The open floor plan in architecture has been used for many years to allow for design decisions to not be restricted by structure but who were some of the first architects to start using the open floor plan? Two of the first were Le Corbusier and Mies Van Der Rohe. Each architect would design with different styles but one parallel between the two was the open plan.
Le Corbusier had 5 points of architecture
1 - the pilottis elevating the mass off the ground
2 - the free plan, achieved through the seperation of the load-bearing columns from the walls subdividing the space
3- the free facade, the corollary of the free plan in the vertical plane
4- the long horizontal sliding window
5- the roof garden
Le Corbusiers second point of architecture can be seen in one of his more famous works the Villa Savoy. Where the columns are expressed by removing them from within the wall structure and showing the grid pattern. With the structural support taken out of the wall system it opens the facade up for horizontal fenestrations. When looking at the structure in plan the columns continue the grid pattern while the form has a combination of curves and orthogonal lines. This would not of been possible without the open rectilinear column grid system.
Like Le Corbusier, Mies Van Der Rohe also experimented with the open floor plan but took a different approach. He tried to use the structure and give the illusion of the building being suspended from the ground. A good example of this is the Farnsworth house designed in 1951. The Farnsworth house has the structure exposed on the exterior of the facade, leaving the floor plan open from any load bearing walls on the interior or exterior. The floor plane is suspended above the ground plane to give the illusion of a suspended building. The exterior structure and open facade also allows for large fenestrations in the exterior facade. Mies Van Der Rohe capitalized on this in the Farnsworth house to give the appeal of the transparent facade and being able to look though the building as if it is not there.
Farnsworth House
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