Alvar Aalto’f Finnish Section at the New York World Fair, 1939

itself forms a suitable and sufficiently compact multiple unit. The most important suburb built on this principle in Scandinavia is probably Albertstlund in Copenhagen, where the large size of the area would in fact stand more variety in height.

         The forms of building I have described have, of course, been very much simplified, and may appear in combination in various kinds of architectonic entities. The need for flexibility is a functional need growing out of changes in activities. We tend to imagine that activities develop smoothly or in components of a particular size. Perhaps we also make our plans for this kind of stage-wise growth. We easily forget that all growth – including changes in function – is organic in character and rarely groups itself according to arithmetical series. Even a child’s weight and height do not go up regularly – not to mention his mental development.

         Often planning, too, must allow for irregularity of growth, its varying extent. This can be done by allowing for a quality called “continuity” in the basic solution. There is, for example, no reason to divide up a whole surface area permanently more than is essential merely because of an unconsidered positioning of, for example, stairways or other fixed parts of a building.

         The well-known American architect Louis Kahn designed an architecturally important laboratory building in Philadelphia around the end of the 1950s – the 

The universal inheritance of classicism transferred to steel and glass makes its first consistent appearance in the 1940s, in Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Having said that he could not in any way predict the developments to be expected as regards the technical laboratories, Mies van der Rohe concluded that the only real function of a building is that is can be used flexibly.

         The demand for internal flexibility brings with it many technical and architectural problems. The external flexibility of a building, on the one hand, faces us with a totally different kind of problem. Here, the character of the whole building’s constructive being, its “structure”, is involved. Is it definitive right from the beginning or does it permit additions, and in what way? To throw light on this question, it is a good idea to examine certain properties of various kinds of structural forms in general.

         A composition is a closed, complete entity. If we add something, its internal equilibrium suffers and the tension between the various parts is lost. In architecture the use of pure composition presupposes an exactly specified building commission with regard to both environment and content. A composition does not have the potential essential for expansion.

         Nowadays composition is the most generally used and an often fully justified planning principle. Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh and Oscar Niemeyer’s Brasilia are closed, complete compositions. Both are also permanent national administrative centres.

         In a system where one powerfully expressive element dominates the whole, we can make small-scale changes within the sphere of influence of this overwhelming dominant, without harming the total effect. A varying, changing pattern of buildings, small in form, sit very comfortably in the shadow of a huge cathedral or factory. The curving walls of Alvar Aalto’s Finnish Section at the 1939 New York World Fair form a powerful theme which only too gladly permits the arrangement of exhibits in varying ways on the lower level. Aalto has in other works, too, proved himself a brilliant exponent of the dominant, and is able to use quite freely forms which may even seem startling in the “shadow” of the main theme developed.

         A structural scheme used a lot in recent years is “similar form”. The elements, which must be similar in form, can change position within the framework of a particular law, for example a rectangular grid system. The system is very flexible, for the most vital thing is not the location of the elements but the internal cohesion of the system which decides how they shall be located.

         If we intend to start using a similar form, that is, group form, as the point of departure for a flexible system, it is important that units in the system can be ready-planned in size and shape. It is, of course, possible to make internal changes to the basic units if they have internal reserves. We can, nevertheless, consider it a general rule that similar form is suitable as the basis for a flexible system only in cases where we can be sure of the permanence of the form of the basic unit. Changing needs, the development of technology and new constructions may easily mean that the guiding thread of similar form will become the straitjacket of planning.

         The principle of similar form has been used a lot in the group planning of private houses and in the planning of housing in general, where the house or flat

of research in various fields and in which rises in student figures bring unexpected surprises. When giving directions to the architects, Professor Boris Ford of Sussex Univeristy said: “Never believe the Vice-Chancellor, because when the building is at topping-off stage he will come to you and say, ‘Excuse me, but we will have to make the building for twice that number of students’.”

         Advance programming is, of course, an unbeatable aid to the planner, who can use it to examine his planning commission in a sufficiently long chronological perspective. Good programming also helps us to define the factors which will probably be subject to change, in other words to specify where flexibility will be required and what kind of flexibility it should be. A situation like this, however, where the architect has at his disposal a complete set of programming, with functional and developmental schedules, is rare, and most of us have never experienced it. We must also be prepared to find inexactness and mistakes even in good programming. The number, of course, decreases if detailed research on which the programmers can rely can be used for the programming. Research is, indeed, the watchword of the hour. Usually, however, there are no research results available when we are faced with the sheer necessity of building something.

         In this kind of situation it is quite natural that planners are dogged by the problem of how to plan systems – buildings, towns – which allow for internal changes and external growth, yet which are entities. How can we create a framework in which various functions are possible and which provides a favourable setting for unpredictable development? We must literally plan for the unknown future.

         To examine flexibility in the various forms in which it appears, we can, to simplify handling, divide it into internal and external flexibility. By the former I mean ways of making changes, shifts of walls and functions, inside the building; by the latter, the way in which a building can be extended in a way organic to itself and its surroundings.

         Internal flexibility calls for a structural solution with as few fixed structural parts as possible, since these are obstacles to re-organization. A mere pillar framework, however, is not enough to make a building flexible. A modern building is a complicated piece of technical apparatus whose whole mechanism must be worked out with an eye to flexibility. In other words, we need a technical service system which will operate in many variations. One condition of good flexibility is, indeed, that the technical system to be installed be worked out systematically and usually on a wider scale than originally needed.

         Many years of experience have shown that our neoclassical buildings still justify their existence relatively efficiently, though now used for quite different purposes than for which they were originally planned. Their solid building masses and regular window division provide fine conditions for the flexible use of space. Although they were built with bearing walls, their brick structure makes it much easier to make new apertures than in our modern concrete-walled housing. In spite of the fact that the technical fittings of these buildings are modest, the great room and intermediate floor height make it possible to add new horizontal installations. Whatever our opinion of such alterations from the point of view of architectural history, we have to agree that these buildings have two important qualities from the point of view of flexibility: systematic arrangement and internal reserves.

1967

Osmo Lappo 

The Need for Flexibility: A Problem of Modern Architecture

Close on nine months after the Danish architect Jørn Utzon gave up the planning of Sydney Opera House, after much disagreement, the architects who had started to continue his work there announced that it was impossible for them to meet the demand that the great hall should simultaneously be an opera, concert and meeting hall. Without giving any further thought to the question of whether the original designer could have honourably met the demands made of him, we can draw a couple of conclusions bearing on the subject of this lecture from the announcement I just mentioned. First, we can say that the client would like a flexible space suitable for more than one purpose, that is, more use of his expensive investment. Second, we note that the designers cannot fulfill this requirement. The question is probably of a demand for flexibility which is – with present means, anyway – almost impossible to attain without compromising over the quality of the finished product.

         There are, of course, many planning jobs where we have long been used to the demand for flexibility. One example is the office block: one of its fundamental characteristics is a window axle distribution based on the size of the work points, making it possible to divide up the floors into rooms of different sizes with light, movable partition walls. Here , the need for flexibility is well-founded, clearly defined and relatively easy to produce.

         It is, however, by no means always possible to inform the architect in advance what kind of flexibility is expected. In the case of many building jobs, flexibility is even thought unnecessary. Function is conceived of as something static, the present situation permanent. In many cases, only a few years after the completion, the architect may see to his amazement that the space is not being used at all in the way he had planned. What goes on in the building is not following the line mapped out beforehand. A good example of this is Paul Rudolph’s plan for the new building of the Department of Architecture at Yale University, which is certainly not being used in the way the architect originally planned. The students have divided up the central hall, which was designed to have a monumental effect, into separate little working cubicles with paper walls and bits of curtaining. Or to come closer to home, when have you ever seen the 4^th year drawing room in our own Department of Architecture full of hardworking architecture students?

         The need for flexibility – the chance to make changes – always exists, even where no one expected it beforehand. There are also sectors of planning for which we know in advance that we can absolutely certainly expect changes. An example is modern university planning, where it is almost impossible to predict the development 

Leppävaara Swimming Bath by Osmo Lappo