Peter Blundell Jones

A Forty Year Encounter with 'Hans Scharoun'.

The Alternative Tradition : Ten Projects

Hans Scharoun

Peter Blundell-Jones

Hans Scharoun (1893-1972) first achieved international recognition in 1927 with his controversial house for the Stuttgart Weissenhofsiedlung. His experiments with free planning and dynamic interior space continued in his native Germany through the difficult wartime years, from which he emerged with renewed energy and a consolidated architectural philosophy. As an important exponent of Organic Architecture, Scahroun developed a radical new kind of architectural space, and his disdain for imposed form and emphasis on open-minded discovery have proved increasingly influential among a younger generation of architects. Peter Blundell Jones's exhaustive study provides a comprehensive overview of Scharoun's life and work and explores his theoretical stance in relation to contemporaries such as Hugo Haring, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Generously illustrated throughout with plans and drawings, and specially commissioned photographs by Dennis Gilbert, this book presents a timely re-evaluation of Scharoun's unique contribution to architectural theory and design.

An exhaustive study of the significant German architectural Modernist.

"Architecture and Ritual explores how the rituals of life--from the grand and formal to the mundane and everyday--are framed and defined in space by the buildings which we inhabit. It penetrates beyond traditional assumptions about architectural style, aesthetics and utility to deal with something more implicit: how buildings shape and reflect our experience in ways of which we remain unconscious. This is achieved through deep readings of individual pieces of architecture, each with a detailed description of its particular social setting and use. From the Paris Opera to modernist hospitals, and from seventeenth-century Chinese yamen to Sioux lamentation ceremonies, each case study enables a distinct theme to emerge, showing how social conventions relate to spatial practice. In considering how all architecture meshes with the habits, beliefs, rituals and expectations of the society that created it, the book presents deep implications for our understanding of architectural history, and highlights for architects the continued importance of understanding how their building designs will frame social space."--Page four of cover.

How Buildings Shape Society

Architecture and Ritual

Eamonn Canniffe

Once again, new interpretations are presented of some of the most famous architecture of the period. Work by lesser-known architects, whose influence and role have been overlooked by conventional histories of the subject, is discussed. The case study structure allows each example to be discussed and used as a springboard to explore different theoretical approaches. Filled with beautiful photographs, plans and architect's drawings, this is a clear and accessible discussion on a period of architecture that engages many questions still under debate in architecture today.

Modern Architecture Through Case Studies 1945 to 1990

Jeremy Till

Doina Petrescu

Bringing together leading international practitioners and theorists in the field, ranging from the 1960s pioneers of participation to some of the major contemporary figures in the field, Architecture and Participation opens up the social and political aspects of our built environment, and the way that the eventual users may shape it. Divided into three sections, looking at the politics, histories and practices of participation, the book gives both a broad theoretical background and more direct examples of participation in practice. Respectively the book explores participation's broader context, outlining key themes and including work from some seminal European figures and shows examples of how leading practitioners have put their ideas into action. Illustrated throughout, the authors present to students, practitioners and policy makers an exploration of how a participative approach may lead to new spatial conditions, as well as to new types of architectural practices, and investigates the way that the user has been included in the design process.

Architecture and Participation

Although he has hitherto remained somewhat overlooked, Hugo Haring was a key figure of the Modern Movement, first as secretary of the Ring, the principal organisation for Modernists in the 1920s, and second as the main theorist for the Organic stream in German architecture. Trained at the Technische Hochschule Stuttgart under Theodor Fischer, Haring's career as a Modernist began when he moved to Berlin in 1921. There he was befriended by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose office he was invited to share, and this became a centre of debate for the new direction in architecture. The two architects set up the Ring, which by 1926 included every German Modernist of note. Its members dominated the WeiBenhofsiedlung of 1927, for which Mies was artistic director, and its success also prepared the way for the CIAM congresses, which Haring attended as Ring representative. Despite their political collaboration, Haring and Mies pursued projects in increasingly opposed directions, clarifying each other's position by contrast. Mies pursued general solutions and repeated types, advocating rational construction and flexibility of use, while Haring sought the utmost specificity to function and place -- which meant that each building, even each element of a building, deserved to develop its own individual form. The key example was Gut Garkau near Lubeck of 1924/25, with its cowshed of a pear shaped plan devised around the requirements and rituals of farming.

The Organic Versus the Geometric

Hugo Häring

Mark Meagher

The experience of movement, of moving through buildings, cities, landscapes and in everyday life, is the only involvement most individuals have with the built environment on a daily basis. User experience is so often neglected in architectural study and practice. Architecture and Movement tackles this complex subject for the first time, providing the wide range of perspectives needed to tackle this multi-disciplinary topic. Organised in four parts it: documents the architect’s, planner’s, or designer’s approach, looking at how they have sought to deploy buildings as a promenade and how they have thought or written about it. concentrates on the individual’s experience, and particularly on the primacy of walking, which engages other senses besides the visual. engages with society and social rituals, and how mutually we define the spaces through which we move, both by laying out routes and boundaries and by celebrating thresholds. analyses how we deal with promenades which are not experienced directly but via other mediums such as computer models, drawings, film and television. The wide selection of contributors include academics and practitioners and discuss cases from across the US, UK, Europe and Asia. By mingling such disparate voices in a carefully curated selection of chapters, the book enlarges the understanding of architects, architectural students, designers and planners, alerting them to the many and complex issues involved in the experience of movement.

the Dynamic Experience of Buildings and Landscapes

Architecture and Movement

Architecture and Ritual explores how the varied rituals of everyday life are framed and defined in space by the buildings which we inhabit. It penetrates beyond traditional assumptions about architectural style, aesthetics and utility to deal with something more implicit: how buildings shape and reflect our experience in ways of which we remain unconscious. Whether designed to house a grand ceremony or provide shelter for a daily meal, all buildings coordinate and consolidate social relations by giving orientation and focus to the spatial practices of those who use them. Peter Blundell Jones investigates these connections between the social and the spatial, providing critical insights into the capacity for architecture to structure human ritual, from the grand and formal to the mundane. This is achieved through deep readings of individual pieces of architecture, each with a detailed description of its particular social setting and use. The case studies are drawn from throughout architectural history and from around the globe, each enabling a distinct theoretical theme to emerge, and showing how social conventions vary with time and place, as well as what they have in common. Case studies range from the Nuremberg Rally to the Centre Pompidou, and from the Palace of Westminster to Dogon dwellings in Africa and a Modernist hospital. In considering how all architecture has to mesh with the habits, beliefs, rituals and expectations of the society that created it, the book presents deep implications for our understanding of architectural history and theory. It also highlights the importance for architects of understanding how buildings frame social space before they prescribe new architectural designs of their own. The book ends with a recent example of user participation, showing how contemporary user interest and commitment to a building can be as strong as ever.

Peter Blundell Jones

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