You're not by any chance doing the Hybrid Buildings technical studies at TU Delft are you? Do your homework like the rest of us :D

Anyway the linked book is a good source.

yeah i am doing that course, got caught! hehe trying to find a concise summary. thanks though:)

yes, the case book is good - and if you can get your hands on the original venice hospital folio that rice put out, even better. Mat buildings are so sixties, who has you guys doing this?

Rita, you mean to say you're a former bonhomme who's been out book shopping since the late 70s - How outré and exciting! I think you must have your share of architecturistic reenactments with which to grace all of us neophytic apparitions - where were you in school?

Oh, and Dezku and Huey - who's got you doing textiles?

Henk Mihl.. Bless the man.

OK, for those of us who have practiced 'low-brow' arch most of our careers, please briefly describe 'Mat building.' pretty please.

MM,

let me give this a try...the main idea is the organization and propagation of spatial and programmatic "modules" on a relatively flat plane. Usually the organization and connection of the modules are rule-based and the propagation within the site, seems to me, is inevitably affected by the rules of organization . Its similar to the idea of "modularity", in which modules, of however many types, are organized together to form a building. They're like lego, Escher's tesselations, puzzles...

some references...stan allen's field condition, Aldo Van Eyck...

Dayyymmm-son,
All you had to day was for me to git out my pre-school bldg blocks. Maybe I'll develop a system to help my friend from Louisiana (the dry part) build his modular kingdom out of shipping containers.

Anyway, the 'peanut gallery' thanks you.

No doubt that somebody will find a way for a new-age French colonial 'style' to make its way into the resultant architecture.

I gotta buy new shoes.

Corb's hospital, Stan Allen's field condition discussion(s) and van Eyck (the Orphanage in particular) are all good sources, but one would have to include Candillis & Woods' Berlin Free University and especially the article "On Mat Building" by Alison (& Peter? - forgot if he co-wrote it) Smithson...

wow bothands, excellent references. Team 10 was indeed very heavy into the mats. Would add yona friedman's "spatial city" and a mess of van Eyck as pre-60s referents, though there's some of the latter in the case book, i believe.

Rita, mat buildings didn't start with Le Corbusier's Venice Hospital. The FU Berlin, of Candilis, Josic, Woods is from the fifties. You could read Alison Smithson's article "How to read and recongnize Mat Buildings" where there is a very comprehensive chronology of mat building cases. Venice Hospital is listed there.

As for Jullian's book about the hospital (the Rice one), if you consider selling it, I would buy it, so please let me know when you make up your mind on that.

Maxat, For the right price, I'd part with my copy - make me an offer.

check out johnny bassett's thesis project on the princeton website...

Hmm. Is the Monster Garden at Bomarzo a "Mat Building"?

hi ... I'm developing a PhD thesys on Mat Buildings. Are you still working on them?

thanks, LucaF

Guys, I can add to this discussion the fact that right now I'm collaborating at my office with Guillermo Jullian de la Fuente, who was Le Corbusier's aide at the Rue de Sevres Atelier and inherited the Venice Hospital Building when LC died. I've discussed with him the issue of mat buildings and he is very suspicious of the categorization of the Venice Hospital as a mat building. It's true that Allison Smithson in her article about mat buildings cites it as an example (crediting it as Le Corbusier + Jullian), and Pablo Allard's article on it in the Case book also deals with that idea. Personnaly I think that there is a very close relation between the idea behind the concept of mat buildings and the Hospital... but I thought that Jullian's view (as co author) would be an interesting addition to this debate. By the way, working with him has been almost a school in itself. I offer the experience to anyone interested in taking contact with him.

And if anyone has the Rice booklet available to sell, please let me know. In Alibris it's at $75, which is a little expensive, so I could offer less than that.

Hello Maxat, I would be really interested in getting in touch with Jullian de la Fuente because I'm developing a PhD thesys on mat buildings architecture. How can you help me?
I just bought the Rice Booklet from Amazon.com for 18 euro. Have a look there, you might get it too.
Let me know, ok?

Hi Huey,

Don't know if you are still working on this, but having just done some peripheral research on the topic, I can offer the following knowledge:

As mentioned above, you definitely want to look at Team 10. There is a good book out there right now- “Team 10: In Search of a Utopia of the Present 1953-81”. That has several essays on the development of the mat building. Essentially, it was an idea of Shadrach Woods, and was first used in a competition for a new urban scheme in Frankfurt 1962. The concept at the time was referred to as “The Web”. It was later developed into the Berlin Free University, essentially that same year, although the scheme was not built until 1974. Right around when the building was completed, Alison Smithson wrote an article, “How to Recognize and Read Mat-Building” (Architectural Design, 1974), that essentially codified Team 10’s position in relationship to the building typology. You will find present in this concept, especially in the early stages of the thinking about this building type, the work of the Metabolists and the research of Christopher Alexander. However, looking at writings of Van Eyck would be going in the wrong direction since he disagreed with the concept, even though Smithson cited his Orphanage in Mat Building article. There is another book that was very useful on this subject by Tom Avermaete- “Another Modern: The Post-War Architecture and Urbanism of Candilis-Josic-Woods”. If you do an internet search on Team 10 you will find a website, with some essays by Avermaete about the development of “The Web”.

I might disagree with some of the comments above that the Mat Building diagram is outdated. It would seem to be well utilized by many of the hot firms of the moment- Koolhaas, Sejima, Ito, MVRDV, etc.- although the thinking about it in terms of a radical utopian free space has definitely shifted. Look at the Koolhaas’ IIT building, or Sejima’s Kanazawa Museum as an example…

lucaf, if you give me an email address I can send you Jullian's email so you can contact thim directly.

Maxat

lucaf, if you give me an email address I can send you Jullian's email so you can contact thim directly.

Maxat

Hello Maxat,

my e.mail is [email protected], it would be amazing getting in touch with Jullian. Maybe you can tell me more about your experience.
Thanks a lot,

Luca F

check out Saitama Prefectural University by Riken Yamamoto.

also a mat housing project by Libera in Italy form the 50s, plus the Cummins Factory in Indiana (I believe) as well as the Oakland Museum both by Dinkeloo & Roche

Hello Maxat,

I would be really interested in getting in touch with Jullian de la Fuente because I'm working on my research paper on mat buildings architecture. 

Please let me know if you could help me?

Thanks