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ADAPTATION THROUGH TIME

The ways in which architects have adjusted to the surroundings where they are constructing has changed drastically through time.

Barcelona Pavilion - Mies van der Rohe, 1929

Modern architects such as Mies Van Der Rohe focused on adjusting to the present, with the intention to facilitate our current everyday life and to solve the individual problems that each and every inhabitant were faced with at their present time [1]. Le Corbusier wanted to adapt to the instrumental engineering knowledge and the ongoing technology evolution which opened up for mass-production of houses [2]. He proposed that there is a new era approaching the architect, following the industrialization. There will be no style, no character - simply a machinery. Mass production of houses using a «house machine» and the recovery of lost simplicity, the geometry and the order, while still staying artistic [3].A common factor for these two modern architects was a wish to fit their work in with the current times.

Building on the built:

Querini-Stampalia Foundation, Venice, 1961-1963

Contemporary architects can be described as slightly more retrospective. Francisco de Gracia predicts the importance of taking history and the surroundings and into account when constructing [4]. Jesus San Vicente emphasizes on adapting to the traditional methods and obtaining knowledge of the vernacular. The contemporary approach to adapting has become more nostalgic in the sense that they taking history and tradition more-so into account compared to their modern counterparts [5]. 

There is a noticeable difference between the modern and the contemporary way of adapting, as they had different phenomenons to adapt to and different ways and means of adapting to them [6].

his difference has been highlighted several times amongst architects, and Mark Wilcken summarized the way of modern adaptation in his AETN documentary from 2012 [7];

"It was the manifestation of the future with no thoughts of the past. It was optimistic, it was a lifestyle, it was technology."

Similarly, the notion of contemporary adaptation 
was captured by architect Richard Rogers in an 
architecture conference in 2013 [8]; 

"I think that architects should actually try to understand the, the place that they're in, and the situation they're in."

Sources: 
[1] Carla Vallet - Changeable architecture, 2015

[2] Frida Varegg Svensen - A new way to look at architecture, 2015
[3] Ina Kristin Ullenes - The mechanical architect, 2015

[4] Ina Kristin Ullenes - Intertextuality, 2015

[5] Alexandra Hernandez - Adapting the vernacular, 2015

[6] Ina Kristin Ullenes - Adaptation then and now, 2015

[7] AETN documentary; Clean Lines, Open Spaces: A View of Mid-Century Modern Architecture, 2012

[8] Getty Conservation Institute's symposium; Minding the Gap: The Role of Contemporary Architecture in the Historic Environment, May 2013

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// evolution of adaptation //

"The human eyes seek to understand shapes and feel comfort when it does. " Frida Svensen, A new way to look at architecture

 I used to relate my work with the idea that the old architecture doesn't have to match with the new architecture but it's the new architecture that has to match with the old one.
I might have forgot some important aspect about adaptation in the contemporary architecture that I will highlight in this article.
Because adaption is not only about adapting the architectural work into a certain era, it's also about matching it with its surrounding, and its context.



The quotation I took from Frida Svensen's work at the beginning of the article explained in all the way what I want to express in this article. The human eyes refer to us, as people living inside a space where it's easy to project. The shapes refers not only to the form of the building but also to what is understandable. Shapes are what make the difference between an aesthetic/practical design and a mind blowing/surprising building. Therefore the perfect mix leads to what we want to achieve as architect: a place as comfortable as possible. It is also important to mention that feelings are involve in the process of designing nowadays in a context of adaptation.

1. I will first make a summary of all the work I've been doing , related to the old and new architecture. 

2. Then I will say few words about different ways to adapt in relation ship with the evolution. 

As I said in my essaie "When evolution rimes with adaptation": "we don't have evolution without adaptation". Evolution is linked with the idea of time, and progress. I would say in a simple way that it's the technical progresses we have achieve so far. It involves that us, as architect, we have to put borders to those progresses in order to adapt as well as possible our design in an already existing area.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the technical advances gave the architecture the issue of adaptation. Therefore as Le Corbusier denounced in his manifesto "Vers une architecture" 1923,  we should think as engineers think when they design. In a more efficient and simple way, because architecture is not about letting your mind fly away. We should always focus on our main purposes.

 As Ina Kristin Ullenes explained in her third work, it is possible to build on the built thanks to intertextuality. It's the idea that a building can have two distincts architecture, separated by diferents textures (materials). But to my mind, in order to make it possible, we still have to follow some rules to join the idea of "understandable shapes for human eyes."


        Here are some anti adaptation exemple that I think doesn't reflect a good and accurate adaptation between old and new architecture.         

       

    

        The old architecture doesn't have to match with the new architecture but it's the new architecture that has to match with the old one.        

The progress we have done in building allows us to work in order to adapt the new to the old, we should take profit of that.

Now let's say few words about differents ways to adapt the architecture. There are differents factors involved in adaptation. We can adapt a design because of the landscape, the views, the topography, the climate, the nature..  One of the most accurate exemple would be a design made according to the nature, respecting it, because evolution is also thinking about the environment. How can we claim to a "clean" architecture if we destroy the land on which we build? But that is another matter. For what we are concerned here, build around trees, respecting every single piece of nature, that's adaptation.