La Construcción de la Sombra. Variaciones del elemento prefabricado de fachada en hormigón armado en las obras de Marcel Breuer

Abstract

[EN] Marcel Breuer is well known for his furniture design and his domestic architecture, being the designer of one of the fi rst tubular chairs in the 1920s, and one of the European architects that emigrated to the United States during the 1930s and 40s. As such, he took part in the introduction of the Modern Movement in America. What is not widely known is that, between the ‘60s and ‘70s, Breuer designed numerous buildings with an innovative façade system, consisting in exposed pre-cast, reinforced concrete elements. The interest of this system used by Breuer almost as an obssesion from 1960 until his retirement, was based on its extraordinary sculptural quality due to the depth of the section of its elements. Another important innovation was that the pre-cast elements of the façade are part of the structural system of the building, housing the mechanical systems, and performing multiple functions. This article explores the visual contrasts that these elements, in all their diff erent versions, recreate on the façades as a play between solid and void, as well as the movement of the shadows on them along the day. This visual contrast gives an extraordinary aesthetic quality to Breuer’s designs.

[ES] Marcel Breuer es más conocido por sus diseños de mobiliario y sus viviendas unifamiliares, siendo el inventor de la silla tubular y junto con Walter Gropius uno de los introductores del llamado Estilo Internacional en los Estados Unidos. Es mucho menos conocido, que entre 1960 y 1977, Breuer diseña una numerosísima serie de proyectos desarrollando y usando un innovador sistema de fachada de paneles prefabricados de hormigón visto. El interés de este sistema empleado por Breuer, casi como una obsesión a partir de 1960 y hasta su jubilación, se basa en sus extraordinarias cualidades esculturales, la profundidad de los elementos de fachada creando un sistema de elementos de hormigón prefabricado muy profundo y su integración en el sistema estructural y de servicios del edificio. El contrate visual que estos elementos de fachada producen entre solido y vacío, así como el movimiento de las sombras sobre ellos a lo largo del día son de una extraordinaria calidad estética.