Tuesday 18 May 2010

Moll House – Hans Scharoun

Moll%20House%20Stepsscharoun.ausschnitt5-Moll Hans Scharoun talked of “creating with space”—his houses, of which this pre-war 1937 example is an early hint, were irregularly ordered open-planned concoctions centred around a “middle space” that organised the whole, around which the satellite spaces overlapped according to function and topography—each of which was given its own definition within the larger whole. 

Rather than a standardised “system of band boxes,” as he called the “handed down” principle on which so many standardised boxes have been produced, his houses were individualised for each client, and each context.

The context of this house, the Moll House, required a traditional face be represented to the street, beyond which the house gradually opened to the gardens and landscape beyond, which for Scharoun were an integral part of the house itself.scharoun.ausschnitt6-Moll

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The Moll House was created for a married couple, one of which was a painter and the other a sculptor, for each of whom Scharoun created a studio—setting up a relationship with the music room that formed a “spatial triangle” across different levels.

scharoun.ausschnitt7-Moll Little documentation now exists of many of Scharoun’s houses, a great pity since his strand of modernism had so much more to offer than than the sterile boxes produced by his modernist contemporaries that are now copied so poorly, so slavishly, and in such quantities today.

Check out this site however, which attempts a basic spatial analysis of this deceptively complicated house.

Or at least a few more plans and sections.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I want one! I imagine to live in it the place would move around you rather than you around it. Genius & hard work together.

I enjoy these posts.

Peter Cresswell said...

"I imagine to live in it the place would move around you rather than you around it

Exactly! That's exactly how it would feel.

(And what a great way to put it. Well said.)

Unknown said...

Hi Peter! Can you please contact me regarding this house, I would love to find out more about it for a task in architecture school ;).

Peter Cresswell said...

Hi "Unknown." I'd be very happy to help but, as your name indicates however ...

Unknown said...

Hi Peter! Do you have more information concerning this house? Me and my group need to rebuild this house for a school project, but we lack measurements. Could you help us? You can email me!