ARCH 219

Lecture 1 - The Problem of Style

I. Style and the Nineteenth Century

 Style is a visual, structural, and conceptual idea. It is a language generally
understood by creators and viewers.
 In the 18th and 19th centuries, the concept of a unified style erodes
o New functions for buildings
o Increasing knowledge of heterogeneity of the past
o The Industrial Revolution and New Technology
o Expression of varied political and social systems
II. Political and Cultural Imperatives
During the 1700s and 1800s, competition between European nation-states become
even more heated. England and France, which has long been rivals, came into explicit
conflict with the Napoleonic Wars starting in 1803.
National governments attempted to assert the supremacy of their political systems,
social structures, and cultural heritages. They used architecture to symbolize the nation
as a whole as well as to further more specific goals.
a. Napoleon and Imperial France (Arc de Triomphe, Paris Jean Chalgrin)
 Express political power and ideals through architecture
 Design inspired by architecture of Ancient Rome
o Chalgrin’s design was based on the Arch of Titus in Rome (81 CE), but is
over three times as tall
o Napoleon hoped to emulate Imperial Rome, which remained the great
model for imperial grandeur

b. England and Gothic Architecture

 English Gothic architecture began to develop in the 1100s and became the
standard style for English churches for hundreds of years

Pugin

 Proposes Gothic Architecture as a moral way and a social one

 In his book Contrasts, he compares a modern town with a medieval town
o Churches dominates the skyline in a medieval town, being the most
important architecture in the area. However in a modern town, the
skyline is dominated by both churches and factories, making it less 4

Houses of Parliament. London, Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Northmoor Pugin

 Gothic Revival
 Express the values of modern England. As the symbol of the English state,
the Houses of Parliament become the center of a debate on architecture,
history, and national identity
 Details of the Houses of Parliament are medieval but the planning and
function are modern
 Details are similar to the façade of Gothic Salisbury Cathedral
III. New Building Functions
The House of Parliament represented a new type of building – an assembly for a
representational governments. Many other building types developed during the 1700s and
1800s: banks, large factories, museums, train stations, exhibition buildings, monumental
greenhouses, etc.
a. Robert Smirke and the Greek Revival

British Museum. London, Robert Smirke

 Usage of Greek revival architecture, a conscious rebuttal of the Roman

precedents used in France
 Ornament is Classical, layout and function are modern
 Tension between historical elements and modern demands is on eof the
basic issues confronting nineteenth century architects
b. Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Berlin, Karl Friedrich Schinkel
 Schinkel’s career is tied to the rise of the Prussian state
 Uses the language of Classical architecture to ennoble and educate
 Greek stoa serves as the inspiration for the entry façade. The architecture
itself is not entirely Greek
 Circular room with dome in center of plan
o Inspired by the Roman Pantheon
o Modern planning with symmetrical layout
o Combines elements to make building appropriate to modern world

IV. The Heterogeneity of the Past: The example of John Nash

John Nash represents an era in which the scope of historical knowledge seemed to
be expanding rapidly. The excavations of Pompeii and surveys of Athens broadened
European knowledge of antiquity, while trade and colonization brought attention to
India, China, and other parts of the eastern hemisphere.
Royal Pavilion. Brighton, England, John Nash
 John Nash is commissioned to design for the area of Marylebone Park in
London
 Uses round arches and classical decorative elements in his buildings
 Royal Pavilion uses exotic motifs for novel effects, showing the wide range of
sources used in this period. Its façade is similar to Taj Mahal
 Iron structure indicates its modern material and technology
o Shows the increasing use of industrial materials in the 19 th century
o Kitchen is rationally planned.
 English patrons and designers had been using Chinese motifs since the mid
17th century
o Red and gold associate with the emperors
o Function and structure is not Chinese. Paintings are not made by
Chinese artists
o Chinese themed designed by English artists with phoenix and
dragons in the ornaments. Lotus shaped chandelier
Lecture 2 – Industrialization

I. The Industrial Revolution and Changes in Time, Space, and Structure

 Began in Great Britain (ca. 1700-1800).
 Acceleration effect of widespread technological changes
 Source of labor (originally human and animals) was replaced by machines and other
sources of energy (e.g. Watt’s steam engines). The rural landscape and urban centers
were transformed, as was society as a whole.
 The reorganization of time
o Time is quantified and regularized
 Changes in spatial relationships
o More efficient transportation shrinks distances; new sources of power change
industrial buildings.
o Allows buildings to be bigger so we can concentrate more people in an area
 New paradigms of structure and construction
o New materials and techniques disrupt the relationship between structure and
historical styles
 Tensions between historical modes of space/structure and new modes
II. Transportation
a. Train Stations

Midland Hotel & St. Pancras Station. G.G. Scott

 Combination of hotel with train stations requires reconciliation of

“architecture” and “engineering”.
 Located next to King’s Cross station
 High Victorian Gothic mode of ornament shown in exterior and grand
stairway
o Architects turn back to the Gothic Age. Shows a modern version of
Gothic Architecture. Uses color and decorative elements. Used not
only for churches
 Windows
 Pointed Arch
 Ornaments
 Front of building in High Victorian Gothic
Style. Arched entrance leads to a colossal
train shed (Move from realm of architect
to realm of engineer)
o Made out of iron and glass
o Iron is a skeletal structure where
walls are thick load bearing walls
made of bricks
o Multicolored red and white arched entrance
 Span of St. Pancras is 71% greater than that of the Pantheon, the historical
measure of grand interior space
o Great challenge for architects
 b. Bridges

Coabrookdale Bridge. England (1779)

 Coalbrookdale was an important early site for iron production. The bridge is the
first case iron bridge
 Series of Arches with a skeletal structure
 Similar to ancient roman bridge with arches where one is solid and heavy and
the other is light.
o Iron and Stone is fundamentally different. Iron has a stronger strength,
allowing thinner structural members
Brooklyn Bridge (1868-83). John Roebling, Washington Roebling, and Emily Roebling
 Begun by John Roebling, work was continued by his son Washington and
then completed by Washington’s wife Emily after Washington was
paralyzed.
 Material
o Uses Steel cables on top, formerly used chains
o Steel Cables were anchored on Steel
o Bridge Deck built out from the tower and suspended by the Steel
Cables that run from the main cables.
o Iron hidden inside the towers
 Foundations of the towers were difficult to built. Casings were used to weigh
down blocks of granite into the mud at the bottom of the river.
 Symbol of American industrial and technological advancements
 Openings pointed like Gothic buildings
o Buttresses are also used in Gothic architecture
o Use of Iron

III. International Exhibitions and New Building Types

a. London and the Crystal Palace. Joseph Paxton
 Great international exhibitions of the 19 th century were showcases for products,
crafts, and buildings.
 Uses a modular system of iron and glass derived from greenhouse buildings
o Pre-fabricated iron parts for the structure allowing it to be built quickly
and efficiently (does not require skilled workers)
 Arch inspired by churches depicting the grand nave
b. Paris and the Eiffel Tower (1889). Gustave Eiffel, Emile Nouguier, and Maurice
Koechlin
 Built for the 1889 International Exposition in Paris, the Eiffel Tower becomes by
far the tallest building in the world, surpassing the Washington Monument.
 Was considered radical and controversial back in the 1889
o Huge crime against the aesthetics of the city of Paris
o Originally used as a radio power but over time it is accepted by the
public

 Slim Cross Section on top reduces overturning forces created by strong winds.
  Wider base creates a more stable structure
 Decoration along the edges
 Skeletal structure. Wind passes right through

IV. Reactions to Industrialization: The Arts & Crafts Movement

 Inspired by the writings of A.W.N. Pugin, John Ruskin, and
William Morris.
 This movement and High Victorian Gothic architecture shared
many ideals: the emphasis on individual craft; the belief in
expressing material; the use of ornaments
o Does not cover up materials. Uses material in ways to show of those
materials
 Attempts to reconcile architecture and crafts with modern society and industry. Arts
and Crafts movement often focused on domestic architecture rather than
monumental architecture styles.
o Interested in the idea of the individual and the dignity of the individual.
Does not fall prey to the dangers of mass production and standardizations
a. John Ruskin
 Greek Temples: No room for creativity, individuality of the artisan is entirely
subordinate to the higher up
o He saw the Greek Temple as a kind of subjugating of the individual
to the supervisor
o No matter how skilled each craftsmen is, it was limited to producing
identity in the design
 In ‘The Stones of Venice’, Ruskin writes about
o Servile Ornaments (Greek Ornaments)
o Constitutional Ornaments
 Lies between service ornament and revolutionary
ornaments
o Revolutionary Ornaments (Gothic Ornaments)
 Individual given free rein to design and construct
 Ornaments are less perfect and less consistent than on a Greek temple
o The kind of mistakes and inconsistency on a Gothic Cathedral allows
the individual to exercise his or her own abilities
o Is not forced to create standardized ornament the Gothic artisans,
they could develop themselves as individuals
b. All Saints, Margaret Street
 Created in High Victorian Gothic style, a bold reinterpretation of Gothic for
the modern age, employs polychrome, strong patterns, juxtapositions of
materials.
 Wall made out of bricks, ornaments grow out of construction materials of
the wall
 Stone window frames are used to contrast the black and red of the bricks
 The Ecclesiological Society, founded in Cambridge, becomes a major source
for development in Anglican Liturgy and architecture
 Interior similar to historical English Gothic cathedrals. Heavily decorated
o Point arched nave
 o Stained Glass
o Murals
o Architectural ornaments
o Painted screen at the altar
 Act of creating and designing is an act of piety
o Fulfill his own potential and given freedom to fail

“All ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building”- Pugin

c. Red House
 Residence of William Morris, one of the key figures in the Arts and Crafts
movement. Connotation of conventional vernacular residential houses
 Asymmetric layout made with red bricks
 Ornaments
o Built to represent variety and informality
o Designed to show off the nature of the bricks
o Windows are long and skinny
o Door: Bricked arch with 4 panels of stained glass
 Interior
o Everything is customed, not standardized
o Handrails, finials, stairwells, arches, ceilings are all inspired by Gothic
architecture
 Whole house is a comprehensive work of art

Lecture 3 - Metropolitan

V. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts

 Oldest school of architecture in the world
 Exhibits basic principles of Beaux-Arts design
 Grand courtyard in glass, iron roof
 Symmetrical layout
 Classical ornaments
 Strong central axis
 Clear hierarchy of spaces

There was no timetable for completing the program; students gained points from monthly
competitions and many students did not complete their studies.

VI. Henri Labrouste and two libraries

The Beaux-Arts “style” is best seen as an approach to composition rather than as style.
Style:
 Perfect symmetrical and central axis, with a sense of hierarchy (where the most important
space would be at the far end of the entry axis)
 Elevation and section showing use of Classical forms and Beaux-Arts principles of compositions
o With inspirations from roman Basilica dome and grand pediment in its façade. Shows usage
of classical ornaments
a. Bibliotheque Ste Genevieve
  Labrouste’s first major commission is a library for the formey abbey of Ste-
Genevieve (now the Pantheon). Acts as a shrine to the great heroes of
France
 Most important public building in the 1800s, new
kind of repository of memory
 Labrouste conceives the ground floor entry as a
garden, as an academic grove. There is use of both
Classical elements and novel iron elements (used for
structure)
o References to Gothic and Classical
architecture for its iron, to produce unique,
modern spaces
o Cast-iron elements represent not only
alternative form and material, but also fundamentally different
concept of design and construction
 Labrouste addresses functional considerations such as ventilation, artificial
light, natural lighting, fireproofing

 Pilasters
 Double vaulted room
 Not decorated as much
 First library to be lighted at dark
 Large windows in upper floors
 To attract more natural light as it is used as a reading room
 Depiction of major interior space
 Stone envelope is a rational response to conditions of site and program
 Transparency and legibility are major themes
 Exterior expresses spirit of interior contents of both books and structure

b. Bibliotheque Nationale
VII. Baron Haussmann and the Rebuilding of Paris
Political Instability in nineteenth century France:
French Revolution, Napoleon rules, Bourbon Restoration, July Monarchy, Riots,
Socialist revolution, Creation of Second Empire
a. Remaking Paris
i. Streets were indirect and narrow, made transportation more difficult and it
was easier to barricade streets (from riotings)
ii. Modernization of transportation using straight avenus and train stations to
allow efficient movement of people and goods
iii. Regularized apartment buildings were a great demand for middle-class
housing. -Drilling of the Avenue de l’Opera
Remaking of Paris benefitted the wealthier citizens, while causes a
disadvantage to low income people.
b. Charles Garnier’s Paris Opera
Symbol of the opulent architecture of the Second Empire
 Auditorium – Gold ornaments with red seating.
 o Garnier believes in technology to achieve conventional architectural
effects. Modern technology (iron, steam pumps, gas, and early
electric lighting) but not exposed.
c. Paris, Urbanism and Modernity
VIII. Julia Morgan
 Only woman in her engineering class at Berkeley, First woman in the architecture
department at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
 Kept a low personal profile, preferring to let her work speak for itself
 Her role was overshadowed by her clients
 Does not have a single style
 Did not write about her work, and was often fell outside the realm of “architecture”
and were overlooked by historians and critics

Lecture 4 – United States

a. The influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

Richard Morris Hunt - first American to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Art in Paris.

 Conservative designer (He designed buildings that were familiar, had no claims
to design esthetically, style breaking buildings)

McKim, Mead and White – one of the most prominent architectural firms of the late
19th century and early 20th century, and helped establish Beaux Arts classicism as the
standard for institutional buildings

Boston Public Library

 Beaux Art style

o Symmetric, classical ornamentation, follows along a central axis
o Rhythm and consistency of façade
o Broadly classical, however not heavily ornamented. Indicates a stripped
down, plain building
o Rounded arched large windows on upper floor
o Vaulted room, ornaments on arch

b. Chicago and the Commercial Skyscrapers

In the 1880s, the modern commercial high-rise office building develops. As city
centers become more crowded, land becomes more expensive.

Technology for steel develops rapidly from the Bessemer process in 1856, and by
1885-90 steel becomes cheap enough to permit the use of steel as the primary
structure of large buildings.

In addition, various business-related technologies develop: elevator, telephone,

typewriter, mimeograph, and affordable incandescent lighting. Business become
centralized

 Difficult to light up a building as a building gets bigger (uses gaslight)

 Innovation in Chicago
o Rapid growth and increasing in wealth
 o Center of agriculture in mid west
o Relative weakness of historical traditions in architecture
 Easier to implement new architectural ideas
o Bad soil for building, making foundations difficult for heavy masonry
buildings
 Strong motivation to create buildings that weighed less

Monadnock Building. Chicago (1884-92). Burnham and Root

 Limits of bearing-wall masonry structures: walls are 6’ thick at ground level,

incredibly heavy. (reducing the area and quality of the most profitable spaces)
 Interior structure uses iron H-shaped columns
 Interior decoration shows use of iron and curvilinear forms that parallels Art
Nouveau in Europe

Fair Store. Chicago (1890-91). William LeBaron Jenney

 All metal (iron with some steel) skeletal cage that supports both internal floor loads
and the external wall
o Fire resistant structure but at a high enough temperature, it would collapse.
By covering them up with materials like concrete, plaster, it makes the
foundation much more safe

Reliance Building. Chicago (1894-95). Burnham and Root

 Uses terracotta cladding

o Lightweight, durable cladding
 Supported by columns, not walls
 Lack of thick masonry walls allows most room in the interior
o On the side that faces the street, there are only columns
o Separation of skin and structure at the projecting windows. Interior space
and light are maximized
c. Louis Sullivan
Gentrification of how a skyscraper should look. Wrote “The Tall Office Building
Artistically Considered”, which lays out what he sees as the essence of this type of building

Wainwright Building. St. Louis, Missouri (1890-91). Adler and Sullivan

 Steel framed building with terra-cotta cladding. Gives the tall office
building a coherent rational tri-partite expression
 Created a division on the first two floors to make it different from the
floors above
 Ornaments are derived from plant motifs, but is also highly geometric
o He apples it to enrich rather than obscure the basic elements of
the buildings.

Influences later designers through his writings as well as his buildings. Sullivan
believes life is recognizable in its expression.

d. Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959)

 Born in Wisconsin and establishes himself in Chicago, working for Sullivan from
1887-93 (adding his own style)
  Becomes a leading figure in the Arts and Crats movement
o Argues for the integration of the arts and for the comprehensive design of
buildings
o Believes machine is a fundamental element of modern life and does not look
back to historical methods
o Concepts of organic architecture are related to Sullivan’s belief that the laws
of architecture comes from nature
o Wright further argues that architecture must develop from the conditions of
its user, materials, and site.

Robie House. Chicago (1908). Frank Lloyd Wright

 Embodies the idea of “organic architecture”, a building without any conventional

ornaments at all (differs from the historical styles)
 Gently sloping roofs, ow proportions, quiet skylines, suppressed heavyset chimneys
and sheltering overhands, low terraces and outreaching walls sequestering private
gardens.
 Unusual plan/ layout
o Entrance is not obvious like in typical buildings. It is designed as a private
residential building, hence making the entrance in a more private location
o Rooms are not simple rectangular boxes. Rooms are connected with
windows that open outwards.
o Gradations of shelter from inside to out, as seen in the patio of the living
room
 Wright designed exterior as well as the interior furniture. Uses wood to ‘bring out
nature’
 Created both forms and ideas that does not relate to medieval buildings

Lecture 5– City, Suburb, and the Anti-Industrial

I. English Reactions to the Industrial City

 Due to the growing population from 1901 to 1891, many people lived in poor
conditions and are never visited by a breath of fresh air, rarely knowing the virtues
of a drop of cleansing water.
 Covered with smoke and pollution

Suburbs: Bedford Park

 An early planned suburban development, easily reached by train from central

London but removed from industrial environments.
 Shared life and facilities enjoyed by residents of Bedford Park
 Place for well-educated people but slightly non-mainstream residents
 Buildings are executed in the Queen Anne style, an informal style based on
residential architecture used in brick houses
 Gabled roof
 Variety of houses among the streets, with similar color palette and style

St. Michael and All Angels, Bedford Park (1880)

 Simple exposed structure on the interior

Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City

 Three Magnets: Country, Town, Town-country

 Howard sees private ownership of land as problem, proposes that all land of the
Garden City be owned by one company.
o Garden City is to have a complete economy – it is not intended to be a
suburb that relies on the metropolis
o Land is clearly zoned. Town itself occupies only a small pat of land

Letchworth

 Built as a Garden City

o Thick boundary separates Green Belt and city, surrounded by greenery
 Main Avenue with larger houses. Streets are treated more like a park (for
transportation and pleasure)
II. Urbanism In the United States
 Grid becomes a standard way of city planning. Chicago and San Francisco are two
gridded cities that grew rapidly in the mid 1800s
 Large American cities suffered from the same ills as European cities. Riverside was
one of the earliest planned suburban communities in the US and offered extensive
green spaces, attractive topography, a central square, and easy rail access to
Chicago.
a. Chicago and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893
 Many currents come together at the Expo: sanitation facilities, electricity,
telephone, and other technologies make the Expo the most up to date of
projects.
o The only remaining place from the Expo (Palace of Fine Arts) follows the
Beaux Arts Style
 One section o the Columbian Expo is about popular entertainment. The Midway
Plaisance houses various kinds of entertainment: the original Ferris Wheel,
exotic exhibits, dancing, etc.
 Aesthetic order, functional panning, and civic ideals displayed at the Expo deeply
influence future American development, especially the City Beautiful movement
o Takes on idea of Beaux Arts architecture (axial, symmetric nature) to
make city into a superficially attractive place
b. Washington DC: A Capital for a Young Nation
 Absence of existing building on the site allows the creation of a completely
new city

Benjamin Benneker

 Free African American who spent his early life as farmer

 Self taught higher mathematics, astronomy, clockmaking, and other
advanced subjects
 Hired as a surveyor for planning the new capital

The President’s House

 Original house was modeled on Leinster House and did not have north and
south porticoes.
  Benjamin Henry Latrobe redesigns the capitol in a sober neoclassical manner
 Walter’s design of the dome is to have a statue of freedom on top of the
dome
o Crawford’s second proposal for the statue showed Freedom wearing
a “liberty cap”, a symbol of freedom inspired by ancient Greece and
Rome.

Union Station. Washington D.C

 The Senate Park Comission Plan moves the railroads north of the Capitol
 Front façade inspired by ancient Roman triumphal arch
 Uses classical ornaments, beaux arts ornaments
 Interior has grand colossal room vaults based on Roman vaulted halls such
as the Basilica of Maxentius

Burnham’s Chicago Plan and the Civic Center of San Francisco

 An emphases on certain kinds of physical improvements, as shown in Burnham’s Plan for

Chicago.
 Burnham also creates a plan for San Francisco but is not implemented
 Burnham’s Chicago Plan has a limited understanding of the city as treating only certain
urban issues and ignoring others, such as typical Chicago housing

Lecture 6– Turn of the Century

I. Otto Wagner and Vienna

 Born in 1841, Wagner played a major role in the development of progressive
architecture in Vienna.
 Generation was trained in historic style but he became critical of conventional
architecture
 Believes style comes out of the basic nature of the age. A true style is something
that develops organically
 Art never changes. At any given time, art is being developed. It always expresses its
environment
 Argues that the style of the modern age will develop in accordance with modern
society if artists avoid imitating past forms or styles
i. “Each new style gradually emerged from the earlier one when new methods
of construction, new materials, new human tasks and view points demanded
a change or reconstitution of existing forms.”

Postal Savings Bank. Austria (1904-06)

 A modern building for a modern function

 Façade is composed of marble, but of thin sheets that are expressed as a veneer.
o Used in high status buildings
  Symmetrical composition but unconventional elements
o Heart – Main room with remarkable steel and glass roof (arched)
o Structure is built in exposed steel. Does not cover up the structure*
 Uses metal and glass, also “rivets” of façade
o Uses materials that are appropriate for the nature of the building
o From the entry canopy, we can see it’s a building the uses modern material
 Linoleum, Tiles, Glass on floor
o Light reflect on glass block
o Easy to clean materials
o Wagner encompasses furniture, light fixtures, and other elements, crafted
with both industrial and traditional materials that are both beautiful and
practical
II. Art Nouveau
a. Developed in the 1890s and encompasses many areas of design, including
architecture and furniture
b. Term used for work in France and Belgium; similar development occurred in
Germany (Jugendstil), Italy (Stile Liberty), and other areas.
c. Idea of Avant-garde

Victor Horta (1861-1947)

 Trained in the Beaux-Arts manner

 Studies the idea of Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, an influential 19 th century
French architect who argued for the use of iron in architecture
o Takes advantage of the nature of iron as a decorative material

Tassel House. Brussels (1892). Victor Horta

 t style with big entrance and symmetrical layout
 Ornaments are not in historical style. Strong emphasis on motifs on plants
and flowers
 Design is everywhere: Floor, Ceiling, Columns, Light fixture
 Iron and the “whiplash “line: natural forms and in the possibilities of iron
o Whiplash is crucial in Art Nouveau style
 Art Nouveau designers tend to focus more on interior and small-scale design
than on monumental buildings
o Mosaic pattern on floor, curvature of stairs, decorative whiplash on
walls, stair railings

Hector Guimard and the Metro Entrances

 Iron is easily replicated to cast complex shapes

o Ornaments on columns look plant or animal like
 Sense of natural form
o Vaguely biomorphic covers made in iron (linear, playfulness)
III. Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926)
a. Primary creator of Catalan modernism in architecture
b. Works on all kinds of buildings such as cathedrals, colossal
 Sagrada Familia. Barcelona
 Original structure designed as a gothic revival architecture
 Imaginative development of historical Gothic façade
 Rational approach but idiosyncratic form
o Gaudi models the structure by suspending weights from wires to
simulate the effects of gravity. Form an efficient structure when
inverted

 Strong sense of vertical. Many sources and influences synthesized.

 Floor plan is symmetrical, in a Gothic style (cross shape)
 Based on Gothic Revival plan but departs from Gothic forms and becomes a
rational but unique structure
o Columns are slightly canted, structurally because the nave pushes
outward
o Old parts are in Gothic style: Stained glass windows, New parts
made my Gaudi are more modern
 Creation of a spiritual realm through light, color, space, and
form
IV. Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School
a. Mackintosh and his circle are only major figures whose work is closely related to Art
Nouveau on the continent. He mainly produces graphic design, furniture, and other
interior objects
b. Mackintosh’s wife Margaret was a major artist who collaborated with him

Glasgow School of Art

 Create new expressions, modern conventional education system
 Layout of school is highly functional, with well lighted studio spaces
 Employs modern technology: central heating, electric light, machine-milled
lumber, plate glass
o Uses modern technology beneath floor. All design is sublimated to
his own aesthetic
 Not symmetric with asymmetric door ini the entrance and different number
of naves on the sides. Layout appears to be symmetric but details proves
otherwise
 Thick stone wall contrasted with plate glass windows.
 Iron detailing and curvilinear forms suggest Art Nouveau, but the large
rectangular windows and heavy stone walls are drawn from other sources
 Facades on the east and west suggest medieval Scottish castles
Lecture 7 – Modern Movements

I. Adolf Loos (1870-1933)

 Became famous for his polemical writings about architecture, design, and fashion.
Although of the same generation as Ollrich and other Secession figures, he reacted
strongly against them as against many 19 th century revival styles.
 Radical and argumentative of the architects of the age. Antagonize and criticize to
make controversial points (modern).
 Admires English Arts and Crafts figures and spent three years in the US where he
encountered the work of Louis Sullivan.
 Believes in the removal of ornament from utilitarian objects (In “Ornament and
Crime”)
 In oppose to the Art Nouveau designers who developed new types of ornaments,
Loos argued for a new conception of the role of ornament.
o Address changes in:
 Material
 Ornaments
 Space
 Rhetoric
o “Every age had its style, is our age alone to be refused a style”
o “Since ornament is no longer organically linked with out culture, it is also no
longer the expression of our culture. The ornament that is manufactured
today has no connection with us, has absolutely no human connections, no
connection with world order.”

Muller House. Prague (1929-30). Adolf Loos and Karel Lhota

 “I do not play with the façade, I do not live there. Take a

chair, sit in the rain in the middl eof the street and look at
the façade.”
 Unornamented house with rectangular volumes and form.
Flat façade made of luxurious marble and stone finishes
 Loos sees residential architecture as different from
monumental architecture. The former he views not as
expressive art, but as a setting for modern life.
 Uses reinforced concrete and steel as structure- to put
walls and windows anywhere. Concrete frame also gives
flexibility of floors and rooms of different height
o Connection between spaces with stairs and hierarchy of floors
 Idea of the Raumplan. Loos argues that the walls belong to the architect, the interior to
the inhabitants.
II. Futurism
 Depicts sense of emotion and idea of motion
 Develop whole new vocabulary that speaks for modern industry. “It must be like an
immense, tumultuous, lively, noble work site, dynamic in all its parts..”
 Futurist house must be like an enormous machine. Lifts out in the open and must climb
like serpents of iron and glass up the housefront
 Using experience in science and technology to create architecture
III. Expressionism and Bruno Taut
 Glass Pavilion, Werkbund Exhibition. Cologne (1914).
Bruno Taut.

 Exploits qualities of glass (transparency, color,

reflection, refraction) to create Expressionist
effects
 Draws parallel to the use of glass in Gropius and
Meyer building
 Interior is also made of glass (stairs, ornaments,
pointed dome)
IV. De Stijl
 Loosely affiliated group of artists, designers,
and architects centered in Netherlands
 Reacted against decorative styles such as Art Nouveau and argued for abstraction and
universal principles
 Believes the kind of art that speaks for everyone (universal) is abstract and
unornamented.

Artists with Stijl style

o Van Doesburg argues for architecture that is elementary, functional, dynamic, anti-
cubic, anti-decorative in use of color.
o Color used for fundamentally element of plane instead of for ornaments
o Piet Mondrian using the same principles in abstract art
o Gerrit Rietveld is well known for the red and blue chair. Lines in black, planes in red
or blue.

Schroeder House. Utrecht, Holland (1924). Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schroeder.

 House that is both artistically and socially innovative: a home for a single mother and
her children, designed to accommodate daily activities.
 Exterior imposed by planar elements and lines. Very similar to Stijl compositions.
 Conventional construction.
 Aims to preserve a free, light, and unopened space, that gives clarity to our lives and
contributes to a new sense of life.
 Innovative set of spaces. Open for discussions and gathering, while allows parent to
keep an eye on her kids.
 Wanted simplicity and a space that freed rather than constrained her
 Characteristic features include
o Fluid transitions between interior and exterior
o The clean horizontal and vertical lines
o The use of all primary colours, alongside white, grey and black.

Lecture 8 – Modernism 1

I. Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus

Bauhaus

 Founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, as a school to unify arts, crafts, architecture.

  “Art and people must form a unity. Art should no longer be the pleasure of a few but
should bring joy and sustenance to the masses”
 Aim: Integration of design and production, with architecture as the culmination.
 Industrial Design
o Textiles and metalwork were among most successful Bauhaus collaborations
between artists and industry.
 Move away from historical architecture as they believe our world
requires different needs, materials, sensibilities.
o Women were discouraged from pursuing painting, sculpture, and architecture.
o Marianne Brandt: Head of the metal department designed some of the most
famous and influential works of the Bauhaus (Table lamp, teapot)
o Gunta Stolzl: Head of weaving department produces some of the mos iconic
works of the Bauhaus. Abstract designs of colored compositions
o Marcel Breuer: Designs chairs with modern industrial material (chromed steel)
as a material for residential settings, not just industrial ones. Beautiful simplicity
of curvature of steel as base of chair.
a. Master’s House, Bauhaus. Dessau, Germany (1926).
Walter Gropius
 Aesthetic of planar, unadorned white surfaces.
 Double story windows used as a view for
windows.
 Emphasis on simplicity and composition in
terms of planes, lines, and primary colors.
 Asymmetric layout
b. Bauhaus Building
 Based on modern aesthetics, technologies, functions
 Pinwheel plan. Wings with different functions. Whole composition is dynamic
and asymmetric, does not have a main central hall.
o Studio Wing: Florida ceiling glass wall to allow good even lighting.
Columns are inside the building, surrounded by a continuous glass
envelope.
o Student Wing: Different needs for dorm rooms. Includes little balconies
to give interest to the façade of the building.
o Classroom Wing: Smaller enclosed rooms, medium sized windows
o Administration Wing: Different type of windows specific to the needs of
administration department
 Designs their own font, furniture, windows, and combines into architecture

 Closing of the Bauhaus

o Gropius resigns in 1930, Hannes Meyer becomes director
o Ludwig Mies van der Rohe assumes directorship but Nazis shut down
the Bauhaus as the progressive kind of radical nature makes them an
enemy in 1932.
o Many figures associated with Bauhaus flee; Gropius and Mies emigrate
to the U.S.

II. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

 Trained in masonry and stone carving

 Designs are conventional, made of bring, relatively unadorned and elegantly
proportional.

Lilly Reich (1885-1947)

 Entered the world of architecture through interior design. Met Mies in 1926, and
their collaborations culminated in the German pavilion in Barcelona.
 Overlooked for histories of the age
a. Tugendhat House
 Abstract white walls made of simple planes. Windows act as a large area of
glass
 Servants quarters clearly separated by main house.
 Continuity of inside and outside
o Flowing of spaces
 Steel structure that holds up the building and takes up the load from the
window
o Column Grid with skinny steel columns (chrome sheathed), built up
out of four angled.
 Electrically operated windows lowered into the floor (similar to car
windows)
 Travertine stone material (associated to classical architecture) used in
interior and exterior.
 Uses expensive material in place of the ornament by using it as walls.
 Onyx wall which are slightly translucent, allowing light to enter in through
windows
 All wall surfaces were designed by Reich and Mies, similarly to Red house
and Frank Lloyd Wright.

b. Barcelona Pavilion
 Built to represent the Weimar Republic in an international context.
o In an international progressive culture. Post war Germany, forward
looking, internationally oriented cultured nation
 Different from conventional premodern buildings
o Flowing interconnected spaces
o Function: Welcome King and Queen of Spain

What do you think are some major similarities between Adolf Loos’s ideas and those of
Walter Gropius? How are these two architects modern in ways that the Art Nouveau
designers were not?

Adolf Loos is one of the most famous individuals of introducing the principles of abstract, austere,
orthogonal design through his polemical writings about architecture, design, and fashion. I think
some major similarities between Loos and Walter Gropius is that they both admire English Arts and
Craft style, and shows elements of modernism through simple, unadorned designs. They both put
emphasis on function, where Loos focuses on the space of an architecture, and the Bauhaus style
focuses on practicality.

These two architects were modern in ways that the Art Nouveau designers were not as the Art
Nouveau design is ornate, and mostly decorative, while both Bauhaus designs (ideal of Walter
Gropius), and Loos are simplistic, functional, does not have ‘ornaments’ that could be defined as a
type of style.

Lecture 9 – Modernism 2 and Lecture 10 – Contemporary Issues 1

I. Concrete Developments
Ancient Romans used concrete for monumental structures such as the Pantheon and the
Colosseum. However, after the fall of the Roman Empire, builders lost concrete technology.
 Architects and engineers experimented with concrete for foundations
 Concrete is weak in tension and strong in compression
o In the mid 1800s, people used steel rods and cables to handle
tension.
o Most concrete buildings uses serrated steel rods to handle tensile
forces
 Concrete was inexpensive and fireproof, seen as utilitarian rather than
“architectural”

a. Early Systems
 Hennebique became the most important figure in concrete construction in
Europe
o Incorporated many innovations and created worldwide system of
offices that supervised concrete construction.
 Ernest L. Ransome furthered practical innovations in reinforced concrete in
the US
o Uses twisted rods for reinforcements
o Patented a comprehensive system of floors, columns, and beams
that became a standard method for industrial buildings.
b. Robert Maillart

Schwandbach Bridge. Switzerland (1933)

 Developed reinforced concrete systems

 Gives RC bridges distinct forms that could not be achieved with other materials
 Compared to the lightness of Maillart’s bridge with the Pont du Gard, an ancient
Roman stone aqueduct
o Thin vertical supports
o One curve supports entire bridge
 o Designed with low construction costs and minimal mass.
c. August Perret
 Educated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
 Influenced by the structural rationalism of Viollet le Duc.
 Learned construction methods in his father’s firm

Notre Dame du Raincy

 Design for this church illustrates Perret’s basic principles

o Reinterpretation of historical elements in modern materials
o Reconciliation of Classical and Gothic attributes
 Simple rectangular plan with aisles on the side and broad nave on the center
 Gothic cathedral composition
 Exterior wall is a screen of modular concrete units, but the stained glass
draws on Gothic tranditions.
o Affordable, repeatable, standardized, industrially produced
elements
 Gothic cathedrals tends to emphasizes vertical where classical architecture
emphasizes horizontal. The Notre Dame du Raincy opposes both French
traditions: the symmetry, the order of Classical architecture, and the
structural rationalism of Gothic architecture.
 We can see the rough concrete marks on top of the columns
II. Le Corbusier (1887-1966)
 Influenced worldwide architecture
 Early Works: Dom-ino House (1915)
o Concrete floors and concrete columns
o Idea to change walls (to glass) as structure is supported by columns
 Put openings at any locations
o More efficient as roof plane occupies space and space below can be used for
cars
 Writings:
o Urges for modern architecture. “A great era has just begun. There exists a
new spirit.
o Argues for nature of the development of design
o Inspired by the achievements by engineers.

Weissenhofsiedlung housing exhibition

 Directed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

 Conceived as a radical, domestic approachable demonstration to new architecture

House 14 and 15, Suttgart Germany. Le Corbusier

Five Points of a New Architecture

 Piloti
o Lifts main part of building up the ground
o Sheltered area underneath first floor for storage, outdoor, leisure
 Free plan
  Free façade
 Horizontal windows
 Roof terrace
o Reclaim footprint on top of the building
 Le Corbusier used off the shelf furniture especially bentwood furniture from Thonet.
Although using modern material

Villa Savoye. Poissy, France (1929-31). Le Corbusier

“A house is a machine to live in”

 Simple rectangular layout
 Modern furnishings done by Charlotte Perriand
 Kitchen located in living area instead of hidden in a corner. Le Corbusier addresses the fire
hazards by designing carefully.
 Terrace forms to landscape

Charlotte Perriand and Modernist Interior

 Studied at the Ecole de l’Union Centrale des Arts before starting her career as an interior
designer
 Becomes fundamental to building produced in Le Corbusier’s studio.
 In her long career, Perriand's aesthetic grammar constantly evolved, moving from the
tubular steel furniture of the "Machine Age" to a lyrical naturalism.

Eileen Gray

“A house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, h is
spiritual emanation.”

 E-1027: Designed for Gray and Jean Badovici.

o Living room in the open
o Horizontal windows facing sea, uses operable shading to control heat and light.
o Various pieces of nooks and cranny. More carefully adapted to people who will
be living there.
o Designed to ‘feel like home’

Lecture 11 – Global Modernism 1

International Style refers to modernism of the 1920s

I. The International Style: International and Regional

 Three principles of the International Style:
o Architecture as Volume rather than mass
o Regularity rather than symmetry
o Avoidance of Applied Decoration
II. The United States
 American designers argued that American buildings should be distinctly American.
 Modernism in the US did not become a style for public institutional buildings until after
WWII
a. Frank Lloyd Wright
 Much of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work shared many characteristics with European
modernist architecture: destruction of the box; freedom from historical styles;
asymmetric planning; flowing spaces.

 Rooms are not simply rectangles. No illusion from previous historical

architecture.
 Free of emphasis on symmetry, entrance located around the corner instead of in
main façade.

Hollyhock House (Barnsdall House)

 Project intended to be avant-garde.

 Built specifically for woman client. Creative friction between strong client and strong designer.
o Clear central axis that runs through the main house
o Building is asymmetric
o Uses building motifs between wall and lower roof. Shows parallel to Mayan architecture
in Tikal
o Not his usual style
 Living room
o Building centered around a fireplace.
o Middle of room is taller but ceiling on sides of room is lower
o Uses idea of nature for materials (use of wood)
o Spaces are relatively open. Open to outside and to other spaces.

Johnson Wax

 Conceives as an interior oriented building.

o 2 Major pieces (administration and research tower)
 Interior
o Cathedral of commerce
o Group of people working towards the same goal
o Innovative mushroom columns acts as structure.
o Allows natural light to come evenly from top.
o Uses glass tubing made by cording corporation.
 Allows light in but blocks out direct view.
 Light passes through but also provides privacy. Acts as filtered light.
Kaufmann House (Falling Water)

 Designed for specific location. Other architecture such as Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoie is
prototypical
 Abstract floating plates of concrete.
 Simple geometry, lack of ornaments
 Juxtaposition of rough stone walls
 Interior includes transitional stairs to ground floor and living room
 Large window opening
 Uses cream instead of white. Warmer colors than the typical modernistic buildings
 Uses stone from the site that acts as furniture
b. Rudolf Schindler
 Early examples of European-influenced modernism in the US. He was also
influenced by Wright
 Centrifugal Pinwheel pattern
 Designed for 2 couples, with each of the four people having independent space.
 Precast concrete walls with tilted up panels
o Compare with use of wood, low ceilings, lightweight construction,
sliding panels in common historical Japanese houses.
o Exposed wood, sliding panels (flexibility), Large openings from inside to
outside.

c. Richard Neutra
Lovell House (Health House). LA 1929
 Designed for Philip Lovell, a physician who emphasizes sunlight, exercise,
and hygiene as elements of healthy living.
 One of the first steel-framed houses in the US
o Standardized windows, columns, and structural frame
o Forged steel columns is relatively lightweight as they are not as
strong (hence being closely space)
 Horizontal white ribbons, use of steel on concrete structure
 Lack of ornaments
 Idea of the outdoors. Neutra believed in kind of pleasure and health on the
outdoor climate.
o Integrates outdoor into architecture
 Interior with unadorned abstract open space
o Stair hall entirely open with glass (double story)
o Transparency associated with modern hosues
o

Lecture 12 – Global Modernism 2

1. Alvar Aalto and Finland

 Master of Modernism based in Germany
 Uses his own approach based on more expressive forms and a wider variety of materials
 He was interested in the relationship between nature and architecture, both in terms of
space and material
 Believes object that is a piece of everyday furniture in the home should not reflect too
much light. It must not be made of a material that is an effective heat conductor as it
comes in to close touch with the skin.
o Both Breur’s Ceska chair and Aalto’s armchair are similar in many ways
 Industrial Material
 Wood as based structure, sounds better, more comfortable

a. Viipuri Library
 Modernist artist think about lighting as efficiency.
 Entrance to building faced with stone. Unusual choice of material
 Each wing has a different function
  “Slopes lit by man suns in different positions, which gradually gave rise to
the main idea of the building”
o Interested in lighting of library. Not in terms of amount of light but
quality of light
o The type of light suited for reading.
o Regardless of season, there is a comforting glow instead of harsh
shadows
 3-Dimensional set of spaces (different floor and ceiling heights)
 Stairs directly visible from outside.
 Glass Wall, Wide planes, Asymmetrical layout of building
 Objects that are rational are often inhuman
 Uneven seating breaks up acoustic and echoes
b. Villa Mairea. Noormarkku, Finland
 Canopy reaches out and points toward approaches.
o More organic shape that stretch and bends to people who are
coming towards the house
 Wood is the primary material in interior.
o Large windows – sense of forestry that surrounds the building
o Columns wrapped by wood
o Too produce a more humane built environment is to extend our
definition of rationalism
2. Brazil
 In the early 20th century French-style Beaux-Arts architecture dominate large scale
public architecture in Rio de Janeiro.
 By the late 1920s, progressive Brazilian architects had begun building modernist
houses. Le Corbusier visits Brazil in 1929, sketching plans for the city.
 Many younger architectures were inspired by Le Corbusier but also wished to adapt
European modernism to Brazil’s climate and culture.
 “What attracts me is the free and sensual curve”

a. Casino Pampullha. Pampulha, Brazil

 Casino designs as luxurious venue for the residents of the area.
 Entry opening.
o Believes there should be a sense of play, difference, extravagant
instead of rationality ideals from Le Corbusier
o Gradual ascend from ramps. Effect of architectural promenade,
crucial to the experience
b. Caso de Baile (dance hall). Pampulha, Brazil
 Local element of
 Roof whines along the lake front, similar curves to casino with a sense of
playfulness
3. Japan
 Japanese architects began adopting modernist ideas from Europe.
 Kunio Maekawa became the first Japanese architecture to work in Le Corbusier’s
atelier, and after returning to Japan he served as a mentor to many young architects.
 Flexible spaces, light skeletal structure, large wall openings, absence of applied
ornament linked conventional Japanese wooden houses to modernist ideas
a. Sutemi Horiguchi
 Interest In modern Europe and historical Japan. Uses a combination in both
in his designs
  Bunriha Kenchikukai Declaration
 Awaken aspects of past architecture

Okada House. Tokyo (1933)

 Roof oriented to different angles

 Addition of a concrete wing
 Façade
o White flat plastered walls
o Large openings made of glass
o Lack of ornamentation
o Large open areas
 Modernist style connecting interior to nature
 Composition of lines of column vs planes of floor and sliding partitions.
o Sense of abstract compositions

Lecture 13 – Alternatives to Modernism

I. The Persistence of Tradition

 In the 1930s, nationalist governments in Italy and Germany were influenced by Classical
architecture specifically ancient Rome due to its symbols of political power, but also
using modern technology to create spectacles for the masses.
 In Italy, architects referred to historical architecture in a variety of ways.
o Works such as Casa del Fascio in Como appears to be primarily modernist, while
other were more explicit in their use of the Classical past.
a. Mussolini, the Third Rome, and Italy
 Benito Mussolini becomes Prime Minister of Italy in 1922

Remakes Rome using three principles of

1. Demolition of historic fabric

2. Isolation of historic monuments
3. Revaluation of monuments in a new context

Piazza Augusto Imperial. Rome.

 Demolishes existing fabric around the mausoleum of Augustus to create space for new
buildings to line the square.
o To appreciate the monument more

Modernism and Fascism

 Formation of the Rationalist group that claims architecture must develop from logic
o “The new architecture, the true architecture, must result from a rigid adherence to
logic, to rationality.”
o Echoing Le Corbusier, Rationalist does not seek to create a “style”, but sought to
“rather to allow from the constant use of rationality, from the perfect
correspondence between the structure of the building and the purposes it serves, a
style to be born through selection.”
 At the same time, they emphasized that tradition remained relevant

Believed that classical and Italian culture were fundamental to modern architecture, so they wish to
incorporate aspects or ideals of the older set of classical buildings into their own modernist buildings
  Saw other aspects of more abstract characteristics of classical architecture as being worthy
of continuation
Casa del Fascio. Como, Italy (1933-36). Giuseppe Terragni
 Building designed as a structure that would facilitate large rallies or other events that were
promoted by the fascist party
 Opens up to the outside that allows connection from exterior and interior
 Shape and exposed frame of the Casa del Fascio refer to historical Italian buildings (simple
rectangular building)
 Even grid and columns of windows. Consistent rhythm
 Both symmetric and asymmetric!!!!
 Clear connection to major buildings in Florence or Rome
o Arcades and colonnades as interface of outside and inside
o Exterior material is covered in marble that is very commonly associated with
classical buildings in Renaissance or Ancient Rome
 Gave the building a sense of authority and power
o Core of building with open space
 “Here the Mussolini an concept that fascism is a glass house”
 Instead of being hidden away, the main façade is visually open. Represent
transparency and openness of Fascism
 Furniture such as its chair has modern through curves and material. Abstract art

b. Hitler, Speer, and Nazi Germany

Speer: “My buildings were not solely intended to express the essence of the National-Socialist
movement.”

“intended to express the essence of the National Socialist movement”

“Inspired by Berlin’s great hall

 Weimar Republic ends in 1933 when Hitler takes power

 Hitler: “Every great period finds the final expression of its value in its buildings.”
o Turns to Classical architecture in the design for Party Congress Grounds,
auditoriums, and other party functions.
 Details are abstract, with fine ornaments
 Symmetric façade. Speer uses a stripped Classicism for monumental effect
o “My buildings were not solely intended to express the essence of the National
Socialist movement. They were an integral part of that very movement.”
 Zeppelin Field made to accommodates more than 100,000 people for vast spectacles
o “Hitler saw the architecture of assemblies as the mechanism that would help
establish his dominion.”
o At night, there are 130 beams of light that creates a kind of cathedral o flight. Effect
of spiritual environment using modern techniques
o Hitler and his architects imagined a colossal North South axis with the Great Hall at
the north end
 Hitler imagined a domed hall inspired by historical buildings but far larger. (Great Hall)

c. Washington D.C.
 John Russell Pope educated at the Ecole de Beaux Arts and is familiar in Italian and Roman
architecture
 Pope is inspired by Jefferson’s own affection for Roman architecture.
National Gallery of Art. Washington DC

Material – Marble

II. Capitalist Monuments. Skyscrapers in the US

 Modern skyscrapers is defined by not only its height, but also by its function

Woolworth Building. New York (1911-13). Cass Gilbert

 Use of Gothic inspired ornaments executed in glazed terracotta (weather resistant and
perfectly repeatable mass produced ornaments)
 Greek Cross Plan in interior of lobby/ elevator hall, associated with church architecture
 Ornated, vaulted lobby is inspired by roman and byzantine churches, furthering the image of
a “cathedral of commerce”


The Empire State Building and the Golden Age of Skyscrapers (1920-1930s)

 Major technical and structural elements had matured by the 1920s. Expression of
skyscrapers remained a vibrant topic
 Tallest skyscraper at the time. Massive structure
o 64 elevators in total with 80th floor
 Built with limestone with steel frame on the interior
o Eagles on top of columns on the entrance
o Stylized ornamentation in between windows
 Not imitating past styles
 Geometric features
 Decoration in Art Deco Style
Lecture 14 – Postwar Modernism

I. Le Corbusier after WII

 WWII has transformed urban, architectural, social, and cultural environment of Europe
 Great need of rebuilding environment

Unite d’Habiration. Marseilles (1947-52)

 Urgent need of housing, modernism appears to be the most rational and functional
solution
o Cheap labor and material (concrete)
o Does not require high precision hence does not require skilled labor
 City in the air with 337 apartments, shopping, nursery, gymnasium, roof terrace etc.
 Concrete frame becomes heavy rough concrete columns.
 Put city in garden and surround in urban green space
 Not smooth concrete surfaces unlike Villa Savoye from Le Corbusier
 Emphasis on exterior mass instead of interior volume
 Rational. Units can be inserted creatively
o Units extend all the way to achieve light and cross ventilation
o Save space

Notre Dame de Haut. Ronchamp, France (1950-54)

 Reaction to a sacred site. Church is unique in a modernistic way with drawing from the
past architectural styles
 Series of forms that looks arbitrary. Seems non-rationalistic
 Other people sees this architecture as violating the means of modernism
 Proceeds for its function (Church)
o Different from everyday buildings
o Special enclosed area
o Irregular Slit windows
 Light enters the room from different angles at certain
times of the day
o Diffused light in one, direct light in the other
o Create sense of spiritual on the interior
o Tapered windows to emphasize thickness of wall.
Protected from the outside

II. Mies van der Rohe and Modernism after WWII

 American wealth and corporate culture sponsor modernism for office buildings.
 Progressive social and political shadings came to symbolize Pax Americana.
a. Corporate glass tower
b. Seagram Building
 Building is setback to showoff wealth as land is very expensive

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe:

“the spatial expression of spiritual devisions”, Relationship between “technology and the soul”

Places technology in the domain of a “science of values”

“A way station in my developments”

“Building, where it became great, was almost always indebted to construction, and construction was
almost always the conveyor of its spatial form”.”.. must follow that the revitalization of the building
art can only come from construction and not by means of arbitrarily assembled motifs.

“Construction not only determines form but is form itself.” “Order is more than organization.
Organization is the determination of function”

Mies believes that their expression will be determined not by their form and their mass but by
reflections

 Luxurious bronze color

 Known for simple but consists of many architectural details
 Plaza on the ground floor with a tower protruding above
 Layout of building similar to Beaux Arts
o Symmetrical, Axial
o Simple in plan
o Classical feeling of order and symmetry
 Open rectangular lobby on ground floor with glass all around
 Bronze panels and decorative I beams on the exterior.
o Gives shadow lines and 3 dimensional structure (depth)
o Corner reads as separate plane to façade (corners left opened)
c. Farnsworth House
 Floating box nestled in trees
 Exterior walls are in glass.
 Interior defined by floor to ceiling glass panes
 Bathroom placed asymmetrically inside the house.
o Important rooms are towards the inner part of the house.
o Does not completely separate from other spaces
 Ventilation located behind dressing area
 House not particular comfortable to live in
o No screens for privacy, cant control interior temperature from
outdoor weather

III. Frank Lloyd Wright

Wright’s work becomes more idiosyncratic.

 Unlike what anyone else was doing

 Seems obsessive with a repetition of certain forms
a. Guggenheim Museum
 not oriented towards the outside
 Structure set out for the outside world. Users feels
enclosed and protected
 Made for a more rural, spread out form of urbanism.
Wright ‘returns inside’ as he does not like the setting of
a city.
 Temple for art conceived in part as a rejection of
European modernism. Monumentality and
permanence rather than universality
 Structure similar to an inverted ziggurat
 Gallery acts as an inverted partial cone.
 Floors spirals down
  Direct light from skylight. Walls allows reflected or diffused light
 Reminiscences of earlier stained glass with simple patters and glorious
spirals

Lecture 15 – Postwar Modernism 2

I. California and Postwar Modernist Houses

 Seen as fertile ground for experiments in architecture in the 1920s-1930s.
 Both Schindler and Neutra work on developing buildings based on modernist ideas
but also inflected not only by their own kind of ideology but alsoon California life,
climate, and culture.

Kaufmann Desert House. Palm Springs, California. Richard Neutra

 City specifically for wealth people in LA

o Leisure getaway for LA residents and as a winter destination for residents
living in cold climates (Jan and Feb)
 Layout
o Distinctive “pinwheel” plan, similar to prewar modernist houses and the
Farnsworth House
o Living room in the center, with servants quarter, entry wing, primary
bedroom, guest wing, and pool on the side.
 Roof with covered deck
 Glass walls with some sliding doors .
 Columns are thin to maximize wall ratio
 Vision of modern leisure living built on land previously occupied by the Agua
Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, who were prevented from developing the parcels
of land allowed to them by the government.

a. The Case Study House Program

 Most buildings explore idea of steel as the primary structural material
 Program helped make modern houses more broadly visible and provided commissions for
progressive architects
 Prototypical buildings that could serve as inspiration for strategies for much broader range
of the public

Eames House. Pacific Palisades, CA (1949). Charles and Ray Eames.

 Consistent bay system with columns spacing evenly from each other.
 o Identical structural bays filled in by walls and partitions
 Intended for a place for living.
 Farmsworth House - Steel sections with custom cuttings solid steel bars to create window
mullions
 Eames House – Interested in off the shelf, standard and affordable steel

Stahl House. Los Angeles (1959). Pierre Koenig.

 Designed for a middle-class family to be affordable and livable

 Simple layout in an ‘L’
 Living room of Stahl House ‘floating’ above the lights of Los Angeles.
 Climate related to lifestyle of LA. Does not fit climate of other places

II. Brazil, Oscar Niemeyer, and Lucio Costa

Niemeyer House. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1953)

 Niemeyer’s design includes curves, water, and greenery basics

 Modernistic building with a simple curved roof plane and glass.
 Irregular layout
 Inspired by reductive, formal palette of Mies van der Rohe box but executed in
arbitrary curves. Transparency of Mies van der rohe. Attention to nature from
wright or alter
a. Brasilia
 Aim to unify the nation, remove associations with colonial rule, and promote
regional development.
 Home to extreme social inequality
 New capital planned by Lucio Costa, who was influenced by Le Corbusier’s
plan for new cities that were planned around transportation and the zoning
of uses
i. Central axis of the city
ii. New capital fits with the shape of artificial lake. Cross axis includes
important buildings and capital complexs. Residential on x axis

Metropolitan Cathedral. Brasilia (1958-60). Oscar Niemeyer..

“Attracted to free flowing sensual curves” relate to nature.” “Architecture is more connected to life
and man.”

“It has been my hobby and one of my greatest joys to devise new and creative forms suggested by
reinforced concrete. I have sought to discover them, multiply them, and combine them with state-of
the art technology to achieve an architectural spectacle.”

“a feeling of protest possessed me in Brasilia. It was no longer the imposition of the right angle that
angered me, but the obsessive concern for architectural purity and structural logic”

“Protested against such monotonous and repetitive architecture”

“Once their structural framework was built, the architectural design was already in place.”

“Search for an unusual solution fascinated me… Avoided conventional solutions”

Creates architecture with “courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is
important is live, friends, and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live”
  Simple and Sensuous Design
 Create an interior that evokes a special, divine,
or spiritual.
 Reinforced concrete used in a boomerang
shaped element. Joined at the bend and disk at
the top.
o Reference to the crown of thorns

National Congress Complex. Brasilia 1958-60). Oscar

Niemeyer..

 Aims to create a strong, unique image that is appropriate for nature of government to rule
the nation.
 Desire to rebel out of session of the right angle to become pure and logical
 Functional complex for large scale composition made up of beautiful free sculptural forms
 Niemeyer conceives the curved supports of his Brasilia buildings as modern versions of
columns
o Traditional Corinthian columns to steel framed columns to his idea of columns (not
structural logical)
o Inspired by he architectural unity of Venice, which he says
creates beauty
o Take advantage of modern material of concrete
o “So you must agree that when a shape creates beauty, its
own justification lies in its beauty.”
Lecture 16 – Between Modernity and Tradition

I. Luis Barragan and Mexico

 Trained as an engineer.
 He is heavily influenced by European modernism, and was very sensitive to the
natural and architectural environment of Mexico
o Creating poetic environment for people
o “It is essential to an architect to know how to see: I mean, to see in such a
way that the vision is not overpowered by rational analysis.”

Barragan House and Studio. Mexico City (1947).

 Garden is fundamental to his understanding on what architecture should be

 Plain façade
o Not creating a symbol. Not expressing idea of modern architecture
o Believes a house serves as a refuge for noise, dirt of daily lives
o No ornaments in the interior
o Color such as pink wall, tiled floor, and golden panel are rough stuccos
 Combination of abstraction of modernist architecture
 Makes each element, plane more vivid
 Retreat from city, makes house more restful and serene
o Living Room
 One wall is entirely made of glass.

Chapel for the Capuchinas. Mexico City (1952-55)

 Light, color and texture to evoke the spiritual

 Sense of solitude
o Yellow stained glass windows brings in mysterious golden light to the interior
o Diffused light into altar, creating glow and magical light that is emanating from
front of chapel

II. Kenzo Tange and Japan

 Japanese architects began to adopt and adapt European modernism in the 1920s
 Shift to international modernism after WWII
 Architects faced the reconstruction of cities free of wartime ideology, able to
suggest more progressive projects

Atomic Bomb Memorial Museum. Hiroshima (1949-55)

 Glass and Concrete box

 Concrete columns in a unique shape
 Idea of skeleton structure (structural frame) that is common in historical Japanese buildings.

Olympic Gymnasia. Tokyo (1964)

 Innovative in terms of technology and form and space

 Cables running through structure
o Anchored on ground
 Forms and Spaces determined by great structure
  Exposed concrete structure in interior.
 Large tensile roof structure.

Connection to historical Japanese architecture

III. Louise Kahn and the United States

 Moved to the US in 1905 and learns Beaux-Art architecture at the University of
Pennsylvania.
 Kahn absorbed principles of modernism but sought to recover certain characteristics of
historical architecture, seeing great architecture of all periods as stemming from the
same idea.
 Careful use of material, light, and shade

Salk Institute. San Diego (1959-65)

 Central space with 2 wings as biological research labs

 Individual cells for contemplation
o Ida from nunnery
o Individual offices created from concrete
 Collaborative spaces at the bottom (piloti?)
 Highly functional spaces

Lecture 17 – Between Modernity and Tradition pt 2

I. Louis Kahn and the United States

“What a column is in steel or concrete is not yet felt as a part of us. It must be different from stone.
Stone we know and feel its beauty”

“Integration is the way of nature. We can learn from nature”

“The nature of space is further characterized by the minor spaces that serve it.”

Kimbell Museum. (1966-72) Louis Kahn

 Symmetric Layout with clear central axis. Inspired by his education in the Ecole des Beaux
Arts
 Internalized fundamental ideals of modern architecture
 Reminiscent of classical buildings
 Entrance hidden in rows of trees instead of having a central axis (similar to Frank Lloyd
Wright)
 Vaulted long horizontal columns supported by four columns
o Reinforced concrete structure
o Kahn attempts to find an expression for this structure
o Vault acts as a sheltered nature
o Kahn was inspired by Roman architecture
 “My mind is full of Roman greatness, and the vault so etched itself in my
mind, that, though I cannot employ it, it’s there always ready.”
  Believes stone allows people to feel the nature and understand its beauty other than
building materials such as steel or concrete
o Inevitable
 Wants people to see and feel the vault instead of showing off his modern structure
 Interior with vaulted ceiling and gentle light shining into interior

II. Barbican Estate

Barbican Estate. London. Chamberlin, Powell, and Bon

 Planned to act not just a neighborhood but a city

 Built on a site that has been devastated by WWII bombing. It was central London’s first great
comprehensively planned mixed use development, containing low, mid, and high rise
apartments as well as schools, gardens, a performing-art center, and other amenities
 Freedom from vehicular traffic
o Built to accommodate a wide range of households
 Rough unfinished concrete columns. Buildings of exposed concrete and strong forms are
thus often called brutalist buildings
 Basic planning principles:
o Taller buildings allow smaller footprint and provision of parks and open spaces
o Raising complex above grade provides vehicle free pedestrian spaces
o Multi-level circulation creates a vertical as well as horizontal activity
o Mixed-use plan creates a community rather than simply a housing project
 Architectural principles
o Avoidance of applied ornament and historical references
o Use of concrete, giving a rough texture and left unpainted
o Individual buildings have simple geometric plans, but plans of individual resiential
units are varied

Team 10

 Group of international architects and planners that broke with mainstream modernism and
sought to create architecture that was more deeply rooted in human nature and behavior.
 Great admirer of Le Corbusier, but the Smithsons attempts a more contextual urbanism and
seek to fit this new complex into a historical area of London.

“The time has come to gather the old into the new; to rediscover the archaic qualities of human
nature.”
“Role of architectural expression is the same as that in societies of the past. Architecture and town
planning are simply the spatial expression of human conduct”

“Mies is great but Corb communicates”. “The German movement was rational and severe more than
anything else,

The Economist Building

Peter Cook on Archigram

 Modern
o Abstract
o Materials
  Power on back side of building. Does not destroy scale of building.
 Simple base with repetition

C. Archigram

 Loose-knit group originally formed by young architects and writers

 Believed modernism had lost its progressive qualities and became conventional
 Sought to recover the radical, transgressive aspects of avant-garde architecture
o Reject simple forms of ‘modern’ such as the Bauhaus image.
o “breakdown of conventional attitudes”
o “necessary to create a more dynamic environment”

“A new generation of architecture must arise with forms and spaces which seems to reject the
precepts of ‘modern’ yet in face retains these percepts.”

“Most of the buildings that exist that are technically expendable have the fact skillfully hidden.. they
masquerade as permanent buildings – monuments to the past”

“Techniques of mass production and automation are a reality”

 “Situation”
o Concerned with environmental changes and activity within the city context, giving
characteristics to defined areas
o Sense that the urban environment is always shifting. (Passing presence of cars,
people walking by, postings on walls)
 Peter Cook
o Imagine a city that is not organized by a convention city. Structural framework with
monorail and bunch of rails.
o Widely accessible and easily transported to many places
o Spread out easily and does not replace existing buildings
o Contemporary, dynamic way of life is a fundamental challenge to conventional idea
of architecture

Japan and the Metabolists

 “The reason why we use the biological word metabolism is that we believe design and
technology should denote human vitality. We do not believe that metabolism indicates only
acceptance of a natural, historical process, but we are trying to encourage the active
metabolic development of our society through our proposals.”
 After earthquake and fire bomb the designers who become the Metabolist

Sky House. Tokyo. Kiyonori Kikutake

 Concrete forms as a framework for later elements. Allows for manipulation and addition,
prefiguring ideas of the Metabolists.
o Main living space is a square layout
o Lower level has four concrete columns
 Sliding screens change size of spaces
 Sliding panels between inside and outside to connect veranda outside and room inside
 Flexible spatially in and out

“Toward Group Form”, Fumihiko Maki and Masato Otaka

  Developed rapidly after the war into a great urban center.
o Coexistence and conflict of amazingly heterogeneous institutions and individuals
o Unpredictably rapid and extensive transformations in society
o
 Maki describes three types of urban form
o Compositional form. Made of several beautiful pieces and put together in an
aesthetically appealing way. However it is inflexible as
o Megastructure/megaform.
o Group form. Allows both for change and adaptation and also presents a consistent
urban identity.
 Petals of flower acts as surrounding building with central plaza in the
middle. Does not change without losing its basic identity
o Vessel of human activity. Needs the ability to change
o Affection for messiness and vitality of urban settings

Lecture 18 –

Nakagin Capsule Building. Tokyo (1970). Kisho Kurokawa

 Bold capsules added on building

 Each capsule has a bed, desk, shower, and bath
o Maximally efficient unit
I. High Tech Architecture
 In the 1970s, architects such as Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, and Norman Foster
began designing buildings that emphasized architectural systems: structure,
ventilation, circulation, etc.
 Continuation and elaboration of the interest that modernist architects had
previously shown in technology

Pompidou Center. Paris (1972-76)

 Air conditioning and ventilation units are fully visible. All mechanical infrastructure is fully
visible on the outer section of the building
 Initiated great controversy such as the Eiffel Tower
 Color coded allows people to identify the
o Plumbing in Green
o Stairs in Red
o Structure in White
o Ventilation in Blue
 Color-coded circulation, structure, and mechanical systems are expressed on
the exterior. The interior is an open, flexible space
 Similarly to stairs in Bauhaus, modernist architects glaze the stairwell instead of enclosing it
 Trusses in between columns.
 Partitions have no load bearing. Allows flexibility for display
o Vast open floors that can be freely reconfigured.
II. Postmodernism

Architectural postmodernism is by nature not a unified set of developments; however, in

general, postmodernist architects sought to address what they saw as a thinness of meaning
in modernist building.
 Team 10 believe modernism has stopped developing, not truly modern

a. Italy and Aldo Rossi

 Believes in the vitality of cities and rejected many principles of modern
architecture.
 Served as a theatre of 400 years. Current purpose as housing

San Cataldo Cemetery

 Type of cemetery. Basic idea of what a cemetery should be

 Design process using analogy: type abstracted from history and
reinterpreted
 Large opening on ground floor with roman curved columns
 Rossi draws on the type of the palazzo, the monumental Italian urban
residence but without ornaments and a hollow center
b. Robert Venturi (1925-2018)
 Launched a fundamental attack on modernism with few other American
architects
 Sought to include wider variety of sources and meanings in contemporary
architecture

Philadelphia Savings Fund Society Building. Philadelphia

 Venturi agrees that the various elements of the building express different functions
and work at different scales
 Shops on ground level. Main banking hall on top.

Vanna Venturi House. Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania (1961-65)

 Complexity and contradiction:

 Overall form is symmetric but openings are asymmetric
 Both simple and complex. Both familiar and new