Architectural History and Theory 2: Final Exam
Know the Writings of Robert Venturi
"Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,"(1966): Advocated tension bred by perceptual ambiguity - a richness of both form and meaning. "Both-And" Approach to Architectural Elements and Meanings. Key Text of Post Modernism "Learning from Las Vegas," 1972: Studies of las vegas strip. Co-authored with Denise Scott Brown. Advocated drawing from the commercial strip. Coined the terms "duck" and "decorated shed." "Signs of life: Symbols in the American City ," 1976: Also co-authored with Denise Scott Brown. Sign System. Double coding.
Characteristics of the International Style
A cubistic mode of architecture
Syncopation
A displacement of the regular rhythm of a form or spatial system.
Contextualism
A doctrine emphasizing responses to site characteristics and/or local vernacular types.
Allusionism
A doctrine emphasizing self-conscious references to previous form types or motifs.
International Style
A functional style of 20th-century architecture, so called because it crossed national and cultural barriers. It is characterized by the use of steel and reinforced concrete, wide windows, uninterrupted interior spaces, simple lines and strict geometric forms.
Metabolism
A movement in modern architecture originating Japan that believed buildings and cities are not static entities, but constantly changing.
Metaphor
A representation of something that by visual means suggests a particular association or point of similarity.
Brise Soleil
A screen attached to a building to shade windows from the sun.
Well-Serviced Shed
A simple rectangular space surrounded by service elements or spaces.
Bifurbcated Slab
A slab from divided into two parts.
Aedicule
A space within a space
Box Frame
A structural system where horizontal and vertical slabs combine to form a box shape.
Broadacre City
A suburban development concept proposed by Frank Lloyd Wright which would give each family in the United states a one acre plot of land from the Federal Land Reserve
Zoning
A technique of land-use planning which regulates use, form and design through designated mapping.
Hyperboloid
A type of form resistance structure created by rotating a hyperbola around one of its principal axes.
Know the following about Critical Regionalism
Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre coined the term in the 1980's. Later elaborated by the architectural historian Kenneth Frampton in his essay "Towards a critical regionalism"(1983). The fundamental strategy of critical regionalism is to mediate the impact of modern architecture with elements derived from the peculiarities of a particular place. Depends upon maintaining a high level of critical self-conscious. Lina Bo Bardi: An Italian-Born, Prolific Brazilian Modernist Architect & Designer Specifically Interested In Brazilian Vernacular Design And How It Could Influence A Modern Brazilian Architecture. Highly Influenced By Modernism And The Use Of Common Vernacular Language And Simple Local Materials, Such As Plywood, Native Brazilian Woods, Hides, Leather, And Steel.
Pop Art
An American and British art movement of the 1950s in which common place objects are subject of art.
Megastructure
An enormous self-supporting, artificial construct, multistory building or complex of buildings
Elision
An opening in a layered wall system.
archetypal
An original that has been imitated.
Characteristics of Alvar Aalto's Saynatsalo Town Hall
Archetypal Courtyard Inward looking perimeter building linked to the surroundings by overflows of steps. Space at the center - focal point of the entire island community Air of an ancient complex. Variation in the silhouette. Varying levels of the site are incorporated into the design. Influenced by Italian hill towns.
Important Figures in Neo-Productivism
Archigram group - Norman Foster - Richard Rogers
Know the characteristics of Canonic Classicism
Argues that classicism is the language of western architecture. Key text: Geoffrey Scott's "The Architecture of Humanism," 1914
Characteristics of the Salk Institute
Axial Composition. Sense of antiquity is achieved by modern abstraction of space, structure, materials and light. Courtyard is empty except for low benches and a thin strip of water that splits that space down the middle - no trees or plantings. Mixture of modern and traditional materials.
Cultural and Personal influences on the work of Louis Kahn
Beaux-arts system and Paul Cret: Axial organization, hierarchy, composition, tradition and esquisse. Rationalism: Emphasis on structure and Construction. Le Corbusier: Formal Rigor and use of concrete. Anne Tyng: a prominent architectural theorist of the 20th century. Shared with Louis Kahn a fascination with geometry and became critical to his work. Frank Lloyd Wright: Pantheistic vision of nature and handling of service spaces. Mies Van Der Rohe: Abstraction and use of honorific materials. American Academy in Rome and travels t Greece and Egypt.
Know following about metabolism
Began in Japan. It reacted to the pressures of overcrowding. It focused on plug-in mega-structures. Interest in pre-fabricated pods or living cells.
Know the defining characteristics of the New Classicism Movement
Belief in the timeless validity of the classical language of architecture. Belief in universal values rather than culturally specific values. Belief in the humanistic basis of architectural form.
Know the characteristics of Deconstructivism
Binary structures of meaning. Anti-gravitational rotational inversion. Fragmentation of form: Breaking up the whole into dissociated parts and juxtaposing them with an artful informality. Interested in the manipulation of surface and the use of non-rectilinear shapes to distort and dislocate tectonic elements, such as structure and envelope. Zeitgeist.
Dentriform
Branching or treelike in appearance.
Know the following characteristics of critical regionalism
Combination of regional and modern (culture and civilization). Integration of regional materials with modern. Emphasis on topography, climate, and light (consideration of the geographical context; compatible with the environment/nature. Tactility Emphasis on place rather than abstract space. Tectonic form rather than scenography form.
Charles Eames House in LA
Constructed of off-the-shelf prefabricated industrialized components. Steel and glass box, but the obverse of Mies Van Der Rohe's platonism. Composed with a sensitive irregularity which reflected an interest in Japanese wooden-frame traditions. Building site was left natural.
Characteristics of the Late Work of Le Corbusier
Deliberate cultivation of ancient associations. Beton Brut (bare concrete) Expressive curved forms. Incorporation of brise-soleil (shading devices) Continuation of Five Points.
Characteristics of Crown Hall
Designed by Mies Van Der Rohe Lightweight Standardized modular parts. Skeletal Frame. Reducing the building to the essences " Less is More". Universal Spacre. Glass Box implied a generalized view of human Function: a space good for everything in which little attempt was made to respond to individual incident or a sense of place.de
Seagram Building in NYC
Designed by Mies Van Der Rohe. Classical restraint. Approach is along a main axis between two symmetrical rectangular pools, flanked by ledges of marble framing a plaza. Travertine plinth. Sense of monumentality. Implied portico through the overhanging slab at the entrance.
New National gallery in Berlin
Designed by Mies Van Der Rohe. Glass and Steel temple on a podium - shrine to suggest classical columns. Overhanging steel roof evoked an entablature. Classicism rethought in a modern industrial material and in a new social context.
The Palazzetto Dello Sport in Rome
Designed by Pier Luigi Nervi. Shallow Lamella concrete dome. Clear span of 192 ft. Uses precast concrete elements as form work. Structure is clearly expressed.
Lever House in New York City
Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill(Som). Podium for mezzanine offices with courtyard at ground level. Roof terrace on the top. Machine room on the roof is expressed. Relied totally on air conditioning and mechanical ventilation for its environmental quality.
Know the Characteristics of the Monastery of La Tourette
Employed vestiges of the traditional cloister. Bare concrete and stark forms were intended as an equivalent to the stonwork of old buildings. Modeled on the cistercian monastery of Le Thoronet in provence and the charterhouse at ema in Tuscany.
Know the major cultural influences on Neo-Rationalism
Enlightenment: Boulee and Ledoux Italian modern movement Le Corbusier
The berlin Philharmonie
Expressionistic Form. Rebelled against the structures of international style. Angular and curved geometries. Emphatic cantilevering.
Characteristics of the International Style
Favored weight systems and modern synthetic materials
Characteristics of the International Style
Flexibility of the free plan - preferred skeleton frame construction to masonry.
Know the following Binary Structures of Meaning
Form-Context. Nature-Culture. Thought-Perception. Mind-Body. Theory-Practice.
The Engineering Building at Leicester University
Formal and functional considerations were transcended by a preoccupation with mechanistic images. Quotations from the heroic period of modern architecture such as the ramp. A diversity of forms are used to express internal functions.
Know the Leading Figures in De-constructivism
Frank Gehry. Peter Eisenman. Coop Himmelblau. Zaha Hadid. Daniel Libeskind. Bernard Tschumi.
Honorific Materials
High status building finishes, such as marble and travertine.
Liminal Space
In between space
Know the following about Aldo Rossi's The Architecture of the City
In it he advocated the use of a limited range of building types and concern of the context of the city. He argued that over the course of history, architecture developed continuous forms and ideas, to the point that these are standard types in the collective memory. Architects must respect the context of the city and tap into these common types. Dealt with the social significance of traditional streets and squares.
Demi-forms
Incomplete forms which in their incompletion force the viewer to add the missing parts.
The Dymaxion House
Industrialized house developed by R. Buckminister Fuller. Factory manufactured kit intended to be assembled on site. Light-weight aluminum construction. Central mast of mechanical services. No concern for context.
The Johnson Wax Administration Center in Racine
Inward looking like the Larkin Building Windowless rectangle covered in brick and lit from above through a glazed ceiling and a clerestory. Articulated by a grid of slender mushroom columns.
Know the sub-movements and leading architects of the New Classicism Movement
Ironic Classicism: Thomas Gordon Smith. Ricardo Bofill. Modern Traditionalism: Robert Adam. Robert Stern. Fundamentalist Classicism: Demetri Porphyrios. Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Canonic Classicism: John Barrington Bayley. John Blatteau. Allan Greenberg. Quinlan Terry.
Know the following about Rob Krier's urban space in theory and practice.
It contains a morphological taxonomy of street and square derived from historical precedent. He argued that buildings should relate to the ground plane and clearly articulate existing streets and squares.
Characteristics of The Schindler/Chase House
It was designed by Rudolph Schindler. The house is like Essay on the theme of the origins of he dwelling. Walls were tapered slightly - giving an inward-sloping profile to the exteriors - an effect recalling the Adobe vernacular forms of native-american pueblos. He used a concrete tilt-slab technology similar to the system developed by irving Gill - casting the slabs on the ground, then hoisting them into place. Space in the house flows back and forth between inside and outside.
Characteristics of the Jacobs House
It was the first Usonian House. Open Interior Plan in public areas. 2' x 4' plan module. Radiant heating system. L-shaped plan turning its back on the street. Centralization of services (kitchen and bathroom). Carport. Board and batten walls.
Walter Gropius
Left Germany during WW2, in 1934, realizing that nazism and modern architecture were irreconcilable. He spent three years in England. In 1937, Joseph Hudnut, Dean of the Harvard graduate school of design, invited Gropius to redirect the department of architecture.
Know the Cultural Influences on Deconstructivism
Literary Theory: French Deconstructivists: Foucault and Derrida It de-centers, decomposes, and detached whole structures in parts. It debunks, derides, and deprecates all values and goals which are held with a single minded focus and shows how they are self contradictory. Post Modern Pluralism.
Characteristics of Scandinavian Modernism
Modern architecture in Scandinavia evoked aspects of the pre-industrial in which the human and natural forces took center stage. It showed a sensitivity to the natural context that was not present to any significant degree in the international style. Natural materials, such as wood and stone were frequently used. Vernacular building and techniques, along with nature were used as precedents.
Know the characteristics of Modern Traditionalism
Most pluralistic of the approaches of modern classicism. Craft generated and industrial vernaculars are neither idealized nor disparaged but simply embraced for what they are. Conviction that although the classical remains an enduring ideal, by interacting with the vernacular it acquires a sense of circumstantial reality and of place.
Brutalism in Late Modern Architecture
Movement in architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s. The term originates from the French word for "Raw" used by Le Corbusier to describe his choice of material, Beton Brut (raw concrete) Rejection of the Saccharine version of modern architecture that proponents of the movement saw being built. Materials expressed "as found".
Know the Characteristics of the L'Unite D'Habitation System
New residential Building Type. High-Density vertical slab. Communal Character: Corridor as interior street and roof terrance. Use of brise-soleil and cross-ventilation. spacious, double height living room with balcony for outside livin. Skip-stop corridor system with interlocking apartments. Five points: Piloti, free-plan and roof terrance.
Characteristics of the Architecture and Thought of Jorn Utzon
Nordic sense of concern for nature - organic approach to architecture Emphasized the synthesis of form material and function. Use of metaphor in design.
Usonian
Of or relating to the United States of America
Characteristics of Wright's Usonian Houses
Open planning in the living areas. Small bedrooms. Organized horizontally. Planned for ease of maintenance. Reduce field labor. Consolidate and simplify building systems. Front the house close to the street. Carport. Sandwich panel. Planning grid.
Characteristics of the Chandigarh
Planned ona grid of circulation dividing up a variety of rectangular sectors. Neighborhoods of relatively low-rise dwellings in a sort of garden city arrangement, incorporating a variety of Hot-Climate Housing Types. the form was a variant of on the basic layout of the ville radieuse, but with free-standing sculptural monuments instead of glass towers symbolizing government at the head. maintained Le Corbusier's emphasis on essential joys of light, space and greenery.
Know the principle cultural influences on Post Modernism (Populism)
Pop -art and culture. Research and writings of Colin Rowe. Semiotic research (architecture as a language perceived through code). Writings of Robert Venturi.
Characteristics of the Kimbell Art Museum
Prototype: Vaulted Roman warehouses. Series of parallel vaults. Materials - Travertine, concrete stainless steel, water and glass. Fusion of structure and light.
Beton Brut
Raw concrete, the term used to describe concrete that is left unfinished after being cast displaying the patterns and seams imprinted on it by the formwork.
Know the follwowing about Geoffrey Scotts' "The Architecture of Humanism"
Reasserted vitruvius's trinity of commodity, firmness, and delight. Delight being the most important element. Knocked down the "fallacies" of "romantic", "mechanical", and "biological" interpretations of architecture. Proposed instead a humanistic interpretation of "empathy" between people and buildings.
Free plan
Refers to an open plan with non-load bearing walls dividing interior space.
Characteristics of the Richards Medical Center
Research Laboratories - Extract flues expressed and flexible interiors. Division of fixed and variable spaces. Serving and served spaces. Brick and precast concrete. Accentuated joints and connections. Quality of a Roman ruin.
Characteristics of Alvar Aaloto's Architecture and Thought
Respect for true vernacular tradition. Building as an intermediary between life and the natural landscape Belief that archetypal building configurations express the basic forms of human society: vernacular and ancient monumental buildings. Bio-technical version of modernity. "Nature, rather than machine, should serve as the model for architecture" - Aalto
Architects that Influenced Neo-Productivism
Richard B. Fuller - Dymaxion principle of design. Korad Washsmann - Processes of machine production.
Know the characteristics of Neo-Rationalism
Rigorous Formalism Typology of urban form (not true of the New York Five) Opposed to the planning practice of zoning the city according to land use. Anti-capitalist (not true of the new york five)
Know the characteristics of Post Modern Space
Shifted axis. Elision and Layering. Skews and diagonals. Positive/negative reversals. Demi-forms.
Characteristics of the Work of Louis Kahn
Spaces that evoke a feeling of their use. Division of servant and served spaces. In harmony with use. Archetypal pattern of social relationships. Good plan is found in the central meaning of the institution that it houses. Open to the great lessons of ancient monuments. Reestablished light as an architectural factor.
Characteristics of the International Style
Standard modular parts so as to facilitate fabrication and erection.
Characteristics of the International Style
Stripped planar forms
Know the Regional Schools and Principle Architects of Neo -Rationalism
Tendenza: Aldo Rossi Luxembourg: Robert and Leon Krier Ticino: Mario Botto Germany: O.M. Ungers American: Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and Richard Meier. Japanese New Wave: Arata Isozaki
Formalism
The View that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form.
Articulation
The act of dividing and joining formal elements to reveal or emphasize components of the building.
Typology
The classification of physical characteristics commonly found in buildings and urban space according to their association with different categories.
Charcteristics of the Mies Van Der Rohe's IIT Campus
The main functions were grouped in rectangular steel-framed boxes on a podium. Buildings were expressed as lass and brick boxes. Combines Neo-Classical Axiality with the asymmetrical planning ideas of the 1920s. Function and Context were Generalized with little attempt made to respond to a sense of place. Brick-Panel infills in a steel frame. Local fire codes required that the steel be coated in a layer of fireproofing
Villa Mairea
The plan is modified l-shaped. Takes the typology of finish farm buildings with a semi-courtyard protecting the building inhabitants from winter winds. the front façade is rigid and formal. Interior richly articulated in wood, stone and brick. the ground floor is open with rooms separated only by slight changes in level or delicate fence-like screens. Cross-breed principles of indigenous building with the language of modern architecture.
Tectonic
The science or art of construction, both in relation to use and artistic design.
Know following characteristics of the Sainsbury Center for the Visual Arts
The structure and building services wrap around the space forming a well serviced shed. Flexible space planning. Provision of homogenous, integrated network of services: power, heat, light, ventilation, etc. The structure is a three dimensional warren truss.
Know the characteristics of Fundamentalist Classicism
The study and practice of architecture must begin with an understanding of the traditional, pre-industrial city. The primary task of the contemporary architect is the critical reintegration of architecture into the urban tradition. Rather than designing in the historic styles, the fundamentalist seeks to distill architecture to its essential geometries and then apply them to contemporary circumstances. Demanding a return to origins in which architectural expression is timeless, transcending current banalities.
Served Spaces
Those spaces in a building that are actively used.
Servant Spaces
Those spaces that serve the utilized - staircases, ventilation systems, elevators, etc..
Central characteristics of Late Modernism
Unconscious style. Technological Imperative. Formal exaggerations: Sculptural Form. Extreme Articulation of functional and structural elements. Emphasis on flexibility, change and movement. Use of light-weight technology or brutalist concrete.
Characteristics of Wright's Broadacre City
Urban Decentralization Based on the automobile Each individual owned one acre One Mile grid with 1/2 mile intermediaries. Decentralized motels.
Know the characteristics of Post Modernism
Urban contextual approach. Ad Hoc approach to form. Cardboard scenography / decorated shed. Vernacular/Eclectic and Classical parodies. Commercial strip used as a design source.
Rhetorical Devices
Visual tactics used to impress or persuade the viewer.
Know the characteristics of Neo-Productivism
Well serviced shed. Flexible space planning. Provision of homogenous, integrated network of services: power, light, heat, ventilation, etc. Clear separation of servant spaces and served areas. Self supporting basic shelter tending toward ideal space forms. Moral Principle: Exclusive expression of production form of component parts.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Wright thought people were creatures of nature, hence an architecture conformed to nature would conform to what was basic in people. Wright was opposed to the International Style. Wright argued that a tall building may be beautiful and economical, but it should in no way interfere with the lives below.
Truss
a structural frame composed of relatively short elements, typically configured into triangles.
Deconstructivism
an architectural movement or style influenced by deconstruction that encourages radical freedom of form and the open manifestation of complexity in a building rather than strict attention to functional concerns and conventional design elements, such as right angles or grids.
Zeitgeist
the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history
Pantheistic
the doctrine that God is the transcendent reality of which the material universe and human beings are only manifestations
