Rabid Regionalism
Murcutt´s Marika Alderton House
One of the greatest topics of disagreement in cultural circles after World War II has not been the confrontation between postmodernism and late modernism, but rather the doubt if modernism was a global metalanguage, under which all regional differences should be organized.
Even in the less religious areas like architecture, an almost fundamentalistic repression of the local-conditioned differences, has to an increasing degree characterized the globalization of building technology. So despite an old trade description that implies that the “international style” in time will be considered as being extremely functional, it will be neither functional considerations nor sensibility that, with unfailing consistency, will affect the so-called functionalistic building.
Architectural history has of course given us important exceptions from the general functionalistic practice - such as Aalto and Utzon - to name two of the most distinguished opponents of “box tyranny.” Or perhaps today’s Euine Fay Jones and Glenn Murcutt as authors of outstanding corrections of modernism’s hegemony.
When Glenn Murcutt (b.1936) designs a family house for an aborigine artist in the tropical ’outback,’ he displays a maximum of respect for the climatic conditions, which he attempts to take into account with modern technology and materials. Earlier in his career, his models were Mies and later Barragan, where after he completely devoted himself to Australia’s regional character. One cannot accuse him of being a romanticist, when for a representative of the Australian aborigines, for comparatively modest means, he attempts to optimize the framework for a home under extreme climatic conditions. To the contrary, he tries, without formal (modernistic) prejudice to take into account challenges like tropical storms (with wind speeds of 63 metres per second), flooding, high temperatures and self‑sufficiency in terms of energy consumption.
As a professional architect, Glenn Murcutt has almost exclusively worked with small buildings, often inspired by freestanding farmhouses. His favourite housing form is the wing or long-house, covered with different roof forms, often saddle roofed, but sometimes also with a shed roof or a wavy section (Magney house, 1984). Murcutt always specifies the best standard materials based on previous experience when he designs a building. In his home for Marika Alderton (Yirrkala Community, Eastern Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, 1994) he chose securely fixed steel pipes as bearing columns - with welded triangular flanges to resolve the connection to the main beams, which like the beams that support the wooden deck, are I-sections with pointed ends. The roofing is corrugated metal sheeting with a single exposed solar collector on one side of the saddle roof.
As an aborigine artist, the client’s financial situation was somewhat modest and thus it was necessary for Murcutt to convince the steel supplier to sponsor the material costs, while he himself waived his commission. On the other hand, Alderton had to pay the carpenters that were called in from Sydney and brought the already prefabricated elements with them so the house could be assembled on site. In consideration for ventilation needs in the tropical climate, the house is built without glass, but with 8 millimetre openings in the more closed building elements. In addition to this, the degree of openness can be regulated in most of the facade elements by hydraulic jacks, so the house has an extremely “open” construction.
The house rests on low columns and is covered by an uninsulated, roof with broad eaves. Fresh air can also be brought admitted via movable ventilation vents in the roof ridge. The space under the cabinets along the facades is open, yet closed by wire screening, so that all four facades can also be opened to various degrees. The built-in beds are raised enough above the terrain that a person standing outside the house cannot see them. Even the morning sun is prevented from peeping into the beds by large, plywood “blinkers” mounted perpendicular to the facade.
The furnishings and equipment are quite Spartan and consist of a refrigerator, a stove, a couple of cabinets and a toilet. Otherwise the building could be likened to a traditional tropical “primitive” pole house, even though the somewhat more modern facades can provide everything from total closure to complete openness and ventilation. Murcutt emphasizes that in the aborigine culture it is important that one can outwardly signal if the house’s inhabitants are home and if they are interested in having guests. This can be accomplished by opening the house to the surroundings. If on the other hand the house appears closed, and one still insists on seeing if anyone is home, one should not expect a response from the inhabitants, even if they are at home.
Apparently the Marika Alderton house is so straightforward that it requires no further explanation. However, architects should not be misled by this. The house is oriented according to compass, and the eaves are precisely broad enough to prevent the facades from being subject to direct solar heating both in winter and summer. The message here is clearly understood, by using “natural” means and solutions the house is able to ventilate itself, providing the architect has offered these possibilities and the proper orientation. Murcutt thus is not one to allow aesthetics to govern his decisions and to place the building parallel to the access road - without previously having considered the prevailing wind directions, the extreme solar altitudes and the local precipitation.
When the building materials are also optimized in terms of durability and strength, a house like this, in terms of resources, must be considered to be the best possible solution at the moment. One could say that the experience gained from a tropical building like this cannot be used under Danish climatic conditions. On the other hand, even at our latitude, it would be architecturally exciting to created a functionally optimized, durable house based on the inherent beauty of simplicity. Consider the “Korshagehus”! Although we must remember that if globalization implies that there is only one way of doing things, and that everything should be the same all over the world, than globalization will be regionalism’s complete opposite, which will raise the question if the “international style” is truly international.
Flemming Skude
