Mrs Claes, wife of the landscape architect Jean Canneel, is sitting on a folding chair knitting on the roof terrace of their house, which was designed by Louis Herman De Koninck. Her youngest is standing next to her, wearing only little shoes. The older sister is sitting in a deckchair with a book in her hands. On the concrete table, which is clamped into the parapet, there is a gramophone and a tray with some glasses. In the foreground, a concrete beam can be seen with as equipment a step ladder and rings. Around the roof terrace, at a height of 2 metres, a steel tube with a diameter of 33 mm rests on some vertical tubes. The tube serves for the hanging of curtains, one of which can be seen behind Mrs Claes. The whole scene breathes relaxation, cosiness, health.
Jean Canneel had first, in 1929, asked Le Corbusier to design a detached house, but the estimate turned out too expensive.
The house by De Koninck for Doctor Ley (1935) also had a roof terrace with curtains all around.
The roof terrace entirely fits into the renewed philosophy of order, hygiene and discipline which applied both to the human being and to the building. The person, made supple by sporting exercise and hardened by fresh air, lived in an easy-to-maintain house with much sunlight and fresh air.
After 1900, and after the First World War more strongly, a body culture arose which in Germany was called Körperkultur, in England and the USA physical culture, in France culture physique, in Denmark and Sweden fysisk kultur, and in the USSR .
Although many forms existed, the most important components were sport, posture exercises based on Swedish gymnastics, with or without music, yoga, and often nudism. In the photo, exercises of Mensendieck can be seen. The first Freilichstpark for nudists was opened in 1903 near Hamburg. To swim, to do gymnastics or to sunbathe, men and women, however, usually wore a one-piece bathing suit with a bodice without sleeves and shorts with short legs. The navel was not allowed to be seen. This clothing was very liberating and emancipatory for women. From 1926 onwards, Coco Chanel made sure that a tanned skin became a sign of health, prosperity and youthful beauty. Of Lotti Raaf, the Swedish girlfriend of Albert Jeanneret, the brother of Le Corbusier, it was said that she used the roof terrace more for sunbathing than for exercises.
Outdoor curtains, applied both horizontally and vertically, will surely have been used in the Mediterranean climate since Ancient Egyptian times to create shade. Although the outdoor curtains in modernism could also be used for this, their most important reason for existence was to create privacy in order to be able to recreate on the roof terrace in adapted clothing.
Already in Le Corbusier’s first book Vers une architecture from 1922, drawings of roof terraces could be seen. The first clear cross-section we find on page 15 of the Almanach d’architecture moderne from 1925. The text alongside it reads: “Le sol est libre sous la maison, le toit est reconquis.” Le Corbusier places the roof garden as one of the “Cinq Points de l’Architecture Moderne” in a German-language folder at the Weissenhofsiedlung from 1927. The first of his buildings with roof terraces are those of La Roche and Jeanneret, completed in 1925.
The photo is of the weekend house Ommen from 1926 by the architects Brinkman and Van der Vlugt.
The three photos below give you an impression of the view and the use of the roof terrace on the Meisterwohnung of Walter Gropius (1926). The roof terrace was on the first floor, it had an L-shape and was accessible via two rooms (the main bedrooms were on the ground floor). Part of it could be closed off with cloths. The middle photo above comes from a contemporary film. The lower photo shows Walter and Ilse receiving friends. The curtains are stretched out and well secured.
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For the Dessau-Törten estate (1926–1928), Gropius designed a building for the consumer cooperative. The upper apartment has rods for curtains.
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In the Weissenhofsiedlung (1927) there were several houses with provisions for outdoor curtains. The house of Walter Gropius at 4 Bruckmannweg also has a terrace on the first floor, which is accessible via a door to the landing. It is further enclosed by two blind walls and two walls with curtains. These are necessary since the houses of the Weissenhof stand fairly close to one another. In the background, the Citrohan house of Le Corbusier can be seen, which also has a roof terrace.
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From architect Adolf Döcker there are two houses in the Weissenhof: no. 22 has a garage and a terrace with curtains at the living room.
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House no. 33 of architect Sharoun there has a fabric horizontal sunshade above the part of the terrace at the parents’ bedrooms.
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House no. 20 of architect Hans Poelzig has a concrete framework at the roof terrace. On the inside there are tubes for the hanging of the curtains. In the background, the side façade of the experimental house of Le Corbusier can be seen.
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House no. 25 is by architect Adolf Rading. On the plans the terrace is indicated as “Sonnenbad”. It is accessible via the landing.
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House no. 12 is by architect Adolf Schneck. The terrace is the continuation of the bathroom.
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The house for Dr Nolden in Mayen from 1928 is by the then director of the Bauhaus, Meyer, in collaboration with Hans Volger and Hans Wittwer. The terrace on the upper floor can receive shade both horizontally and vertically.
The open-air exhibition of the Deutsche Werkbund, in Vienna in 1932, had two houses with roof terraces and curtains: the double dwelling of architect Otto Niedermoser, with coloured fabrics with stripe pattern, and the minimum dwelling of Richard Neutra. Here a part of the roof terrace is provided with rods so that shade from horizontal cloths could also be obtained.
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The Siedlung of the Werkbund in Breslau in 1933 showed two houses by architect Adolf Schneck. Number 1 had a large garden.
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A house in Berlin by architect Bruno Arhens has on the three open sides of the roof terrace dark curtains.
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Czechoslovakia was a country that must not be missing from any overview of modernist architecture. Architect Bohuslav Fuchs designed the household school Vesna in Brno (1930). Above the gymnasium stand two rows of rods, the lower one as railing and the upper one for attaching the curtains. The idiom of pure modernist architecture is very immaterial, with walls that seem to be made in white cardboard. The thin rods of the railings contribute to that abstraction, as if they merely indicate the axes of the coordinates.
Architect Jaromir Krejcar built in Prague the villa of Richard Gibian (1932). The roof terrace at the front can be closed off on three sides with curtains. Furthermore, at the houses there are several pergolas.
At the Edificio Josefa López (1931) in Barcelona by José Luis Sert and Sixte Illescas, the cloths were only used horizontally to create shade.
The colours of the fabrics could fade due to rain and sunshine. Gaston Eysselinck had a solution for this in the house Peeters (1933) in Deurne. The curtain was only drawn open when the solarium was used. The rest of the time it could be protected from the weather in a built-in cupboard.
