Open House by Dung Ngo

Open House by Dung NgoOpen House by Dung Ngo

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new vision of architectural space was born, made possible to new construction techniques that eliminated the need for interior load-bearing walls. Developed concurrently with Picasso's cubist paintings and Einstein's theories of quantum physics, the new architecture manifested itself most emblematically with the open plan: physically and visually free-flowing spaces. Modern architects broke free from spatial constraints and traditional limits to design houses that were unbound, dynamic, and open.

The freedom afforded by the open plan, however, emcompassed philosophical and social freedom as well as physical. The first half of this book explores the spatial and social evolution of the open plan. From Frank Lloyd Wright's early prairie houses to Mies van der Rohe's universal structural grid, architects eliminated self-contained rooms, combined living spaces and discarded traditional social and familial constraints to open up the house. In the 1950's, especially in California, residential architecture began to blur the distinction between inside and outside. Windows were replaced by glass walls in houses designed by Rudolf Schindler, Richard Neutra, and Oscar Niemeyer, offering their inhabitants casual, free-flowing floor plans and seamless integration of exterior and interior spaces

Open House by Dung Ngo