Post Office Savings Bank Vs. Casa Mila

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While Otto Wagner's Post Office Savings Bank in Vienna and Antoni Gaudi's Casa Mila in Barcelona both wanted to break free from classical forms, the meanings of these forms differed. Wagner's P.O.S.B. mimicked machinery though the use of sharp, rigid planar surfaces, absolute uniformity, and cold, industrial materials. Gaudi's Casa Mila, on the other hand, demonstrated geomorphology through its undulating naturalistic façade, soft angle from the street intersection, and the natural colors and materials. Derived from Ferdinand Tonnies's "The Argument", Casa Mila's organic design and P.O.S.B.'s machinist construction is a resultant from the two opposing interactions of human wills. Casa Mila's "real organic life" relationship corresponds to the essence of "community". Inversely, P.O.S.B.'s mechanical motif corresponds to "society". Thus, the two pieces of architecture contrast in moods and expressions of energies and wills. Otto Wagner described in his manifesto modern buildings should be built using a "modern way of building". Wagner displayed this in the P.O.S.B. utilizing a paneling system that reduced material and labor cost. By Wagner's terms, Casa Mila's facade was a result of the "Renaissance way of building" using courses of meticulously carved stone coursing. While the P.O.S.B. and Casa Mila differed on open expression of structure, both used some degrees of trickery in their architecture. Contrary to its heavy load-bearing stone facade, Casa Mila depends on steel framing for the rest of the building. Although Wagner does express the P.O.S.B.'s veneer façade, the solid looking exterior contrasts to its light, atrium filled interior. Even though their motifs differ, Wagner and Gaudi sought to carry the motifs throughout the entire piece of architecture. Wagner detailed its machinist materials and simplicity through its building systems, functional

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