History of Architecture Test 3

MOMA 1988 Exhibition

"Deconstructivist Architecture" curators: Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley. Deconstructivism is a movement of postmodern architecture which appeared in the 1980s, which gives the impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building. It is characterized by an absence of harmony, continuity, or symmetry. [1] Its name comes from the idea of "Deconstruction", a form of semiotic analysis developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Architects whose work is often described as deconstructionism (though in many cases the architects themselves reject the label) include Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, and Coop Himmelb(l)au. Besides fragmentation, Deconstructivism often manipulates the structure's surface skin and creates by non-rectilinear shapes which appear to distort and dislocate elements of architecture. The finished visual appearance is characterized by unpredictability and controlled chaos.

Constructivism

Constructivism is a philosophical viewpoint about the nature of knowledge. Specifically, it represents an epistemological stance.[1] There are many "flavors" of constructivism, but one prominent theorist known for his constructivist views is Jean Piaget, who focused on how humans make meaning in relation to the interaction between their experiences and their ideas.

Learning From Las Vegas

Robert Venturi, 1972, with Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour. Learning from Las Vegas caused a stir in the architectural world upon its publication, as it was hailed by progressive critics for its bold indictment of Modernism, and by the status quo as blasphemous. A split among young American architects occurred during the 1970s, with Izenour, Venturi, Robert A.M. Stern, Charles Moore and Allan Greenberg defending the book as "The Greys", and Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk, and Michael Graves writing against its premises as "The Whites." It became associated with post-modernism when magazines such as Progressive Architecture published articles citing its influence on the younger generation

The New York Five

The New York Five refers to a group of five New York City architects (Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk and Richard Meier) whose photographed work was the subject of a CASE (Committee of Architects for the Study of the Environment) meeting at the Museum of Modern Art, organized by Arthur Drexler and Colin Rowe in 1969, and featured in the subsequent book Five Architects, published by Wittenborn in 1972, then more famously by Oxford Press in 1975.[1] These five had a common allegiance to a pure form of architectural modernism, harking back to the work of Le Corbusier in the 1920s and 1930s, although on closer examination their work was far more individual.[1] The grouping may have had more to do with social and academic allegiances, particularly the mentoring role of Philip Johnson.

City for Three Million

The Ville contemporaine was an unrealized project intended to house three million inhabitants designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier in 1922. The centerpiece of this plan was a group of sixty-story cruciform skyscrapers built on steel frames and encased in curtain walls of glass. The skyscrapers housed both offices and the flats of the most wealthy inhabitants. These skyscrapers were set within large, rectangular park-like green spaces. At the center of the planned city was a transportation hub which housed depots for buses and trains as well as highway intersections and at the top, an airport. Le Corbusier segregated the pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways, and glorified the use of the automobile as a means of transportation. As one moved out from the central skyscrapers, smaller multi-story zigzag blocks set in green space and set far back from the street housed the proletarian workers

Towards a New Architecture (Vers un Architecture)

a collection of essays written by Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret), advocating for and exploring the concept of modern architecture. The book has had a lasting effect on the architectural profession, serving as the manifesto for a generation of architects, a subject of hatred for others, and unquestionably a critical piece of architectural theory. The architectural historian Reyner Banham once claimed that its influence was unquestionably "beyond that of any other architectural work published in this [20th] century to date",[1] and that unparalleled influence has continued, unabated, into the 21st century. The polemical book contains seven essays, all but one of which were published in the magazine L'Esprit Nouveau beginning in 1921. Each essay dismisses the contemporary trends of eclecticism and art deco, replacing them with architecture that was meant to be more than a stylistic experiment; rather, an architecture that would fundamentally change how humans interacted with buildings. This new mode of living derived from a new spirit defining the industrial age, demanding a rebirth of architecture based on function and a new aesthetic based on pure form.

Art Deco

a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I.[1] It became popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and influenced the design of buildings, furniture, jewellery, fashion, cars, movie theatres, trains, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as radios and vacuum cleaners.[2] It took its name, short for Arts Décoratifs, from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris in 1925.[3] It combined modernist styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials. During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress. Art Deco was a pastiche of many different styles, sometimes contradictory, united by a desire to be modern. From its outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bold geometric forms of Cubism; the bright colors of Fauvism and of the Ballets Russes; the updated craftsmanship of the furniture of the eras of Louis Philippe and Louis XVI; and the exotic styles of China and Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt and Maya art. It featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship.

CATIA

aerospace software adopted by Frank Gehry in the design of Guggenheim, Bilbao

Promenade Architecturale

movement/circulation through the building as a promenade—ramp through the building, as in Le Corbusier's Villa Savoy or Carpenter Center

Raumplan

Adolf Loos, idea of designing by volume instead of floor area. "transformation of the floor plan into volume"

Futurism

An artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth, and violence, and objects such as the car, the aeroplane, and the industrial city. Although it was largely an Italian phenomenon, there were parallel movements in Russia, England, Belgium and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, urban design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture, and even Futurist meals.

La Citta Nuova

Antonio Sant'Elia, 1914. Stated that "the decorative value of Futurist architecture depends solely on the use and original arrangement of raw or bare or violently colored materials".[2] His vision was for a highly industrialized and mechanized city of the future, which he saw not as a mass of individual buildings but a vast, multi-level, interconnected and integrated urban conurbation designed around the "life" of the city.

Futurist Manifesto

1909, Filippo Marinetti. Marinetti expresses an artistic philosophy, Futurism, that was a rejection of the past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth and industry; it also advocated the modernization and cultural rejuvenation of Italy.

International Style Exhibition

1932, Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock, Museum of Modern Art, NY. the exhibition introduced an emerging architectural style characterized by simplified geometry and a lack of ornamentation; known as the "International Style," it was described by Johnson as "probably the first fundamentally original and widely distributed style since the Gothic." The exhibition, along with an accompanying catalogue, laid the principles for the canon of Modern architecture.

"The Grays"

Charles Moore, Jaquelin Robertson, Ronaldo Giurgola, Allan Greenberg, and Robert AM Stern. The Whites evoked a stinging rebuke in the May 1973 issue of Architectural Forum, a group of essays called "Five on Five", written by architects Romaldo Giurgola, Allan Greenberg, Charles Moore, Jaquelin T. Robertson, and Robert A. M. Stern.[1] These five architects [Guirgola et al.], known as the "Greys", attacked the "Whites" [Eisenmann et al.] on the grounds that this pursuit of the pure modernist aesthetic resulted in unworkable buildings that were indifferent to site, indifferent to users, and divorced from daily life. These "Grays" were aligned with Philadelphia architect Robert Venturi and the emerging interest in vernacular architecture, New Classical Architecture and early postmodernism. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Eisenman and Robertson were in partnership, though they designed and credited their work separately.

"Five Points of a New Architecture"

During his career, Le Corbusier developed a set of architectural principles that dictated his technique, which he called "the Five Points of a New Architecture" and were most evident in his Villa Savoye. The five points are: Pilotis - Replacement of supporting walls by a grid of reinforced concrete columns that bears the structural load is the basis of the new aesthetic. The free designing of the ground plan—the absence of supporting walls—means the house is unrestrained in its internal use. The free design of the façade—separating the exterior of the building from its structural function—sets the façade free from structural constraints. The horizontal window, which cuts the façade along its entire length, lights rooms equally. Roof gardens on a flat roof can serve a domestic purpose while providing essential protection to the concrete roof.

De Stijl

Dutch for "The Style", also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 in Amsterdam. The De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a narrower sense, the term De Stijl is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands. Proponents of De Stijl advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and colour; they simplified visual compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colors.

Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas.

CIAM (Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne)

International Congress on Modern Architecture, was an organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959, responsible for a series of events and congresses arranged across Europe by the most prominent architects of the time, with the objective of spreading the principles of the Modern Movement focusing in all the main domains of architecture (such as landscape, urbanism, industrial design, and many others).

Complexity and Contradiction

Robert Venturi, 1966 (written 1962). "probably the most important writing on the making of architecture since Le Corbusier's 'Vers Une Architecture', of 1923." Derived from course lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, Venturi received a grant from the Graham Foundation in 1965 to aid in its completion. The book demonstrated, through countless examples, an approach to understanding architectural composition and complexity, and the resulting richness and interest. Drawing from both vernacular and high-style sources, Venturi introduced new lessons from the buildings of architects both familiar (Michelangelo, Alvar Aalto) and then forgotten (Frank Furness, Edwin Lutyens). He made a case for "the difficult whole" rather than the diagrammatic forms popular at the time, and included examples — both built and unrealized — of his own work to demonstrate the possible application of the techniques illustrated within.

Proun

Term by the artist El Lissitsky, "For a new art". Part of a movement of non-objective abstraction that was occurring in modern art which incorporated the extension of the plane infinitely beyond the edges of the page.

Italian Rationalism

The hallmark of the earlier avant garde was a contrived impetus and a vain, destructive fury, mingling good and bad elements: the hallmark of today's youth is a desire for lucidity and wisdom...This must be clear...we do not intend to break with tradition...The new architecture, the true architecture, should be the result of a close association between logic and rationality

Objet-Type

The integrity of the object in the painting style known as Purism, as opposed to the fragmenting of Cubism. It influenced the architectural designs of Le Corbusier in terms of plans, elevations, composition, and he produced many paintings in this style.

Deutsche Werkbund

a group founded in 1907 to improve design of German mass-produced goods through collaboration of workers, artists, and industrialists. Involved with education of consumer, reform of product design, propaganda, etc. Influenced by Arts and Crafts movement: moral power of design, truth of material, representation of function, but interested in the machine and was distinctly national.

Brutalism

derogatory term used to describe post-war concrete architecture that is often roughly textured, large scale, etc. It was a reaction to the slickness of the glass and steel buildings of the International Style (Mies, for example). Seen in the work of Paul Rudolph

"Duck" Building

formally tries to symbolize its function, from Venturi Scott Brown's Learning from Las Vegas.

"Decorated Shed"

formally trivial building that needs additional symbolism (sign) as explanation of its function, from Venturi Scott Brown's Learning from Las Vegas.

Beton Brut

reinforced concrete