The New Space: Movement and Experience in Viennese Modern Architecture by Long Christopher

Author:Long, Christopher [Long, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2016-11-21T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 146 Beer House, view into the hall.

Figure 147 Beer House, dining room.

Figure 148 Beer House, view of the lower portion of the stair leading to the living room. MAK-Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst / Gegenwartskunst, Vienna.

Figure 149 Beer House, stair from the hall.

Figure 150 Beer House, view from the living room toward the hall. Innen-Dekoration 42 (1931).

What is also graspable a prima vista is Frank’s concept for the path. The stairs function as a means for joining the house’s spaces, but they also lead to stopping points along the way. The hall is the first of these stopping points; the living room, positioned about a meter and a half higher, is the second (fig. 150 ). Above is the third, the entresol, which contains the music salon and tearoom, as well as a library (the latter two rooms extend into the lower level of the oriel) (figs. 151 , 152 ). Beyond is the villa’s private sphere—two floors housing the bedrooms, an exercise room, and other spaces.

The elaborate progression was the result not only of Frank’s “musical program,” but it was also, as Born had hastened to point out, an attempt to make a visually and physically affecting experience. “The essence of this design,” he writes, “is the complete dissolution of all the usual spatial conventions of boxlike rooms, not only in the horizontal sense, in plan, but also in a vertical sense.” 6 Yet, at the same time, Born notes, the complex “interior spatial configuration… arises organically out of the circumstances of ‘living’”—as a direct response to the needs of its occupants. 7 The effect, he observed, was subtle but noticeable: movement through the house produced “a wonderful sense of relaxation… just as the inglenooks invite one to rest, the stairs induce one to climb. But how easy this upward movement is! New views, new surprises constantly present themselves, until one reaches one of the roof terraces (perfectly adapted for sunbathing), which provide the definitive fusion of interior and open-air spaces. Striding through [the house] provides one with an inexhaustible, resounding experience of space.” 8

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