citizens of Paris to take responsibility for the collection and proper
barkow leibinger disposal of their “waters.” Today, the toilet is the site of cultural superim-
kef positions (sit-toilets with grated sides for squatting on) and resistance,
philanthropy (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s challenge to “reinvent
thanks to the toilet”), and habits that only seem to be intractable...
una helle
neil macgregor The toilet room features a range of crucial historical toilets, from a Roman char-
jill maggs iot model found at the baths of Caracalla to the latest Japanese washlet, with
warming, music, lighting, and deodorizing ordered in advance by smartphone,
to a new typology of toilet, the “Blue Diversion,” developed as part
of the “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge,” issued by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation. On the walls: the groundbreaking ergonomic research of Alexander
Kira from his 100,000-selling 1976 book The Bathroom, plus two films on diver-
gent toilet experiences, Peter Greenaway’s 26 Bathrooms (1985) and William
E. Jones’s Mansfield 1962.

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 PAGE 290 elements of architecture toilet

ca. 211–224 Chariot latrine at baths of Caracalla, Rome

Similar in shape—with its circular cutaway—to earlier communal toilets,
the single chariot latrine individuates and exalts the act of defecation,
a precursor to modern “thrones”...

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 Fundamentals PAGE 291

3D Vello Clarice

Refresh (square) Quinta Moda

Galerie Galerie Plan Encore

2013 Twyford range: Triumph of minimalism

With the strapline “A place that’s all yours. For life.” Twyford launches the latest all-
white (except for the art-deco inspired “Clarice,” with black seat) range, free of the
decoration that routinely adorned the toilet bowl a century earlier—as if puritanical
design can combat the inevitable dirt the toilet will confront. Elaborate molded shapes
like the lions and dolphins of the Unitas have also been eradicated in favor of minor
variations on a single shape...

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 PAGE 292 elements of architecture toilet

1976 Wallpaper based on Alexander Kira’s research

for the book The Bathroom.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 293

alexander kira and

the science of “evacuation”

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 PAGE 294 elements of architecture toilet

low-tech

1985 Before urbanization exploded around the turn of the

millenium, placing unprecedented pressure on toilets and
the sewage and water systems that serve them, Sanitation
Without Water, a guide to afforable toilets for the world’s
poor, was published, full of cheap toilet designs, prescient
solutions for an enduring problem...

low-tech: pour flush

A pour-flush latrine with pan and water-seal trap
directly above the pit, illustrated in the 1985 book
Sanitation Without Water, by Uno Winblad and
Wen Kilama.
baffle
“The baffle directs the latrine input (excreta and
refuse) to one of the chambers. When that cham-
ber is full, you turn the baffle plate with a handle.
The input then falls into the other chamber.”
—Sanitation Without Water, p. 78

2014 blue diversion toilet

A winner of the Bill and Melinda Gates “Reinvent the
Toilet Challenge,” the Blue Diversion toilet by Eawag
and EOOS is one of a new generation of stand-alone
toilets, not reliant on scarce water or expensive sewage
infrastructure. “The core of the blue diversion toilet is the
back wall containing the compact water recovery technol-
ogy,” the makers explain. “Feces and urine are separately
collected under the separating pan. The soiled water from
hand-washing, pan cleaning, anal cleansing, and menstru-
1992 ventilated double pit latrine al hygiene is also separated and fully recycled on-site to
The Wolrd Health Organization picked up the be used for the same purposes. The blue diversion toilet
baton of infrastructure-free toilet design with the features an innovative dry source-separating pan, which
2
manual A Guide to the Development of On-Site can be cleaned with on-site recovered water without the
C
Sanitation. One design is the classic two-pit use of mechanical parts for cleaning. The squatting pan
r
solution. Where groundwater or rock lies one to can be transformed by 90 degrees rotation into a washing
two meters below the ground, a deep pit toilet i
pan by foot activation.”
can be substituted by two shallow pits lined with a
A working model was installed in two informal settlements
bricks, filled and emptied alternately... s
in Kampala, Uganda in 2013...
a

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 Fundamentals PAGE 295

high-tech
The Inax Satis, a tankless “integrated” model
introduced by Lixil, controlled by a wall-mounted
digital control unit. Functions include: automatic
seat opening and closing (triggered by a body
sensor), automatic deodorizaing (air in the bowl is
sucked through a charcoal filter and pumped out
the back) plus “Plasmacluster,” an ion generator
designed to create “fresh air [as] in a forest
or near a waterfall,” adjustable front and rear
washing, music, nightlight, and emergency alarm.

2010 machinic toilet 2009 intelligent toilet

Closed loop toilet: NASA’s water recovery system Big data enters the toilet: TOTO’s Intelligence
recycles ninety-three percent of the liquids it receives, Toilet II features a urine “sample catcher” that
including urine and sweat, into drinking water. Boiling can measure glucose levels (useful for diabetics),
alone does not remove contaminates without gravity, urine temperature, and hormone levels (for women
so the keg-sized distiller also rotates, producing an trying to conceive). The washlet (which also has
artificial gravity field that removes impurities... the standard features of spray-jet and heated
seat etc.) gathers data and communicates with
the user’s computer by WiFi, compiling a health
report.

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 PAGE 296 elements of architecture escalator

Elevator section
projected on the wall
showing its delicate Maps on Hong Kong’s escalator
network from Cities Without 1940s drawings of the
detailing...
Ground by Adam Frampton, Moscow underground
Jonathan D. Solomon, highlighting the escalator
and Clara Wong

Playable simulation
test for a new subway
escalator system
in Hong Kong

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 Fundamentals PAGE 297

contributors
arup mass motion
arup realtime synthetic environment
escalator
cities collective: adam frampton, Born with the rush of industrial inventiveness and the science fiction of
jonathan d. solomon, and clara the 1800s, the escalator is at first a literal attraction at the great Exposi-
wong tions and at the Coney Island of the turn of the century. Seamless assisted
kinnarps ascent becomes a universal standard for shoppers. The escalator’s placid
kone movement makes possible the transition from industrial to consumer
schusev state museum of capitalism, by enabling the shopping mall, as well as the transition from
architecture town to metropolis, by knitting together the unforgivingly immense spaces
tor
thyssenkrupp, norte, s.a. of mass transit. Today we ride a device that is outwardly the same as the
device we were riding fifty years ago. As developing countries have risen
with the technical support of in recent years, vast new terrains have been conquered by its familiar
barkow leibinger rhythm, and more people than ever are learning to ride the escalator—
though the escalators they ride are basically the same in Buenos Aires
thanks to or Bangkok, Los Angeles or Lagos. Just as its steady rhythm seamlessly
irina korobina connects different levels of architectural space, so its steady typology
pavel kuznetsov aesthetically connects the world. The escalator is a particularly efficient
benjamin malek symbol of the state of our global system, churning with continuous dyna-
mism, offering the exact same thing everywhere, while haunted in its hid-
den guts by the suspicion that business as usual can’t go on forever...

A detailed sectional drawing of a standard escalator—used anywhere around

the world—dominates the room, revealing the space this enormous machine
takes up within architecture. The installation also presents snapshots of the
escalator’s history and possible futures: from its origins in the moving walkway
at the 1900 Paris Expo to the exalted escalators of Moscow’s subway in 1940s
propaganda, to a mock-up of the evolution of escalator steps from wood to
steel, to a playable simulation test for a new subway escalator system in Hong
Kong. Also, a road not taken: the only known documentation of a spiral escala-
tor, installed in the London Underground at Holloway Road in 1902...

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 PAGE 298 elements of architecture escalator

the myth of the curved escalator

1906 Two workmen stand on a double
spiral moving walkway at Hol­loway
Road tube station, London, built by
Jesse Reno, the only known working
version of a spiral moving walkway
at the time.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 299

supervison
2014 Playable simulation
=
simulation
for a new subway
escalator system in Hong
Kong by Arup Realtime
Synthetic Environment.

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 PAGE 300 elements of architecture escalator

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 Fundamentals PAGE 301

...by offering smooth transitions from one level

to another, the escalator has, more than any
other element, transformed our architecture,
our urbanism, our infrastructures, our movements,
ultimately, our consciousness...

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 PAGE 302 elements of architecture escalator

Adam Frampton, Jonathan Solomon,

Cities Without Ground,

Clara Wong

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 Fundamentals PAGE 303

...the escalator as an enabler of further urban extensions...

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 PAGE 304 elements of architecture elevator

Improved prototype of
a patented horizontally Capsule used in 2010
moving elevator by to rescue trapped
Eindhoven University miners in Chile
of Technology
Robotics

Scaled protoype
of a circular elevator
by Lerch Bates

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 Fundamentals PAGE 305

developed with
eindhoven university of technology
robotics
elevator
anne krus, han meyer, harrie van de The history of the elevator is one where existing technologies—the safety
loo, rené van de molengraft, wouter trap, traction, electric propulsion—combined to trigger a revolution of
houtman, freek ramp architecture and the city. As the enabler of the skyscraper (and therefore
the modern metropolis), the elevator’s origins first in the mining industry
contributors and later in theater scenography were mostly forgotten as it disappeared
lerch bates into the core. Its potential for visual drama diminished in favor of a dis­
museo regional de atacama— connected experience shuttling between floors, a system that has remained
gobierno de chile fundamentally unchanged since 1853. In the mid-1990s Otis, one of the
pioneers of the original elevator, experimented with a radical new type
with the technical support of which would be able to move both horizontally and vertically—a long-held
barkow leibinger dream of architects—called the Odyssey. After two years of testing, the
noraplan project was abandoned due to a perceived lack of interest from the market—
kef the patents filed for this event now lie expired in the desk drawers of history.

thanks to Together with the engineering department of the Technical University of

adrian godwin Eindhoven, a new prototype of the world’s first horizontally moving elevator will
cristobal molina baeza be built and tested in the room. Based on the original expired patent by Otis
and updated with the use of robot technology, the potential still remains to
break the monotony of the box-on-a-rope principle and revolutionize the way
we think about architectural and urban infrastructure.

A second invention that promises to end the monopoly of the vertical presented
in the room is the Skytrack system developed with Lerch Bates: a motor-driven
elevator able to move around buildings in a loop.

Recalling the heroic origins of the elevator in mining, the room also features
the capsule used to rescue trapped Chilean miners in 2010.

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 PAGE 306 elements of architecture elevator

going down the rope

Throughout history the rope has remained the most important component
of the elevator. Known and used from prehistory, the rope reveals a funda­mental
common misunderstanding and semantic mistake in the origin of the elevator:
going down actually preceded going up. While in New York, the alleged
“birthplace” of the elevator, elevators reached forty meters in height, elevators
in the mineshafts in Central Europe were breaching one kilometer in depth...
They have something in common though, in that they both suffer from a law of
diminishing returns: what critical floor efficiency ratios (the number of elevators
needed to reach a height vs. the available floor area) are for going up, heat
and climate control are for mineshafts going down...

15 m high

~2500 BCE 2000 BCE ~300 BCE

Grime’s Graves (flint mines) Great Orme (copper mines) Laurion silver mines
Norfolk, Britain. Wales, Britain). Athens, Greece.
15 m deep 70 m deep 92 m deep

Job 28:1-12
1 “People know where to mine silver
and how to refine gold.
2 They know where to dig iron from the earth
and how to smelt copper from rock.
3 They know how to shine light in the darkness
and explore the farthest regions of the earth
as they search in the dark for ore.
4 They sink a mine shaft into the earth
far from where anyone lives.
They descend on ropes, swinging back and forth.
5 Food is grown on the earth above,
but down below, the earth is melted as by fire.
6 Here the rocks contain precious lapis lazuli,
and the dust contains gold.

Book of Job 28:1-6. Holy Bible: Old Testament.

New Living Translation (NLT), 2007.

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 Fundamentals PAGE 307

2010
Burj Khalifa
1929
1972 Dubai.
Empire State
Building WTC 1
New York. New York.
1870 381 m high 417 m high
Equitable Life Building
New York.
40 m high

1556
Chemnitz, Germany
(as observed by
Georgius Agricola).
200 m deep
Hauling machines are
of varied and diverse 2010 San José Mine
forms, some of them Copiapó, Chile.
being made with
great skill, and if I am
not mistaken, they
were unknown to the 1875 St. Adalbert Shaft,
Ancients. They have Příbram, Czech Republic.
been invented in order First mining shaft to
that water may be reach 1000m depth.
drawn from the depths
of the earth to which no
tunnels reach, and also
the excavated material
from shafts which are
likewise not connected
with a tunnel, or if so,
only with very long
ones. Since shafts are
not all of the same
depth, there is a great
variety among these
hauling machines.

1556: Georgius Agricola,

De re metallica (Latin:
On the Nature of Metals).
Translated by Herbert
Clark Hoover & Lou Henry
Hoover, 1950.

1962
Mponeng Mine
South Africa.
3200 m deep In the afternoon of August
5, 2010, thirty-three miners
were trapped in the San José
copper–gold mine in Chile.
1962 Tautona Mine After drilling several new
South Africa shafts, rescue teams were
3900 m deep able to send down Fenix
rescue modules sixty-nine
The journey to the rock days after the accident...
face can take one hour
from surface level. The
lift cage that transports
the workers from the
surface to the bottom
travels at sixteen metres
per second (58 km/h)...

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 PAGE 308 elements of architecture elevator

1. Passengers enters the shuttle cabin 2. Shuttle cab arrives at the transit floor
and the lobby goes up in shaft L3

FIG. 1 a simplified, stylized, perspective view of elevator shuttles in a 4 provide the capability to move a cab from any one of the elevators L1-L4
hypertall building interconnecting with horizontal transports on a plu- to either of the tracks X1-X2 or to any of the elevators H1-H4, and vice versa.
rality of transport floors. In accordance v.rith one aspect of the present invention, the transport floor
Referring now to FIG. 1, the horizontal and vertical transportation of pas- 26 may comprise an upper floor of a hyper building. On the other hand, FIG. 2 is a partial, simplified perspective view, partially broken away, X2 may be connected by
sengers in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes the invention about to be described may also be practiced with horizontal showing additional detail at a transport floor FIG. 1. crossovers 30, 31 which themselves will comprise tracks of the same variety
transferring passenger cabs at a transport floor 26 between a first group of transportation on tracks X3, X4 extending on or near a ground level, such as as the tracks X1, X2 and Y1-Y 4 of FIG. 1. The tracks Y1-Y 4 are omitted from
vertical elevator shuttles L1-L4, a second group of elevators H1-H4, which may occur in or under a downtown underground mall of a common variety, The concept is further illustrated in FIG. 2 wherein a cab A 101 is shown be- FIG. 2 for simplicity. As one example of an embodiment of the present inven-
may be shuttles or local elevators, and carriages such as a carriage 28, which on a transport floor 27. The cabs may be removed from the elevators at ing loaded onto an elevator H1 at, for instance, the 60th floor of a building, tion, the carriage 107 and mechanism for transferring the cab 101 between
are moveable on horizontal tracks X1, X2. Switching between the elevators landings 29 at the lobby level, for unloading and loading, as in said applica- for transport, for instance, to the 120th floor of the building. Similarly, a cab the carriage 107 and the car frame platform 104 of the parent application
and the tracks X1, X2 is accomplished in part by moving of carriages on tion Ser. No. 08/565,606. B is being shown loaded onto an elevator shuttle L3 for vertical transporta- are illustrated in FIGS. 3-6.
tracks Y1-Y 4, which are transverse to the tracks X1 and X2. The tracks Y1-Y tion to the ground level of the building. As shown in FIG. 2, the tracks X1,

3. Transit doors open, the shuttle wheels unlock ... 4. the shuttle leaves the shaft on to a wheeled platform ...

FIG. 5 is a partial, stylized, partially broken away, partially sectioned motorized pinion 112 in FIG. 5. Then, the main motorized pinion 114 vvill pull
side elevation view of an elevator cab in the process of being trans- the entire cab 101 fully onto the platform 106 by means of the main rack 102,
ferred from a car frame within a hoistway onto a carriage. and as it does so, a spring causes the slidable auxiliary rack 103 to retract
under the cab 101. An auxiliary motorized pinion 115 can assist in moving the
Referring now to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, the best mode for transferring a cab be- cab 101 to the right to a shuttle car frame, in the same manner as described
tween elevator cars and carriers at the transfer floor might be that disclosed for the pinion 111. A pinion behind the pinion 115 can pull a cab onto the
in commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/663,569 filed on carriage 107 from the right. Similarly, an auxiliary pinion 116 can assist in
Jun. 19, 1996. In FIG. 5, the bottom of the elevator cab 101 has a fixed, main moving a cab from the car frame 104 to the left as shown in FIG. 5, and a
rack 102 extending from front to back (right to left in FIG. 5), and a sliding pinion located behind pinion 116 can pull a cab onto car frame 104 from the
rack 103 that can slide outwardly to the right, as shown in FIG. 5. There are left (although the high elevators in this embodiment will not do so). To return
a total of four motorized pinions on each platform 104 of the elevator car a cab 101 from the platform 106 to the platform 104, the auxiliary pinion
frame 105 and on each platform 106 of each carrier 107. First, an auxiliary 112 will operate counterclockwise, causing the auxiliary rack 103 to move
motorized pinion 111 turns clockwise to drive the sliding auxiliary rack 103 outwardly to the left until its left end 120 engages the auxiliary pinion 111 on
out from under the cab into the position shown in FIG. 5 where it can engage the frarne 104. Then, the auxiliary pinion 111 pulls the auxiliary rack 103 and
an auxiliary motorized pinion 112 on the platform 106 (not shown, behind the the entire cab 101 to the left until the left end of the main rack 102 engages
FIG. 6 is partially sectioned, partially broken away front elevation view during motion of the carriage with the cab on it. The locks, as described in
pinion 114), which is the limit that the rack 103 can slide. Then, the auxiliary the main motorized pinion (not shown) located in line with the pinion 111
of an elevator cab locked onto a carriage which in turn is locked onto the aforementioned application Ser. No. 08,565,658 are maintained in the
motorized pinion 112 will turn clockwise pulling the auxiliary rack 103 (which which then pulls the entire cab to the left until it is fully on the frame 104. The
the transport floor of FIGS. 1 and 2. locked position by a spring, and electrical current in a solenoid causes them
now is extended to its limit) and therefore the entire cab 101 to the right as details respecting the motors 122, shafts 123, pillow block’> 124 and the
to be unlocked. The current for unlocking these locks will also be applied,
seen in FIG. 5 until such time as an end 113 of the main rack 102 engages like are all set forth in the aforementioned application Ser. No. 08/663,869.
In FIG. 6, a pair of cab/carriage locks 131, which may be the same as the selectively, through the connectors U7, 128.
a main motorized pinion 114 which is located just in front of the auxiliary
locks 91, 92 are utilized to ensure the cab is rigidly secure to the carriage

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 Fundamentals PAGE 309

5. The platform drives in to an orthoganal 6. zigzags using the rotation points ...
grid powered by linear moters ...

FIG. 3 is a partial, stylized top plan view of a transport floor of the dash lines 86 describe the outline of the carrier 107 when it has moved away
system of FIG. 1. from the local elevator L1 to a position centered on the path X1 so that it
may travel in the X direction. For clarity, the illustration of FIG. 3 is not drawn
Referring now to FIG. 3, a fragment of the transfer floor 26 is shown at to scale. However, it is clear that, if desired, the X path could be closer to the
FIG. 4 is a detailed, partial, partially sectioned top plan view of the combination of abutments 98 and open areas 99 in each intersection ensure
the intersection of path X1 with path Y1, adjacent the hatchway 56 of high elevators, such as elevator H1, causing the tracks 70, 71 and the segment 60
transport floor of FIG. 3 illustrating a caster of a cab carrier at a track that the caster can move in the Y direction, either along the track 70 or along
elevator H4, between walls 57, 58 which separate the hatchways. In the to be shorter than shown. However, it is believed best to have some length
present invention, each of the paths on the transfer floor X1, X2, Y1-Y 4 of LIM primary 60 to assure adequate acceleration power for movement
intersection. the track 72. It should be borne in mind that the distances involved on the
includes segments of linear induction motor (LIM) primaries 60-67 and pairs of the carriage with a cab on it. The configuration details are irrelevant to transfer floor are small (tens of meters overall), and the carriage speed is
of wheel track segments such as, along the path Y4, track segments 70-75 the invention and may be selected to suit any implementation thereof. In this In FIG. 4, a wheel track intersection between tracks 70, 72, 76 and 78 is most likely preferably quite slow so that horizontal movement will not jar the
and along the X1 path, track segments 76-83. In FIG. 3, the dotted lines 85 embodiment, carriage/fioor locks 91, 92 are disposed in diagonally opposite shown. A caster 93 includes a bracket 94 that joins a pivot 95 to a spindle 96 passengers unduly. Under these conditions, passive steering of a caster can
together with the dot dash lines 86 describe the outline of the cab carrier quadrants within the area where a carriage will come to rest. These may be which constrains the bearings (not shown) of a wheel 97. The intersection is be acceptable. However, more complex steering may be provided within the
107 in accordance with the invention when it is positioned adjacent to the the same as the cabicar locks disclosed in commonly ow11ed U.S. pat- formed to assure motion: should the carriage first be moved along an X path, purview of the invention.
high elevator H1, butted up against the sill87 of the hatchway 56 between ent application Ser. No. 08/565,658 filed on Nov. 29, 1995, and described so that the caster 93 is in the position shown in FIG. 4, and next be required
inter-elevator wall structures 57, 58. The dash lines 88 together with the dot more hereinafter. to move along a Y path, the

6. and arrives at shaft H4 ... 7. to continue ...

ll
2,
ct
e
d
e
n
a
e
n
n
e
n
d
s
1

1999 Patent for the Odyssey horizontal

e
e

and vertical passenger transport elevator.

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 PAGE 310 elements of architecture elevator

Reengineering the Odyssey: testing the horizontal elevator car at TU Eindhoven

Central processing unit Powered swivel wheels Chassis

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 Fundamentals PAGE 311

Power packs Range finders

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 PAGE 312 elements of architecture

from book for architects developed with

wolfgang tillmans
Architecture is an expression of desires, hopes, and ambitions, but also
practical needs and financial limitations. Over the past ten years, I have studio assistant
photographed buildings in ordinary and extraordinary contexts. When simon menges
I look back at these pictures, I am always taken aback by the madness,
the complexity, and the irrationality—neither ironic nor bleak, they seem courtesy
to me a little daunting, but always taken with a kind eye. david zwirner, new york, london
galerie buchholz, cologne, berlin
Book for Architects is presented in Venice as a projected sequence of still maureen paley, london
images displayed on two screens, the majority of which have never before been institut für auslandsbeziehungen
published. Rather than isolating individual buildings, which is commonly seen —ifa
in architectural photography, my interest is in making images that echo what
the built environment actually looks like to me. I don’t use wide-angle or shift
lenses, but a standard lens that most closely approximates the perspective
of the human eye. The various elements of architecture encountered in the
previous fourteen rooms appear here at times clearly and cleanly, and at other
times in a layered and convoluted fashion. As such, the photographs represent
the impurity and randomness as well as the beauty and imperfection that typify
built reality, both past and present.

The following thirty-two page insert entitled from book for architects is a
work conceived and designed for this Venice Biennale catalogue. It does not
represent the actual projected work.

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