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MIES VAN DER ROHE THE COLLECTIVE HOUSING COLLECTION Fernando Casqueiro4 MIES VAN DER ROHE. THE COLLECTIVE HOUSING COLLECTION Index Introduction: the collection Pertinence, Convenience, Necessity ��7 The Authorship ��7 Sources� Basic Bibliography as a Mistaken Source� Publications Scheme ��8 Redrawing �� 10 The Collection �� 10 The Collection of Buildings and Projects Afrikanischestrasse, Berlin 1925-27 �� 12 Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart 1925-27 �� 22 Promontory, Chicago 1946-49 �� 32 Algoquin, Chicago 1948-51 �� 40 860/880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago 1948-51 �� 46 Sheridan Road & Oakdale, Chicago 1951 �� 54 Lenape & Riverside (Unbuilt), Trenton 1951-52 �� 62 Bailey, Carman and Cunningham Hall, Chicago 1951-58 �� 64 Berke (Unbuilt), Indianapolis 1952-53�� 72 Tri-Tower (Unbuilt), Chicago 1953 �� 74 Esplanade, Chicago 1953-56�� 76 Commonwealth Promenade, Chicago 1953-56 �� 84 1300 Lake Shore Drive (Unbuilt), Chicago 1953-56 �� 92 Chestnut & Dewitt (Unbuilt), Chicago 1953-56 �� 94 Interbau (Unbuilt), Berlin 1954-56 �� 96 Lafayette Pavilion, Detroit 1955-63��102 West Diversey & Lake Shore Drive (Unbuilt), Chicago 1956-58 ��110 Battery Park (Unbuilt), New York 1957 ��116 Quadrangle (Unbuilt) New York 1957-59 ��124 Area A-2, (Unbuilt) Sacramento 1957-59 ��132 Marina Boulevard (Unbuilt), San Francisco 1958 ��136 Russian Hill, (Unbuilt) San Francisco 1958 ��138 Rimpau (Unbuilt), Los Angeles 1958 ��142 Colonnade Park, Newark 1958-60 ��146 Newark Pavilion, Newark 1959-1960 ��156 Rock Hill (Unbuilt), Kansas City 1959 ��162 Brookfarm (Unbuilt), Brookline 1958 ��168 Lafayette Towers, Detroit 1960 ��176 Mountain Place (Unbuilt), Montreal 1961 ��184 2400 Lakeview, Chicago 1962-63 ��194 Highfield House, Baltimore 1962-64 ��202 Foster City (Unbuilt), San Mateo 1964 ��210 Westmount Square, Montreal 1964-68 ��218 Church Street Development (Unbuilt), New Haven 1965 ��224 Nun’s Island I, Montreal 1965-67 ��230 Nun’s Island II, Montreal 1965-67��238FERNANDO CASQUEIRO 5 Graphic analysis: Plans, Maps, Atlas .......................................................................................................247 Map of the Plots .......................................................................................................................................247 Floor Plans Map. Type and Variations ...............................................................................................250 Dwelling Map ............................................................................................................................................256 Statistical Study .............................................................................................................................................260 Conclusions: Be on His Time or Do His Time? ......................................................................................277 Urbanity: Classic City, Modern City, Contemporary City.. ..............................................................277 The Buildable Depth, Mies’ American Type ....................................................................................278 Programme? .............................................................................................................................................279 Residential Project, Housing And Way of Life.. ...............................................................................280 Construction, Technologies, Envelope: Energy Agony.. ................................................................281 Being and Time: Architectural Paradigms. ......................................................................................282 Politics. Evasive Action. .........................................................................................................................283 Final Questions ........................................................................................................................................284 Annexes Annex I: Mies’ Offices. .............................................................................................................................287 Annex II: Debt and Tribute to the Technique.. ..................................................................................291 Buildings in Height ............................................................................................................................291 The Elevator ........................................................................................................................................291 Reinforced Concrete. ........................................................................................................................292 Laminated Steel. ................................................................................................................................293 Anodised Aluminium ........................................................................................................................293 Glass ....................................................................................................................................................294 Fluorescent Lighting Tubes ............................................................................................................296 Television .............................................................................................................................................297 Telephone ............................................................................................................................................297 Air Extraction. Mechanical Ventilation. ........................................................................................297 Air Conditioning: Heating, Air Conditioning, Fan-Coils ...........................................................298 Kitchens: European Kitchen; Frankfurt Kitchen; American Kitchen.. ................................299 Car .........................................................................................................................................................300 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................................30288 COMMONWEALTH PROMENADE MIES VAN DER ROHE. THE COLLECTIVE HOUSING COLLECTION Typical floor planFERNANDO CASQUEIRO 89 0m E 1:400 5m10m15m COMMONWEALTH PROMENADE102 42°20’25.0”N 83°02’12.8”W 0m200m100m E 1:10000 LAFAYETTE PAVILION Nº. OF STOREYS OVERALL HEIGHT DIMENSIONS BAYS SIZE UNIT STANDARD HEIGHT SLAB DEPTH Nº. OF DWELLINGS PER STOREY PLOT AREA GROSS FLOOR AREA (GFA) PEOPLE/acre DWELLINGS/acre FLOOR AREA RATIO GROSS INTERNAL AREA (GIA)/GFA SITE COVERAGE DENSITY Site plan MIES VAN DER ROHE. THE COLLECTIVE HOUSING COLLECTION 119.9 79.2 1.35 0.91 3.27% HALL+20 196’1” 206’ x 65’ 3 x 10 20’ x 20’ 10’ 8’ 9” 360 18 4.84 acre 267,000 ft2 Lafayette Pavilion01 1955-63 1 Lafayette Plaisance Street, Detroit, Mi, U.S.A. Lafayette Park was the product of the urban renewal programmes in the triumphant US after the World War II. They were projects subsidised by the US federal government but designed and built by private developers. They were not public housing but private developments on public land, aimed at citizens with low to middle income. Thus, Lafayette Park emerged under the sponsorship of the RPAA (Regional Planning Association of America), financed in part by the Federal Housing Act of 1949, promoted by Herbert Greenwald and extensively designed by Mies in collaboration with Ludwig Hilberseimer and landscape designer Alfred Caldwell. Located NE of Detroit, it was built on urban land initially populated by the black working class, derogatorily called Black Bottom, due to the triple meaning of having its origin in the burning of vegetation in a swamp in which an initial urban expansion was produced and, at the same time, because of the skin colour of its inhabitants. Initially, a transformation of 50 ha was designed, where 2,198 houses were planned, although the final solution occupies an area of 34 ha with 1,110 dwell- ings, 186 single-family row houses and 924 high-rise multi- family housing. That is, a density of average value, about 32.5 dwellings/ha, with capacity for about 3,300 people. The neighbourhood’s organisation followed the principles stated by Hilberseimer in Grosstadtarchitektur: organic, open city, coexistence of green spaces and buildings, elimination of internal road traffic, coexistence of diverse types and sizes of buildings…, which respond to questions such as: what is the abstract city like? What is living like when it is not prede- termined by an already existing urban environment, that is, a non-European one? Within the Lafayette Park Mies designed several high-rise buildings for multi-family housing. Only three were built: the Lafayette Pavilion and the two Lafayette Towers. The Pavilion is an isolated prismatic building, with its main axis in a NE-SW direction, which is accessed by the axis of symmetry of the long SE side, surrounded by a park and rows of houses with one or two floors. In the surrounding area of its short sides, east and west, there are surface car parks for 225 spaces02. It is a rectangular prism with 3x10 bays of 20’x20’, with its ground floor and mezzanine for common entrances and services, surrounded by the wide colonnade that had already been incorporated as an invariant of Mies’ high-rise buildings, and twenty upper floors for 360 homes. That is, similar in plan to the long building of the Esplanade apartments, although seven floors lower and smaller in volume than the total of the two blocks of 3x5 bays from 860/880 Lake Shore Drive. The vertical communications are based on a central core of two elevators and a service lift that open on each floor corridor, FERNANDO CASQUEIRO 103 LAFAYETTE PAVILION about 50 m long and 2 m wide, with two staircases located near its ends. Given size, social structure and typological diversity for the new neighbourhood, the residential programme for the Pavil- ion uses the repetition of layouts already tried and tested in small-sized homes: minimal apartments (without a specific bedroom) and apartments with one and two bedrooms. The size of the basic bay, 20’x20’ is the smallest of those used for the buildings in the collection. The most frequently used is the 21’x21’ and in some large residential buildings it reaches up to 24’x24’. Given the important relationship between the structural bay and the size of the dwellings, using 20’x20’ in the Detroit Pavilion implies a general intention to reduce the costs of the residential unit. Within a construction system that had become almost a trademark of the Mies office –reinforced concrete structure, anodised aluminium enclosure in its colour hung in front of the slabs (curtain wall), air conditioning with fan-coils installed on the façade plane in the centre of each room…, –there is a unique feature in this building– the provision on the façades of a single mullion per bay, that is, the fixed glass of the enclosure (there is a low band of opening glass about 0.7m high) are about 10’ long and about 6’ high. A luxury, close to excess, with which Mies had not dared before nor would ever repeat. An especially noticeable luxury in the financial circum- stances of Lafayette Park in which it is more than likely that the costs were a key factor. This feature, the almost imposing size of the glass façades in these small apartments, strengthens the idea that in this specific building, Mies and his office observed the possibility of realis- ing their urban, typological, residential and, also, constructive ideals. Even so, aside from the design and economic effort of having these enormous glass façades, the disregard for the solar orientation, building the enclosure without insulating glass (without air chamber inside) and despite more than ten years before it had been commercialised03, they were still not able to control the effects of radiation, the increase in temperature and condensation. All the dwellings had to subsequently install roller blinds in their interior04. From a perceptual point of view, the long elevations have an almost square proportion (59.25x62.50 m) in which the verti- cal tension -a constant in the other buildings in the collec- tion- is compensated by the horizontality of each of the glasses, 3.00x1.80 m, giving the building a surprising balance. The non-cladding with thermal insulation and aluminium sheeting of the corner pillars expresses the thickness of the enclosure and allows for an understanding of the construction system. 01. References: Garland Archive (Schulze and Danforth, 1992). Project 5506. Volume 16, pp. 412 to 552. Status: Drawing 5506.99. Location: Drawing 5506.141. Ground floor plan: Drawings 5506.102 and 127. Typical floor plan: Drawing 5506.104. Elevations and section: Drawing 5506.106. 02. To make the comparison possible of the Lafayette Pavilion with the other buildings considered in this study, in which the occupied plots are clearly defined, we have assigned the Pavilion in its index card a direct area of influence that includes its role in the plan and surface car parks directly linked to it. 03. Glass technology for construction experienced a strong advance in the US after World War II thanks to the struggle between two powerful companies: the Libbey-Owens- Ford Glass Company and the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company. Both marketed insulating glass (with an air chamber) for the first time around 1944. See the Glass section in Annex II, Debt and Tribute to the Technique. 04. Aubert, Cavar, Chandani, Thanks for the view, Mr. Mies. Metropolis Books. New York, 2012.108 LAFAYETTE PAVILION MIES VAN DER ROHE. THE COLLECTIVE HOUSING COLLECTION Typical floor plan Standard apartmentsFERNANDO CASQUEIRO 109 0m E 1:200 1m 5m LAFAYETTE PAVILION E 1:150 5m0m1mNext >