On Colin Rowe's 'The mathematics of the ideal vilaa and other essays' and 'La Tourette'

Oh my god I was so much looking forward to this week’s text! Andrea Palladio! One of my favourites! Finally something architecture related! As much as I enjoyed some of the previous text that I probably wouldn’t have read otherwise, I do have to admit that I was happy to see this text on the list. After these exceptionally long texts by Eagleton and Lefebvre, with all these texts about communism and how bad this world is, finally I feel like I am a bit back into my comfort zone with the Rowe text! And it is about one of my favourite Villas from Palladio. ‘The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa and Other Essays’ by Colin Rowe does have a very academic flavour and in some parts it actually feels like reading a bare description of the two villas he is talking about. It is a bit as if you read a book for your research on either of them for your dissertation. But it actually is a comparison between Palladio’s Villa Malcontenta (or at least that is the name it is known by as it is situated in Malcontenta di Mira near Venice, the actual name is ‘Villa Foscari’ named after the building owners Nicolò and Alvise Foscari) and Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein in Garches which at first might sound a bit strange given the fact that Villa Malcontenta was built in the 16^th century whereas Villa Stein in the 1920’s. And I have to admit, I never noticed the similarity between these too before. But I come back to that later. A negative thing that I have to mention about the Rowe text is, that it really doesn’t give you any detailed information about the two buildings except for the mathematical similarities. He kind of throws you straight into the deep end of the pool and starts with his mathematical analysis of the Villas. He talks more about Palladio’s famous ‘Villa Rotonda’ as about the main subjects of his essay. There is only a two-line wannabe introduction and then BAM!!! Spatial ratios!

Palladio was actually one of the first architects that I came across and one which triggered my interest in architecture. I love the ‘Villa Rotonda’ and am quite obsessed with the beauty that lies in geometry myself and am particularly interested in the golden ratio ( as you can all see from my name cassiopeia11235813, these are the first 8 digits of the Fibonacci Sequence, that’s because 8 is my favourite number. Why? Because of its geometry and because it also is the sign of infinity if you tilt it to the side. Yeah go ahead you can now analyse me haha). Unfortunately if you dare to design something that is geometrical today, it is deemed boring and is called a box. With these masters of architecture long gone I do feel reminded of the previous text by Eagleton, all great big thinkers, the geniuses gone and who follows their footsteps? Zaha Hadid? (If you read my earlier blogs you can probably hear my sarcastic snorting now). Talking about time, this actually brings me back to the text and the time it was published in.  It was first published in Architectural Review in 1947 and then republished within the book I have read, which is a series of essays, in 1976.  The 1947 edition as a post-war architectural critique must have, and in fact did have, had people shaking their heads about it. Drawing a parallel between a 16^th century and a modern 1920’s building was not exactly fashionable at that time and  institutions insisted that modern architecture came from a 19^th century engineers’ aesthetic and had no roots linking it to classical architecture ( which of course is complete bollocks). Rowe is trying to draw a comparison between the formal qualities of historicism (Villa Malcontenta) and the modern movement (Villa Stein) by assessing the two villas by the buildings’ plans and elevations. Rowe shows the resemblance in the villas’ compliance to mathematical formulas as well as geometric principles. These two buildings seem to be unlike each other in their forms but  actually do share

                                    “a comparable distribution of lines of support”

which Rowe shows in his analysis of plan diagrams which show that the two buildings share identical spatial ratios on the exterior with the lines of support placed regularly at proportions of 2:1:2:1:2. Both buildings are cubic structures of the same dimensions (8x5,5x5m). The structure of these two however is a bit different, Villa Stein is column-supported and Villa Malcontenta has a bearing wall structure. The facades are completely different with Le Corbusier’s Villa consisting of a series of horizontal strips whereas Palladio’s Villa is horizontally structured and diverted in three parts (base, piano nobile, attic). The roof structures are completely different but both very typical for their time. Villa Stein has a flat roof and Villa Malcontenta a Roman pediment style, pyramidal form. I was very surprised about this similarity and can only imagine what kind of uproar this must have caused in the late 40’s. I very much enjoyed reading about this and instantly tried to find out more about the Villa Stein because I must admit I had only heard the name once but never really looked it up. Villa Malcontenta of course is an entirely different story as I have many books on Palladio’s buildings and this particular one is one of my favourites. This Villa is one of his masterpieces I think, and the interior as well is exceptionally beautiful!!! I looked at some pictures and descriptions of Le Corbusier’s Villa Stein and have to say….it is really ugly hahaha. Oh boy, I don’t know what I expected, I know Corbusier’s style but maybe it was because I have looked back into my Palladio books and had all these beautiful pictures in my head, that looking at this concrete monster, was like a slap in the face. It feels so cold and dead and reminds me of a school or hospital rather than a place to live in. I find it astonishing that a building as big as the Villa Malcontenta has a completely different feel to it. Even the surrounding is not compromised by this big building. It is more like it grows out of the hill it is situated on and although it is a massive structure, for me, kind of blends in with its surrounding. Now the Villa Stein is quite the opposite. It looks like an eerie abandoned parking deck in the woods. It just doesn’t belong there. Which is strange as Rowe also mentions that Le Corbusier

 

‘has carefully indicated his relationships by regulating lines, dimensions and figures, and (…) places the ratio of the golden section, A : B = B : (A+B)’.

 As mentioned before, I am very interested in geometry and the golden ratio as well. I don’t know how Le Corbusier managed to design a building with the ultimate formula for beauty and perfection and ends up with such a dreadful building, but that’s just me. As we all know there is no accounting for taste. And this is just not my cup of tea. This now brings me to the second essay in the book that I read. It is Rowe’s text about ‘La Tourette’.

Yay we are given a proper introduction! He really describes the building and the surrounding this time, making it easier for someone who does not know anything about the building or has not been there to picture it. We learn about how it is perceived by Rowe which of course is not very objective but it really helps to understand the structure. ‘La Tourette’ (sorry but I always have to think of the disease…) was built as a self-contained building for silent monks. To accommodate the unique lifestyle of the monks, the monastery consists of a variety of rooms with various specific functions. There are one hundred individual cells, a refectory and a rooftop cloister, a church, a communal library and classrooms. Now, in comparison to the Villa Stein, I have to say, although to me the building is definitely not one of my favourites, it has a certain spirit to it. It does not feel as cold and dead and somewhat misplaced as it and despite being quite large, it does connect to its surrounding, which was chosen by Le Corbusier himself for its slopy bank with its magnificent views. Rowe however describes the facades and plans as disordered ‘But this is to parenthesize. For, though the ability to charge depth with surface, to condense spatial concavities into plane, to drag to its most eloquent pitch the dichotomy between the round and the flat is the absolutely distinguishing mark of Le Corbusier’s later style, the cerebrality which typifies Garches is not prominent at La Tourette. In spite of its dialectic, the Dominican convent is far from an intellectualistic building; but if like Garches, it presents itself as a single block, then, unlike Garches, it is a block which, if examined in terms of plan

'appears at first to contain in the church a major violation of all logical consistency’

   and says that the building shows

‘the divorce of physical reality and optical impression’.

Unfortunately Rowe does not really show the best sides of the building, this might be due to him thinking that

‘The quality of the church (…) is not to be photographed’

but I think that he did actually just miss important bits and pieces such as the view from the balcony that overlooks the whole complex and which was very important in Le Corbusier’s design. What I particularly miss in his text is a (detailed) description of the interior which I actually really like and think is important given the fact that the building is specifically designed with special functions for each room and much of the buildings ‘personality’ is probably only perceivable from the inside. For example the uneven spacing of the vertical concrete strips and the similar uneven spacing of the horizontal bits between them, to me look a little bit like bamboo growing out of the floor which I think becomes very evident in the picture below and really reminds me of the connection between monks and nature. I think Rowe also in a way neglects some of Corbusier’s intentions of the design. Le Corbusier wanted to

‘give the monks what men today need most: silence and peace (…).This Monastery does not show off; it is on the inside that it lives’

but Rowe describes the exterior as an

                                                                  ‘unmade bed’

and hardly ever mentioned anything about the interior although even according to Le Corbusier, this is probably the most important bit of the building. Therefore I think Rowe in a way fails to adequately describe and judge the building as too many things are left unmentioned. One other thing that already kind of annoyed me about the first Rowe text is the fact that he does not translate the quotes of Le Corbusier into English. If he wants to compare two quotations of two architects to make a point…well it would be helpful to understand both of them I have to say. But overall I quite enjoyed these two texts, probably more their subjects rather than the writing style of the author, but still, It was very interesting to lean about the similarities of two buildings that I would have never ever have thought of to have anything in common.