The Rufer House (Vienna, Austria) 1922

The Rufer House (Vienna, Austria) 1922 

    The Rufer house was designed by architect Adolf loos. He was an Austrian and Czech architect and influential theorist. The house was designed for Josef and Marie Rufer. Josef Rufer was an Austrian musicologist. This house was considered to be the first example of Raumplan which is a planning method based on discreet rooms. The house is considered like a cube with internal space of 10m by 10m. The exterior walls are load bearing which leaves the interior walls to partition space. A column runs through the whole house hiding the plumbing and also acts as framing for the second floor. This system allows structural minimize internal dividing walls, being replaced by thin walls. 

   The main entrance of the house is on ground level, slightly elevated above the natural ground level, giving access to the hall. The upper floors are accessed by stairs lit by a window. 

   The Raumplan was done by interconnecting volumes and the Rufer house does this by the multiple organization on a single floor. For example, the second floor was made up of the living area on the lower level and the dining room on the higher level. By doing this, it gives the dining room volume a distinction from the living room volume. This is how the organization is done throughout the house. The Raumplan also affects the exterior since elevations are a reflection of the interior organization. There are only two breaks in the volume, the terrace that connects the great/ music room to the garden and an open terrace that extends the upstairs room outside. 

   The form of the cube was very important to Adolf Loos, which meant the decoration was kept to a minimum. In order to achieve a balanced composition, Loos also paid attention to the contrast between the naked white walls and the dark patches of the windows. The window frames contained the least amount of structure. The windows had a random arrangement. From the exterior the windows made no sense to the person looking at them, but from the inside the windows made perfect sense. The programed windows gave light and views where they made sense on the inside. The windows gave diagonal views from the second floor and gave light where was needed in the denser spaces. 

   Even though the surfaces of the house seem bare, there are three elements of the façade that remain interesting. Loos included a squashed frieze and a cornice to top the cubic volume. The cornice projects out from the façade and slightly covers the view of the frieze. There's also a rectangular molding depicting a Parthenon frieze which is positioned low on the street front. It completes the façade, but it's also ornamental. It balances the composition between voids and surfaces, but also balances with the abstraction of the cube. It also places the house into the same topic of western architecture. The house remains complex in some ways that still challenge our understanding of the space 

Sources  

“Rufer House - Data, Photos & Plans.” WikiArquitectura, en.wikiarquitectura.com/building/rufer-house/. 

Revolvy, LLC. “‘Rufer House’ on Revolvy.com.” Trivia Quizzes, www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Rufer House. 

Loos, Adolf. "Rufer House (Haus Rufer), by Adolf Loos, 1922, 20Th Century." 1922.