Living Architecture is not a style. It is an approach to architecture that views buildings not as mere objects, but rather as organs or organisms functioning within the highly diverse and interdependent fields of natural, social and cultural life. The goal of Living Architecture is to develop a built environment that supports and enhances the natural, social and cultural life and elevates this attitude into an artistic expression. The result should serve our needs in a holistic and sustainable way. To create a Living Architecture, the following aspects need to be taken into account, balanced and brought into a comprehensive synthesis:
Function and Human Needs
All buildings arise out of human needs and aspirations. These needs cover all aspects of human life. They range from physical protection, fulfillment of practical needs, providing social spaces and privacy all the way to offering a rich spatial atmosphere, expressing cultural content and supporting spiritual experiences.
In each building task different aspects have to be emphasized and care taken. Nevertheless, the entire scope of human needs should always be taken into account, including how buildings and public spaces affect the general public.
Good architecture primarily seeks to fulfill these needs and aspirations by serving and enhancing both our outer and inner lives.
The extent to which the client’s needs and aspirations can be realized depends upon the economic means available. In modern society money is one of the most important of these means. However, money should never become a goal in itself. Nor should architecture become a means to make financial profit at the expenses of those who will later be using the building.
Everyone who contributes to the realization of a building—as a developer, designer, contractor or workman—should be compensated fairly for his or her contribution. Not paying a fair wage is building at someone else’s expenses. At the same time, exceeding one’s fair fee or profit is letting others pay for work that is not done.
In the tension that often exists between wishes and means, the design challenge consists of accomplishing the maximum number of the client’s wishes and the future users’ needs within the limits of the available budget.
The Spirit of Place
Realizing a building requires a site. Each site has its own distinct character. This character is made up of natural components such as the morphology of the earth, the local climate and the plants and animals living on the plot. Added to this there mostly is a tapestry of social and cultural components including the surrounding buildings, the available infrastructure and the site’s history.
Good architecture consciously relates itself to this spirit of place. This does not mean it has to subordinate itself to the existing. It can also make a new contribution uplifting that which is already present, but this has to be done with respect.
A contemporary design challenge is the revitalization of deteriorated landscapes and townscapes. This can be accomplished by introducing new biotopes and appropriate spaces for social life.
In most places, building regulations and statutes are established to balance the intentions of those who want to build with the protection of natural and historical values and the interests of those already living in the area.
Such regulations should be neither too strict nor too loose so as to enable social life to flourish and architecture to develop in a harmonious manner.
In relation to the spirit of place, the design challenge consists of creating a synthesis between the future buildings spatial needs, its envisioned identity and the character of the place with its prevailing statutory requirements.
All buildings are made of materials that are originally derived from nature and that will, after being used, reused and recycled, eventually return to nature.
Good architecture tries to optimize the technical and aesthetic qualities of building materials and to minimize the harmful impact their production and use has on human health and the natural environment.
Regarding the use of materials and energy, a circular approach has to be developed that takes into account the entire lifecycle of a building and the impact it has on people and nature.
Awareness of the forces at work in construction and creating structures in accordance with those forces can lead to both highly efficient and expressive structures.
Technology plays a key role in optimizing the possibilities of materials and creating built structures from them. The rapid progress of technology permanently enables innovative construction methods and astonishing new forms.
However technology should never become a goal in itself, dominating the design for its own sake. Technology should always be used to support human wellbeing, good architectural quality and ecological sustainability. Life should not be mechanized, but technology brought in accordance with life processes, supporting and enhancing them.
The design challenge in dealing with materials and technology consists in bringing their potential into harmony with the human, aesthetic and technical requirements of the design, balancing them with their ecological impact.
Ideas, Values and Creativity
In the process of envisioning and designing a new building, countless ideas and intentions flow into the project. These originate in part from the client and in part from the designers, constructors, technical advisors and workmen involved in the project.
All these ideas are related to values and a worldview that—consciously or subconsciously—flow into the design. In historical styles, this was generally evident because of the mythological or religious worldview expressed in the forms. But also modernist and contemporary buildings inevitably express a vision and the values that underpin them.
When we use or see a building, we absorb these ideas and values in the form of sensory impressions.
Good architecture therefore consciously tries to bring inherent values and a worldview to an artistic expression. It does so by creating a spatial atmosphere that can support and inspire those who use and experience the building.
All these ideas and values get their visible form through the talents and creativity of the architect or the design-team. These inevitable will color the design and influence its character.
For the designers, this process is at once a form of self-expression and self-realization. Self-expression should however never dominate the needs of the future users, but be used to support them.
In regards to ideas and values the design challenge consists of creating a form that fulfills its functional, technical and aesthetic requirements and brings its content to a meaningful expression.
The ultimate goal of the design process is to create a convincing and authentic form in which all of the aspects mentioned above are integrated. This cannot be done by just fulfilling separate requirements and dressing the result up in a fashionable or trendy form.
To create an authentic form, the design has to be developed from the inside out, that is to say out of the design-task itself and not be polluted by alien elements added on from outside.
In order to reach this goal, all separate and often contradictory requirements have to be analyzed and thought through. They have to sink into the sub-consciousness of the designers in order to let a new synthesis be born in which all elements are brought together in a new unity.
Creating a design is rather like being pregnant; not physically, but mentally. The design has to live in the consciousness and sub-consciousness of its designers, has to be fostered to grow and achieve a life of its own. Only if a design is brought to life, gets a character and identity of its own, can it enhance the lives of those who will use it, nourish their souls and uplift their spirits.
In the resulting form, the parts of the design should relate to the whole and to each other as in a living organism.
During design processes it often can be noticed that projects have a dynamic and will of their own, not being satisfied until all aspects of the design are integrated and its own character brought to full expression.
The client, architect and design-team should try to be aware of this ‘voiceless will’ at work and try to give it free rein. It can manifest itself in problems that occur during the process. It is important to view such problems as opportunities and seek ways the building can benefit from them. This attitude can help overcome difficulties.
Aspects influencing the design in architecture, Pieter van der Ree
Supporting Life-Processes
It is in the very nature of architecture to bring human needs and natural resources, social life and art, spirit and matter into a dialogue, merging them with one another and bringing them into a specific synthesis. The result of this open and permanently renewing process forms the world in which we live and by which we are formed.
Because of the impact architecture has on our outer and inner lives and on the natural world we all live in, architecture should be conceived in relation to the life-processes which it is part of; supporting and enhancing them.
To achieve this, inspiration can be taken from Nature by understanding how it creates its highly efficient, sustainable and beautiful forms. In Nature, outer appearance and inner being always form a unity. A similar unity should be aspired to in architecture and design. A quality of soul and a spiritual dimension must be added to make any design not just natural but also truly human.
Architektur und Zeitgeist - Wesensbegegnung im Gebauten
From the beginning of the Renaissance until the end of the 19th century, mankind became more and more involved and connected with earthly matter. At the same time, a new quality in human development emerged – the development of human individuality – which was already predisposed in Greco-Roman times, but only became generally effective since the Renaissance. When we ask ourselves today what is the spiritual dimension in architecture, it is directly related to the spiritual situation of humanity, which is connected to the theme of the individual development of man in our time.
Donato Bramante (c. 1444-1514), who as one of the most important architects of the Renaissance was commissioned to build the new Church of St. Peter in Rome (from 1506), had in mind for this church – that is, for the most important building task of Christianity at that time – the ideal of creating a combination of the principle of the basilica with its arches and naves (Maxentius Basilica, 307-313 A.D.) and the principle of the central space such as the Pantheon in Rome (consecrated c. 125 A.D.). In the Pantheon, one felt oneself placed in the centre of space for the first time. Even the central axes of the pyramid-like coffers of the dome converge not at the centre of the hemisphere, but at the centre of the floor, i.e. where the visitor stands. It is certainly no coincidence that the Pantheon was not dedicated to a particular god, but to „all the gods“, so that one could experience oneself in this way at the centre of the whole divine world. This central space, however, is still conceived as a temple and does not have the direction of movement associated with the basilica as a longitudinal building. Bramante now wanted to unite these two principles. Thus, in the Renaissance, a certain new quality of individuality emerged that had not existed before: on the one hand, the experience of the self in the centrality, and on the other hand, the dynamic of movement, the striving of the individual in a certain direction.
These are, of course, beginnings that did not immediately blossom because the interest in matter and towards the external manifestations of nature, especially in the 18th/19th centuries, tended to hinder it. So we cannot say that the process of individualisation in the sense of a connection with the spiritual moved steadily forwards, but one can see in the Renaissance and Baroque, for example in the work of Borromini (1599-1667), the beginnings of an organic thinking and expression in architecture, above all in Borromini’s approach to learning from the laws of living nature.
The architecture of the 19th century with its eclecticism is an extreme expression of excessive subjectivity, whereby the individual orders a house that corresponds to his dreams, wishes and taste. The contrast between the Batlló House in Barcelona (1904-1906) by Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) and the roughly contemporary neighbouring building by Domenèch i Montaner (1850-1923) shows that we have arrived at a time when everyone can wish for whatever they want if they only have the necessary money and if it is permitted by law. This raises the question of the freedom of individuality or egoism that wants to develop in a time when religious and social forms are losing more and more of their power.
If the human being does not give any particular thought to this new condition, it is often the case that other forces replace the impulse and try in various ways to steer its further development in certain directions. Some, very widespread manifestations of contemporary architecture are expressions of forces that would rather retard the expression of individuality and prevent mankind from becoming aware of its individual essence. Through repetition, anonymity and monotony in the environment, mankind is influenced in such a way that the actual sense of individuality is clouded.
There are other forces that are trying to strengthen egoism so that the ego becomes self-possessed, addicted to power and too closely attached to the earth. In the Torre Agbar by Jean Nouvel (*1945), an office and residential building in Barcelona built in 2004, one can see an extreme expression of pride and arrogance. It is not a sacred building, but it is nevertheless as tall as Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia (begun in 1882) and dominates its surroundings even more. The sense of power that radiates from this building is interestingly associated with a colourfulness that is reminiscent of something like organic life substances, whose appearance is, however, not entirely healthy. When you see this building from a distance, you have the feeling that blood is flowing over the surface – a very powerful sensual impression indeed.
There is another way in which this hypertrophied egoism seeks to manifest itself in buildings. It does not take such an aggressive approach as with the Agbar Tower, but creates elements of entertainment architecture. This architecture is usually created by large offices like Atkins Design Studio, which today work with hundreds of employees mainly in countries like the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia and create such images – they are actually more images than concrete buildings – that have the task of satisfying emotional needs for playful qualities, superficial amusement and ever new surprises.
On a smaller scale, such approaches can also be found in Europe. A new building district in Amsterdam near the central station shows the effort to create a lively environment in which the separate houses are more individualised than usual – in other words, they pose the question of individuality and diversity. This is achieved with witty façade elements such as hanging windows, curved eaves, arbitrary differences in height, etc. These are all façade designs that, in my opinion, have little content, but are all the more driven by the intention to add a bit of wit. In principle, again, no impulse for a real inner satisfaction or even further development of the human being is discernible.
One can of course ask what is supposed to be bad about building with wit. I suspect that an inhabitant who is exposed to these „jokes“ every day will not find them so funny after a short time, because they are too superficial and the user experiences a kind of weakening of his emotional life in the long run; for in the end, one’s own individuality is placed in constant relation to a mere joke. Such phenomena are most often found in Eastern Europe, such as the Nautilus shopping centre on the Lubjanka Square in Moscow. This example shows how many different elements, styles and games with shapes and colours can come together in one building as an expression of emotional streams. Basically, this is more or less the same eclecticism that appeared in Europe at the end of the 19th century. During my long stays in Eastern Europe, I observed that life itself becomes very superficial when people are always surrounded by such buildings.
At the beginning of the 20th century, pioneers of organic architecture like Antoni Gaudí felt the need to do something so that people could become aware of their own individuality and find support for their development through architecture. These pioneers tried to do this in different ways, each according to constitution and possibilities. At this point I do not want to analyse the work of these architects, but will try to show what approaches I see to meet these needs in the spirit of today’s times.
Reflection through the medium of architecture
A first possibility is the reflection of individuality through architecture, in that people are able to perceive an individual expression in a building and are thus drawn to experiencing their own individuality. In Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà (1906-1910), a large apartment building in Barcelona, the effort to give each window and corner a distinct individual expression is evident. This shows that even in such a building, which was not planned for one particular person but for a large number of families, the quality of the individual can be reflected.
In a less plastic way, this can also be found in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959). In the Unity Temple in Oak Park/Illionis (1904), one can perceive – despite the great simplicity of the volumes – the reflection of an individual attitude in the way the view along the street is designed. This is probably due to the fact that the central section is perhaps only 30 to 40 centimetres closer to the street than the lateral elements, and that the proportions of the façade give the impression that the upper section, with its windows and eaves, seems to be looking out from the building. Such qualities can be experienced even more strongly in the later works of Frank Lloyd Wright, such as the Unitarian Church in Madison, Wisconsin (1947).
Apart from the pioneers of this movement, one can find many buildings throughout the 20th century that exhibit the qualities mentioned, such as the towers of the ING Bank by Alberts & Van Huut in Amsterdam (1987). In this case, the type of design is also linked to the intention of individualising the towers so that, despite the size of the complex, the different groups of employees can identify with their own place of work, in contrast to the anonymity usually found in office buildings. This approach can also be found very strongly in many of Santiago Calatrava’s works, such as the extension to the Milwaukee Art Museum (1994-2001), where, compared to the ING Bank, one can perceive on the outside a stronger dynamic, a quality of movement.
This building in particular leads us to a second aspect, to what extent an interior can also offer an opportunity to reflect individuality, for the perception of the view is, after all, only a first moment in the encounter with a building. When I dealt with the subject of interiors on the occasion of a lecture, I was amazed to notice how there is also a basic principle in interior design throughout the 20th century that has to do with Bramante’s idea, but which was only able to spread in the 20th century. We can see this exemplified in the pavillion of the Milwaukee Museum, a space that widens from the entrance to about the middle of its total length and then narrows again, coming to a conclusion (in this case with a peak). This creates a sense of the connection between centrality and dynamism: one moves in the direction of the axis of symmetry, one comes to an experience of widening and then of centre, but one does not remain in the centre (as in the Pantheon), but one moves on, one gets an impulse to develop further, to overcome pure egoism. This is a spatial principle that runs as a leitmotif through the entire organic architecture of the 20th century.
An archetype of this, or one of the earliest spaces of this kind, is the hall of the second Goetheanum, which opens towards the stage and contains within itself the idea of the double dome or the interpenetration of audience and stage space. The spatial interpenetration in Gaudí’s Cripta Güell, which is not derived from the Goetheanum, shows that motifs appeared simultaneously in various places at the beginning of the 20th century as an expression of the Time Spirit.
Inner attitude and design quality
So far I have talked about reflections of individuality. There can also be a reflection or more an inner perception of this quality in the interior. The aspect of development can unfold even more expressively through metamorphosis and through the transformation of forms, as can be seen in the exterior of the second Goetheanum or in the interior of the first. Architects like Jens Peters have tried to convey the sense of development in their buildings. In the Waldorf School in Salzburg (1st building phase 1991-1994, 2nd building phase 2008; cf. Mensch+Architektur no. 61/62) the various parts are obviously in a process of development and transformation, although in this case, I think, there is no metamorphosis as in the forms of the first Goetheanum. That is to say, through this design the aspiration, the impulse towards development can be experienced, also through the design of the roofs and through the whole movement of the building.
Another aspect besides the reflection of individuality and the stimulation of its development is the conveying of inner attitudes which, after all, support inner development. This is about feeling the expression of the building more deeply and consciously and connecting it with certain soul qualities. This basically means that an architect who strives for something like this must also be able to sense the inner attitudes that enable development or a connection to the spiritual. For if one accepts that an individuality exists as a being, one inevitably comes to the conclusion that this development of the individuality is in inner connection with the other beings in the world, which can also be called „the spiritual“. For this reason Rudolf Steiner describes anthroposophy as a path of knowledge which seeks to lead the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe of the world. This means that individuality, which through the centuries has increasingly separated itself from the spiritual and increasingly connected itself with matter, must again find access to the spiritual. That is the perspective of development. Architecture can carry qualities and attitudes that are helpful for people to move forward on this path.
In the Bergen Kindergarten (1981), a design by Espen Tharaldsen, we can perceive an attitude of love, a gesture of love that is expressed through this building and can really be taken up by people as an example of how to relate to the environment and to fellow human beings. Another quality is, for example, openness to the world, as expressed in the view from the main road in the House of Culture in Järna (1992) by Erik Asmussen (1913-1998). The building, which stretches horizontally in the landscape, opens up to the whole environment and shows two tower-like elements on the two sides, which reinforce these movements through the vertical accents and bring them to a conclusion in a kind of awareness.
Understanding these qualities helps to describe the intentions and characteristics of organic architecture in a non-dogmatic way and to compare it with other approaches. An objective evaluation of architecture needs a concrete basis, which I believe can only lie in observing the impact of buildings on human development. For me, the topicality of Rudolf Steiner’s architecture (1861-1925) lies precisely in the fact that buildings such as the Goetheanum combine many of the qualities mentioned to the highest degree. For example, Rudolf Steiner incorporated into the exterior design of the second Goetheanum (from 1924) the fundamental attitudes necessary for a person embarking on the path of spiritual training or inner development. If you let the impression from the west elevation live in you long enough, you will realise that it radiates an inner attitude that is connected with the qualities of spiritual discipleship. One aspect, for example, is the combination of concentration and individual power, especially thanks to the shape of the upper window and the vertical axis of symmetry; the other is the great openness that one finds especially in the lower area at the level of the terrace. This building combines the two qualities of the soul that are presented in Rudolf Steiner’s book ‚Knowledge of Higher Worlds‘ as fundamental prerequisites for the training of the spirit: „an open heart for the needs of the outer world“ and „inner firmness and unshakeable perseverance“. In this sense, the Goetheanum is actually an object in whose expression one can immerse oneself in order to acquire some qualities that one needs to strengthen in one’s own development.
The same can be said about many other buildings. In the Unity Temple by Frank Lloyd Wright that I mentioned, you find to a certain extent the quality that you find in the second Goetheanum and also, in my opinion, an amazing similarity in the expression of the two buildings, in the way they look, in the inner attitude that they convey. This means that both architects must have had a similar feeling for this quality of looking into another world, into a supersensible realm.
Dealing with the Expression of Beings
I would like to mention one last level with the help of which one can find access to the spiritual. It concerns the formation of an environment in which the human being not only perceives his own individuality, but in which he feels that he is also surrounded by other spiritual beings, where he can train himself to perceive other entities besides himself and his fellow human beings. Especially in the case of the heating plant of the Goetheanum in Dornach, built in 1914 according to Rudolf Steiner’s designs, it can be noticed that it is not about a reflection of human individuality, but about the expression of another quality of the spiritual. From this point of view, the Goetheanum and the surrounding buildings by Rudolf Steiner can be seen as a kind of colony of different Beings connected with each other.
Something similar can be said about the railway station of the Saint-Exupéry airport in Lyon (1989-1994) by Santiago Calatrava. There is also something of a non-human nature to experience, without wanting to judge whether it is good or bad. Nevertheless, one can feel directly that something that lies outside his humanity is coming towards the observer. In connection with the building task, this can also be an expression of the essence of a community, e.g. the essence of a school. This attitude can not only appear in the main design of a building, but also in details, such as in the railway station mentioned above, where many elements speak of a quality thorugh which people are constantly confronted with different entities, e.g. through the finishing elements of the stair railings. The interesting thing is that in recent years these aspects have become more and more widespread even among architects who did not strive for it from the beginning.
I think this phenomenon has to do with the fact that the spirit of the time is being felt more and more strongly by architects and people in general today. This is happening because of the development we have gone through in the last century and also in connection with what Rudolf Steiner described as the „crossing of the threshold“ of the spiritual world for all humanity at the beginning of the 20th century. This is a process that is becoming stronger and stronger with time. But one also notices that without sufficient awareness of the true needs of mankind, this feeling of the spirit of the age shows itself or embodies itself in a form that is not always conducive to man. One has the need to perceive something individual-spiritual, but this takes on all kinds of forms, all kinds of qualities, which are also random or wild (as for example in the interior of the DZ Bank on Pariserplatz in Berlin by Frank Gehry). Last but not least, there can also be harmful effects if this spiritual quality is not consciously grasped.
Besides many examples of dynamic projects by Gehry, Foster or Zaha Hadid, we see an increasingly strong hardening in architecture, where the focus is rather on materialistic functionality and the purity of forms. Much of what is built today, especially in Central Europe, is characterised by a strong feeling of death, even in the choice of materials (mostly steel, concrete and glass) and colours (preferably grey, white or brown). This tendency is based on a world view that sees the development of technology as the main feature and essential cultural factor of our time. Even Le Corbusier was enthusiastic about the aesthetics of the machine at the beginning of the 20th century and called his designs for houses „machines for living“, thus pointing in a direction that gradually leads to the exclusion of all living qualities from architecture. In my opinion, this is the expression of a great fear in the human souls of the spiritual and of the unpredictable.
This kind of architecture has also exerted a certain influence on organic architects, whether for economic reasons, or because of the regulations that do not allow anything else (which is indeed the case in many occasions), or because one simply wants to adapt to what is considered modern in the world. Certainly, an interest for the tendencies that live in our time is necessary, but together with this serious preoccupation, one needs a living and conscious relationship with the essence of the spirit of time in order not to fall into one of the extremes and in order to be able to contribute something positive. That is why I wanted to show that for me this aspect is quite essential for the further development of human beings.
