The Belly of Architecture (Space and Landscape) - Changing ...

De Stijl’s lesson is brought to its extreme consequences. The difference lies in the fact that it is no longer a
process of “decomposition” in planes-plates of the original geometric solids: on the contrary, Mies creates,
playing with planes, a process of "composition" from the nothingness of space, using a procedure which is
much closer to constructivist proposals. The wall-plane is not the outcome of a decomposition but the
opposite: the factor of spatial composition itself, the element generating space.
In this sense, it has an active role, a generative role.
Behind Mies’ buildings is nothing, a void on which a space is designed and recomposed: in this way his
process is more "constructivist” than "neo-plastic".
The spiral movement with which modern space is perceived and experienced, in a space-time conception,
brings us back to the discourse of suprematist space and to Proun’s constructivism ( “while we turn, we
raise ourselves into the space”, wrote El Lissitzky), to which Mies is certainly indebted.
The rediscovery of empty space as the real “bodily” matter of construction of the architectural composition is
fully accomplished in all Mies’ buildings.
Scarpa, The Revoltella museum in Trieste
While recalling Tafuri’s insightful analyses, we need to reiterate that the evolution towards a fluid and
dynamic space, characterizing modern masterpieces such as those by Mies or – in other ways –Le
Corbusier’s experiences of dynamic space, which I will address in a moment, is based not only on the
revolution made by the historical avant-gardes but also on antecedents in the 18 th Century, as is the case
with Piranesi, in whose prints with an architectural subject “the centre is displaced from the physical centre
of the work and is found instead in a moving point”, so that “the expansion of the work permits to perceive
and locate several centres” (Ulya Vogt-Goknil).
Significantly, the film director Eisenstein analyses the Carceri by Piranesi and finds in them “a vision in
depth which is constantly in perspective … A series of planes in depth … constructed in portions of
independent spaces, which are not connected by a continuous sequence but by a series of very intense
spatial shocks, with different depths”. “It is a process of retention of visual images which is absolutely similar
to the one based on which the phenomenon of kinematic movement is constructed” (montage).
The paradigm of Piranesi’s space in a dynamic sequence can be briefly described resorting to one of the
least considered projects in the production of Carlo Scarpa: the Revoltella museum in Trieste, which I
actually consider to be one of the most significant works as an evidence of his skill in addressing spatial
relations, both inside and inside/outside, precisely because it is free of his usual decorative accents,
refinements and virtuosity.
The space in the Revoltella museum revolutionises the interior perceptive sequences, while strictly
respecting the pre-existing wall envelope. It shows an ascending maze-like development, full of tension,
and – at the same time – at the top, it displays a daring, parasite superfetation of the pre-existing building.
Here a constructive and spatial exercise is performed which is capable of catching, in an unexpected way, a
marvellous visual and sensory relationship with the urban landscape and the sea.
Pablo Beitia, Xul Solar museum
The design work that Pablo Beitia will tell you about is not very different: it was developed in the Xul Solar
museum in Buenos Aires and is based on a metaphorical and abstract interpretation in architecture of the
painting and poetic story of an exceptionally interesting artist: Xul Solar.
Again we have a spatial, super-constructed, “Piranesian” spatial belly which develops in multiple ascending
spiral sequences, rigidly contained in a block of a Buenos Aires “manzana”: a sort of magic box is the result,
capable of causing an emotional route which accompanies the one produced by the exhibition of the artist’s
works.
Le Corbusier’s promenades.
Perhaps it was not by chance that I met Pablo Beitia in the rooms of the Currutchet House in La Plata, one
of the works which best express Le Corbusier’s “promenade architecturale”.
Le Corbusier’s interest for “topologic space” and for a “peripatetic vision” is extensively documented, from
his first studies onwards.
In Vers une architecture, Le Corbusier accompanies the re-examination of the Acropolis in Athens based on
Choisy ‘s reconstruction with that of Pompeian domuses, as an explicit anti-academic polemic and
underlines misalignments and topologic relations governing those spaces, that Choisy defined
“picturesque”.
The concept of promenade architecturale and its implementation in the villa La Roche, in the villa Savoye or
later in the Indian buildings and in the Currutchet House in La Plata, can be considered the consistent result
of the old attention for the “peripatetic vision” of space, and the kinematics: it is the mechanism by which the
sequential and ascending movement inside buildings develops, capable of connecting – both visually and