Theatre, psychology and sex in the ‘burbs
In this examination of Donovan Hill’s D House in Brisbane, Australia, we will go on a journey that will take us to Shakespeare’s stage, a chair in a café and a couch in Freud’s office, and an exploration of the significance of sex in the ‘burbs. We will look in on the works of Adolf Loos and the academic writing of Beatrix Colomina. I will show you the similarity of the works of Adolf Loos and Donovan Hill and hopefully inspire you to look for more clues to add to this story.
The theatre box of Adolf Loos’ Moller and Müller houses looks into the interior of the house itself, Beatriz Colomina writes, “comfort in this space related to both intimacy and the control of the scene”[i]. Each of Loo’s theatre boxes are small and intimate, enclosing the spectator with a feeling of comfort and safety, sometimes with a backlit by a viewless window, covered with a sheer curtain and it is in an elevated position or central position. Loos himself named these spaces boudoirs, he designed these for women to sit in without hindrance from the activity going on in the rest of the house, Colomina takes it further and proposes they are theatre boxes, from which a spectator can be comfortably enclosed but also be able to see, and therefore, control the rest of the house.
D House (Donovan Hill, 2000) is situated in New Farm, an inner city suburb of Brisbane, Qld. In the architects’ own statement, they note the suburb is changing from medium density residential area as more commercial developments move into the area. The suburb has an experimental planning scheme, which allowed them to play with the residential type to accommodate an increasingly common contemporary housing demographic in the inner suburbs that is not family centred.[ii] Donovan Hill’s exploration of typology moves away from the rational technê the Tendenza and into fenomeno autonomo territory.[iii]
The oversized window on the front facade of the D House is, at first glance, an intimidating opening into the public realm. How does it work? How can the people who use this room feel safe without feeling exposed? We find the answer when we examine the cultural ways humans interact with each other as a community instead of relying on individual responses to architectural spatial arrangements. Dononvan Hill calls this volume the public room (Fig. 1). It can be used by “someone working from home, with an independent office or studio; or it could be a shop, or a cafe”. It also parallels the front verandah on a traditional Queenslander.[iv]
The public room is a Loosian theatre box in two distinct ways. Initial analysis of the room reveals a fairly straightforward theatre box spatial arrangement. The seating is built-in, permanently facing the interior space, similar to the built in seats of the Müller house boudoir and Loos’ placement of couches in front of windows. Instead of a window, an entire wall of glass is positioned behind the seats, which backlights the seating area. The wall is similarly without a view to the outside world. Instead of being covered by a sheer curtain, the plants, garden and vertical plane of the enclosing wall mute the view. The sheer curtain is displaced to the outside (Fig. 2). The backlit effect is intensified when the exterior plywood shutters on the right are drawn across the front window, decreasing the light in the room. From this position, a person could sit quietly and be not immediately noticed by others within the house, they can safely observe and exert control over the other interior spaces. This is the classic Loosian theatre box in action.
Let us now turn 90 degrees to a more subtle arrangement. The theatre box is exposed to the footpath. This isn’t part of a regular Loosian theatre box arrangement, but I would like to consider this new viewpoint because the window is such a prominent part of the design. Now that there isn’t an enclosed space or backlighting to hide the sitter. How can the sitter feel safe in this setting?
The window opening is separated by several threshold devices; an elevated sitting position, a large window reveal, the path to the front door, a bermed vegetation strip and a line of trees (Fig. 3). Could these thresholds account for the intimacy and safety in the public room? The close proximity of the public room and footpath are somewhat negated by these devices, however, instead of only studying the spatial relationship of the room, window and street, I believe we can come to a better understanding by examining the role humans play in this arrangement.
The window is prominent because it is the only window that is operable and looks onto a “view”, there isn’t a sheer curtain or mirror here, these devices are psychological, coming out of the audience/actor relationship developed in Shakespearean theatre and personal interactions in people watching in cafe voyeurism.
The audience has both an active and passive role. The unspoken agreement is that the audience spectates without interfering with the actors on stage, but can participate when invited with the connecting gaze of the actor.
In the passive audience role, the sitter in the public room is the actor, framed by the window in a mini stage and the person passing by on the street is the audience. The window is framed by ply wood shutters to one side, they look like curtains, this adds to the sense of theatre. The actor feels safe to continue in the minutiae of their life within the room, knowing the passer by will not interact with them without their invitation, giving them a measure of control of the setting and footpath. The the actor does not interact with the person on the street, even if they are “looking out the window” or the passer by is looking in, they do not engage; the window becomes a sheer curtain.
When the actor connects with the audience with direct eye contact, they at last connect. Both are booted out of the everyday drama they were in before, as they connect and “share their common knowledge about the existence of a world outside the dramatic world.”[viii] In an instant, their roles swap. The passer by suddenly becomes aware there is a person sitting at the window watching them. The sitter is now the in the role of the audience. In an instant, the window becomes a mirror, what each observer sees in the mirror is what they were a moment ago.
Donovan Hill has placed an interior skylight above the window, to spot-light the sitter during the day and a copper wall light next to the window to do the same at night. The thoughtfully placed lighting makes the window stage-like and increases the effect of he actor/audience dynamic (Fig. 4 and 5).
Colomina theorises Loos’ windows, instead of being openings through which we look at a view, merely becomes a source of light. In Loos’ houses, the placement of mirrors near windows supposes the windows themselves are mirrors that reflect back to us the domestic life of the inhabitants of the house.[xi] Loos places mirrors around windows, they undermine the “boundary between inside and outside”[xii] Similarly, the psychological window/mirror in the D House blurs the boundary between self and other. Each becomes both self conscious and other conscious, generating empathy and a deeply felt connection. There is a sense of safety and familiarity.
The mirror on the window in Freud’s office at Bergasse 17 (Fig. 6) obscures the identity of self and therefore, breaks down the boundary of where the inside becomes the outside of the house. The reflection is projection of self onto the outside world, it blurs the distinction between self and other. Placing the mirror at the window blurs the distinction between inside and outside. If the front window is a mirror, then the window is no longer a boundary between in and out. The ambiguity of the inside/outside boundary is also played out in the many layers of threshold as ine approaches the building. The layered theme continues in the interior, Donovan and Hill propose the solid wall of the kitchen is the first real wall in the house. The roof opening above it admits direct sunlight onto the wall, “reinforcing the sense of the wall being outside” [xiii]. The inhabitant remains unsure of where the boundary is. The only security now is the mirror, they can reassuringly see themselves and their interior life and sense it’s safe familiarity.
As many of us know, the cafe is, by far, the best place to go people watching. This practice began in the cafes of Paris at the dawn of the industrial revolution. In 1863, commenting on his beloved but fast changing city, Charles Baudelaire says of modernity, “For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and infinite.”[xv] Baudelaire is describing his joy when he sits in a Parisian cafe to be able to hide in plain sight, watching the throngs of people in his city as they go about their own business, he himself a fugitive from their attention, without being known.
It is widely but not consciously understood that there are expected ways a people watcher should act. The sitter in the public room must be doing something to successfully people watch unimpeded — they could be drinking coffee, reading a newspaper, working on a laptop or talking on their phone. If they’re acting to the prescribed script, nothing could be more natural because the D House “is often mistaken for a public café by passers by.”[xvi]. The sitter truly is in a theatre box. The sitter is enabled by the curious psychological dynamics of cafe voyeurism.
Another theatre box in the D House is the kitchen. A solid white wall, just above head height, partitions off the galley kitchen from the public room. It hides the cook from visual intrusion from the public footpath. The sink utility is housed in a recess, which is illuminated with artificial light. The rest of the kitchen is attached to the lee side of the solid white wall. It is a small, frugally lit space; the only window is a small rectangular, horizontal light tunnel that gives indirect filtered light. The rest of the kitchen is illuminated with indirect light from above the public room, much like in the rest of the house “the roof lifts in places to receive or reflect light.”[xvii]
This kitchen is the heart of the house. All parts of the house are easily accessible from here. Although this is the main circulation path between the rooms of the house, it is also intimate. A person coming into the kitchen is clearly visible before they arrive because the kitchen is relatively dark, visitors are quickly spotlighted, their shadow falling on travertine floor; announcing their arrival (Fig. 7). There are very few photographs of the kitchen and none from within the space, it is small and dark and does not lend itself to “good” architectural photography.
The solid white wall is a shield from the public room that adds to the safety and intimacy of the space. Separation and intimacy is further enhanced by the angled entry into the kitchen from the dining room, the sense of being enclosed grows as you enter the kitchen through the funnelled walkway.
The kitchen’s solid wall has similar cut outs to those in the wall in front of the boudoir Loos’ Müller house. The walls in both are solidly built, Loos’ wall is made of Cipolin marble (Fig. 8) and the wall in the D House has the appearance of solid masonry (Fig. 7). These walls are a metaphor for a barricade to protect sacred space from intruders. The low walls and hard surfaces also enable the cook to hear if someone is coming towards them, adding to the fortress aspect of the kitchen.
Colomina theorises the theatre box is also a sentinel, from which “women act as guardians of the unspeakable”[xx] parts of the house. Whether or not someone is looking, the gaze and it’s security representations are implied. The kitchen is exactly this. To access any of the private areas of the house; the bedrooms, bathroom and backyard, one must pass through or be interrogated by the gaze of someone in the kitchen. Given that the both the kitchen and the theatre box are traditionally female spaces[xxi], it is apt that the kitchen is a Loosian theatre box.
Many of the other windows in the D House do not have a view, they instead look inwards into the interior or have screens on the outside. They are similar to the windows in Loos’ houses, their main utility is to let in light. The knee height window in the dining room clearly does not have any other function that to admit light inside, it is a relatively darker and cloistered space, where one can retire from the role of the actor without retreating to a private room. In effect, the dining room are the wings of the stage that is the public room. As we can see, the D House is inward looking, giving us the sense that the interior is female.
Colomina and Loos disagree on the separation of interior to the exterior of the building. Loos wrote the exterior should be changeable like a “dinner jacket”, it has a male characteristic that should not necessarily tell about the interior. Colomina decides this is rubbish says both the interior and exterior were designed together. I am more inclined to agree with Loos. Muller House and D House are both plain on the outside, giving little indication of what is on the inside. Ornamentation is reserved for the interior, the facades of both houses are geometric, planar and white. Once entering each house, there is a different sense of place. Light|shadow, enclosure|exposure and textural tactile design decisions give rise to interest and tension and a sense of the feminine.
The interior of D House is exquisitely finished. The fixtures are highly tactile and pleasurable to touch. In contrast, on the exterior, the battens at the rear are “almost crude”.[xxii] In Loos’ Muller House, the outside does not reveal the opulence of the interior, the rugs, marble and joinery are indeed covered by a masculine uniformity.
Did you see all the similarities? Loos’ theatre box is evident in at least three places in the D House. The prominent front window works because is heavily layered with cultural psychology helped along with cues from the architect such as lighting and framing. The interior and exterior remain separate in their femininity and masculinity, but the mirror of the front window blur the distinction between them.
References
[i] Beatriz Colominia, “Intimacy and Spectacle, The Interior of Loos”, in Strategies in Architectural Thinking, ed. John Whiteman, Jeffrey Kipnis and Richard Burdett, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), 71
[ii] Brian Donovan and Timothy Hill, “Donovan Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, D House”, UME, no 15, (2002): 10
[iii] Belgin Turan, “Architecture and Techne: The Impossible Project of Tendenza”, Architronic, v7n1 (August 1998) http://corbu2.caed.kent.edu/architronic/v7n1/v7n104a.html
[iv] Donovan and Hill, “Donovan Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, D House”, 10.
[v] Donovan and Hill, “Donovan Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, D House”, 13.
[vi] Jon Linkins, “D House Donovan Hill Architects”, Jon Linkins Architectural Photographer, http://jonlinkinsphotographer.com.au/projects/d-house
[vii] Donovan Hill Architects “D House, New Farm, Project Experience, Residential ”, Donovan Hill Architects, 1, http://www.donovanhill.com.au/images/residential/pdf/D%20House%20Profile.pdf
[viii] Eva Koch-Schultz, 2000, as quoted in Penelope Woods, “Skilful Spectatorship? Doing (or Being) Audience at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre”, Shakespeare Studies, no 43, (01 January 2015): 100
[ix] Karen McCartney, “1998–2000 THE D HOUSE / DONOVAN HILL”, Iconic Australian Houses, http://www.iconichouses.com/the-d-house-donovan-hill/
[x] Donovan Hill Architects “D House, Inner Suburbs, Brisbane ”, Donovan Hill Architects, http://www.donovanhill.com.au/index2.html
[xi] Colomina, “Intimacy and Spectacle “,77
[xii] Colomina, “Intimacy and Spectacle “,77
[xiii] Donovan and Hill, “Donovan Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, D House”, 11.
[xiv] Edmund Engleman, “Architecture of Mirror/Mirror of Architecture”, in Architecture from without, Theoretical Framings for a Critical Practice, ed. Diane I. Agrest (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1991), 138.
[xv] Charles Baudelaire, Figaro, 1863, as quoted in Mari Hvattum and Christian Hermansen, Tracing Modernity : Manifestations of the Modern in Architecture and the City, (London, UK: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2004): 223.
[xvi] Margie Fraser, “Brian Donovan & Timothy Hill of Donovan Hill”, Houses, no. 78, (February 2011): 18.
[xvii] Donovan and Hill, “Donovan Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, D House”, 11.
[xviii] Donovan Hill Architects “D House, New Farm, Project Experience, Residential ”, 1
[xix] Pavel Štecha, 1994, in Leslie van Duzer and Kent Kleinman, Villa Müller, A Work of Adolf Loos, (New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 67.
[xx] Colomina, “Intimacy and Spectacle “,75
[xxi] Colomina, “Intimacy and Spectacle “,75
[xxii] Donovan and Hill, “Donovan Hill, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, D House”, 11
