Dissolution of Space - Development of ideas of space as seen in Mies van der Rohes work and analogies in the conceptualization of space in traditional Japanese residential buildings.

buildings and in the creation of space in Mies van der Rohes work. Although conceived under different context and conditions, one can discover similar spatial characteristics which this text aims to visualize. Thus on the one hand the agriculturally structured, preindustrial society in Japan is examined, which intensified its culture of living and building during the period of isolation, and on the other hand the industrialised, urban society of Europe searching for architectural solutions for new living conditions. Using concepts of time and space and the relationship between the out- and indoors, Japanese understanding of space from 1639-1853 is juxtaposed with European models of space, time and motion at the beginning of the twentieth century and the reaction to those models in the work of Mies van der Rohe is made clear: Interpretation of the house as an integral part of the outdoors, fragmentation and process of consequent dismaterialisation, decomposition through transparencies and ambiguous formation of boundaries. Creation of space as the principal subject instead of creation of form and/or object. The text is divided in three main chapters, the main themes being Japan (J), Mies van der Rohe (M) and Transfer The following text is about the similarities of the conceptualization of space in traditional Japanese residential (T), that are again subdivided into three subchapters, that are woven into a net of context which is readable either horizontal or vertical: J1 J2 J3 M1 M2 M3 T1 T2 T3 J1 J3 examines the conceptualizing of traditional Japanese residential buildings and gardens and the relationship between the in- and outdoors seen before the contextual background of eastern Asiatic appreciation of nature. Using three examples from different epochs, the spatial parameters of traditional residential buildingtypes are analysed and the aspect of emptiness is described. M1 M3 introduces the process of creation of space in Mies van der Rohes work using selected projects from three typological eras (Brick Countryhouse, House Tugendhat/Barcelona Pavilion, House Farnsworth) to present the process of continual dissolution of space and materiality and to point out Mies interpretation of emptiness, which is juxtaposed with the Japanese examples. T1 T3 points out the relation between Japan and Europe/USA as well as possible direct and indirect paths of information and confrontation of Mies van der Rohe with the Japanese housing type: crosslinks between Japan, Mies and the Dutch, Mies van der Rohes time at the Bauhaus and his contacts to the japanophiles, as well as the worldfairs in their function as cultural intermediators, with an emphasis on the Worlds Fair Chicago 1893.