MODERN ARCHITECTURE

History of Architecture 2
ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT in Architecture (1860 to 1900)
Revived an interest in handicrafts and sought a spiritual connection with the surrounding environment,
both natural and manmade.
ART NOUVEAU ARCHITECTURE (1890 to 1914)
First expressed in fabrics and graphic design and spread to architecture and furniture in the 1890s.
Buildings often have asymmetrical shapes, arches and decorative surfaces with curved, plant-like
designs.
BEAUX ARTS ARCHITECTURE (1895 to 1925)
Also known as Beaux Arts Classicism, Academic Classicism, or Classical Revival,
Academic classical architectural style that was taught at the cole des Beaux Arts in Paris.
Characterized by order, symmetry, formal design, grandiosity, and elaborate ornamentation.
20 th CENTURY ARCHITECTURE
Two essential issues common:
Functionalism
Concern for social basis of Architecture
Development in other arts (painting):
Futurism
Cubism
DE STIJL The Style
Group's principal members were:
Painters:
Piet Mondrian (18721944)
Vilmos Huszr (18841960)
Bart van der Leck (18761958)
Architects
Gerrit Rietveld (18881964),
Robert van 't Hoff (18871979), and
J.J.P. Oud (18901963).

Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red,

193742, Piet Mondrian.

Rietveld Schrder House

The only building realised completely according to
its principles

Dutch artistic movement founded in 1917 to 1931

Known as neoplasticism (new plastic art) artistic philosophy

Influenced by Cubist painting as well as by the mysticism and the ideas about "ideal" geometric
forms (such as the "perfect straight line") in the neoplatonic philosophy of mathematician M.H.J.
Schoenmaekers.
Sought to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order.
Advocated pure abstraction and universality by a reduction to the essentials of form and color;
Simplified visual compositions to the vertical and horizontal directions. Used only primary colors
along with black and white
The works of De Stijl would influence the Bauhaus style and the international style of
architecture as well as clothing and interior design.
Proponents/ Architects:
Mies van der Rohe as one of the most important proponents.
J.J.P. Oudcan in Rotterdam (Caf De Unie) and Hoek van Holland

BAUHAUS
House of Building" or "Building School - term for a school in Germany that combined crafts
and the fine arts, and famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It
operated from 1919 to 1933.
Founded with the idea of creating a 'total' work of art in which all arts, including architecture,
found by Walter Gropius in Weimar.
Style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design.
Schools:
1. Dessau from 1925 to 1932 and
2. Berlin from 1932 to 1933)
The Institution called for a new "rational" social housing for the workers.

Rejection of "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves, and decorative details.

Use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form: without ornamentation of any
kind.
Buildings have flat roofs, smooth facades, and cubic shapes.
Colors are white, gray, beige, or black.
Floor plans are open and furniture is functional.
The BAUHAUS school disbanded when the Nazis rose to power. Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe, and other Bauhaus leaders migrated to the United States. The term International Style
was applied to the American form of Bauhaus architecture.
Examples of Bauhaus and the International Style:
1. The Seagram Building
2. The Gropius House
3. The Farnsworth House
4. Philip Johnson's Glass House
5. The Transco Building by Philip Johnson
6. United Nations Headquarters by Le Corbusier
7. The Miller House by Richard Neutra
8. The Lovell House by Richard Neutra
9. The Bauhaus Building in Dessau, Germany
10. Furniture by Bauhaus Architects
Architects Inspired by the Bauhaus Movement
1. Walter Gropius
2. Le Corbusier
3. Richard Neutra

4. Philip Johnson
5. Mies van der Rohe
6. Marcel Breuer

VILLA SAVOIE, Poissey (1929-31) embodying Le Cobusiers 5 points of

new architecture:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Free standing supports pilotis

Roof gardens
Free plans
Ribbon windows
Freely composed facades

The house became a machine for living in

20TH C. TRENDS IN ARCHITECTURE (1900 to Present)
The century has seen dramatic changes and astonishing diversity. Twentieth century trends
include Art Moderne and the Bauhaus school coined by Walter Gropius, Deconstructivism,
Formalism, Modernism, Structuralism, and Postmodernism.
STRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY
Norfolk Scope , Virginia
12,600-seat multipurpose arena
Precast dense concrete reinforced with steel mesh to roof large public spaces by an Italian
architect/engineer Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979
Precast dense concrete reinforced with steel mesh to roof large public spaces by an Italian
architect/engineer Pier Luigi Nervi (1891-1979) Geodesic Dome

Reinforced concrete shell was pushed to the edge with the Sydney Opera House

INTERNATIONAL STYLE

used to describe Bauhaus architecture in the United States.

Le Corbusier's United Nations Secretariat building, New York

America's International Style became a symbolism of Capitalism: while German Bauhaus

architecture had been concerned with the social aspects of design.

Favored architecture for office buildings, and is also found in upscale homes built for the rich.
Variations of the International Style had evolved in the mid 20th c.

INTERNATIONAL STYLE
used to describe Bauhaus architecture in the United States.
Examples of Bauhaus and the International Style:
1. The Seagram Building
2. The Gropius House
3. The Farnsworth House
4. Philip Johnson's Glass House
5. The Transco Building by Philip Johnson
6. The Miller House by Richard Neutra
7. The Lovell House by Richard Neutra
8. Furniture by Bauhaus Architects
MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE has these features:
Little or no ornamentation
Factory-made parts
Man-made materials such as metal and concrete
Emphasis on function
Rebellion against traditional styles
Architects
1. Rem Koolhaas
2. I.M. Pei
3. Le Corbusier
4. Philip Johnson
5. Mies van der Rohe
ART DECO ARCHITECTURE (1925 to 1937)
Zigzag patterns and vertical lines create dramatic effect on jazz-age, Art Deco buildings.

Photo Thomas Northcut / Getty Images

Chrysler Building
New York City, USA
For a few months, it was the tallest structure in the world. It was also one of the first buildings
composed of stainless steel over a large exposed surface. It has jazzy automobile ornaments eagle hood ornaments, hubcaps and abstract images of cars.
It evolved from many sources - austere shapes of the Bauhaus School and streamlined styling of modern
technology combined with patterns and icons taken from the Far East, classical Greece and
Rome, Africa, Ancient Egypt, India, and Mayan and Aztec cultures.
Features of Art Deco buildings:
1. Cubic forms
2. Ziggurat shapes: Terraced pyramid with each story smaller than the one below it
3. Complex groupings of rectangles or trapezoids
4. Bands of color
5. Zigzag designs
6. Strong sense of line
7. Illusion of pillars
It evolved from many sources - austere shapes of the Bauhaus School and streamlined styling of modern
technology combined with patterns and icons taken from the Far East, classical Greece and
Rome, Africa, Ancient Egypt, India, and Mayan and Aztec cultures.
Features of Art Deco buildings:

1. Cubic forms
2. Ziggurat shapes: Terraced pyramid with each story smaller than the one below it
3. Complex groupings of rectangles or trapezoids
4. Bands of color
5. Zigzag designs
6. Strong sense of line
7. Illusion of pillars
More Art Deco Buildings
1. Empire State Building, New York City
2. Radio City Music Hall, New York City
3. Art Deco Buildings, Queens, New York
4. Art Deco, Miami
Art Deco Architects
1. William Van Alen
2. Raymond Hood

MODERNISM

Museum of Art at Cornell University

I.M. Pei, Architect - Herbert F. Johnson
Photo Jackie Craven

Museum of Art

at Cornell University
I.M. Pei, Architect - Herbert F. Johnson

Photo Jackie Craven

Emphasizes function.
It attempts to provide for specific needs rather than imitate nature.
The roots of Modernism may be found in the work of Berthold Luberkin (1901-1990), a Russian
architect who settled in London and founded a group called Tecton who believed in applying
scientific, analytical methods to design.
Modernist architecture can express a number of stylistic ideas, including:
1. Structuralism
2. Formalism
3. Bauhaus
4. The International Style
Mid-Century, or Mid-Twentieth Century, Modernism
1. Brutalism
2. Minimalism

STRUCTURALISM
Example: Berlin Holocaust Memorial by Peter Eisenman
Photo (cc) cactusbones/Flickr.com

Based on the idea that all things are built from a system of signs and these signs are made up of
opposites: male/female, hot/cold, old/young, etc.
Design is a process of searching for the relationship between elements.
Complexity within a highly structured framework.
Design may consist of cell-like honeycomb shapes, intersecting planes, cubed grids, or densely
clustered spaces with connecting courtyards.

EXPRESSIONISM
Evolved from the work of avant garde artists and designers in Germany and other European countries
during the 1ST decades of the 20TH c.
Key features are:
1. distorted shapes
2. fragmented lines
3. organic or biomorphic forms
4. massive sculpted shapes
5. extensive use of concrete and brick
6. lack of symmetry

Example: Einstein Tower (Einsteinturm), Potsdam by Erich Mendelsohn, 1920

NEO EXPRESSIONISM
Built upon expressionist ideas.
Architects in the 1950s and 1960s designed buildings that expressed their feelings about the
surrounding landscape.
Sculptural forms suggested rocks and mountains.

Organic and Brutalist architecture

Expressionist and Neo-expressionist Architects
1. Gunther Domenig
2. Hans Scharoun
3. Rudolf Steiner
4. Bruno Taut
5. Erich Mendelsohn
6. Walter Gropius (early works)
7. Eero Saarinen
CONSTRUCTIVISM
Buildings emphasized abstract geometric shapes and functional machine parts.
Combined engineering and technology with political ideology.
Russian architect Vladimir Tatlin launched the movement when he proposed the futuristic,
glass-and-steel Tatlin's Tower.
Example: Model of Tatlin's Tower
Part of the 2008 exhibit, "From Russia," Royal Academy of Arts,London
Press Photo, Royal Academy of Arts
Features of constructivist buildings:

 Glass and steel

Machine-made building parts
Technological details such as antennae, signs, and projection screens
Abstract geometric shapes
A sense of movement
Constructivist Architects:
1. Vladimir Tatlin
2. Konstantin Melnikov
3. Nikolai Milyutin
4. Aleksandr Vesnin and his brothers Leonid and Victor Vesnin
5. El Lissitzky
6. Vladimir Krinsky
7. Iakov Chernikhov

FUNCTIONALISM
Form follows function," Louis Sullivan became a dominant trend in Modernist architecture.

Believed that the ways buildings are used and the types of materials available should determine
the design.
The philosophy was followed more closely by Bauhaus and International Style architects.
Toward the end of the 20th c., the term Functionalism was used to describe any practical
structure that was quickly constructed for purely practical purposes without an eye for artistry..
Strive for "honest" approaches to building design that focused on functional efficiency.
Example: Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut by Louis I. Kahn who sought honest
approaches to design
BRUTALISM
French phrase bton brut, or raw concrete, to describe the construction of his rough, concrete
buildings.
Grew out of the Bauhaus Movement and the bton brut buildings by Le Corbusier and his
followers.
Heavy and angular buildings can be constructed quickly and economically.
Common features include:
1. Precast concrete slabs
2. Rough, unfinished surfaces
3. Exposed steel beams
4. Massive, sculptural shapes
Example: Paulo Mendes da Rocha Residence, So Paulo, Brazil
FORMALISM
Interest in visual relationships between the building parts and the work as a whole. Found in Bauhaus
and International Style architecture.
1. Emphasis in form.
2. Shape, often on a monumental scale, is the focus of attention.
3. Lines and rigid geometric shapes predominate.
Example: Bank of China Tower, 1990, by Ieoh Ming Pei
In the later decades of the twentieth century, designers rebelled against the rational Modernism and
a variety of post modern styles evolved.
Examples of post modern architecture include:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Postmodernism
High Tech
Organic
Deconstructivism

HIGH TECH
Buildings are often called machine-like

Steel, aluminium, and glass combine with brightly colored braces, girders, and beams.
Many of the building parts are prefabricated in a factory and assembled later.
Support beams, duct work, and other functional elements are placed on the exterior of the
building, where they become the focus of attention.
Interior spaces are open and adaptable for many uses.
High Tech Architects:
1. Richard Rogers
2. Norman Foster
Example: Centre Pompidou, France by Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano, and Gianfranco Franchini.
POST MODERN
First examples are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but which did not become a movement until
the late 1970s
Return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture in response to the formalism.
Described as "neo-eclectic", where reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the
aggressively unornamented modern styles.
Examples:
Portland Public Service Building.
Esplanade of Europe by Ricardo Bofill, Montpellier(1978-2000).
ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE
Promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design approaches so
sympathetic and well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part
of a unified, interrelated composition.

DECONSTRUCTIVISM OR DECONSTRUCTION
Approach to design that attempts to view architecture in bits and pieces.
Basic elements of architecture are dismantled.
Buildings may seem to have no visual logic. They may appear to be made up of unrelated,
disharmonious abstract forms.
Deconstructive ideas are borrowed from the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Architects:
1. Peter Eisenman
2. Frank Gehry
3. Richard Meier
4. Rem Koolhaas

Example: Main Central branch of the Seattle Public Library by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas,
opened in 2004.

En d of HOA 2 compilation.LYM 3.5.13