Professional Documents
Culture Documents
RATIONALISM
& PROBLEMS OF
ORNAMENTA-
TION IN
MODERN
PERIOD
Voillet- le-Duc
According to him-
“In architecture there are two
necessary ways of being true.
It must be true according to the
program
To be true according to the program is
to fulfill exactly and simply the
conditions imposed by need.
& it must be true according to the
method of construction.
This is to employ the materials
according to their qualities and
properties, purely questions of
symmetry and apparent form are only
secondary condition in the presence
of our dominant principles.”
For Viollet-le Duc , these principles
clearly precluded the architectural
tradition of French Classical
Rationalism.
In place of an ‘abstract’ international
style he advocated a return to regional
building.
His illustration to the Entretiens, which
in some aspects anticipated Art
Nouveau, ostensibly indicated the kind
of architecture that would evolve from
his principle of Structural Rationalism.
He proffered not only models but also
methods which would free architecture
from the eclectic irrelevancies of
historicism.
In this way, his Entretiens came to serve
as an inspiration to the avant garde of
the last quarter of 19th century.
His methods penetrated to those
European countries where French
cultural influence was strong but
tradition of classicism was weak.
Eventually his ideas spread even to
England, where they influenced men
such as Sir Gorge Gilbert Scott, Alfred
Waterhouse and even Norman Shaw.
Outside France his thesis, in particular
its implicit cultural nationalism, had its
most pronounced impact on the works
of Antonio Gaudi, Victor Horta, and
Hendrik Petrus Berlage.
Ornamentation
There is an old debate in the history of
architecture concerning the relative primacy of
formal and structural invention
On one side are those who see major revolutions
in style as the direct result of new materials and
methods of construction &,
On the other hand are those who argue that
changes in world-views or aesthetic intention
adapt techniques to their expressive aim.
Many believed ‘Art Nouveau was actually the first
stage of modern architecture in Europe, if modern
architecture be understood as implying primarily
the total rejection of historicism’.
It was a major step towards the intellectual and
stylistic emancipation of modern architecture.
Art nouveau proposed fresh inventions exploiting
the lightness and airiness permitted by glass and
metal construction and drawing inspiration from
nature instead of ponderous monumentality
Viollet-le-Duc, formulated model of
architectural history linking the
frank expression of building
construction and materials to the
progressive march of history.
He was increasingly aware of the
impact of new materials like iron
and plate glass .
He felt that the nineteenth century
must try to formulate its own style
by finding forms appropriate to the
new techniques, and to altered
social and economic conditions.
Mackmurdo’s design can be said to
be the start of a sequence.
It was an early manifestation of a
broad shift in sensibility.
It could also be sensed in such
diverse examples as the
ornamental designs of Louis
Sullivan, Antonio Gaudi, and
William Burges.
A consolidation did not occur until
the early 1890s, in the work of
Victor Horta, which seemed a
three- dimensional equivalent to
the painter’s two-dimensional linear
inventiveness.
Victor Horta
Tendril like
ornamentation
Vegetal
shapes for:
Banisters
Wallpaper
Floor mosaic
Extension of style…
Began in 1900
Naturally inspired forms were
used to create arches and
furnishing in iron
These were then mass-
produced from moulds
Over the next four years,
these apparently natural
emanations from the
subterranean world erupted in
the streets of Paris
This made Guimard notorious
as the creator of the ‘Style
Metro’.
Glass
Enameled steel
Interchangeable
standard iron pieces,
cast in the form of
naturalistic elements
1905-10
Swirling curve façade
Even interior spaces and the
plan –curve
The elevation in is in constant
motion
Sophisticated ornamentation
and stone-cutting
Contrived texture of the ledges
give impression of gradual
errosion
Deep-
Deep-cut, overlapping ledges
Elevation constant motion
Entrance
emphasized by a
cluster of motifs
and an arch
Chiseled abstract shapes
Balanced but
asymmetrical
Protruding volumes in
facade
Stepped stair-
stair-
tower ---main
---main
emphasis
Bow
windows