where architecture meets biology detlef mertins

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University of Pennsylvania

ScholarlyCommons

Departmental Papers (Architecture) Department of Architecture

1-1-2007

Where Architecture Meets Biology: An Interviewwith Detlef Mertins

Detlef MertinsUniversity of Pennsylvania, [email protected]

Originally published inInteract or Die! edited by Joke Brouwer and Arjen Mulder, pages 110-131. Published by V2 Publishing in 2007, Roerdam.

Tis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons.hp://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papers/7

For more information, please contact [email protected].
http://repository.upenn.edu/http://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papershttp://repository.upenn.edu/archhttp://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papers/7mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papers/7http://repository.upenn.edu/archhttp://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papershttp://repository.upenn.edu/


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Where Architecture Meets Biology: An Interview with Detlef Mertins

Abstract

I began doing research on Mies van der Rohe in the early nineties, aer Fritz Neumeyer had published his

bookTe Artless World, (1994). Neumeyer foregrounds Mies' library, the books that Mies read. He was alsothe rst to collect all the things that Mies himself wrote. One of the things that I found very surprising was thatMies was a reader of science, and especially of biology in the 1920s. He had a collection of about 40 books bythe botanist Raoul Franc, the author of Der Sanze als Ernder ("Te Plant as Inventor," 1920). Tis wassurprising, for I had always thought of modernism as an architecture of technology rather than an architecturethat was imbued with organic aspirations and ethos. One thought of organic architecture more in terms of

biomorphic form; in the German context, one thought of Hugo Hring, but not the straight-up-and-down,orthogonal architecture that Mies developed, or his expression of structure.

Disciplines

Architecture

Comments

Originally published inInteract or Die! edited by Joke Brouwer and Arjen Mulder, pages 110-131. Publishedby V2 Publishing in 2007, Roerdam.

Tis journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons:hp://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papers/7
http://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papers/7http://repository.upenn.edu/arch_papers/7


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3 eg

B&

n Interview with

Detlef Mertins

Detlef Mertins is an architect and historian known for his revisionist work on

20th-century architectural history. He is professor and chair o f the architec-

ture department at the University o f Pennsylvania. His publications include

an extended introduction to the theory o f design as Gestaltung for the Eng-

lish edition o f Walter Curt Behrendt's The Victory o f he New Building Style

(2000). He is currently completing a monograph on Ludwig Mies van der

Rohe. He published the essay Bioconstructivisms, on form -finding princ i-

ples derived from biological ideas used by architects during the last 250

years, in Lars Spuybroek's

N0X:Machining Architecture (2004).


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concept o f bioconstructivism come from?

May

I

answer this slightly biographically?

I

began doing reseach on Mies

van der Rohe in the early nineties, after Fritz Neumeyer had published his

book The Artless World (1994). Neumeyer foregrounds Mies' library, the

He was also the first to collect all the things that Mies

'th e things that I ound very surprising was that Mies

d~ d

rcducr U xIcrlce, and especially o f biology in the 1920s. He had a col-

ction o f about 40 books by the botanist Raoul FrancC, the au thor o f Der

Sanze als Erfinder ( The Plant as Inventor, 1920). This was surprising, for

lad always thought o f modernism as an architecture o f technology rather

than an architecture that was imbued wi th organic aspirations and ethos.

One thought o f organic architecture more in terms o f biomorphic form; in

the German context, one thought o f Hugo'Haring, but not the straight-up-

-7d-down, orthogonal architecture that Mies developed, or his expression

'structure.

For me, this opened up a territory for research.

It

was Mies' personal

li

ary th at facilitated an expansion o f research in to th is field. Then one dis-

lvers these themes of architecture and biology in the Werkbund discourse

~d n a wholeseries o f architects and artists o f the period. was also stim-

ated by Olivar Botar, who was doing a Ph.D. in Toronto on what he called

je o f biocentrism in the 1920s and '30s in Central Europe. He

tha t figures like El Lissitzky, Eszl6 Moholy-Nagy, Hannes ~ e ~ e r ,

nann, Ern6 Kallai and others were all readers of Raoul FrancC.

Since the work o f Lissitzky, Moholy and Meyer was all super-technological

for their day, it seemed that one should recast the notion of 1920s con-

structivism to incorporate this biologism. That's when I started to use the

rm bioconstructivism in my teaching and writing. It's not a term that

ey used a t the time. It's a retroactive historian's glance, and at the same

ne it seems like a useful concept to bring in to the contemporary, to make

:ar th at there are continuities between then and now that we haven't ad-- ,

uately explored in the approach t o technology and media, even among

~h i tec tsike Lars Spuybroek, Greg Lynn, Karl Chu and others, who are min-

biology and biologic thought for experimental form-making.

Raoul France uses the term bio technics.

s, and he was n ot the only one. Patrick Geddes used that te rm earlier, and

wis Mumford also used it later, but

I

don't think he knew France. Inter-

tingly, Raoul France himself seems to have been influenced b y the Werk-

nd discourse on the rationalization o f technology. His approach to the

ta tha t plants or organisms could be seen as prototypes o f human tech-


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S SlND DIE GRUNDLEGEND EN TECHNISCHEN FORMEN DER GANZE N

WELT. SIE G E N ~ G E N AMTLICHEN VORGANGEN DES GESAMTEN WELT-

PROZESSES. UM SIE Z U IHREM OPTIMUM ZU GELEITEN. ALLES WA S IST

SlND WOHL KOMBINATIONEN DIESER SIEBEN URFORMEN.

SIE S lND DAS GANZE UM UND AUF

DER ARCHITEKTUR

DER MASCHINENELEMENTE

DER KRISTALLOGRAPHIE UND CHEMlE

DER GEOGRAPHIE UND ASTRONOMIE

DER KUNST

JEDER TECHNIK

JA DER GANZEN WELT.

Ce son1 les forrnes lechnlques fondamentales de I unlvers Elles suflisent t0ule.s les opbmt~ons e Is

forrnol~ondu lnonde pour les condu~re lrur developpenienl extreme. Toul ce q u ~sl esl combinalson

de ces sept formes prlmlllves. C est sur elles quo reposent loule I arch~tecture, ie; dlbrnonls de la

nilclron~quc,n cnslallograph~e,a ch~rn~e.a geograph~e,aslronom~e. art, loule technique etle rnondeent~er.

vndfrom

M e a

no. 8 9 (April/June

1924 ,

edited

by

Kurt Schwitters and El Lissihky and tit

x i

This juxtaposes a list of Raoul

H.

FrancC's seven U r- fo m s of creation (crystal, sphere,

,.-ne, rod, ribbon, screw, and cylinder) wit h one of Liss ihky 's Proun compo sitions.

led


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Kunslwerk 1st Gleichgewlcht. Dleaes de kh ge wi ch t mu8 aber Resultat von maximalen Gegengewlchbn sein, u m das statisch Geslaltete

zur dynamischen Wlrkung zu bringen.

L oeuvre d artc est I 6quilibre. II faut que cesolt le rd~u itatdecon lrepoid s axlmums et par cela la cnlatlon stalique obtient I e fiel dyoamique.


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The architects and artists o f he 1920s saw in France's biotechnics an ar-

gument fo r a scientific understanding o f things like functiona lity

-

tha t

form is the necessary result o f a fun ction

-

and o f optimization. There are

a host o f other related categories in France: mimimal means, the shorthest

path between tw o points, elementalism

-

the use of reduced, purified ele-

ments th a t cannot be fur the r reduced as a way to achieve optim ization -

and also harmony, all o f which were considered to be operative th roug hout

; : ; '

th e universe according t o f ixed laws. France presented an entire cosmology

-'his publisher was even called Kosmos

-

which someone like Lissitzky was

v e r y sympathetic with , since he was oriented towards a new cosmology o f

,. ,

world reconstruction. Moholy-Nagy and other constructivists o f the 1920s

all wanted t o have t h a t kind o f com~rehensive, cientific worldview as a

platform for their experimental work.

'''yWz

ow did

~es

ie Franc6?

I

d'm i n the process o f finishihg a mdnograph on ~ i ,nd it 's one o f the

things tha t I've been trying to articulate. Miessapproach to th e organic and

.the biotechnical is not functional, a t least not in the conventional sense, but

, I .

he does take notions o f optimization, the rule o f the mimimum, and the

quest for harmony. He takes something tha t in France is more o f an under-

pinning than a foreground notion, and tha t is the relationship between or-

ganism and environment, fo r which Ernst Haeckel coined th e science o f

ecology. Having read Frank Lloyd Wright describe his early buildings as or-

ganisms,

I

hink Mies understood the building as an ot'ganism tha t is a t work

with in its milieu or environment. Just as l ife forms evolve, so to o do archi-

tecture and technology. For Mies, architecture needed t o achieve a new har-

mony wi th its environment, because the environm ent had been changing in

historical and material terms. This is th e fam iliar modernist theme o f being

consistent wi th the times, which is usually thoug ht o f i n terms o f zeitgeist

bu t could also be approached fro m an ecological and evolutionary perspec-

tive. Mies surveyed what was going on in the world and read widely. He was

not only a reader o f science; he was a reader in many fields. He wanted es-

pecially to understand how philosophers, theologists and scientists were

think ing abou t the present condition, about the problematics o f modernity,

the metropolis, mass society, the loss o f o rien tat ion and

Bildung.

He tried to

develop a nascent worldview fo r which his architecture would be an active

agent. It's an agent fo r the development o f tha t new world in th e same way

th at somebody like Lissitzky argued fo r world reconstruction. Bu t Lissitzky

said in 1924, Enough o f he machine

...

I

want to build limbs o f nature. So

Mies used France fo r an evolutionary and environmental underpinning. Take

the idea th at the building is an open construct t o the landscape th a t allows

~


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Lkszld Moholy-Nagy,

with

Zstvcin

SebSk, Kinetic Constructive System:

Movement Track for Play

and

Conveyance

1

922/1928 , photomon tngc

on

bromure,

Indian ink and watercolor on

card

76 x 54 5 m (courtesj

senschaftliches Institut der Universitiit Koln)

jtructure wi

and collag

Theaterwi


10/24

fo r movement and exchange between inside and outside. Again, th is is a

standard modernist trope, but

it

is informed by how science understands

relationships of organisms to the environment. He also read Jakob von

,

Uexkull, Hans Driesch and Paul Krannhals. Later, in America, he read D'Arcy

Thompson, Erwin Schrodinger, Julian Huxley, Arthur Eddington and Lancelot

Law Whyte.

France's u ltimate goal was to articu late what i n German would'be called

a

Lebenslehre,

a doctrine o f life, a way o f living, knowledge o f how t o live,

and how to live well - in his terms, a healthy life too. I think the notion of

health was central for his doctrine. The other th in g tha t is very interesting

about the artistic reception o f France by people like Lissitzky and Moholy is

that they take up the idea o f emulating the constructive processes o f na-

ture, but their conception o f the world is monistic. There's no divide be-

tween nature and humanity. The human is in nature already. They're

interested n technqlogical evolution as a way to open up an expanded hori-

zon o f experience, as a way t o develop new functionalities, new relation-

.,

.

. ,

hips through invention. Moholy most famously concentrated on the

-

question o f vision and new optics. So fo r him, the camera, microscope, tel-

i

where architecture meets biology detlef mertins

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