Effort qualities in bodies and spaces interactions Expressiveness

"Light floods out of the cosmos into our rooms. The colors that we put on the walls (even if the walls aren't made of glass) are its issue, our discourse with the depths from whence it comes, and our pact with the stars…"³ This "Crystal Chain" letter excerpt that Taut wrote to his group of architects, expresses a relationship between the architectural body and space characterized by expressiveness, which I propose to read in Taut's modern dwelling. This design/artistic quality that Taut describes, which is an external reflection of an inner essence, has been defined by the Sturm philosophy which he was influenced by, as the goal of any kind of art, and as an exposition of an essence with limitations of neither descriptive nor empirical reality. The English historian Iain Boyd Whyte, one of the main researchers of Taut, parallels this expressionist quality in Taut's work to Kandinsky's reduction process, in which he tried to expose the inner resonance of his paintings' color and line.⁴

The "Glass Pavilion" that Taut designed in 1914 for the Werkbund Exhibition is an architectural manifestation of the architectural body - space relationship, characterized by expressiveness.

Glass expresses purity and simplicity, as his friend, German writer and poet Paul Scheerbart, saw glass as belonging to the new post-industrialist era. Scheerbart argued for the irrelevance of function and practicality, and Taut also stated that "The Glashaus has no function other than to

1 In fact, Vidler notes that the chronological development of these phases is not historically accurate. The historic use

of the model was employed to describe the move away from the archaic, tactile projection of the biological body and to claim that this distancing, which began with the modern sublime, created a sense of loss of body. Ibid.

2 For example, a chair may be perceived as a mimetic body part for the spine, as a mimetic physical property for the

body's weight, or as the place of the desire for comfort, which is mimetic for awareness as a whole. Ibid.

3 Iain Boyd Whyte, The Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His Circle (Cambridge: The

MIT Press, 1985), p. 117.

4 Iain Boyd Whyte, Bruno Taut and The Architecture of Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

139 be beautiful".¹ In addition to the use of glass, Taut referred to the architectural body - space relationship characterized by expressiveness by painting streets, buildings and details, thereby invigorating his residential projects, making them humane. Firstly, he related to the esthetic aspect of color, with which he emphasized spaces and created either uniformity or contrast. His effort was to liberate the plan from its two-dimensionality, so that the spaces could be experienced in a novel manner, and also to connect the landscape with the colorful spaces.

Secondly, he related to the energy facet. For example, façades facing west, which encountered the sun in the afternoon hours, were painted in pale colors in order to balance the warming, while façades facing east, which encountered it in the morning, were painted darker colors to retain the heat.²

Taut's most famous public housing project, the Hufeisen Siedlung (Horseshoe Estate) in Berlin, which he began designing in 1924 with Martin Wagner, also displays the architectural body - space relationship characterized by expressiveness through its materials and colors. Taut considered its reference to the wooded environs of the estate, to the movement of the sun lighting up the balconies, to the reflection of the sky and the surrounding pathways in the central pond, and to the moderate contrasts of Berlin weather. At the same time, the project maintains a user body and space relationship characterized by expressiveness: the curved scheme enables observation, interaction and reflection, giving a sense of intimacy and focus created by the central garden. Taut describes this relationship in one of his Crystal Chain letters: "My world-picture. That is to say: I carry within myself an image of the world. "I"- a man, an (apparently) indivisible being, an individual. The world-picture is a product of man - initially. It derives from restraints specific to his type. In this state of restraint, his mind draws nourishment from the act of perception. And this perception is founded on the five senses".³ Humans are thus in a mutual relationship in which they create what surrounds them, but are also influenced by their perception of it. A Site Specific performance event, 'The Earth, a Good Apartment', created by theater practitioners Forster and Heighes in 2007 at Taut's Seidlung project tries to reestablish the user body – space relationship on site. Over the water they built a structure as an "observation mechanism" on which actions, images, sound and text were displayed, enabling interaction with the apartments and balconies.

For Forster and Heighes, the Seidlung project was an urban testimony to pacifism and democracy.⁴ Can we characterize the quality of the movement between these two relationships as they exist in the Seidlung project using Laban' motion factor of weight? According to Laban, this factor involves the person's inner intention, and affects his ability to sense. Since the qualities of weight are characterized through and across a continuum between two polar elements, we may characterize the quality of the movement in the project with a specific point along this continuum.

1 Ibid, p. 38.

2 See Altenmuller-Lewis, Mindrup, The City Crown by Bruno Taut, p. 152.

3 Whyte, The Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His Circle, p. 159

4 Ewan Forster, Christopher Heighes, "The Earth, a Good Apartment", PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art

33(2)(2011) : 18-25.

Technion, Israel Institute of Technology Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning

140 The first element is firm, characterized by fighting. It encompasses the objective function (or measurable aspect) of resistance, which manifests as strength (or lesser degrees of weakness), and the movement sensation (or a classifiable aspect thereof) of firmness, which manifests as heaviness, or the sensation of weightiness. The second element is gentle, characterized by yielding. It encompasses the objective function of resistance, which manifests as weakness (or lesser degrees of strength), and the movement sensation of levity, which manifests as lightness, or a sensation of weightlessness.¹

For the Hufeisen Siedlung project, first we can try to characterize the expressionist relationship of the horseshoe body and its inner space as relatively firm, in which there is an objective function of relatively strong resistance and a movement sensation of firmness or relative heaviness.

Second, we can try to characterize the expressionist relationship of the human body standing on the inner path ring and the open-closed space surrounding him, which is a relatively gentle relationship with an objective function of relatively weak resistance, and a movement sensation of levity, lightness or relative weightlessness. Finally, we can try to characterize the quality of the movement between the two demonstrated expressionist relationships as having a weight that is balanced between firmness and gentleness. We could also try to characterize the quality of the relations between the other expressionist relationships within the project, for example, between the body of the curved, sunken blue balconies and the pond's space in the center, and someone standing on the edge of the pond and its space.

Functionality

On April 14, 1920, Taut wrote to the Crystal Chain: "I am now finished with intuitive, illustrative works, I might almost hope for ever. Concrete matters, hard objects must now strike me.

Wherever I can I will always defend the objectivity of a building, as embodied for me in the concept of glass architecture."² Iain Boyd Whyte explains the change of direction that Taut and his circle took in 1920, from an imaginary, subjective position towards objectivity, in an approach he proposes, which sees continuity from expressionism to the functionality that characterized their works, and underplays the differences between them. First of all, labeling Taut as an expressionist adversely influenced the study of his work during and following World War I, among other things because the term 'expressionism' covers a very broad phenomenon. Moreover, even though Taut based many of his ideas on expressionist writing and painting, Whyte also sees his circle as a natural extension of the 'Arbeitsrat für Kunst'. Hence, Whyte positions Taut's functionalism as the offspring of his expressionism.³

1 Laban, The Mastery of Movement, p. 73, 77, 115.

2 Whyte, The Crystal Chain Letters: Architectural Fantasies by Bruno Taut and His Circle, p. 82.

3 In fact, Whyte sees in Taut's works of 1914-1920 an expression of the continuity between two poles of the Sturm

philosophy, which stressed moral and esthetic considerations, and the Garden City movement, which favored pragmatic reformism. Since they both suited the spirit (Zeitgeist) of the new era, Taut tried to unify them. Hence Whyte proposes a new frame of reference for Taut's movement: activism . Whyte, Bruno Taut and The Architecture of Activism.

141 A successful Berlin architect, when Taut emigrated to Japan in 1933, he expected to work as housing consultant, but he was not given much architectural work. He was invited to give lectures and write about his initial impressions of the country, and indeed, between 1934 and 1937 he published four books and several articles. Taut argued the need for radical functionalism, i.e.

fulfilment of a building's purpose, in order to create unity and harmony in architecture,¹ but he also objected to the assumptions of the international style and formulated his attitude towards the results of modern architecture in the West even before he began roaming the world.

Consequently, it is interesting to examine architectural expressions which he perceived to be functional within the framework of his research work in Japan, where, together with his non-acceptance of the misuse of modern architecture, he expressed tremendous enthusiasm for historical local architecture and design.²

Taut's worldview of the architectural body – space relationship characterized by functionality, as he formulated it in reference to Japanese architecture, was based on the close, fundamental bond between traditional Japanese architecture and its surroundings, nature and climate. Thus he saw the built elements of the clean wooden structure, the refined colors of the paper covering and paper doors through which the light gently passes as existing in harmony with their space, because of their purposefulness.³ Lainez and Verdejo see Taut as a precursor of regionalist movements in architecture and as a pioneer in environmental architecture, and they examine the efficacy of his architectural solutions using simulation tools, for example, of the window that is like a folding screen, which he designed for the Hyuga House – a functional element that relates to climatic aspects of ventilation and sunlight control in Japanese houses.⁴ This functional perspective expanded during his second exile in Turkey, and in his book, Mimari Bilgisi, published there in 1938, he ascribed important world cultures different architectural tasks that they fulfil in relation to world culture. These tasks related to technique, structure and function. Thus, for example, to Greek and Japanese architecture he ascribed outstanding use of technique – of materials and detail, and to Japanese architecture also function – the practical aspects such as climate solutions, as well as spiritual aspects; to Gothic and Turkish architecture he ascribed importance in structural aspects such as vaults and stone domes.⁵ Taut praised vernacular Turkish architecture, like Japanese architecture, for the simplicity and functionality that characterized the relationship between the architectural body and space, for example, the broad roof sleds and

1 Speidel quotes from Modern Architecture (1929): "The task of architecture is to create beautiful (and good) use."

Speidel, “Japanese Traditional Architecture in the Face of Its Modernization: Bruno Taut in Japan”, 102.

2 Ibid.

3 Taut's full study of the history and culture of the Japanese house was published in 1937 in Houses and People in

Japan, which was intended to be methodological basis for architects wishing to build in contemporary Japan. Bruno Taut, Houses and People in Japan (Tokyo: The Sanseido Press, 1937).

4 Jose M. C. Lainez, Juan R. J. Verdejo, "The Japanese Experience of Environmental Architecture Through the Works of

Bruno Taut and Antonin Raymond", Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 6:1(2007): p. 33-40.

5 Speidel, “Japanese Traditional Architecture in the Face of Its Modernization: Bruno Taut in Japan”.

Technion, Israel Institute of Technology Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning

142 means of shading above the windows, which he included in the schools he, himself, designed in Turkey.¹

Taut examined the notion of the user body – space relationship characterized by functionality, by way of the Japanese culture, even while still in Berlin. In his book The New Home, which he published in 1924, he argued for the need to rethink the spaces in the average family home, and was amazed by the functionality of traditional Japanese elements such as the tatami floor adapted to the seating customs. When in Houses and People in Japan he presented a sketch with the differences between the European and Japanese male body, he not only argued for the versatility of the connection between man and his surroundings in the cultural context, but also responded to the modern standardization adapted to Western norms. In 1934-1936, Taut designed objects for daily life in the modern Japanese home, which combined traditional materials and handicrafts with the esthetics of the German Werkbund and industrial processes. These objects expressed the connection between the user body and space characterized by simplicity and functionality, for example in their adaptation to the shape of the body and ergonomic aspects, or in their parallel to the shape of the body, for instance, uncovering the network of tree veins as a kind of organic ornamentation, the bending of bamboo to create a new curvature.² German historian Manfred Speidel mentions Taut's visit on his second day in Japan to the imperial Katsura Villa as an important milestone in the formulation of his Western perspective of Japanese culture, in which he sought meaning. In this 17th century complex, Taut identified a response to three functions:

regular daily utility, official community uses, and higher thinking.³ Through this interpretation of the buildings and gardens of Katsura as a sequence of parts that together constitute a whole, Speidel claimes that Taut formed his notion of the relativity of utility, which expanded the definition of functionality he worded in 1929. Following this, I propose that this is also an attempt to define the relationship of the human body and space characterized by functionality, unlike the functional architectural body – space relationship. Since the meaning of functionality in this relationship is the fulfilment of human needs, Taut saw the Japanese Tea House as a cultural achievement, the pinnacle of which is the Katsura Villa, a kind of second definition of "Alpine architecture" from 1919: a place in which the goal of its human physical and spiritual activity is to bring peace and is a model, for any culture, of a better society.⁴

Can we characterize the quality of the movement between the functional relationships, as Taut interpreted the Katsura Villa, using Laban's motion factor as space? This factor involves inner attention, and affects a person's ability to think. The qualities of the space will be characterized through and across the continuum between two polarities: the first is direct, characterized by fighting. This contains the objective function of the direction of a straight line (or lesser degrees

1 Sibel Bozdoğan, “Vernacular Architecture and Identity Politics: The Case of the ‘Turkish House’”, Traditional

Dwellings and Settlements Review 7:2(1996): 7-18.

2 Speidel, “Japanese Traditional Architecture in the Face of Its Modernization: Bruno Taut in Japan”.

3 See Taut, Houses and People in Japan, p. 291

4 Speidel, “Japanese Traditional Architecture in the Face of Its Modernization: Bruno Taut in Japan”.

143 of waviness), and the movement sensation of extension, which is a threadlike feature in space, or the sensation of narrowness. The second element is flexible, characterized by yielding. It contains the objective function of wavy line directionality (or lesser degrees of straightness), and the movement sensation of pliant, which is extension in space, or a sense of everywhereness.¹ For the Katsura Villa, first we can try to characterize the functional relationship of the sliding shoji screens body, with their latticework wooden frames and translucent rice paper, and the exterior gardens space as relatively direct, in which there is an objective function of relatively straight directionality and a movement sensation of extension, which is a threadlike feature in space, or the sensation of relative narrowness. Second, we can try to characterize the functional relationship of the human body standing in an interior room when the window-doors are open and the open-garden space in front which bursts indoors, as a relatively flexible relationship with an objective function of relatively wavy line directionality, and a movement sensation of pliant, which is expansion in space, or a sense of relative everywhereness. Finally, we can try to characterize the quality of the movement between the two demonstrated functional relationships, which is dependent on the screens situation, as having a space that is relatively direct in an open- door situation and relatively flexible in a closed-door one.²

Movement and Development

To continue exploring Laban's effort model of four motion factors, architectural manifestations characterized by movement can be specified using Laban' motion factor of time. This factor involves inner decision, and affects a person's ability to intuit, and is defined through and across the continuum between sudden (i.e. quick speed, short span of time, momentariness) and sustained (i.e. slow speed, long span, endlessness). Additionally, ones characterized by development can be analyzed using Laban' motion factor of flow, which involves inner progression, affects a person's ability to feel, and is understood by the continuum between bound or hampered flow (i.e. readiness to stop normal flux, pausing) and free flow (i.e. released flux, fluidity).³