Figures, Doors, and Passages - Robin Evans

In this article, Evans discusses the history of the "house plan" in respect to the social implications that drove its evolution throughout history. Evans describes the role that the layout of spaces can play in fostering human relationships and how this condition is exemplified in the architectural plan.

The artistic and architectural work of Raphael is summoned, due in part to the style in which he depicts the subjects in his paintings. They blend together, rendering the scene as an amorphous landscape of limbs, flesh, and muscle. This appearance of closeness amongst individuals sheds light on the Italian mentality of house planning, where rooms are connected via many doors and adjacencies.

I was particularly interested in the portion of the article where Evans describes the evolution of 'Doors' and passages within the plan of the house. Rooms began as not destinations but avenues within a complex matrix of spaces. As Evans writes "First, the rooms have more than one door: some have two doors, many have three, others four, a feature which, since the early 19th century has been regarded as a fault in domestic buildings of whatever kind or size." Rooms were passageways with entries that barely defined them from their adjacent partners. You would literally have to pass through many rooms in order to reach a destination. The social relationships were founded upon gathering and congregation. Evans describes the tendency for Italian socialites to dine, discuss, and pass the time in large groups. Therefore, a plan that did not impede these social interactions was most desirable.

This paradigm in house planning shifted once the Italian specialty emerged in England in the late 16th century. The birth of the corridor confronted the issue of separation amongst served and servant. This evolution of the internal arrangement allowed rooms to be connected by the means of a hall, as opposed to each other. Separation was for convenience, cleanliness, and the newfound emphasis on privacy. Evans remarks on the corridor as a proposed facilitator of communication, which falls short due to the fact that it allowed the user to be disengaged with all other rooms other than the one he/she desired to arrive.

So this condition ultimately represses the desire to congregate and socialize in communal spaces within the house. Socializing is inherently desired by architects who plan the layout of houses, yet we are going against the grain of our history by dividing spaces and partitioning off rooms, only to be connected by vertebral passageways that allow us to cleanly select our destination. I will finish with this great quote by Evans,

"The cumulative effect of architecture during the last two centuries has been like that of a general lobotomy performed on society at large, obliterating vast areas of social experience. It is implored more and more as a preventive measure: an agency for peace. security and segregation, which by its very nature, limits the horizon of experience by reducing noise transmission, differentiating movement patterns, suppressing smells...incidentally reducing daily life to a private shadow play."