Advisor: Otavio Leonidio
Dissertation: The masonry-wall from Three Courtyard House: By an autonomy key
Defense date: 02/12/2022
Abstract
The Three Courtyards House is an unbuilt residential project by architect
Mies van der Rohe from the 1930s. The house is also part of a process of
typological investigation of courtyard houses, lasting almost ten years of the
architect’s teaching and professional activity. The present work observes the
design of the masonry wall of the house under the understanding of a progressive
protagonism of this element, from its first studies to its last version, associated with
the concept of architectural autonomy. Based on the comparison between the
works of the investigative series and Mies’s executed works, it is possible to notice
that the masonry wall gradually ceases to mediate the architecture with the land
and starts to dispute the protagonism with the house’s internal space.