Prefabrication experiments - 124 - material innovations - 5 - Aluminum - The Aluminaire House

Aluminum is a comparatively recent material in construction history. Refining aluminum ore from bauxite into aluminum ingots, which in turn are tempered, rolled, pressed or extruded into any profile, was industrialized during in the second half of the nineteenth century. The lightweight metal accelerated aircraft performance and contributed to defining a new potential architecture. The development of curtain wall systems, skeletal, unit and window wall, employed aluminum sections to create lightweight, durable and corrosion resistant exterior envelopes clad in large glass panels. Beyond curtain wall, many design experiments sought to showcase the material’s potential in architecture. From Buckminster Fuller’s collaboration with the Beech Aircraft Company on the Wichita Dymaxion prototype to the fairly recent Loblolly House (Kieran and Timberlake), aluminum in building reflects modernity both in terms of the material’s lightness and agility.

Another infamous experiment, which connected the versatile material with housing, was the Aluminaire House. A Le Corbusier trained, newly emigrated Swiss architect, Albert Frey designed the full-scale display house. Lawrence Kocher, a former editor of Architectural Record mandated the prototype. Built in 1931, the all-metal display house conveyed modern values of technology and mass manufacturing and was assembled form off-the-shelf industrialized components.

A statement in importing modern architectural values from Europe, the cubic dwelling reveals its lineage relating to some of Le Corbusier’s’ proposals for the Citrohan, the Pessac houses or even the urban Maison Cook. The horizontal band windows, the double height living space and the open roof terrace all communicate Le Corbusier’s five points of a new architecture. The volume (7x8x8m) is classically composed in three vertical stories. Two vertical exposed aluminum posts frame the subtracted ground floor entry space and a subtracted third floor balcony. The balanced tripartite composition exposes a double-height living space completely glazed in aluminum curtain wall. All structural posts, girders and wall panels were dry assembled with aluminum bolts. The house could be easily assembled and disassembled.

The ‪luminaire.org foundation is proposing the house be moved to a new location and has set up a crowd funding site for the project. Although not mass-produced, the Aluminaire illustrates how modern architects sought to pattern material innovation and architectural expression through the full-scale prototype. 

Aluminaire Prototype