The circle without center. Modern, classical and vernacular tradition in the Visser House by Aldo van Eyck

Abstract

An extraordinary interest in the vernacular, the primitive and the popular went through post-war Europe in the 1950s. It is a period of great industrial development that will also show, probably by contrast, a revived interest in tradition. How to approach the dichotomy between industrial society and tradition is a central issue of the architectural debate of that time, carried out by architects born between wars, the Third Generation of the Modern Movement, and is the context of this text: an exploration on how tradition, and especially "the vernacular", influenced the proposals made by Aldo van Eyck (1918-1999), in his work of transferring to architecture what had already happened in the art of the avant-garde at the early twentieth century, and in science with the Theory of Relativity. Van Eyck presented at the last CIAM held at the Kröller Müller Museum, the Otterlo circles, a diagram formed by two circles that represent the interrelation, “the in-between”, between the three great traditions: classical, modern and vernacular. This paper delves deeper into the work carried out by Van Eyck, in the Visser House extension (1967-1969), developed as an interpretation in Holland of a "kiva" -the Pueblo Indians sacred place-, and a paradigmatic example of the interrelation mentionated.