PROTORRATIONALISM AND DESIGN
Protorarationism is a moment in the history of the taste of architecture in the field of design that extended from the 1st 1910 decade until the end of World War II in 1918. It differs from the Art Nouveau in which I reject morphology to produce a accused reduction to geometry and the construction technology and urban planning were deployed in applied arts. I do not lead to the rationalism of the 1920s and 1930s because it was a reflection of the prebélica reality that did not even abbreviated in the figurative avant -garde especially the Cubists and postcubists who pointed to the transformation in the conception, conformation and representation of the space. Pointing to the specific aspects and meanings of this architecture current is not easy in my opinion because the protorationalism encompasses quite different personalities and works, but in general we can point out that two attitudes are given: a classicist and another anti anti -classicist. The work of Adolf Loos can be considered classicist as the production that accompanied rationalism until the Second World War is more or less opposite to the same rationalism can also be considered classicist. The work of Loos can also be considered destructive and iconoclast as it was a personality that was countercurrent and whose behavior was contrary to the ideals, norms, models and statutes of contemporary society or the authority of the teachers of that time without implying anegative meaning.
Another constant to analyze from protorationalism is its simplifying and reductive intention of architecture that can sometimes mean an attitude against the academy understood as a tradition. This reductive attitude also referred to decorative and modernist tendencies. This simplifying trend can also be evidence. In summary, in the protorational works of the same architect they could converge these two attitudes, one modern and another antimoderna.
The architects of the protorationalism fought against the entrenched and complex custom of an art covered with exuberance against the series of compulsory norms after the apparent fantasy freedom, against the taste for hollow and decadent appearance instead of true essence, in summary, againstThe ornament. The characteristic of this style is that of a certain diffuse artisticity.
The architect Auguste Perret began to experience the use of concrete with a simple structural organization (use of a plot) as a space system. Academic/rationalist architecture that reminds us a little of Salomone.
In the 1925 International Exhibition made in Paris. There, Perret reaffirms his theory that the only ornament of a work was given by the same structure.
He was commissioned by the Paris Exhibition Theater, but with several conditions. I had to have a capacity for 900 people. It was located near an esplanade so it could not be very high so as not to block the perspective. And very deep foundations could not be made since the subway was nearby. The structure is done with plaster -coated wood. Perret’s objectives was to create a new relationship between spectators and actors. The use of an innovative artificial light system to unify the spaces of these two aforementioned subjects. According to Frankton this is Perret’s most lucid work. Perret was very influential in the architectural organization in Buenos Aires. His writings had a more influential diffusion than Le Corbusier.
Tony Garnier provided another face of protorrationalism. He proposed an industrial city composed of 36.000 inhabitants, but with certain demographic characteristics. 3 main nuclei. Industrial zone, an area with hospital equipment and finally the residential area. A Ferrovia crossed this city. Housing had the option of being individual or collective. Half of the land of each house was destined for public green space. You couldn’t have a closed green space. The distances between buildings were already fixed. Armed concrete was used for construction, and any type of ornament was removed.
One of the most important concepts that aroused my curiosity, was the creation of Villa Müller, in which Loos proposed a dichotomy between the interior and exterior of the building. Unlike some of the representatives of the Modern Movement, who raised a relationship between the interior and the outside, Loos proposed a facade without ornaments that hid the individuality of the inhabitant. The facade is characterized by its cubic and flat shape, and by its irregular windows. These small perforations are strictly located in the places that the program requires, either to achieve an frame or a controlled light entrance. The type of circulation of Villa Müller is eccentric. The doors of the rooms are placed towards the sides, so that they give a better view to the room, allowing the circulation through the room to be eccentric, so that the circulation does not invade the spaces.
CONCLUSION
We can emphasize that Adolf Loos belonged to a moment of transition. For this reason, in his works we can still find symmetrical elements, interior interior. His ideas were the bases used by some modern and rationalist and rationalist architects. Elements such as the division between the public area and the private area, the contrast between the circulation systems, the landscape frame, etc., can be seen in subsequent works. The work of the interior spatiality that Loos made was outstanding for the context in which architecture was developed. Not having ornaments in its architecture, it was forced to seek interesting spaces through the transposition of slabs, height changes, and so on. This kind of elements had not been explored much until now.
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