Modernism

First Semester, SY 2019 - 2020

Dear Class,

It has been my pleasure to be a part of your studies in TIP Manila.

I hope the following materials can help you in your journey towards
being architects.

The following are my personal compilation. My request is that you

use them only in your studies and not for any other reason.

Thank you class.

Ar. Renee Borromeo

Modern architecture emerged at the
end of the 19th century from
revolutions in technology,
engineering and building materials,
and from a desire to break away from
historical architectural styles and to
invent something that was purely
functional and new.
The revolution in materials
came first, with the use of cast
iron, plate glass, and
reinforced concrete, to build
structures that were stronger,
lighter and taller.
 The Crystal Palace
Sir Joseph Paxton
A cast-iron and plate-glass structure originally built in Hyde
Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. 3x the
size of St Paul's Cathedral. It astonished visitors with its
clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights.
 Eiffel Tower
Gustave Eiffel

The iron frame construction of

the Eiffel Tower, captured the
imagination of millions of visitors
to the 1889 Paris Universal
Exposition
Buildings have long been
constructed with the
exterior walls of the
building supporting the
load of the entire
structure.
The development of structural steel and
later reinforced concrete allowed
relatively small columns to support large
loads; hence, exterior walls of buildings
were no longer required for structural
support.
The exterior walls could be non-load
bearing and thus much lighter and more
open than the masonry load-bearing
walls of the past.
This gave way to increased use of
glass as an exterior façade, and the
modern-day curtain wall was born.

A curtain wall system is an outer

covering of a building in which the
outer walls are non-structural,
utilized only to keep the weather out
and the occupants in.
This gave way to increased use of
glass as an exterior façade, and the
modern-day curtain wall was born.

A curtain wall system is an outer

covering of a building in which the
outer walls are non-structural,
utilized only to keep the weather out
and the occupants in.
 François Coignet
A French industrialist of the nineteenth
century. He was a pioneer in the
development of structural prefabricated
and reinforced concrete.

He decided as a publicity stunt, and for

promotional purposes of his cement
business, to build a house made of
béton armé, a type of reinforced
concrete.

The house was designed by local

architect Theodore Lachez.
 Elisha Graves Otis
An American industrialist, founder of the
Otis Elevator Company, inventor of a
safety device that prevents elevators from
falling if the hoisting cable fails.

At the 1853 New York World's Fair, Otis

amazed a crowd when he ordered the
only rope holding the platform on which
he was standing cut. The rope was
severed by an axeman, and the platform
fell only a few inches before coming to a
halt.
This helped make present-day skyscrapers
possible.
This gave way to increased use of
glass as an exterior façade, and the
modern-day curtain wall was born.

A curtain wall system is an outer

covering of a building in which the
outer walls are non-structural,
utilized only to keep the weather out
and the occupants in.
At the end of the 19th century, the
first skyscrapers began to appear in
the United States. They were a
response to the shortage of land and
high cost of real estate in the center
of the fast-growing American cities,
and the availability of new
technologies, including fireproof steel
frames and improvements in the
safety elevator invented by Elisha Otis
 The Home Insurance
Building
1884
Chicago
William Le Baron Jenney

The first steel-framed skyscraper

(ten-storey).
Woolworth Building
1912
New York
Cass Gilbert

The tallest building in the

world from 1913 to 1930
 Eugène Viollet-le-Duc

A French architect and author considered

by many to be the first theorist of modern
architecture.
In his Entretiens sur l'architecture he
concentrated in particular on the use of
iron and other new materials, and the
importance of designing buildings whose
architecture was adapted to their
function, rather than to a particular style.
His book influenced a generation of
architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor
Horta, Hector Guimard, and Antoni Gaudí.
Viollet-le-Duc's theory was how the design of
a building should start from its program and
the plan, and end with its decorations.

If this resulted in an asymmetrical exterior, so

be it.

He dismissed the symmetry of classicist

buildings as vain, caring too much about
appearances at the expense of practicality and
convenience for the inhabitants of the house
Viollet-le-Duc's architectural theory was
largely based on finding the ideal forms for
specific materials and using these forms to
create buildings.

His writings centered on the idea that

materials should be used "honestly".

He believed that the outward appearance of a

building should reflect the rational
construction of the building.
At the end of the 19th century,
a few architects began to
challenge the traditional
Beaux Arts and Neoclassical
styles that dominated
architecture in Europe and the
United States.
 The Glasgow School of Art
(GSA) is Scotland's only
public, self-governing art
school offering
undergraduate degrees;
post-graduate awards (both
taught and research-led)
and PhDs in architecture,
fine art and design.

The Glasgow School of Art (1896–99) designed by Charles

Rennie MacIntosh, had a facade dominated by large
vertical bays of windows.
The Art Nouveau style was launched in the
1890s by Victor Horta in Belgium and
Hector Guimard in France; it introduced
new styles of decoration, based on vegetal
and floral forms.
In Barcelona, Antonio Gaudi conceived
architecture as a form of sculpture; the
facade of the Casa Battlo in Barcelona
(1904–1907) had no straight lines; it was
encrusted with colorful mosaics of stone
and ceramic tiles
The new materials and techniques gave architects
greater freedom to create new forms.

In 1903–1904 in Paris Auguste Perret and Henri

Sauvage began to use reinforced concrete,
previously only used for industrial structures, to
build apartment buildings.

Reinforced concrete, which could be molded into

any shape, and which could create enormous spaces
without the need of supporting pillars, replaced
stone and brick as the primary material for
modernist architects.
 Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Paris
Auguste Perret, Gustave Perret, Henry van de Velde

the first example of Art Deco architecture in Paris, a

landmark of modern architecture.
 An Austrian architect
and urban planner. He
was a leading member
of the Vienna
Secession movement
Metro station at of architecture.
Karlsplatz,Vienna
In 1894, Otto Wagner became Professor of
Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna,
and increasingly expressed the necessity of leaving
behind historical forms and romanticism and
developing Architectural Realism, where the form
was determined by the function of the building.

“Art and artists have the duty and obligation to

represent their period. The application here and
there of all the previous styles, as we have seen in
the last few decades, cannot be the future of
architecture...The realism of our time must be
present in every newborn work of art.”
Adolf Loos was an Austrian architect and an
Austrian and Czech architect and influential
European theorist of modern architecture.
"Ornament and Crime" is an essay and
lecture by Adolf Loos that criticizes
ornament in useful objects.
Loos believed that ornamentation can
cause objects to go out of style and thus
become obsolete. That it was a crime to
waste the effort needed to add
ornamentation, when the
ornamentation would cause the object
to soon go out of style.
Loos never argued for the complete
absence of ornamentation, but believed
that it had to be appropriate to the type
of material.
 The Looshaus is a building in Vienna designed by Adolf
Loos, regarded as one of the central buildings of Viennese
Modernism.
Its appearance shocked Vienna's citizens, since
their overall taste was still very much
historically oriented. Because of the lack of
ornaments on the façade, people called it the
'house without eyebrows'.

A heated debate delayed the completion of

the building. The simple facade led to attacks
against Loos. He had to give in and promised
to decorate several facade windows with…

………………flower pots.
 Peter Behrens
A German architect and
designer. He was important to
the Jugendstil and modernist
movement.

Several of the modernist

movement's leading names
(including Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe, Le Corbusier and Walter
Gropius) worked for him in
earlier stages of their careers.
The AEG Turbine Factory was built around 1909. It is the
best-known work of architect Peter Behrens.
 Louis Sullivan
September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924

“Father of Skyscrapers”
“Father of modernism”
mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright

“Form follows
function”
The technical limits of
weight-bearing masonry
had imposed formal as well
as structural constraints;
suddenly, those constraints
were gone.
Sullivan addressed it by embracing the
changes that came with the steel frame,
creating a grammar of form for the high rise
(base, shaft, and cornice), simplifying the
appearance of the building by breaking away
from historical styles, using his own intricate
floral designs, in vertical bands, to draw the
eye upward and to emphasize the vertical
form of the building, and relating the shape of
the building to its specific purpose. All this was
revolutionary, appealingly honest, and
commercially successful.
Wainwright Building
Louis Sullivan
Dankmar Adler

The first expression of high

rise as a tall building early
skyscrapers.
Auditorium Building (Chicago)
Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler
 Sullivan Center
Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Store,
Louis Sullivan