Glass houses for the Botanical Garden

Greenhouse history is a history of the dialectics of constructive risk, spatial invention and staged intercourse with nature, an image displaying a cultural synthesis of interests in research, in looking, in enjoying the exotic and the charms of diverse natural and artificial forms. La historia de los invernaderos es una historia de la dialéctica del riesgo constructivo, la invención espacial y las relaciones con la naturaleza, una imagen que muestra una síntesis cultural de intereses en la investigación, en la búsqueda, en el disfrute de lo exótico y los encantos de diversas formas naturales y artificiales. The networks of artificial construction seem to paraphrase space, with oscillating bounds, charging surfaces, laminations, superimpositions, intensities and resultant, continuous changes depending on observers' movements. These networks, filigree tissues, thereby appear to compete with the plants themselves which in turn have perhaps aroused such sensual frenzy with their structures, colors and fragrances. Las redes de construcción artificial parecen parafrasear el espacio, con límites oscilantes, superficies de carga, laminaciones, superposiciones, intensidades y continuos cambios que dependenden de los movimientos de los observadores. Estas redes, tejidos de filigrana, parecen competir con las mismas plantas, lo que a su vez ha despertado un sensual frenesí debido a sus estructuras, colores y fragancias. As a constructive skeleton, Volker Giencke chose the parabolic arch, the caterary curve known to represent the closest approximation to a natural static form. For reasons of economical engineering, the same arch is put to use as an element in all three houses – with the exception of a fragmentation along the street. The difference between the tropical or warm house, the cold house and the moderate-temperature unit thus lies in the sections of resulting parabolic cylinders and their corresponding – inclined – position to the ground.