Dearq

Dearq | eISSN 2215-969X

Mies van der Rohe’s courtyard houses: a modern garden. An interpretation based on the concept of plurality and “the third way”

No. 19 (2016-07-01)
  • Germán Ramírez
    Arquitecto, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia Master of Advanced Architecture, Berlage Institute, Países Bajos. Arquitecto, Monumental Arquitectura.
https://doi.org/10.18389/dearq19.2016.10

Abstract

This article allegorically presents Mies van der Rohe’s courtyard houses project as a modern garden: as a transcendent space that surpasses a sense of utility. This unique and emblematic project can be understood in contrast to a positivist and economistic vision that architecture as a discipline has also absorbed. The suggested way to interpret this project is closely related to Hannah Arendt’s concept of plurality in her critique of the emergence of the modern world and to the concept of “the third way” or the garden as landscape architecture.

Keywords: garden, modernity, pluralism, “the third way”, courtyard houses

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