Modern Architecture 230 - Final Exam

Catonary Curve

A parabolic arch that allows you to get rid of the buttresses giving an organic form. Creates vaults/greater expression. Gaudi.

Berlin, Grosses Schauspielhaus (Large Theater), 1918-19, Hans Poelzig

A theater aimed a breaking the barriers between art and the people. Both socialist and expressionist space (cave-like)

Futurism

And Italian idea celebrating beauty with speed dynamism, technology and mechanical aspects. Very political - agitating the world to go to war as a way to cleanse. Marienetti argues for speed, power and dynamism in the idea that eery generation would build their own city. Elevators and escalators are architecturally necessary. Shouldn't be dressed up. Not just regulated to architecture but to life as well.

East Berlin, East Germany (GDR/DDR), Stalinallee (now Karl Marx Allee), 1951-57

Attempt to reconstruct the city in a socialist mindset. For landing planes not to drive. Almost all housing no monuments. All roads lead to Moscow. No green space or gathering spaces.

Five Points of/Towards a New Architecture, 1926, Le Corbusier

1. The supports/pilotis: elevating living space above ground and adding better views of nature, light and air. 2. The roof garden: reinstating the green space; sunlight/relationship with the sky and popularization of tanning 3. The free design plan: open floor plan =uninterrupted space 4. The horizontal/ribbon window: looks like a film strip - uninterrupted views of nature (panorama) 5. Free design of the facade: openings aren't dependent on structure

Expressionism

A broad artistic movement intended to promote the greatest allowance for artists with color and stark juxtaposition meant to promote unforgettability (?). The war intensifies the need for expression.

De Stijl (Neo-Plasticism)

A group attempt to create a new plasticity/language that can be understood by anyone. Update of architecture parlante and the sublime. Primary colors, rectangular shapes and horizontal lines, simple geometric forms. Spiritual vocabulary - unity of life, art and form.

Bauhaus Manifesto, 1919, Walter Gropius

A house of construction through the organization of class structure. Showed the importance of arts and crafts.

Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, and Ove Arup, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 1971-77

A key high tech work - to be a cultural center for the community and neighborhood. Democratic space breaking from the intimidation. Highlight different structural features (plumbing, heating, electrical) with different colors. Convertible/flexible space, aesthetic derived from the features, mechanical being privileged - resemblance to Archigram

Brussels, Hôtel (House) Tassel, 1892-93, Victor Horta

Bold new use of new material and asymmetrical form. The building uses stone, iron and glass - blending natural with machine like materials. The idea of looking to nature for a biological analog. Everything looks like its coming alive.

Takamatsu, Japan, Kagawa Prefectoral Offices, 1955-58, Kenzo Tange

Buddhist Temple Architecture but with modern materials (concrete). Reads as Japanese but is modernism, fraying away from the rigid box of modernism.

Tokyo, Japan, Nagakin Capsule Tower, 1970-72, Noriaki (Kisho) Kurokawa

Built metabolism structure. Short stay hotel aimed at bachelors. Composed of reinforced concrete and steel towers, all separate modules/units. Designed to be replaceable and updated - prefabricated. Distance from tradition and memory.

Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, Crown Hall, 1950-1956, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Campus was organized in a grid and the buildings were specifically organized in relation to each other. A lot of black steel frames with glass or brick - exemplifying fine finishes. In this particular building he flips the idea of form following function and fits functions into the building form - aesthetics building/leading. Universal space/neutral container (less is more) radical simplification. Puts a structure on the outside to make the roof extended so the inside can be uninterrupted.

Frank O. Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain, 1997

Castes as a deconstructivist, which the architect denies. Signal monument - everyone was united; rebirth for the city. Alive and animates. The effect: a run down city gets a building that brings a new feeling/space to a city with a famous architect - supposed to draw people in. Also the idea of hiring someone knowing what you're going to get regardless of the location of the city - cultural imperial and gentrification. The if you build it they will come mentality that didn't work in other cities.

Barcelona, Casa Mila, 1905-10, A. Gaudí

Catalonian independence from Spain; cultural and political division from Spain. Ressembling Haussman's Paris; living facade - representing the sky. Made of limestone which feels like a natural formation. Surrounds many forms/ courtyards.

Weissenhof Siedlung (Weissenhof Settlement), Stuttgart, Germany, 1927, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Bruno and Max Taut, J.J.P. Oud, Mart Stam, Hans Scharoun, Ludwig Hilberseimer, and Le Corbusier (L. Mies van der Rohe was also the organizer and site planner).

Consisted of 21 buildings with 60 dwellings. Facades were simplified, flat and white, flat roofs and terraces (all but two buildings were white). Mandated the use of ribbon windows and open plan. An exhibition of Mies ideas with the influence of Corbuiser. Unified campus - become prescriptive of Modern Architecture. More single houses than apartments. Werkbund idea that good design can make your life easier and simple.

Poissy, France, Villa Savoye, 1929-31, Le Corbusier

Country retreat sitting on a meadow. Elevated box life. Exemplifies the 5 points of architecture. The house accommodates the car (turning radius). Ramp and staircase in one house. Servants run up and down the staircase. Ramp = architectural promenade - transition between bottom floor and living spaces. Continuation of ribbon window from inside and outside. Not about you being in nature but experiencing the picturesque aspect. Not embedded in nature like Wright.

Paul Ludwig Troost, Haus der Deutschen Kunst (House of German Art), Munich, Germany, 1933-37

Critics of the Bauhaus - say that they were trying to turn men into machines. Trying to represent national socialism and distinguish themselves from what they don't like. In favor of monumental structures. The Building has a steel frame and is technologically modern but mimics Roman classicism because of its strong and resemblance to an imperial nation. By building an art museum first they are trying to say that they were a nation of culture and would be around forever - art as a communicative thing. Had an exhibit for "degenerate art" to show the contrast. Beaux Arts and Bauhaus were bad but Baroque was okay.

James Stirling, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1985

Drawing from historical influences in terms of a funneled entrance. Treasury as a muse says museum is/should be treasured too, no real emphasis on the social - a lot of disparate threads. Intentions to be architecture parlante but makes references to history and pure forms (all surface and no substance?)

Constructivism

Draws on ideas the literal expression in art and attempt for soviet architecture; trying to create meaning out of simple forms. Unadulterated member to create vocab for soviet state. A new understanding of beauty

Venturi, Rauch & Associates, Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, 1959-64

Emphasizing the complexity and decomcratizing (due to familiarity) emphasis of form. Attack on modernist cliches - confronting Mies. Elements that are hybrid rather than pure, distorted rather than straight forward, messy over obvious. GREYNESS instead of WHITENESS. The massing seems odd as some elements read as too big or small. Uses ribbon windows without true purpose (no panoramic view). The four pane window is a representation of/from childhood. Non-literal symmetry of the facade - little house with a big scale. Stairs run into the wall and behind the fireplace. Legible as a house but doesn't read the interior - meant to be confusing. Screwing around with the idea of the five points and legible architecture. Entrance is more narrow than the arch and there is a vacancy were the key stone should be.

Warren Township, Michigan, Chrysler Tank Arsenal, 1941, Albert Kahn & Associates

Factories becoming popular, shows total militarization of the home front. He reject the idea of windowless by adding a curtain wall (Chrysler was afraid of being bombed). Scale wise it can be seen as sublime. Precedent of a big box architecture/store.

Urban Renewal

Favored highways over public transportation and did a lot of 'slum cleaning' so housing for the poor was not important. Residential neighborhoods were being replaced by highways, office buildings, parking lots and some high rise housing. The 'slum' neighborhoods were being replaced with more income generating buildings. Back mainly by the government

"International Style" Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1932 Key players: Philip Johnson, Alfred H. Barr, Henry-Russell Hitchcock Components: Traveling Exhibit, Book, Catalog

Generated to create the context of Modernism, the seminal moment of the codification of modernism. Influenced by Western and Central European but Corbusier is the lead influence. The book is a little theoretical - defining features of International Style/Modernism. The exhibit goes to different institutions/museums - the layout is tradition but in black and white. Catalog features biographies their building but only in plans and exhibitions. (they were selective of Wright's works because of how it looked. Gropuis Corbusier and Mies are strongly featured)

Cologne, Werkbund Exhibition 1914, Glass Pavilion,Bruno Taut

Glass industry pavilion transformed into a sensory experience. Aimed at showing all the possibilities of glass. Supposed to create mystical out of body experience, almost religious. The architect thought glass was the future and could transform society.

Potsdam, Einstein Turm (Tower), 1919-24,Erich Mendelsohn

Government sponsored observatory for Einstein. Feels alive with two distinct elements (coupula and horizontal area). Connects to plastic sculptural mass that feels organic and alive. Made of brick and coated with stucco but kinda looks like sand.

New Gourna, near Luxor, Egypt, settlement, 1947ff. H. Fathy

He advocates for mud-brick vaults (regional and simple) because they don't conduct heat. Economical and locally sourced while suiting climate and needs. The ideas of metal and concrete express wealth and is being filtered down to the poor but the architect says no because its expensive and not suitable to the area. Update of Loos and Morris - stick to traditions/who is responsible for poor taste. Provides impetuous to low cost creations - no need to be skilled.

Bear Run, Pennsylvania, Edgar Kaufmann House, "Fallingwater", 1935-36, Frank Lloyd Wright

House becomes a part of the waterfall using huge steel beams and concrete piers. The base is set back and the hanging part is reinforced with steel and concrete cantilevers. Looks similar to Des Stijl ideas in form and structure. Uses more natural materials in a way that resembles De Stil through the interpretation of interior and exterior space. Fits into language of modernism but not in the most specific way. Modernist architecture wasn't being defined by fitting into a certain set of rules.

Archigram (Ron Herron), Walking City, Project, 1964

Huge bugs striding across the city - cultural critique on technology and our tendency to lean towards expendability (comic book imagery and pop culture). Like expressionistic design - distinguish themselves. Critique of cultural moments. Questioning our faith in technology and architecture's ability to change the world. Believed technology aggravated social and environment issues.

Vers une architecture (Towards An Architecture), 1923, Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret)

Idea: architecture is the play of masses brought together with light (Boulle/Ledoux influenced). Simple elemental forms. Rejects Beaux-Arts idea of direct historical housing and beautiful ones for mass produced housing and mechanical reproduction. Manifests that celebrate mechanization - like futurists but without the violence. Believed that there was a false division between the artist and the craftsman. Would disagree w/Loos and want to join the engineers and architects. History matters but you have to use it to develop a new architecture.

Ronchamp, France, "Notre Dame du Haut", 1950-54, Le Corbusier

Illustrates shirt in approach and materials, doing more architecture that plays at the views of emotions. Drawing on the principle of the airplane wing. Very irrational, nothing cube like and boxy. Has a spot for outside mass too. Light comes in through weirdly shaped windows on the facade. Creating experience of the cave, didn't want rational.

Glasgow, School of Art, 1896-99, 1906-09, Charles Rennie Mackintosh & Margaret McDonald

In 1897 architects claimed an alliance with each other and called themselves secessionists (became independent). Housed a series of exhibitions with a motif of a tomb feeling and vegetable ornamentation (natural but not structural). Idea of not being bound to the past by the restrictive features; everyone should be able to experience freedom.

Vienna, Postal Savings Bank, 1903, Otto Wagner

In this building he established a new city form by using new materials with abstracted classical details and a classical plan. The facade is important because it is like a cloth (independent of the structure of the building). Outside is cladded marble with aluminum bolts which brings attention to the old while giving luxury. Really looking back to Pugin and Ruskin. A modest front as to not be intimidating. Space reads is one the people could connect to like a train station.

"A Pattern Language," (1977), Christopher Alexander

Influenced by the language of computer programs and designs (specifically patterns). Design for themselves - Jane Jacobs. Regional scales down to grass roots to gather what works (more like here's what we've found). This is a hypothesis not a mandate. Human scale, boundary limit, a city for individuals rather than commercialism/ornament. Anti-Loos, more interested in construction techniques that were easy to create (roof in dome shape).

Berlin Moabit (Germany), AEG Turbine Factory, 1909, P. Behrens

Located in a working class district; demonstrates his tendency to monumentalize simple. Has characteristics of a temple. 6 sided roof. Standardized vocab of geometry of forms. Updated version of architecture parlante. Lettering is the same lapidary lettering of the Romans. The steel trusses carry the weight not the corner cement blocks (fooling the eye). Idea of dishonest vs. honest and treatment of structure. Creation of corporate logos.

Samuel Mockbee and Rural Studio, Harris (Butterfly) House, Hale County, Alabama, 1997

Located in one of the poorest county's in the US. The planning of the houses involved collaborating with residents to create a low cost client driven work. Design and built for the poor using recycled materials. A lot of input from client and taking influences from the vernacular (collaborative effort). Not much of a statement but ecologically sound.

Master Plan, Brasilia, Brazil, Master Plan, 1960, planner.: Lucio Costa

Looks a bird in plan, equilateral triangle with government monuments that emphasize power but there is also an emphasis on roadways.

Coop Himmelb(l)au, Rooftop Remodeling Falkestrasse, Vienna, Austria, 1983-1988

Looks alive, artist in not subject to the rules of the building code, de-constructivist

Berlin, Germany, Horseshoe Settlement, Siedlung Britz, 1927, Bruno Taut

Mass-housing design on a "rational basis". Developed to deal with housing crisis in Berlin. A sense of community/communal spaces. Colors in townhouses are more cheerful - the scale is insane leading to a real question of how things should be arranged for maximum air and light = cross ventilation. Windows on either side. Kitchen not apart of living room for sanitary purposes.

Montréal, Canada, World's Fair: Habitat '67, 1967, Moshe Safdie

Model community/housing complex. Everything was slotted in including bathrooms. A lot of flexibility. The idea was to integrate benefits of suburbia with urban living. It was successful because of private green spaces and more communal but not forced, still private. Relates formally to what the metabolis is doing.

Alfeld, Germany, Fagus Factory, 1911, Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer

Moving more radically towards curtain wall of glass and asymmetry that reflects the new age. Freeing of facade and open floor plan.

Art Nouveau

New Art. Tends to form in places on the periphery. Self consciously modern, uses cast iron and glass (new materials). Plays with nature, ornamentation and gesamkunstwerk. Henry Van de Velde gives art nouveau a theoretical meaning, believes in a total work of art interested in the empathy that an object can pull out of a person. Allied with social and aesthetic reform. First international decorative style in the modern age. Adopted by all disciplines - part of artists trying to recreate their projects for the modern age.

The International Style

New architectural language being created - A LOT different than traditional Beaux-Arts. Focused more on functional aesthetic and more likely to use new materials (glass, cement and steel). Concerned with healthy living new technologies and construction. Had a slight motif of white. A continuation of the interest to separate themselves from the past. Influenced by the Bauhaus, a loose way of grouping things together and fostering dialogue across international bounds. Advocating machine aesthetic, merging of the architect and the engineer.

Project, "Citta Nuova", 1914, Antonio Sant'Elia

One of the futurist ideal projects. High rise and high volume; ignoring the human form - elevators are emphasized along with new materials. Paper architecture because the real would be intimidating/daunting (sublime). Mans power over nature being expressed. The project was a response to their feeling of inferiority because Italy was behind.

St. Louis, Missouri, Pruitt-Igoe Housing Complex, 1951, Minoru Yamasaki

Originally planned for bringing people back into the city and trying to racially integrate people. This is one of the failures of modernist planning and has been called bad modern architecture. Had the accessibility to light and air and green space. "Streets in the sky" - galleries. Skip stop elevators were trouble because of crime. Materials did not age well. Jacob - fewer people using things so they become unsafe. The myth is that the architect and modernism is at fault rather than the social/political problems. Had the idea that architecture was the totalizing solution.

Postmodernism

People who were greys and whites come together in the 70s. Loose historical references combined to speak to two levels, other architects and the popular public. Update of architecture parlante - freedom of the architect from social constructions.

Paimio (Finland), Paimio Sanatorium, 1929-30, Alvar Aalto

Place for a treatment for TB places in clean air places (specialized for long term care). Visually, axially separating different parts of the building. The architect thinks about patients needs before his own by designing specific furniture to facilitate comfort and horizontality. Emphasizing positive effect of air and nature on the ill. Not following rules but looking at history and talking to people.

Marseilles (France), Unité d'Habitation, 1949-54, Le Corbusier (Charles Eduard Jeanneret)

Post war construction rethinks dedication to pre-war architecture with mechanical production (prewar aspects like pilotis and roof gardens). Culmination of research about mass-housing. Up on thick massive pilotis (housing utilities) creating a city in the sky. Vertical bottlerack; apartments arranged like interworking blocks. Apartments span to thick ends for light and gives the idea of a single family home (privacy and feeling of single family home). Streets in the air located every third floor - 7th floor made into a street (city). Uses the ideas of brise-soleil. The full incarnation of communal living with the roof garden (used to the cruise ship as an influence). Proportions of the building was related to his Modular proportional system. Largely rough casted concrete that was casted in wood, brutal and not pleasant (adds texture).

Utrecht (NL), Schröder House, 1924, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld

Primary colors and architectural space with un connected lines (created for a widow). Outside and interior - encouraging a new kind of unconventional family setup. Moveable screens and walls to be easily moved by anyone. Not use specific. The idea that children weren't reliant on the mother.

Karlsruhe, Dammerstock Settlement, 1929, Walter Gropius

Privileging the idea of light and air by position the complex north to south. Missing color, variety and center point. Something is lost when you only privilege light and air. Social questions being reduced to housing questions.

Project: Friedrichstraβe Competition, 1921, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Proposed arch based on productivity. Unprecedented design of glass tower - trying to do a curtain wall of glass. Translucent glass prism/no base or cornice. Fractured space = expressionism and social rationalism. The new architecture killed the distinction between the inside and outside.

Vienna, Austria, Karl-Marx-Hof, 1927-30,Karl Ehn

Public/social housing carrying a socialist/communist idea. Unlike Berlin they built in the heart of the city and not on the outskirts. The idea of building around the courtyard. Gardens/ open spaces were in the center of every section. Tower=fortress/medival wall - castle like (symbolic role). A lot of decorative work on the facade (relief sculpture).

Hugh Ferris, The Metropolis of To-Morrow, 1929 (Book)

Showcases the possibility for cities and tall buildings. Forms are pyramid/meso-american like. He envisions clusters of towers spread apart by garders. Looking at possibilities for the new skyscraper like architecture. There is no one modern architecture.

Brise-Soleil

Sun breakers. controlling the amount of light being let in, works like air conditioning.

New Urbanism

Tall. arches. Blocky shapes. Historical appliques.

Tadao Ando, Church of the Light, Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan, 1989

The architect never had formal training but focuses on simplicity as a reflection of the Japanese form - inner feeling and outward performance. Concrete cube - relation to Kahn with the smoothness. Evokes zen/simple and calming. Light is an important factor. Like FLW with concrete and separation of neighborhood business from church

Peter Eisenman, Frank House (House VI), Cornwall, Connecticut, 1972-78

The architect was one of the more theoretical of the whites while the house stands as a sculpture. The process began with a grid - emerges from conceptual 2D form. Structural elements are always revealed - study between post and beam. The building reads as a post and beam but is different because the cluster of supports aren't supports. Discomforting people so they have to conform to the architecture - functions but doesn't look like it. Architecture not serving people but serving as a confrontation.

Dessau, Germany, Bauhaus School, 1925-26, Walter Gropius

The building reflects reorganization and a new machine aesthetic. Asymmetry and clear separation of construction and indoor/outdoor space. Dynamic due to the interconnecting planes-machine like. Takes ideas from Wright = pinwheel plan; studio glass and open space

Barcelona, Spain, German Pavilion (Barcelona Pavilion), 1929, rebuilt 1983-86, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

The building was meant to represent the new Germany and "free thinking". Sequance of open rooms that rest on a little podium with cruxiformed columns. A lot of stone and glass with a simple plan. Expensive and lavish materials. Minimalistic treatment with a bunch of pricy things.

New York, New York, Seagram Building, 1954-58, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson

The company is known for its fine whisky hence the steel being coated in expensive bronze - rich materials echoing product. No longer need for stepped back skyscraper because of law changes. unity of materials between inside and plaza. Uses travertine. External beams are as close as it could get to ornamentation. Indebted to the Chicago school.

Plano, Illinois, Farnsworth House, 1946-50,L. Mies van der Rohe

The idea of a certain level of privacy, mediation between house and nature (processional route). Use of a module for arranging spaces. The travertine and the transitional spaces like Seagram building. Level of finishing doesn't allow you to see where its joined.

Whiplash/Curve Line

The most prominent characteristic of the art nouveau. Frenetic energy and a dislocation of identity. Decorative with a life of its own, breaking away from traditions. Germany is more of a straight line rather than a curve.

Project for Berlin: New Capital Project (Germania), begun 1939, Albert Speer

Trying for Berlin to be the capital of the world with a militaristic focus. Huge train station, giant triumphant arch and people's hall. It's intended size is trying to say that the power of Rome and God is being dwarfed by new architecture. Visual idea/vocab is similar to the Mall in DC and to Haussmanization (kinda). Architecture as theater.

Ricardo Bofill, Les Arcades du Lac (The Arcades of the Lake), Housing Development, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, France, 1972-75

Trying to deal with urban congestion - references to Versailles (but versailles for the people). The annex references Roman bridges and the engineering might of Rome.

I.M. Pei, Louvre Addition, Paris, France, 1981-1993

Trying to make it a center of mass-culture (glass and steel framework). A central entrance to bring people in and send them out into different parts. Central circulation space for crowed to be processed and dispersed. Has a railroad station/Beaux Arts feel. There was emerging criticism of the sameness in architecture (same thing no matter where you are).

project, Tower for the III. Internationale, 1919-1920, Vladimir Tatlin

Unbuilt, symbolic of the wants for Soviet State. Plan for monumental propaganda to serve Lenin and the revolution. 3 forms embedded in. First floor = rotating (1yr) cube for lectures. 2nd Floor = Pyramid (1 month) for house executive meetings. 3rd Floor = Cylinder (1day)for propoganda center. A giant time piece. Trying to capture idealistic view of soviets rise/accent. Also intended to dwarf/compete with the West

New Haven, Yale Art & Architecture Building, 1958-63, Paul Rudolph

Uses the ideal of brutalism. Very literal, heavy, vertical, masculine, aggressive and sculptural. So different to create different kinds of space to create ritual and emotional experience (Meso-American influence). Relying on the sublime, the spaces are key too.

projects: 'Alpine Architecture', 'City Crown', 1919-21, Bruno Taut

Wanted to build crystal cities on mountains (crystalline architecture). Utopian drive that animates the use of iron and glass. Glass allows for transparency and is untainted from the war (purist material). New symbol of new world. Running away from reality (utopian) and divorcing themselves from prewar/war times. Expressionistic.

New Canaan, Conn., Glass House, 1948, Philip Johnson

You know this.