How Henri Lefebvre missed the modernist sensibility of Mies van der Rohe: vitalism at the intersection of a materialist conception of space and a metaphysical approach to architecture

This paper looks at two theoretical statements about ‘space’, both of which are grounded in a vitalist philosophy. The first is Henri Lefebvre's formulation of ‘spatial architectonics’, a structure of concepts which he develops in The Production of Space; the second is Mies van der Rohe's intuition of something he termed ‘authentic form’, a means of triggering new experiences and understandings through sensual engagement with space. Since there are other philosophers and other architects whose thinking about space has been influenced by vitalist philosophy, the discussion will begin with an explanation as to why Lefebvre and van der Rohe have been selected for reciprocal examination.     

Developed space: Theo van Doesburg and the Chambre de Fleurs

Designed in 1925 by Theo van Doesburg, the Chambre de Fleurs is a small rectilinear interior, just 1.2 metres wide by 1.5 metres deep. But whilst modest in terms of its physical dimensions, the experience is of a volume that spills out pictorially in all directions, the diagonal patterns which line its walls extending out, away from the surface towards an imagined auxiliary space. This article looks at the way in which van Doesburg adapted the conventions of architectural drawing to exploit the potential of both geometry and painting. Using the Chambre de Fleurs as an example and considering its qualities in relation to van Doesburg's interest in geometrical figures, an attempt is made to explain how the properties of these drawings can become a productive part of spatial experience in architecture.     

密斯建筑视觉化表象的背后

20世纪30年代之后,密斯·凡·德罗的建筑呈现出与现代艺术及现代艺术展示紧密相关的空间形态。它延续了西方传统建筑理论强调视觉感官的特点,具有适于图像化表现的特质。本文就密斯建筑视觉化表象背后的诸多关联因素进了解析。     

窗户的背后——解读Poli house（坡里住宅）

本文通过对建筑师Mauricio Pezo和Sofia von Ellrichshausen设计的Poli house立面窗户的分析,解读了形式背后精确地的功能、空间和场地的逻辑关系,以及建筑师的设计理念。希望其会给我们带来一些建筑本体的思考。     

Framing values: on ideological concerns in post-war architectural formalism

Our ongoing reassessments of post-war modernism, known as the International Style, focus on that modernism's claim to universal values. Researchers tend to wed universalism with the accented, formal form of this modernism, detached from all related context. This paper challenges these alleged ties by focusing on the revealing example of Mies van der Rohe, a leading representative of the International Style's legacy. The analysis considers Mies's approach within the intellectual context of its time. Engaging with the beliefs of a half-century ago about the promises and perils of universal values, we focus on the philosophical strains of logical positivism. What we find are shared interests, across the disciplines of architecture and philosophy, which shed new light on the claims of post-war modernism to universal values.     

谈密斯·凡·德·罗设计思想

在阐述密斯·凡·德·罗建筑成就的基础上，对其设计风格和设计思想进行了探讨。着重并对其“少就是多”的哲学思想进行了分析，指出了其利用线和方块进行抽象造型的特征。     

谈密斯·凡·德·罗设计思想

在阐述密斯·凡·德·罗建筑成就的基础上,对其设计风格和设计思想进行了探讨。着重并对其“少就是多”的哲学思想进行了分析,指出了其利用线和方块进行抽象造型的特征。     

镜像空间：多米诺体系的多重性建构

该文＂镜像空间＂的概念是基于对现代主义建筑多重性建构的理解而提出的,分析了三种模式现象与空间观念形成的同构关系。立体主义作为现代主义思潮的源头,其意义不仅是关于透明性的阐释,也透射出多米诺体系中物与像互为转译的哲学思辨。以建筑物-镜-像三位一体的核心概念衍生出建筑结构、表皮、空间三者的建构关系。     

探寻密斯·凡·德罗与中国传统建筑之同

本文从建筑理念、空间、布局、结构与材料等方面去探讨密斯的建筑作品与中国传统建筑的相似性。对如何通过改变建造体系、使中国传统建筑适应现代功能需求,提供借鉴参考。     

被掩盖的理性——留园石林小院院落空间解读

该文即试图利用一些几何和数字的理性化表征以及对密斯理性空间的解读,分别从空间的观赏匀质性、流动的"动态多点透视"性、视觉的隐形均衡性等三个方面对苏州留园石林小院院落空间进行剖析.探究这种体验模式下空间的文化性及其人文内涵,力求在一定程度上揭示石林小院院落被长期掩盖的理性空间美.     

黏土片与球状颗粒间范德华作用的简便计算方法

黏粒(黏土片)与非塑性粉粒间相互作用是控制粉质黏土/黏质粉土这一大类土体力学特性的关键因素之一,范德华力是两种颗粒间最主要的相互作用形式,也是饱和土真黏聚力的来源。然而,在土体宏微观关联理论分析、离散元模拟等研究中尚难以得到该力的解析解。为此,提出一种简便计算方法,其基本思想是将粉粒视为球体,将黏土片视为由规则排列的基本立方体构成,将问题转变为可实现的基本立方体与球状颗粒间的范德华作用求解。首先采用蒙特卡罗模拟,计算得到不同空间排列方式下基本立方体与球状颗粒间范德华作用力;随后,训练一个三层人工神经网络模型用于高精度拟合范德华力与两种颗粒空间关系参数的函数关系;最后采用叠加法即可简便求得黏土片与球状颗粒间范德华作用的合力与合力矩。结果表明,提出的简便计算方法准确性高、计算速度快,且拟合的模型参数适用于黏土片与土体中大于1μm的球状颗粒间范德华作用计算。     

Book reviews

Sustainable Urban Development: research and experiments

H. van der Vegt, H. ter Heide, S. P. Tjallingii & D. van Alphen (Eds)

Delft, Delft University Press, 1994, ISBN 90-407-1039-2, xi + 111 pp., Dutch Guilders 25, pb

Ecopolis: strategies for ecologically sound urban development

Sybrand P. Tjallingii

Leiden, Backhuys, 1995, ISBN 90-73348-34-X, 159 pp., No price given, pb

Biodiversity and Landscapes: a paradox of humanity

Ke Chung Kim & Robert D. Weaver (Eds)

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 0 521 41789 9, 431 pp., £50.00 (US$69.95), hb

Poetry, Space, Landscape: toward a new theory

Chris Fitter

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, ISBN 0 521 463017, 322 pp., 37.50, hb

The Ecological City

Rutherford H. Platt, Rowan A. Rowntree & Pamela C. Muick (Eds)

Cambridge, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1994, ISBN 0-87023-883-3, £39.95, hb; 0-87023-884-1, £16.50, pb, 336 pp.     

What is life? Exploring Mies van der Rohe's concept of architecture as a life process

From his popular motto ‘less is more’ to his concept of architecture as ‘the spatially apprehended will of the epoch’, the aphorisms of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) remain one of his most memorable legacies. Despite being less well known, other such statements promoted by Mies are also important to clarify the philosophy that sustained his works. This paper investigates one of these less known yet highly revealing statements: ‘Building-art is only understandable as a life process’. Considering the broader context of Mies's discourse, philosophical readings and architectural projects, this paper argues that Mies used the term ‘life process’ to refer to a larger changing reality that united the material and the spiritual realms of life. According to Mies, the recognition of this material-spiritual unity was necessary to recover architecture's status as ‘building-art’ [Baukunst] amid an overly technological and individualistic modern age. This view of life and modernity is consistent with the writings of Rudolf Schwarz, Max Scheler and Alfred North Whitehead, which, as this paper shows, were highlighted by Mies not as sources of his thought, but as key references that could especially illuminate the significance of his work and architectural philosophy.     

建筑空间的场所体验

哲学对当代建筑理论产生了深远的影响,哲学家对普遍世界的关注也使哲学向建筑学拓展。空间是哲学与建筑理论以及许多领域都共同关注的问题,建筑空间的精神表现就是场所,建筑与场所有着文化、气候和形而上的联系,建筑空间的精华就是一种可以体验的场所。     

基于范德堡法的非饱和土电阻率测试方法

电阻率法是实现无干扰土体压实度及水分迁移测试的一种有效方法。范德堡法(vdP法)广泛应用于半导体等材料的电阻率测量领域,有较高的精度,将该方法引入非饱和土电阻率测试,研发了一种只接触土体表面而不破坏土体结构的土体电阻率测试装置及方法,装置由钛电极片、交流恒流源、电压采集及数据处理系统4部分组成。采用此装置对某粉黏土的电阻率进行了测试研究,验证了电极尺寸、试样高度以及温度对于测试精度的影响;测试了不同含水率、压实度下土体电阻率的变化规律,试验表明所提供的测试方法具有精度高、测试稳定、对土样无干扰等优点。     

激进的空间美学与保守的建构原则——从巴塞罗那国际博览会德国馆出发,探索流动空间的创作

该文通过对巴塞罗那国际博览会德国馆的图解分析,试图展现密斯·凡·德·罗探索现代建筑空间形式构成的逻辑和各种处理方法,并以此作为研究流动空间创作的开始。     

Assimilating the Authentic with the Contemporary: The Work of Hadi Mirmiran 1945–2006

Hadi Mirmiran formulated a third way for Iranian architecture. During the 1980s he created an influential shift in thinking and practice by developing an alternative approach, which neither directly imitated Western Modernism nor copied traditional building forms. As Saman Sayar explains, Mirmiran developed a uniquely Iranian treatment that owed as much to the geometrical purity and simplicity of the 17th-century Bridge of 33 Arches in Isfahan as to Mies van der Rohe.     

Pachyderm Acoustical Simulation: Towards Open-Source Sound Analysis

The creator of the Pachyderm Acoustical Simulation plug-in, Arthur van der Harten is an acoustician working in the Specialist Modelling Group (SMG) at Foster + Partners. Here he describes the flexible format of this plug-in and how open-source software aided the analysis of a negative distortion in the acoustics of Hamer Hall Arts Centre in Melbourne.     

The Crisis of Interdisciplinary Historiography

I outline the discursive logic of the two principal ways architectural theory has been conceived: historiographic critique and interdisciplinary historiography. Post-Renaissance theory-making fell into a pattern I call historiographic critique, which centered around the humanist imperative to link historical knowledge, social criticism, and architectural practice. In the 19th century, historiographic critique became increasingly incapable of creating viable conceptions of the past and was replaced by interdisciplinary historiography. The advantages and disadvantages of interdisciplinary historiography can already be seen in the work of Mies van der Rohe. He abolished narrow historicism in favor of consciously created dependencies between philosophy, history, and architectural theory drawn out over various times, cultures, languages, and academic disciplines. Unfortunately, the paradoxes inherent in the discursive logic of interdisciplinary historiography left it open to manipulations by intellectual formalists, in whose hands theory came to be treated as a discourse separate from its own historicity.