UNIT-I

Influence of Industrial Revolution on building materials, Construction Technology,

evolution of new building types and increasing user requirements.

INFLUENCE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ON BUILDING MATERIALS

► Started: in England at about 1760, made radical changes in every level of civilization all
over the world.

► The heavy industry growth brought a flood of new building materials, such as cast iron,
steel, and glass, with which architects and engineers devised structures of unimaginable
size, form, and function.

► Improvements to the iron making process encouraged the building of bridges and other
structures. Large indoor open spaces were now made possible with the use of strong
iron framed construction; this was ideal for factories, museums and train stations.

► New urban districts of factories and workers' housing and the public taste of the newly
rich. Architects were employed to build canals, tunnels, bridges, and railroad stations.

Crystal palace

► The Crystal Palace created to enclose the Great Exhibition of 1851 in England, was a
glass and iron showpiece.

► Designer: Joseph Paxton

► duration: six months, its design mimicked the greenhouses that were his customary
stock in trade. It was spacious enough to enclose mature existing trees within its walls.

► The palace was conceived to symbolize this industrial, military and economic superiority
of Great Britain.

► The building was divided into a series of courts depicting the history as well as exhibits
industry and the natural world. Major concerts were held in the Palace's huge arched
Centre Transept

► The Crystal Palace contained series of fountains, comprising almost 12,000 individual
jets. The largest of these threw water to a height of 250ft. Some 120,000 gallons of
water flowed through the system when it was in full play.

► The park also contained collections of statues, many of which were copies of great
works from around the world.

► Crystal Palace park was also the scene of spectacular Brock's fireworks displays.

► Taxes against glass, windows and bricks were repealed which saw a new interest in
using these building materials. Factory made plate glass was developed and complex
designs in iron grillwork were a popular decoration for the classical and Gothic buildings.
There were also terracotta manufacturing improvements, which allowed for more of its
use in construction. Steel skeletons were covered with masonry and large glass
skylights were popular.
1
The Bauhaus school

International Style was started by the Bahaus architects and prevailed after the 1930s.

Postmodern Architecture started when architects and critics between 1965 and 1980. they
said that postmodernists value individuality, complexity, and sometimes even humor.

Empire state building

HISTORY

► Construction began in March 1930. completed in 14 months

► Architects: Shreve, Lamb, & Harmon Associates.

► was the tallest building in the world with 102 storey.

LOCATION: New York

Building Materials:

► Exterior: Indiana limestone and granite, trimmed with aluminum and chrome-nickel steel
from the 6th floor to the top.

► Interior lobby: Ceiling high marble, imported from France, Italy, Belgium and Germany.

► Height: 1,472 feet (448 meters)

► Area of Site: 83,860 square feet

► Total time: 7 million man hours, 1 year and 45 days work, including Sundays and
holidays.

Work Force: 3,400 during peak periods.

Eiffel tower

► Engineer:gustave Eiffel.

► Architect:stephen sauvestre.

► Year of construction:1887

► Completed:18 months

Construction

► 18,000 pieces ,five meters each used to construct.

► Tower were specifically designed and calculated, traced out to an accuracy of a tenth of
a millimeter

► The assembly began on July 1, 1887 completed twenty-two months later.

2
HOW DID INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AFFECT EUROPE

Enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways.

The introduction of steam power fuelled primarily by coal, wider utilisation of water
wheels and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpinned the
dramatic increases in production capacity.

The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century
facilitated the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other
industries. The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the
19th century, eventually affecting most of the world, a process that continues as
industrialisation. The impact of this change on society was enormous.

The Industrial Revolution witnessed the triumph of a middle class of industrialists and
businessmen over a landed class of nobility and gentry.

Ordinary working people found increased opportunities for employment in the new mills
and factories, but these were often under strict working conditions with long hours of
labour dominated by a pace set by machines. However, harsh working conditions were
prevalent long before the Industrial Revolution took place.

Preindustrial society was very static and often cruel—child labour, dirty living conditions,
and long working hours were just as prevalent before the Industrial Revolution.

The factory system was largely responsible for the rise of the modern city, as large
numbers of workers migrated into the cities in search of employment in the factories.
The transition to industrialisation was not without difficulty.

These homes would share toilet facilities, have open sewers and would be at risk of
damp.

The Industrial Revolution concentrated labour into mills, factories and mines, thus
facilitating the organisation of combinations or trade unions to help advance the interests
of working people. The power of a union could demand better terms by withdrawing all
labour and causing a consequent cessation of production.

Employers had to decide between giving in to the union demands at a cost to
themselves or suffer the cost of the lost production. Skilled workers were hard to
replace, and these were the first groups to successfully advance their conditions through
this kind of bargaining.

3

During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically.
The percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five
decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829.

Also, there was a significant increase in worker wages during the period 1813-1913.

According to Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore, the population of England and Wales,
which had remained steady at 6 million from 1700 to 1740, rose dramatically after 1740.
The population of England had more than doubled from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8
million in 1851 and, by 1901, had nearly doubled again to 30.5 million.

As living conditions and health care improved during the 19th century, Britain's
population doubled every 50 years.

Europe’s population doubled during the 18th century, from roughly 100 million to almost
200 million, and doubled again during the 19th century, to around 400 million.

The growth of modern industry from the late 18th century onward led to massive
urbanisation and the rise of new great cities, first in Europe and then in other regions, as
new opportunities brought huge numbers of migrants from rural communities into urban
areas. In 1800, only 3% of the world's population lived in cities, a figure that has risen to
nearly 50% at the beginning of the 21st century.

In 1717 Manchester was merely a market town of 10,000 people, but by 1911 it had a
population of 2.3 million.

IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ON ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

The Industrial Revolution, which happened in the latter half of the 18th century, brought
about a number of changes in the architectural scenario all over the world.

The world turned greatly towards Greek and Roman forms of architectural design. It was
considered fashionable, and rightly so, to borrow from various types of architectural
designs. The Greek designs were what dominated the architectural designs that were
taken up, right till the 19th century.

Because the Industrial Revolution also saw advancement in technology and
manufacturing facilities, architecture became popular and it became easier to design the
buildings. New architectural designs were incorporated with ease as one adapt one’s
own designs on the architectural designs from over the world, giving an edge to almost
all works produced after the Industrial Revolution. It was during the Industrial Revolution
that the textile industry also boomed. Because of this development, architectural designs
introduced fabrics like velvet and silk. This brought about the concept of interiors being
incorporated into the architectural designs, making them interestingly different from all
the designs known to exist before this era.

4

Many who have studied architecture would probably agree that because these
architectural designs were drawn by the same contributing factors, they seemed to lack
imagination and style. However, not a person can deny that these architectural designs
were practical, lasting, and only got better with other accompanying advancements.

Advancements in the Industrial Revolution also contributed greatly in the evolution of
architectural design as we see them today. At the height of the Industrial Revolution,
architecture celebrated both the ornamental and the unadorned and embraced mass
production in an almost unbelievable display of goods and resources.

The heavy industry growth brought about a flood of new building materials such as cast
iron, steel, and glass, with which architects, with the help of engineers devised
structures of or sizes bigger than before, of forms better than before, and fit to perform
functions which were not possible before.

Apart from architectural designs flourishing with respect to housing and commercial
buildings, architecture also saw a boom with respect to other forms of infrastructure
such as canals, tunnels, bridges and the likes.

The Industrial Revolution brought about a number of changes in the way architecture
was perceived post 18th century. Architectural design took a huge turn and all for the
better. Access to better resources, more material, better techniques; all were
contributing factors to architecture becoming a full-blown and still flourishing industry
today.

INFLUENCE OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ON CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY

Advanced Building Technologies

Evolution of building technology and advancements; Industrial Revolution and its impact,

mass housing , rapid construction methods and materials; Structural systems as

elements of architectural expressions, modernism and post modernism.

Shells, cable, frame, prismatic and geodesic structures, load carrying mechanism, large

span structure, lessons from failures.

Passive building technologies, building skin, material and construction details for
thermal, light and ventilation control ; Traditional Architecture- vernacular vocabulary.

Indoor environment, HVAC and artificial lighting, Sick Building Syndrome, performance

efficiency, energy efficiency, CFL and LED.

Building management system (BMS) ; Safety – entry control; CCTV; Fire and smoke
5
 detection , alarm; Thermal and working environment – temperature, humidity , air

movement, light level; Occupancy sensors; Simulation

The industrial revolution was manifested in new kinds of transportation installations,

such as railways, canals and macadam roads. These required large amounts
of investment. New construction devices included steam engines, machine
tools, explosives and optical surveying. The steam engine combined with two other
technologies which blossomed in the nineteenth century, the circular saw and machine
cut nails, lead to the use of balloon framing and the decline of traditional timber framing.

As steel was mass-produced from the mid-19th century, it was used, in form of I-
beams and reinforced concrete. Glass panes also went into mass production, and
changed from luxury to every man's property.

Plumbing appeared, and gave common access to drinking water and sewage collection..

With the Second Industrial Revolution in the early 20th

century, elevators and cranes made high rise buildings and skyscrapers possible,
while heavy equipment and power tools decreased the workforce needed. Other new
technologies were prefabrication and computer-aided design.

Trade unions were formed to protect construction workers' interests. Personal protective
equipment such as hard hats and earmuffs also came into use.

In the end of the 20th century, ecology, energy conservation and sustainable
development have become more important issues of construction.

INDUSTRIALIZATION’S GLOBAL EFFECTS:

As industrialization grew, industrial powers used their influence to obtain raw materials from
pre-industrial societies which became increasingly oriented to the exploitation of their
resources. They exercised little control because representatives of industrial countries
dominated the commercial and financial institutions of trade. Many saw home markets flooded
with cheap manufactured goods from industrial societies which devastated traditional industries
and damaged local economies.

Industrialization began in Russia and Japan as early as 1870. The Russian Czarist government
encouraged the construction of railroads to link the entire nation. The most impressive project
was the trans-Siberian line, built between 1891 and 1904 which stretched over 5,600 miles, and
linked Moscow to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. Railroads stimulated the development of
coal, iron and steel industries which allowed Russia to serve as a commercial link between
western Europe and east Asia. Industrialization in Russia benefited from the expertise of Count
6
Sergei Witte who served as finance minister from 1892 to 1903. Witte encouraged foreign
investment and the establishment of savings banks to raise capital. By 1900, Russia produced
half the world’s oil and was fourth in world steel production. In Japan, the government hired
foreign experts to instruct Japanese workers and managers in modern industrial techniques,
and also modernized iron foundries and dock yards. The government also sponsored the
construction of railroads, opening of mines, the organization of a banking system, and
mechanizing industries such as ships, armaments, silk, cotton and chemicals. When
businesses could operate without government support, they were sold to private entrepreneurs.
These entrepreneurs often built tremendous empires known as zaibatsu, ("wealthy cliques.")
They were similar to the trusts and cartels which developed in the United States and Europe,
but were mostly organized around a single family. By 1900, Japan became the most
industrialized nation in Asia.

Industrialization brought economic and military strength to societies which encouraged others to
work toward industrialization. At first these efforts had limited results. In India for example,
entrepreneurs established a large empire on jute production but did not have government
support and there was insufficient private investment. Still, industrialization had international
ramifications. Industrial societies needed raw materials which often had to be imported from
distant regions. Although importation of agricultural products from distant lands had been the
norm for many years, demand increased sharply with the growth of industry and the resulting
growth of populations. The textile industry in Europe created a tremendous demand for cotton
which came largely from the southern U.S., India and Egypt. An explosive demand for rubber
led to large scale importation of rubber from Brazil, Malaya and the Congo River basin.

Some nations benefited from the export of raw materials. Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and
even Canada saw infusions of foreign capital and labour and became industrialized themselves.
High income in these areas encouraged the development of labour saving technologies, but
also created flourishing markets. I other areas, such as Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and
south and southeast Asia, there was little or no industrialization, even though they exported
large amounts of primary products. Most were oriented toward agriculture and produced cotton,
sugar and rubber as cash crops. Plantations were owned by foreign investors and most profits
went abroad; thus domestic economies did not benefit greatly. The situation was exacerbated
by low wages which dampened the demand for manufactured goods. The end result was the
concentration of wealth in the hands of a few who contributed little to the domestic market. Free
trade policies allowed the unrestricted importation of foreign manufactured goods; and domestic
industry thereby had little opportunity to develop. Even so, the process of industrialization
increasingly linked the peoples of the world and influenced the development of their societies.

7
EVOLUTION OF NEW BUILDING TYPES DURING INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:RODUCTION

Karl Marx famously stated “It’s not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but,
on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.
This idea that the pressures of culture ultimately shape our society, and us, is fundamental in
understanding the new building types that emerged in nineteenth-century Britain.
Such architecture was only made possible by the use of new materials, notably iron. During the
nineteenth-century ‘...the infrastructure of railway lines modified relations of space and time,
changed the whole concept of place, and permitted new divisions of labour’.
A chain reaction occurred, as larger distances could now be covered, spreading the mining of
raw materials, the manufacture of objects, the management of processes, and the marketing of
products. From this, new building types emerged, and a new genre of architecture was born.
This proliferation of new building types correlates with Eugene Viollet-le-Duc’s quote
that architects need to ‘...conform to the needs and customs of the time’ (1863); for it was they
who were required to design the railway stations, the factories, the banks and the shopping
arcades with no obvious convention or precedent – creating forms which were not pastiches of
past styles but genuine expressions of the present.
THE RAIL NETWORK
Culture shaping architecture is no better shown than the architecture that stemmed from the
nineteenth-century railway line. Functioning as the skeletal spine behind the Industrial
Revolution, the railway line connected parts of Britain in a timeframe that would have previously
been impossible. This new infrastructure and efficient mode of transport allowed Britain’s
industrial economy to flourish and also gave rise to the railway station.
The first passenger train between Stockton and Darlington in 1825 inaugurated a massive
expansion of the rail network. ‘...By 1848, more than 5,000 miles of railway had been built in
Britain. In addition to stimulating major technological advances in bridge construction and
tunnelling, this brought a boom in the construction of stations. Unprecedented as building types,
train stations challenged architects aiming to design buildings that could communicate function
and fulfil monumental expectations.
St Pancras Station, fronted by George Gilbert Scott’s Midland Hotel (1865-71), and composed
of a huge train shed by the engineer William Henry Barlow, in conjunction with R. M. Ordish
(1864-8), did just this; taking the form of a Gothic chateau, the façade ‘...declared respectability
by adhering to the cultural conventions of the period and by using forms and details derived
from past styles. Behind the façade, however, the shed exploited new materials for practical
advantage.
The key new material was iron, obeying none of the traditional rules of masonry construction, it
allowed wide spans and large areas of glass. The St Pancras train shed '...is the largest and
most spectacular of the High Victorian period, being a single span of 74m (243ft), rising 30m

8
(100ft) high in a slightly pointed wrought-iron arch. The total length is 213m (700ft). At the base
the arched vault is secured by rods 76mm (3 in) in diameter under the platforms. Here the
juxtaposition between the façade founded on style and association, and the pure structural and
functional expression of the station shed reflected ‘the cultural gulf between engineering
and architecture of the nineteenth-century.
Alongside St Pancras Station is Lewis Cubitt’s, King’s Cross Station built in 1850-2 as the
London terminus for the Great Northern Railway. Taking the more direct solution to a large
frontispiece, Cubitt’s choice of wide brick arches signalled the presence of the two arched
sheds behind. ‘This was not ‘functionalism’ so much as the representation of function: a bold
and direct image evoking associations with viaducts and bridges. [9]’ ‘An Italianate clock-tower
rises from the centre, and triple-arcaded porticoes originally stood below the great arches,
giving a Roman scale and dignity to the unpretentious composition. [10]’ The sheds, each with a
span of 32m (105ft), technically resemble the glass and iron structures of the period, such as
Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace (1851). It was however not until 1869 that steel arches
replaced the original laminated timber arches. Nevertheless, subsequent station designers and
engineers eagerly took up the principle construction techniques presented.
Although ‘Cubitt’s frank impression of the shed as a monumental arch and Scott’s use of
Gothic, borrowed from medieval town halls differ somewhat aesthetically, their principle
intention of creating new city gates was the same. ‘Covering an area far greater than the
medieval cathedral, the urban railroad station was a conspicuous working symbol of the
dramatic changes brought by the Industrial Revolution,’ to the French poet Théophile Gautier
they were the ‘cathedrals of the new humanity’.
FACTORY BUILDING
The birth of the railway revolutionized the production of raw materials, directly transforming the
British factory and changing England’s status to a dominant manufacturing force. Fueling the
Industrial Revolution and the reformation of the factory building was the textile industry.
Nowhere was this better illustrated than the mills and associated industries of cities in northern
Britain, Manchester for instance was nicknamed "Cottonopolis". Feeding the cities commodities
and offering employment, people came to benefit from its growth both as producers and
consumers, a building type at the ‘heart’ of the revolution.
‘The factory building was an integral element in mechanisation as it organised the distribution of
both mechanical power to the machines, and of a workforce whose efficiencies depended on
rational spatial layout and surveillance’. Form following function is key when analysing the
nineteenth-century British factory; ‘...although historical references occasionally gifted these
buildings of unprecedented scale with an air of dignity, they assumed characteristic internal
layouts and would be little affected by exterior expression’, for after all the importance was the
manufactured product.

9
Over the course of the nineteenth-century, factory buildings changed little in aesthetical value,
but evolved dramatically in structure and materiality. The principle cause for this transformation
was the need for the factory to become fireproof. A requirement influenced ‘...by a spectacular
fire on 2 March 1791 in London’s Albion Grain Mills, which unleashed public debate and
resulted in attempts to reform factory buildings’.
Belper North Mill, Derbyshire, built in 1804 by William Strutt, exemplifies such remodelling of
factory construction. Jedadiah Strutt built the original North Mill at Belper in 1786, but in 1803
the building suffered the same fate as many other early timber-framed cotton mills, and was
destroyed by a fire. His eldest son, William Strutt then constructed the building to its present
form. Having a precedent in mind (the first iron-framed mill at Shrewsbury built by Charles
Bage) Strutt took it a step further. The North Mill, ‘became the first multi-storeyed fireproof
metal-framed building to be erected, thus constituting a major advance in the history of building
construction. The brick arch floors are supported on an iron frame and contribute to making the
mill fireproof. A warm air heating system was built in, as was a hoist between floors – known as
the crane. Designed by Strutt, the crane ‘...represents one of the first attempts to provide a
comprehensive mechanized solution to the problem of the passenger/ freight elevator’ [18]
serving ‘...as the direct predecessor and probable prototype for American freight hoists . Strutt’s
mill ‘demonstrated the extent to which the factory system was destined to transform the physical
and social landscape [20]’. Surrounding the mill ‘laid out the earliest versions of the factory-
based community, with row upon row of brick housing for workers.
A factory building was seen as a working building, productivity was the key. There were
however exceptions to this rule. When designing Temple Mill, Leeds, in 1842, a flax-spinning
factory, Joseph Bonomi Junior employed his knowledge of Egyptian temples to create
monumental facades. ‘The single-storey building covers almost two acres and has iron columns
supporting a network of brick vaults and glass domes. To help maintain the humidity required
for the spinning process, the roof was covered with turf on which sheep reputedly were allowed
to graze'. Built at the height of the British Industrial Revolution, this glamorous factory illustrates
the connection between Egypt and cotton.
BANKS
The rise of industrial capitalism produced a new middle-class, a bourgeois group. Their income
grew, as did the need to store their money somewhere safe. Banks became the main source of
business financing, they were ‘...the veritable fulcrum between the government’s insatiable
hunger for credit and the growing class who made their living investing. Unlike the factory
building it was important that as ‘the bank grew in scale and complexity, it also sponsored
anarchitecture ever more innovative in its application of the latest perceptions of the effects of
space and forms on the emotions and beliefs of its audience, effectively the bank needed to
convey security and strength, yet needed to attract investors.

10
Appointed architect to the Bank of England in succession to Sir John Soane, Charles Robert
Cockerell was to have the most profound effect on nineteenth-century bank architecture. ‘His
position as architect to the mother of all banks naturally led to further commissions. The first of
these was for the London and Westminster Bank in 1837. Here Cockerell was commissioned
alongside William Tite to design the new bank. This was a collaboration said to have suited
‘...Cockerell’s theory that there should be “the art architect to design, and the
practical architect to carry out the superintend. ‘The three storeys with attics and the seven-bay
frontage with a central door was a disposition quickly settled. The executed building boosted
‘...a trabeated framework logically satisfying both to the eye and to the mind as a visual
paraphrase of construction method. Cockerell, keen to bring this building together with light,
‘...filled the interstices on the ground floor between his great rusticated piers with glass.
The large ground floor windows were divided with ‘....slender cast-iron mullions and transoms.
‘On the first floor, the windows were narrower and consequently gave space for carved panels
on either side suggestive of the wall plane behind that of the rusticated piers. These panels
‘...contained carved fasces alternating with the caduceus, emblem of the God of traders,
Mercury. There was more sculpture in the front of the attic storey, though it was confined to two
female figures surmounting the projecting end piers of the façade, representing London and
Westminster. Similar to the architecture of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Cockerell employed a grid-
like reduction of the classical language. Creating a localised ‘scene’ with his design, which
expressed grandeur, and clarity, customers would immediately enter sensing wealth and
prosperity. Psychologically Cockerell’s building would seduce the new customer into opening an
account, while securing the existing customer. In March 1840 The Civil Engineer andArchitect’s
Journal welcomed Cockerell’s building, stating that it was ‘...no hundredth edition of an
approved portico, but . . . a perfect expression of purpose.
THE SHOPPING ARCADE
‘Where the patronage of architecture in the eighteenth-century Europe had relied principally on
the church, the state, and the aristocracy, it came increasingly to rely on the wealth, purposes
and aspirations of the new middle classes. In Victorian Britain, reliance upon middle class
consumerism led to the creation of ‘the shopping arcade’. A building type which typifies
the architect and engineer conforming to modernity. ‘Offering socially segregated and relatively
warm avenues for shopping or “lèche vitrine” (shop window gazing)’ ‘...the arcades represented
the glorification of the street as public and communal space. The pioneer behind the glazed
shopping arcade was Lord Cavendish who, having inherited Burlington House in London
wanted to connect Piccadilly and Burlington Gardens with a covered route ‘...for the sale of
jewellery and fancy articles of fashionable demand’. His architectwas Samuel Ware. ‘Burlington
Arcade opened in 1819 and consisted of a straight, top-lit walkway lined with 72 small, two-
storey units.

11
 The nineteenth-century was indeed a turning point in architectural style and function.
Industrialisation led to the proliferation of new building tasks, certain building types called for a
reformation, while others called for invention. Reformation manifested structurally and visually.
In the case of the factory building, a substantial construction reassessment was required,
however a remoulding of the traditional façade was not necessary. Bank architecture did
however call upon a complete redesign both structurally and aesthetically. Where a building
type called for invention, or entire reformation, the nineteenth-century architect was urged to not
copy past styles, for with imitation comes the threat that one may copy the externals without
reproducing the core qualities, and so end up with pastiche. To deal with this dilemma came
eclecticism. This enabled the architect to derive stylistic values from a wide range of historical
periods. At its best it could lead to works of dense meaning, represented marvellously at St
Pancras Station, where classical disciplines in plan, gothic clarity in structure and silhouette,
and inventive use of modern materials combine.

UNIT-II
Characteristic styles of modern architecture up to First World War. Steel structures, Arts
and crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Vienna School, Chicago School.

Monumentalism, Expressionism and beginning of RCC. Theories of John Ruskin, William

Morris, Henry Vande velde, Otto Wagner, Peter Behrens and Louis Sullivan.

CHARACTERISTIC STYLES OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE UP TO FIRST WORLD WAR

• 1. MODERN ARCHITECTURE Is an overarching movement and period in architectural history

during the 20 th century.

• 2. MODERNISM - broadly characterized by simplification of form and subtraction of ornament

from the structure and theme of the building (architecture definition)

• 3. Notable Architects Frank Lloyd Wright – designed the Price Tower, a 19-story tower in
Oklahoma and the Solomon Guggenhein Museum, a warm beige spiral building in New York
City.

• 4. Notable Architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe – one of the pioneering masters of Modern
Architecture. Notable for Villa Tugendhat, his European masterwork in Czech Republic and the
860-880 Lake Shore Drive, twin tower apartment buildings in Chicago.

12
• 5. Notable Architects Le Corbusier – a pioneer in studies of modern design. It was his Villa
Savoye in France that most succintly summed up his five points of architecture.

• 6. ORIGINS According to some historians, modern architecture is developed as a result of

social and political revolutions. It is closely tied to the project of Modernity and thus the
Enlightenment. Others view it as primarily driven by technological and engineering
developments. Others regard it as matter of taste: a reaction against eclecticism and the lavish
stylistic excesses of Victorian & Edwardian architecture.

• 7. ADVANCES IN BUILDING TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION the availability of

newly-available building materials such as iron, steel & sheet glass drove the invention of new
building techniques. 1796 – Shrewsbury mill owner Charles Bage first used his ‘fireproof’
design, which relied on cast iron & brick with flag stone floors. Early 1830s – Eaton Hodgkinson
introduced the section beam, which lead to widespread use of iron construction.

• 8. ADVANCES IN BUILDING TECHNOLOGY Great Exhibition of 1851 – Joseph Paxton’s

Crystal Palace was an early example of iron & glass construction. 1864 – first glass & metal
curtain wall construction. 1890 – William Le Baron Jenney & Louis Sullivan’s steel-framed
skyscraper in Chicago was developed.

• 9. EARLY YEARS The architects around the world began developing new solution to integrate
precedents with new technological possibilities.

• 10. Art Nouveau (New Art) In Russian, In English - “Modern” It is in the book by Otto Wagner,
the fallout of the First World War would result in additional experimentation and ideas.

• 11. IN THE UNITED STATES First examples of modern architecture: 1904 Wright’s Larkin
Building in Buffalo, NY 1905 Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois 1910 Robie House in Chicago

• 12. IN ITALY: FUTURISM Futurist Architecture Began in Early 20 th century Characterized anti-
historicism and long horizontal lines. Themes include technology and urgency.

• 13. Manifesto of Futuricism First manifesto produced by FiIippino Tommaso Marinetti in 1909
Attracted poets, musicians, artists such as Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Fortunato
Depreso and architects like Antonio Sant’ Elia . Antomio Sant’ Elia- built little (being killed in
WWI)

• 14. IN RUSSIA: CONSTRUCTIVISM Construction A new style resulting from the 1907
revolutions ,the societal upheaval and change coupled with a desire for a new aesthetic in

13
 Communist to Neoclassicism. Prospered but full markedly out of favour during the design
competition for the Palace of the Soviets 1931-1933,losing to Post constructivism.

• 15. Post constructivism More traditional revivalism of Russian architecture with nationalistic
overtones. Resulted in the ultimate demise o the Russian branch of early architectural
modernism.

• 16. IN WESTERN EUROPE Deutscher Werkbund(German Work Federation) German

association of architects, designers, industrialists which spanned the gap but then Arts and
Crafts movement and the modernism of 1903. Founded in 1907 in Munich at the instigation of
Herman Muthesius .

• 17. RISE OF MODERNISM Modern architecture 1920s,serves as the most important figures
establishment of their reputations. Peter Behrens Trained the big three:Le Corbusier in France;
Walter Gropuis and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Germany

• 18. Bauhaus European school and associated concerned with reconciling craft tradition and
industrial technology. The directors are Gropius and Mies van der Rohe,also designed the
German Pavilion (Barcelona Pavilion)

• 19. Its purpose was to sponsor the attempt to integrate traditional crafts with the techniques of
industrial mass production. De Stijl – “The Style” An art and design movement developed
unique to the Netherlands resulted from isolation during WWI. Characterized by use of line and
primary colors .

• 20. INTERNATIONAL STYLE Museum of Modern Art 1932- The International Exhibition of
Modern Architecture was held . Philip Johnson and collaborator Henry-Russell Hitchcock
identified architecture as stylistically similar and having a common purpose.

• 21. Most commonly use materials are glass for the façade(usually curtain),steel for exterior
support and concrete for the floor. The style became most evident in the design of skycrapers

• 22. The Seagram Building, New York City, 1958, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is regarded as
one of the finest examples of the functionalist aesthetic and a masterpiece of corporate
modernism.

• 23. In United States Richard Neutra Designed the Lovell House and Case Study Houses in Los
Angeles. 1946 and 1966- twenty or so homes were built primarily in and around Los Angeles
Nuetra, Americans Charles and Ray Eames (the Eames House) have attracted hundreds of
thousands of visitors.

14
STEEL STRUCTURES

• Characteristics - Structural steel differs from concrete in its attributed compressive strength
as well as tensile strength.
• Strength - Having high strength, stiffness, toughness, and ductile properties, structural steel
is one of the most commonly used materials in commercial and industrial building
construction.
• Constructability - Structural steel can be developed into nearly any shape, which are either
bolted or welded together in construction. Structural steel can be erected as soon as the
materials are delivered on site, whereas concrete must be cured at least 1–2 weeks after
pouring before construction can continue, making steel a schedule-friendly construction
material.[9]
• Fire resistance - Steel is inherently a non-combustible material. However, when heated to
temperatures seen in a fire scenario, the strength and stiffness of the material is
significantly reduced. The International Building Code requires steel be enveloped in
sufficient fire-resistant materials, increasing overall cost of steel structure buildings.[12]
• Corrosion - Steel, when in contact with water, can corrode, creating a potentially dangerous
structure. Measures must be taken in structural steel construction to prevent any lifetime
corrosion. The steel can be painted, providing water resistance. Also, the fire resistance
material used to envelope steel is commonly water resistant.[9]

The tallest structures today (commonly called "skyscrapers" or high-rise) are constructed using
structural steel due to its constructability, as well as its low strength to weight ratio. Concrete
has a much higher strength to weight ratio, alternatively. This is not due to a larger density;
steel is much denser in comparison to concrete. The higher strength to weight ratio of concrete
is because of the much larger volume of space required for a structural concrete member to be
sufficient for the load bearing application. Steel, though denser, does not require as much
material to carry a load. However, this becomes insignificant for low-rise buildings, or those with
several stories or less. Low-rise buildings don't distribute as high of loads as high-rise structures,
making concrete the economical choice. This is especially true for simple structures, such as
parking garages, or any building that is a simple, rectilinear shape.[13]

Structural steel and reinforced concrete are not always chosen solely because they are the
most ideal material for the structure. Companies rely on the ability to turn a profit for any
construction project, as do the designers. The price of raw materials (steel, cement, coarse
aggregate, fine aggregate, lumber (for form-work), etc., is constantly changing. If a structure
could be constructed using either material, the cheapest of the two will likely control. Another
significant variable is the location of the project. The closest steel fabrication facility may be
15
much further from the construction site than the nearest concrete supplier. The high cost of
energy and transportation will control the selection of the material as well. All of these costs will
be taken into consideration before the conceptual design of a construction project is begun.[9]

ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT (1880-1910)

Those involved in the Arts and Crafts Movement, promoted simple items (furniture, ornaments
etc...) manufactured through good craft techniques. It was a rebellion against the age of mass
production. A return to traditional craft methods and ‘romantic’ forms of decoration. Products
were to be manufactured by individuals or small groups rather than on a mass production line.
Ornamental objects, floral fabrics, book making, weaving, jewellery, enamelling, metalwork and
ceramics, were all influenced by the Art and Crafts movement.

The Arts and Crafts movement developed from the views of people such as William Morris
(1834 - 1896). He was a poet and artist, who believed in a combination simplicity, good design
and craft work. He believed that industrially manufactured items lacked the honesty of traditional
craft work. His views and opinions were also supported by the artist / influential social
intellectual, John Ruskin (1819 - 1900). As the movement grew in influence, architecture,
furniture making and the decorative arts, such as interior design, started to display the simplicity
and craft approach.

The Arts and Crafts Movement supported economic and social reforms as away of attacking the
industrialised age. Many Art and Craft associations sprung up in this period such as Home Arts
and Industries Association. This association aimed to support and promote rural handicrafts.
The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, formed in 1887 promoted embroidery, fabrics, upholstery
and furniture. The Guild of Handicraft (1888) was another association set up during this time.

The philosophy behind the Arts and Crafts movement believed that the industrial revolution had
made man less creative as ‘his’ craft skills had been removed from the manufacturing process.
One aim of the movement was to put ‘man’ back in to the design and manufacturing process,
Craft skills and good honest design would again be central to the manufacturing process.

The Arts and Crafts movement influence other art movements such as the Bauhaus and
Modernism, movements that believed in simplicity of design. Bauhaus and modernism believed
in design and manufacture that the general public could afford. They also believed that simple
functional designs should look good and be aesthetically pleasing. Manufactured products
should be enjoyed for the way they looked and not only for their functional application.

16
The Arts and Crafts movement initially developed in England during the latter half of the 19th
century. Subsequently this style was taken up by American designers, with somewhat different
results. In the United States, the Arts and Crafts style was also known as Mission style.

This movement, which challenged the tastes of the Victorian era, was inspired
by the social reform concerns of thinkers such as Walter Crane and John
Ruskin, together with the ideals of reformer and designer, William Morris. (This
link will take you to a less visual site that provides William Morris historical
background).

Their notions of good design were linked to their notions of a good society. This was a vision of
a society in which the worker was not brutalized by the working conditions found in factories,
but rather could take pride in his craftsmanship and skill. The rise of a consumer class
coincided with the rise of manufactured consumer goods. In this period, manufactured goods
were often poor in design and quality. Ruskin, Morris, and others
proposed that it would be better for all if individual craftsmanship
could be revived-- the worker could then produce beautiful
objects that exhibited the result of fine craftsmanship, as opposed
to the shoddy products of mass production. Thus the goal was to
create design that was... " for the people and by the people, and a source of pleasure to the
maker and the user." Workers could produce beautiful objects that would enhance the lives of
ordinary people, and at the same time provide decent employment for the
craftsman.

Medieval Guilds provided a model for the ideal craft production system.
Aesthetic ideas were also borrowed from Medieval European and Islamic
sources. Japanese ideas were also incorporated early Arts and Crafts forms.
The forms of Arts and Crafts style were typically rectilinear and angular, with
stylized decorative motifs remeniscent of medieval and Islamic design. In
addition to William Morris, Charles Voysey was another important innovator in this style. One
designer of this period, Owen Jones, published a book entitled The Grammar of Ornament,
which was a sourcebook of historic decorative design elements, largely taken from medieval
and Islamic sources. This work in turn inspired the use of such historic sources by other
designers.

However,in time the English Arts and Crafts movement came to stress
craftsmanship at the expense of mass market pricing. The result was exquisitely
made and decorated pieces that could only be afforded by the very wealthy.

17
Thus the idea of art for the people was lost, and only relatively few craftsman could be
employed making these fine pieces. This evolved English Arts and Crafts style came to be
known as "Aesthetic Style." It shared some characteristics with the French/Belgian Art Nouveau
movement, to be discussed below.

However in the United States, the Arts and Crafts ideal of design for the masses was more fully
realized, though at the expense of the fine individualized craftsmanship typical of the English
style. In New York, Gustav Stickley was trying to serve a burgeoning market of middle class
consumers who wanted affordable, decent looking furniture. By using factory methods to
produce basic components, and utilizing craftsmen to finish and assemble, he was able to
produce sturdy, serviceable furniture which was sold in vast quantities, and still survives. The
rectilinear, simpler American Arts and Crafts forms came to dominate American architecture,
interiors, and furnishings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Today Stickley's furniture is prized by collectors, and the Stickley

Company still exists, producing reproductions of the original
Stickley designs.

The term Mission style was also used to describe Arts and Crafts
Furniture and design in the United States. The use of this term reflects
the influence of traditional furnishings and interiors from the American
Southwest, which had many features in common with the earlier British
Arts and Crafts forms. Charles and Henry Greene were important
Mission style architects working in California. Southwestern style also incorporated Hispanic
elements associated with the early Mission and Spanish architecture, and Native American
design. The result was a blending of the arts and crafts rectilinear forms with traditional Spanish
colonial architecture and furnishings. Mission Style interiors were often embellished with Native
American patterns, or actual Southwestern Native American artifacts such as rugs, pottery, and
baskets. The collecting of Southwestern artifacts became very popular in the first quarter of the
twentieth century.

A Brief Overview of the Early Arts & Crafts Movement in America

18
During the 1870's, American Anglophiles became
acquainted with the Arts & Crafts Movement, first
introduced through interest in the Gothic Revival and the
paintings and writings of the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood. The art and architectural criticism of
Ruskin, which laid the foundation of the movement, and
lectures on decorative arts of William Morris were
available at the Boston Athenaeum and other American
libraries as soon as they were published in London. Morris & Company began to sell their
wallpapers in Boston in 1873, and by the mid 1870s had representatives for their growing line of
wallpaper, fabric and carpet in many major American cities. Inspired by English work, Arts &
Crafts artisans and workshop groups around America began producing their own designs by
end of the 1870's, with especially strong centers of activity in Boston and Cincinnati. The Arts &
Crafts Movement also shaped American architecture, especially with the development of the
Queen Anne Revival, and with emerging styles that were based on the "old-fashioned homes"
of the American Colonial period: the Shingle Style and the Old Colony Style. The first
generation of Arts & Crafts artisans employed a diverse expression of styles, which drew
inspiration from England, but also from Japan and from the regional traditional crafts and
architecture of America.

Arts & Crafts Movement ideas were given an even wider audience during the
1882 American tour of Oscar Wilde. He championed Morris, the Pre-
Raphaelites and the design and art-manufacturing philosophy in lectures
presented in over 120 North American towns and cities. By the mid-1880's,
English designs and locally made Arts & Crafts products were specified by
trendsetting American architects and selected by affluent homeowners for the
most stylish and fashionable American townhouses, suburban cottages and
country villas. It was the children who grew up in these artistic homes of the
1880s who became patrons of Gustav Stickley, subscribed to the Craftsman
Magazine, and built bungalows for their first homes.

This web anthology includes articles and lectures on the Arts & Crafts Movement that have
been transcribed from original copies found in libraries and private collections in and around
Boston, with a majority from the collection of the Boston Athenaeum. The dates span from the
early 1870's, when Americans first were introduced to the philosophy of art manufacture, to the
end of the century, when a new, more commercial Arts & Crafts manufacturing style developed.
A few early twentieth century writings of Arts & Crafts followers, who were active in their careers
prior to 1900, are also included.

19
ART NOUVEAU

A style of decorative art, architecture, and design characterized by intricate linear designs and
flowing curves based on natural forms...

Art Nouveau, or the French term for “New Art,” is a colorful movement in the arts that captivated
Europe during the transition from the 19th century to the 20th century. In other languages, Art
Nouveau had other names, such as “Stile Liberty” in Italy and “Jugendstil” or “youth style” in
German.

Right before art lovers would begin riding in motor cars, watching moving pictures, and bracing
for the First World War, they would flip through bright magazines of Art Nouveau styles. This
cultural movement included decorative and applied arts, architecture, and painting during the
years 1890 to 1905.

An early example of the paintings of Art Nouveau is Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.” This
painting was created in 1893 and later displayed during the artist’s first Paris show at La Maison
de l’Art Nouveaux gallery. This location was the interior design house for which Art Nouveau is
named. Now “The Scream” hangs in the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway.

Photographic images of paintings, prints, architecture, interior design, and decorative works
were displayed as photographic images in Art Nouveau publications. These magazines,
including “Art Nouveau” magazine, were distributed around Europe due to advances in printing.

The print manifestations of Art nouveau are important for understanding the movement. The
lithograph “Tropon” by Henry van de Velde (1898) shows the distinct color choices of an Art
Nouveau Print with brilliant ochre, dull green, and orange, combined with the letters of the word
“tropon.” This simple composition combines a new style of color choices with the curvy lines.

According to the “Grove Dictionary of Art,” Art Nouveau also served as an important link
between Neoclassicism, which focused on classic art periods including Greek, Roman, and
Renaissance themes, transitioned art to the modernist movements. Art Nouveau ended at the
same time as Cubism and Surrealism were beginning.

What sets Art Nouveau apart from the Neoclassicist forms of art is the attempt by its artists to
create a truly new form of art that did not mimic the past. The movement also sought to create
an international style. When tourists visit Paris in the 21st century, it is easy to look around and
see the lasting impact of Art Nouveau designs, including prints, pictures, signs, and wallpaper in
20
public places and in the windows of cafes and brasseries. In European hotels preserved from
this time period, architecture and interior design examples survive today much like the boutique
hotels of Miami’s South Beach preserve the Art Deco style of buildings and interior design.

The Art Nouveau movement produced new themes in architecture. Curvy lines known as
curvilinear in art, asymmetrical shapes and forms, surfaces with leaf and vine decorations, and
other patterns characterize Art Nouveau buildings.

Architect Hector Guimard’s work shows how Art Nouveau produced works for the public
enjoyment. Guimard designed decorative entries to Paris Metro subway) stations still visible
today. In another expressive form, Victor Horta created ornate staircases in Brussels homes,
especially the “Maison and Atelier” staircase. In Barcelona, Spain, Antoni Gaudi created La
Casa Mila in 1905 to 1907. His free forms are asymmetrical and reflect the absence of straight
lines.

The Casa Mila shares the absence of symmetry that soon found new expressions in other art
forms. For example, in the first Cubist works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, symmetry
is noticeably missing. In Picasso’s “The Three Women,” human forms lack geometric
proportions and breaks with tradition in the same way as Gaudi’s architectural style.

The brilliant interior design that started in this time period is evident today in the United States
of America. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) is the son of Charles Tiffany. Louis began
creating his famous lamps at the turn of the century. He performed commissions for noted
Americans such as Mark Twain and Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Tiffany’s work is preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. As an artist and
designer, Tiffany was very prolific in the creation of lamps, drawings, paintings, stained glass
windows, mosaics, ceramics, and jewelry. The famous jewelry house, Tiffany & Company,
founded by Charles Tiffany, is the same firm for which Louis became the first design director in
1902 in the middle of the Art Nouveau period. Today, Tiffany & Company sells magnificent
pieces of jewelry and other collectibles to the rich and famous.

The arabesque, the floral or animal pattern and the feminine silhouette are the typical motifs of
this international decorative style that emerged in Brussels around 1900.

This important artistically avant-gardist movement appeared, at the turn of the 20th century
(1890-1914), in all of Europe’s big cities as a reaction against the academic schools. Followers

21
of the movement all subscribed to its underlying principle, namely that the essence of aesthetics
should be sought in nature rather than ancient Classicist renditions.

First coined by some Belgian art critics as the 19th century drew to a close, the expression 'Art
Nouveau' really began catching on internationally in Paris with the opening in 1895 of the art
gallery Maison Art Nouveau by the famous German art dealer Siegfried Bing.

The essence of Art Nouveau is described by sensuous lines and subtle light, feminine figures
and curly hair, fluent dresses and attitudes, vegetal curves and willow leaves, twisting waves
and evanescent smoke, but also by controlled lines, geometric details, colorful new shapes
and Art Nouveau was a new art form, an original artistic and decorative movement inspired by
the idea of "total art".

The violent mutation created by the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the century led the way
to all kind of new ideas, attempts and creative innovations in the fields of architecture and
interior design, furniture and fabrics, glass and tableware, jewelry and perfume bottles, posters
and wallpaper, textiles and lighting.

New materials were used and combined, such as metal and glass or wood, creating admirable
objects and buildings.

Art Nouveau Architecture

During the late 1800s, many European artists, graphic designers, and architects rebelled
against formal, classical approaches to design. They believed that the greatest beauty could be
found in nature.

Art Nouveau (French for "New Style") was popularized by the famous Maison de l'Art Nouveau,
a Paris art gallery operated by Siegfried Bing. Art Nouveau art and architecture flourished in
major European cities between 1890 and 1914.

In the United States, Art Nouveau ideas were expressed in the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany,
Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Art Nouveau buildings have many of these features:

• Asymmetrical shapes
• Extensive use of arches and curved forms
• Curved glass
• Curving, plant-like embellishments
22
• Mosaics
• Stained glass
• Japanese motifs

Other Names for Art Nouveau:

As it moved through Europe, Art Nouveau went through several phases and took on a variety of
names.

• Style Moderne, in France

• Style Nouille (Noodle Style), in France
• Jugendstil, in Germany
• Sezession, in Austria
• Stile Liberty, in Italy
• Arte Noven, in Spain

Examples:

• The Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri, by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler
• Parque Güell in Barcelona, Spain by Antoni Gaudí
• Majolika Haus in Vienna, Austria by Otto Wagner
• The Marquette Building in Chicago, Illinois, by William Holabird and Martin Roche with
Coydon T. Purdy
• The Municipal House in Prague, Czech Republic
Art Nouveau Architects
• Charles Rennie Mackintosh
• Louis Sullivan

Art Nouveau Furniture

Art nouveau furniture is generally characterized by delicately curving lines and floral motifs. This
kind of furniture often has no straight lines at all. Chair backs and table legs curve gracefully
outward, often intersecting with decorative crosspieces. Upholstery fabrics covering art nouveau
furniture are usually hard-wearing and sumptuous, ranging from brocades and leather to linen and
velvet. Artists commonly achieve the intricate carving and graceful curves in art nouveau furniture by
using tropical hardwoods.
Furniture, and art in general, began trending toward seamless arches and elegantly ballooned chair
backs in the 1880s. Literally meaning new art, art nouveau began in Vienna, where it quickly gained
popularity and swept across the rest of Europe, including Belgium, France, Spain, and Germany.
Pieces combining the spare elegance of Japanese décor with Gothic extravagance became highly
sought-after, despite their high prices. Each piece of art nouveau furniture was handmade and
original, though artists used great care to make certain that dining sets matched as closely as
possible.
Not only did art nouveau furniture shun straight lines, it also featured very literal interpretations of
natural beauty. Rosettes and curling vines often graced the edges of chair backs and furniture legs.

23
Birds, chiefly doves and sparrows, commonly winged their way around the edges of tables and
desks. Unlike Gothic carvings, art nouveau animals were not stiff or stylized. Rather, they matched
their living counterparts as closely as possible.

Though very difficult to carve, hardwoods proved the best materials for making art nouveau
furniture. Shaping took a very long time, but woods like walnut, oak, and teak hold their shape
almost indefinitely once artists twist, carve, and steam them into the proper form. The density of
hardwoods, however, generally means that a single mistake necessitates the artist scraping that
piece and starting again.

Such highly ornamental furniture could not go bare, so artists commonly called on Victorian
upholstery techniques to pad the seats of occasional chairs and sofas. Heavily embroidered
brocade, tapestry fabric, mohair, and leather were among the most expensive, hardest-wearing
options. Many colors of velvet, linen, and damask fabrics were also available. The fabrics could be
tufted or smooth, and popular colors ranged from deep jewel tones to soft mauves and creams.

While the beauty and grace of art nouveau furniture was popular at the time and is still enjoyed by
people today, the trend didn’t last. With World War I on the horizon in 1919, this style was largely set
aside for cheaper, mass-produced pieces. Some speculate that a world at war simply could not
afford original, handmade furniture on a large scale.

VIENNA SCHOOL

The First Viennese School is a name mostly used to refer to three defining composers of the
Classical period in Western art music in late-18th-century Vienna: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. Franz Schubert is sometimes added to the list, as is the
case here. The purpose of this tag is to categorize the many recordings of these 4 composers in one
place.

The First Viennese School is a name mostly used to refer to three composers of the Classical
period in Western art music in late-18th-century Vienna: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph
Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. Franz Schubert is occasionally added to the list.

In German speaking countries, the term Wiener Klassik (lit. Viennese classical era/art) is used. That
term is often more broadly applied to the Classical era in music as a whole, as a means to
distinguish it from other periods that are colloquially referred to as classical,
namely Baroque and Romantic music.

The term "Viennese School" was first used by Austrian musicologist Raphael Georg Kiesewetter in
1834, although he only counted Haydn and Mozart as members of the school. Other writers followed
suit, and eventually Beethoven was added to the list.[1] The designation "first" is added today to
avoid confusion with the Second Viennese School.

24
Whilst, Schubert apart, these composers certainly knew each other (with Haydn and Mozart even
being occasional chamber-music partners), there is no sense in which they were engaged in a
collaborative effort in the sense that one would associate with 20th-century schools such as the
Second Viennese School, or Les Six. Nor is there any significant sense in which one composer was
"schooled" by another (in the way that Berg and Webern were taught by Schoenberg), though it is
true that Beethoven for a time received lessons from Haydn.

Attempts to extend the First Viennese School to include such later figures as Anton
Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, and Gustav Mahler are merely journalistic, and never encountered in
academic musicology.[citation needed]

The three great classical composers, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, are commonly referred to as
the First Viennese School. They never really worked together as a group, though especially Mozart
and Haydn knew each other well, and have most certainly influenced each other. For example,
Mozart dedicated some string quartets to Haydn, because he valued Haydn’s string quartets so
much.

CHICAGO SCHOOL

While the term "Chicago School" is widely used to describe buildings in the city during the 1880s
and 1890s, this term has been disputed by scholars, in particular in reaction to Carl Condit's 1952
book The Chicago School of Architecture. Historians such as H. Allen Brooks, Winston
Weisman and Daniel Bluestone have pointed out that the phrase suggests a unified set of aesthetic
or conceptual precepts, when, in fact, Chicago buildings of the era displayed a wide variety of styles
and techniques. Contemporary publications used the phrase "Commercial Style" to describe the
innovative tall buildings of the era rather than proposing any sort of unified "school".

Some of the distinguishing features of the Chicago School are the use of steel-frame buildings with
masonry cladding (usually terra cotta), allowing large plate-glass window areas and limiting the
amount of exterior ornamentation. Sometimes elements of neoclassical architecture are used in
Chicago School skyscrapers. Many Chicago School skyscrapers contain the three parts of a
classical column. The first floor functions as the base, the middle stories, usually with little
ornamental detail, act as the shaft of the column, and the last floor or so represent the capital, with
more ornamental detail and capped with a cornice.

25
The Chicago Building by Holabird & Roche (1904-1905)
1905) is a prime example of the Chicago School, displaying both
variations of the Chicago window
Chicago School window grid

The "Chicago window" originated in this school. It is a three-part

three part window consisting of a large fixed
center panel flanked by two smaller double-hung
double hung sash windows. The arrangement of windows on
the facade typically creates a grid pattern, with some projecting out from the facade forming bay
windows.. The Chicago window combined the functions of light-gathering
light and natural ventilation; a
single central pane was usually fixed, while the two surrounding panes were operable. These
windows were often deployed in bays, known as oriel windows, that
hat projected out over the street.

Architects whose names are associated with the Chicago School include Henry Hobson
Richardson, Dankmar Adler, Daniel Burnham,
Burnham William Holabird, William LeBaron Jenney,Martin
Jenney
Roche, John Root, Solon S. Beman,
Beman and Louis Sullivan. Frank Lloyd Wright started in the firm of
Adler and Sullivan but created his own Prairie Style of architecture.

The Home Insurance Building,, which some regarded as the first skyscraper in the world, was built in
Chicago in 1885 and was demolished in 1931.

MONUMENTALISM

A building that is monumental has meaning beyond its form and function. It can be monumental both
in its scale and in terms of what it represents. Monuments have been constructed to celebrate
important events and people for centuries. Some of these structures still exist and are a part of our
culture today; think perhaps of Stonehenge or the pyramids at Giza. Buildings that become
synonymous with more than their function, perhaps with a city or a culture, could be described as
a
monumental.

26
Monumentalism definition : An architectural style characterized by monumental buildings, usually
with simple and/or symbolic design.

It seems that such a trend become a way for nations, cities, regions to settle their mark in the
international economical and political landscape.

This gigantism is now common and used both as a proof of existence for nations and as a way to
generate touristic attraction.

Monumentalism is about the many and varied manifestations of history and national identity in
contemporary art. In four essays, Jennifer Allen, Hendrik Folkerts, Joep Leerssen and the editors
explore this international phenomenon and the backgrounds that give rise to it. Also featured are
nineteen artists whose work has been shown in an exhibition of the same name in the Stedelijk
Museum, Amsterdam. In the broad range of subjects they present, possible definitions of ‘national
identity’ are met by fragmentation, multiformity, and a critical approach.

EXPRESSIONISM

• Expressionism is the way of expressing something in and around something that you feel
emotionally, from all the things that happen phenomenally. This is one of the movements in
architecture in the 20th century, mainly in Europe, where at that time people fought in the
World War I, including the architects at that time. The political and social problems also
influence the architect, such places like Germany, Austria, and Denmark. Many famous
architects are involved in this movement, such as , Bruno Taut, Erich Mendelsohn, Walter
Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Hans Poelzig.
• The characteristics of the expressionist architecture forms in something more gothic rather
than classic, which resulted in forms and shapes that are individualistic from the other forms
of architecture around that time, its detachment to realism and more to a symbolic form from
conceptual representation. The representation of the forms and shapes are from the
emotional feeling that the architects feel, a more bold way of showing what they feel, a more
frontal way by showing forms in their buildings.
• Materials used in this movement of architecture the representation first rather than function,
materials which have a poetic expression, and to unify the buildings into making it a
monolithic design. Bricks, steel and especially glass is used, according to Paul Scheerbart
“Coloured glass destroys hatred”,”Without a glass palace life is a burden”,”Glass brings us a
new era, building in brick only does us harm”- inscriptions on the 1914 Werkbund Glass
Pavilion.

• This kind of movement, inspires many others and the legacy continues until now. Art deco
and Neo Expressionism is one of the branch of expressionst architecture from the past.
Such architects like Frank Gehry, developed architecture from the sense of expressionism,
being individualistic from the other surroundings, expressing emotional values.
27
Expressionism evolved from the work of avant garde artists and designers in Germany and other
European countries during the first decades of the twentieth century. Key features of Expressionism
are:
• distorted shapes
• fragmented lines
• organic or biomorphic forms
• massive sculpted shapes
• extensive use of concrete and brick
• lack of symmetry
• many fanciful works rendered on paper but never built
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 can often be described as Neo-
expressionist.

Expressionist architecture describes a type of architecture which uses the form of a building as a
means to evoke or express the inner sensitivities and feelings of the viewer or architect. This
tendency can be coupled with the notion that the form can represent the physical manifestation of a
transpersonal or mystic spirit.[1]

The term "Expressionist architecture" initially described the activities of the German, Dutch,
Austrian, Czech and Danish avant garde from 1910 until ca. 1924 which occurred concurrently and
interdependently with the expressionist movement in the visual and performing arts. Subsequent
redefinitions extended the term backwards to 1905 and also widened it to encompass the rest of
Europe. Today the meaning has broadened even further to refer to architecture of any date or
location that exhibits some of the qualities of the original movement such as; utopianism, distortion,
fragmentation, or the communication of violent or overstressed emotion.[2]

The style was characterised by an early-modernist adoption of novel materials, formal innovation,
and very unusual massing, sometimes inspired by natural biomorphic forms, sometimes by the new
technical possibilities offered by the mass production of brick, steel and especially glass. Many
expressionist architects fought in World War I and their experiences, combined with the political
turmoil and social upheaval that followed the German Revolution of 1919, resulted in a utopian
outlook and a romantic socialist agenda.[3] Economic conditions severely limited the number of built
commissions between 1914 and the mid 1920s,[4] resulting in many of the most important
expressionist works remaining as projects on paper, such as Bruno Taut's Alpine
Architecture and Hermann Finsterlin's Formspiels. Ephemeral exhibition buildings were numerous
and highly significant during this period. Scenography for theatre and films provided another outlet

28
for the expressionist imagination,[5] and provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to
challenge conventions in a harsh economic climate.

Important events in expressionist architecture include; the Werkbund Exhibition

(1914) in Cologne, the completion and theatrical running of the Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin in
1919, the Glass Chain letters, and the activities of the Amsterdam School. The major permanent
extant landmark of Expressionism is Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam. By 1925
most of the leading architects of Expressionism such as; Bruno Taut, Eric Mendelsohn, Walter
Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Hans Poelzig, along with other Expressionists in the visual arts,
had turned toward the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) movement, a more practical and
matter-of-fact approach which rejected the emotional agitation of expressionism. A few,
notably Hans Scharoun, continued to work in an expressionist idiom.[6]

In 1933, after the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, expressionist art was outlawed as Degenerate
art.[7] Until the 1970s scholars[8] commonly played down the influence of the expressionists on the
later International style, but this has been re-evaluated in recent years.

BEGINING OF RCC

Concrete is a material used in building construction, consisting of a hard, chemically inert particulate
substance, known as an aggregate (usually made from different types of sand and gravel), that is
bonded together by cement and water.

The Assyrians and Babylonians used clay as the bonding substance or cement. The Egyptians used
lime and gypsum cement. In 1756, British engineer, John Smeaton made the first modern concrete
(hydraulic cement) by adding pebbles as a coarse aggregate and mixing powered brick into the
cement. In 1824, English inventor, Joseph Aspdin invented Portland Cement, which has remained
the dominant cement used in concrete production. Joseph Aspdin created the first true artificial
cement by burning ground limestone and clay together. The burning process changed the chemical
properties of the materials and Joseph Aspdin created a stronger cement than what using plain
crushed limestone would produce.

The other major part of concrete besides the cement is the aggregate. Aggregates include sand,
crushed stone, gravel, slag, ashes, burned shale, and burned clay. Fine aggregate (fine refers to the
size of aggregate) is used in making concrete slabs and smooth surfaces. Coarse aggregate is used
for massive structures or sections of cement.

Concrete that includes imbedded metal (usually steel) is called reinforced concrete or ferroconcrete.
Reinforced concrete was invented (1849) by Joseph Monier, who received a patent in 1867. Joseph
Monier was a Parisian gardener who made garden pots and tubs of concrete reinforced with an iron
29
mesh. Reinforced concrete combines the tensile or bendable strength of metal and the
compressional strength of concrete to withstand heavy loads. Joseph Monier exhibited his invention
at the Paris Exposition of 1867. Besides his pots and tubs, Joseph Monier promoted reinforced
concrete for use in railway ties, pipes, floors, arches, and bridges.

Reinforced concrete, Concrete in which steel is embedded in such a manner that the two materials
act together in resisting forces. The reinforcing steel—rods, bars, or mesh—absorbs the tensile,
shear, and sometimes the compressive stresses in aconcrete structure. Plain concrete does not
easily withstand tensile and shear stresses caused by wind, earthquakes, vibrations, and other
forces and is therefore unsuitable in most structural applications. In reinforced concrete, the tensile
strength of steel and the compressive strength of concrete work together to allow the member to
sustain these stresses over considerable spans. The invention of reinforced concrete in the 19th
century revolutionized the construction industry, and concrete became one of the world’s most
common building materials.

The average person thinks that concrete has been in common use for many centuries, but such is
not the case. Although the Romans made cement – called Pozzolana – before Christ by mixing
slaked lime with a volcanic ash from Mount Vesuvius and used it to make concrete for building, the
art was lost during the Dark Ages 5th century -15th century A.D.) and was not revived until
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For the use of structural members, he recommended
pozzolana, which were volcanic sand from sandlike of Puteoli, brownish-yellow-gray in color near
Naples and reddish brown at Rome. He specifies 1 part lime and 3 parts pozzolana for cements use
in buildings. In his textbook, quite humbly titled "On the Origin of all Things", Vitruvius held forth on
the fundamental behavior of building materials, and then presented his views about the nature of
theory versus practice, Vitruvius suggestion that design engineers should have more construction
experience, and vice versa.

Joseph Monier, the owner of an important nursery in Paris deserves the credit for making the first
practical use of reinforced concrete in 1867. He acquired first French patent in 1867 for iron
reinforced concrete tubs, then followed by his pipes, tanks in 1868, flat flates in 1869, Bridges in
1873, stairways in 1875. In 1880-1881, he received German patent for railroads ties, water feeding
troughs, circular flower pots, flat plates, and irrigation channels. He apparently had NO
QUANTITATIVE KNOWLEDGE regarding its behaviour or any method of making Design
Calculations.

THEORIES OF JOHN RUSKIN

John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian
era, also an art patron,draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He
wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education,

30
and botany to political economy. His writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. Ruskin
penned essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a
fairy tale. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art was later superseded by a
preference for plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his
writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society. He also made detailed
sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architectural structures and
ornamentation.

He was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century up to the First World War. After a period
of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of
numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as
having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.

Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an
extended essay in defence of the work ofJ. M. W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of
the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s he championed the Pre-Raphaelites who were influenced
by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862)
marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at
the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his
monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors
Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the
principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation
that endures today.

Rebelling against formal, classical styles, John Ruskin reawakened interest in heavy, elaborate
Gothic architecture. He also disdained anything machine-made, and paved the way for the

Education:

Christ Church College at Oxford, MA degree, 1843

Important Writings:

John Ruskin traveled to France and Italy, where he sketched the romantic beauty of medieval
architecture and sculpture. Through his essays titledThe Poetry of Architecture (compare prices)
and his 1849 book The Seven Lamps of Architecture (compare prices), Ruskin awakened interest in
medieval Gothic architecture.

John Ruskin later traveled to Venice and wrote about the rise and fall of spiritual forces as reflected
through changing architectural styles. In 1851 Ruskin's observations were published in the three-
volume series, The Stones of Venice (Download the introductory chapters for free).

31
Influence on Art:

John Ruskin was a writer, critic, scientist, poet, artist, environmentalist, and philosopher. As the
most important art critic of the Victorian era, Ruskin gained respectability for the Pre-Raphaelites,
who rejected the classical approach to art and believed that paintings must be done from direct
observation of nature. Through his writings, Ruskin rescued the Romantic painter J. M. W.
Turner from obscurity.

Influence on Architecture:

John Ruskin rebelled against formal, classical art and architecture. Ruskin championed the
asymmetrical, rough architecture of medieval Europe. Ruskin's work heralded the Gothic Revival
movement in Britain and paved the way for the Arts & Crafts movement in Britain and the United
States. Like William Morris and other Arts & Crafts philosophers, John Ruskin opposed
industrialization and rejected the use of machine-made materials.

Important Building:

One of Ruskin's chief interests was the construction of the Oxford Museum of Natural History.
Ruskin worked with the support of his old friend, Sir Henry Acland, then Regius Professor of
Medicine, to bring his vision of Gothic beauty to this building. The Oxford Museum of Natural History
remains one of the finest example of Victorian Gothic Revival (or Neo-Gothic) style in Britain.

Important Styles:

• Gothic Revival
• Arts and Crafts

Art and design criticism

Ruskin's views on art, wrote Kenneth Clark, "cannot be made to form a logical system, and perhaps
owe to this fact a part of their value." Ruskin's accounts of art are descriptions of a superior type that
conjure images vividly in the mind's eye. Kenneth Clark neatly summarises the key features of
Ruskin's writing on art and architecture:

1. Art is not a matter of taste, but involves the whole man. Whether in making or perceiving a
work of art, we bring to bear on it feeling, intellect, morals, knowledge, memory, and every
other human capacity, all focused in a flash on a single point. Aesthetic man is a concept as
false and dehumanizing as economic man.

32
 2. Even the most superior mind and the most powerful imagination must found itself on facts,
which must be recognized for what they are. The imagination will often reshape them in a
way which the prosaic mind cannot understand; but this recreation will be based on facts,
not on formulas or illusions.
3. These facts must be perceived by the senses, or felt; not learnt.
4. The greatest artists and schools of art have believed it their duty to impart vital truths, not
only about the facts of vision, but about religion and the conduct of life.
5. Beauty of form is revealed in organisms which have developed perfectly according to their
laws of growth, and so give, in his own words, 'the appearance of felicitous fulfillment of
function.'
6. This fulfillment of function depends on all parts of an organism cohering and cooperating.
This was what he called the 'Law of Help,' one of Ruskin's fundamental beliefs, extending
from nature and art to society.
7. Good art is done with enjoyment. The artist must feel that, within certain reasonable limits,
he is free, that he is wanted by society, and that the ideas he is asked to express are true
and important.
8. Great art is the expression of epochs where people are united by a common faith and a
common purpose, accept their laws, believe in their leaders, and take a serious view of
human destiny

THEORIES OF WILLIAM MORRIS

William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, artist,
writer, and libertarian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and English Arts
and Crafts Movement.

He founded a design firm in partnership with the artist Edward Burne-Jones, and the poet and
artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti which profoundly influenced the decoration of churches and
houses into the early 20th century.

As an author, illustrator and medievalist, he helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, and
was a direct influence on postwar authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien.

He was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production,
and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, now a statutory
element in the preservation of historic buildings in the UK.

Morris wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts
throughout his life.

William Morris was a leading member of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He is best known for
his pattern designs, particularly on fabrics and wallpapers. His vision in linking art to industry

33
 by applying the values of fine art to the production of commercial design was a key stage in
the evolution of design as we know it today.

William Morris was an artist, designer, printer, typographer, bookbinder, craftsman, poet,
writer and champion of socialist ideals. He believed that a designer should have a working
knowledge of any media that he used and as a result he spent a lot of time teaching himself
a wide variety of techniques. Like many designers of his time, Morris was skilled in a wide
range of arts and crafts.

Morris and his Pre-Raphaelite friends formed their own company of designers and
decorators. As well as Burne-Jones and Rossetti, the group now included the architect Philip
Webb and Ford Madox Brown.

Morris, Marshall, Faulkener & Co, specialized in producing stained glass, carving, furniture,
wallpaper, carpets and tapestries. The company's designs brought about a complete
revolution in public taste.

He was also a major contributor to reviving traditional textile arts and methods of production,
and one of the founders of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, now a statutory
element in the preservation of historic buildings in the UK.

Furnishing textiles were an important offering of the firm in all its incarnations. By 1883,
Morris wrote "Almost all the designs we use for surface decoration, wallpapers, textiles, and
the like, I design myself.

Morris's preference for flat use of line and colour and abhorrence of "realistic" three-
dimensional shading was marked; in this he followed the propositions of Owen Jones as set
out in his 'The Grammar of Ornament' of 1856, a copy of which Morris owned.

By the 1870s, the firm was offering both designs for embroideries and finished works.
Following in Street's footsteps, Morris became active in the growing movement to return
originality and mastery of technique to embroidery, and was one of the first designers
associated with the Royal School of Art Needlework with its aim to "restore Ornamental
Needlework for secular purposes to the high place it once held among decorative arts.

Morris' first repeating pattern for wallpaper is dated 1862, but was not manufactured until
1864. All his wallpaper designs were manufactured for him by Jeffrey & Co, a commercial
wallpaper maker. In 1868 he designed his first pattern specifically for fabric printing.

As in so many other areas that interested him, Morris chose to work with the ancient
technique of hand woodblock printing in preference to the roller printing which had almost
completely replaced it for commercial uses.

Morris took up the practical art of dyeing as a necessary adjunct of his manufacturing
business. He spent much of his time atStaffordshire dye works mastering the processes of
that art and making experiments in the revival of old or discovery of new methods.

34

Morris's patterns for woven textiles, some of which were also machine made under ordinary
commercial conditions, included intricate double-woven furnishing fabrics in which two sets
of warps and wefts are interlinked to create complex gradations of colour and texture. His
textile designs are still popular today, sometimes recoloured for modern sensibilities, but
also in the original and bright colour ways.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

A notion of "good work," derived from William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement but
also part of a wider tradition in philosophy (associated with pragmatism and Everyday
Aesthetics) understanding the global significance of, and opportunities for, aesthetic
experience, grounds both art making and appreciation in the organization of labour
generally.

William Morris and the artist-craftsmen and -women of the Arts and Crafts Movement have
a theory of art and the aesthetic that has an importance beyond their own artistic work and
its achievements.

Morris delivered lectures on the arts in many British towns and cities in the 1870s, 1880s,
and 1890s; these were published as Hopes and Fears for Art and later as a volume of his
collected works.

THEORIES OF HENRY VANDE VELDE

Henry Clemens Van de Velde (3 April 1863 – 15 October 1957) was a Belgian painter,
architect and interior designer.

Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar he could be considered as one of the main
founders and representatives of Art Nouveau in Belgium.

Van de Velde spent the most important part of his career in Germany and had a decisive
influence on German architecture and design at the beginning of the 20th century.

Noted architect Henry van de Velde designed gorgeous, modern buildings and interiors in
his now famous Art Nouveau style. What Van de Velde was to Art Nouveau architecture
Walter Gropius was to Bauhaus. The stunning Art Nouveau buildings he designed still exist
in Germany’s Thuringer and Saxony region.

In the late 19th century Flemish architect Henry van de Velde was the frontrunner for Art
Nouveau architecture. He was one of the first modern architects to exclusively favour the
"form follows function" theory in architecture.

After starting his career as a painter in Belgium, Van de Velde turned to architecture and
design after becoming enamored with the works of William Morris and John Ruskin of the
Arts and Crafts Movement (1860-1910).

One of his most important commissions came in 1895 when he designed the interiors and
furniture for the famed Maison de l’ Art Nouveau in Paris. Refusing to bend to the process of
35
 historical patterns, which he thought were banal and hideous, he put his Art Nouveau mark
on everything; buildings, furnishings, china, wallpapers, and even draperies.

Main buildings

Bloemenwerf in Brussels in 1895

Folkwang Museum in Hagen in 1901

Werkbund Theatre in Koln - 1914

During the time that Van de Velde was director of the school, 1902 to 1917, he designed
several houses in Thuringer and Saxony. In each he adhered to the principal of exposing the
interiors to natural light with large windows that brought nature inside.

A beautiful example of this is his house in Weimar, Hohe Papplin Haus, with its stunning sky
jutting angles. Another is the airy interior he designed for the Nietzsche Archives that houses
the papers of noted German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche.

With the outbreak of World War I Van de Velde was forced to return to his native Belgium. It
was he who recommended to the Grand Duke that Walter Gropius be appointed his
successor as superintendent of the School of Art and Applied Arts.

Art Nouveau
In 1892 he abandoned painting, devoting his time to arts of decoration and interior design (silver-
and goldsmith’s trade, chinaware and cutlery, fashion design, carpet and fabric design). His own
house, Bloemenwerf in Ukkel, was his first attempt at architecture, and was inspired by the British
and American Arts and Crafts Movement. He also designed interiors and furniture for the influential art
gallery "L'Art Nouveau" of Samuel Bing in Paris in 1895. This gave the movement its first designation
as Art Nouveau. Bing’s pavilion at the 1900 Paris world fair also exhibited work by Van de Velde. Van
de Velde was strongly influenced by John Ruskin and William Morris’s English Arts and Crafts
movement and he was one of the first architects or furniture designers to apply curved lines in an
abstract style. Van de Velde set his face against copying historical styles, resolutely opting for
original (i.e. new) design, banning banality and ugliness from people’s minds.

Van de Velde's design work received good exposure in Germany, through periodicals like Innen-
Dekoration, and subsequently he received commissions for interior designs in Berlin. Around the
turn of the century, he designed Villa Leuring in the Netherlands, and Villa Esche in Chemnitz, two
works that show his Art Nouveau style in architecture. He also designed the interior of the Folkwang
Museum inHagen (today the building houses the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum) and the Nietzsche House
in Weimar.

In 1899 he settled in Weimar, Germany, where in 1905 he established the Grand-Ducal School of
Arts and Crafts, together with the Grand Duke of Weimar. It is the predecessor of the Bauhaus,
which, following World War I, eventually replaced the School of Arts and Crafts, under new
director Walter Gropius, who was suggested for the position by Van de Velde.

36
Van de Velde wanted to have a broad effect as an innovator. The example of the English “arts and
crafts movement” gave him the stimulus in the 1890s to turn to the applied arts.

Confidently surmounting all traditions, van de Velde also ignored the boundaries between art and
crafts and created a canon that applied design to virtually every area of life: the building of a house,
the decoration of a room, the form of clothing and jewellery, and also everyday objects from lighting
fixtures and furniture to letter-openers. The “total artist” remained faithful to the conviction he
expressed back then throughout his life: the design of an object is the more consummate the more
exactly it corresponds to its function. He remained true to the idea that beautiful things which
harmonised with their surrounding would exhilarate and elevate man.

The beauty of everyday things

His first successes came in Brussels. He acquired his first German

clients in 1897.
Van de Velde labelled his work the “New Style”. It is generally assigned to Art Nouveau. He himself
said: “The time of ornaments of vines, flowers and women is over”. What distinguishes his version of
ArtNouveau?

Spiritual father of the Bauhaus

The successor institution of the Grand Ducal School of Art and van de Velde’s School for Applied
Arts was the State Bauhaus in Weimar. At van de Velde’s suggestion, Walter Gropius became its
founding director. Van de Velde saw himself as the spiritual father of the Bauhaus. He had already
realised Gropius’s idea of a cooperation of artists, craftsmen and manufacturers in his Weimar
Applied Arts Seminar.
It’s certainly accurate, for without van de Velde’s far-sighted appreciation of Gropius as his
successor the Bauhaus would never have been founded.
He was active until 1943/44, and it’s astonishing what he continued to do into old age. In the end, he
left his native country again in 1947 to pass his last years in Switzerland. His last work was his
memoirs, which he worked on until his death at over ninety years of age. His life and his work

37
remain a miracle, attested to by thousands of artworks and a legacy that binds posterity to continue
to recognise this great figure of contemporary history.

THEORIES OF OTTO WAGNER

Otto Koloman Wagner (13 July 1841 – 11 April 1918) was an Austrian architect and urban planner,
known for his lasting impact on the appearance of his home town Vienna, to which he contributed many
landmarks.

Hungary

• Rumbach Street synagogue, Budapest (1872)

Austria

• Floodgate, Nußdorf, Vienna (1894)

• Viennese Wiener Stadtbahn, metropolitan railway system, e.g. Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station
• Majolica House (Majolikahaus), Vienna (1898–1899)
• Postal Office Savings Bank Building, Vienna (1894–1902)
• Kirche am Steinhof, Vienna (1903–1907)
Wagner was born in Penzing, a district in Vienna. He studied in Berlin and Vienna. In 1864, he started
designing his first buildings in the historicist style. In the mid- and late-1880s, like many of his
contemporaries in Germany (such as Constantin Lipsius, Richard Streiter and Georg Heuser),
Switzerland (Hans Auer and Alfred Friedrich Bluntschli) and France (Paul Sédille), Wagner became a
proponent of Architectural Realism. It was a theoretical position that enabled him to mitigate the
reliance on historical forms. In 1894, when he became Professor of Architecture at the Academy of
Fine Arts Vienna, he was well advanced on his path toward a more radical opposition to the
prevailing currents of historicist architecture.

By the mid-1890s, he had already designed several Jugendstil buildings. Wagner was very interested
in urban planning — in 1890 he designed a new city plan for Vienna, but only his urban rail network,
the Stadtbahn, was built. In 1896 he published a textbook entitledModern Architecture in which he
expressed his ideas about the role of the architect; it was based on the text of his 1894 inaugural
lecture to the Academy. His style incorporated the use of new materials and new forms to reflect the
fact that society itself was changing. In his textbook, he stated that "new human tasks and views
called for a change or reconstitution of existing forms". In pursuit of this ideal, he designed and built
structures that reflected their intended function, such as the austere Neustiftgasse apartment block
in Vienna.

38
In 1897, he joined Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser shortly after
they founded the "Vienna Secession" artistic group. From the ideas of this group he developed a style
that included quasi-symbolic references to the new forms of modernity.

om 1895 he was influenced by new art styles, more suited to the needs of modern way of life and
developed his theories on architecture, relating to function, material and construction, in the book
"Modern Architecture" (1895). In 1898, he built his firstArt Nouveau building, the Majolica House in
Vienna, a functional structure with the facade covered in multicolored majolica tiles. He also
designed in 1894, the Vienna metropolitan railway system.

Otto Wagner was one of the founding members of the Vienna Secession, with fellow artists Klimt,
Hoffmann and Olbrich, in 1899. He was one of the most influential artists of the turn of the century :
architect, urnbanist, applied artist and theoretician, his writings laid the groundwork for Modernism in
architecture. In his architectural works, he was receptive to the use of modern methods of building
(steel frame construction) and new materials (thin marble slabs for the façades).

In the 1860’s, Vienna went through a major urban redevelopment of the city’s urban core by
constructing an array of public and private buildings along a newly created grand boulevard in a mix
of historicist styles (See Fig.1). This investment in the city brought forth a snapshot of Vienna’s
bourgeoisie’s outlook towards architecture. As architects tried to grapple with the tradition of the
Beaux-Art school and the implications of a growing industrialized society, the decisive eclecticism of
the Ringstrasse may be attributed to the sociopolitical environment in the mid nineteenth century in
Vienna. As Debra Schafter notes, “Though recently scholars have identified proto-modernist ideas at
work beneath the stylistic facades of many of these monuments, the Ringstrasse’s opulent and
eclectic display of historical styles also furnished important symbols of aristocratic values that linked
the liberal bourgeoisie to the ruling class of the Habsburg Dynasty, the history of which in Austria
extended back to the thirteenth century.

THEORIES OF PETER BEHRENS

Peter Behrens (14 April 1868 – 27 February 1940) was a German architect and designer. He was
important for the modernist movement, and several of the movement's leading names
(including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius) in earlier stages of their careers.

Most histories of twentieth-century architecture cite Peter Behrens' influence on three of his
protégés—Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier—and mention the turbine
factory and arc lamp he designed for the German electrical firm AEG. Now Behrens' full contribution
to the history of twentieth-century architecture is finally told, in Stanford Anderson's indispensable
guide to one of the great designers of our century.

Behrens started his career as a painter, illustrator and book-binder but would eventually become an
artistic consultant for AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft, literally General Electric
Company). His career at AEG started in 1907 and there he designed a wide range of materials for
39
the company including a logotype, product packaging and various publicity materials. The work he
did there is of significant note because it is generally recognized as the first fully developed
corporate identity, much preceding the corporate identity heydays of the 1950s and 60s. His work
was not limited to printed materials, he also designed a turbine factory for AEG shortly after it
entered the field of aircraft production.

Behrens turned to architecture after designing and building his own home. He even conceived the
items in the interior, towels, shelves, furniture and everything in between. He was one of the
pioneers of architectural reform, and his factory buildings designed of brick, glass and steel gained
popularity during the early 20th century. During the years between 1907 and 1912 Behrens had
many assistants and students including architecture big wigs Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and
Adolph Meyer.

In 1907, AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gessellschaft) retained Behrens as artistic consultant. He

designed the entire corporate identity (logotype, product design, publicity, etc.) and for that he is
considered the first industrial designer in history. Peter Behrens was never an employee for AEG,
but worked in the capacity of artistic consultant. In 1910, Behrens designed the AEG Turbine
Factory. From 1907 to 1912, he had students and assistants, and among them were Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Adolf Meyer, Jean Kramer and Walter Gropius (later to become the first
director of the Bauhaus.) In 1922, he accepted an invitation to teach at the Akademie der Bildenden
Künste in Vienna.

Peter Behrens remained head of the Department of Architecture at the Prussian Academy of Fine
Arts in Berlin. Behrens became associated with Hitler’s urbanistic Bauhaus, :House of Building” or
“Building School”, is the common term for the school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine
arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919
to 1933.

The faculty included Paul Klee, Johannes Itten, Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, László Moholy-Nagy,
Otto Bartning and Wassily Kandinsky. Students were taught to use modern and innovative materials
and mass-produced fittings, often originally intended for industrial settings, to create original
furniture and buildings. One example was the armchair F 51, designed for the Bauhaus’s directors
room in 1920.

It was founded with the idea of creating a ‘total’ work of art in which all arts, including architecture
would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential
currents in Modernist architecture and modern design.The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon
subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and
typography.

The Bauhaus was an innovative architecture and art school whose objectives included the merging
of plastic arts with applied arts, reflected in its teaching methods based on the theoretical and
practical application of the plastic arts synthesis.

THEORIES OF LOUIS SULLIVAN (BOSTON)

40
Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been
called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He is considered by many as the
creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a
mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an inspiration to the Chicago group of architects who have come to
be known as the Prairie School. Along with Henry Hobson Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright, Sullivan is
one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture". He posthumously received the AIA Gold
Medal in 1944.

Louis H. Sullivan’s Contribution to Modern Architecture -Known as the father of the modern
skyscraper. -Develop theory ‘that the function created or organized the form’.

He was the first architect who ultimately designed the most distinctive treatment for tall buildings.
Sullivan was concerned with aesthetics of structures & developed a unique style of ornamentation -
Who trained was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright & influenced generations or progressive architects
in movement of what is called Prairie School -What he left for his profession was his approach to
design, in their recognition of the idea that form must follow function that they carry on his artistic
legacy.

Louis H. Sullivan joined the office of Dankmar Adler in 1879, soon becoming Adler's partner. Their
14-year association produced more than 100 buildings, many of them landmarks, such as the
Auditorium Building in Chicago and the Wainwright Building in St. Louis. He considered it obvious
that building design should indicate a building's functions, hence his influential dictum “Form follows
function.”

One of the several architects Louis Henry Sullivan worked for six years was Dankmar Adler, who
was so impressed with Louis Henry Sullivan 's drawing talent and his ability to devise architectural
ornament that Louis Henry Sullivan made him a junior partner late in 1881 or early in 1882 and then
full partner in the new firm of Adler & Sullivan, organized May 1, 1883. From the beginning of their
association until July 11, 1895, when Adler temporarily quit architecture because of the national
depression, Adler & Sullivan designed approximately 180 buildings. Of these, some 60 or one-third
of the total-most commissioned before 1890-were single or multiple residences; 33 (18%) were
commercial buildings (generally offices and stores); 27 (15%) were for manufacturing; 17 (9%) were
theaters, music halls, and auditoriums; and 11 (6%) were warehouses. The remaining 31 (17%) ran
the gamut from stables and mausoleums to railroad stations and libraries.

Adler and Sullivan complemented each other perfectly. Recognized as an outstanding acoustical
and structural engineer as well as a reliable architect, Adler took care of mechanicals and
structurals, Louis Henry Sullivan handled the art, and together they worked out the program. Their
mutual talents were first recognized in the theater and concert hall genre.

41
Beginning in 1879, with Louis Henry Sullivan a free-lance assistant on Central Music Hall in
Chicago, the partners produced eight reconstructions and one new theatre over the next seven
years, culminating in their grandest structure, the Chicago Auditorium Building (1886-1890).

The same was said of Adler & Sullivan 's offices commercial structures, and factories. Using isolated
footings instead of continuous foundations when possible, Adler widened the spans between
masonry-clad columns, thereby increasing fenestration. In his facade compositions, Louis Henry
Sullivan projected the comparatively thin columns slightly forward of the building's main mass. The
result as his tentative thrust at a system of vertical construction as well as illumination "far greater
than is usually obtained by other architects," said a local building magazine.

This kind of reputation, but especially their theater successes, landed them the commission for the
Auditorium Building on December 22, 1886. At $3,200,000, it was the costliest edifice in the city, and
at 8,737,000 ft3 of volume the largest in the nation. Running from Michigan Boulevard along
Congress Street to Wabash Avenue, it was 63,350 ft2 m plan in 10 stories plus a seven-Floor, 40 x
70 ft tower. The program was ultimately arranged as a 400-room hotel on Michigan and partway
down Congress, 136 offices and stores on Wabash and in the tower, and a 4200-seat concert hall
that, with support facilities, occupied half the total area and one-third the volume of the entire
structure, the largest permanent concert hall ever built at the time. The nonsteel building of load-
bearing masonry walls weighing 110,000 tons confronted Adler with as many structural challenges
as did the acoustics of the vast auditorium. But Louis Henry Sullivan solved them as successfully as
Louis Henry Sullivan did the aesthetics.

Basing his facade composition loosely on Henry obson Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale Store
(1885-1887) in Chicago, Louis Henry Sullivan articulated the granite-and-lime-stone exterior in a
rhythmic and utilitarian manner befitting ting both the cultural and commercial nature of its interior
functions. The lavish auditorium, the main dining room, and the banquet hall were among the finest
interior spaces Louis Henry Sullivan ever conceived.

The problem was the high-rise office building, the skyscraper, as it came to be called in the 1890s.
The challenge for Louis Henry Sullivan was not so much structural, for most of the load-bearing and
mechanical obstacles to great height had already been solved, as it was the aesthetics of structure.
Louis Henry Sullivan saw the skyscraper as a symbol of U.S. business that was the basis of the
national culture, and therefore as an opportunity to create a long-anticipated indigenous architectural
style. Frank Lloyd Wright, his principal assistant at the time, remembered how Louis Henry Sullivan
struggled over the facade composition, leaving the office for long walks, throwing away sketch after
sketch, until fnally Louis Henry Sullivan burst into Wrights room and threw a drawing on the table. "I
was perfectly aware of what had happened," Wright recalled. 'This was Louis Henry Sullivan 's
greatest moment-his greatest effort. The 'skyscraper . . . as an entity with . . . beauty all its own, was
born".

42
All this was but one aspect of Louis Sullivan 's thinking. It was necessary to differentiate the three
principal functions, to be sure, but it was equally important to unite them harmoniously at the same
time, because Louis Henry Sullivan believed, as Louis Henry Sullivan had written earlier, that every
building should reveal "a single, germinal impulse or idea, which shall permeate the mass and its
every detail," so that "there shall effuse from the completed structure a single sentiment . . .". What
was the skyscraper's single sentiment? Or, as Louis Henry Sullivan asked himself in his 1896 essay:
"What is the chief characteristic of the tall office building?" Louis Henry Sullivan answered in some
of his most direct but most memorable prose. "It is lofty. ... It must be tall, every inch of it tall. ... It
must be every inch a proud and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation . . . from bottom to top . . .
without a single dissenting line".

Between 1890 and 1895 Adler & Sullivan designed some 13 high-rise projects, only 5 of which were
built: the Wainwright and the Union Trust Building (1892) in St. Louis, the Schiller Building (1891)
and the Stock Exchange (1893) in Chicago, and the Guaranty Building (1894-1895) in Buffalo. But
together with "The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered," they established Louis Henry Sullivan
as the premier theorist of skyscraper design with a pioneering style of national importance.

Buildings 1887–1895 by Louis Sullivan, with Dankmar Adler until 1895.

• Springer Block (later Bay State Building and Burnham Building) and Kranz Buildings, Chicago
(1885–1887)
• The Auditorium Building, Auditorium Hotel and Auditorium Theater, Chicago (1886–1890)
• Commercial Loft for Wirt Dexter, Chicago (1887)
• Standard Club of Chicago, Chicago (1887–1888)
• Hebrew Manual Training School, Chicago (1889–1890)
• James H. Walker Warehouse & Company Store, Chicago (1886–1889)
• Warehouse for E. W. Blatchford, Chicago (1889)
• Albert Sullivan Residence, Chicago (1891–1892)
• Transportation Building, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago (1891–1893)
• McVicker's Theater, second remodeling, Chicago (1890–1891)
• Bayard Building, (now Bayard-Condict Building), 65–69 Bleecker Street, New York City (1898).
Sullivan's only building in New York, with a glazed terra cotta curtain wall expressing the steel
structure behind it.
• Commercial Loft of Gage Brothers & Company, Chicago (1898–1900)
• Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Cathedral and Rectory, Chicago (1900–1903)
• Carson Pirie Scott store, (originally known as the Schlesinger & Mayer Store, now known as
"Sullivan Center") Chicago (1899–1904)
[29]
• Virginia Hall of Tusculum College, Greeneville, Tennessee, 1901
• Van Allen Building, Clinton, Iowa (1914)
• St. Paul's Methodist Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa (1910)
• Krause Music Store, Chicago (final commission 1922; front façade only)

43
 UNIT-III
Contributions to Architecture and Theory made by pioneers-Le-Corbusier, Frank Lloyd
Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies Van der Rohe in the periods between the World Wars.

LE-CORBUSIER

Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris also known as Le Corbusier (French: October 6, 1887 –

August 27, 1965), was anarchitect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the
pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born inSwitzerland and became a
French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed
throughout Europe, India, and America. He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and
was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities. He was
awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal and AIA Gold Medal in 1961.

Le Corbusier's early work was related to nature, but as his ideas matured, he developed the
Maison-Domino, a basic building prototype for mass production with free-standing pillars and
rigid floors.

44
From 1922 Le Corbusier worked with his cousin Pierre Jeanneret. During this time, Le
Corbusier's ideas began to take physical form, mainly as houses which he created as "a
machine for living in" and which incorporated his trademark five points of architecture.

During World War II, Le Corbusier produced little beyond some theories on his utopian ideals
and on his modular building scale. In 1947, he started his Unite d'habitation. Although relieved
with sculptural roof-lines and highly colored walls, these massive post-war dwelling blocks
received justifiable criticism.

Le Corbusier's post-war buildings rejected his earlier industrial forms and utilized vernacular
materials, brute concrete and articulated structure. Near the end of his career he worked on
several projects in India, which utilized brutal materials and sculptural forms. In these buildings
he readopted the recessed structural column, the expressive staircase, and the flat undecorated
plane of his celebrated five points of architecture.

Le Corbusier did not fare well in international competition, but he produced town-planning
schemes for many parts of the world, often as an adjunct to a lecture tour. In these schemes the
vehicular and pedestrian zones and the functional zones of the settlements were always
emphasized.

Five Points of Architecture

During his career, Le Corbusier developed a set of architectural principles that dictated his
technique, called "the Five Points of a New Architecture" which were most evident in his Villa
Savoye. These were:

• Pilotis – The replacement of supporting walls by a grid of reinforced concrete columns that
bears the load of the structure is the basis of the new aesthetic.
• Roof gardens – The flat roof can be utilized for a domestic purpose while also providing
essential protection to the concrete roof.
• The free designing of the ground plan – The absence of supporting walls means that the
house is unrestrained in its internal usage.
• The free design of façade – By separating the exterior of the building from its structural
function the façade becomes free.
• The horizontal window – The façade can be cut along its entire length to allow rooms to be
lit equally.[2]

45
Villa Savoye

It was Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929–1931) that most succinctly summed up his five points
of architecture that he had elucidated in the journalL'Esprit Nouveau and his book Vers une
architecture, which he had been developing throughout the 1920s. First, Le Corbusier lifted the
bulk of the structure off the ground, supporting it by pilotis – reinforced concrete stilts.
These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house, allowed him to elucidate his next
two points: a free façade, meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the architect
wished, and anopen floor plan, meaning that the floor space was free to be configured into
rooms without concern for supporting walls. The second floor of the Villa Savoye includes long
strips of ribbon windows that allow unencumbered views of the large surrounding yard, and
which constitute the fourth point of his system. The fifth point was the roof garden to
compensate for the green area consumed by the building and replacing it on the roof. A ramp
rising from ground level to the third floor roof terrace allows for an architectural promenade
through the structure. The white tubular railing recalls the industrial "ocean-liner" aesthetic that
Le Corbusier much admired. The driveway around the ground floor, with its semicircular path,
measures the exact turning radius of a 1927 Citroën automobile.

Carpenter Center

The Carpenter Center was Le Corbusier's only building in America, and he aimed to incorporate his Five
[
Points into the design of the building.

Carpenter Center, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1961 to 1964.

Centre Le Corbusier, at Zurich, Switzerland, 1963 to 1967.
Convent of La Tourette, at Eveux-sur-Arbresle, near Lyon, France, 1957 to 1960. *3D
Model *
House at Weissenhof, at Stuttgart, Germany, 1927. * 3D Model *
Maisons Jaoul, at Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, France, 1954 to 1956.
Museum at Ahmedabad, at Ahmedabad, India, 1953 to 1957.
Notre-Dame-du-Haut, at Ronchamp, France, 1955. * 3D Model *
Ozenfant House and Studio, at Paris, France, 1922. * 3D Model *
Palace of Assembly, at Chandigarh, India, 1953 to 1963.
Philips Pavilion, at Brussels, Belgium, 1958.
Shodan House, at Ahmedabad, India, 1956. * 3D Model *
Unite d'Habitation, at Marseilles, France, 1946 to 1952. * 3D Model *
United Nations Headquarters, with others, at New York, New York, 1947 to 1953.

46
Villa Savoye, at Poissy, France, 1928 to 1929. * 3D Model *
Villa Stein, at Garches, France, 1927.
Weekend house by Corbu, at suburb of Paris, France, 1935.

FRANK LLYOD WRIGHT

Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright, June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an
American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than
1,000 structures and completed 532 works.

Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its
environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was best
exemplified by his design for Falling water (1935), which has been called "the best all-
time work of American architecture".

Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the
concept of the Usonian home, his unique vision for urban planning in the United States.

His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types,
including offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums.

Wright also designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture
and stained glass.

Wright authored 20 books and many articles and was a popular lecturer in the United
States and in Europe.

While construction was underway on the Hillside Home School, Wright went to work for
the Chicago firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan, working as a draftsman on the
Auditorium Building, which, at the time of completion in 1890, was the largest building in
Chicago. He remained with that firm until 1893, during which time he absorbed
Sullivan's influence and designed several houses, including one for himself in Oak Park,
Illinois that was constructed with Sullivan's financial assistance.

"Moonlighting" on his own commissions led to a break with Sullivan in 1893, and Wright
set up a separate practice. His first commissions were primarily for the design of private
homes in the more affluent suburbs of Chicago.

Through the turn of the century, Wright's distinctively personal style was evolving, and
his work in these years foreshadowed his so-called "prairie style," a term deriving from
the publication in 1901 of "A Home in a Prairie Town" which he designed for the Ladies'
Home Journal.

Prairie houses were characterized by low, horizontal lines that were meant to blend with
the flat landscape around them. Typically, these structures were built around a central
47
 chimney, consisted of broad open spaces instead of strictly defined rooms, and
deliberately blurred the distinction between interior space and the surrounding terrain.

Wright did not aspire simply to design a house, but to create a complete environment,
and he often dictated the details of the interior. He designed stained glass, fabrics,
furniture, carpet and the accessories of the house.

Wright's basic philosophy of architecture was stated primarily through the house form,
and he had few major commissions for public buildings, office buildings or skyscrapers
in the early years.

The Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York (1903) was his only large-scale
structure prior to the Midway Gardens in Chicago (1913) and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo
( 1915-16). None of these buildings is standing today.

Nevertheless, two of Wright's non-residential works of this period are among the most
widely admired and imitated architectural works of the century. The Larkin
Administration Building in Buffalo and Unity Church in Oak Park, Illinois (1904) are
considered highly important works.

In the 1920's, Wright explored the use of poured concrete and abstract sculptural
ornamentation in residential construction.

He developed a type of construction using precast "textile" concrete blocks which were
bound together by steel rods and poured concrete. This "textile-block" construction
method found its best expression in a series of four houses built in the hills around Los
Angeles, California.

During the early 1930's, when commissions were few, he turned to writing and lecturing
for income and developed his plan for Broadacre City, an integrated and self-sufficient
community of detached housing with built-in industries. The plan for Broadacre City was
never executed, but it did enable Wright to advance his ideas on city planning and to
develop the concept of the "garden town" with detached houses within natural
surroundings.

Modest in size, the Willey House was low and L-shaped with little ornamentation and
represented a revolutionary change in domestic planning; i.e., the living room and dining
room were completely unified in a single space, and the kitchen ("workspace") was only
separated from the living area by a range of shelves.

Wright's most important buildings constructed in the 1930's were Falling water at Bear
Run, Pennsylvania and the Administration Building of the S.C. Johnson and Son
Company in Racine, Wisconsin. Both were designed in 1935-36 and each makes bold
use of concrete, but the two buildings are worlds apart in style and character. Combining
features of the prairie houses and the California concrete block houses, Fallingwater has

48
 been described as "the apotheosis of the horizontal." Its cantilevered terraces soar
dramatically over a natural waterfall, and the interior of the house blends seamlessly into
the surrounding woods. The Johnson Building, resembling a "gigantic and beautiful
machine," is based on the curve rather than the cantilever and turns inward upon itself,
ignoring the existence of the outside world.

As the decade of the forties began, Frank Lloyd Wright's practice began to grow. In
1940-41, the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective exhibit where he received
several awards and honours.

In addition to rectangles, triangles, hexagons and octagons as the basis for residential
floor plans, the circle and the helix appeared in his constructed work.

The Jacobs House, designed in 1943, was the first of a series of houses that he built
with curved plans. This "solar hemicycle" has a two-story living area that bends around a
circular sunken garden court with the bedrooms opening off a balcony above.

After the age of eighty, Frank Lloyd Wright was busier than he had ever been, outpacing
members of the next two generations. He undertook projects all over the world, seldom
declining a commission. At the same time, he became a media superstar who divided
his time between the spotlight and the drawing board, and he could not give his work the
attention it required.

Though most famous as an architect, Wright was an active dealer in Japanese art,
primarily ukiyo-e woodblock prints. He frequently served as both architect and art dealer
to the same clients; he designed a home, then provided the art to fill it. For a time,

Wright made more from selling art than from his work as an architect.

Notable Community Planning Designs:

1900–1903 – Quadruple Block Plan – 24 homes in Oak Park, IL (unbuilt)

1909 – Como Orchard Summer Colony – Town site development for new town in the Bitterroot
Valley, MT

1913 – Chicago Land Development competition – Suburban Chicago quarter section

1934–1959 – Broadacre City – Theoretical decentralized city plan – exhibits of large-scale model

1938 – Suntop Homes also known as Cloverleaf Quadruple Housing Project – commission
from Federal Works Agency, Division of Defense Housing – low cost multifamily housing
alternative to suburban development

1942 - Cooperative Homesteads - commissioned by a group of auto workers, teachers and other
professionals - 160-acre farm co-op was to be the pioneer of rammed earth and earth berm
[65]
construction. (unbuilt)

1945 – Usonia Homes – 47 homes (3 designed by Wright himself) in Pleasantville, New York

1949 – The Acres, also known as Galesburg Country Homes, 5 homes (4 designed by Wright
himself) in Charleston Township, Michigan
49
WALTER GROPIUS

Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969) was a German architect and
founder of the Bauhaus School,[1] who, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le
Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters
ofmodern architecture.

Worked under the german architect Peter Behrens from 1907-10. He was influenced by the
writings of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Founded the Bauhaus (House of Building), one of the most influential architecture and design
schools of the 20th century.

He first went to London, but eventually settled in Boston.

After serving in the first world war, Gropius became involved with several groups of radical
artists that sprang up in Berlin in the winter of 1918. In March 1919 he was elected chairman of
the Working Council for Art and a month later was appointed Director of the Bauhaus.

Gropius created innovative designs that borrowed materials and methods of construction from
modern technology.

An important theorist and teacher, Gropius introduced a screen wall system that utilized a
structural steel frame to support the floors and which allowed the external glass walls to
continue without interruption.

Gropius’ contribution to architecture is that of an architect, philosopher and educator. He was

the founder of the Bauhaus, the German “School of Building” that embraced a “total art” in the
arts’ production and influence in the social context. This “laboratory” was an effort to
incorporate the elements of art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design,
and typography in its design, development and production.

Often associated with being anti-industrial, the Arts and Crafts Movement had dominated the
field before the start of the Bauhaus in 1919. The Bauhaus’ focus was to merge design with
industry, providing well designed products for the many.

The Bauhaus not only impacted design and architecture on an international level, but also
revolutionized the way design schools conceptualize education as a means of imparting an
integrated design approach where form follows function.

50
Interested in creating a new form of design found at the intersection of architecture, art,
industrial design, typography, graphic design, and interior design, Walter Gropius was inspired
to create an institution known as the Bauhaus at Dessau, with an emerging style that would
forever influence architecture.

Gropius saw architecture and design as ever changing, always related to the contemporary
world. He spoke of the architect’s duty to encompass the total visual environment. He himself
designed furniture, a railroad car, and an automobile. He emphasized housing and city
planning, the usefulness of sociology, and the necessity of using teams of specialists.

In 1923, Gropius designed his famous door handles, now considered an icon of 20th-century
design and often listed as one of the most influential designs to emerge from Bauhaus. He also
designed large-scale housing projects in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Dessau in 1926-32 that were
major contributions to the New Objectivity movement, including a contribution to
the Siemensstadt project in Berlin.

In February 1937 Gropius arrived in Cambridge, Mass., to become professor of architecture

at Harvard University. The following year he was made chairman of the department, a post he
held until his retirement in 1952.

Bauhaus, at Dessau, Germany, 1919 to 1925. * 3D Model *

Fagus Works, at Alfred an der Leine, Germany, 1911 to 1913.

Gropius House, at Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1937. * 3D Model *

Harvard Graduate Center, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1950.

MIES VAN DER ROHE

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886 –
August 19, 1969) was a German-Americanarchitect.[1] He is commonly referred to, and
was addressed, as Mies, his surname. He served as the last director of
Berlin's Bauhaus, and then headed the department of architecture, Illinois Institute of
Technology in Chicago, where he developed the Second Chicago School. Along with Le
Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is widely regarded as one of the
pioneering masters of modern architecture.

Mies, like many of his post-World War I contemporaries, sought to establish a new
architectural style that could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for
their own eras.
51

He created an influential twentieth-century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity
and simplicity. His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial
steel and plate glass to define interior spaces.

He strove toward an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced

against the implied freedom of free-flowing open space. He called his buildings "skin
and bones" architecture.

After world war I, he began studying the skyscraper and designed two innovative steel-
framed towers encased in glass. one of them was the friedrichstrasse skyscraper,
designed in 1921 for a competition. it was never built, although it drew critical praise
and foreshadowed his skyscraper designs of the late 40s and 50s.

Mies van der Rohe’s last constructed skyscraper, the IBM building in Chicago, recently
underwent a significant transformation: the modernist office building is now a 316-room
luxury hotel.

After World War I, Mies began, while still designing traditional neoclassical homes, a
parallel experimental effort. He joined his avant-garde peers in the long-running search
for a new style that would be suitable for the modern industrial age.

While continuing his traditional neoclassical design practice Mies began to develop
visionary projects that, though mostly unbuilt, rocketed him to fame as an architect
capable of giving form that was in harmony with the spirit of the emerging modern
society.

He continued with a series of pioneering projects, culminating in his two European

masterworks: the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition (often called
the Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929[9] (a 1986 reconstruction is now built on the original site)
and the elegant Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, completed in 1930.

Mies found appeal in the use of simple rectilinear and planar forms, clean lines, pure
use of color, and the extension of space around and beyond interior.

In 1929, this small hall, known as the barcelona pavilion (for which he also designed the
famous chrome and leather 'barcelona chair'), had a flat roof supported by columns. the
pavilion’s internal walls, made of glass and marble, could be moved around as they did
not support the structure.

From 1938 to 1958 he was head of the architecture department at the armour institute of
technology in Chicago, later renamed the Illinois Institute of technology.

In the 40s, was asked to design a new campus for the school, a project in which he
continued to refine his steel-and-glass style. he had also formed a new relationship with
Chicago artist Lora Marx that would last for the rest of his life.
52

By 1944, he designed one of his most famous buildings, a small weekend retreat
outside Chicago, a transparent box framed by eight exterior steel columns. / the
‘farnsworth house’ is one of the most radically minimalist houses ever designed. its
interior, a single room, is subdivided by partitions and completely enclosed in glass.

In the 50s he continued to develop this concept of open, flexible space on a much larger
scale:

In 1953, he developed the convention hall, innovative was the structural system that
spanned large distances. During this period he also realized his dream of building
a glass skyscraper / the ' twin towers' in Chicago were completed in 1951, followed by
other high-rises in Chicago, new york, detroit, toronto...culminating in 1954 with / the
'seagram' building in new york, hailed as a masterpiece of skyscraper design.

For his career he achieved in 1959 the 'orden pour le merite' (germany) and in 1963 the
'presidential medal of freedom' (USA).

In 1962, his career came full-circle when he was invited to design the 'new national
gallery' in berlin. His design for this building achieved his long-held vision of an exposed
steel structure that directly connected interior space to the landscape.

• Villa Tugendhat / Mies van der Rohe

• The Museum of Fine Arts Houston / Mies Van der Rohe
• Landhaus Lemke / Mies van der Rohe
• IBM Building / Mies van der Rohe
• Barcelona Pavilion / Mies van der Rohe
• IIT Master Plan and Buildings / Mies van der Rohe
• The Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe
• 860-880 Lake Shore Drive / Mies van der Rohe

53
 UNIT-IV
Characteristics of Modern Architecture after the Second World War. Study of Alvar
Aalto, Ero Saarinen, Richard Neutra, Louis I Kahn, Philip Johnson, etc.

CHARACTERISTICS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE AFTER SECOND WORLD WAR

Modern architecture can be defined as that which is not traditional.

A house built in the modern architectural style boasts clean lines and a flat roof , little
ornamentation and no pretence as to its materials and workmanship.

The glass and metal appeal of modern homes and commercial buildings came into
popularity
arity in the years following World War II.

Materials used such as concrete and stone, glass and metal. The function of space was
to function as space, providing only that which man needed.

The styling of traditional architecture, from gabled roofs to corbels to stained glass
windows were eschewed. Windows were designed to allow in light and heat.

Roofs were designed to protect the inhabitants from the elements.
elements. Any ornamentation
was superfluous. Basic spaces to meet basic needs.

After World War II, the basic rectangular form that functioned as modern architecture
became more appealing to the populations of the now super industrialized West. All
things modern
rn were considered desirable, and modern architecture as seen today came
into its own.

Though still lean in design , current forms of modern architecture have become more
stylized, particularly in residential design. Roofs with one-sided
one sided slopes to encourage
passive heat flow, rectangular structures with interior curved walls to encourage air
distribution throughout, and honest materials of reclaimed wood, concrete
concre and stone all
find their way into modern architecture.

The form of the structure itself becomes the ornamentation of the style. Though
originally boxy and cubicle in nature, modern design now follows the land's contours
while still retaining basic geometric
geometric structure. The results are decidedly non-traditional,
non
yet are decidedly different from the intentions of the founders of Bauhaus.

It was based on the "rational" use of modern materials, the principles of

functionalist planning, and the rejection of historical
historical precedent and ornament.

Form and Materials

By 1920 there was an increasingly wide understanding that building forms must be
determined by their functions and materials if they were to achieve intrinsic significance

54
 or beauty in contemporary terms, without resorting to traditional ornament. Instead of
viewing a building as a heavy mass made of ponderous materials, the leading
innovators of modern architecture considered it as a volume of space enclosed by light,
thin curtain walls and resting on slender piers. The visual aesthetic of modern
architecture was largely inspired by the machine and by abstract painting and sculpture.

In giving form and coherence to modern architecture, Le Corbusier's book Vers une
architecture (1923, tr. 1927) played an important role.

In 1932 the label "International style" was applied to modern architecture by the
Museum of Modern Art, New York City, anticipating its growing acceptance around the
world.

At the same time new technological developments continued to influence architects'
designs, particularly in the realm of prefabricated construction.

The development of sophisticated air conditioning and heating systems also allowed
modern architecture to spread from the temperate

After 1960, a less evolutionary and more revolutionary critical reaction to modern
architecture, first articulated in the writings of Robert Venturi, began to form.

Architects have become more concerned with context and tradition. Ornament, once
banished by modernism, has returned, often in the form of overtly historical revivalism,
although it has just as often been reinterpreted in high-tech materials. This has resulted
in a stylistic eclecticism on the contemporary scene. Prominent architects working in the
postmodern mode include Philip Johnson in his later projects, Michael Graves, Ricardo
Bofill, and Aldo Rossi.

After World War II great strides were made in modern Japanese architecture, not only in
advanced technology, allowing earthquake resistant tall buildings, but expressing and
infusing characteristics of traditional Japanese architecture in modern buildings.

In the middle of the 60's there were buildings everywhere in the world, with almost only
straight lines and right angles, spacious and light, the facades only made out of glass
and ornamented only with metal.

Even before the war had finished, architects and planners had new ideas to rebuild
Britain’s bomb-damaged cities.

Across Britain reconstruction started immediately, but was made difficult by the shortage
of materials and labour in the years after peace had been declared.

The post-war period saw new kinds of housing being built to satisfy the demand for
homes and to accommodate the new ideas architects and planners had to improve the
way British people lived.

Abercrombie’s ‘County of London Plan’ also included a more careful definition of the
‘Green Belt’; a strip of land encircling London that is made up of parks, farmland and

55
 recreation grounds, and subject to strict regulations concerning building and
development.

Roofs usually have a steep pitch and side gables.

Front façades usually have one or more steeply-pitched cross gables.

Windows are usually tall and narrow, and found in groups

Chimneys are likely to be massive, and are sometimes topped by decorative chimney
pots.

Smooth wall surfaces, usually stucco.

Flat roof, usually with a small ledge at the roofline.

Soft or rounded corners.

Aluminium and stainless steel are often used for door and window trim, railings and
balustrades.

Decorative elements on the façades include zigzags, chevrons, and other stylized and
geometric motifs.

Buildings have a vertical emphasis because of tower and other vertical projections
above the roofline.

Art Deco examples are normally public and commercial buildings, theatres, and
skyscrapers. Residential examples are rare.

Windows are set flush with the outer wall and are usually metal casement windows.

Facades are generally asymmetrical

ALVAR AALTO

Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto (3 February 1898 – 11 May 1976 - fineland) was
a Finnish architect and designer. His work includes architecture,
furniture, textiles and glassware.

Aalto's early career runs in parallel with the rapid economic growth and industrialization
of Finland during the first half of the twentieth century and many of his clients were
industrialists.

Design as a total work of art; not just the building, but give special treatments to the
interior surfaces and design furniture, lamps, and furnishings and glassware.

Alvar Aalto was not only the most important Finnish architect of the 20th century but also
a leading modern furniture designer. His chair "Paimio" (1931), with bentwood elements
and his curvilinear vase "Savoy" (1936) have become major design icons that have laid
the cornerstone for organic design.

In 1928 Alvar Aalto became a member of the "Congrès International d'Architecture
Moderne" (CIAM), a series of architecture conferences convened between 1928 and

56
 1959, which provided a major source of thematic inspiration for various approaches
related to urban planning and architecture as living space.

From 1943 to 1958 Alvar Aalto was head of the Finnish Architects' Association SAFA,
from 1946 to 1948 he was a professor of architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology in Cambridge, Massachussetts.

Two of his most important early buildings are the municipal library in Viipuri (1927-35)
and the tuberculosis sanatorium in Paimio (1928-33), where he also designed the entire
interior and furniture and its furnishings.

Alvar Aalto experimented with bending plywood and laminated wood for furniture from
1925. From 1929 Aalto continued to experiment in collaboration with Otto Korhonen,
technical director of a furniture factory near Turku.

In the 1930s he produced revolutionary chair designs with curvilinear forms, including
"Paimio" (1931) and in 1933 the "L-leg" stackable chair with L-shaped legs.

In 1936 the Aalto practice designed the entire interior of the Savoy, a luxury restaurant
in Helsinki, and with it the glass vase of the same name.

From 1938 he produced the "tea trolley" with large wheels. By 1936 Alvar Aalto was
showing vases and tableware at the design competitions launched by Iittala, through
which objects of Finnish designs were chosen to be shown at the 1937 Paris
Exposition.

Alvar Aalto also designed the Finnish Pavilions for the 1937 Paris Exposition and the
1939 New York World's Fair.

Concerned with "humanizing architecture" (Aalto), he rejected artificial materials such as
steel tubing for his furniutre. Wood was for him a "form-inspring, profoundly human
material". Alvar Aalto's organic formal language inspired many designers after him.

Aalto's career spans the changes in style from (Nordic Classicism) to purist International
Style Modernism to a more personal, synthetic and idiosyncratic Modernism.

Aalto's wide field of design activity ranges from the large scale of city
planning and architecture to interior design, furniture and glassware design and painting.

It has been estimated that during his entire career Aalto designed over 500 individual
buildings, approximately 300 of which were built, the vast majority of which are in
Finland. He also has a few buildings in France, Germany, Italy and the USA.

Aalto claimed that his paintings were not made as individual artworks but as part of his
process of architectural design, and many of his small-scale "sculptural" experiments
with wood led to later larger architectural details and forms. Significant buildings.

57
Awards

Aalto's awards included the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture from the Royal Institute of
British Architects (1957) and the Gold Medalfrom the American Institute of
Architects (1963).

He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 1957. He also was a member of the Academy of Finland, and was its
president from 1963 to 1968.

• 1921–1923: Bell tower of Kauhajärvi Church, Lapua, Finland

• 1926–1929: Defence Corps Building, Jyväskylä, Finland
• 1927–1935: Municipal library, Viipuri, Finland (now Vyborg, Russia)
[4]
• 1928–1932: Paimio Sanatorium, TBis sanatorium and staff housing, Paimio, Finland
• 1931: Central University Hospital, Zagreb, Croatia (former Yugoslavia)
• 1934: Corso theatre, restaurant interior, Zürich, Switzerland
• 1939: Finnish Pavilion, at the 1939 New York World's Fair
• 1949–1966: Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland
• 1949–1952: Säynätsalo Town Hall, 1949 competition, built 1952, Säynätsalo (now part
of Jyväskylä), Finland
• 1951-1971: University of Jyväskylä various buildings and facilities on the university campus,
Jyväskylä, Finland
• 1956-1958: Home for Louis Carre, Bazoches, France
[4]
• 1956-1958: Church at Vuoksenniska, Imatra, Finland
• 1958–1987: Town centre, Seinäjoki, Finland
[4]
• 1958–1972: KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark
[4]
• 1959-1962: Community Center, Wolfburg, Germany
• 1959–1962: Enso-Gutzeit Headquarters, Helsinki, Finland
• 1959-1962: Town center (Town library, Lakeuden Risti church and central administrative
buildings), Seinajoki[4]
• 1959–1988: Essen opera house, Essen, Germany
Furniture and glassware
Chairs

• 1932: Paimio Chair[11]

[12]
• 1933: Three-legged stacking Stool 60
[13]
• 1933: Four-legged Stool E60
[14]
• 1935-6: Armchair 404 (a/k/a/ Zebra Tank Chair)
[15]
• 1939: Armchair 406
Lamps

• 1954: Floor lamp A805[16]

[17]
• 1959: Floor lamp A810
Vases 1936: Aalto Vase

58
ERO SAARINEN

Eero Saarinen (August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish

American architect and industrial designer of the 20th century famous for varying his style
according to the demands of the project: simple, sweeping, arching structural curves or
machine-like rationalism.

Eero initially pursued sculpture as his art of choice. After a year in art school, he decided
to become an architect instead. Much of his work shows a relation to sculpture.

Saarinen developed a remarkable range which depended on colour, form and materials.
Saarinen showed a marked dependence on innovative structures and sculptural forms,
but not at the cost of pragmatic considerations. He easily moved back and forth between
the International Style and Expressionism, utilizing a vocabulary of curves and
cantilevered forms.

Though he started designing furniture in his teens, it wasn’t until he and Charles Eames
won first prize in the Museum of Modern Art’s Organic Design in Home Furnishings
competition in 1940 that he was taken seriously as a furniture designer.

Besides architecture, Saarinen achieved fame as a furniture designer. During his long
association with Knoll he designed many important pieces including the "Grasshopper"
lounge chair and ottoman (1946), the "Womb" chair and ottoman (1948), the "Womb"
settee (1950), side and arm chairs (1948-1950), and his most famous "Tulip" or
"Pedestal" group (1956) which featured side and arm chairs, dining, coffee and side
tables, and a stool.

Saarinen's major commercial works include the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Dulles
Airport, the TWA terminal Al JFK Airport, the GM Technical Center in Warren MI, and
corporate headquarters including John Deere, IBM, and CBS.

One of Saarinen's earliest works to receive international acclaim is the Crow Island
School in Winnetka, Illinois (1940).

The first major work by Saarinen, in collaboration with his father, was the General Motors
Technical Center in Warren, Michigan. It follows the rationalist design Miesian style:
incorporating steel and glass, but with the added accent of panels in two shades of blue.
The GM technical center was constructed in 1956, with Saarinen using models.

In the 1950s he began to receive more commissions from American universities for
campus designs and individual buildings; these include the Noyes dormitory at Vassar,
as well as an ice rink, Ingalls Rink, and Ezra Stiles & Morse Colleges at Yale University.

He served on the jury for the Sydney Opera House commission and was crucial in the
selection of the now internationally known design by Jørn Utzon. A jury which did not
include Saarinen had discarded Utzon's design in the first round. Saarinen reviewed the

59
 discarded designs, recognized a quality in Utzon's design which had eluded the rest of
the jury and ultimately assured the commission of Utzon.

Eero Saarinen and Associates was Saarinen's architectural firm; he was the principal
partner from 1950 until his death in 1961. The firm was initially known as "Saarinen,
Swansen and Associates", headed by Eliel Saarinen and Robert Swansen from the late
1930s until Eliel's death in 1950.

The firm carried out many of its most important works, including the Jefferson National
Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch) in St. Louis, Missouri, the Miller House in Columbus,
Indiana, the TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport that he worked on
with Charles J. Parise, and the main terminal of Dulles International
Airport near Washington, D.C.. Many of these projects use catenary curves in their
structural designs.

One of the best-known thin-shell concrete structures in America is the Kresge
Auditorium (MIT), which was designed by Saarinen. Another thin-shell structure that he
created is the Ingalls Rink (Yale University), which has suspension cables connected to a
single concrete backbone and is nicknamed "the whale." Undoubtedly, his most famous
work is the TWA Flight Center, which represents the culmination of his previous designs
and demonstrates his expressionism and the technical marvel in concrete shells.

SHAPING THE FUTURE

Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future is a comprehensive project exploring the work of one of the
most prolific, unorthodox, and controversial masters of 20th-century architecture.

The project consists of three key components:

» Exhibition
» Publication
» Research Database

Famous Buildings by Eero Saarinen:

• 1946-1956: General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Michigan

• 1955-1957: Milwaukee County War Memorial Center
• 1957: Miller House, Columbus, Indiana
• 1958: IBM Manufacturing and Training Facility
• 1958: David S. Ingalls Rink, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
• 1958-1962: Washington Dulles International Airport, Chantilly, Virginia
• 1961-1966: Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri
• 1956-1962: TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport, New York, NY
• 1961: Morse and Stiles Colleges, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
• 1963: Deer and Company Administrative Center

60
RICHARD NEUTRA

Richard Joseph Neutra (April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) was an Austrian
American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California,
he came to be considered among the most important modernist architects.

Neutra created a modern regionalism for Southern California which combined a light
metal frame with a stucco finish to create a light effortless appearance.

"He specialized in extending architectural space into a carefully arranged landscape.
The dramatic images of flat-surfaced, industrialized residential buildings contrasted
against nature were popularized by the photography of Julius Shulman."

An experienced and outspoken writer and speaker, Neutra worked with a series of
successful partners including his wife, Dione, from 1922, his protege, Robert Alexander,
from 1949-58 and his son, Dion, from 1965. He adamantly believed that modern
architecture must act as an social force in the betterment of mankind.

Neutra contributed to the firm’s competition entry for a new commercial centre for Haifa,
Palestine (1922), and to the Zehlendorf housing project in Berlin (1923).

Neutra worked briefly for Frank Lloyd Wright before accepting an invitation from his close
friend and university companion Rudolf Schindler to work and live communally in
Schindler's Kings Road House in California.

Neutra’s first work in Los Angeles was in landscape architecture, where he provided the
design for the garden of Schindler’s beach house (1922–5), designed for Philip Lovell,
Newport Beach, and for a pergola and wading pool for Wright and Schindler’s complex
for Aline Barnsdall on Olive Hill (1925), Hollywood. S

Schindler and Neutra collaborated on an entry for the League of Nations Competition of
1926; in the same year they formed a firm with the planner Carol Aronovici (1881–1957)
called the Architectural Group for Industry and Commerce (AGIC).

He subsequently developed his own practice and went on to design numerous buildings
embodying the International Style, twelve of which are designated as Historic Cultural
Monuments (HCM).

In California, he became celebrated for rigorously geometric but airy structures that
symbolized a West Coast variation on the mid-century modern residence.

In 1949 Neutra formed a partnership with Robert E. Alexander that lasted until 1958,
which finally gave him the opportunity to design larger commercial and institutional
buildings.

He was famous for the attention he gave to defining the real needs of his clients,
regardless of the size of the project, in contrast to other architects eager to impose their
artistic vision on a client. Neutra sometimes used detailed questionnaires to discover his

61
 client's needs, much to their surprise. His domestic architecture was a blend of art,
landscape and practical comfort.

Neutra had a sharp sense of irony. In his autobiography, Life and Shape, he included a
playful anecdote about an anonymous movie producer-client who electrified the moat
around the house that Neutra designed for him and had his Persian butler fish out the
bodies in the morning and dispose of them in a specially designed incinerator. This was
a much-embellished account of an actual client, Josef von Sternberg, who indeed had a
moated house but not an electrified one.

• Universal-International Building (Laemmle Building), 1933, Hollywood

• Scheyer House, 1934, Blue Heights Drive, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles
• California Military Academy, 1935, Culver City
• Corona Avenue Elementary School, 1935, 3835 Bell Avenue, Bell, California
• Neutra VDL Studio and Residences (also known as Van der Leeuw House or VDL Research House),
1932, Los Angeles, California
[11]
• Windshield House, 1938, Fisher's Island, New York
• Stuart Bailey House, 1948, Pacific Palisades, California (Case Study 20A)
• Moore House, 1952, Ojai, California (received AIA award)
• Mariners Medical Arts, 1963, Newport Beach, California
[20][21][22]
• VDL II Research House, 1964, (rebuilt with son Dion Neutra) Los Angeles, California
• Sports and Congress Center, 1965, Reno, Nevada

LOUIS I KAHN

Louis Isadore Kahn (February 20, 1901 – March 17, 1974) was an American architect.

From 1957 until his death, he was a professor of architecture at the School of Design at
the University of Pennsylvania.

Influenced by ancient ruins, Kahn created a style that was monumental and monolithic;
his heavy buildings do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are
assembled. Louis Kahn's works are considered as monumental beyond modernism.

In 1925-26 Kahn acted as the Chief of Design for the Sesquincettennial Exhibition.

Kahn's architecture is notable for its simple, platonic forms and compositions. Through
the use of brick and poured-in place concrete masonry, he developed a contemporary
and monumental architecture that maintained a sympathy for the site.

Considered one of the foremost architects of the late twentieth century, Kahn received
the AIA Gold Medal in 1971 and the RIBA Gold Medal in 1972. He was elected a
member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1971.

The Yale commission also offered an opportunity for Kahn to experiment with the ideas
he had developed since a trip to Greece, Rome and Egypt when he had become
convinced that modern architecture lacked the monumental and spiritual qualities of

62
 ancient buildings. “Our stuff looks so tinny compared to it,” he wrote to his office
colleagues in Philadelphia. Kahn was convinced that, as a modern architect, his
responsibility was to create buildings with those qualities using contemporary materials
and construction techniques.

Working with simple materials, notably brick and concrete. Kahn applied his principles to
create buildings instilled with the spiritual qualities for which he strove through a
masterful sense of space and light.

For Kahn, form did not necessarily follow function; nor did his projects celebrate all the
new possibilities of industrial materials. Created from monolithic masonry, and drawing
on primary geometries with great circles, semi-circles and triangles sliced out of their
weighty walls, his buildings exude a timeless and sometimes sinister presence. They
look like the hastily vacated remnants of a future cosmic civilisation.

Never one to try too hard to ingratiate himself with his clients, it wasn't until he was in his
early 50s that Kahn completed his first major building: the rigidly cubic Yale University Art
Gallery.

Louis Kahn: The Power of Architecture is at the Vitra until August. It comes to the
London Design Museum in 2014. Oliver Wainwright travelled courtesy of show sponsor
Swarovski.

Louis Kahn's work infused the International style with a fastidious, highly personal taste, a
poetry of light. His few projects reflect his deep personal involvement with each. Isamu
Noguchi called him "a philosopher among architects." He was known for his ability to
create monumental architecture that responded to the human scale.

He was also concerned with creating strong formal distinctions between served spaces
and servant spaces. What he meant by servant spaces was not spaces for servants, but
rather spaces that serve other spaces, such as stairwells, corridors, restrooms, or any
other back-of-house function like storage space or mechanical rooms.

His palette of materials tended toward heavily textured brick and bare concrete, the
textures often reinforced by juxtaposition to highly refined surfaces such as travertine
marble.

While widely known for his spaces' poetic sensibilities, Kahn also worked closely with
engineers and contractors on his buildings. The results were often technically innovative
and highly refined.

In addition to the influence Kahn's more well-known work has on contemporary
architects (such as Muzharul Islam, Tadao Ando), some of his work (especially the unbuilt
City Tower Project) became very influential among the high-tech architects of the late
20th century (such as Renzo Piano, who worked in Kahn's office,Richard
Rogers and Norman Foster).

63
• Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (1951–1953), the first significant
commission of Louis Kahn and his first masterpiece, replete with technical innovations. For
example, he designed a hollow concrete tetrahedral space-frame that did away with the
need for ductwork and reduced the floor-to-floor height by channeling air through the
structure itself. Like many of Kahn's buildings, the Art Gallery makes subtle references to its
context while overtly rejecting any historical style.
• Richards Medical Research Laboratories, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania (1957–1965), a breakthrough in Kahn's career that helped set new directions
for modern architecture with its clear expression of served and servant spaces and its
evocation of the architecture of the past.
• The Salk Institute, La Jolla, California (1959–1965) was to be a campus composed of three
main clusters: meeting and conference areas, living quarters, and laboratories. Only the
laboratory cluster, consisting of two parallel blocks enclosing a water garden, was built. The
two laboratory blocks frame a long view of the Pacific Ocean, accentuated by a thin linear
fountain that seems to reach for the horizon.
• First Unitarian Church, Rochester, New York (1959–1969), named as one of the greatest
religious structures of the 20th century byPaul Goldberger, the Pulitzer Prize-winning
architectural critic.[17] Tall, narrow window recesses create an irregular rhythm of shadows
on the exterior while four light towers flood the sanctuary walls with indirect natural light.
• Jatiyo Sangshad Bhaban (National Assembly Building) in Dhaka, Bangladesh (1962–1974)
• Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh
• Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, in Ahmedabad, India (1962).
• National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), Dhaka, Bangladesh (1963)[citation
needed]

• Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Exeter, New Hampshire (1965–1972), awarded

the Twenty-five Year Award by the American Institute of Architects in 1997. It is famous for
its dramatic atrium with enormous circular openings into the book stacks.
• Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas (1967–1972), features repeated bays of cycloid-
shaped barrel vaults with light slits along the apex, which bathe the artwork on display in an
ever-changing diffuse light.
• Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (1969–1974).
• Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, Roosevelt Island, New York (1972–1974).
Construction completed 2012.

64
PHILLIP JOHNSON

Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an influential American
architect.

In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of
Modern Art in New York City, and later (1978), as a trustee, he was awarded
an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture Prize, in
1979.

In 1932 he co-directed the Modern Architecture exhibition at MOMA which introduced
European modern architecture to a wide American audience.

He became a trustee of MOMA in 1958, received the AIA Gold Medal in 1978, and
received the Pritzker Architecture prize in 1979.

As an architect, Johnson is most widely respected for his work in the early 1950s while
still under the influence of Mies Van Der Rohe. However, he altered his architectural
principles from Modernist to Post-Modernist to anti-Post Modernist at will.

"I like the thought that what we are to do on this earth is embellish it for its greater
beauty," he said, "so that oncoming generations can look back to the shapes we leave
here and get the same thrill that I get in looking back at theirs -- at the Parthenon, at
Chartres Cathedral.""

"In the late 1950's, just after he had collaborated with Mies on the Seagram Building on
Park Avenue, he introduced elements of classical architecture into his buildings,
beginning a long quest to find ways of connecting contemporary architecture to historical
form.

Johnson's early influence as a practicing architect was his use of glass. The Glass
House (1949) - he designed as his own residence in New Canaan, Connecticut - was a
profoundly influential work, but "universally viewed as having been derived from"
the Farnsworth House, according to Alice T. Friedman. Johnson curated an exhibit of Mies
van der Rohe work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947, featuring a model of the glass
Farnsworth House.

Later, Johnson added a painting gallery with an innovative viewing mechanism of
rotating walls to hold paintings (influenced by the Hogarth displays at Sir John Soane's
house), followed by a sky-lit sculpture gallery. The last structures Johnson built on the
estate were a library and a reception building, the latter, red and black in color and of
curving walls. Johnson viewed the ensemble of one-room buildings as a total work of
art, claiming that it was his best and only "landscape project."

The Philip Johnson Glass House is a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and
now open to the public for tours.

65

Although startling when constructed, the glass and steel tower (indeed many idioms of
the modern movement) had by the 1960s become common place the world over. He
eventually rejected much of the metallic appearance of earlier International Style
buildings, and began designing spectacular, crystalline structures uniformly sheathed in
glass. Many of these became instant icons, such as PPG Place in Pittsburgh and the
Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California.

Johnson's architectural work is a balancing act between two dominant trends in post-war
American art: the more "serious" movement of Minimalism, and the more populist
movement of Pop Art. His best work has aspects of both movements.

Johnson's personal art collection reflected this dichotomy, as he introduced artists such
as Mark Rothko to the Museum of Modern Art as well as Andy Warhol. Straddling
between these two camps, his work was seen by purists of either side as always too
contaminated or influenced by the other. With his thick, round-framed glasses, Johnson
was the most recognizable figure in American architecture for decades.

From 1967 to 1991 Johnson collaborated with John Burgee. This was by far Johnson's
most productive period — certainly by the measure of scale — he became known at this
time as builder of iconic office towers, including Minneapolis's IDS Tower opened 1972.

In 1987, Johnson was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from the University of
Houston. The institution's Hines College of Architecture is also housed in one of Johnson's
buildings.

Notable works
[18]
• Reactor Building, Soreq, Israel (1956-1959)
• Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas (1972)
• Dorothy and Dexter Baker Center for the Arts at Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania
(1976)

• Banaven Center, Caracas, Venezuela (1976)

• Neiman Marcus Department Store, San Francisco, California (1982)
• Metro-Dade Cultural Center, Miami, Florida (1982)
• Philip-Johnson-Haus, Berlin, Germany (1997)
• First Union Plaza, Boca Raton, Florida (2000)

66
 UNIT-V
Design theories and contributions of Engineers - architects like Pier Luigi Nervi, Felix
Candela, Buckminster Fuller, and Frei Otto.

PIER LUIGI NERVI

Pier Luigi Nervi (June 21, 1891 – January 9, 1979) was an Italian engineer. He studied
at the University of Bologna and qualified in 1913. Dr. Nervi taught as a professor of
engineering at Rome University from 1946-61.

He is widely known as a structural engineer and an architect, and for his innovative use
of reinforced concrete.

Nervi began practicing civil engineering after 1923, and built several airplane hangars
amongst his contracts.

During 1940s he developed ideas for a reinforced concrete which helped in the
rebuilding of many buildings and factories throughout Western Europe, and even
designed and created a boat hull that was made of reinforced concrete as a promotion
for the Italian government.

Nervi also stressed that intuition should be used as much as mathematics in design,
especially with thin shell structures. He borrowed from both Roman and
Renaissance architecture while applying ribbing and vaulting to improve strength and
eliminate columns. He combined simple geometry and prefabrication to innovate design
solutions.

After 1932, his aesthetically pleasing designs were used for major projects. This was
due to the booming number of construction projects at the time which used concrete and
steel in Europe and the architecture aspect took a step back to the potential of
engineering. Nervi successfully made reinforced concrete the main structural material of
the day.

Most of his built structures are in his native Italy, but he also worked on projects abroad.
Nervi's first project in the United States was the George Washington Bridge Bus Station.
He designed the roof which consists of triangle pieces which were cast in place. This
building is still used today by over 700 buses and their passengers.

The construction of a bridge is a central event in a professional life of an engineer. The
symbolic value of such a structure, at the same time functional and iconic, is one
reason. Moreover, bridge represent the perfect construction to test technological
innovations, this can be seen by the fact that many pioneering engineers linked their
names to ground-breaking bridges: Maillart, Hennebique and in recent times, Calatrava.
67

Pier Luigi Nervi, one of the most acknowledged engineer of the twentieth century,
famously built many domes but only one bridge, in Verona in 1965, he was 74.
However, his interest for bridges was a constant in his professional life.

Furthermore, other Nervi’s structures, like the elevated motorway in Rome, La Via
Olimpica (1960) or even the suspended roof of the Burgo paper mill (1961) can be
considered structurally similar to bridges.

Pier Luigi Nervi: bridges, suspended structures, steel, reinforced concrete, Messina
Bridge.

In 1963, Nervi was approached by the Department of the Public works of the state of
California in order to design a bridge over San Mateo creek, in steel. The bridge was
supposed to span for 550 metres long and to be 76 meters off the ground at the deepest
level.

After the construction of the Risorgimento, Nervi, in 1969, faced the ultimate challenge
in terms of bridges:

Pier Luigi Nervi, mainly known as an outstanding builder of roof structures, was also
involved in the design of several bridges. In considering this particular aspect of his
production one can spot several similarities to other kind of structures:

The only use of reinforced concrete in Nervi’s early designs (bridge at Biedano, bridge
over the river Tenza) and the later introduction of steel (Burgo paper mill, bridge projects
in the USA)

Nervi’s particular attention in designing iconic structures in historical centres with
particular allusion to the use of local and traditional elements (Risorgimento bridge in
Verona)

Nervi’s initial reference to Physics laws to shape his designs and his subsequent work of
refinement to achieve a aesthetically pleasant structure (Risorgimento and Messina
bridges) Such a similarities reveals once again how the great Italian designer approach
different themes with the same forma mentis.

Awards

Pier Luigi Nervi was awarded Gold Medals by the Institution of Structural Engineers,
the American Institute of Architects (AIA Gold Medal 1964), and the RIBA.

He was also awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal of The Franklin Institute in 1957.

68
Noted works

• Stadio Artemio Franchi, Florence (1931)

• Exhibition Building, Turin, Italy (1949).
• UNESCO headquarters, Paris (1950) (collaborating with Marcel Breuer and Bernard Zehrfuss)
• The Pirelli Tower, Milan (1950) (collaborating with Gio Ponti)
• Palazzo dello sport EUR (now PalaLottomatica), Rome (1956)
• Palazzetto dello sport, Rome (1958)
• Stadio Flaminio, Rome (1957)
• Palazzo del Lavoro, Turin (1961)
• Palazzetto dello sport, Turin (1961)
• Sacro Cuore (Bell Tower), Firenze (1962)
• Paper Mill, Mantua, Italy (1962)
• George Washington Bridge Bus Station, New York City (1963)
• Tour de la Bourse, Montreal (1964) (collaborating with Luigi Moretti)
• Field House at Dartmouth College
• Thompson Arena at Dartmouth College (1973–74)
• Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption, San Francisco, California (1967) (collaborating
with Pietro Belluschi)
• Paul VI Audience Hall, Vatican City (1971)
• Australian Embassy, Paris (1973) Consulting engineer
• Good Hope Centre, Cape Town (1976) by Studio Nervi, an exhibition hall and conference centre,
with the exhibition hall comprising an arch with tie-beam on each of the four vertical facades and two
diagonal arches supporting two intersecting barrel-like roofs which in turn were constructed from pre-
cast concrete triangular coffers with in-situ concrete beams on the edges.
• Norfolk Scope, Norfolk, VA (1971)

FELIX CANDELA

Félix Candela Outeriño (January 27, 1910 – December 7, 1997) was a Spanish
architect known for his significant role in the development of Mexican
architecture and structural engineering.

Candela’s major contribution to architecture was the development of thin shells made
out of reinforced concrete.

Candela worked very hard during his lifetime to prove the real nature and potential
reinforced concrete had in structural engineering. Reinforced concrete is extremely
efficient in a dome or shell like shape. This shape eliminates tensile forces in the concrete.
He also looked to solve problems by the simplest means possible.

In regard to shell design, he tended to rely on the geometric properties of the shell for
analysis, instead of complex mathematical means. Around 1950 when Candela's
company went to design laminar structures, he started researching journals and
engineering articles for as much information as he could find. From this, he started
69
 questioning the behaviour of reinforced concrete with the elastic assumptions and
concluded they are in total disagreement with each other. (Faber 1963) Candela has said
on more than one occasion that the analysis of a structure is a sort of "hobby" to him.

In 1958, Felix Candela completed his most significant work, the Los Manantiales
Restaurant shell, in Xochimilco, Mexico City. It sat at the edge of a wide waterway,
surrounded by floating gardens, and could be reached directly by embarcaderos, long,
colorful gondolas that still ferry passengers along the canals of Xochimilco.

Félix Candela. Regarded as one the greatest Spanish-born architects of the 20th
century, Candela is celebrated for his feats of architectural engineering that transformed
concrete into visual poetry.

Candela's visionary structural designs featuring curvaceous, thin-shell roofs based on

the hyperbolic paraboloid geometric form departed from the dominant linear directives of
the International Style.

He executed the Cosmic Rays Pavilion, which was his first structure utilizing his
signature hyperbolic paraboloid geometry. The building began a decade of
experimentation with thin-shell construction and the hyperbolic paraboloid form that
garnered him international recognition, including the 1961 Auguste Perret Award from
the International Union of Architects and a 1961 Gold Medal from the Institute of
Structural Engineers.

In 1971, Candela immigrated to the United States and accepted a faculty position at the
School of Architecture at the University of Illinois. Candela's final project, executed

70
 posthumously following his death in 1997 at 88 years of age, was the restaurant at the
Valencia Oceanographic Park in Spain.

The exhibition at the Wallach Art Gallery is organized around three periods of Candela's
career and highlights his vast body of work, including the Cosmic Rays Pavilion and his
self-identified favorites—Los Manantiales Restaurant, Chapel Lomas de Cuernavaca,
Bacardí Rum Factory, and the Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.

Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library is home to one of three repositories of archival
materials related to the life and career of Félix Candela. The Félix Candela Archive
comprises materials related to Candela's personal, professional, and academic lives.

Candella believed that strength should come from form not mass. This belief led to an
extensive exploration of tensile shell structures. His nickname became "The Shell
Builder" because of this structural favoritism.

Frequently forced to act as architect, structural engineer and contractor in order to
further his work, Candella sees architects as engineers who possess the ability to
design both great cathedrals and low cost housing.

WORKS

The exhibition examines a number of Candela's major structures including his self-
identified favorites—

the Cosmic Rays Laboratory, built for the Ciudad Universitaria near Mexico City;

Restaurant los Manantiales, on the canals of the floating gardens at Xochimilco;

the Chapel Lomas de Cuernavaca;

the roof of the Bacardi Rum factorynorth of Mexico City;

Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal; and the notable umbrella shells that comprise
the bulk of his work.

The scope of the exhibition covers the entire building process, from renderings and
structural models to construction and completed functional buildings, and seeks to
demystify and “humanize” the discipline of engineering, identifying the distinction
between structural art and science or architecture. The objects on view not only reveal
Candela's understanding of engineering principals and the construction process, but
also convey the emotional power and significance of his structures.

71
BUCKMINSTER FULLER

Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller (/ˈfʊlər/; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983)[1] was an
American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist.

Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or popularizing terms such as "Spaceship
Earth", Ephemeralization, and Synergetic.

He also developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, including the
widely known geodesic dome. Carbon molecules known as fullerenes were later named by
scientists for their resemblance to geodesic spheres.

Buckminster Fuller was the second president of Mensa from 1974 to 1983.

Philosopher, designer, architect, artist, engineer, entrepreneur, author, mathematician,
teacher and inventor – Richard Buckminster Fuller was all these things and more.

Convinced that the way the world managed its human and material resources needed to
be radically rethought, he applied himself to seeking long term, technology-led solutions
to some of the most pressing problems of his time, particularly in the fields of building
and transport.

Despite the groundbreaking inventiveness of so much of his work, it was not until
Fuller’s large-scale, multifunctional geodesic domes began to appear around the world
in the 1950s that he really made his name.

After leaving the navy in 1922, Fuller co-founded the Stockade Building Company to
produce lightweight building materials. The knowledge he acquired there was to prove
invaluable to his later experiments with design and architecture.

Fuller decided to concentrate on the field he knew best, construction. The following year
he made his first patent application for the 4D tower, a lightweight, prefabricated, multi-
storey apartment tower to be delivered anywhere in the world by airship. Once delivered
the towers would generate their own light and heat with an independent sewage
disposal system.

From then on, ideas and inventions seemed to flow from him in a continuous stream.
Driven by his philosophy of “more for less”, Fuller threw himself wholeheartedly into a
quest for a new way of housing mankind, in “Lightful Houses” so-called because they
were full of light, lightweight, delightful and so forth.

As well as housing, Fuller was determined to design a revolutionary new car. In 1928 he
had conceived a flying car with inflatable wings which was modified in subsequent
drawings into a streamlined road vehicle the rear of which would rise in an aerodynamic
lift to ‘fly’ steered by a rudder as the front rolled.

In 1933 he presented his plans for the three-wheeled Dymaxion Car with rear steering
and front-wheel drive powered by a Ford engine.

72

Undeterred, Fuller continued his experiments and gained an international reputation for
his work in lightweight, inexpensively and speedily constructed housing.

In 1940, in anticipation of the bombing of British cities, he was asked by the British War
Relief Organization to design an emergency shelter. Fuller worked with the Butler
Company of Kansas City, which manufactured grain silos of curved galvanised steel, to
develop a self-supporting structure in a circular shape designed to provide the most
advantageous relationship between circumference and interior space. The unit was
designed to be set up and taken down easily.

With the end of the war in sight, Fuller returned to the development of standardised,
lightweight, cost-effective homes. No other plan for a model home has moved as far
away from traditional architecture towards industrial design as the Dymaxion Dwelling
Machine – or Wichita House – that he developed with the technologically-advanced
Beech Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas. On presentation of the prototype of a full-
size family dwelling weighing just four tonnes, Fuller Houses Inc. received thousands of
orders, but Fuller insisted that the design needed perfecting before production could
commence. The banks baulked at the delay and withdrew their support. A Wichita
businessman bought the prototype, reassembled it on his own land and lived there with
his six children for the rest of his life. In 1992 it was rescued by the Henry Ford Museum
from a colony of raccoons.

From 1948 onwards, Fuller taught at numerous colleges and universities. His teaching
system was unacademic and, as a pioneer of project-based teaching, he often merged
student exercises with his own research.

Hailed at the time as the lightest, strongest and most cost-effective structure, the
geodesic dome was designed to cover the maximum possible space without internal
supports. The bigger it is, the lighter and stronger it becomes. The first full-size geodesic
structure was completed – with a 49 feet diameter – in Montreal in 1950, the following
year one was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Hundreds of thousands of geodesic domes have since been constructed all over the
world, often in extreme conditions, to offer inexpensive shelter to homeless families in
Africa, or to house weather stations in 180 mph winds in the Antarctic.

In 1960 Fuller designed a dome of two miles in diameter to encase midtown Manhattan
in a controlled climate. He calculated that it would pay for itself within ten years simply
by saving on snow removal costs. The most imposing of his actual domes was the
geodesic three-quarter sphere – 61 metres high and 76 metres in diameter – that he
designed with Sadao to house the US Pavilion at Montreal’s Expo ’67. A filigree network
of steel rods was formed of an outer layer of triangular units and hexagonal units linked
to an inner layer of hexagons. A skin of acrylic panels ensured total transparency apart

73
 from the occasional closure of triangular blinds programmed to react to very bright
sunlight..

The geodesic dome

Fuller was most famous for his lattice shell structures – geodesic domes,
domes which have been
used as parts of military radar stations, civic buildings, environmental protest camps and
exhibition attractions.

Their construction is based on extending
extending some basic principles to build simple
"tensegrity"" structures (tetrahedron, octahedron,, and the closest packing
packi of spheres),
making them lightweight and stable.

Transportation

In the 1930s, Fuller designed and built prototypes of what he hoped would be a safer,
aerodynamic car, which he called the Dymaxion.

Despite its length, and due to its three-wheel
three wheel design, the Dymaxion turned on a
small radius and could easily be parked in a tight space. The prototypes were efficient in
fuel consumption for their day, traveling about 30 miles per gallon.

In 1943, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser asked Fuller to develop a prototype for a smaller
car, but Fuller's five-seater
seater design was never developed further.

FREI OTTO

Frei Paul Otto (31 May 1925) is a German architect and structural engineer.
engineer

Otto was born in Siegmar (since 1950 a part of Chemnitz).
). He studied architecture in
Berlin before being drafted into the Luftwaffe as a fighter pilot in the last years of World
War II. It is said that he was interned in a French POW camp and, with his aviation
engineering training and lack of material and an urgent need for housing, began
experimenting with tents for shelter.

He began a private practice in Germany in 1952. His saddle-shaped
saddle shaped cable-net
cable music
pavilion at the Bundesgartenschau
Bundesgartenschau (Federal Garden Exposition) in Kassel brought him
his first significant attention.

He earned a doctorate about tensioned constructions in 1954.

Otto is the world's leading authority on lightweight tensile and membrane structures,[citation
structures
needed] and has pioneered advances in structural mathematics and civil engineering.

Otto's
tto's career bears a similarity to Buckminster Fuller's
's architectural experiments: both
taught at Washington University in St. Louis in the late 1950s, both were architects of

74
 major pavilions at the Montreal Expo of 1967, both were concerned with space frames
and structural efficiency, and both experimented with inflatable buildings. The work of
both men go far beyond traditional methods of calculating structural stresses.

Frei Otto, the architect and structural engineer whose work continues to inspire leading
British architects such as Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, has won the Royal Gold
Medal for Architecture. Presented by the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba), it is
the world's most prestigious architectural award.

A young Luftwaffe pilot who had built many model aircraft as a boy, Otto was shot down
and incarcerated in a French PoW camp near the end of the second world war. Here he
demonstrated considerable ingenuity in repairing buildings using as little valuable
material as possible.

After the war, he studied at the Technische Universität, Berlin, and, as a postgraduate
student researching sociology and urban form at the University of Virginia, visited the
leading-edge US studios of Erich Mendelsohn, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (both German
emigres) Eero Saarinen, Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames and Frank Lloyd
Wright.

Otto set up in private practice in Berlin in 1952. His doctoral thesis, completed in 1955,
was a dissertation on tensile roof structures. The same year he designed and built a
beautiful "music pavilion", or bandstand, in the guise of a butterfly-like tent for the
Bundesgartenschau (federal garden exhibition) in Kassel, working with a leading tent-
maker.

His Snow and Rocks pavilion at the Swiss national exhibition in Lausanne in 1964
stretched the concept further, while in 1967 his West German pavilion at the Montreal
Expo was given extensive coverage in the world media.

Other exceptional Otto tents include the gymnasium at the King Abdul Aziz University,
Jeddah (1975-80, with Rolf Gutbrod and Ted Happold), while more recently he has
designed the Japanese pavilion at the 2000 Hanover Expo with Japanese architect
Shigeru Ban.

In his collaboration with architects and engineers worldwide, Otto has pushed their
designs to the kind of lightweight and elegant limits found more in nature than in the
world of steel and other heavy-duty man-made materials.

He set up his own Institute for Lightweight Structures at the University of Stuttgart in
1964, making early use of computer modelling to create sensational, yet never
hyperbolic, membrane structures.

75

From the early 1970s he began fusing forms found in nature with modern building
techniques and computer logistics.

Otto's structural revolution had spread a long way from a 1950s flower show in West
Germany, even though the roof at Denver did succumb - temporarily and only in part - to
the ravages of savage weather in 2003.

The extraordinary depth and breadth of Otto's research have made him one of the
greatest architect-engineers of all time. Desperate to liberate architecture from its bulk,
he has studied tents, tepees, yurts, sailing boats, balloons, kites, birds, plants, crabs,
bubbles and aircraft. With his angular figure and sweep of white hair, he has become the
very image of the white-coated, lab-based German engineer.

Riba's president, George Ferguson, said of Otto last week: "He has a genuine claim to
be one of the real greats of the 20th century." Indeed he has.

His designs are regarded to have been heavily influenced by Australian architect Barry
Patten, and his most famous design, the Myer Music Bowl (1959) in Melbourne.

Otto founded the famous Institute for Lightweight Structures at the University
of Stuttgart in 1964 and headed the institute until his retirement as university professor.

The appeal for lightweight building after the Second World War had a strong ideological
tinge at first. But it was only Frei Otto who developed a comprehensive society-related
idea of architecture according to the motto "with lightness against brutality" from these
beginnings.

76