Lectures 13-16
Housing superblocks. Brasilia (1958-60). Lucio Costa.
"Superblocks" of 6-story apartment buildings for the majority of residents.
Study Question: How did Le Corbusier's work change after the war? Compare and contrast one of his pre-war works with a post-war work.
-heavier -use of concrete, cheap after war -classical elements used by fascists; disliked after war villa savoye vs notre dame du haut
What were some of the distinctive characteristics of the Case Study Houses? How did these houses continue aspects of pre-war houses such as the Villa Savoye or Lovell House?
-light, open plan, asymmetry, glass, lack of ornamentation -exploration of steel as primary structural material
Post-War Modernism in the United States
After the war, American wealth and corporate culture sponsor modernism for office buildings. The progressive social and political shadings that modernism had held in Europe were submerged in the creation of modernism that came to symbolize Pax Americana. Lever House was the first glass curtain-wall skyscraper to be constructed in New York. A large percentage of the site is given to a plaza, which makes possible the sheer slab of the tower.
Brasilia
Although Rio de Janeiro had been the capital since 1763, many figures had argued for an inland capital that would help unify the nation, remove associations with colonial rule, and promote regional development. President Juscelino Kubitschek ordered the creation of a new capital in 1956, seeing it as a way to accelerate change. Lucio Costa wrote: "Brasilia was really Kubitschek's creation. To modernize the country he launched a series of measures . . . He constructed an arch of which Brasilia was the keystone, keeping all the others in place."
Postmodernism
Architectural postmodernism is by nature not a unified set of developments, but in general postmodernist architects sought to address what they saw as a thinness of meaning in most modernist architecture. Although not rejecting all aspects of modernism, these designers sought to re-introduce history, context, ornamentation, and symbol. Rather than the avowed purity of mythical "international style," these architects attempted to create buildings that were more complex and more diverse.
Zaha Hadid (1950-2016), 2004 Pritzker Laureate)
Born in Baghdad and educated at the Architectural Association in London, Hadid first attracted attention through her dynamic and beguiling paintings and drawings for architectural competitions. Her first large-scale executed work was the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati (1998). Since then, she has completed several major projects. In 2004, Hadid became the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize.
Louis Kahn and the United States
Born in Estonia, Kahn (1901-74) moved with his family to the US in 1905. He studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied architecture in the Beax-Arts mode. Although widely respected as a teacher and designer, he received large-scale commissions only late in his career in the 1950s. Born a generation after Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, Kahn absorbed the principles of modernism but sought to recover certain characteristics of historical architecture, seeing great architecture of all periods as stemming from the same ideas.
Aldo Rossi (1931-1997)
Born in Milan, Aldo Rossi believed in the vitality of cities and rejected many principles of modern architecture. His book The Architecture of the City was a landmark publication that emphasized the role of history, memory, and architectural type. Rossi rejected what he called "naïve functionalism" in favor of an approach that accounted for the historical longevity of buildings and the complexity of cities.
Rem Koolhaas and Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA)
Born in Rotterdam in 1944, Koolhaas founded OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) in London. His book Delirious New York (1978) argues that modernist ideas of program and function are in fact restrictive and do not represent the nature of buildings and cities. Koolhaas claims that Bigness characterizes modern largescale structures. With technology and sheer size making irrelevant historical criteria such as composition, scale, detail and proportion, neither modernist nor historical architecture can address modern cities.
Frank Gehry (b. 1929, 1989 Pritzker Laureate)
Born in Toronto, Gehry moved to California in 1947 and studied architecture at USC. He opened his own firm in 1967 and first became widely known for the remodeling of his own house in Santa Monica (1978 and later). Here Gehry used cheap industrial materials such as corrugated metal, chain-link fence, two-by-fours, and asphalt to make a conventional house into a challenge to conventional ways of making and interpreting residential architecture.
San Cataldo Cemetery. Modena, Italy (1971-84). Aldo Rossi.
Design process using analogy: type abstracted from history and reinterpreted.
Chapel for the Capuchinas. Mexico City (1952-55). Luis Barragán.
For this small religious complex, Barragán and the artist Mathias Goeritz used light, color and texture to evoke the spiritual. The courtyard combines natural elements with abstract forms and bright colors.
Moore, Lyndon, Turnbull & Whitaker and Sea Ranch
Given that postmodernist architects sought diverse solutions to architectural problems and reacted to modernism in different ways, there could be no single postmodernist style. Each designer addressed different issues, but they often turned to the local context and historical buildings as sources for design.
Tadao Ando (b. 1941, 1995 Pritzker Laureate)
If Kenzo Tange was the first Japanese architect to achieve prominence outside Japan, Ando became perhaps the most famous. Self-trained as an architect, Ando worked outside the architectural establishment in Japan before making his name with simple, subtle buildings of concrete and glass. Not unlike Kahn, Ando uses basic elements of architecture-light, mass, texture-to create strong sensory effects.
Case Study Houses
In 1945, John Entenza, the editor of Arts & Architecture magazine, began the Case Study House program in order to sponsor the design and construction of contemporary homes. This program helped make modern houses more broadly visible and later provided commissions for young architects. Prominent designers who built Case Study Houses included Ray & Charles Eames, Richard Neutra, and William Wurster. As the program continued into the 1950s, many Case Study House architects explored steel as the primary structural material.
Deconstructivism
In 1988, the Museum of Modern Art presented "Deconstructivist Architecture," an exhibition curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley that included work by seven contemporary architects. Wigley argued that in recent years architects had begun to question the basic stability and order of buildings. Wigley: "The architect has always dreamed of pure form, of producting objects from which all instability and disorder have been excluded."
Pompidou Center. Paris (1972-76). Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano.
In a city of historical buildings such as the cathedral of Notre Dame, the Louvre, and the Opera, the Pompidou Center initially generated great controversy (cf. Eiffel Tower). The architects intended the Pompidou to be a new kind of cultural institution: "The image of culture is static and elitist; our problem is to make it live to both entertain and inform, not only for tourists or specialists, but for those who live in the neighborhood, a neighborhood in crisis."
Frank Lloyd Wright after WWII
In the 1930s, Wright's career reaches another high point with Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax, and other designs. After WWII, Wright's work becomes more idiosyncratic, as seen in the Marin County Civic Center.
Postmodernism and the United States
In the 1960s, Robert Venturi, Charles Moore, and other architects launched a fundamental attack on modernism. Decrying what they saw as the impoverished 'purity' of many modernist buildings, they sought to include a wider variety of sources in contemporary architecture. The term "postmodernism" became used to denote approaches that criticized fundamental tenets of modernism.
Lucio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and Brazil
In the early twentieth century, French Beaux-Arts architecture dominated largescale public architecture in Rio de Janeiro (e.g. Teatro Municipal, 1909). As we saw in lecture 11, by the late 1920s, progressive Brazilian architects had begun building modernist houses. Le Corbusier visited Brazil in 1929, sketching plans for the city. Lucio Costa (1902-1998) became the first prominent Brazilian modernist, mentoring many younger architects such as Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012).
A Return to Essentials
In the last several decades, a remarkable variety of new architectural approaches has developed, including postmodernism, deconstructivism, and high-tech architecture. At the same time, certain architects have pursued their own distinctive visions regardless of architectural fashion. These architects often turn to the basic architectural qualities of light, materials, and textures to create buildings that are superficially simple but experientially rich.
Kenzo Tange and Japan
Japanese architects began to adopt and adapt European modernism in the 1920s, first through publications and then through travel to Europe. In the 1930s, though, nationalist and militarist ideology pushed official public architecture towards more obviously Japanese styles. After WWII, the field of architecture was transformed: architects faced the reconstruction of cities free of wartime ideology, able to suggest more progressive projects. After WWII Kenzo Tange (1913-2005) became the most prominent Japanese architect.
Notre Dame du Haut. Ronchamp, France (1950-54). Le Corbusier. Postwar Modernism/Reaction to a sacred site. How does one embody sacred and spiritual nature with modernist means?
Le Corbusier no longer uses his planar walls. Walls are now thick and contain more character
Farnsworth House. Plano, IL (designed 1945, constructed 1950-51). Mies van der Rohe.
Mies reverts to a classical design with a modern upgrade. Uses symmetrical plans for the home stacked together asymmetrically
Barragán House and Studio. Mexico City (1947). Luis Barragán.
Note contrasts of transparency vs. mass, geometric vs. organic, abstract vs. material.
High-Tech Architecture
One major emphasis of twentieth-century architects was modern technology, as we have seen in the writings of Le Corbusier. Since the 1960s, a number of architects have used the technical components of architecture as the basis for architectural expression; this High-tech architecture often uses structure and building services for aesthetic effect.
Study Question: What are some criticisms of modernism made by Aldo Rossi? What does he mean by type?
Rossi argues that the city cannot be understood in terms of mere function. Living in Milan and other cities with long histories, he sees cities as collective artifacts, composed of smaller elements (buildings) that each have their own history. If function were the primary determinant of urban form meaning, then there would be continuity. The Theater of Marcellus, for instance, is 2000 years old and has had many functions; in recent centuries it has served as housing Rossi is referring to type as abstract, not an object but "the idea of an element that must itself serve as a rule for the model."
National Congress and Plaza of the Three Powers. Brasilia (1958-60).
The Congress, Planalto (Presidential) Palace and Supreme Court represent the legislative, executive and judiciary powers.
Unité d'Habitation. Marseilles (1947-52). Le Corbusier. Postwar Modernism
The Unité is a city in the air, with 337 apartments, shopping, nursery, gymnasium, roof terrace, etc.
C. Michael Graves
The most celebrated figure of 1980s postmodernism was Michael Graves, an architect who had passed through a modernist stage to develop his own approach based on the free combination and manipulation of historical (mostly Classical) motifs. In 1960, Graves received the prestigious Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, which allowed him to travel in Europe for a year. He later noted that his experiences there transformed his understanding of architecture.
A. Wexner Center for the Visual Arts. Ohio State University, Columbus OH (1989). Peter Eisenman.
The split brick towers refer to the history of the site, once occupied by the armory, which was demolished in 1958 after a fire.
Form and Space Triumphant
The technological advances of the past few decades have made possible complex forms and spaces that earlier architects could only create on paper. The widespread use of digital design and fabrication tools allows the construction of unique components at almost any scale. This flexibility in turn has encouraged architects to further experiment with form and space.
Parc de la Villette Systems
Three systems that begin as highly ordered but then sometimes distort as they encounter each other: • Lines • Planes • Points
Grid of A. Wexner Center for the Visual Arts. Ohio State University, Columbus OH (1989). Peter Eisenman.
Two grids: the grid of the city and the grid of the campus. The 540'-long steel frame runs on the city grid, intersecting the campus grid and creating angular spaces.
Peter Zumthor (b. 1943, 2009 Pritzker Laureate)
Unusual among Pritzker Prize winners, Zumthor is known best for relatively modest works, often located outside large cities. He eschews the dramatic forms and slick materials typical of other high-profile architects, preferring to work with mass, texture, and a strong sense of place.
Robert Venturi and Postmodernism Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966). Robert Venturi.
Venturi argues for buildings that work at multiple scales and suggest various meanings, such as the Philadelphia Savings Fund Society building.
Study Question: How did Mies van der Rohe's work change after the war? Compare and contrast one of his pre-war works with a post-war work.
after war, american wealth and corporate culture sponsor modernism for office buildings post war: farnsworth house
Study Question:What ideas or elements connect Wright's Guggenheim Museum with his earlier works such as Fallingwater or the Johnson Wax Building?
paid attention to the site, focused museum inward and worked on monumentality rather than the european modern ideals of universality
Le Corbusier's Five Points of a New Architecture: (As shown in Villa Savoye. Poissy, France (1929-31). Le Corbusier.)
• Piloti • Free plan • Free façade • Horizontal windows • Roof terrace
