TEORI & KRITIK ARSITEKTUR

Ir. Budi A.Sukada, GradHonsDip (AA)

S2 – Universitas Tarumanagara

TEORI ARSITEKTUR MODERN

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Teori Arsitektur Modern pada garis besarnya dapat dikelompokkan dalam 2 kategori, yaitu yang
dilontarkan pada dekade-dekade awal Abad ke 20 dan di penghujungnya. Teori-teori yang
muncul pada awal dekade-dekade Abad ke 20 umumnya berupa pernyataan yang dilontarkan oleh
para pelaku, yakni arsitek praktisi, sementara teori-teori yang tergolong dalam kategori ke 2
umumnya dilontarkan oleh para akademisi dan pengamat arsitektur. Teori-teori dari kelompok
pertama dengan demikian lebih bersifat terapan sementara dalam kategori ke 2 lebih mengarah ke
analisis atas situasi modernitas yang dibawakan oleh Arsitektur Modern.
 ORNAMENT IN ARCHITECTURE, 1892
Louis H. Sullivan,
1856-1924 • A building, quite devoid of ornament, may convey a noble and
dignified sentiment by virtue of mass and proportion. Ornament cannot
intrinsically heighten these elemental qualities. Ornament is mentally a
luxury, not a necessity

• A building that is truly a work of art is in its nature, essence and

physical being an emotional expression. This being so, it must have a
life. It follows that an ornamented structure should be characterized by
such quality, that the same emotional impulse shall flow throughout
harmoniously into its various forms of expression – of which, while the
mass-composition is the more profound, the decorative ornamentation is
the more intense

• An excellent and beautiful building may be designed that shall bear no

ornament whatever; but a decorated structure, harmoniously conceived,
well considered, cannot be stripped of its system of ornament without
destroying its individuality. If we wish to insure an actual, a poetic
unity, the ornament should appear, not as something receiving the spirit
of the structure, but as a thing expressing that spirit by virtue of
differential growth

• A certain kind of ornament should appear on a certain kind of structure.

An elm leaf would not look well on a pine-tree – a pine-needle seems
more ‘in keeping’. Nor should the ornamental systems or buildings of
any various sorts be interchangeable as between these buildings
THE TALL OFFICE BUILDING ARTISTICALLY CONSIDERED, 1896
• Wanted:
 A storey below-ground, containing boilers, engines of various sorts
 A ground floor, devoted to stores, banks, other establishment requiring large area, ample spacing, light and greater freedom of access
 A second storey readily accessible by stairways – in large sub-divisions, with corresponding liberality in structural spacing and expanse of
glass and breadth of external openings
 Above this an indefinite number of storeys of offices piled tier upon tier, being similar to a cell of in a honey-comb, merely a compartment
 At the top there is a space or storey that is purely physiological, namely the attic. In this the circulatory system completes itself and makes its
grand turn, ascending and descending.
 Finally, there must be on the ground floor a main aperture or entrance common to all the occupants or patrons of the building

THE TALL OFFICE BUILDING ARTISTICALLY CONSIDERED, 1896

• The Exterior:
 The first storey, a main entrance that attracts the eye to its location, and the remainder of the storey we
treat in a more or less liberal, expansive, sumptuous way
 The second storey, to be treated in similar way, usually with milder pretention, makes them look all alike
 The attic, gives the power to show by means of its broad expanse of wall, and its dominating weight and
character, namely that the series of office tiers has come definitely to an end
THE TALL OFFICE BUILDING ARTISTICALLY CONSIDERED, 1896
• The Chief Characteristics:
 It is lofty. It must be the dominant chord in its expression of it.
 The force and power of altitude, a proud and soaring thing.
• All things in nature have a shape, a form, an outwards semblance that tells us what they are, that distinguish them from ourselves and from each
other
CONCLUSION:
• All things in nature have a shape, a form, an outwards
semblance that tells us what they are, that distinguish
them from ourselves and from each other
• It is the pervading law of all things organic, and in-
organic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all
things human and all things super-human, of all true
manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that
the life is recognizable in its expression, that FORM
FOLLOWS FUNCTION. This is the law
 THE NEW ORNAMENT, 1901
• The ornament style is subject to no laws other than those it sees itself, which are imposed by its striving for harmony
and balance. It does not aspire to represent anything in particular. It needs the freedom to represent nothing, and
without this freedom it cannot survive
• On uniform surfaces, the ornament will necessarily be created from the two or three lines which we commit without
further thought. One needs to follow on from there to be able to clarify which lines are called for by the design, which
are forbidden, and which are necessary for its completion
• At the moment I am guided by three principles:
Henry van de Velde,  Complementary Contrasts
1863-1957  Repulsion and Attraction
 The desire to give the negative forms (ground) the same degree of significance as the positive forms (figure)
 ARCHITECTURE, 1910
• The path of culture is the path away from ornamentation
towards the elimination of ornament. The evolution of
culture is synonymous with the separation of the
ornamental from the functional
• This period has an accentuated style, most easily
differentiated from any period of the past. We already
had a true style but we had no ornamentation. There are
Adolf Loos, many things which show the style of the 20 th century by
1870-1933 pure form alone
• A house should appeal to everybody, works of art do not
have to appeal to anyone. The work of art is the artist’s
private affair, a house is not. The work of art is put into
the world without there being a function of it, a house
supplies a need. The work of art aims at shattering man’s
comfortable complacency, a house must serve one’s
comfort. The work of art is revolutionary, the house
conservative. The house thinks of the present
• Man loves everything that serves his comfort. He hates
everything that wants to tear him away from his secure
and safe position. And so he loves the house and hates art
• Architecture arouses feelings in people. The task of the
architect is therefore to define what the feelings should
be. The room must look comfortable, the house cosy.
The bank building must say:’Here your money is securely
safeguarded by honest people. This is architecture
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN INDUSTRIAL ARCHITECTURE, 1913
• The new times demand their own expression. The modern architect must develop his aesthetic repertoire from form stamped
with precision, with nothing left to chance: clear contrasts, the pre-ordering of the members, symmetry and unity of form and
colour – this is what the energy and economics of public life require
• It is the total newness of industrial architecture which will capture the lively imagination of the artist, precisely because there
is no traditional heritage to cramp his style. The more freely he is allowed to display his originality in the new language the
more the building will provide the asset and advertisement the firm desire

Walter Gropius,
1883-1969
 THE CARDBOARD HOUSE, 1931
• We are now agreed that should we build the building, if the building is such that the Machine may build it naturally and
therefore build it supreme well. But it is not necessary for that reason to build as though the building to was a Machine,
because indeed it is not a Machine, nor at all like one. Not in that sense of being a Machine, could it be Architecture at all!
• All on the outside of the house and was there chiefly because of what had happened inside
• The ‘interior’ consisted of boxes beside or inside other boxes, called rooms. All boxes inside a complicated boxing. Each
domestic function was properly box to box. The house became more free as ‘space’ and more livable

Frank L Wright,
1883-1969
Main Operations:
 To reduce the number of necessary parts of the house and the
separate rooms to a minimum, and make all come together as
enclosed space – so divided that light, air and vista permeated the
whole with a sense of unity
 To associate the building as a whole with its site by extension and
emphasis of the planes parallel to the ground but keeping the floors
off the best part of the site. Extended level planes were found useful
in this connection
 To eliminate the room as a box and the house as another by making
all walls enclosing screen – to flow into each other as one large
enclosure of space, with minor sub-division only
 To get the unwholesome basement up out of the ground, entirely
above it, as a low pedestal for the living-position of the home,
making the foundation itself visible as a low masonry platform on
which the building should stand
 To harmonize all necessary openings to ‘outside’ or to ‘inside’ with
good human proportions and make them occur naturally. The
‘room’ as such was now the essential architectural expression.
There were to be no holes cut in the walls as holes are cut in a box.
Cutting holes was violent
 To eliminate combinations of different materials in favour of mono-
material in so far as possible; to use no ornament that did not come
out of the nature of materials to make the whole building clearer and
more expressive as a place to live in
 To incorporate all heating, lighting, plumbing so that the system
becomes constituent part of the building itself. These service
features become architectural and in this attempt the ideal of an
organic architecture was at work
 To incorporate as organic Architecture as far as possible, making
them all one with the building and designing them in simple terms
for machine work
 To eliminate the Decorator. He was all curves and all efflorescence,
if not all ‘period’
 GLASS ARCHITECTURE, 1914
• We live for the most part in enclosed rooms. These form the environment from which our culture grows. Our culture is the
product of our architecture. If we want our culture to rise to a higher level, we are obliged to change our architecture. And
this only possible if we take away the closed character from the room in which we live by introducing glass architecture,
which lets in the light of the sun, the moon and the stars, not merely through a few windows but through every possible
wall, which will be made entirely of glass, of colored glass
• As air is one of the worst conductors of heat, the double glass wall is an essential condition for all glass architecture. In the
first instance, it is clearly advisable to build glass house only in temperate zones, and not in the equatorial and polar regions
Paul Scheerbart, as well; in the warmer climates one could not do without a white reinforced concrete roof, but in temperate zones this need
1863-1915 does not arise
• Ornamentation in the glass house will evolve entirely on its own accord – the oriental decoration, the carpets and the majolica will be so
transformed that in glass architecture we shall never have to speak of copying
• The face of the earth would be much altered if brick architecture were ousted by glass architecture.
• The so-called glass-bricks make a wall material which may become an interesting specialty of glass architecture. Large industrial undertaking
have been formed already. Everything fireproof and transparent is aesthetically justifiable as a wall material. Glass bricks should make many
iron skeleton superfluous
• It will seem very natural that ventilators should have a principle part to play in a glass house, and will supplant everything window-like
Glass Culture
We can indeed speak of a glass culture. The new glass environment will completely transform mankind. We want to strive after the new. With all
these resources at our disposal, more power to them!
 REFLECTIONS ON A NEW ARCHITECTURE, 1914-1917
General
Architecture is the only tangible expression of space of which the
human spirit is capable. Architecture seizes upon space,
encompasses space and is space itself. Architecture brings us, by
means of its spatial delimitation, the concept of space and mass.
Its values are those of space and surface and it is founded wholly
upon mathematical actuality. The living quality of Architecture
Erich Mendelsohn, depends upon sensuous seizure by means of tough and sight; upon
1964- the terrestrial cohesion of mass, upon the super-terrestrial liberty
of light
Inner & Outer Wall
The outer wall acts upon the visible universe. It collects light, in
order to let it penetrate fully through its openings. The inner wall
determines the centre of gravity of the room by means of its
limitation. This wall is an independent surface, and is related to
its companion walls, with the floor and the ceiling. Its
decomposition brings about the sliding of surface into surface
Space
The unique nature of architectonic space conditions the unique
quality of its effects. Its final consummate expression is
independent of decoration and dress. Architecture is the
expression of the will of an epoch and of the spirit of that epoch.
The singleness of its general operation corresponds to the
responsibility of all architectonic work; the reshaping of vision
into actuality, the uniting of free creation with expedient
objectivity
 FIVE POINTS OF A NEW ARCHITECTURE, 1927
Supports
Instead of the earlier kind of foundations, install individual pile foundation
and instead of wall install individual supports. These supports rise directly
from the ground and raised up the ground floor. So the rooms are lifted clear
of rising damp, have light and air, the building plot is left to the garden
Roof-gardens
Le Corbusier, The flat roof requires us to use it logically for living purposes: roof terrace,
1887-1965 roof garden that will become the favourite part of the house. Roof garden
means that a city can win back for itself the whole built-up area
Free Plan
The system of supports rises from the ground to the roof, carrying the floor
slabs. The partition walls can be situated wherever they are needed, since
each storey is completely independent of all the others. There are no bearing
walls, only membranes of whatever thickness is required. The result is a
complete freedom to arrange the plan as you wish
The Long Window
Together with the floor slabs, the supports create rectangular openings in the
façade. The window stretches from support to support, and thus becomes a
long window. Consequently, rooms are lit evenly from wall to wall. The
whole history of architecture turns precisely on this question of wall
apertures
The Free Façade
By cantilevering the floor slab out over the supports like a balcony, all round
the house you move the whole façade away from the supporting structure.
So we have freedom in the creation of the facade
 FIVE POINTS, 1929
1. The first and foremost point at issue in any
building should be how to attain the
uttermost utility
2. The material employed and the construction
adopted should be entirely subservient to the
first principle
Bruno Taut, 3. Beauty originates from the direct relationship
1880-1938 between building and purpose, from the
natural qualities of the material and from
elegance of construction
4. The aesthetics of modern architecture
recognize no demarcations between facades
and ground plan, road and courtyard or
between the back or front of a building.
Everything that functions well, looks well.
We simply do not believe that anything can
look unsightly and yet function well
5. The house forfeits both demarcation and
isolation. It is the result of collective and
social ideas. Thus repetition is not
undesirable, it is the most important factor in
art
 The aim of Architecture is the creation of the
perfect, and therefore also beautiful,
efficiency
C.I.A.M., DECLARATION OF AIMS, 1928
General Aims
The aim of C.I.A.M. are:
• To state the contemporary architectural problem
• To re-state the idea of modern architecture
• To disseminate this idea throughout the technical,
economic and social strata of contemporary life
• To be vigilant of the solution of the problem of
architecture
Architecture
• We particularly emphasize the fact that to build is an
elementary activity in man, intimately associated with the
evolution and development of human life
• The intention which brings us together is that of attaining
a harmony of existing elements by putting architecture
back on its real plane, the economic and sociological
plane; therefore architecture should be freed from the
sterile influence of Academics and of antiquated formula
• Another important point of view is that of economics in
general. The conception of modern architecture
associates the phenomenon of architecture with that of
the general economy
• The most efficacious production is derived from
rationalization and standardization. They both affect
labour methods, as much in modern architecture
(conception) as in the building industry (achievement)
C.I.A.M., DECLARATION OF AIMS, 1928
Town Planning
• Town planning is the organization of the function of collective life. It cannot be conditioned by the presentation of an established aestheticism;
its essence is of a functional nature
• The function it embraces are: Dwelling, Work, Recreation and Transportation (which connects the first 3 functions with one another)
• The chaotic sub-division of urban land, as a result of real estate speculation, should be corrected
Banguuun ……..