18 - Le Corbusier & the International Style

the term international style comes from what book?

"Internationale Architektur" by Gropius

CIAM 3 phases of development:

- 1928-1933 focused on the idea of standardization, minimum living, optimum height and block spacing for the efficiency of both land and material - 1933-1947 shifted the emphasis to town planning; aim to work for the creation of a physical environment that will satisfy man's needs - 1947-1956 the heart of the city; searched for structural principles of urban growth as well as the family cell

Style characteristics:

- emphasis on volume over mass - the use of light-weight, mass produced, industrial materials - rejection of all ornament and color - repetition of modular forms - use of flat surfaces typically alternating with areas of glass

Materials used:

- glass - steel - reinforced concrete

Ideas and concepts embraced by CIAM

- low cost houses - typification of solutions - standardization of elements - quality of architecture is thought to come out of the improvement of objective parameters - "standard" was the key word of the period - introduction of sun, light, air, and hygiene - idea to divide the city into functional areas (functionalism) - universal functional spaces and objects can address all basic necessities - creation of normative rules for the organization of urban density, height of buildings, etc. - idea of zoning to articulate the city in functional areas - thinking houses distribution system over - not wasting space

Le Corbusier facts:

- name is Charles-Edouard Jeanneret - born in Switzerland and became a french citizen in1930 - did not have formal academic training in architecture - In the first issue of the journal, in 1920, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret adopted Le Corbusier (an altered form of his maternal grandfather's name, Lecorbésier) as a pseudonym, reflecting his belief that anyone could reinvent themselves - Between 1918 and 1922, Le Corbusier did not build anything, concentrating his efforts on Purist theory and painting

Most common characteristics of international style buildings:

- rectilinear forms - plane surfaces - open interior spaces - prefabricated elements - curtain walls of glass/ribbon windows - a visually weightless quality engendered by the use of cantilever construction

5 points toward modern architecture:

1) pilotis 2) free plan 3) free facade 4) strip/ribbon windows 5) roof terraces

Where and when was CIAM's founding declaration signed?

1928 in La Sarraz, Switzerland (by 24 architects)

who said "a house is a cell within the body of a city?"

Amedee Ozenfant

Example of open air school:

Beaudouin and Lods, Suresnes School 1932-35

in Europe, what was the modern movement in architecture called?

Functionalism or Neue Sachlichkeit (New objectivity), L'Esprit Nouveau, or Modernism

CIAM

International Congress of Modern Architecture - began in 1928 and the original members were Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, Ernst May, Sigfried Gideon, Gerrit Rietveld

Who said "a house is a machine for living"?

Le Corbusier

What House by Richard Neutra can be regarded as the apotheosis of the international style?

Lovell Health House in Griffith Park Los Angeles (1927)

Le Corbusier's new theory (1918)

Purism

End of CIAM:

The Smithsons (and other architects) worried that CIAM's ideal city would lead to isolation and community breakdown, just as European governments were preparing to build tower blocks in their ruined cities; last CIAM meeting was held in 1956

Le Corbusier's book in 1923

Vers Une Architecture (towards the new architecture)

First house designed by Le Corbusier

Villa Fallet

1932 Exhibition Room A:

a model of a mid-rise housing development (by Chicago architect brothers Monroe Benat Bowman and Irving Bowman)

Weissenhof, Stuttgart, 1927, Werkbund exhibition

experimental houses of the modern machine-for-living

human limb objects

extensions of our limbs and adapted to human functions that are type-needs and type-functions

10 February 1932 - MOMA Exhibition

first architectural exhibition at the MOMA

Who did Le Corbusier start his architectural practice with in France in 1917?

his cousin, Pierre Jeanneret

existenzminimum (existence minimum)

living standard minimum admissible

The Athens Charter

one of the most controversial document produced by CIAM; the charter effectively committed CIAM to rigid functional cities, with citizens to be housed in high, widely-spaced apartment blocks

The Architectural Promenade

particularly put into play in the design of Villa Savoye; observer's pathway through a built space

The pair rejected cubism as irrational and "romantic" and published a manifesto about what new artistic movement?

purism

Open air school

research for clean air, hygiene, no decorations, regular shapes, flat roof, new materials, industrialization of pieces

1932 Exhibition Room B

section titled "Housing" presenting "the need for a new domestic environment"

1932 Exhibition Room E

section titled "The extent of modern architecture" Among these works was Alva Aalto's Turun Sanomat newspaper office building in Finland

International style

style developed in the 1920s and 30s that strongly related to modernism and modern architecture; it was first defined by Museum of Modern Art curators Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson; dominant style until the 1970s

1932 Exhibition Room C

works by Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, J.J.P. Oud, and Frank Lloyd Wright

1932 Exhibition Room D

works by Raymond Hood (including "Apartment Tower in the Country" and the McGraw-Hill Building) and Richard Neutra