Thursday, March 28, 2024

BAUHAUS in architecture

In architecture, new objectivity,

Haus am Horn designed by George Muche

simple cubic design, utilizing steel and concrete in its construction. 

At the center of the house was a clerestory-lit living room, twenty-feet square, with specialized rooms surrounding it. this is how Walter Gropius described the design: "in each room, the function is important, e.g., the kitchen is the most practical and simple of kitchens --but it is not possible to use it as a dining room as well."

or Bruno Taut,
Bruno Taut's Onkel-Toms-Hütte, in Wilkistrasse

What's important is Taut's modern flat roofs, access to sun, air, and gardens, and generous amenities like gas, electric light, and bathrooms. critics on the political german right complained that these developments were too opulent for "simple people."

or else, the amazing Wissenhoffsiedlung!

The square implies flatness, no ornamentation (after loos)

Loos' Rufer House, 1922

Perhaps except for this Parthenon-like freeze (so the idea is still to attenuate the rigidness)... see the random arrangement of windows? the wall is a blank surface, a piece of paper for Neue Typographie 1- no central axis, 2- the "content" dictates the arrangement, 3- let's avoid "standard" solutions.


This freeze is pretty interesting for Loos. It is bridging classical and modern orders.

Loos implements Raumplan to emulate a natural landscape internalized through interconnecting volumes by a multilevel organization on a single floor.


1. see that the first and second floors have a split-level distinction; 

2. the second floor comprises the living area on the lower level and the dining room on the higher level. 

3. the dining area is seen as a part of the living area, and thus its volumes intersect. A small staircase (left) connects the two levels. 

4. the private study found on this floor is seen as separate. It is a solid volume that is disconnected from the continuous spaces of the living and dining areas and grounds the floor to the exterior walls.