The relationship between steel and architectural form

The Sculpture Pavilion at Arnhem in the Netherlands is designed in such a way that it ultimately denies its own existence. 

The architectural forms that arise from using steel must always relate back to the fundamental properties of the material. To say that steel is light and strong may be a gross oversimplification of the discussion that has taken place in other lectures in this course but yet these two characteristics can be exploited to produce a particular architecture. This is exemplified by the Sculpture Pavilion at Arnhem in the Netherlands, where these two properties, when combined with a cladding of glass, have been used to produce an architecture which is from some viewpoints invisible.

"Ethereality and ephemerality were two goals of technocratic Modernism: structures as light and as transparent as possible were, as soon as obselete, to be discarded, extended or rearranged. Never though has the combination of the ethereal and the ephemeral been quite so strikingly realised as in Benthem Crouwel's temporary sculpture pavilion for Sonsbeek 86."

The pavilion is formed of three materials, concrete, glass and steel, although only the latter two are visible. A concrete strip footing supports the finned tempered glass walls which are butt jointed. The fixings are hidden below ground level.

The steel trusses are fixed to the glass walls and the glass fins and in turn support the laminated glass roof which is also butt jointed. All joints in the glass are sealed with silicone mastic. Where the pavilion steps down the slope the trusses are left unglazed to provide ventilation. The thinness of the steel members and the surface finish of the steel trusses are important in terms of the overall concept of making a building that was as reductive as possible. Both trusses and glass fins reflect the light, outlining the structure of the pavilion whilst the transparency of the walls also denies the presence of enclosure,

"The sculpture pavilion went further: not just walls, but also the roof, were entirely unframed butt-jointed glass; and there was no floor. It was so transparent as to be barely there, the sloping ground passing through without interruption other then a carpet of woodshavings. The only metal elements - both of spindly steel - were grilled doors at either end and the trusses bolted directly to the glass walls and stiffening fins. The latter detail was as disconcertingly novel as the way the glass plunged directly into the earth. There it sat on precast-concrete footings that were easily dug up at the end of the festival. With the wood shavings raked away and the grass grown back not even an archaeological trace remains."

The Dance Theatre in The Hague uses steel not only as a decorative finish but also as a material that can clothe the form and interior spaces created by the designer.

In contrast, the Dance Theatre in The Hague, uses steel not only as a decorative finish but as a material that can clothe the form and interior spaces created by the designer. The Dance Theatre marks the first major built project for the Office of Metropolitan Architecture. On a tight site, it was designed adjacent to a new concert hall by the Dutch architect van Mourik but without any deliberate collaboration between the architects for the two projects. When Koolhaas was asked about this he stated, "We chose not to collaborate. This gave us the greatest freedom and greatest surprises." 

"Koolhaas maintains that the elevations (of the Dance Theatre) are inconspicuous by design, in response to the theatre's cramped site and commercial context. The building is framed by a bland high-rise hotel, two looming government office towers, a highway entrance ramp, and a spired 17th-century church, which stands as lonely testimony to the centre's historic past...Sandwiched between the hotel and the concert hall, the dance theatre looks so unassuming that it is hard to distinguish just where van Mourik's design stops and Koolhaas' begins. Although the two architects did not collaborate, their buildings' Modern geometries are serendipitously complementary, resulting in a dynamic intersection between the concert hall's gridded stucco box and sloping curtain wall, and the dance theatre's conical restaurant and undulating roof, The dance theatre is the more informally composed of the pair, with a variegated grouping of low slabs that recalls institutional architecture of the 1950s, rendered in a monochromatic palette of corrugated steel, stucco, glazed brick, and glass."

The building is composed of a relatively straightforward disposition of the required elements into a series of rectangular spaces within the grid of the frame structure. Occasionally this rectangularity is interrupted as in the sauna-swimming pool area.

"On the second floor of the perimeter block, a marble-encased stairwell divides a daylit open space into a canteen and lounge for the resident dance company. The floor, cut out to provide views down to the rehearsal rooms' entrance, is bridged by a steel stair leading to a sauna and small swimming pool."

The major interruption of the simple disposition of spaces occurs in the entrance area. The entrance is initially disturbed by the golden conical form of the restaurant which penetrates through the glass curtain wall of the perimeter block. Further interruptions occur where the fan-shaped back and underside of the tapering auditorium form contact the rectangularity.

"From the moment you pass the ticket counter just inside the shaped entrance to the two-part Hague complex, there can be no mistake which side belongs to the dance theatre. Koolhaas has claimed his half of the lobby - essentially a covered slot between the two buildings - with a flaming red wall, which shrieks at the gentle pink and green outside the concert hall across the way. To further dramatise the public spectacle of entering the theatre, the architect interjected a series of dynamic curves at various heights into the tall, narrow foyer, beginning with the brilliant, protruding arc of a conical cafe which straddles inside and outside. At the same time, Koolhaas ingeniously gained public space for the theatre by appropriating the underside of the raked auditorium seating as a quirky angled niche for a copper-covered bar. Supported by multi-coloured columns, the niche's tilted ceiling boomerangs into the foyer to form a balcony reached by a twisting staircase."

The curve of the bar area becomes a gallery access to the auditorium at first floor level and suspended partially above this and partially above the ground floor is a further platform known as the Skybar. This oval platform appears as if balanced on a single red steel beam, although it is both braced by a further beam and anchored to the balcony edge by a steel tie rod. The corrugated wave form roof over the auditorium begins above these accumulated technical histrionics and then continues to undulate gently over the much calmer auditorium interior:

"Gold-rubbed wooden acoustic wall panels and blue velvet seats contribute material richness to an intimate setting. Overhead, the asymmetrically curved soffit of a corrugated steel roof is carried by a single central truss."

Elsewhere in the building the tight budget is reflected in a much more utilitarian approach to structure and finishes, culminating in the corrugated steel cladding to the rear of the building. Only the wave form of the roof indicates the presence of something other.

The new relationship between construction and form has been explored by Behnisch and Partners on the Hysolar Research Building of the University of Stuttgart. The expression created is far from dull.

This new relationship between construction and form has been explored by the office of Behnisch and Partners and is illustrated by the Hysolar Research Building of the University of Stuttgart, a building that itself houses experimental solar technology:

"The first project is the development, construction, operation and research work for an experimental 10kW hydrogen plant. This work, carried out by scientists from the German Research and Experimental Centre for Aviation and Space Technology, will take place on plant consisting of a solar generator, power transformer, two on-line power supply units, three water electrolysers, hydrogen storage and works management facilities."

To complement the new and changing nature of the investigations the architectural space is not static but rather a collection of components piled up, or dropped, around an asymmetrical central area apparently temporarily roofed over.

In the same way that the technology of vernacular, or unselfconscious architecture, is apparent because no-one troubled to hide it since the provision of immediate shelter was the goal, so the problem of solving how the materials can be combined to provide roof and walls to the space produces an architecture in which the constructed envelope of the space is both apparent and can be read in all its elegancies and inelegancies. To make such apparently light and spontaneous constructions possible steel has been used both to support and to clad. A vast semi-arch of steel tube, coloured red, passes through the building and acts as a spine amidst the seeming chaos around it.

"The tight building programme and the stringent cost limits meant that specifications were loose. The major part of the construction was decided on site. The structural engineer was used to designing and building car bodies...A steel and container manufacturer took on the role of general contractor, hiring sub-contractors as and when they were needed.

Two sets of containers, creating two-storey cellular accommodation, are set at an acute angle forming a central hall space that is closed off at its southern end by a fully glazed facade and a sheet metal roof. The seemingly random arrangement of containers, scattered steel joists, metal glazing frames and timber-framed Perspex panels might lend themselves well to the potentially endless reassembly that such experimental work demands."

For a building that needs to contain the moveable wiring and servicing that go with experiment, the fact that the building is also 'untidy' recognises the nature of experimentation. In fact the only orthogonal elements within the building are found in the ranks of photovoltaic cells.

Where the building has to respond to its environment in terms of collecting solar energy, rather than responding to an image of an exciting and novel technology, then a very different type of structure results.

Apart from demonstrating the ability of steel in both structural and cladding components to construct forms that are both wilful and asymmetrical even if the, "finished building makes it quite clear which details were not resolved...", the building points to an interesting contrast with one interpretation of modernism. In modernist terms, if the building is responding to solar energy in order to stave off an impending energy shortage, then the building fabric could express this by itself demonstrating the use of solar energy, just as in the heroic period of modernism buildings demonstrated the economic effectiveness of the steel frame by using it to its fullest potential and expressing regularity and structure on the facade. In contrast, the Hysolar Research Building is expressive of the search for a novel solution to the energy crisis rather than a demonstration of the way in which solar energy can be made available to all through the modification of the building envelope.

However, in a situation where the future energy shortfall needs to be met by not just one solution but a whole variety of technologies and techniques then it could be suggested that architecture, too, if it is responding to the social context, will exhibit many solutions to these new conditions. If steel is the material that can be used to clothe the imagination of designers working towards new technologies and the outcome is a building with the energy and enthusiasm of the Hysolar Building, then the result may be far from the tenets of modernism but the result will also never be dull.