Expressionism in Modern

Introduction
• Since mid 20th century Architecture has experience
great change.
• The increasing interest in urban planning
– not only involves the construction of the buildings
themselves, but
– it also asked for its inclusion in an area and in consonance
with deep studies of their physical, social and economic
impact.
• The development of new and revolutionary materials
has made possible the creation of some buildings
that in a recent past would have been unthinkable.
 Expressionism is a term that arises in the early 20th century
around a group of painters, mainly German and centered in Munich,
who sought to convey deep emotional content using significant
amounts of abstraction but without losing figural subject matter.
Color played a major role in their work. They also sought to convey a
new and different kind of emotional content, often verging on
complex psychology and psychic struggle. It is important to
remember that during this same time, the work of Sigmund Freud was
very new and ground-breaking, suggesting that many undercurrents in
the personality determine human emotional and psychological
reaction in a variety of situational “archetypes.”
While expressionism in architecture may not have quite so
much Freudian content, there is abundant evidence that many
architects at least went through a period in which they hoped to make
architecture more emotionally expressive than a machine or industrial
aesthetic would permit.
 Expressionism is not a clearly defined term and may have
more than one definition. It can often overlap other kinds of content
and formal choices. Nevertheless, there is a certain quality about it
that usually allows us to recognize it. Expressionist forms are often
sculptural, sometimes irrational, usually personal and idiosyncratic.
But they are also often distorted. The notion of identifying
“expressive” qualities in a building is not necessarily the same as
identifying “expressionistic” qualities. A building may convey some
intentional meaning through its form (“expressive”); or the stamp of
the personality, individuality, identity, or even the pathology of the
architect (“expressionistic”). This may not always be easy to
distinguish. A wildly sculptural form may not always be the evidence
of expressionism. Expressionistic form can also convey spirituality as
well as psychology and it is important to evaluate a potentially
expressionist form carefully before pronouncing a verdict.
 Innovative Architecture
•The pioneer of this architecture would be Alvar Aalto.
Other architects working in this way are Eero Saarinen,
, Utzon, Erich Mendelsohn, Rudolf Steiner .
•Their sign of identity is the use of industrial material to
solve difficult structural problems.
 Innovative Architecture
•It combines the imagination of the
architects and engineers with the
aesthetic impact of materials such
as reinforced concrete.
•Structural solutions are
revolutionary and, in addition to use
industrial materials
– they created sophisticates spaces
through the distribution of light and
– the use of materials not frequent in
architecture, underlining their
tactile qualities.
• Sydney opera house is located in Sydney, Australia.
• Opera house represents Australia. One of the most famous place for
performing arts in the world.
• It cost $102 million to build the Sydney opera house.
• It took 7 years to build the model of the opera house and 17 years to
complete the actual building.
 Eero Saarinen

•Eero saarinen was born in 1910,in finland.

• Eero Saarinen was an American architect and product designer,20th
century.
•He was famous for his varying style according to demand of the
project simple, sweeping, arching structural curves.
•According to Erro Saarinen- “”the purpose of architecture is to shelter
and enhance man’s life on earth and to fulfill his belief in the nobility
of his existence”
DULLIES AIRPORT

• Location - chantilly , varginia

• Date - 1958-1962
• Building type – airline terminal
• Construction system - concrete
• Style – modern
• Area - 11,000 acre

The two principal elements of the Airport are the 150

feet span suspension Roof over the centralized airport
Facilities, and the revolutionary mobile Lounges to
transport passengers to
And from aircraft parked at strategic Points on the
apron- avoidance of miles Of pedestrian corridor leading
from The terminal to the aircraft.
Conceiving the main building as a Plane hovering
between earth and Sky, saarinen developed a
suspension Structure related to that employed On the
ingalls hockey rink.
• Here he used the same catenary Cables to carry the
roof, outward Leaning concrete columns and the
Same uninterrupted roofs cape from Within. Main
features
• An underground tunnel consisting Of a passenger
walkway and moving Sidewalks
. •The terminal ceiling is suspended in An elegant curve
above the luggage Check-in area.
 Kennedy International Airport

Location: John F. Kennedy International Airport,

Queens, New York
• Area: 17.6 acres (7.1 ha)
• Architectural style: Modern Movement,
Expressionistic

Concept
The building designed to be the embodiment Of flight . Saarinen developed
the form With reinforced concrete . its
Expressive forms allow the building to Stand out against its
Contemporaries. The fluid nature of Concrete was pushed to the extreme
in Creating the bird-like forms. The Concrete also made a solid choice
since The building would be subject to millions
Of travellers a year. The materials had to Be durable.
Saarinen’s most famous design, the twa Terminal was intended to express
the drama And excitement of air travel through a Structure which appeared
at all times to be in motion, constantly changing and
ransporting the airline passenger.
• The basic structure itself consists of four Interconnected barrel vaults of
slightly Different shapes supported on four yshaped Columns.
• These vaults form a vast concrete shell, 50 Feet high and 315 feet long,
enclosing the Whole passenger area of the terminal.
 Enveloping Structure, 1914-15
One of the most important of the architects who are considered to be
expressionists is Erich Mendelsohn who turned out countless
drawings that are essentially thumbnail sketches of buildings based on
the expressive capacity of form.
Mendelsohn also found music to be
a major source of inspiration for his
work and made drawings that in
essence expressed the content of
specific musical works. He may
well have taken the words of the
poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
quite literally: “Architecture is
frozen music.”
These sketches were executed at
various times from 1917 to 1936.
One of Mendelsohn’s most celebrated buildings in the expressionist
mode is the Einstein Tower, located in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, in
1920-24. This is an observatory named in honor of Albert Einstein and
originally intended for reinforced concrete construction. It was actually
built in brick masony.
Mendelsohn’s studies for the
Einstein Tower indicate the
dynamism of the forms he was
envisioning; but a comparison
with the built structure indicates
how difficult it is to translate that
form into solid materials. These
drawings were executed in 1919.
Rudolf Steiner (1862-1925), a man who called himself a spiritual
scientist.
Steiner was born in Austria-Hungary and was educated at the
University of Vienna. He edited the scientific works of the German
Romantic poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In his research on
Goethe, he became aware of Goethe’s theory of color and his plant
studies leading to the concept of metamorphosis.
While some scientists believed that Goethe’s color theory was
unscientific, especially compared to the theory of color as refracted
light, Steiner argued that the poetic truth of Goethe’s ideas held up
under laboratory conditions and thus have a compelling value that
supersedes initial impression. Similarly, the theory of plant
metamorphosis, which has generally had more credibility with
botanists, is, according to Steiner, more reliable because it deals with
both the physical and the metaphysical aspect of plant growth.
Steiner was also fascinated by the relationship between mathematics
and spirituality. He taught that the visible world was the densest and
most material realm of a much larger spiritual world and that any
human being who chose could have access to the larger spiritual world
through a process of meditation, spiritual discipline, and will power.
He taught that just as we do not presume that someone somewhere
earlier in history invented mathematics but rather we accept
mathematics as self-justifying facts or truths, the spiritual world could
be perceived in the same way. We learn mathematics by beginning
with simple concepts and moving into much more complex levels.
The same is true of the spiritual world.
He also taught that human life is metamorphic, much like that of the
natural world, and that the greatest effort of the time was to acquire
deeper knowledge of human relationships to the spiritual world. This
eventually became known as “Anthroposophy” (anthropos=man,
sophia=knowledge or wisdom).
The model shows the north
side of the building, and the
columns and architrave
above them express the idea
of metamorphosis. Each
capital and its section of the
architrave bear the effects of
the previous one and affect
the succeeding one. The
ceiling was painted in
deeply saturated colors that
represent the spiritual world.
Exterior of the first
Goetheanum. On New Year’s
Eve 1922, a madman set fire to
the estremely flammable
building and burned it to the
ground. Witnesses reported
seeing the conflagration and
then watching as the fire
changed color as the copper
and tin organ pipes were
consumed in the blaze and shot
colored flames into the sky.

A second Goetheanum was

planned immediately, this time
in reinfored concrete.