Hiša kot arhitekturni objekt

Miha Dešman

»Danes se zadolžimo, vse novo izživimo do petintridesetega leta in potem odplačujemo, dokler ne crknemo. Ampak uživamo pa takoj. Vsaj tisti trenutek, ko kupujemo, uživamo. Ko podpisujemo kupoprodajne pogodbe, uživamo. Ko odpiramo paket, uživamo. V vonju novega. Potem pa nimamo več časa za uživanje. Ker moramo na zelo veliko obrokov odplačevati vse to zdavnaj minulo uživanje. In po štiridesetem smo vsi že izgoreli in zagrenjeni. Moja tretja najljubša reklama je za banko. Na plakatu je fotografija mlade ženske v poročni obleki z napisom 'VZAMEM!', spodaj pa ponujajo nov tip kredita z izjemno nizko obrestno mero, v švicarskih frankih. Danes se je lažje ločiti od partnerja in si razdeliti otroke, kot razvezati kreditno pogodbo.«

Ivana Djilas: Hiša, Cankarjeva založba, 2016

Hiša je povezana s človeškim bivanjem. Bivanje (kot v dobri tragediji) združuje osebno in družbeno. Na tej osi se konstruirajo družbeni sistemi in podsistemi ter nastajajo in se lomijo koncepti, ki oblikujejo pretekli in današnji čas.

Hiša pa je tudi paradigmatski arhitekturni objekt. Seveda ne kakršnakoli. Pogoj za nastanek arhitekturnega objekta je uspela povezava tehnične in poetične razsežnosti arhitekture. Le skozi tako povezavo, Kenneth Frampton¹ jo imenuje tektonska vez, se odpira prostor za potenciale, ki jih arhitekt² lahko razvije v arhitekturni objekt. Pri tem ni pravil; ne v merilu, ne v lokaciji, ne v bogastvu, saj hiša kot arhitekturna tema sega od minimalnega zavetja do palače, velike kot mesto.

Sprehod skozi zgodovino lahko pričnemo v poslikanih jamah, v prvih urbanih aglomeracijah na tleh Male Azije in Bližnjega vzhoda, nadaljujemo s študijem atrijskih hiš in vil v različnih okoljih in kulturah, od antičnih do renesančnih in klasicističnih, zatem vernakularne tradicije podeželskih hiš, hiš iz delavskih naselij, modernističnih vil, vse do pisane palete sodobne individualne gradnje.

Zgodovina hiše je stara toliko kot človeštvo. Bivanje socialno delujočih daljnih prednikov je zahtevalo arhitekturne rešitve, ko cilj gradnje ni bila le gola zaščita, pač pa tudi portret družbe. Temu so služile slikarije v jamah, pa prve urbane naselbine, kjer se je vzpostavila dialektika med hišo (znotraj zidov in strehe) in naravo ter med mestom (znotraj obzidja) in divjino. Razvila se je bivalna kultura, ki vsebuje odgovore na fizične in simbolne potrebe, rituale in želje. Na tej razliki med zunaj in znotraj je koncept doma utemeljen vse do danes. Med hišo oziroma domom kot domicilom zasebnega in mestom kot prostorom javnega je začrtana stroga meja. Gre za mejo med osebnim in zunanjim svetom – mejo, ki jo med drugim obravnava Beatrice Colomina v knjigi Privacy and Publicity,³ v kateri govori o konstruiranju modernosti in modernega subjekta.

Z razmerjem med mestom in hišo se ukvarjajo številne arhitekturne (in druge) teoretske opredelitve. Ne glede na pomembnost mest je za vsakogar določujoč tisti prostor, kjer je človek sam pri sebi in ki je nasprotje javnega. Gre za dom, za stanovanje ali hišo ali pač kraj, sobo, kotiček ali posteljo, kjer smo doma. Pravzaprav so brezdomci edini, ki zares, brez ostanka, prebivajo v mestih. Res je, da je zasebnost sodobnih domov ogrožena z izumom televizije in digitalno revolucijo. A socialna in psihološka struktura ljudi se ne spreminja hkrati s tehnologijo. To je eden od vzrokov za krizo modernega projekta. Projekcija želje večine oziroma splošni bivanjski ideal je bila in je še vedno individualna hiša z vrtom. Poleti si v mislih in sanjah predstavljamo prostor, ki se nadaljuje na teraso in vrt, s trato in bazenom. Čutimo telesno ugodje, toploto sončnih žarkov, slišimo veter in vodo. Pozimi pa, kot zapiše Gaston Bachelard,⁴ za katerega je hiša zavetje za sanje, sanjamo o koči, v kateri godrnja peč, medtem ko zunaj udarja veter … Dom je hkrati duhovna in materialna kategorija, ki vključuje tako spomine in sanje kot ogenj v peči, krog svetlobe in občutje zavetja, kot v materinem naročju. Po Bachelardu sta metafori zavetja gnezdo in školjka, po arhitekturnem kanonu pa primitivna koča.

Kot pravi Bachelard, je dom ena največjih povezovalnih sil za človekove misli, spomine in sanje. V hiši – domu so naši spomini nastanjeni, in če je dom nekoliko bolj zapleten, če ima klet in podstrešje, številne kote in hodnike, imajo naši spomini bolj določena zatočišča, v katera se vračamo vse življenje. Je bila soba velika? Od kod je prihajala svetloba? Je bilo podstrešje natrpano? Je bil kot topel? In tudi: kako je bilo v teh prostorih doživljati tišino? To so vprašanja, ki govorijo o psihologiji bivanja, v sebi pa nosijo temeljno fenomenološko arhitekturno izkušnjo. Bachelard opozarja na poetično dimenzijo bivanja, seveda pa tema hiše odpira še številna druga vprašanja.

Prvo in najpomembnejše vprašanje je, ali je individualna hiša sploh lahko zajeta v trajnostni način gradnje in ali si jo lahko privoščimo kot prevladujočo obliko bivanja, saj gre za tipologijo oziroma patologijo, ki jo težko upravičimo kot vzdržno.

Odgovorov je več: prvi je, da moramo več obnavljati in manj graditi. Dejstvo slovenske poselitve je popolna prevlada individualne gradnje. Velika naloga je, kako teh več sto tisoč hiš prenoviti, da bodo, če se navežem na uvod, postale arhitekturni objekti. Novo gradnjo moramo omejiti do te mere, da poselitve ne bomo širili onkraj urbaniziranih površin, v odprto krajino, na kmetijska zemljišča ipd.

Arhitekturna misel in praksa se morata soočiti z realnostjo meje vzdržnosti v planetarnem merilu in kreativno ponotranjiti koncept odrasti, ki pravi, da bi morali ljudje, zlasti na globalnem severu, torej tudi pri nas, porabljati manj energije in manj surovin. Pot se kaže skozi različne oblike ustvarjalne prenove, ki na arhitekturni način poveže obstoječo substanco z novimi potrebami in zahtevami.

Ob upoštevanju trajnostne mobilnosti, lokalne samooskrbe in potreb ljudi je gradnja novih hiš seveda smiselna, saj (med drugim) omogočajo arhitekturni razvoj. Pogoj je organizirano načrtovanje, znotraj katerega na novo gradimo le toliko hiš, kot jih dejansko potrebujemo. Za doseganje teh kompleksnih ciljev je potrebno povezano delovanje v stroki, družbi in politiki, predvsem pa je treba redefinirati urbanizem.

Trajnostno arhitekturo razvijamo 30 ali 40 let. Izkazalo se je, da je pojem hkrati preozek in preširok, da bi lahko postal operativno sredstvo za odgovor na kompleksnost sodobnih potreb. Pri hišah je prevladala usmeritev v arhitekturo, ki jo zastopa koncept pasivne hiše. Tej usmeritvi sledijo zakonodaja, tehnologija in tudi praksa arhitekture. Ideja je v zmanjšanju oziroma ukinitvi porabe energije. Iz tega naj sledi tehnološki imperativ, ki ga lahko opredelimo kot trojček izolacija, zračna in parna neprepustnost ter klimatizacija z rekuperacijo. Na ta način nastanejo hiše, ki so kot plastične vrečke, obdane s stiroporom. Oblikovni imperativ pa sledi faktorju idealne oblike, ki ukinja členjenost, faktor najmanjše toplotne prevodnosti pa minimalizira zastekljene površine. Ta pot je slepa ulica, relevantni arhitekturni odgovori so šli v drugo smer. Torej je treba redefinirati pojem udobja.

Nato pa je na vrsti še pojem lastnine. Razvoj arhitekture je sam po sebi čisto zanimiv in bi lahko vodil v svet, v katerem bi ljudje živeli bolje in bili srečni, prostor in viri pa bi bili optimalno razporejeni. Vendar arhitektura sama po sebi tega ne more doseči, sploh dokler je vpeta v prioriteto kapitala, ki arhitekturo uporablja tako, da maksimira svoj dobiček. Temeljna težava je, kako kapital, ki je nujen za nastanek in razvoj arhitekture, spraviti pod javni nadzor, da bo ta delovala v smeri kar največje dobrobiti in udobja za vsakogar, brez izjem. Vprašanje prihodnosti arhitekture ni le vprašanje, kaj zmore in kakšne ideje in rešitve bo razvijala. V resnici gre za političnoekonomsko in etično vprašanje, čemu bo arhitektura namenjena.

Danes živimo v družbi izobilja, ki jo je Guy Debord⁵ zaostreno poimenoval družba spektakla: »Spektakel je neprekinjen diskurz, v katerem pričujoči red razglablja o sebi, je samohvalni monolog in avtoportret oblasti v obdobju totalitarnega upravljanja bivanjskih pogojev.«

Aktualni družbeni pojavi pretirane porabe, predmetnega izobilja in predmetnega fetišizma rahljajo družbene vezi ter zmanjšujejo stopnjo solidarnosti. Materialni svet in sodobna potrošniška družba spreminjata tako koncept zadovoljevanja potreb kot koncept ustvarjanja smisla. Pojavlja se tesnoba izobilja, ki posameznike vodi v uveljavljanje sodobnega nihilizma; ta poleg lastnosti klasičnega Nietzschejevega nihilizma zajema še lastnosti, specifične za moderno potrošniško družbo: osamljenost, egoizem in narcisizem. Kot pravi Debord, hoče osamljeni človek po vsej sili izdelati vse detajle svojega sveta, kar pa ga od tega sveta samo še bolj ločuje. Bolj ko se posveča izdelavi svojega življenja, bolj poglablja ločnico med svojim življenjem in sabo.

Poleg tega so tu še številna druga družbena dejstva. Ljudje se neprestano selijo, najsibo znotraj istega mesta ali iz enega mesta v drugo, zato nimajo več stalnega doma, tovrstne spremembe pa posameznike medsebojno oddaljujejo. Preoblikovanje teh razmerij pomeni, da ljudje nimamo več skupnih izkustev, ki bi jih doživeli v tesno povezani skupnosti, ne staramo se več skupaj, svojih jazov ne gradimo več recipročno, prek poznavanja drug drugega. Vse to velja v enaki meri tudi za druge odnose, za družinska razmerja in prijateljstva. Ne smemo pozabiti, da so štiri stene lahko tudi zapor; pojem nasilje v družini vse prepogosto opisuje grozote, ki se dogajajo v hišah.

Kljub vsem pomislekom pa je individualna hiša naloga s potencialom za razvoj arhitekturne misli in prakse. Pri uspešnem snovanju, ki poteka v dialogu med naročnikom in arhitektom, lahko nastane delo, ki je hkrati realizacija želje naročnika in tudi arhitekta – ki uspešno izpolni potrebo naročnika po individualnosti in uresniči vizijo arhitekta. Tako je hiša še vedno jamstvo (eno najpomembnejših in najbolj odpornih) za potrebnost poklica arhitekta v sodobnem času, kljub splošnemu razvrednotenju znanja in poklicev ter digitalni revoluciji in umetni inteligenci. In prav promociji in razširjanju takšnih uspelih srečanj so namenjene razstave 11 x ena v DESSI, pa tudi ta številka revije AB.

Režiserka in pisateljica Ivana Djilas je v knjigi Hiša opisala odisejado vztrajanja pri izpolnitvi (ne)realne želje po idealizirani lastnini hiše in nato soočenja s spoznanjem o preveliki človeški ceni, ki jo ta zahteva. Začetni optimizem se kruši skozi smolo protagonistov in entropijo življenjskih situacij, in zgodba se konča s premišljeno odpovedjo idealu, ki se je izkazal za pretežko breme. Razbremenitev bi bilo modro iskati v široki paleti odtenkov med bivanjem v hiši in bivanjem v skupnostnem domu – tudi slednje se namreč ne odreka nujno ne individualnosti ne priložnosti za arhitekturo.

1 Kenneth Frampton, Rappel a l’ordre: zagovor tektonike, v: zbornik Tektonika v arhitekturi: Frampton – Semper – Bötticher, Založba ZRC, 2014.

2 Poimenovanje arhitekt uporabljam kot generično moško obliko, seveda velja tudi za ženske in skupine.

3 Beatrice Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media, MIT Press, 1994.

4 Gaston Bachelard, Poetika prostora, Ljubljana: Študentska založba, 2001.

5 Guy Debord, La Société du Spectacle, 1967. Slov. prevod: Družba spektakla, Koda, 1999.

Miha Dešman

A House as an Architectural Object

Leader

"Today we take on a loan, we burn through everything that's new by the time we're 35, and then we go on paying it off until we croak it. But we enjoy ourselves right there and then. At the very least, we enjoy the moment when we're doing the buying. We enjoy it when we're transferring the deed. We enjoy it when we're opening a parcel. We enjoy the smell of the new. And then we no longer have time to enjoy ourselves. Because there are all those countless instalments in which to pay off all that foregone enjoyment. And after 40, all of us are burnt out and bitter. My third-favourite commercial is one for a bank. The billboard consists of a photograph of a young woman in a bridal dress with "I'LL TAKE IT!" written across it. Below, they're offering a new type of loan with exceptionally low interest, in Swiss Francs. Today, it's easier to divorce a partner and sort out the custody of the kids than to terminate a loan agreement."

Djilas, Ivana. 2019.Hiša ("The House"). Ljubljana: Cankarjeva založba.

A house relates to human habitation. Habitation (like in a good tragedy) amalgamates the personal and the social. Social systems and subsystems are constructed along this axis, and concepts shaping the past and present time both come into being and collapse along it, as well.

A house is also the paradigmatic architectural object. Not any house, that is. The condition for an architectural object to come into being is a successful connection of the technical and poetic dimension of architecture. Only through such a connection - Kenneth Frampton calls it the tectonic joint - a space may open up for the potentials which an architect is able to develop into an architectural object. There are no rules as to how to do it: not as regards the scale, the site, or the wealth, as a house is an architectural topic from a minimal shelter all the way to a palace the size of a city.

We may begin our stroll through the history in the painted caves, in the first urban agglomerations in the territories of Asia Minor and the Middle East, and carry it on with the study of atrium houses and villas in different environments and cultures - from those in the Antiquity to the Renaissance and Classicist ones; from the vernacular tradition of rural houses, the houses from workers' communities, and Modernist villas all the way through the rich panoply of the contemporary individual development.

The history of the house is as old as the humanity itself. The habitation of socially active distant ancestors required architectural solutions at any time when the aim of building wasn't mere protection but also a portrait of the society. This was the purpose of the paintings in the caves, as well as the first urban agglomerations, which saw the establishment of the dialectics between the house (within the walls and the roof) and nature, and between the city (within the city walls) and the wilderness. A culture of inhabiting has developed, containing the answers to physical and symbolic needs, to rituals and desires. The difference between inside and outside has continued to serve as the basis for the concept of a home to this day. A distinct border is drawn between a house-home as the domicile of the private, and the city as the space of the public. It is the border between the personal world and the outside world which is discussed by Beatriz Colomina in her book Privacy and Publicity, in which she talks about the construction of modernity and the modern subject.

Many architectural (and other) theoretical definitions deal with the relationship between the city and the house. Regardless of the significance of cities, each person is defined by the space where we are at ourselves' and which is the opposite of the public. This is home, a flat or a house, or indeed a place, a room, a nook, or a bed where it's home. In fact, the homeless are the only ones who truly, without remainder, dwell in cities. Granted, the privacy of contemporary homes has been put in peril with the invention of television and the digital revolution. But people's social and psychological structures don't alter in conjunction with technology. This is one of the causes of the crisis of the Modern project. The projected desire of the majority, a general habitational ideal, was and continues to be a detached house with a garden. In summer, we wonder and dream about a space which extends onto a deck and a garden, complete with a lawn and a swimming pool. We feel the physical well-being, the warmth of the sunrays, we hear the wind and the water. And in winter, as per Gaston Bachelard, for whom a house is a shelter for dreams, we daydream of a hut with a stove murmuring as the wind does its thrashing outside. A home is simultaneously a spiritual and material category which includes both memories and dreams such as the fire in the stove, a circle of light, and the sensation of a shelter, like in a mother's bosom. According to Bachelard, the metaphor of shelter is represented by the nest and the shell; according to the architectural canon, it is the primitive hut.

Bachelard writes that the home is one of the greatest powers of integration for one's thoughts, memories, and dreams. A house-home is where our memories dwell, and if the home is somewhat more involved, if it includes a cellar and a garret, nooks and corridors, our memories have more defined places of refuge which we come back to for the duration of our lives. Was the room a large one? Whence did the light emanate? Was the garret cluttered up? Was the nook warm? And also, how did the being experience silence in these spaces? These are questions which talk about the psychology of habitation and within them, they carry the fundamental phenomenological architectural experience. Bachelard draws attention to the poetic dimension of habitation; naturally, the theme of the house opens up numerous further questions.

The first and most important question is whether a detached house may even be a sustainable mode of development and whether we can afford it to be the predominant form of habitation being, as it is, a typology and a pathology which is difficult to justify as sustainable.

There are several answers to this: the first one is that we must renovate more and build less. The fact of the Slovene settlement pattern is the total domination of individual development. It is a mammoth task to refurbish these several hundred thousand houses so as to make them - to reference the opening paragraph - into architectural objects. New development must be restricted to the extent that settlement will not expand outside the urbanised surfaces, into the open country, onto agricultural land, etc.

The architectural thought and deed must both face the reality of the limits of sustainability on the planetary scale and creatively internalise the concept of degrowth, which posits that people, especially those in the global North - which, therefore, includes us -, ought to consume less energy and raw materials. The way to do it suggests itself in various forms of creative renovation, which leverages architecture to connect the existing substance with new requirements and demands.

Taking into account sustainable mobility, local self-sufficiency and people's needs, the development of new houses certainly makes sense as it (among other things) enables the development of architecture. The precondition is organised planning, thereby generating only as many new houses as are realistically needed. Addressing these complex objectives requires co-ordinated action within the profession, in the society and in politics, but most of all, it requires the redefinition of urban design.

We have witnessed around 30 or 40 years of the development of sustainable architecture. It has turned out that the term is at the same time too narrow and too broad to be able to serve as an operative means of answering the complexities of the contemporary requirements. When it comes to houses, the prevailing direction has been the architecture represented by the concept of the passive house. The legislation, the technology, and also the practice of architecture have all followed this course of action. The idea is to reduce or suspend the use of energy. This is to give rise to a technological imperative which may be defined through the triple principle of insulation, impermeability to air and vapour, and air-handling through recuperation. On its basis, houses resembling plastic bags are created, clad in polystyrene. The form imperative follows the factor of the ideal shape, which eliminates articulation, while the minimum thermal conductivity coefficient shrinks glazed surfaces. This has proven a blind alley and relevant architectural answers have gone in a different direction. We must, therefore, redefine the notion of comfort.

The next in line for consideration is the notion of property. Architectural development is perfectly interesting on its own and could pave the way for a world where people would live better and be happy, and the space and resources would be optimally distributed. Yet architecture cannot achieve this on its own, especially as long as it's tied to the priority of capital, which employs architecture so as to maximise its profits. The fundamental issue is how to harness capital - which is crucial for architecture to be created and developed - under public scrutiny in order for architecture to function in a way that will maximise everyone's well-being and comfort without exception. The question of the future of architecture is not only the question of what it's able to do and what ideas and solutions architecture will advance. In truth, it is a question of politics and economy as well as ethic, as to what the purpose of architecture will be.

Today, we live in the society of abundance, which Guy Debord pointedly dubbed the society of the spectacle: "The spectacle is the ruling order’s nonstop discourse about itself, its never-ending monologue of self-praise, its self-portrait at the stage of totalitarian domination of all aspects of life."

The current social phenomena of overconsumption, material abundance, and commodity fetishism have been undermining social bonds and lessening the degree of solidarity. The material world and the contemporary consumerist society are changing both the notion of the satisfying of needs as well as the concept of the creation of meaning. What arises is abundance anxiety, leading individuals to manifest contemporary nihilism, which adds to the properties of the classic Nietzschean nihilism also the properties characteristic of the modern consumerist society: loneliness, egoism, and narcissism. As per Debord, a lonely individual is hell-bent on producing every detail of their world only to become ever more separated from said world. The more such an individual dedicates themselves to producing their life, the more they exacerbate the division between themselves and their life.

There are further social facts to consider. People are constantly on the move, either within a city or from one city to another. Consequently, they no longer have a permanent home, and such changes distance individuals from one another. The transformation of these relations means that people no longer share common experiences which they would undergo in a tightly knit community; we no longer age together; we no longer build ourselves in reciprocity, by knowing one another. All of the above equally applies also to other relationships, e.g. family relations and friendships. Let us not forget that four walls may just as well constitute a prison; the term "family violence" is used all to often to refer to unthinkable acts which take place in houses.

In spite of all the misgivings, a detached house still remains a task with the potential to create and further architectural ideas and practice. A successful design forged in a dialogue between the investor and the architect may give rise to a work which realises both the wishes of the investor and the architect at the same time. Such a coming together successfully performs the role of fulfilling the investor's need for individuality and the realisation of the architect's vision. As such, the house still serves as a guarantee (a very significant and robust one) for the necessity of the architect's profession in the contemporary times, notwithstanding the general devaluation of the merit of knowledge and professions, and the digital revolution and artificial intelligence. It is the very promotion and awareness of these successful meetings of minds that are served by exhibition series 11 x ena ("Eleven times one"), as well as the present issue of ab Magazine.

In her book Hiša ("The House"), director and author Ivana Djilas chronicles the journey of vacillating between fulfilling an un-real desire for the idealised ownership of a house and coming to terms with the excessive human price that it demands of one. The early optimism gets chipped away by the protagonists' bad luck and the entropy of life situations; the story concludes with a deliberate relinquishing of the ideal which has proven to be (too) heavy of a burden. The relief from the pressure may prove wise to be sought in the broad range of states of inhabitation between a house and a communal home, which gives up neither on individuality nor on the opportunity for architecture.