Transparency and lightness?

Abstract

In faraway 1927, Ernst May took part in a debate of his own request in the magazine he founded, Das neue Frankfurt, regarding flat covering: «...among the numerous problems regarding construction... none has agitated souls as much as the problem of the flat roof versus the pitched roof. Notwithstanding the fact that both kinds of covering have been used for thousands of years in every part of the world and the solution of flat covering has even been adopted in countries of Northern Europe during the classical era as well as in the successive one without this choice ever raising public debates...».

The most convincing comment is probably that of Adolf Behne: «the pitched roof is attractive when it is attached to the body of the building in a clear and simple manner», as the beauty reflecting the harmony on Medieval life testifies. Usually in the successive periods – according to Behne – the roof detaches from its function and almost turns into an architecttural pretext: the exact opposite of the flat roof’s purpose: that is to say the ability to understand how to grasp the significance of one’s own fundamental necessity, re-framing the building as a unitary piece.