weizmann house

weizmann house lit at night

Weizmann House by Erich Mendelsohn

When a man with a big vision commissioned a man who could interpret that vision and make it his own.

11th November 2018

By greyscape

@Barbican_City_of_London

Kaunas Modernism at its finest, it may have been a

Kaunas Modernism at its finest, it may have been a long and difficult journey but today Iljinienė House has the recognition and protection it rightfully deserves.

This was built as a family home for railway engineer Jurgis and his wife Aleksandra Iljinas. Designed by renowned engineer and architect Arnas Funkas in 1933 on a plot sold to the family by their neighbour Dr Pranas Gudavičius. From the beginning it was designed as a family home with an opportunity to create income by combining it with flats to rent out.

After WW1, Kaunas (Kovno) became the ‘temporary capital’ of Lithuania with Vilna now in Polish hands. Modernist planners and architects spearheaded the city’s extraordinary growth between 1920 and 1939. Here was a new nation that has shaken off the shackles of the collapsed Russian Empire determined to be a best in class example of a modernist city, 1200 new buildings were completed. That all halted in 1939 with Lithuania in turmoil. On 20 March 1939, Nazi Germany's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop presented an oral ultimatum to the foreign minister of Lithuania to return the ‘Memel Territory’, which which had been given to Lithuania after Germany’s defeat in WW1 or the Wehrmacht would invade Lithuania and the temporary capital city of Kaunas would be bombed. There is of course a lot more to tell about what happened and about the second ultimatum. The country was under Soviet occupation from June 1940 for a year when the Germans occupied it. Much has been written about the city’s large Jewish population of 35-40,000 people (one in four people in the city) who were murdered, amongst them were architects, engineers and designers. Only 2000 citizens returned after the war.

The story was somewhat different for the Lljinas family who left the city during the Soviet occupation and ’fled to Germany’. The unoccupied building was nationalised.

Post war, Lithuania was a Soviet satellite state and the building became home to various state organisations eventually belonging to the Fire Brigade.

Today the house has been returned to former glory - after falling into complete disrepair. Image Vilensija CC BY SA 3:0

A honeycomb like interior. A surprising interior g

A honeycomb like interior. A surprising interior given this is church by the Bundesautobahn 45 in Germany. Park up your lorry and enter a very different space, the exterior is said to be based on a series of triangular shapes and its stark purity is emphasised by an entirely white exterior. Award winning design by @schneiderschumacher Image with thanks to @nils_koenning long read post on Greyscape.com

Mexican artist Juan O’Gorman created this striki

Mexican artist Juan O’Gorman created this striking design on the facade of the Central Library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, by painting volcanic rocks.

He explained,

‘The central theme of the mural is the evolution of culture. In the upper part you can see the cosmological symbols. On the north-facing mural, you see figures from Pre-Hispanic culture. On the southern side, you see elements of colonial culture. On the remaining sides, you see references to modern culture as well as the atom as a cosmological symbol for our time. On the western side, we originally wanted to illustrate the Newtonian concept of universal attraction but we decided to change in order to make space for the university's seal and motto, which, in my opinion, should have gone on the rectory building.’

O’Gorman was joined by more than sixty architects, engineers and artists including Gustavo Maria Saavedra and Juan Martinez de Velasco, it was a fantastic collaborative project of epic proportions. Built from 1949 to 1952, originally proposed as a home to both the university’s library and the National Archive of Mexico, ground was broken in 1949 however soaring costs meant that by the time it was completed in 1952 the inclusion of the National Archive was dropped from the project and it remains to this day the University’s library.

Today the library is recognised by UNESCO as a,

‘unique example in the 20th century where more than sixty professionals worked together, in the framework of a master plan, to create an urban architectural ensemble that bears testimony to social and cultural values of universal significance.

The most important trends of architectural thinking from the 20th century converge in the Central University City Campus of UNAM: modern architecture, historicist regionalism, and plastic integration; the last two of Mexican origin.’

Image Dead.rabbit • CC BY-SA 4.0

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