History of Modern Architecture Quiz #3

1968: Housing and Urban Development Act

- 26 Million Housing units in a decade - A federally funded home for 26 million families - Written into the suburbs was the bifurcation of the American cities

1958: Federal Highway Act

- Called for 41 thousand miles of highway in the next 10 years. - Lo longer thinking of the city as dense downtown, but rather a spreading metropolis - Encouraged the growth of suburbs

Tadao Ando, Koshino House, Hyogo, Japan, 1979-81

- Learned architecture by visiting the US and Africa - Not architecturally trained - Cre4scent shaped living room added later, provides formal contrast - Inward looking, inset into landscape - Very different kind of building than LC - Architecture made mythical in its simplicity - Unabashedly modern exterior an exterior - Interplay of light and shadows - Regular, modular shapes, dimensions and proportions

Carlo Scarpa, Castelvecchio Museum, Verona, Italy, 1956-64

- Very distinctly distinguish the new parts of the building - Restoration at its best - Sympathetic to time and memory

William McDonough + Partners, Gap, Inc. Headquarters (901 Cherry Offices), San Bruno, CA, 1996

- What makes him different is that he is thinking on a macro scale, the efficiency of cities and a micro scale - Displacement ventilation: Conditioned air is supplied at the floor, removed at the ceiling Stylistically, McDunough is coming out of modernism. The discussion is not just about sustainability but quality working spaces.This is about humanity in a different way than the Seagram. Its about branding. Seagram wanted to be interpreted as modern, urban, and transparent. GAP wants to be open and quality of life

1943 Athens Charter:

1. Far more influential designs, this one document would influence everything from Brasilia to public housing in the US 2. Core theme: Zoning. Herd people into giant buildings, leaving parkland in between 3. Housing should only be done in Costa/Neimeyer/Le Corbusier's high rise mega structure model

Louis Skidmore of SOM, Haji Terminal, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1980

40 degrees cooler than the outside. Cylindrical fans prompt air circulation. Promoted tremendous flexibility for the use of the interior space, like markets

Lawrence Halprin, Sea Ranch, California, 1962-7

A series of experiences that are rooted in particular place. Seamless transition between the natural and architectural processes. Takes advantage of natural environment to prove architectural point. Halprin achieves what other architects want to do; he acknowledges and prepares for change. Uninterested in absolute Architecture and exclusivity of internal architectural conversations

Pluralism

Architecture after the second wave was anything but unified, especially as architects relied more and more on computer architecture.References to modernism, incorporation of modernist concepts. Incorporate the very best of modernism while designing buildings that don't look modernist. True post-modernity: Architects reject modernism but also incorporate it to make something new

Kenzo Tange, Peace Memorial and Museum, Hiroshima, Japan, 1949-55

Building represents Japan's willingness to participate in the West. Using modernism is a means for Japan to rejoin the world, it gives the site much feeling. First big work is very consciously engaging with the second wave of modernism, interested in the brutalism aesthetic of Le Corbusier

Norman Foster, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, Hong Kong, 1979-85

Carefully proportioned truss-work, thinking about light and the ways trusses overlap. In many ways, this building is a cathedral to business, technology, and money. A Skyscraper, the building of modernism. Foster is countering Johnson, beginning in his building the year Johnson's is finished. The building intentionally leaves a crane at the top to imply Archigram-like robotics.The idea is to convey that HSBC is continually building, changing, and evolving

Archigram (Ron Herron and Brian Harvey) Walking City Project, 1963

Chose to present themselves as anti-establishment, a middle finger to Le Corbusier. Series of projects attempting to imagine the city very differently, blurring between high and low culture, Heavily influenced by Buckminster Fuller. Very different way of looking at the city

Postmodernism:

Defined by their overt criticism of modernism; very different approaches 1. The Greys - Followed Venturi's criticism that it was too much about form, not enough about people 2. The Whites - Argued that modernism was not enough about form, took the counterargument, that modernism took too much time thinking about form

Peter Eisenman, Frank House, Connecticut, 1976

Doesn't claim to make anyone's life better. Goes back to Mies Van Der Rohe, takes it to its logical conclusion.Total Abstraction: The wall has become a plane that no longer needs to be a wall. An Internal Conversation between modernism and post-modernism. Architecture for Architecture's sake

Charles Moore, Piazza d'Italia, New Orleans, LA, 1975-9

Draws on Italian architecture; rich colors and materials; layered quality of Italian cities. Ends up being just as superficial as modernism. Now a post-modern classic

Balkirshnia Doshi, Aranya low-cost housing project, Indore, India, 1982

Each building had a service core and a bathroom space that centralized the utilities. Resident could add on to this as their families grew or incomes change. Flexibility was totally unheard of, more of a planner than anything else. Designed the community to be tight knit, local. Aesthetically similar to Le Corbusier and Kahn

1949: Federal Housing Act (Title One)

Elimination of blighted slums, realization of a decent home and suitable living environment. 1. Provide housing 2. Improve conditions 3. Improve the lives of every American

Jane Jacobs

Her argument was to embrace the messy city, to find value in what others might consider blight. There are things that happen organically that you cannot plan and integrate into a zoned city. Her book becomes an influential counterpoint to CIAM and the Athens charter. Part of a larger push to fight back against the government and acknowledge its failure. Believed that planners failed to take into account the natural movements and ideologies in their scripted cities. You have to learn from the city itself

Minoru Yamasaki, Priutt-Igoe, St. Louis, MO, 1954 (and 1972 demolition)

In just 10 years, the project is overrun. In just 18 years, it was destroyed. The destruction of Pruitt-Igoe was a signal for the end of modernism. The downfall of PI was used as evidence for the ineffectiveness of CIAM and the International Style.

Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1971-7

Intended to make a public center, great design and high culture should be available to everyone. Museum designed to become a place for tourists, citizens, a marketing tool for cities. Looks like a duck, actually a shed: a big empty box. All the mechanics are on the outside of the building. Steel construction, wide open warehouse spaces. The intention is to convey transparency; the idea that things that are usually hidden can be decoration. Roberts is drawing on modernism without referencing

Philip Johnson, AT&T Building, NYC, 1979

Like the glass house and the brick house were talking to each other, so this building was meant to talk with the Seagram building Johnson is actively trying to separate himself from Mies and his own legacy by contextualizing the building. A conscious covering of glass and steel, reversing the idea of applied decoration, Clearly delineating between he three parts of the skyscraper: The base, the shaft, and the crown.

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bibao, Spain, 1991-7

Looking for a building special enough for people to travel the world for. The apex of digital design/ Two rectangular spaces that meet in an expressive center in an 'L', a tremendous collection of form, creating a tall, lit, dramatic atrium. Whole new meaning to "Less is More". Gehry's use of titanium was his signature. Abstraction of moving fish, response against Venturi and John. son. Laizze-Faire idea about the meaning of architecture.

Herzog & de Meuron, National Stadium, Beijing, China 2003-8

Looking for the Bilbao affect, more scuppture than architecture, much like Bilbao. Inspired by Chinese ceramics, no overt reference to Chinese architecture. This building represents the New China, the Post-Mao China, the China that can compete on the world-stage in everything. Raised on a mound of earth to convey flotation. Chinese government looking for something that conveys transparency. This building is a duck, it has no use after the Olympics

Foster and Partners, Wills Faber and Dumas Headquarters, Ipswich, England, 1977

Response to the gas crisis, systems that make the building work are different. Emergence of sustainable architecture. Commercial buildings and single family homes consume 40 percent of the world's energy. Reflects light, reducing heat gain. First green roof, insulating the floors below. Connection between the residents and nature

Kenzo Tange, Tokyo Bay Project, 1960

Since we now have the tech to build over water, we can avoid sprawl.Meant to keep people downtown.Two Elements: 1. Permanent Infrastructure 2. Impermanent Units - Metabolists: Different parts of cities grow at different rates - Sides operated as parallel suspension bridges - Massive water highways - Secondary transportation goes through the middle - Spine: Civic parks, public amenities - Tall service towers with utilities, circulation, elevators

Philip Johnson, Glass House, New Canaan, CT, 1949-50

Subverts the idea of the glass house with the chimney and the brick floor, suggesting that the glass house needs warming up, literally and figuratively. Subverts the industrial aesthetic, rooting it to the ground with a brick foundation. Uninterested in the details, builds the brick house across from the glass house, a contradictions, open and closed, glass and brick, solid and transparent. The glass house ends up being a folly, a joke. The brick house indicates that the glass house is virtually useless, a beautiful sculpture, but not a practical living space

International Council for Modern Architecture

Taking away the individual responsibility of Architecture.; 1933 Meeting: Centralizes explanation of what a modern city should look like. Greenbelt was too focused on the individual and not enough on the collective. Athens charter

Kenzo Tange, Olympic Gymnasium, Tokyo, 1961-4

Terrifically successful building, dynamic, movement, sport. And Ideal building to compare to Eero Saaren's airport. The Building does move, it hangs like fishes ribs from cables. Not just monumental for Monumentalism's sake. Tange reaches a human level with his subtle gesture towards traditional Japan's Mitsu Tome; an abstract shape or swirl. At once moving and stable. It both moves forward and is quiet.

One World Trade Center, SOM David Childs, 2006-2014

This building has a big job, it has to represent America, a post 9/11 America and to redefine the New York Skyline. An attempt to rebrand the city and the Nation. The first World Trade Center was a massive controversy. This building is a duck, conveying an Idea rather than a function. There were so many hands involved in this building that its intentional iconography is diminished

Moshe Safdie, Habitat, Montreal, Canada, 1967

Trying very hard to succeed where eh sees modernism failing. Attractive aesthetic, removes the industrialized regiment of the factory, visualizes movement, disorder

Le Corbusier, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan, 1957-9

Typical Le Corb, interesting interplay between light and solidity. Raw concrete, pilotis, concrete paneling covered with panels. Concrete was attractive because he designed with concrete, standardization, prefabrication, modular system. City ideas did not have much of an impact

Robert Venturi, Guild House, PA 1962-66

Used brick so that the building could "speak of its environment", Venturi thought that an international style meant a placeless style . He is intentionally making this building speak of its context. Intentionally symmetrical, lie a pediment on a classical building, merging and diluting the difference between classical architecture and everyday American buildings

Robert Venturi, Vanna Venturi House, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, PA, 1963

Venturi is abstracting and exaggerating the signs of a traditional house. This is not a machine, it is an American house. He is also subverting these themes, the roof and the porch. He is refusing to go along with the International Style, rejecting universalism and referring only to American architecture.

Kunio Mayekawa, Tokyo Cultural Center, Tokyo, 1961

Very similar to Le Corbusier's buildings. Similar tropes, ribbon windows, impressive concrete façade, rounded sides. His work is derivative of western art, but he is also looking for distinct vernacular expression.