Materialities:
In my research about Villa Mairea about materialities, there are three main architectural attitude toward materials:
-Classical
-Naturalize
-Humanize
The materialities inside the building represent for the architectural attitude of Classical because Villa Mairea has some timber cladding and wrapped columns.
- The timber cladding can be interpreted as an allusion to the fluting of Doric Columns.
- The wrapped columns by rattan can silmilarly be read as referring to the Classical tripartite Division into base, shaft and the capital.
And the rattan seen against black paint that is look like the dark outer peels away to show the golden layer below.
Move to the second main architectural attiude, naturalize. There are many materials are used in this building such as birch tree, timber poles, rattan wrapping, rattan ceiling, many wood and rattan furnitures and grass roof covering the sauna.
The second point of naturalize is the overlapping layers. This building is located in a quite isolated area, on the mountain with birch forest surrounding. If we look at the contour of terrain, many layers are overlapped on each others. So the materials are used for the ground floor of this building also. They are not only different in the types of materials but in the levels of materials as well.
Last but not least, another point of materialize is bringing weather into the building by the colour of materials. Some warm, hot colour of timber and reflecting characteristic of clay tile is represented for the hot and wet climate like summer. Otherwise, cold, statical of white cladding is appropriate to the cold weather, winter.
In addition, these contrast of colour of wood and white cladding also show the contrast of modern and traditional in this building.
Interior and exterior spaces:
Similar to material, the exteriors and interiors of Villa Mairea are also some layers to reflect the images of terrain. To be more detail, from the main entrain, the porch and the columns look like a perspective view of the birch forest outside.
The V-shape of the exteriors column is copied from the image of the V-shape of 2 birch trees.
And at the view of side elevation of main entrance porch, it's like the transition from nature to artificiality.
In addition, the top of book shelves reflects the way rays of sun light go through thick leaves and branches of the forest.
Circulation:
In this building, circulation can be divided into 2 typical types:
- In the public area
-In the private area
-In the public area, because of large spaces and the random positions of the poles and columns, together with the large glass windows and doors, people tend to move quite freely and complexly. By this way, they can explore the whole room and feel relaxing like they are standing in the nature.
-In contrast, the circulation in private area is more simple, clear and convenience that is appropriate to its function, for the easy and modern life.
References:
1. Simon Uwin, twenty buildings every architects should understand, 203-208
2. Alvor AAlto villa mairea by Yukio
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