TEXTURE, MATERIAL & PROPORTION in the AXONOMETRIC DRAWINGS of RAFAEL MONEO. Allen Pierce

Transcription

1 TEXTURE, MATERIAL & PROPORTION in the AXONOMETRIC DRAWINGS of RAFAEL MONEO Allen Pierce

2 TEXTURE, MATERIAL & PROPORTION in the AXONOMETRIC DRAWINGS of RAFAEL MONEO Before us we have a pair of drawings of the Audrey Jones Beck building at the Houston Museum of Fine Art, each clearly corresponding to the other, and yet each differing in key ways; a pair, but not twins. Where one exposes external surfaces only, the other is cut away to reveal interior space and the thickness of the material that separates the two. We might recognize the form of these drawings as being that of an axonometric projection, an isometric projection, to be more precise each of its parts is measurable against any other. Such representations of proposed and built architectural projects are common in late 20th century architectural traditions around the world, certainly in Spain, where these drawings progenitor, Rafael Moneo was trained and practices, today. The one thing that seriously distinguishes them from contemporary axonometric drawings of their scale is the level of detail -- material detail -- that Moneo has layered upon them. The drawings, whose largest printing to date has measured just under eight inches on a side, calls out every joint in the project s coursed ashlar walls, every louver on its complex daylighting system, every seam of its metal roofing. Where his peers -- Miralles, Bofill, Sert have seen fit to use the axonometric form to describe spatial relationships and massing alone, Moneo has left us awash in carefully considered, lovingly dimensioned textures that the kindest modern critics might call decadence. And to what end? Enric Miralles, La Clota House, Isometric Josep Luis Sert, Isometric

3 An obvious answer, particularly given the rich palate of color, form and texture with which Moneo is known to build is that he wishes for this pair of drawings to express something about the phenomenal experience of the structure he has designed. It is in this context, phenomenal expression, that we most often see this kind of detailed rendering from contemporary architects. Aalvar Alto s perspective of the main council room in Säynätsalo town hall clearly shows brickwork not unlike Moneo s ashlar, for one. This example, like hundreds of others made by architects in the last seventy years is different from Moneo s drawings in a notable way it is a perspective, the go-to drawing form for phenomenal descriptions of space. Indeed, it would be somewhat odd to describe phenomenal space in a measured projection, which intentionally divorces itself from the subjective view of the eye for the sake of objective scalar accuracy. We might also question the proposition that these are phenomenally driven drawings when we note that many of the materials and lighting effects that appear in photographs most notably the copper sheeting that permeates the project are not noted in the drawing in any way. The water is rendered as black planes and the flowerbeds, white ones. The unique ripples of the supergraphics at the building s entry are rendered in a crisp, flat white. On the other side of the coin, what details are expressed are often radically overexpressed. The joints in the ashlar, for instance, hardly appear in the finished façade and yet these drawings call each of them out in a line-weight as heavy as any other on the page. Since the drawings so poorly demonstrate the phenomenal realities of his spaces, the master architect must have had other intentions for them. Alvar Aalto, Säynätsalo Town Hall, Perspective

4 Maybe they were made to let us on to some kind of construction logic some sense of the tectonics of the dense building. Surely one could glean the patterns of tiles and of walls from the drawings, in addition to details of the way that light and guests enter the museum s central spaces. The cut drawing even goes so far as to expose the plenum and service floor, should we need to understand something about the building s systems logic. This explanation, though, falls through as soon as we note the heavy use of white poché. Were Moneo trying to tell us something about the building s construction, he would surely have included details within the walls and floors with at least as much careful work as he has exercised in rendering its public planes. Moreover, the cut axonometric fails entirely to explain the support logic of the galleries above the porte-cochere, and rather leaves us with the momentary illusion that all of them are wildly cantilevered out over the space below. Acknowledging the persistence of our initial inquiry and our heretofore fruitless pursuit of an answer, we might finally ask whether the added details aren t the residue of something larger than this set of drawings or this project; something beyond and outside of drawing conventions; something that belongs to the unique interest and convictions of the architect, himself. Indeed, it seems that this is not Moneo s only highly detailed axonometric drawing, nor is its kind remotely rare in his oeuvre. In Remarks on 21 Works, alone, we can see a number of such drawings of projects like the Logrono City Hall, the Bankinter Building and the National Museum of Roman art at Merida. The later drawing, or rather pair of drawings (a worm s-eye and a bird s eye cutaway) show truly incredible material details for their size, material details that not only express their referent s phenomenal qualities and relationships to one another, but also the way that the materials come to define, to measure the larger space. This, I believe, is the end goal of Moneo s fine drawing. In a 2010 interview with the European urban design group Public Space, Moneo lets on to the way material structures his projects, saying, We re talking about a time [today] in which the versatility of techniques and the possibility of constructing almost anything mean that the builder does not understand or apply the positive limitations that used to exist in the proper use of a particular material. The concept of form was once intimately linked to materials and techniques of construction and, at bottom, the architect found in such limitations the starting point and sustenance of his or her formal fantasies. Somebody who constructed in stone faced certain limits and obligations, the definition of form: the reasons for constructing were implicit in the material. 1 Moneo is centrally interested in the way that different material and the building traditions that are associated with them set generative limits on an architect s work. Just as the Roman brick that placed driving constraints on Moneo s beautiful museum at Merida comes through in his axonometric drawings of that project, so to is the Beck building defined and drawn up by the unique size and construction logic of the Texas limestone blocks that serve as its main unit.

5 Rafael Moneo, National Museum of Roman Art, Isometrics In Remarks, Moneo describes the Beck project as having been, in the early 90 s, an explicit rejection of the fragmented, broken plans of deconstruction-era architecture. In it, he sought to reach back to proportional masters like Giuseppe Terragni who created, dense architecture, without interstices, and architecture that, saturates its floor plan, making use of every one of the resulting spaces 2. In order to create such an architecture, Moneo relied on a tightness of material. No wall or tile or step is extraneous, no door or passage reads as a rhetorical appliqué. The materials used are only those that make up the building, that define it, that lock its mosaic of rooms into place, leaving nothing to waste. And, just so, the Beck is drawn as a tight but detailed assembly, an object of parts, each meeting so neatly as to form a single pencil line at their union, each playing a role so necessary and definitive as to fit nowhere but the space reserved for it, shifting not an inch. For Moneo, a wall cannot be represented as a mere planar surface in the way that Sert might render it, nor is it merely a stone wall, as Aalto might show, it is a wall made up of x stones, measuring y by z, coursed in a given pattern with impeccably tight joints, and carefully lapped at the corners like cedar shingles. To represent that wall as anything else is to fail to credit the stone as its defining unit. Were the stone different, were the pattern different then we would see another wall all together. Just as Moneo notes when discussing the spatial plan, the project is fully saturated saturated with units, each of which defines the whole. This pair of drawings shows us just exactly how.

6 Acknowledgements 1. Moneo, Rafael. Ed. Laura Martinez de Guerenu. Remarks on 21 Works. The Monacelli Press, New York (2010) 2. Moneo, Rafael. Interview with Rafael Moneo. Public Space. < entrevista-a-rafael-moneo>. Rafael Moneo, Audrey Jones Beck Building at the HMFA, Photograph

7 Rafael Moneo, Bankinter Building, Isometric Rafael Moneo, Audrey Jones Beck Building at the HMFA, Photograph Rafael Moneo, Logrono City Hall, Isometric