Soft-architecture. A recovery of the spatial conception value in Lilly Reich’s and Petra Blaisse’s work

Abstract

Traditionally, manuals of architectural history have omitted the work of certain women architects and designers for not following the criteria of established historiographic canons. Within this group of creators, some practitioners have been specially neglected for creating spatial conceptions from disciplines outside architecture practice by using nontectonic elements such as furniture, draperies, coatings, textures and colour. Despite this notable absence, the work of these women has been key in important examples of twentieth century architecture, in which these elements have amplified their spatial experience. This article explores these practices by understanding them as software or “soft-architecture” through the work of two creators, Lilly Reich and Petra Blaisse. They worked in two different moments constituted an essential element that significantly intensified the work of the architects Mies van der Rohe and Rem Koolhaas respectively. In both experiences, two ways of understanding space from different disciplines, applied arts and architecture, were brought together, resulting in a transverse and perhaps expanded understanding of spatiality in architecture.