Modern Arch Final Exam
Charles V. Klauder, Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, 1927-1934
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"The skyscraper is the most distinctively American thing in the world. It is all American and all ours in its conception, all important in our metropolitan life ... "For the skyscraper, to be a skyscraper, must be constructed on a skeleton frame, now almost universally of steel, but with the signal characteristic of having columns in the outside walls, thus rendering the exterior we see simply a continuous curtain of masonry penetrated by windows; we call it a curtain wall. This seemingly continuous exterior is supported at each floor by the beams or girders of that floor, with the loads carried to the columns embedded in that same masonry curtain, unseen but nevertheless absolutely essential to the towering heights upon which we gaze with such admiration and awe -- and pride, our everlasting pride in our completely American creation." —Colonel William Aiken Starrett, Skyscrapers and the Men Who Build Them (New York,
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Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum, 1957-59 [plans begun 1943] -Poured concrete -Curved spiral-similar to Le Corbusier -Thinking back to the pantheon with oculus
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Mies van der Rohe, Glass Skyscraper for Friedrichstrasse Station Competition Berlin (1921) -Horizontality and verticality In my project for the skyscraper at the Friedrichstrasse Station in Berlin I used a prismatic form which seemed to me to fit best the triangular site of the building. I placed the glass walls at slight angles to each other to avoid the monotony of over-large glass surfaces. I discovered by working with actual glass models that the important thing is the play of reflections and not the effect of light and shadow as in ordinary buildings. The results of these experiments can be seen in the second scheme published here. At first glance, the curved outline of the plan seems arbitrary. These curves, however, were determined by three factors: sufficient illumination of the interior, the massing of the building from the street, and lastly the play of reflections. I proved in the glass model that calculations of light and shadow do not help in designing an all glass building. —Mies van der Rohe, in Frampton, p. 162
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Oskar Schlemmer, Lazlo Molholy-Nagy, and Farkas Molnar, with introduction by Walter Gropius, Theater of the Bauhaus, 1961 [not required reading but worth studying the illustrations; on reserve in FFA Library]
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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive, apartments Chicago (1945-51) -Fireproofing: Structural I-beams, concrete insulation, steel facing -Floor plan surrounding row of columns -Modern construction, but has classicism and mathematical proportions of ancient buildings/temples
...Parthenon
Immeuble Villa (Le Corbusier)
He believed that his new, modern architectural forms would provide an organizational solution that would raise the quality of life for the lower classes. His Immeubles Villas (1922) was such a project, calling for large blocks of cell-like individual apartments stacked one on top of one another, with plans that included a living room, bedrooms, and kitchen, as well as a garden terrace.
