Contra-construction, Maison Particulière
- Space dissolved in colour -In the summer of 1923, work was feverish in a rented studio in Paris. Painter Theo van Doesburg and architect Cornelis Van Eesteren were designing architectural designs for De Stijl, which, in their eyes, was the most important contemporary avant-garde art and architecture movement in the Netherlands. Two projects, Maison Particulière and Maison d'Artiste, originated without there ever actually being a concrete commission to design them. They were made for an exhibition of De Stijl in a Parisian gallery, and together with a number of other works, these housing studies demonstrated the objectives of De Stijl.
The exertions of both designers led to a magical moment in Dutch architectural history. Van Doesburg and Van Eesteren presented Maison Particulière and Maison d'Artiste using models and design drawings. In addition to the customary surface plans and the elevation for the façade, they also made oblique projection drawings that they called contra-constructions. The floor plan is rotated by 45° on these isometric projections and the contour lines are indicated without perspectival distortion. The different variations of the contra-constructions give a collective image from which the yearning for a completely new world emerges.
The perspective on the projection of the lightly printed design drawings for Maison Particulière is from above. Several of the foremost surfaces are indicated without details and coloured with paint. The remainder of the building has been consciously omitted, which, along with the perspective, renders the architecture immaterial – as if the space is dissolved in colour.
Request number EEST p20
Literature
-E. Hoek (ed.), Theo van Doesburg Oeuvrecatalogus (Catalogue of Works), Utrecht, Otterlo 2000
-M. Bock (ed.), Bouwkunst, Stijl, Stedebouw. Van Eesteren en de avant-garde. Cornelis van Eesteren. Architect Urbanist. Deel I (Architecture, Style & Urban Development: Van Eesteren, Architect & Urbanist. Volume 1), Rotterdam/Den Haag 2001