A new category: Plates

A construction elements category has been added to our list: Plates. Two dimensional panels or boards that could be either structural or not, be massive or with different transparency degrees, made of one or more materials...

Talking about plates, we should immediately focus on De Stijl. Bruno Zevi describes Gerrit Ritveld's architectures "levitating and diaphanous (...) they seem to excuse themselves to occupy an urban area, they in fact don't create an obstacle". 
A very clear example is the Sonsbeek Pavilion, originally built to exhibit sculptures in Arnheim (1955), then rebuilt at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (1965).
The same principles you find in his object design, for Zevi "using Ritveld's furniture (...) you retrace its genetic sequence and assemblage element by element with an extraordinary clarity". The Steltman Chair (1963) shows a minimal occupation of space.

In the open landscape plates could be used to define spaces. Monika Gora's in the Garden of Knowledge for the B01 Exhibition in Malmö, Sweden (2001) creates enclosures to delimit inner, outer and in-between areas.
A description of the project can be dowloaded on the architect's website. Other pictures and info here.

Zevi quotes are from Poetica dell'architettura Neoplastica, Einaudi, Torino 1974.

Monika Gora, Garden of Knowledge, model and detail (photos by Monika Gora from www.landezine.com)