Furniture Promoting Collectivity in Student Housing
Multicoding Architecture as a Reaction to Dutch Post-War Circumstances
N. Ewen (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
John Hanna – Mentor (TU Delft - History, Form & Aesthetics)
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Abstract
The definition of architecture varies from only seeing it from the perspective of solid structures with load-bearing function to including doornubs and flexible elements into consideration of being architectural. However, the impact that each of those elements, if defined as architecture, furniture, or objects, has on people‘s behavior interacting with them is crucial to the definition of the space they are shaping. Especially when one element has more than one function. As Le Corbusier wrote in his book from 1930 ("Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning“): ,,To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects.“, meaning that the creation of space is dependant of all the physical objects that define it.(1)
This thesis investigates the impact of furniture in student housing in the Netherlands of the 1950s and how it promotes collectivity abroad borders of ordinary architecture-elements. The Student House Weesperstraat in Amsterdam, designed by Herman Hertzberger is exemplifying how architecture-implemented furniture can form collective spaces, representing students‘ demands of the post-war urban environment in Amsterdam.
This research seeks to understand architectural design decisions made, being challenged by poverty, political countermovements, and housing shortages, concerning destitute groups like students the most. Through archival research, visual analysis of drawings, and interviews, it will be clearified how collective spaces were formed and perceived through the interplay between architecture and furniture.
(1) Le Corbusier. Precisions on the present state of architecture and city planning: with an American prologue, a Brazilian
corollary followed by The Temperature of Paris and The atmosphere of Moscow (MIT Press, 1930). 207