how is organic architecture and/or organicism defined, and how does this terminology vary from example to example, changing meaning from the nineteenth into the twentieth century?
how is organic architecture and/or organicism defined, and how does this terminology vary from example to example, changing meaning from the nineteenth into the twentieth century?
Organicism: The doctrine that everything in nature has an organic basis or is part of an organic whole.
Every object that takes up space and has mass is known as matter. A pen is made up of matter, as is a tree and even humans. In the same vein, a skyscraper is made up of matter; so can we argue that in its truest form that something as inanimate as a skyscraper has organic attributes akin with a tree, a whale or even human kind? Whether in a metaphorical sense or literally, can we argue that any object, inanimate or living, has an organic basis for its creation?
Of course, the validity of such a grand statement should be questioned and so it shall be, through the deconstruction and analysis of the three given texts; ‘Living in a Jungle: Mies, Organic Architecture & the Art of City Building’ by Detlef Mertins, ‘The City and Geography’ by Volker Welter, and finally ‘The Social Architect and the Myopic Mason: The Spatial Politics of the Muséum d’Histoire naturalle in 19th Century Paris’ by Paula Young Lee. An answer to the question initially proposed will be acquired by defining and articulating the parameters of what can be categorised as organicism/organic architecture in each of the given texts. To further grasp how architecture can be considered organic, we shall decipher how the meaning of ‘organicism’ was reappropriated from the 19th century to the 20th century.
When examining this initial argument of whether any object, inanimate or otherwise, has an organic basis for its creation; ‘Living in a Jungle: Mies, Organic Architecture & the Art of City Building’ by Detlef Mertins is a good place to begin. Upon moving to America in 1937, Mies Van der Rohe took up a place at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) where he boldly declared, “the goal of an Architecture School
Organicism: The doctrine that everything in nature has an organic basis or is part of an organic whole.
Every object that takes up space and has mass is known as matter. A pen is made up of matter, as is a tree and even humans. In the same vein, a skyscraper is made up of matter; so can we argue that in its truest form that something as inanimate as a skyscraper has organic attributes akin with a tree, a whale or even human kind? Whether in a metaphorical sense or literally, can we argue that any object, inanimate or living, has an organic basis for its creation?
Of course, the validity of such a grand statement should be questioned and so it shall be, through the deconstruction and analysis of the three given texts; ‘Living in a Jungle: Mies, Organic Architecture & the Art of City Building’ by Detlef Mertins, ‘The City and Geography’ by Volker Welter, and finally ‘The Social Architect and the Myopic Mason: The Spatial Politics of the Muséum d’Histoire naturalle in 19th Century Paris’ by Paula Young Lee. An answer to the question initially proposed will be acquired by defining and articulating the parameters of what can be categorised as organicism/organic architecture in each of the given texts. To further grasp how architecture can be considered organic, we shall decipher how the meaning of ‘organicism’ was reappropriated from the 19th century to the 20th century.
When examining this initial argument of whether any object, inanimate or otherwise, has an organic basis for its creation; ‘Living in a Jungle: Mies, Organic Architecture & the Art of City Building’ by Detlef Mertins is a good place to begin. Upon moving to America in 1937, Mies Van der Rohe took up a place at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) where he boldly declared, “the goal of an Architecture School
Bibliography: Paula Young Lee, “The Social Architect and the Myopic Mason: The Spatial Politics of the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle in Nineteenth-Century Paris” in Science in Context, Vol. 20, Issue 4 (2007), p.601-625. Detlef Mertens, “Living in a Jungle: Mies, Organic Architecture, and the Art of City Building” in Mies in America, ed. Phyllis Lambert (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001), p.590-641. Volker M. Welter, “The City and Geography” in Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the city of life (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002).