Le Corbusier & Frank Lloyd Wright

Le Corbusier and Parthenon

1. He travels and sketches architecture throughout Europe. 2. He's fascinated with car as reflection of how we can utilize technology 3. 1911 - sketches in Athens of Parthenon - sketches focus on pilotis 4. Images of relationship of building in context from a distance 5. Before Greeks, no one used columns outside, only inside 6. What do they add to experience of building 7. Display of horizontal/vertical - load bearing/open space 8. Looking out through building to the outside - how did they think of the space as experience of sacred space ***What's first view of that sacred area? (his architectural promenade) Experience of architecture is essential White exteriors

Robie House 1909 - Oak Park, Chicago

1. He wants to "break the box" of residential homes 2. cantilevered eaves possible because of new availability of steel beams = skyscraper technology now available for homes 3. "organic" architecture - continuity of space; Japanese think this way already 4. house shelter and as branches of tree - asymmetrical, rectangular - "shelter should be the essential look of any dwelling" 5. Eaves extend out into nature - expand flow of space = floating horizontal extensions 6. core of the house around the hearth - communal space = anchored at center

Roof ramp

1. His book - "Towards "new" architecture but new translation = "Toward Architecture" - not new but what architecture is already about 2. He's looking for old principles and combine with new needs/technologies 3. For example - ramp to acropolis = ramp in house 4. Interested in ocean liners - moving many people - silos as form for utility

Lifting it off ground

1. Bottom - proportioned to curve of car turning - accommodating technology as centrally important 2. Part garage, part vestibule 3. Way up - spiral stair or ramp - two way to access upstairs rooms

What's different?

1. Horizontal windows 2. No pitched roof - whatever he builds should be used - roofs as gardens, solariums etc 3. Single level 4. Getting rid of basement - less storage, less junk, eliminate everything you don't need - decoration 5. Airiness, health, hygiene - for easy clean up 6. By lifting it up, he frees house from ground and utilizes space for cars - innovation to think of importance/centrality of cars

Unite' d'Habitation, Marseille, 1946-52

1. Interested in mass produced housing for many people 2. Pilotes - heavy supports 3. Building as self-sufficient 4. Communal spaces, shopping 5. Roof - playground, swimming pool 6. Duplex apartments

Larkin Soap Building, Buffalo, NY, 1903

1. Not building as box 2. extracting to corners the communication/function in building 3. Shows there is where people work - area with windows 4. "Cathedral for workers" - light coming in

Ville Savoye, Poissy, 1929-31

1. Now architects (1920s) are building residences 2. Le Corbusier - wants to make his building ideas and strategies "visible" 3. Le Corbusier - from small swiss town famous for watchmaking - ground floor ? 4. Replacing lawn with roof gardens 5. Entrance - glass, clean lines - sense of cleanness; opposite of crowded, dirty cities 6. He's caring about visual vocabulary and experience of living within confined area 7. Saw villa as an object, machine aesthetics - his manifesto of his aesthetics 8. Not tied to particular context, just object that could be placed anywhere ***He's also writing to persuade people to his perspective

3rd level

1. Ramp continues outdoors to roof or smaller rooms (kitchen with built-in cabinets etc, minimal, easily cleaned) 2. Roof 3. Window to frame view - restating openness and uninterrupted flow

Robie - repetition

1. Repetition of windows, lines, motifs = continuity 2. "Simplicity is not plainness. Simplicity leads to clarity in design." 3. Designs everything which relates to everything else - like parts of a tree 4. "total design" - egotistical, but also peaceful; however lacks flexibility for client.

Larkin - Cathedral for workers - the "light court"

1. Show this is where people work - not just machines - with windowed area 2. Lots of natural light entering for workers 3. Designs all furniture to reflect his desire for repetition and total design for calmness of space

Le Corbusier 1887-1965

1. Swiss-french, pioneer of modern architecture - Charles Edouard Jeanneret-Gris - takes another name later in career 2. Dream of modernist - change society, art for masses 3. His concepts are still influential - embracing modern technology to improve congested living conditions 4. "A great epoch has begun. There exists a new spirit. There exists a mass of work conceived in the new spirit; it is to be met with particularly in industrial production" 5. "Architecture is stifled by custom. The "styles" are a lie."

Falling water - site

1. built projecting over ravine and water 2. pushing what can be cantilevered to its limits -3. he disputes engineering reports saying what he's designed isn't sustainable and builds what he thinks will work - later need for repairs show limits this

Robie - interior walls

1. eliminates walls to create openness and fluidity 2. House isn't about building wall, but creating space using organic principles

Falling water, nature

1. encounter with nature - see and hear and contemplate 2. He's more interested in building residences outside of cities

Dom-ino Frame, 1914

1. hinking about needs for housing, issues of production for many people 2. Domino - bits and pieces put together - building as model that can be put together with another unit - mass produce housing in same way as cars 3. Standardization 4. Dom = house & ino = innovation 4. Simplifying, open space, 5. Slabs to guide to start building 6. Supports - no need for any other supporting = freeing space for design differences and flexibility - space can be segmented within any way desired vs. have to be segmented for supporting 7. Outside inside spaces blurred 8. Steel that is affordable and easily produced that provides for innovation - don't fear but use technology

Second level

1. huge open room and terrace - more mixing of outside/inside 2. Freestanding fireplace - functional, challenging 3. Architectural promenade - views we get are essential - from the building, looking at the building - playing with feelings, emotions as you live/look 4. No decoration - nothing bothers the eye 5. Living room - all glass wall - where are you? inside/outside? Panoramic views from within 6. Not punched in holes before but not much light/air/outdoors 7. Livingroom out to terrace - open for entertaining/weekend house 8. He would have designed furniture as well - commissioning customer has no say Industrial type lighting

Falling water, interior

1. openness - "stuff marginalized" - more open than Robie 2. Japanese influences 3.

Robie - entrance

1. pushed back to obscure, not interrupt quiet of continual horizontality

Falling water, horizontality

1. replicates cascading waterfalls 2. constructed of local rock and man-made materials 3. Perception changes with different viewpoints

Robie - accenting horizontality

1. through eaves extensions 2. through emphasizing the seams between bricks with way they are mortared

Falling Water, Bear Run, PA

Built 1935 for Edgar Kaufman This is his "manifesto" response to Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier

Pure form

Continuity of principles of Parthenon "We are at decisive moment." "Pure form in precise relationship"

Falling water, corners

Corners are freed from need to support

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959

Created Prairie-style architecture (Midwest school) - considered first American architect not recycling European traditiions

Robie - windows

He designed everything - windows detailed to mirror idea of branches of tree

DaVinci's - Vitruvius man

In tradition of Vitruvius - man of certain height with raised hand - works with ratios and concepts to get numerical precision

Fagus Shoe Factory - Walter Gropius (1913)

Later he begins school of architecture - Bauhaus (pre) Glass curtain Revolutionary concept to take worker into account in design

1893 - Columbia Exhibition

Supposed to be about national progress, technology that's uniquely American. Supposedly styles Americans will build in. Wright hated the mashed-up together styles in Exhibition as representations of American architecture - provokes him to think about new direction

Five points of architectural after 1927

THE FIVE POINTS OF A NEW ARCHITECTURE, 1927 1. Pilotis -- supports -- clear distinction between supporting and non-supporting elements - Bring the house away from the soil -- light --air 2. Roof garden -- flat roof -- utilization 3. Free plan -- freedom in designing/placing of the walls 4. Free design of the facade -- facade is extended beyond the supports -- it does not support anything -- allows for freedom in design 5. Horizontal window -- light and air

Multiple units - dwelling unit

The Modular - "range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things."

Ramp 2

Wasted space - what's space for? Only utility? Aesthetic sensibilities as important to lived experience?

Ramp 1

architectural promenade - what for?