ARLH208 After Midterm
Paul Rudolph
American Architect. "The essential element in architecture is the manipulation of space. It is this essence which separates it from all other arts." build Government Services building in Boston 1964 - demonstrates how American government is open to modern ideas. Concrete as an expression but provides function; very cost efficient. Brutalism.
Brise Soleil
A sun break, an architectural shading device for blocking unwanted sun rays - reducing heat gain for the interior of the building.
Hannes Meyer
After Gropius resigns in 1928, he directs the school until 1930. Swiss Architect "We examine the daily routine of everyone who lives in the house and this gives us the functional diagram - the functional diagram and the economic programme are the determining principles of the building project."
I.M. Pei
Chinese-American architect who designed the National Gallery of Art, specifically the East Wing.
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM)
an American architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm. US Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany - reflects American government principles.
Pilotis
Thin steel or concrete posts that are used to support roofs and floor slabs. Their use began in the early 20th Century and eliminated the need for bearing walls. Supported and influenced by Corbusier.
Novembergruppe
a group of German expressionist artists and architects. aimed to support a socialist revolution in Germany. A key objective of the group was the union of art and the people. members: El Lissitzky, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Mendelshon, etc.. "G" Magazine founded by Mies that supported modern style.
Saynatsalo Town Hall
designed by Aalto in Finland (1949-52) - modern eclecticism of arts and crafts and international style. Open interior space protected by exterior buildings. Attention to details.
Plan Obus
plan for Algiers in 1935-9 by Corbusier. Ribbon of units, develops ideas of what a skyscraper could be. The Plan Obus consisted of three main elements: a new business district on the Cape of Algiers, a residential area in the heights accessible by a bridge spanning over the Casbah, and an elevated highway arcing between suburban cities and containing fourteen residential levels beneath it.
Usonian
a word used by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to his vision for the landscape of the United States, including the planning of cities and the architecture of buildings. He wanted to offer citizens new, affordable homes unique to America. the disappearing of the typical American residential into new communities. People get equal amounts of space (soviet/communist in ideas). Begins to explore rounder shapes.
Gordon Bunshaft
an American architect, a leading proponent of modern design in the mid-twentieth century. Partnered with SOM. Lever House (New York 1950) - international style in skyscraper. Glass box building. Embracing a European inspired aesthetic that's turning American. More economic - careful selection of materials. Horizontal and vertical glass boxes lifted off the ground. Leaves the ground level open to the public as a covered community space. Also utilizes a rooftop garden space on horizontal glass box. Using modern glass technology.
Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo
an architectural firm based in Hamden, Connecticut founded in 1966. both previously worked with Eero Saarinen. Almost all buildings built by this firm, exhibit his particular architecture and aesthetic, although it has changed wildly throughout the past 40 years. Earlier buildings were characterized by massive facades and experimentation with exposed steel and concrete, while more recent buildings emphasize a clean, glassy look suggesting futuristic and green architecture. The firm also built in postmodern and historicist styles during the early 1990s.
Weissenhof Seidlung
building exhibition of Deutsche Werkbund and was funded by the City of Stuttgart in Germany 1927. Exhibition showcasing solutions for housing. Organized by re-vitalized Werkbund. Mass produced architecture. Corbusier & Mies van der Rohe; Mies oversaw exhibition. Weissenhof Estate was showcased by Corbusier amd is also an example of international style.
Paimio Sanatorium
built by Alvar Aalto in Finland 1929-33 - Humanism at a Personal Scale. The building served exclusively as a tuberculosis sanatorium until the early 1960s, when it was converted into a general hospital. the design of the sanatorium was to make the building itself a contributor to the healing process. not all straight lines; ex. In plan. International style building that is beginning to show change. Modern but human. Includes furniture designs (ex. Pamio Chair).
Punjab Capital Complex
by Corbusier for Chandigarh in 1952-65. invited to rebuild the city of Punjab; city needs to represent city. Relies on Fry & Drew to oversee the progress of the city. High Court - designed with the idea that lighting and air-conditioning weren't possible. Created a monumental feel. Assembly Building - thinking about elements that give it monumentality without being to Western. Assembly room defined by 'cooling plant' structure on roof. Secretariat - dominate sculptural effect.
Notre Dame du Haut
by Corbusier in Ronchamp, France 1950-5. rebuild of a church. Idea that his church would restore what it use to be; to communicate with the Catholic church. Influenced by Paris Exhibition of 1937 where he created a giant tent-like structure. Influenced by Old Testament and how the Jews would sabbath in the woods. Kept the contour of the hill with material over it; sacred site. Rational and Experiential. Ship like; the church is a 'vessel' or the arch. Can be inteperated how the viewer sees. Brutalism - expressive/rough use of concrete.
LaTourette Monastery
by Corbusier near Lyons 1953-8 - monastery; embrace of rough concrete. Structure of the building is his decoration. Beton Brut Brutalism. The gradual path from the natural landscape to the interior of the sanctuary, where there is no iconographic representation rather than the view of natural light, is at the same time a continuous removal of the visual phenomena from "out" to "in".
Marcel Breuer
furniture designer that studied at Bauhaus; Lattenstuhl (slatted chair). Avante garde influence.
Armour Institute/Illinois Institute of Technology
invited Mies to design a new campus. Abstract arrangement. Construction began 1941-53. Construction becomes Ornament. Trying to make a style for all architecture. German international style however Americanized. Crown Hall (1953) - architecture school; monumental modem building. Interiors are open with universal space. Not a lot of decoration and ornament.
McMillian Plan
is a comprehensive planning document for the development of the monumental core and the park system of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States in 1902. The plan proposed constructing major memorials on the western and southern anchors of the Mall's two axes, reflecting pools on the southern and western ends, and massive granite and marble terraces and arcades around the base of the Washington Monument. The location of the Lincoln Memorial, Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, Union Station, and U.S. Department of Agriculture Building are due to the McMillan Plan. continues to guide urban planning in and around Washington, D.C., into the 21st century, and has become a part of the federal government's official planning policy for the national capital. influenced by worlds fair in Chicago; park like setting, and placement of the building to the Washington Monument. New buildings clustered in a community. Grand bosart classicism.
Chicago Tribune Competition 1922
large competition focusing on the idea of what a skyscraper could be; 263 entries. Forward-thinking architects submitted sleeker designs modeled on factory architecture, Chicago's existing masterpieces, or the angular ornamental motifs that would later be known as Art Deco. The winners, Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells, proposed the Gothic tower - Their design balanced the vertical spirit of US commerce with Gothic flourishes from French tradition, including a dramatically buttressed crown borrowed from the 13th Century Cathedral in Rouen. Tribune Tower competition was unique for its global influence on the future of the field - defining the look of the modern age. Raymond Hood, Chicago Tribune (Chicago); neo-gothic treatment, simplifies form of building. Eliel Saarinen, Tribune Entry - greatest impact and influence on skyscrapers; gothic feeling but simplified in shape, telescope effect directing attention to the height of the building.
Palace of the Soviets Competition 1931
was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Soviet Union. The contest attracted international architects like Le Corbusier, Joseph Urban, Walter Gropius, Erich Mendelsohn, and Armando Brasini, Boris Iofan's Italian teacher. The three runners-up turned their backs on the avant-garde and leaned towards neoclassicism. This "reactionary" decision caused an uproar among European avant-garde artists. Le Corbusier and Sigfried Giedion, leader of the CIAM, claimed to Stalin that the "decision of the council is a direct insult to the spirit of Revolution and the Five-year plan... [it is] a tragic betrayal." The architectural contest for the Palace of the Soviets (1931-1933) was won by Boris Iofan's neoclassical concept, subsequently revised by Iofan, Vladimir Shchuko and Vladimir Gelfreikh into a skyscraper.
MoMA Exhibition 1932
"Modern Architecture: International Exhibition" - highlight recent trends in architecture. Focuses on houses. People who were part of the avante garde came together at MoMA. Phillip Johnson & Henry Russell Hitchcock - Hitchcock published "The International Style: Architecture Since 1922" in 1932. International Style (a common language): Interested in - urban issues, housing, potentials for technology, volume (space) not mass. Visually - minimal ornament, anti-symmetrical, strip windows, flat roofs, cantilevers, industrial/factory aesthetics.
Five Points of Architecture - Le Corbusier
1. Pilotis: first story columns that raise the house 2. Free Plan: separation of load-bearing columns 3. Free Facade: exterior walls free from load 4. Strip Windows 5. Roof Terraces Ex - Villa Savoye
Plan Voisin
1925 city plan designed by Le Corbusier for Paris, France. published in L'Esprit Nouveau. Point was to restructure city in a more efficient way w/ mass housing and transportation grid.
Alvar Aalto
A Finnish architect and designer. Reflected in the styles of his work, ranging from Nordic Classicism of the early work, to a rational International Style Modernism during the 1930s to a more organic modernist style from the 1940s onwards. Artek Furniture Co. - Alto's furniture company; very successful. Workers Club (Jyvaskyla 1924) - social place as well as lecture hall. Searching for modern expression. Sanomat Newspaper Building (Turku 1928-30) - assimilated international style. Organic pilots. Municipal Library (Viipuri/Russia 1927, 33-5) - community center; library and meeting space. Sensitive to light. Thinks about the details - ex. The doorways. Organic railings. Thinks about how sound bounces. Sanatorium Building (Paimio 1929-33) - not all straight lines; ex. In plan. International style building that is beginning to show change. Modern but human. Includes furniture designs (ex. Pamio Chair). Villa Mairea for the Gullichsen family (Noormarkku 1938) - karelian influences; traditional influences about building in this part of the world, a community with finish vernacular (builds one building, then adds additional buildings as the family grows to create one community). Voysey like in design - arts and crafts with a modern language. Saynatsalo Town Hall (1949-52) - modern eclecticism of arts and crafts and international style. Open interior space protected by exterior buildings. Attention to details.
Bauhaus
A German interdisciplinary school of fine and applied arts that brought together many leading modern architects, designers, and theatrical innovators. 1919 Groupius takes over - training craftsman's to be perfect in their trade. Shifts from only craft to product design 1922 - students sell work; able to mass produce. Projects focused on producing prototypes and exhibit them to the factory owners. Split money equally between students. 1923 - connect community w/ school by holding an exhibition. Exhibition. People saw it as still too communist and has no place in this community. Bauhaus School is moved to Dessau (1925-6) - invited and encouraged Groupius to move school here. Johannes Itten - teacher at the Bauhaus brought in by Groupius. Focusing on students deeper understanding of the abstract element of art. Important in color theory. Promoted students to think differently. Van Doesberg visits Weimar in 1921 & 1922 - Avante garde ideas of abstraction and spirit. Captured interest of students at Bauhaus. Why we should explore abstraction in art. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy - teacher at Bauhaus; ideas of cubism and constructivism (de stijl). Celebrate mechanics and factories. Instructed students to explore design in an 2D abstract forms. 1928 - Groupius leaves the Bauhaus to focus on his architecture; replace by Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Philip Johnson
American architect know for the Glass House built in Connecticut 1959. The building is an essay in minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and reflection. "universally viewed as having been derived from" the Farnsworth House by Mies.
John Russell Pope
American architect that designed the Jefferson Memorial & National Gallery of Art. His firm's designs alternated between revivals of Gothic, Georgian, eighteenth-century French, and classical styles.
Raymond Hood
American architect who worked in the Art Deco style - design theory was aligned with that of the Bauhaus, in that he valued utility as beauty. Despite this paen to utility, his designs featured non-utilitarian aspects such as roof gardens, polychromy, and Art Deco ornamentation. Radiator Building (1924 New York) - influences of Saarinen; largest skyscraper built in Midtown, people were beginning to expand out of the downtown area. Building demonstrates 'set-back' approach to get more daylighting into the interior spaces as well as the street below. Glows at night. Celebration at the top of the building in ornamentation. Daily News (1930-2) - art-deco interior; reflective surfaces. Form & setbacks become ornamentation of structure; windows are only exterior ornamentation. McGraw-Hill (1928-9) - publishing center, and was a working building (factory like - print work, etc..); green brick exterior (recede in landscape) but simplicity in design; accents vertical movement with horizontal layers w/ ribbon windows. Mies like in appearance. Signage is principle ornamentation at entrance and at top. Rockefeller Center (1931-40) - "City within a City"; peak of depression, cheap plot and created many jobs for unemployed workers. Idea of building a community of buildings around a metro opera house. Ideas of Sub-terrain effect of shops and roadways being underground (never developed to it's complete extent). Components of open spaces incorporated into design. Lots of artisans employed for ornamental details.
William Van Alen
American architect, best known as the architect in charge of designing New York City's Chrysler Building (1928-30).
Hugh Ferris
American architect, illustrator, and poet. He was associated with exploring the psychological condition of modern urban life, a common cultural enquiry of the first decades of the twentieth century. Employed to render for Cass Gilbert (Woolworth Building). wrote the Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929) - Some of the sketches were theoretical studies of possible setback variations within the 1916 zoning laws. Some were renderings for other architect's skyscrapers. Illustrator that became popular for producing images of urban images (built nothing); showcase the emergence of the art-deco movement.
Cass Gilbert
American architect; An early proponent of skyscrapers. A conservative who believed architecture should reflect historic traditions and the established social order. Woolworth Building (1913 in New York City) - celebration of what was America's next great successful merchant; was the tallest building during it's time; he was looking for a sense of style for the structure - neo gothic expression. Interior is an eclectic arrangement of past styles - astounded by elaborate decoration of interior. Symbolic of the excitement and emergence of New York of the time.
Ville Radieuse (Radiant City)
An unrealized urban plan by Le Corbusier in 1928, also often called "The City of Towers". He published the book in 1935 about it. Utilitarian approach to building, removal of the idea of hierarchy. All people live together collectively. More organic feeling than previous city plans. Strong grid like transportation. Unlike the radial design of the Ville Contemporaine, the Ville Radieuse was a linear city based upon the abstract shape of the human body with head, spine, arms and legs. Designed to contain effective means of transportation, as well as an abundance of green space and sunlight. Contains prefabricated and identical high-density skyscrapers spread across a vast green area, arranged in a Cartesian grid. The city is intended to be a "living machine". The city would be strictly zoned into commercial, business, entertainment, and residential areas. Although never realized, this proposal became highly influential because it holistically addressed healthy living, traffic, noise, public space, and transportation.
International Style
Archetypal, post-World War II modernist architectural style, best known for its "curtain-wall" designs of steel-and-glass corporate high-rises. Interested in - urban issues, housing, potentials for technology, volume (space) not mass. Visually - minimal ornament, anti-symmetrical, strip windows, flat roofs, cantilevers, industrial/factory aesthetics.
Richard Neutra
Austrian Architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered among the most important modernist architects. He was famous for the attention he gave to defining the real needs of his clients, regardless of the size of the project, in contrast to other architects eager to impose their artistic vision on a client. His domestic architecture was a blend of art, landscape, and practical comfort. Lovell house in LA was first authentice example of the International Style to be built in America
Rudolph Schindler
Austrian architect. Most notably, in 1911, he was introduced to the work of Frank Lloyd Wright through the influential Wasmuth Portfolio. Also influenced by Loos. Career paralleled that of Richard Neutra and both recognized as important early modernists creating new styles suited to the Californian climate, and sometimes, both would work for the same clients. Lovell beach house - modernist, flat roof, panel walls, courtyard, all glass wall. Worked with concrete and developed his own platform frame style.
Marianne Brandt
Bauhaus student and designer; worked with metals. Distinguished herself and petitioned to work in studio w/ metals. Most purchased prototypes. Tea pots, ash trays, jewelry, etc..
Brutalism (Beton Brut)
Brutalist buildings are usually formed with repeated modular elements forming masses representing specific functional zones, distinctly articulated and grouped together into a unified whole. Concrete is used for its raw and unpretentious honesty, contrasting dramatically with the highly refined and ornamented buildings constructed in the elite Beaux-Arts style. Surfaces of cast concrete are made to reveal the basic nature of its construction, revealing the texture of the wooden planks used for the in-situ casting forms. Another common theme in Brutalist designs is the exposure of the building's functions—ranging from their structure and services to their human use—in the exterior of the building. can be seen as a reaction by a younger generation to the lightness, optimism, and frivolity of some 1930s and 1940s architecture.
Broadacre City
City plan was developed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1922 ad featured every home situated in 1 acre parcels. Wrights re-evocation of the Jeffersonian agrarian ideal as a model of city planning. the disappearing of the typical American residential into new communities. People get equal amounts of space (soviet/communist in ideas). Begins to explore rounder shapes. He presented the idea in his book "The Disappearing City" in 1932 - A few years later he unveiled a very detailed twelve by twelve foot scale model representing a hypothetical four square mile (10 km²) community.
Ville Contemporaine
Contemporary city proposal by Le Corbusier, 1922 for 3 million people. The centerpiece of this plan was a group of sixty-story cruciform skyscrapers built on steel frames and encased in curtain walls of glass. The skyscrapers housed both offices and the flats of the most wealthy inhabitants. These skyscrapers were set within large, rectangular park-like green spaces. At the center of the planned city was a transportation hub which housed depots for buses and trains as well as highway intersections and at the top, an airport. Le Corbusier segregated the pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways, and glorified the use of the automobile as a means of transportation. As one moved out from the central skyscrapers, smaller multi-story zigzag blocks set in green space and set far back from the street housed the proletarian workers.
Art Deco
Descended from Art Nouveau, this movement of the 1920s and 1930s sought to upgrade industrial design in competition with "fine art" and to work new materials into decorative patterns that could be either machined or handcrafted. Characterized by streamlined, elongated, and symmetrical design. Art Deco was not a single style, but a collection of different and sometimes contradictory styles. In architecture, Art Deco was the successor to and reaction against Art Nouveau, a style which flourished in Europe between 1895 and 1900, and also gradually replaced the Beaux-Arts and neoclassical that were predominant in European and American architecture. Smooth wall surface, often stucco; smooth-faced stone and metal; polychromy, often with vivid colors; forms simplified and streamlined; geometric designs including zigzags, chevrons; towers and other vertical projections, presenting a vertical emphasis; machined and often metalic construction materials for decorative features. Hugh Ferris, Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929) - illustrator that became popular for producing images of urban images (built nothing); showcase the emergence of the art-deco movement. Saarinen, Helsinki Train Station (1904-14) - effect anticipates the notions of the ideas of art deco style; he becomes deeply influential in American architecture.
Eliel Saarinen
Finnish architect known for his work with art nouveau buildings in the early years of the 20th century. His son, Eero, became one of the most important American architects of the mid-20th century, as one of the leaders of the International style. Tribune Entry - greatest impact and influence on skyscrapers; gothic feeling but simplified in shape, telescope effect directing attention to the height of the building. Helsinki Train Station (1904-14) - effect anticipates the notions of the ideas of art deco style; he becomes deeply influential in American architecture.
Eero Saarinen
Finnish architect. CBS Building "Black Rock" (1964) - not all glass but utilizes solids wall of stones as well as glass box. Gives back some space to community.
Fritz Hoger
German Architect known for celebrating the baroque sculptural effects. Chilehaus in Hamburg 1922-4: skyscraper that has curves; expressionist movement. The office block features a curving facade reminiscent of a ship's hull, coming together at a sharp angle on the corners. Use of brick.
Albert Speer
German architect; As Hitler's chief architect, he was in charge of building cities and structures for Hitler and designing new cities envisioned after victory in WWII. Zeppelinfield (1934 Nurenburg) - classical art and design with simplified forms. Plan for Berlin - large in scale; monumental. Exposition Internationale Paris, Hitler's building - showcases German ideals and technologies. Classical in design; traditional Nazi architecture. Placed directly across from Soviet's building in a larger granger.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
God is in the details - less is more. German architect that is considered one of the founding figures of modernist architecture. Director at Bauhaus that moves to America as the Nazi's rise to power. He sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times. Simple and clear. His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. He strove toward an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of unobstructed free-flowing open space. He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. Part of the november group and founder of "G" magazine.
Mart Stam
He was a Dutch architect, urban planner, and furniture designer. His style of design has been classified as New Objectivity, an art movement formed during the depression in 1920's Germany, as a counter-movement and an out growth of Expressionism. Chair design at the Bauhaus and participated in the Weissenhof Estate (mass housing idea) at the Weissenhof Seidlung exhibition along side Corbusier.
Charles and Ray Eames
Husband and Wife furniture designers. Eames House (Case study house 1949) - influenced in part by Mies with an American engagement about what architecture should look. Prototype for modern home. "ready-made" architecture. Power of juxtaposition - makes exciting interiors. Light weight kind of building (Japanese like).
League of Nations Competition 1927
It is incontestable that this joint design was directly inspired by the design of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret which the assessors had premiated in 1927. Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret's design aroused public opinion to the extent it did was because it embodied the spirit of our own age instead of the outworn routine methods of traditional architects of the academic school. The design they had submitted was essentially one for a place to work in, corresponding to contemporary requirements. They sought legal action against the architects that were selected for the design as they had ripped of their ideas - although nothing came of it. A jury of architects was selected to choose a final design from among three-hundred and thirty-seven entries but was unable to decide on a winner. Ultimately, the five architects behind the leading entries were chosen to collaborate on a final design.
Erich Mendelshon
Jewish German Architect - German expression influence; greatest ideas on paper not build. A pioneer of the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne architecture Shocken Department Store (1926 in Stuttgart) - expressionist, softening to international style (glass, simplicity, factory like aesthetic, etc..), it's appearance at night lite with light from the interior. Shocken Store (1928-30 in Chemintz) - siding of façade becomes ornamentation of building; windows 'showcase' merchandise on the interior. A store in Breslau (1928) - modernism with heavy dose of international style language. Schaubuhne Cinema (1929) - utilization of text, exciting form of the structure; influences of the art deco movement, abstraction of ornamentation. Palace of the Soviet (1931) - produce images for competition.
George Howe and William Lescaze
PSFS Building (Philadelphia) - more progressive bank design; first example of an international style skyscraper in America. Function is expressed on the outside of the structure. No ornamentation on interior - simplistic in design. Sculptural form that skyscrapers weren't doing - cantilever out in façade details. Considered the first International style skyscraper built in the United States.
CIAM (Athens Charter)
The Athens Charter was a 1933 document about urban planning published by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. The work was based upon Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) book of 1935 and urban studies undertaken by the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) in the early 1930s. The concept of the Functional City came to dominate CIAM thinking after the conference in Brussels.