Typology & gesture

II
2024

We arrive at spatial expression. The typology. The form of the architecture or the object. It is crucial to decide on the typology, yet often it is given through an inherited, existing building, substance to renovation, or more often, a certain program almost dictates a typology which you can merely adjust with a handful of possible design features. Regardless of the program or an existing structure, at some point, the decision for typology and form comes down to the context and the environment in which you find yourself. Here, it starts that looking back into history, you can find typology bound to material given at a certain site. Igloos in the far north, made from ice, clay houses built in the desert, bamboo structures in the primeval forest and stone houses along limestone coasts. These obvious examples explain, given their material, also form and expression, since you can also see the material as the »facade« material and the form being guided and required by material capabilities. However, today, in our global economy, the material is shipped around the world in no time, allowing for very different typologies and expressions at different places one would not match them with. In addition, in our hemisphere, building standards have evolved enormously, requiring certain layers and materials in buildings, which makes the building, in almost any case, a structure with two expressions. One is the construction that, according to the material, allows for various forms, and the other is the cladding, more directly the skin, which covers the structure and allows for a completely different expression than the material would make. In a way, we could say that it allows for fake and moves away from the »honest« typology. Fairly, today's materials, building requirements and also availability have led to economic progress and comfort, yet it opened the door for architecture to not necessarily be bound to its context anymore. But regardless of the possibility, the built heritage has taught that simplicity in form and typology is of lasting beauty and relevance. The simpler a form, the more timeless it becomes. The more it steps back and allows the context to be the main figure. It allows the architecture to become the silent waiter, not recognised but always at hand when needed. It becomes the dish, striking enough to be mentioned but understated enough not to disturb the conversation and occasion. Further, a good typology matches the context. Sometimes by extending, sometimes by contrasting the environment or traditions, but always as subtle and calm to allow for balance and silence.

A similar example is the often-cited »Can Lis« by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, built on the southern coast of Mallorca in the early 70s. The building itself is made from the Balearic »Marés« stone, a limestone that forms the islands. While the typology is from utmost simplicity, the few single-storey volumes along the coast are rotated slightly to each other, creating small and irregular courtyards. Yet the form stands in contrast with the island's cliff but is subtle in a way as it respects the height of the trees, the scale of the cliff and the landscape with the materiality. The rather empty spaces are filled with light and the always visible vegetation. The beauty of the architectural form lies in gesture and simplicity. The simple volumes rotated with a single gesture, reach this timeless environment.
Much earlier but similar in idea, one can find many examples of reduced Nordic chapels. Their plain expression is combined with the gesture, serving as a landmark and a simple wooden hut painted in white, symbolising purity, innocence, chastity and resurrection. White is sublime but simple. Other than chapels and churches from the Roman Empire and the Renaissance, they stand for austerity, esteem and restraint. Further, one finds columns, carried out as simple shafts, bundling the ribs of the vault with no ornaments. The reserved architecture holds timeless beauty as they are simple but powerful gestures.

Another example way later in history, in the early 1930s, is »Haus Lemke«. The last built work in Germany by Mies van der Rohe before emigrating to the US. Made of brick, the house is an L-shaped bungalow, rather primitive in form, but by enhancing the bungalow with the gesture of combining the house with its garden at the lakeside, the house becomes an extension of the garden and the simple form a connection to its context. The simple typology with the large openings becomes an example of timeless beauty. The architecture still contrasts the landscape with its rigour form, yet it steps back because it acts as the built extension of the garden.

Perhaps one of the most common architectural typologies that demonstrate how simple and clear gestures can transform a space is the surrounding wall. Throughout history, this element appeared in different forms. As a protecting wall for castles, monasteries, gardens or, on a larger scale, a building around a courtyard. While the physical framed space remains the same, it is the act of separating the framed space from the outside and creating a self-contained system. The concept of the »hortus conclusus«, the walled garden, is a clear example. With the act of building a wall, the framed space, containing the same ground as the environment, becomes a space of calm and silence, distinct from its surroundings, where plants and herbs can grow securely.

These means towards typology in the context can be translated to any scale or situation as it is an attitude of respecting the context and finding its essence, from where one combines the essence as a gesture with austere simplicity.
It can be a series of huts in the Swedish archipelago that emerge from their landscape by being made of the same rock and being as restraint as their environment, but it also can be a single gesture of a long-stretched product display within an austere space painted in white.
Rosalind Krauss wrote about Agnes Martin’s paintings that »the intersection of lines are moments of tension and release. Where the rigid structure of the grid gives way to openness and potentiality - sites of possibility.« I wanted to bring this up because I find it fascinating in a way that, to me, it describes the crucial moment between ornament and not.
Throughout history, ornaments have been decorating and foremost hiding or raising architectural details. Where column and beam meet, there happens ornament. But to become the site of possibility and to be truly open and potent, the intersection has to be free of any ornament. As Agnes Martin's paintings are calm and truly beautiful in their simplicity, they leave their intersection to the viewer's eye and mind that can freely travel. Not prescribed by a certain decoration that only translates a small time period. Other than that, leaving the decoration out, the connections and intersections become infinite sites of possibility to be a calm and silent but timeless space for the viewer.

Gesture and simplicity bring attention towards timelessness, and with that also, sustainability as a simple typology related to the context is always of lasting manner. Clear spatial orders and intentions have always been the condition for permanence.