on architectural autonomy

it is only in that instant when the laws are silent that great actions erupt.

- marquis de sade

this + that

… the artists, the architect, first senses the effect that s/he intends to realize and sees the rooms s/he wants to create in her/his mind’s eye. S/he senses the effect that s/he wishes to exert upon the spectator … These effects are produced by both the material and the form of the space.

– Adolf Loos, “The Principle of Cladding” (1898)

For Adolf Loos, the always-already of architecture was the idea of space; the characteristics that determined the form, experience, and understanding of the building. In short, the experiential condition of architecture came first; everything else was secondary to produce that. In his 1898 “The Principle of Cladding,” he defines it in this way:

The architect’s general task is to provide a warm and livable space. Carpets are warm and livable. S/he decides for this reason to spread out one carpet on the floor and to hang up four to form the four walls. But you cannot build a house out of carpets. Both the carpet on the floor and the tapestry on the wall require a structural frame to hold them in the correct place. To invent this frame is the architect’s second task.

The character and qualities of the space are the primary preoccupations of the architect. The question that remains, however, is centered on how to design anew within the parameters of an existing precedent that has, inherent to it, its own spatial and experiential sensibilities.  How to take an existing interior and transform it into (an)other one.

[These are exterior views... but, the strategy is the same...]