FIGURES, DOORS AND PASSAGES FIGURES, DOORS AND PASSAGES This is the first ofa series of articles by Robin Evans on the history of the house ineeation to human afars isconcerned exclusively with issue of access and distinguishes between two extreme types, the matrix of connected rooms and the Corridor plan, suggesting that exch isthe format fora distinctive way of lite The most familar things are often shrouded inthe deepest mystery AC Tesi difficult to see in the conventional layout ofa contemporary house anything but the crystallisation of ca reason, necessity and the obvious. and | because of this we are easily led into thinking that a commodity transparently unexceptional must have been wrought directly from the Stuf of baste human needs. Indeed Practically all housing studies are | founded ow this assumption, whatever their scope. “The sirup to find a home’, declares a prominent expe, and the dese forthe shelter privacy, comfort and independence that a howye can provide ae familiar the wosld over.” From such 4 1 Five Person Howse, Midland Housing Consortium. 1967: This house hes been designed fo meet the needs of fll segregated, dual contemporary house architecture i | tke his ‘modem housing appear to transcend. four own culture and are lifted to the Status of universal and timeless Fequisites for decent living, which iseasly enough explained sinc neutral and indispensable, but its delusion, and 2 delusion wth ‘consequences 100, a8 hides the power thatthe customar Errangement of domestic space exerts ‘over our lives, and at the same time ‘conceals the fact that this ‘organisation hasan origin and purpose, The earch for privacy omlort and independence through the agency of architecture is quite recent, and even when these words fist came into play and were used in relation to household affairs, their meanings were quite diferent from those we now understand. So the Following stile ia rather crude and The Plan and its Occupants anything is deserbed by an architectural plan iis the nature of hhuman relationships, since the wall tre employed first to d Space. But then what i iasrated building Is Figures will occupy it do appear in architec Tor example the amoeh that turn up in Parker layouts, (D, they dos Selectively to reaite inhabited a piven time and place ook at them absent in even the most eliborately | and the coupling between everyday when tigures | id that fs the simple method widened to take in materia beyond | gives clear indication thatthe Meal architectural drawings, one might | of secluded domesticity i ather texpect thereto be some tl more local than we are inclined to between the commonplaces of house: | think. OF course this not an planning the ordinary waysin which | attempt to review Raphasl's entice People dispose themselves in elation | work, the intention i only to extract Toone another. Thismight seem an | from hivart and architecture the wid connection to make at fis evidence of a particular remperament but however diferent they ae towards others implicit in tang | however realistic and particular the | indiative ofthe time, nt just ia descriptions, pictures or photographs | but in daly transactions of men, wonven, children and othe During the Hatan High domesticanimalsdoing what they do, | Renaissance the inteplay * however abstract and diagrammatic | in spuce began to dominate painting he plans both eelate back to the | Previous to this the fase Architectural Desgn/4/78 267 Dr Robin Evans was born in lord, 1944, studied at the AA and University of Ese Obtained doctorate, 1975 with thesis on “Early History of Prison Architecture”. Now teachin 3 the AA and prepiting a 00k on the rise of omestic architecture nd the transformation of Family life between 1500 and the presen Mortis Sasemblems, | The Madonna ina Room nas The work of Raphael as painter and ofhuman | the human body had centred on > i ; > EFlesh anid muscle, and the rendering individual comelines. It was only inthe 16th century that bodies were attenuated into the graceful or magnified into the sublime, then brought together in peculiarly nse, carml, evgn lascivious poses by Leonardo, (3), Michoclangel, Raphael and thei Followers, Subject ‘matter too was often modified favour ofthis new conception, The treatment of the Virgin and Child ilusteates this well, Already in the 1th century the posture of the traditionally enthroned matson with demure infant raised above the rest ‘of the work both staring fixedly ‘out into nothing, had become le Ineeatic, yet they still retained thei holy and untouchable tranquility, (2). Inthe I6th century they descended from their pedestal to be engulfed by animated groups of fair figures Sharing their company asin Raphael's Madonna del!" Impannate. (4, typical of so many “holy family portraits. These gatherings were a gment of the artistic imagination, with no bassin any biblical text Nevertheless, it was a fiction that served fo populate » painting with ‘character whose mutual adorations ‘were distinctly sensual in destinat however spicitual their origin, In Raphael's Madonna, the figures are Joined torether despite it They look Closely on one another, stare ‘opcally into eyes ad at flesh rasp, embrace, hold and finger exch fther's bodies as it their recognition rested moe firmly on touch than on sist, Only the child StJobn breaks this intimate circle of reciprocity by acknowledging the observer. And Subject of the picture, they are the Picture. they flit. The individual Physiological perfection of each body teas now lost ina web of linked embraces and gestures; not something a climax of accomplishment at this if the tally between figures and plans isto be sought anywhere it fright as well be sought here, where 10-4 principle of painterly ‘composition transcending subject ‘matter and where, also, the Solicitations between saints and mortals alike seem so exaggerated 0 Wwe were to think of them as plausible illustrations of conduct. Th 1S18 07 1519 plans were submitted to Cardinal Giulio de Medici of an ambitious villa project sited on the slopes of Monte Mario in I was later to be called the adana, Only part of this vast 1 was completed and that tnder the supervision of Antonio da ‘Sangalo, but the conception was Unquestionably Raphael's. Here then ‘was a sumptuous setting for daily lite produced by’ an artist who had painting. A laboured reconstruction Of the villa published by Percier & Fontaine in 1809 emphasised axial symmetries, making the whole ‘complex into one unified pile of stuck into the hillside, iF the layout of rooms to fit what was, a that time, the Cstablished idea of strict classical ‘conformity, (6). How could Raphael have designed in any other way? * Yet the portion that was actually ait (3), and the earliest surviving plan, (7). show something quite Aitterent Overall symmetry would have created repetitions ach room and tach situation having its mirrored ‘counterpart om the other side of the building, whereas inthe eal plan thisnever occurs. Although most spaces within the villa were symmetrically composed. there were duplications; every room was different. Uniformity was restricted to the parts where it could be immediately apprehended: the building as whole was diverse Yet despite this striving to create singularity of place, ery dif to tell From the plan which parts ate enclosed and which open as the relationship between all the spaces is ‘much the same throughout. The ‘chambers, loguas, courts, gardens and so on all ester as walled shapes Tike large rooms ~ that add up to fll the site. The building seems to have been conceived as an accumulation of these enclosures, the overall pattern of which was less definite than were the component spaces, (8). This could not have come from the ultimately classical Raphael