Critical summary of readings:
Simon Unwins ‘The Entrance’ Notebook and Robin Evans, ‘Figures Doors and Passages’ explores spatial organisation and movement of buildings and moving bodies. They discuss the psychological meaning of architecture as one moves through a space and architecture as a catalyst for human movement. Unwin describes the division between the outside and inside of a house or site and the process one undergoes when entering a doorway. He argues that “it has psychological as well as physical dimensions to it,”regarding the outside as a space of “exposure to judgement.” The metaphor of the “cell” is used to indicate the reclusive enclosure that one can escape from having to perform to a world of being judged and rated by others. However, a house is associated with comfort and warmth and is compared to “the womb” – a place of purity and for nurturing the soul. On the other hand, Unwin briefly mentions the detrimental impact of seclusion on an individual’s psyche, as it is a “rejection of communal life.” He proposes a comparison of being inside to being outside as “one enters the chaotic, unpredictable, challenging world or one enters a place of peace, reclusive and apart.” The reading describes the way that architecture provides the respective psychological elements. He regards architecture to either provide “a podium” or “tomb of the runaway” for the individual. Additionally, the process of either entering a home or the outside is one of “anticipation, disorientation, realisation and frustration,” in which the architect has the means to enhance or subdue. Subsequently, when designing a space architects desire fluid movement and for the human to have a positive experience when engaging with a space. This is explored in Emmons reading ‘intimate circulations.’ He describes a history of architects who use flow diagrams in order to combine human experience into the drawings. They focus on the human psyche and the urge and desire for comfort and was throughout a home, correlating to Unwin’s perception of security and comfort in a home. In 1928, Architect Klein also took into consideration the ease of movement throughout the house in his diagrams, for example going up stairs and turning corners, putting emphasis on the sections of the site where the human body had to be used unnecessarily, stating his aims were to “maximise efficiency and minimise fatigue.”
In contrast to Unwin’s view, Evans reading secures a positive attitude towards the idea of human relationships and interactions taking place within the house. Spatial organisation and movement of human interaction is adjusted by the structure and connectivity that the house endures. He focuses on the change that occurred in architecture, showing the space and its role and ability to alter human relationships. The attitude in the time of the Italian high renaissance was to have many doors connecting each room and therefore acting as a catalyst for social and human interactions. This differs from Unwin’s reading as the house doesn’t act as a reclusive space, yet as a social hub. The doors only connected one room to another creating a constant flow of movement through the space. As subsequently described by Alberti, “it is also convenient to place the doors in such a manner that they lead to as many parts of the edifice as possible”. However, after 1630 passages and corridors replaced the numerous connecting doors, which inevitably change home life and the way people acted around the house. The corridors and passages were introduced for the growing means for privacy and to separate the servants from the upper class. Evidence of this is described by Evans in the Coleshill house in Berkshire, where passages were placed through the whole of each floor. according to Sir Roger Pratt (the architect) so that servants couldn’t be seen. However, the reading discusses how beauty of receded vision was lost due to the passages. This ideal vision for light and sense of space corresponds to the Unwin’s reading when it discusses that a house “doesn’t need a door to make in an inside, but it does need a doorway. ” Furthermore, in Emmons reading he describes how flow of people throughout a space was very desired, creating “flow diagrams for traffic and circulation in the house and city” Architect Robert Kerr (1923-1904) introduced the flow diagram to make passages easily accessible for both the family and servants, putting emphasis on the desire for circulation of movement in a house of corridors.