The Schrader House and Crescent House : Twentieth century Architecture

The Schrader house and Crescent house have been designed during two different eras

 

of the twentieth century that influenced the two architects in different ways.

 

During the early twentieth century in the 1920s after the Second World War, use to

 

predominate a post-war dream? New aesthetic ideals, social and political concerns

 

and ambitions of new types of buildings were born. Consequently, this post-war era

 

became the origin of modern architecture from where the Schrader house evolved,

 

and which is developing in various ways until now days, where not long ago has the

 

Crescent house been designed.

 

The differences of these houses clearly state visions and art influences of each period

 

of time they have been designed.

 

The Schrader house looks like a cube, of which the facades of it consists of  square

 

surfaces whereas smooth springing curved walls, form the interior space and exterior

 

shape of the Crescent house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Schrader house has been designed by  in 1924.He

 

became an architect after being a furniture maker and designer. Born in 1888 in

 

Utrecht in Netherlands, he started working in his fathers’ workshop from the age of

 

eleven.

 

His design of  the Red Blue chair in 1918, made him famous to

 

Dutch artist and theorist of the De Still (‘The Style’) magazine. Riveted way s then

 

associated to the De Still movement and collaborated with the artist and architects

 

involved. The design of Revels’ Red Blue chair was then realised as the three

 

dimensional amplification of Piety Mondrian’s’ paintings, who had also been working

 

for the De Still movement.

 

 

 

By these means Riveted, experimented his architectural ideas that were shortly going

 

to be organised to form the Schrader house. When he was commissioned from

 

-Schrader to design the house, as he said couldn’t leave an opportunity

 

like this pass him by.

 

The Schrader house has therefore been the first building to bring in tangible reality,

 

the concept derived from Mondrian’s’ paintings.

 

 

After her husbands’ death,  was left with two young girls and a boy to

 

raise on her own. She required a house in which she could mentally and physically be

close to her to her children. She was familiar with the philosophy of arts, and had

 

common faith with Riveted in simplicity and clarity.

 

They worked in very close cooperation in order to resolve a design of a house, that

 

would compromise with her needs, tastes and predilections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 initially acquired an existing building to convert according to her

 

preferences, but Riveted, found a small block as the most appropriate to build in.

 

The site, was at the end of a row of brick built houses attached to one another, in the

 

outskirts of Utrecht in Netherlands. It provided

 

 pleasant landscape views but that was before a motorway has been built beside the

 

house.

 

After conforming the site, the built in Schrader house has been attached with its

 

southeast wall to the last brick built house of the row.

 

It consists of two levels. The ground floor level and the upper floor level which was

meant to be  an attic in the plans of the house, in order to satisfy the local authority.

 

It was where  chose to live because of the views provided before the

 

motorway was built. Besides, the had the following demands for the upper level space.

 

Access to the outside from each individual bedroom, water and drainage supply for

 

each bedroom, and enough space for a bed to fit in two different positions.

 

Riveted designed the upper floor level with three bedrooms, each with access to a

 

balcony, a living-dining space, a hall, a bathroom, and a toilet room.

 

These spaces, except from the toilet room and bathroom, weren’t contained in

 

special enclosures of fixed walls, but defined by sliding partitions including o folded

 

door, that subdivided the entire upper level into each one the rooms.

 

 When the partitions were open, a big communal area was introduced in the upper

 

level with a dining space, and the rest of it was for the children to play. When closed ,

 

each room became more private and had its own special interest.

 

A tight winding staircase, lit by a cube of framed glass on the roof, provided access at

 

the centre of the two levels, and at the upper floor level, acted like ‘throwing these

 

functional space cells, away towards outside, whereby height, width, depth and time

 

tend towards a wholly new plastic expression in open space.

 

This has been a remarkable scheme that was suggested from , when she

 

simply felt that a living space, should either be closed, or open.

 

This particular function of sliding partitions, including a folded door in order to form

 

a spatial enclosure, demanded a lot of accuracy in handicraft and carpentry.

 

It has been easily achieved, due to the introduction of machines during that period of

 

time, that enabled man to manipulate all kinds of material in various ways, that

 

corresponded to the art influences of the post-war era. 

 

On the other hand, Riveted had admitted that it was very difficult to achieve this

 

scheme in the context of the building regulations which is why he designed the

 

ground floor level with fixed walls.

 

The ground floor level contains a kitchen and dining area, a hall, a bathroom and three

 

bedrooms. Access is granted from each of the three sides of the house by a door.

 

The interior of the house has been decorated by Revels’ first furniture fittings and

 

Red Blue chair, all designed on the same principals of Mondrian’s’ abstract paintings.

 

The construction of the Schrader house, has been limited to brick work for walls, due

 

to the complex and cost of the reinforced concrete. The exterior walls were plastered

 

in three different tones of grey, and the rest of the wall elements were whitewashed

 

with chalk. The floors in the Schrader house are made of wooden planks fixed on

 

wooden beams and the ceilings, are of plaster and reed. Reinforced concrete has been

 

used only for the balcony and the foundations. Square flat planking of roof with

 

inserted girders is supported by steel columns set in between the wooden window

 

frames. Wood, has also been used for doors. 

 

 

In the following years until today, modern architecture has developed at a very high

 

level. Aspirations of new architectural forms adapted the form of the curve as a higher

 

aesthetic attraction of greater constructional strength.

 

The curve purely implies in the Green and Crescent house by forming the interior

 

space and exterior shape of it.

 

The Crescent house has been designed by  in 1996.

 

The great knowledge and awareness of his studies in Leicester Polytechnic, enabled

 

him to join Foster Associates during his academic period of time in 1974. He received

 

an architecture diploma with distinction in 1977 and a year later became a registered

 

architect.

 

By observing the plan of the Crescent house in the context of its site, it gives the

impression of two deficient moons attached to one another.

 

In reality, the space between them is a corridor with an entrance at each end.

 

The northwest crescent provides privacy to each family member whereas the

 

southeast crescent is a common living space with a fully glazed façade to accept the

 

sunlight and landscape views.

 

In this specific case, the architect designed the house for him and his family to live in.

 

The Crescent house is situated in a five-acre site, which has been given a significant

 

role to integrate the crescent concept. It is located in Marlborough Downs in

 

Wiltshire, in southwest England.

 

 The five-acre site, is a design of 100m radius circle, put into effect with the shape of

 

the house, and is surrounded from more than 1000 newly planted trees in order to

 

form a deficient moon.

 

These broadleaf trees are deciduous. They provide shade during summer, sunlight

 

during the winter and reduce the wind impact on the exterior northwest wall of the

 

Crescent house.

 

Been tightly pushed in corner of the site, rather than isolated in the middle, prevents

 

visitors arriving from long drives to approach the house by driving through the

 

landscape. Instead, a much more exiting approach occurs. As the visitors approach

 

through a narrow gate through the forest, exterior wall at the left sends them to drive

 

along the curved wall of the northwest crescent, which emphasises the approach and

 

after a certain point, by pivoting to the left is the main entrance of the house.

 

The southeast crescent of 36m length and 3.4m height, is the communal area of the

 

house. The daily activities of the family such as cooking, dining, sitting and playing

 

are arranged in continuity with the curved space of the southeast crescent.

 

The glass implied for the entire southeast façade, generates a consistent dialogue

 

between inside an outside. It provides the interior with abundant sunlight and the

 

spectacular view of the landscape. Therefore the southeast crescent is also referred to

 

as the garden room. Access to the outside from southeast crescent is provided only

 

from the sides, ‘to ensure movement to landscape is around it to experience the form

 

of the crescent’.

 

The south-south east orientation of the house gains most of the sunlight during the

 

morning when it is likely to be warm and friendly, and avoids direct sunlight during

 

midday.

 

Privacy is held in the northwest crescent. It contains a utility room in the south end,

 

four bedrooms, a master bedroom and a fireplace set in the interior wall of the

 

northwest crescent. A bathroom with toilet in concrete built smaller rooms, are

 

included in each bedroom. The ceiling in each bedroom extends horizontally towards

 

the back wall of northwest crescent until a certain point. The roof above it is

 

translucent in order to introduce a skylight curve into each bedroom. The beds are

 

arranged bellow it, so that each family member can look up to the sky, and listen to

 

the wind or rain hitting on glass. There are no windows which as a fact reject the

 

poorer views and neighbouring houses of the northwest. It becomes more private,

 

intimate, and secure.

 

A corridor of a 4.8m height, is the space between the northwest and southeast

 

crescent. Its width reduces along southwest-northeast axis due to the slight difference

 

of expansion of the northwest crescent. Main entrance at south end of corridor and

 

access to backyard-gravel surface area is at the northeast end. The greater height of  

 

corridor makes it act as a more lively and energetic space to circulate in. At a higher

 

level, the northwest wall of the corridor is a continuous curved glass, slightly shifted

 

back, to form an upper corridor for storage. It lights the ground floor corridor and

 

emphasises the curve of the gardens’ room back wall. The corridor id considered as

 

the gallery of the house or otherwise ‘galley’ as the Shettleworth  used to call it,

 

because of the art works of children displayed along the two walls.

 

Environmental issues where taken under consideration also for the construction of the

 

Crescent house. Ken took advantage of local resources and minimised fuel emissions

 

of transportation. The house is made of concrete, provided from a plant nearby the

 

site. Warn timber from local demolished buildings was manipulated during the

 

process of formwork. With masonry infill and 100mm CFC- free insulation on

 

exterior walls and double on roof, the house occupies high thermal mass and retains it,

 

due to the glass used for the southeast façade. It has been painted white, according to

 

the tradition of Wiltshire farm buildings. The chimney, contributes to the crossed

 

ventilation of the house that occurs when two at each end of corridor or southeast

 

crescent are open.

 

The Green and Crescent house gives the impression that it has come to state its

 

environmental issues.

 

Most likely it is a very sophisticated design of the late twentieth century that simply

 

refuses vernacular design.

 

The wide interior space of the southeast crescent is in very strong contrast to the

 

northwest private part. It is painted in white, kept simple, and rejects any furniture

 

fittings 

 

irrelevant to the crescent concept, of which the quality exist and is explored in the

 

space itself. On the other hand, the Schrader house has achieved this by the definition

 

of spaces rather than the containment. Instead of rejecting furniture fittings, it

 

develops directly from their artistic principals of their design.

 

The comparison between the crescent house and Schrader house reflects the

 

development of modern architecture from its origin. Beginning from multiple

 

productions of volumes and planes, to producing the form of the curve as a higher

 

aesthetic attraction.

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