The abstraction of the site. The surrounding’s objectification in two houses by Eileen Gray

Abstract

The Modern Movement’s Architecture was based on of an abstract grammar and of a self-sufficient formal system. The positivist culture, with the codified and scientific knowledge, was trying to transfer his methods towards the architecture, using multiple strategies. Is it possible to draw the interaction between the environment and what will be build? Is there a coherent conceptual expression technique, that in a scientifical way, summarize the conditioning factors that suggest a place to a certain Arquitecture? With all these previous question marks, two diagrams, that reflect the influence of site in the Architectural Design are analysed. In “Maison en bord de mer” and “Tempe à pailla”, Eileen Gray experiences the answer to these questions, drawing in an abstract way, the decisions that in a natural context suggests to the project –house. Orientation, climate, views collude with internal circulation, size and location of windows engaging in a dialogue nature-artifice. Graphical tools that reflect, in a multilayer shape, the different self-imposed constraints on the Project and that are shown, as face up cards, for a further analysis. The synthetic graphic confirms the search of a positivist and objective solution. Two houses, two locations, two own experiments and two diagrams that, in an attempt to get the objetivation, reveal the answers of a certain environment.