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Developed space: Theo van Doesburg and the Chambre de Fleurs

Richard Difford a
a
School of Architecture and the Built Environment, University of Westminster, London, UK

Online Publication Date: 01 February 2007

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 79

The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 12
Number 1

Developed space: Theo van

Doesburg and the Chambre de
Fleurs

Richard Difford School of Architecture and the Built Environment,

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University of Westminster, London, UK

Designed in 1925 by Theo van Doesburg, the Chambre de Fleurs is a small rectilinear interior,
just 1.2 metres wide by 1.5 metres deep. But whilst modest in terms of its physical dimen-
sions, the experience is of a volume that spills out pictorially in all directions, the diagonal
patterns which line its walls extending out, away from the surface towards an imagined
auxiliary space. This article looks at the way in which van Doesburg adapted the conven-
tions of architectural drawing to exploit the potential of both geometry and painting.
Using the Chambre de Fleurs as an example and considering its qualities in relation to
van Doesburg’s interest in geometrical figures, an attempt is made to explain how the prop-
erties of these drawings can become a productive part of spatial experience in architecture.

Introduction in which the construction is presented in

In an age when new developments in architecture
were, for the most part, defined by the need to
assimilate radical changes in science and technology,
Theo van Doesburg was one of a number of influen-
tial theorists who turned to mathematics to find
expression for the intangible complexities of
modern science. Artfully combining ideas derived
from Einstein’s theory of relativity with the graphic
devices of descriptive geometry and the fourth
dimension, van Doesburg conceived an architecture
that sought to extend experience beyond the limits
of normative three-dimensional space.1 His particu-
lar contribution in this context hinges on the suc-
cessful merging of architecture with the
representational space of painting. An important
feature of this synthesis was his use of axono-
metric—a convention which (instigated by van
Doesburg) would become a convention uniquely
identified with modernity.2
Presently the new principle of a spatial-functional
conceptualized architecture is evident in the way
axonometries. . . spatially from all sides, even
from above and from below, in its true pro-
portions, that is to say without perspective vanish-
ing points. The structure is immediately surveyed
in its cubic content, instead of in its surface.3
A turning point for van Doesburg was a commission
received in 1924 to design a small painted interior
for the Vicomte de Noailles. Originally intended
for the arranging and preparation of flowers, the
room, known simply as the Chambre de Fleurs (the
Flower Room) was, in practical terms, a relatively
insignificant space; and (measuring just 1.2 metres
wide by 1.5 metres deep) would form only a very
minor adjunct to an otherwise spacious villa
designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens (Fig. 1).4 But
whilst of comparatively little significance with
respect to the villa as a whole, this small room has
come to represent a significant development in
van Doesburg’s work. It is also, as it turns out, the
focus for some considerable academic debate and
is crucial to understanding the role played by

# 2007 The Journal of Architecture 1360–2365 DOI: 10.1080/13602360701218169

 80

Developed space: Theo

van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford

Figure 1. Villa Noailles,

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Hyères, by Robert
Mallet, Stevens,1924.
(Based on a drawing by
Léon David with the
position of the Flower
Room shaded.)

architectural representation, and by other forms
of synthetic geometry, in the formation of van
Doesburg’s approach to architecture—and, by
extension, in the wider design culture of the time.
The diagonal
A defining feature of the Flower Room is its bold
decoration, the diagonal patterns of which slice
the walls and ceiling into a patchwork of irregular
trapezoid and triangular fragments. Composed
from patches of white, red, yellow, blue, black and
grey, the shapes formed by this pattern extend
over every surface and are filled with painted
colour. Occupying this room could, in fact, be said
to be rather like occupying a painting (Fig. 2).
Surrounded on all sides by colour, the experience is
of a volume that spills out pictorially in all directions,
away from the surface and towards an imagined
auxiliary space.5 But to understand the intentions
which lie behind the painted walls requires that we
look, not only at the room itself, but also at the
drawings through which it came into being—the

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sketches and paintings used by van Doesburg to
explore its composition.
Most significant of the drawings available, is a
well-documented painting which depicts the wall
elevations folded out around the plan (Fig. 3).6
This form of representation is what is known in
descriptive geometry as a developed surface.7 In
other words, the box-like form of the room has,
notionally speaking, been cut open and its walls
folded down so as to lie within the plane of the
paper. Unusually, however, in this particular case,
81
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 12
Number 1
the plan is also positioned diagonally with respect Figure 2. The Flower
to the paper on which it is drawn. This is a device Room photographed
shortly after renovation.
peculiar to van Doesburg’s drawing and one which
(Photograph by Jacques
derives its arrangement from the diagonal patterns Dirand.)
that form the design. Similar in many respects to
van Doesburg’s Counter-Compositions, which com-
prise a diagonal pattern set at forty-five degrees to
the edge of the canvas, here the painted compo-
sition is at odds with the rectilinear surface of the
walls and yet at the same time remains aligned
with the paper’s edge. The two axes, separated by
this rotation are thus forced to compete—leading
to some uncertainty about the angle at which the
drawing should be set. An equivalent ambiguity is
also integral to van Doesburg’s Counter-Compo-
sitions which are often illustrated and displayed in
different orientations.8 More importantly, however,
the use of the diagonal here also points directly to
van Doesburg’s use of axonometric, the slanting
coloured surfaces a reminder of his earlier Counter-
Constructions, the form of which employed axono-
metric to represent structures that are explicitly
spatial (Fig. 4).9 In this context, van Doesburg’s
drawing for the Flower Room can perhaps be
imagined as if standing forward of the composition,
the rectangular outlines of the walls like openings
through which we can glimpse framed portions of
a continuous axonometric space beyond.
Four-dimensional space
The qualities van Doesburg sought to achieve in the
space of the Flower Room can also be inferred from
other drawings. In particular, a series of diagrams
and sketches collectively described as ‘Tesseract
Studies’.10 The term tesseract originates from the
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Developed space: Theo

van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford

Figure 3. Theo van

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Doesburg, ‘Croquis
pour la petite chambre
de fleurs’, pencil, ink
and gouache on tracing
paper, 55  61.5 cm,
1924 – 25. (Van
Abbemuseum,
Eindhoven.)

work of the nineteenth-century theorist Charles
Hinton, whose texts speculating on the properties
of four-dimensional space have inspired numerous
artistic endeavours. Not to be confused with Relativ-
ity theory (which treats time as the fourth dimen-
sion), Hinton’s spatial fourth dimension imagines
the space of three dimensions extended in a new
direction, pushing its boundaries outwards perpen-
dicular to the three-dimensional space which we
inhabit.11 That such a move seems unlikely is testa-
ment to the fact that this was an idea born from
the abstract equations of nineteenth-century ana-
lytic geometry and from the ever-more universal
understanding of form and space that it engen-
dered. As a legacy of the systematic techniques
developed in eighteenth-century descriptive geome-
try, these later advances employed algebraic
methods and made it possible not only to categorise

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geometric figures in generic terms but also to
provide an equally universal understanding of
dimensionality itself.12 N-dimensional geometry, as
it is known, deals not with individual forms but
with a global series extending across dimensions.
It becomes possible, for example, to speculate that,
just as a line can be projected perpendicular to
itself to generate a square, a cube might equally
be projected in an imaginary direction perpendicular
to all three of its defining axes to create its four-
dimensional equivalent: a four-dimensional cube. In
reality, of course, there is no capacity left in regular
three-dimensional space to accommodate this
extra dimension. But geometrically at least, this is a
perfectly feasible move and as a consequence,
although actually nothing more than a mathematical
fiction, it nevertheless gives rise to a legitimate
83
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 12
Number 1
description of a figure with specific properties that Figure 4. Theo van
can be explored.13 And hence, inspired by this Doesburg, Contra-
Construction, gouache,
notion, some theorists (including Charles Hinton),
1923. (Kröller-Müller
took this extension of space to be more than just Museum, Otterlo.)
an abstract procedure. For them, it suggested an
opportunity to expand our spatial sensibilities and
to account for a host of other unexplained
phenomena.
Particularly for Hinton, the emphasis was on the
mental exercise of learning to understand four-
dimensional space in a rehearsed and intuitive way.
And perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the four-dimen-
sional cube that Hinton chose as the basis for his
study, speculating on the experiences that might
be associated with its limited projections into our
shallow, three-dimensional, world.14 It is interesting
to note that roughly seventy years later in the1960s,
the four-dimensional cube was also one of the first
entities to be subjected to exploration using compu-
ter graphics. Both A. Michael Noll and Thomas
Banchoff, amongst others, producing simulations
through which it was possible interactively to turn
and move a four-dimensional cube in real time.15
Hinton did not, of course, have a computer at his dis-
posal, but he nevertheless pursued a similar line.
Described by Hinton as a tesseract, the four-
dimensional cube represents the simplest enclosure
of four-dimensional space and is used by Hinton as
a building block; a single tile in a space-filling grid
of four-dimensional cubes.16 Van Doesburg’s use
of n-dimensional geometry and of Hinton’s ideas
in particular, is convincingly documented in Linda
Dalrymple Henderson’s book, The Fourth Dimension
and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art, but
his use of the word tesseract is in itself a compelling
 84

Developed space: Theo

van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford

Figure 5. Theo van

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Doesburg, Tesseract.
(Die Form IV, 1929.)

Figure 6. Pieter
Hendrik Schoute,
development of the
four-dimensional cube.
(Regelmässige Schnitte
und Projectionen des
Achtzelles und des
Sechszehnzelles im
Vierdimensionalen
Raume, 1894.)

which its four-dimensional structure is reduced to a

link to Hinton’s system.17 In 1921, for example,
van Doesburg published two articles with the
title Kritische Tesseracts and many others of his
texts also allude to the theory surrounding four-
dimensional geometry.18 In one article, cited by
Henderson, van Doesburg even mentions Hinton by
name, further confirming his familiarity with the
mathematician’s work.
The form that occurs most regularly in van
Doesburg’s tesseract drawings is a cluster of seven
cubes surrounded by an eighth and larger cube
(Fig. 5).19 This arrangement has much in common
with a model of the four-dimensional cube in
development in three-dimensional space. Thus, just
as van Doesburg’s drawing collapses the walls of
the Flower Room to occupy a two-dimensional
plane, here the cubic faces of the four-dimensional
cube are folded down into the relative ‘flatness’ of
three dimensions.20 A drawing by Pieter Hendrik
Schoute published in a Dutch mathematical journal
dated 1894, illustrates the kind of diagram with
which van Doesburg was undoubtedly familiar
(Fig. 6). Like van Doesburg’s tesseract, Schoute’s
diagram of the four-dimensional cube depicts
seven cubes in a cruciform arrangement with
each cubic face pointing outwards.21 There is no
specific evidence that van Doesburg ever actually
saw these particular drawings but the likeness is
compelling and others of van Doesburg’s tesseract
sketches reveal equivalent formal similarities with
 85

The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 12
Number 1

Figure 7a. Pieter

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Hendrik Schoute.
(Regelmässige Schnitte
und Projectionen des
Achtzelles und des
Sechszehnzelles im
Vierdimensionalen
Raume, 1894.)

Figure 7b. Theo van

Doesburg, Tesseract
Study, 1924 –25.
(Nederlands
Architectuurinstituut,
Rotterdam.)

graphic views so that they might sit alongside one

Schoute’s mathematical analysis of four-dimensional
figures. Take, for example, a figure illustrating
Schoute’s article, Regelmässige Schnitte und
Projectionen des Achtzelles und des Sechszehnzelles
im Vierdimensionalen Raume, which shows a cube
divided into eight cells (Fig. 7a). Whilst not identical
to van Doesburg’s sketch of a similar divided cube
(Fig. 7b), the resemblance does perhaps point to
the possibility that these drawings were the inspi-
ration for van Doesburg’s compositions.22
Development
In descriptive geometry, development (the unfolding
of three-dimensional surfaces) was part of a reper-
toire of techniques that allowed geometric bodies
and surfaces to be manipulated in a mathematically
rigorous fashion. A natural extension, perhaps, of a
geometry that presupposes a hinging of two ortho-
another in the plane of the paper. Typically, texts
on descriptive geometry illustrate this relationship
by describing the line of intersection between the
geometry’s two-dimensional reference planes, as if
as a fold.23 For the most part, however, develop-
ment in descriptive geometry focuses not on
the ninety-degree folds of box-like surfaces but
rather on the unfurling of cylinders and cones. The
folded box was, perhaps, too obvious to warrant
attention. And hence, in their enthusiasm for
descriptive geometry’s potential, the authors of the
major texts from Gaspard Monge to Jules de la
Gournerie, all inevitably seem to bypass rectilinear
objects altogether, in favour of more curvaceous
forms.24
Developable surfaces are those which, if they are
supposed flexible and inextensible, may be
unrolled upon a plane without crumpling or
tearing. . .25
 86
Developed space: Theo
van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford
Figure 8. Robert Adam,
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Osterley Park, c.1767.
(The National Trust,
Osterley Park.)
Only when the objects described expand into four-
dimensional space do the manageable qualities of
objects outlined by straight lines become, once
again, a worthy subject for mathematical attention.
In architectural drawing, of course, the technique
of folding wall elevations down around the plan is
not unfamiliar. In an article by Robin Evans written
in 1989, he describes the use of such drawings in
the eighteenth century.26 The convention, at which
time, was for each wall to be represented as a true
elevation, as if folded down from its lower edge
(Fig. 8). Given this arrangement, it therefore
inevitably proves difficult to depict the ceiling in a
way that retains its correct orientation and relation-
ship to the plan. So when ceilings feature in the
design, they are almost always drawn separately,
and then usually shown reflected as if mirrored
down onto the floor—or, one might say, as if the
structure of the ceiling has become transparent,
revealing the decoration on its underside. This
avoids the kind of confusion that might arise if the
plan were inverted to show the view looking up
and, perhaps understandably, the decorators respon-
sible for painting the Flower Room seem to have
assumed that van Doesburg’s drawing also follows
this convention. In fact, however, as indicated by
the relationship between the plan and the orien-
tation of the wall elevations around it, van Doesburg
had actually adopted a somewhat different
approach. In addition to reflecting the ceiling on to
the plan, he also appears to have reflected the
walls so each is also shown reversed. But in transfer-
ring van Doesburg’s design to the walls, the decora-
tors apparently failed to take account of this
inversion and reversed only the ceiling, mapping
the wall elevations as best they could in the same
orientation as that depicted in van Doesburg’s
drawing. The result is a breakage in continuity.
Whereas in van Doesburg’s drawing the diagonals
continue across the fold between wall and ceiling,
in the room as executed the lines terminate as they
reach the corners creating, as a result, a fracture in
the space that it appears to represent.27
We cannot, of course, be entirely sure what it was
that van Doesburg actually had in mind and certainly
in other cases, such as in the Aubette cinema and
dance hall in Strasbourg, discontinuity seems to

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have been an intentional part of his design. In the
case of the Flower Room, however, it is generally
recognised that the discontinuity is the product of
some kind of mistake or misinterpretation. But pre-
cisely what form the error takes is open to some
debate. The problem was first noticed in 1968 by
Jean Leering during the preparations for an exhibi-
tion of van Doesburg’s work held in Eindhoven. As
part of the exhibition, Leering commissioned a
reconstruction of the Flower Room at full scale. In
this model, the walls were reflected to show the
interior as Leering believed it was originally
intended. But if there was, as Leering claims, an
error in the original, it was undoubtedly a conse-
quence of the unusual convention chosen by van
Doesburg to illustrate his design and both Leering
(and later Allan Doig), attribute the peculiarity of
this drawing to van Doesburg’s inadequate knowl-
87
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 12
Number 1
edge of architectural practice.28 However, despite Figure 9. The Flower
numerous attempts to clarify the problem, there Room, design as
executed: developed
remains, it seems, some uncertainty about which
drawing, as if looking
interpretation of the drawing should be considered up into the space.
correct. (Drawn by the author
Allan Doig’s book, which focuses on van based on similar
Doesburg’s architectural work, includes an illus- drawings used by Allan
Doig and Gérard
tration that describes the room as built and a
Monnier.)
similar drawing is used to illustrate an essay on the
Flower Room by Gérard Monnier published in
1990 (Fig. 9).29 But comparing these drawings
with the plan of the villa and with photographs of
the room as originally executed, reveals that, con-
trary to van Doesburg’s drawing, the plan as
depicted in Doig’s version has, it seems, been
reversed. This indicates that this is a view from
below, looking up into the space—as opposed to
looking down from above. Thus, in addition to doc-
umenting correctly the composition as executed, it
simultaneously inverts the convention of the
drawing. Was this, perhaps, the convention that
van Doesburg had intended to employ? In which
case we must assume that his error was in failing
to invert the plan, which in van Doesburg’s
drawing appears as if from above. The fact that
van Doesburg’s elevations are attached to the plan
at their top edge lends some authority to this expla-
nation, the result of which would, despite the orien-
tation of the walls, require us to read the drawing as if
it were a view looking up. In his article, Monnier seems
to arrive at a similar conclusion. Van Doesburg, he
assumes, was attempting to following the convention
employed in American engineering drawing which
places the plan above rather than below the front
view.30 All of which may well be correct. In the end,
 88

Developed space: Theo

van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford

Figure 10. The Flower

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Room: surfaces folded

down, around the
outside of the space.
(Drawn by the author.)

Figure 11. Theo van

Doesburg, Design for
the Aubette Cinema-
Dance Hall, Strasbourg,
c.1928. (Galerie
Gmurzynska, Cologne.)
however, this issue hinges on van Doesburg’s sup-
posed inability to adapt this technique to a drawing
of the inside rather than the outside faces of a box,
and indeed, on the exact nature of his mistake. That
he was intending to draw the walls in true elevation
is certainly one possible conclusion. In which case, in
contrast to Leering’s reconstruction, it would be the
ceiling and not the walls that were painted incorrectly.
This appears to be the assumption made in a recent
renovation, the execution of which has attempted to
cure the lack of continuity by reflecting the compo-
sition on the ceiling. What this fails to explain,
however, is the obvious disparity between the
pattern and van Doesburg’s depiction of the other
features of the room, such as the window and door,
all of which suggest a coherent (albeit reversed),
representation.
What then, if we assume instead that there was,
in fact, nothing wrong with van Doesburg drawing
at all? In other words, that the ceiling is indeed
shown reflected but that the relationship between
the walls and ceiling must nevertheless retain the
continuity of the pattern. Such an interpretation
would be possible, but only if, unlike Doig’s
drawing, the process were one of folding down
around the outside, rather than the inside of the
room—projecting, as it were, the pattern through
the walls to the inside (Fig. 10). Unlikely as it may
seem, this solution has the advantage that it
dispenses with the need to accept some error in
the drawing, and in addition is also supported by
van Doesburg’s later work on the Aubette, in the
more extensive drawings of which we can find
examples of both true and also mirrored elevations
on a developed surface, indicating that he was
capable of managing either technique. There is,
for example, a layout painted on cardboard that
appears to represent the walls of the Cinema-
Dance Hall in a similar developed form (Fig. 11). Com-
paring this drawing with the interior, as executed
under van Doesburg’s supervision, it is clear that
both walls and ceiling have been reversed.31 A photo-
graph of van Doesburg’s studio in Strasbourg shows
the same drawing folded as if it has been used to
make a cardboard maquette (Fig. 12). In this photo-
graph, the direction of the folds is clearly visible and
suggests that the model was at some stage
assembled with the painted surfaces facing
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The Journal
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Figure 12. Theo van

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Doesburg’s studio in
Strasbourg, c.1928;
resting on the table is a
maquette for the
Aubette Cinema-Dance
Hall interior. (Instituut
Collectie Nederland,
Amsterdam/Rijswijk.)

Figure 13. The Flower

Room: perspective
views showing different
interpretations of the
pattern.(Drawn by the
author.)
 90

Developed space: Theo

van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford

Figure 14. Charles

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Hinton, The Fourth

Dimension, 1904.

Figure 15. The Flower

Room: wall composition
interpreted as an
axonometric
projection.(Drawn by
the author.)

outward—a further indication that the pattern was

intended by van Doesburg to fold around the
outside of the box.32 If correct, this means that in
reflecting the ceiling of the recent renovation, the
conservators have altered the only part of the compo-
sition that was initially painted correctly (Fig. 13).33
no resistance, denying the material substance of the
Errors in interpretation notwithstanding, this form
walls. The resultant interior, if painted correctly,
of development offered van Doesburg the opportu-
would have supported an equivalent continuity and
nity to compose the wall surfaces in a drawing that
a rejection of the physical corners and edges of the
maintained the continuity from one surface to
space. This lack of materiality is also, of course,
another. Had he drawn the walls according to con-
reminiscent of geometrical drawings in which material
vention, this continuity would have been broken,
substance most usually gives way to a network of
at least in the drawing, if not in reality. In his
lines.35 But, more significantly perhaps, the motion
account of the use made of development in the
implied by this projection also has parallels in Charles
eighteenth century, Robin Evans draws attention to
Hinton’s account of four-dimensional space.
this potential shortcoming. The ‘ruptures’ that
occur in the drawing between ceiling and plan, The tesseract
and between adjacent walls, often in this instance Van Doesburg’s many articles and letters on archi-
resulting in apparent continuities failing to transfer tecture refer frequently to the notion of multi-
into the built work.34 In van Doesburg’s case, dimensional space and this is an idea almost
however, the pattern which has continuity as con- certainly derived, at least in part, from Charles
structed flat, is wrapped, as if around a transparent Hinton’s speculative treatise on the fourth dimen-
volume, and then projected through to its interior. sion. But amongst a number of diagrams employed
The pattern passes thus from outside to inside with by Hinton to describe the nature of four-dimensional

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space, one drawing stands out as particularly
significant in relation to van Doesburg’s work. This
drawing, which depicts a cluster of cubes, is
used by Hinton to explain how a regular three-
dimensional cube, hidden from view at the centre
91
The Journal
of Architecture
Volume 12
Number 1
of the group, is enclosed on all sides by the cubes Figure 16. Theo van
that surround it (Fig. 14). As it stands, this diagram Doesburg, Painting:
From Composition
falls short of depicting the tesseract’s eight cubic
Towards Counter-
faces. If, however, as Hinton explains, this cube Composition. (De Stijl,
were capable of being moved in the fourth dimen- series XIII, 73 – 4, 1926.)
sion, it could then project out of this seemingly
closed space, tracing a four-dimensional volume as
a product of the resultant translation.
The plane being could not see the square ‘A’ with
the squares ‘An’, ‘Af’, etc. placed about it,
because they completely hide it from view;
and so we, in the analogous case in our three-
dimensional world, cannot see cube ‘A’ sur-
rounded by other cubes. . . If now the cube ‘A’
moves in the fourth dimension right out of
space, it traces out a higher cube—a tesseract as
it may be called.36
The projection is thus from the centre to some
position outside three-dimensional space and van
Doesburg’s tesseract drawings, which can be seen
as an attempt to represent this move, therefore
introduce both an emphasised central cube and
also an outer cube—the eighth cubic face and the
product of the shift into the fourth dimension.
Given his interest in four-dimensional space, it
seems likely that van Doesburg would also have
sought out other accounts of four-dimensional
figures, and may well have encountered a mathe-
matical paper (published in Amsterdam in 1910)
which describes a series of geometrical techniques
for investigating semi-regular polytopes and space
fillings in four dimensions. This article, written by
an associate of Charles Hinton named Alicia Boole
Stott, explains the transformation of regular
bodies by means of expansion and contraction.37
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Developed space: Theo

van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford

Figure 17. Joseph

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Jopling, The Practice of

Isometrical Perspective,
1835.

Projections such as these prove fundamental to the
techniques employed in visualising the fourth
dimension. Projection that is, both in the sense of
projecting a three-dimensional object into four-
dimensional space, and in the sense of the axono-
metric projections through which these figures are
represented. In the Flower Room, the diagonal
edges of each of the coloured areas serve to turn
and slope the surfaces within the painting, realign-
ing them so they are no longer parallel with the
wall. As a result, we may be able to see these sur-
faces as if forming the interior faces of another
space (Fig. 15). Van Doesburg’s article Painting:
From Composition Towards Counter-Composition,
written soon after his work on the Flower Room,
emphasises what he sees as the potential for the
diagonal (or oblique) to express the human spirit
and, significantly, for its use in a painted interior to
oppose the horizontal and vertical nature of conven-
tional architectural structures (Fig. 16).38 It seems
likely then, that in this way van Doesburg could
imagine the diagonal as projecting as if into
 93

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Figure 18. Alicia Boole

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Stott and Pieter

Schoute, On the
Sections of a Block of
Eightcells by a Space
Rotating About a Plane,
1908.
 94
Developed space: Theo
van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford
another dimension, the diagonal lines forming, as it
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were, the edges to a competing space, a rotated
axonometric cube that would coexist with the phys-
ical limits of the room, the two volumes intersecting
and slicing one through the other.
Axonometric sections
One of the earliest accounts of the axonometric was
written by the architect Joseph Jopling in 1833. His
text and the drawings that accompany it, underline
the fact that isometric projection corresponds
exactly with the orthographic view of a cube
rotated. Jopling’s conception of how isometric
should be used is of form and space carved out
from a rectilinear box. Thus, in what is in fact a rela-
tively brief pamphlet, he devotes many pages to the
construction of sections taken through an isometric
cube, finally unfolding its faces as a developed plan
of the traces made by all these cuts (Fig. 17).39 And
just as the three-dimensional cube may be sliced to
reveal a series of planar sections, so, in a similar
fashion, the four-dimensional cube can be dissected,
cut through with three-dimensional space. The
result, as illustrated by Charles Hinton, is a set of
three-dimensional solids equivalent to the triangles
and irregular polygons produced when cutting
through a cube.40 Sections such as these are
explained in further detail through the series of
articles by Alicia Boole Stott and Pieter Schoute pub-
lished in Amsterdam between 1894 and 1910. The
sections in this instance are investigated by rotating
the space around a plane or by cutting the com-
ponent cubes with a rotated space (Fig. 18).41 And
as with the previous examples discussed here,
there are some intriguing similarities between
these figures and van Doesburg’s design for the
Flower Room.
These similarities, combined with the clearly
established evidence demonstrating van Doesburg’s
interest in four-dimensional geometry, constitute
a compelling argument in support of the idea
that these diagrams were used as models for his
design. It is conceivable, of course, that these
similarities are simply the product of the limited
formal possibilities presented by the sub-division
of a cube. But even if the resemblance were
mere coincidence, it remains significant that the
same graphic conventions employed by mathe-
maticians to explore and picture four-dimensional
figures have also been exploited by van Doesburg
to attain the spatial effect he desired. In this way,
the folding and development of surfaces combined
with the representational qualities of axonometric
provide van Doesburg with the potential to create
a truly immersive environment, one which not only
draws on forms derived from contemporary geome-
try, but also builds on established techniques for
combining the pictorial space of painting with the
dynamic visual properties of occupiable space.
In this respect, the graphic devices van Doesburg
employs could perhaps be considered a radical rein-
terpretation of the similar kinds of illusion that had,
in the past, been constructed through perspective.
The frescos of seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century quadratura painters such as Andrea Pozzo,
for example, project a perspective construction
onto the independent material form of vaulted ceil-
ings and other equivalent surfaces. Under correct
viewing conditions, perspective is made to blur the
physical boundaries of the space and superimpose

on them the illusionistic form of an imagined pictor-
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ial depth.42 In both the Flower Room and in the
painted illusions of quadratura painting the physical
and representational spaces interact. The painted
space sometimes acknowledging the real, and
sometimes at odds with it, the two ingeniously inter-
woven but nevertheless competing for dominance in
the visual experience of the space. Here, however,
an important distinction needs to be made.
Because, unlike Pozzo’s perspective projections, the
fixed viewpoints of which are integral to the illusion,
in van Doesburg’s coloured compositions, like the
axonometric projection on which they are based, a
more abstract conceptual space is represented,
and with it, an observer who, in the words
of Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, is
‘capable of self-conscious disengagement from the
limits granted by the body and the world’.43
After illusion had been eliminated from painting
and the picture had ceased to limit itself to the
representation of the individual expression of
experiences, painting achieved a relationship to
space and, more important still, to MAN. The
relationship of colour to space, and of man to
colour, sprang to life. . . Whereas man had
remained fixed in a certain position in reference
to static painting, and although decorative or
‘monumental wall-painting’ had already made
him susceptible to a kinetic, ‘linear’ termination
of the picturesque in space, the plastic expression
of SPACE-TIME PAINTING would enable him to
experience the full CONTENT of space in a pictorial
(Optical-aesthetic) manner. . . to evoke a synopti-
cal effect between painting and architecture. In
order that this could be achieved, the coloured
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The Journal
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Number 1
planes had to be related in both an architectural
and a pictorial manner. The whole had to
represent the plastic expression of a tangible
object.44
In the Flower Room, of course, as Gérard Monnier
points out, the reality of the close proximity of its
walls does perhaps preclude any kind of triumph
of colour over material form.45 And in his essay,
Architectural Projection, Robin Evans is quite justifi-
ably sceptical of attempts by van Doesburg and El
Lissitzky to translate the ambiguous spatial qualities
of drawing into built architecture.46 For van Does-
burg, however, working through the medium of
drawing, the material reality of this room may well
have seemed much less substantial. The subsequent
uncertainties surrounding the execution of the
interior have further served to shift the emphasis
from the building back onto the drawing and in
this case, its particular ability to support a multitude
of different readings. It is in the interactions between
its limits as defined by two graphic devices, axono-
metric and development, that van Doesburg was
able to construct a complex and paradoxical geome-
try—perhaps the result of turning and slicing an ima-
gined four-dimensional figure. Yet despite this
reliance on drawing it is only when the drawing is
assembled as occupiable space that these properties
are revealed.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on a paper presented at the
Architectural Humanities Research Association
conference, Models & Drawings: The invisible
nature of architecture, University of Nottingham,
November, 2005. I am also indebted to François
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Developed space: Theo
van Doesburg and the
Chambre de Fleurs
Richard Difford
Girardin for his generous assistance in translating
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Gérard Monnier’s essay.
Notes and references
1. Theo van Doesburg, ‘Towards Plastic Architecture’, De
Stijl, XII/6-7 (1924), pp. 78 –83; translated in Joost
Baljeu, Theo van Doesburg (London, Studio Vista,
1974), pp. 142-147. See also, Linda Dalrymple
Henderson, The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean
Geometry in Modern Art (Princeton, Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1983), pp. 321 –337.
2. Yve-Alain Bois points to the drawings of Van Doesburg
and Van Eesteren, exhibited in Paris in 1923, as the
start of a new interest in axonometry. Yve-Alain Bois,
‘Metamorphosis of Axonometry’, De Stijl: De Nieuwe
Beelding in de Architectuur (Delft, Delft University
Press, 1983), p. 147; first published in Daidalos, 1
(1981), p. 42. See also Alberto Pérez-Gómez and
Louise Pelletier, Architectural Representation and the
Perspective Hinge (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press,
2000), pp. 317 –319.
3. Theo van Doesburg, ‘Kunst en Architectuurvernieuwing
in Italië’, Het Bouwbedrijf, 6/15 (1929), pp. 305–308;
translated in Theo van Doesburg On European Architec-
ture: Complete Essays From Het Bouwbedrijf 1924 –
1931 (Basel, Birkhäuser Verlag, 1990), p. 246. This refer-
ence is also mentioned by Yve-Alain Bois. According to
Bois, this is the only article in which van Doesburg
refers directly to the axonometric: Yve-Alain Bois,
‘Metamorphosis of Axonometry’, op. cit., p. 155,n.1.
4. Allan Doig, Theo van Doesburg: Painting into Architec-
ture, Theory into Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 1986), p. 168. For a more detailed
account of the Villa Noailles see Cécile Briolle, Agnès
Fuzibet and Gérard Monnier, ‘La Villa de Noailles
à Hyères, 1923 –1933’, Casabella, 48/504 (July/
August, 1984), pp. 44 –51.
5. Nancy Troy, The De Stijl Environment (Cambridge,
Mass., MIT Press, 1983), p. 60.
6. Theo van Doesburg, ‘Croquis pour la petite chambre
de fleurs’, pencil, ink and gouache on tracing paper,
55x61.5 cm (1924 –25): see Els Hoek, ed., Theo van
Doesburg: Oeuvre Catalogue (Utrecht, Centraal
Museum, 2000), p. 401.
7. For a definition of development in the terms set
by descriptive geometry, see Bernard Leighton
Wellman, Technical Descriptive Geometry (New York,
McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1957), pp. 306–309.
8. See for example, Contra-composition V, oil on canvas,
100x100 cm (1924): see Hoek, op. cit., pp. 387–388.
The counter-compositions are discussed in relation to
the Flower Room by Doig, op. cit., pp. 168 –170.
9. Troy, op. cit., p.60. Theo van Doesburg, ‘Contra-
constructions’, 1923/1924: see Hoek, op. cit.,
pp. 359 –370. See also, Doig, op. cit., pp. 149,158.
10. Theo van Doesburg, ‘Tesseract Studies’, 1924/1925:
see Hoek, op. cit., pp. 393– 395.
11. Charles Hinton, A New Era of Thought (London,
Sonnenschein and Co., 1888); The Fourth Dimension
(London, Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1904). For a
detailed study of the influential nature of Hinton’s
work, see Linda Dalrymple Henderson, op. cit.
12. Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of
Modern Science (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press,
1983), pp. 282 –285.
13. For a more detailed account of the four-dimensional
cube see Richard Difford, ‘Proun: An Exercise in the
Illusion of Four-Dimensional Space’, The Journal of
Architecture, 2/2 (Summer, 1997), pp. 113– 144.
14. Charles Hinton, The Fourth Dimension, op. cit.,
pp. 136 –177.
15. David Brisson, Hypergraphics: Visualising Complex
Relationships in Art, Science and Technology
(Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press, 1978).
16. Charles Hinton, The Fourth Dimension, op. cit.

17. Linda Dalrymple Henderson, op. cit., pp. 324– 326.
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18. I. K. Bonset (Theo van Doesburg), ‘Kritische Tesseracts’,
De Stijl,4/6 (June, 1921), pp. 93 –95; 4/12 (December,
1921), p. 179: cited in Hoek, op. cit., pp. 393,754.
Both articles were published in De Stijl under the
name I. K. Bonset, a pseudonym adopted by van Does-
burg primarily for his Dada poetry: see Doig, op. cit., p.
2.
19. Theo van Doesburg, ‘Tesseract Studies’, 1924/1925:
Hoek, op. cit., pp. 393 –395.
20. It is not clear when this form of diagram was first used
but by the early years of the twentieth century, the
cluster of seven/eight cubes representing a developed
four-dimensional cube occurs regularly in texts on four-
dimensional space: see Linda Dalrymple Henderson,
op. cit., pp. 8 –9, 57.
21. Pieter Hendrik Schoute, ‘Regelmässige Schnitte und
Projectionen des Achtzelles und des Sechszehnzelles
im Vierdimensionalen Raume’, Verhandelingen der
Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te
Amsterdam, 2/2 (1894).
22. Pieter Hendrik Schoute, ‘Regelmässige Schnitte und
Projectionen des Vierundzwanzigzelles im Vierdimen-
sionalen Raume’, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Aka-
demie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, 2/4 (1894).
23. Robin Evans, ‘Architectural Projection’, in Eve Blau and
Edward Kaufman, eds, Architecture and Its Image:
Four Centuries of Architectural Representation
(Montreal, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 1989),
pp. 28 –29. See also, Robin Evans, The Projective
Cast: Architecture and Its Three Geometries
(Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1995), p. 324; and,
for example, William Watson, A Course in Descriptive
Geometry (London, Longmans Green and Co., 1874),
plate 1.
24. Gaspard Monge, Géométrie Descriptive (Paris, 1795);
Jules de la Gournerie, Traité de Géométrie Descriptive
(Paris, Mallet-Bachelier, Imprimeur-Libraire, 1860).
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25. William Watson, op. cit., p. 37.
26. Robin Evans, ‘The Developed Surface: An Enquiry into
the Brief Life of an Eighteenth Century Drawing
Technique’, in 9H, 8 (1989); reprinted in Translations
from Drawing to Building and Other Essays (London,
Architectural Association, 1997), pp. 195 –231.
27. Doig, op. cit., pp. 170–171; Troy, The De Stijl Environ-
ment, pp. 60–61, p. 208, n.15; Gérard Monnier,
‘La Salle des Fleurs de la Villa Noailles à Hyères’, in
Serge Lemoine, ed., Theo van Doesburg: Peinture, Archi-
tecture, Theorie (Paris, Philippe Sers Editeur, 1990),
pp. 141–143.
28. Jean Leering, ‘De Architectuur en Van Doesburg’, in the
catalogue of the exhibition, ‘Theo van Doesburg, 1883–
1931’, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 1968–
1969, p. 24; cited in Doig, op. cit., pp. 170–171,
p. 237,n.12 and Troy, op. cit., p.208, n.15.
29. Doig, op. cit., p.172; Gérard Monnier, ‘La Salle des
Fleurs de la Villa Noailles à Hyères’, op. cit., p.142.
30. Monnier, ‘La Salle des Fleurs de la Villa Noailles à
Hyères’, op. cit., p.143.
31. Theo van Doesburg, Aubette, Cinema-Dance Hall,
Strasbourg, 1927/1928; see, Hoek, op. cit., pp. 448 –
464: comparing the photographs of the original interior
with van Doesburg’s maquette/drawing (803.IIIf)
reveals that both walls and ceiling have been reflected.
Doig suggests that van Doesburg’s use of unreflected
elevations in some of his other drawings indicates a
realisation that his earlier drawings were incorrect:
Doig, op. cit., p. 181. However, a much later and
more precise version of the developed drawing also
shows the wall elevations reversed (803.IIa), indicating
that this device was entirely intentional.
32. Photograph of van Doesburg’s studio in Strasbourg
(803-2): see Hoek, op. cit., p. 426.
33. Based on this assumption, Jean Leering’s 1968
reconstruction would, on the other hand, be correct.
A photograph of Jean Leering’s reconstruction of the
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Richard Difford
Flower Room is reproduced in Theo van Doesburg Maler-
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Architekt (München, Prestel Verlag, 2000), p. 161.
34. Evans, ‘The Developed Surface’, op. cit., pp. 210–212.
35. Evans, ‘Architectural Projection’, op. cit., p. 29.
36. Charles Hinton, The Fourth Dimension, op. cit., p. 159.
37. Alicia Boole Stott, ‘Geometrical Deduction of Semire-
gular From Regular Polytopes and Space Fillings’,
Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van
Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, 11/1 (1910). Alicia
Boole Stott co-wrote, with H. John Falk, the preface
to Charles Hinton’s earlier work, A New Era of
Thought (1888) and it is likely that she also contributed
to his The Fourth Dimension (1904).
38. Theo van Doesburg, ‘Painting: From Composition
Towards Counter-Composition’, De Stijl, 8 (1926);
translated in Baljeu, op. cit., pp. 151 –156.
39. Joseph Jopling, The Practice of Isometrical Perspective
(London, M. Taylor,1835).
40. Charles Hinton, The Fourth Dimension, op. cit.,
pp. 126 –134.
41. See for example, Alicia Boole Stott and Pieter
Schoute, ‘On the Sections of a Block of Eightcells
by a Space Rotating About a Plane’, Verhandelingen
der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te
Amsterdam, 9/7 (1908). See also, Doig, op. cit., pp.
171– 174.
42. Robin Evans, ‘Architectural Projection’, op. cit.,
pp. 30 –33.
43. Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, op. cit.,
p. 316.
44. Theo van Doesburg,’Space-Time and Colour’, De Stijl,
XV/87 –9 (1928), pp. 31 –34;translated in Baljeu,
op. cit., p. 180.
45. Gérard Monnier, ‘La Salle des Fleurs de la Villa Noailles
à Hyères’, op. cit., p.145.
46. Robin Evans, ‘Architectural Projection’, op. cit., p. 34.