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
