History of Modern Architecture Final

The Secession

"Sacred Spring" departure from Art Nouveau and Classicism. An aesthetic and moral idea; Common rejection of the Vienna Academy. Everything deserves to be designed; Arch and Style should come from the public subconscious. Saw the Academy as a way to control artistic expression Context: Austro-Hungarian empire was going through tremendous political upheaval. The idea that the Artist's voice is stronger than the church or the state Themes: Reduced Architecture to its base geometries; Olbrich does what Shinkel couldn't. Actors: Joseph Olbrich, Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, William Morris

William Morris

(1834-1896) Anti- Industrialist, Architect, Socialist, Philosopher, Ideas incorporated into Art Nouveau and Secession movements. Begins to focus on the relationship between man and the machine: Understands that the machine has a role in the modern life, but that it should not enslave us. Concerned that the Industrialist Revolution robbed us of morality and craft.

Brutalism

(1950s) a movement that emphasizes the use of cast-in-place concrete, w/ no apparent concern for visual amenity.

1968: Housing and Urban Development Act

- 26 Million Housing units in a decade - A federally funded home for 26 million families - Written into the suburbs was the bifurcation of the American cities

1958: Federal Highway Act

- Called for 41 thousand miles of highway in the next 10 years. - Lo longer thinking of the city as dense downtown, but rather a spreading metropolis - Encouraged the growth of suburbs

Tadao Ando, Koshino House, Hyogo, Japan, 1979-81

- Learned architecture by visiting the US and Africa - Not architecturally trained - Cre4scent shaped living room added later, provides formal contrast - Inward looking, inset into landscape - Very different kind of building than LC - Architecture made mythical in its simplicity - Unabashedly modern exterior an exterior - Interplay of light and shadows - Regular, modular shapes, dimensions and proportions

Carlo Scarpa, Castelvecchio Museum, Verona, Italy, 1956-64

- Very distinctly distinguish the new parts of the building - Restoration at its best - Sympathetic to time and memory

William McDonough + Partners, Gap, Inc. Headquarters (901 Cherry Offices), San Bruno, CA, 1996

- What makes him different is that he is thinking on a macro scale, the efficiency of cities and a micro scale - Displacement ventilation: Conditioned air is supplied at the floor, removed at the ceiling Stylistically, McDunough is coming out of modernism. The discussion is not just about sustainability but quality working spaces.This is about humanity in a different way than the Seagram. Its about branding. Seagram wanted to be interpreted as modern, urban, and transparent. GAP wants to be open and quality of life

1943 Athens Charter:

1. Far more influential designs, this one document would influence everything from Brasilia to public housing in the US 2. Core theme: Zoning. Herd people into giant buildings, leaving parkland in between 3. Housing should only be done in Costa/Neimeyer/Le Corbusier's high rise mega structure model

Morris's Three Principles of Architecture

1. The Architect/Artist has social responsibility: they are the prophet of the modern age 2. Totality of Design - From the door knobs to the arches, everything should be considered as worthy of design. 3. Authenticity and Honesty - Be clear about your design. Rely on Nature to inspire your design

Louis Skidmore of SOM, Haji Terminal, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1980

40 degrees cooler than the outside. Cylindrical fans prompt air circulation. Promoted tremendous flexibility for the use of the interior space, like markets

Lawrence Halprin, Sea Ranch, California, 1962-7

A series of experiences that are rooted in particular place. Seamless transition between the natural and architectural processes. Takes advantage of natural environment to prove architectural point. Halprin achieves what other architects want to do; he acknowledges and prepares for change. Uninterested in absolute Architecture and exclusivity of internal architectural conversations

Joseph Olbrich, Secession Building, 1897-1898

Abstraction: Huge step in abstraction -flat planes, rounded roof, little decoration. Witty and subversive attempt to mock the building across the street, Carl's Kirk. Rebellion: No overt classical ornamentation: "To every age its art. To art, its freedom"

Guerrini, Padula and Romano, Palazzo della Civilta Italiana, Rome, Italy, 1937-42

Adapted classicism without strict rigidity of the nazis. The arch is repeated so many times that it is abstracted, a screen of arches form the primary decoration. Intended to evoke the colleseum.

Le Corbusier, Maison de Mandrot, La Pradet, Toulon, 1929-32

Analogous nature of natural and artificial, reaching beyond the machine to something primitive. Inspiration outside of classicism. Natural, primitive, earthy.

CASA MILA

Anthony Gowdy, 1905-1910. Fully embraced Violet Le Duc's principle of form following function, interpreation of movement, rejection of classicism, rednering art nouveau on a spatial level

Berthold Lubetkin and Techton, High Point 2 Flats, Highgate, London, England, 1938

Applied decoration, textured walls, different materials, and color to provide contrast. Caryatids: female columns. Breaks all the rules. Deliberate blasphemy, Focus on improvement, not aesthetic.

Pluralism

Architecture after the second wave was anything but unified, especially as architects relied more and more on computer architecture.References to modernism, incorporation of modernist concepts. Incorporate the very best of modernism while designing buildings that don't look modernist. True post-modernity: Architects reject modernism but also incorporate it to make something new

Le Corbusier, Unite de Habitation, Marseilles, France, 1947-53

Brutalism,Organicism, evokes the feeling of a floating city (cruise liner). Pioneer of "Megastructure." Use of color to break up the drab, monstrous facade. Use of natural light and shade, The Modular Man: Man meets architecture. Weds the superblock to his 5 principles. Pioneer of Brutalism

Kenzo Tange, Peace Memorial and Museum, Hiroshima, Japan, 1949-55

Building represents Japan's willingness to participate in the West. Using modernism is a means for Japan to rejoin the world, it gives the site much feeling. First big work is very consciously engaging with the second wave of modernism, interested in the brutalism aesthetic of Le Corbusier

Norman Foster, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, Hong Kong, 1979-85

Carefully proportioned truss-work, thinking about light and the ways trusses overlap. In many ways, this building is a cathedral to business, technology, and money. A Skyscraper, the building of modernism. Foster is countering Johnson, beginning in his building the year Johnson's is finished. The building intentionally leaves a crane at the top to imply Archigram-like robotics.The idea is to convey that HSBC is continually building, changing, and evolving

Archigram (Ron Herron and Brian Harvey) Walking City Project, 1963

Chose to present themselves as anti-establishment, a middle finger to Le Corbusier. Series of projects attempting to imagine the city very differently, blurring between high and low culture, Heavily influenced by Buckminster Fuller. Very different way of looking at the city

Berthold Lubetkin and Techton, High Point 1 Flats, Highgate, London, England, 1933-5

Closely folowed Le corbusier's 5 principles. Use of curves ot reinforce rectolinearity.

Edwin Lutyens, Viceroy's House, New Delhi, India, 1912-31

Combined classical forms and cultural features. Gesture of goodwill to idians. Chuija: Flat, protruding roof. Modern style that crafted classicism to culture.

Postmodernism:

Defined by their overt criticism of modernism; very different approaches 1. The Greys - Followed Venturi's criticism that it was too much about form, not enough about people 2. The Whites - Argued that modernism was not enough about form, took the counterargument, that modernism took too much time thinking about form

Alvar Aalto, Paimo Sanatarium (and chair), Finland, 1929-33

Designed as the international style formed. Finland's new image. Transparency. Nationalistic, utopian, political. Use of light and ribbon windows, takes advantage of climate. The curve as visual interest. Form follows function. Relationship between the landscape and building.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Broadacre City, 1934-5

Diffuse, agrarian, horizontal city. Room to spread, decentralization is focal, living and working spaces, countryside divided into plots. Technology as a way to decentralize, rather than collect. Dependent on vast highway network

Art Nouveau

Distinct, flowing, natural artistic expression seen in all forms of media. Complete rejection of classicism. International movement, Western push. Driven by the growth of the middle class, public art. Principles: Nature/Natural forms in ornament, Gustavensburg : Whole work of art.

Peter Eisenman, Frank House, Connecticut, 1976

Doesn't claim to make anyone's life better. Goes back to Mies Van Der Rohe, takes it to its logical conclusion.Total Abstraction: The wall has become a plane that no longer needs to be a wall. An Internal Conversation between modernism and post-modernism. Architecture for Architecture's sake

Charles Moore, Piazza d'Italia, New Orleans, LA, 1975-9

Draws on Italian architecture; rich colors and materials; layered quality of Italian cities. Ends up being just as superficial as modernism. Now a post-modern classic

Monumentality

Dynamsim, robust, massive buildings meant to convey massive ideas. Aesthetically the machine had been taken to its limit. Rebuilding was based on individuality and community, a celebration of mankind's achievements.

Balkirshnia Doshi, Aranya low-cost housing project, Indore, India, 1982

Each building had a service core and a bathroom space that centralized the utilities. Resident could add on to this as their families grew or incomes change. Flexibility was totally unheard of, more of a planner than anything else. Designed the community to be tight knit, local. Aesthetically similar to Le Corbusier and Kahn

1949: Federal Housing Act (Title One)

Elimination of blighted slums, realization of a decent home and suitable living environment. 1. Provide housing 2. Improve conditions 3. Improve the lives of every American

Hale Walker, planner, Greenbelt, Maryland, 1935

Fusion of industrialism and agrarianism. Heavily influenced New Deal architects. Planned 8 cities, 3 built. Cities should be all encompassing, work, play, eat, sleep, grow.

Eero Saarinen for Knoll Associates, tulip chair, 1957

Gracefullnes, curves, simplicity, minimalism, transparency, basic geometry

Ebenezer Howard, ideal diagram for Garden Cities around a central city, 1898

Grandfather of the Zoning movement. Balance at the heart of all his plans, balanced life, balanced work.

Walter Gropius, Harkness Commons Dormitories, Graduate Center, Harvard University, MA, 1948

Gropius politically obscures history while referencing it

Jane Jacobs

Her argument was to embrace the messy city, to find value in what others might consider blight. There are things that happen organically that you cannot plan and integrate into a zoned city. Her book becomes an influential counterpoint to CIAM and the Athens charter. Part of a larger push to fight back against the government and acknowledge its failure. Believed that planners failed to take into account the natural movements and ideologies in their scripted cities. You have to learn from the city itself

Beaux-Arts

Hierarchy of spaces, from "noble spaces"—grand entrances and staircases— to utilitarian ones Arched windows Arched and pedimented doors Classical details: references to a synthesis of historicist styles and a tendency to eclecticism; fluently in a number of "manners" Symmetry

Minoru Yamasaki, Priutt-Igoe, St. Louis, MO, 1954 (and 1972 demolition)

In just 10 years, the project is overrun. In just 18 years, it was destroyed. The destruction of Pruitt-Igoe was a signal for the end of modernism. The downfall of PI was used as evidence for the ineffectiveness of CIAM and the International Style.

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1971-7

Intended to make a public center, great design and high culture should be available to everyone. Museum designed to become a place for tourists, citizens, a marketing tool for cities. Looks like a duck, actually a shed: a big empty box. All the mechanics are on the outside of the building. Steel construction, wide open warehouse spaces. The intention is to convey transparency; the idea that things that are usually hidden can be decoration. Roberts is drawing on modernism without referencing

Altes Museum

Karl Schinkel, Berlin 1824-28. Adopted and distilled basics of classicism, columns, Parti and Marche

domino skeleton

Le Corbusier, Domino Skeleton, 1914-15. System of cheap, mass produced housing. Steel and reinforced concrete. Pure structure, no ornament. Echo of Viollet Le Duc. The house as a machine for living in.

Ozenfant House

Le Corbusier, Paris, 1923. Two story living room with a balcony, roof terrace. Applied Domino theory to actual house. Stripped of ornament, basic structure, industrial aesthetic. Roof system used to obtain more light. Standardized, mass produced windows. Raised engineering to the level of art.

Philip Johnson, AT&T Building, NYC, 1979

Like the glass house and the brick house were talking to each other, so this building was meant to talk with the Seagram building Johnson is actively trying to separate himself from Mies and his own legacy by contextualizing the building. A conscious covering of glass and steel, reversing the idea of applied decoration, Clearly delineating between he three parts of the skyscraper: The base, the shaft, and the crown.

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bibao, Spain, 1991-7

Looking for a building special enough for people to travel the world for. The apex of digital design/ Two rectangular spaces that meet in an expressive center in an 'L', a tremendous collection of form, creating a tall, lit, dramatic atrium. Whole new meaning to "Less is More". Gehry's use of titanium was his signature. Abstraction of moving fish, response against Venturi and John. son. Laizze-Faire idea about the meaning of architecture.

Herzog & de Meuron, National Stadium, Beijing, China 2003-8

Looking for the Bilbao affect, more scuppture than architecture, much like Bilbao. Inspired by Chinese ceramics, no overt reference to Chinese architecture. This building represents the New China, the Post-Mao China, the China that can compete on the world-stage in everything. Raised on a mound of earth to convey flotation. Chinese government looking for something that conveys transparency. This building is a duck, it has no use after the Olympics

Sears and Roebuck, The Walton, 1921-9

Not modernist in style, but its buyers were moderns. Tremendouse effect on the housing market. Use of fake materials to provide a homet feel, all prefabricated and easily assembled.

Tony Garnier, project for a Cite Industrielle, 1917

Paper architecture, the idea of zoning is central. No mention of religion, church. No private proerty. multi and single family housing, central transportation.

AEG turbine factory

Peter Behrens, Berlin, 1908-9. Basic idea is that is a series of hinged, steel arches. Similar technique to WCE and 19th century train stations. Imbued with more than basic functionalism. Form alludes to classical forms. Intentional, abstract nobility, reference to Classical Forms. Steel frames, recessed walls, and columned elevation denote machine inspired industrialism.

George Keck, House of Tomorrow, 1933 (Chicago Century of Progress)

Prefabrication, Engineering, invention, form follow function. Echoes the dymaxion design, forward thinking, tech-savvy, idealism and futurism, house as a machine

Stonorov and Kastner, Carl Mackley Houses, Philadelphia, PA, 1932-5

Public housing entrpreneurs under roosevelt's new deal. Golden age of public housing. Individuality and community, adopted Oud's philosphy. Dense, long buildings. Live, work play philosphy.

Foster and Partners, Wills Faber and Dumas Headquarters, Ipswich, England, 1977

Response to the gas crisis, systems that make the building work are different. Emergence of sustainable architecture. Commercial buildings and single family homes consume 40 percent of the world's energy. Reflects light, reducing heat gain. First green roof, insulating the floors below. Connection between the residents and nature

Raymond Hood, Rockefeller Center, NYC, 1929-32

Series of codesigned buildings, speculative office space, serving variety of functions. opening streets to light, air. Towers replace cyscrapers. Private system with public functions. Showcases a powerful parti and marche.

Second Wave of Modernism

Shift from emphasis on man and the machine to man and nature, marriage of the natural and the artificial. Shift from universalism to regionalis: drawing inspiration from surrounding locales. Brutalism, naturalism, organicism.

Kenzo Tange, Tokyo Bay Project, 1960

Since we now have the tech to build over water, we can avoid sprawl.Meant to keep people downtown.Two Elements: 1. Permanent Infrastructure 2. Impermanent Units - Metabolists: Different parts of cities grow at different rates - Sides operated as parallel suspension bridges - Massive water highways - Secondary transportation goes through the middle - Spine: Civic parks, public amenities - Tall service towers with utilities, circulation, elevators

Goodhue, State Capitol, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1921-32

Stripped classicism. Relies on axiality, symmetry, removes the dorss, leaving the fundamentals. Set the stage for american archtiectuer. Abstraction of figures, forms, ornamentation.

Wiiliam Levitt, Levittown, New York (Long Island), 1947-51

Suburban shift, familiarity meets prefabrication, utility, mechanized houses, efficiency, application of assembly line to homes. Selling the idea of a home, regardless of the materials used. tremendous influence on the housing market

Philip Johnson, Glass House, New Canaan, CT, 1949-50

Subverts the idea of the glass house with the chimney and the brick floor, suggesting that the glass house needs warming up, literally and figuratively. Subverts the industrial aesthetic, rooting it to the ground with a brick foundation. Uninterested in the details, builds the brick house across from the glass house, a contradictions, open and closed, glass and brick, solid and transparent. The glass house ends up being a folly, a joke. The brick house indicates that the glass house is virtually useless, a beautiful sculpture, but not a practical living space

William van Alen, Chrysler Building, NYC, 1928-30

Superblock, setback, monumentatlity.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1934-7

Takes advantage of steel technology, use of central shaft and cantilevers. Centrality of the hearth, primacy of nature, rocky earth is central, middle-finger to the establishment .

International Council for Modern Architecture

Taking away the individual responsibility of Architecture.; 1933 Meeting: Centralizes explanation of what a modern city should look like. Greenbelt was too focused on the individual and not enough on the collective. Athens charter

Kenzo Tange, Olympic Gymnasium, Tokyo, 1961-4

Terrifically successful building, dynamic, movement, sport. And Ideal building to compare to Eero Saaren's airport. The Building does move, it hangs like fishes ribs from cables. Not just monumental for Monumentalism's sake. Tange reaches a human level with his subtle gesture towards traditional Japan's Mitsu Tome; an abstract shape or swirl. At once moving and stable. It both moves forward and is quiet.

Prefabrication

The manufacture of sections of a building at the factory so they can be easily and rapidly assembled at the building site. Giving Architecture to the people

Otto Wagner, Post Office Savings Bank, Vienna 1904-06

Themes: "New materials and a new age require new forms" The Form is the decoration; everything is exposed, even the steel studs. Design style inspires confidence and transparency; First time that the simplified, industrial aesthetic is completely embraced.

Louis Kahn, National Assembly Building, Dacca, Bangladesh, 1962-75

Themes: Axial, Fortress-like structure meant to represent independence, autonomy, and ancient stability. Use of fundamental Geometric shapes, stripped classicism. Use of natural light and thin bands of marble to break up heavy concrete presence.

Adolf Loos, Steinerhaus, Vienna 1909

Themes: Concern that new architecture was too free and anarchic. Ornament and Crime: Considered himself a prophet. Art Nouveau is uncivilized and unrestrained. Ornament is inefficient, degenerate, erotic, a moral issue. Ornament is the building; Windows, Materials, and the Angles provide the form

Oscar Niemeyer, National Assembly, Brasilia, 1958

Themes: Forms are intensely expressive, heavy and raw concrete; Two saucers represent the two seats of governemnt: One pointing towards the earth, the other to the heavens. Heavy collonades contrast with delicate glass blocks. Marries the lightness of the box with the heavy Le Corbusier sculptural concrete.

Oscar Niemeyer, Planalto and Supreme Court, Brasilia, 1958

Themes: Fragile glass and heavy concrete mix to create a powerful yet vulnerable structure, the culmination of the international style and the scond wave of modernism.

Mies van der Rohe, IIT, Chicago, IL, 1939-56 (Crown Hall, 1950-6)

Themes: Lightness, mechanization, transparency, minimalism, axiality, symmetry, gravitas. Abolishes references to Beaux-Art forms. emphasises the structure using dishonest methods that contradict his own theory.

Oscar Niemeyer, National Catherdeal, Brazilia, 1970

Themes: Meant to represent the crown of thorns, contrasts the heaviness of the concrete with the lightness fo the glass, especcially on the inside. Le Corbusier meets Mies van der Rohe

Le Corbusier, Chandigargh, India, 1951-63 (Palace of Assembly/Parliament, Secretariat, High Court)

Themes: Monumentalism, Brutalism, use of primal, local themes (i.e. crescent moon). Use of geometric shapes, stripped down classicism, meant to represent novelty, independence, and stability.

Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, and others (incl. Le Corbusier), Ministry of Education, Rio de Janiero, Brazil, 1936-45

Themes: Monumentalism, Le Corbusier is playing with idea of monumental structure with pilotis and natural light, along with his idea of the human scale.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Seagram Building, NYC, 1954-8

Themes: Monumentality, Creative Community Spaces, Reflection pools, transparency, simplicity, setback law. Sets a stage to show off its impressive beauty, subverts the primacy of the street suggesting it is not the goal of the building. Mies is considering how people will interact with this buidling.

Kallmann,McKinnell, and Knowles, Boston City Hall, MA, 1962-8

Themes: Monumentality, dynamism, symmetry, geometry, brutalism, harsh corners and imposing edges.

Eero Saarinen, Gateway Arch, St. Louis, MO, 1963

Themes: Stainless steel, monumentality, expansionism, achievement, gracefullness, form follows function.

Lucio Costa, master plan for Brasilia, 1957

Themes: The settling of idea about the nature of modernism: everything has its place. Two main axes, one residential, one commercial, witht eh government at the head, just like Le Corbusier.

One World Trade Center, SOM David Childs, 2006-2014

This building has a big job, it has to represent America, a post 9/11 America and to redefine the New York Skyline. An attempt to rebrand the city and the Nation. The first World Trade Center was a massive controversy. This building is a duck, conveying an Idea rather than a function. There were so many hands involved in this building that its intentional iconography is diminished

Charles and Ray Eames, Eames House (Case Study #8), Santa Monica, CA, 1945-9

Transparency, Efficiency, modernism. Bringing good architecture to the people. Low cost, modern style housing as a response to Levvittown. Heavily influenced by de stil. "Carefully designed planes". Proved that people would want to, live in modern architecture.

Moshe Safdie, Habitat, Montreal, Canada, 1967

Trying very hard to succeed where eh sees modernism failing. Attractive aesthetic, removes the industrialized regiment of the factory, visualizes movement, disorder

Le Corbusier, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan, 1957-9

Typical Le Corb, interesting interplay between light and solidity. Raw concrete, pilotis, concrete paneling covered with panels. Concrete was attractive because he designed with concrete, standardization, prefabrication, modular system. City ideas did not have much of an impact

Robert Venturi, Guild House, PA 1962-66

Used brick so that the building could "speak of its environment", Venturi thought that an international style meant a placeless style . He is intentionally making this building speak of its context. Intentionally symmetrical, lie a pediment on a classical building, merging and diluting the difference between classical architecture and everyday American buildings

Buckminster Fuller, Dymaxion House, 1929

Utilitarianism, prefabrication, engineering, utility core, sustainability. Inventor more than architect, poster-child of prefabrication. Dymaxion: Dynamic, Maximum, Tension

Le Corbusier, "Contemporary City for 3 Million Inhabitants," 1922

Utopian, man overt nature, large scale drastic planning, straight line indicates civilization, rigid geometry, central trnsportation, grided, symmetrical format. Linearity of humanity, "city without streets", centrslity of business and beauracracy. Integrated caste system

Robert Venturi, Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA, 1963

Venturi is abstracting and exaggerating the signs of a traditional house. This is not a machine, it is an American house. He is also subverting these themes, the roof and the porch. He is refusing to go along with the International Style, rejecting universalism and referring only to American architecture.

Kunio Mayekawa, Tokyo Cultural Center, Tokyo, 1961

Very similar to Le Corbusier's buildings. Similar tropes, ribbon windows, impressive concrete façade, rounded sides. His work is derivative of western art, but he is also looking for distinct vernacular expression.

Hotel Tassel

Victor Horta, 1893. Beaux-Art trained, transitional facade, incorporated art nouveau into beaux-art, designed classical spaces, filling them with art nouveau

Fagus Factory

Walter Gropius and Adolf Mayer, Lower Saxony, 1911-13. Took Behrens philosophy to the next level, rejecting classicism entirely. Unabashedly modern, believed new principles could stand for themselves. Client: Fagus was interested in modern architecture and insisted on natural light and industrial themes. Temple to industry, the worker is worshipped, echoing William Morris. maximizes use of prefabricated industrial materials (hard edges, clear taxonomy). Uses spatial form (panels, horizontal planes).

J. J. P. Oud, workers' housing, Hook of Holland, 1924

de stijl architect, plaster walls, industrial, german aesthetic, ribbon windows. Duality of the community and the individual