Exam 1 History of World Architecture III

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, The Hill House, Helensburgh, Scotland, 1902-04

Exemplifies Mackintosh's architectural and design approach. The exterior is strongly vernacular. The interior is light and fresh, with a slightly Japanese aesthetic.

The Great Exhibition in London

Took place in 1851 and was the first World's Fair. It celebrated the achievements of the industrialized nations and promoted friendly competition.

Henry van de Velde

A Belgian architect and designer who worked in Belgium, France, and eventually Germany in the Art Nouveau style (in Germany known as Jugendstil).

Victor Horta

A Belgian architect who largely originated architectural Art Nouveau in the early 1890s, utilizing energized lines and plant-like forms - both decorative and structural - and open use of iron.

Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

A French restoration architect and scholar of French medieval architecture. He strongly advocated structural rationalism in architecture. He called for the use and experimentation of new materials and technologies in architecture (like iron) and for developing a new architecture of the nineteenth century. Viollet-le-Duc was fired from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris for his controversial teachings. He published his lectures in his treatise Discourses in Architecture, which influenced successive generations of modernist architects.

Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art")

A completely designed space where all the arts work together for a unified effect. Many Art Nouveau buildings and interiors are examples of Gesamtkunstwerk.

The Ringstrasse

A major nineteenth-century urban project in which new concentric, "ring" boulevards were laid around the old city of Vienna (Altstadt) and grand new public buildings and apartment blocks erected.

The Vienna Secessionists

A renegade group of artists and architects who "seceded" from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and everything it stood for, to develop a modern art and architecture of their own time. Their motto was "To every age its art. To art its freedom."

Augustus W. N. Pugin

Advocated reviving gothic architecture in Britain because he believed the Renaissance (and its deplorable contemporary legacy) interrupted the vitality of architecture and culture in Britain of the late-Middle Ages. In his books Contrasts and True Principles, he argued for the adoption of the gothic style as the starting point for a new architecture to develop. He also emphasized the chief importance of functionalism and structural rationalism in architecture.

Friedrich Nietzche

An Influential provided an intellectual basis for modernism. In "The Use and Abuse of History for Life," he called for Europe to liberate itself from its historical baggage which is holding it back from achieving its potential. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he introduced the concept of theÜbermensch (superman/overman) - gifted, self-guided individuals who can lead culture forward.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

An architect and designer from Glasgow, Scotland. He frequently collaborated with his wife, as well as with his sister-in-law and her husband. Together they were known as the "Glasgow Four." Mackintosh's work is grounded in the Arts and Crafts, the Scottish vernacular architectural tradition (e.g., baronial castles), the Celtic Revival, and Japonisme. He blended these in a very restrained, fresh way, quite different from his Art Nouveau contemporaries. He was commissioned to design a series of Glasgow tearooms for Miss Kate Cranston. Mackintosh and his wife Margaret Macdonald delivered unique spaces in their signature style with specially-designed painted furniture, seating, and fixtures; stained glass; floral motifs; and ethereal princess paintings by Macdonald.

Otto Wagner

An establishment architect and esteemed professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He was sympathetic to the Jugendstil and the aims of the Vienna Secession. He designed some of Vienna's most modern structures. Wagner's Modern Architecture is a major treatise for modern architecture. He privileges architects as the "shining glory of modern man" and implores them to help build a new modern architecture of their own time. He emphasizes functionalism and the adoption of new materials and technologies. Wagner's banking room at the Postparkasse was one of the most striking modern interiors to date. Wagner developed a simplified modern, industrial aesthetic with his buildings, and frequently engaged in a larger discourse about materials and connection with his designs.

John Ruskin

An outspoken critic of the Great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace. He believed industrialization was sapping the spiritual life of Britain. Ruskin's books The Seven Lamps of Architecture and The Stones of Venice provided the basis for the emerging Arts and Crafts Movement.

Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops)

Delivered finely-designed modern interiors and houseware items executed by the best Viennese craftsmen. Hoffmann develops a very stylized, clean, unified aesthetic for his interior designs, with simplified painted furniture.

Ildefons Cerdà

Designed an extension to the old city of Barcelona; he is considered the father of modern city planning. Cerdà's Eixample plan called for a grid system of rectangular blocks with chamfered, uniform building heights, and a courtyard garden at the center of each block. Major diagonal avenues criss-cross the city and extend outward to regional towns and cities. Public amenities were evenly distributed throughout the Eixample.

Hector Guimard

French architect who encountered Horta's unique work in Brussels, and brought the stylistic approach back to Paris. Hector Guimard designed the new Paris Métro stations and entrances in dynamic, skeletal plant/animal forms in iron and enameled metalwork.

1888 Universal Exposition (World's Fair)

Hosted by Barcelona and it showed off its new modern urbanscape and added many new monuments to the city.

1900 Universal Exposition (World's Fair)

Hosted by Paris it inaugurated the twentieth century. The Art Nouveau was very publicly introduced to a wider audience.

The Art Nouveau

Influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement with its emphasis on fine craftsmanship; and the Aesthetic Movement ("art for art's sake") which promoted the decorative arts and beautiful things.

Antoni Gaudí

Influenced by the writings of Viollet-le-Duc (who called for an architecture of one's age, structural rationalism, and investigation of vernacular building types); and by the Catalonian architect, teacher, scholar, and nationalist politician Lluis Domènech I Montaner.Gaudí worked for numerous patrons who sought a unique, new type of Catalan modernism, including Count Guell for whom Gaudí executed numerous projects. After 1900 Gaudí developed a more individualistic organic style, as evidenced by the Casa Battló and Casa Milá, that blended organic animal and plant-like forms. Gaudi frequently experimented with structure, making great use of catenary and parabolic arches.

Modernista architects

Like Antoni Gaudí, sought to create a new modern Catalan architecture, mindful of the cultural and architectural legacy of earlier (pre-Spanish) Catalonia. They also embraced the Arts and Crafts, championing the fine craftsmanship of local artisans in woodwork, ceramics and tiles, metal work, glass, etc.

Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, London, England, 1850-51

The Crystal Palace epitomized the industrial spirit of the exhibition, being constructed out of prefabricated parts of iron and glass and assembled in a factory-like way by unskilled workers.

Josef Hoffmann, Palais Stoclet, Brussels, Belgium, 1905-11

The Palais Stoclet house in Brussels is one of Hoffmann's and the Wiener Werkstätte's greatest commissions and the fullest realization of their work.

The Arts and Crafts Movement

The movement was opposed to mass-produced, machine-made goods. It honored simple, finely-crafted, hand-made goods; stressed the truthful use of materials and the truthful expression of structure; respected the individual craftsman; and emphasized vernacular (often medieval) traditions and forms.

Theme of Nineteenth Century roots of modernism

There was a growing call among architects and artists for a style (and architecture) of their own time, and to challenge established traditions.

Iron

Used extensively in engineering and infrastructural projects, and in lowly commercial and transportation buildings. Sometimes when used, iron was disguised, falsely obscuring its thin, structural role. Open use of visible iron was seen as inappropriate in more high-style "Architecture.

Joseph Olbrich's Secession Haus

a stark, ancient-temple-like domed structure; antithetical to establishment, academic architecture.

Two new important concepts that drove art and architectural modernism (and the Art Nouveau)

élan vital and empathy. Modern artists and architects are able to imbue their work with certain ideas and emotions (even Zeitgiest—the spirit of the times).