Journal of architectural history (건축역사연구)

Korean Association of Architectural History (한국건축역사학회)
권호 표지

Revernacularization of Classicism and the Matter of the Constructional Logic - A Study on Gunnar Asplund's Woodland Chapel (1918-20) -

고전주의의 재토착화와 구축적 논리의 문제 - 군너 아스플룬트의 우드랜드 채플(1918-20)에 관한 연구 -

  • Received : 2011.04.13
  • Accepted : 2011.07.11
  • Published : 2011.08.31
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to research Gunnar Asplund's Woodland Chapel (1918-20) in terms of the revernacularization of classicism and to investigate into the matter of the constructional logic. The term 'revernacularization of classicism' was used by Alan Colquhoun to explain the process to return to the pure sources of classical architecture, and the case of a successful fusion of classicism and vernacular traditions was suggested by Demetri Porphyrios through Scandinavian Doricist sensibility in the early 20th century. Porphyrios's classicism, not as style but as sensibility, is premised on a constructional logic of vernacular, and is to achieve an aesthetic quality by its mythical elaboration. Woodland Chapel, a representative of the Scandinavian Doricism according to him, illustrates characteristics of the revernacularized classicism as in the fact that it thickly displays vernacular images at the same time as relying on classicism; in the return to primitive simplicity; and in the mythopoeic power. However, the constructional logic of this building was obscured in the capital of the portico columns, the interior dome, and the whole structure of the roof. Confronting this paradox, we have to remember that although Porphyrios emphasized the constructional logic he opened an aesthetic exit of the mythical elaboration, which is in accord with the concept of the tectonic as the poetics of construction. Woodland Chapel assumes atectonic features but is never anti-tectonic. Asplund intensified a poetic effect by setting the myth over construction in the chapel, and so it can be seen as a key example of the revernacularized classicism with the Doricist sensibility.

Keywords

References

  1. Peter Blundell Jones, Gunnar Asplund, Phaidon, London, 2006
  2. Claes Caldenby & Olof Hultin (ed.), Asplund, Rizzoli, New York, 1986
  3. Alan Colquhoun, Modernity and the Classical Tradition: Architectural Essays 1980-1987, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1989
  4. Caroline Constant, The Woodland Cemetery: Toward a Spiritual Landscape, Byggforlaget, Stockholm, 1994
  5. Kenneth Frampton, 'The Classical Tradition and the European Avant-Garde: Notes on France, Germany and Scandinavia in 1912-37'. In: Paavilainen (ed.), 1982
  6. Kenneth Frampton, 'Towards a Critical Regionalism'. In: Hal Foster (ed.), The Anti-aesthetics, New Press, New York, 1998 (1st ed., Bay Press, 1983)
  7. Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture , MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1995
  8. Gustav Holmdahl, et al., Gunnar Asplund Architect 1885-1940: Plans, sketches, and photographs, Tidskriften Byggmastaren, Stockholm, 1950
  9. Charles Jencks, The Language of the Post-Modern Architecture , Rizzoli, New York, 1977
  10. Neil Leach (ed.), Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Routledge, London, 1997
  11. Kate Nesbitt (ed.), Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture: an anthology of architectural theory, 1965-1995, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 1996
  12. Simo Paavilainen (ed.), Nordic Classicism: 1910-1930, Museum of Finnish Architecture, Helsinki, 1982
  13. Nikolaus Pevsner, An Outline of European Architecture , Penguin, London, 1972
  14. Demetri Porphyrios (ed.), Classicism is Not a Style, Architectural Design & Academy Editions, London, 1982
  15. Joseph Rykwert, On Adam's House in Paradise: The idea of the primitive hut in architectural history, 2nd ed., MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1982
  16. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, The Ten Books on Architecture, trans., Morris Hicky Morgan, Dover, New York, 1960
  17. David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture , 3rd ed., Laurence King, London, 2000
  18. Richard Weston, Alvar Aalto, Phaidon, London, 1995
  19. Stewart Wrede, The Architect of Erik Gunnar Asplund, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1980
  20. Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture , Lund Humphries, London, 1939
  21. 김현섭, 민족정체성의 건축적 구현: 1900년 전후 핀란드 민족낭만주의 건축에 관한 고찰, 건축역사연구, 14권 4호, 2005, 59-72쪽
  22. 김현섭, 군너 아스플룬트와 알바 알토의 고전주의 건축에 관한 비교연구, 대 한건축학회논문집: 계획계, 26권 10호, 2010, 209-216쪽