20 th & 21 st Century Architecture

1. It is especially difficult for the architect to free himself from the appearance of traditional constructional methods. --Mies Van der Rohe 20th & 21st Century Architecture “MACHINE FOR LIVING” Le Corbusier “LESS IS MORE” Mies Van der Rohe Architectural education [should be] a creative effort to integrate simultaneously design, construction, and economy . . . with its social ends. --Walter Gropius “FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION” Louis Sullivan

2. Most famous, influential 20th-c. American architect Apprenticed with Sullivan and Adler (Chicago School) Strong horizontals, interplay of planes & volumes, not terribly interested in new engineering, construction possibilities Buildings often ‘windmill out’ from central feature, like large fireplace or, in the Guggenheim, the central axis of the helical spiral...hard to hang paintings! ‘Organic’ approach, incorporating landscape when possible and natural materials in interiors CANTILEVER=a long projected beam fixed only at one end Falling Waters PA, 1924 Frank LloydWright Guggenheim Museum, NY, 1964 American, Prairie School Robie House, Chicago, 1904

3. The Chrysler BuildingArt DecoNew York, NY 1928-1930William Van Alen Designed to be the world’s tallest structure, the Chrysler held that distinction only until 1931, with the completion of the Empire State Building. More lasting is its reputation as the world’s finest Art Deco building. It is steel-frame and masonry construction with stainless steel cladding. The distinctive decorative features derive from Chrysler cars. The corner ornament shown at left is based on the 1929 Chrysler radiator cap. The ‘crown’ is composed of seven radiating terraced arches, conveying the energy and dynamism of the automobile age.

4. Schröder House, 1922 Utrecht, Netherlands Gerrit Reitveld OPEN PLAN Neoplasticism De Stijl (The Style)Netherlands, 1920s De Stijl magazine was founded in 1917 primarily by Theo Van Doesberg, a Dutch painter, architect, typographer and theorist---and, Piet Mondrian, the well-known artist first influenced by Cubism who then moved to more abstract compositions. Mondrian’s style, emphasizing pure line and color was called Neoplasticism. The movement’s most successful architect was Gerrit Reitveld. Throughout the 1920s, the group published books and manifestos and tried to promote its ideas throughout Europe, including efforts to affiliate with Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus. Members disagreed about the utility of various schools, like Russian Constructivism and Dadaism. The group fragmented and finally dissolved after Van Doesberg’s death in 1931. Resembling Mondrian’s paintings, the house lacks fixed walls on the upper story, relying on sliding panels to create and change living spaces. One of Reitveld’s other influences was Frank Lloyd Wright. “Art and Life are One” Mondrian Composition in Red, White, & Yellow Piet Mondrian, 1923

5. UTOPIAN INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST ”TOTAL ARCHITECTURE” Breuer’s chair BauhausLeading Member: Walter Gropius Dessau, Germany 1922 – pre WW II . The purpose of the Bauhaus was to unite the arts and industry in search of a revitalizing contemporary design aesthetic and functionality. It had profound kinship with the Dutch De Stijl movement, although the two groups never meshed completely. The Bauhaus leader, Walter Gropius, sought to bring together continental artists and artisans who shared these ideas. These people, who valued abstraction and anti-romanticism, included Paul Klee, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, and L. Moholy-Nagy.

6. Bauhaus “There is no difference between artist and craftsman” Gropius All crafts and architecture taught as well as designed under one roof Gropius designed the new Bauhaus at Dessau (1926). It combines design labs, exhibition spaces, classrooms. dormitories ,and lecture halls. With a skeleton of reinforced concrete, overlapping planes, and continuous glass curtain, it exemplifies the Bauhaus aesthetic. Hitler closed Bauhaus in 1933. Gropius escaped to the U.S, for a new career in academia – which included architectural projects in the private residence, university, and public sectors – some in partnership with his Bauhaus colleague Marcel Breuer. Simultaneity principle=two or more perspectives at the same time…REALITY is RELATIVE! Compare the painting by Moholy-Nagy ( and the simultaneity principle demonstrated by the Cubists ) with a corner of the Bauhaus building (the dematerialized corners and interpenetration of outside and inside)

7. Bauhaus, Gropius, Le Corbusier, Van der Rohe, Johnson Gropius at Harvard INTERNATIONAL STYLE ** “International Style” dubbed from Philip Johnson’s 1932 exhibition at MoMA (included buildings from 1922 on up) **Ornament is a crime **Truth to materials **Form follows function **machine aesthetic and use of modern materials Van der Rohe in Illinois

8. INTERNATIONAL STYLE Le Corbusier -- French (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) MODULAR-INDUSTRIAL DESIGN Purism (1920s) – Cubist principles, but rejection of decorative elements ; return to clear forms and colors, hard edge-- representative of the modern machine age. Villas: simple forms, aesthetically spare interiors, modern materials. His Five Points of Architecture: --raised structure on reinforced concrete stilts --free façade --open floor plan --lots of windows --roof garden/terrace Influential in city planning and high-density housing . . . Advocated high-rises set in green space. Spaces must have: sun, space, ventilation, insulation, vegetation, human-scale “Machine for Living” Housing Project, Marseilles, France, 1947-52 Villa Savoy, 1928, Poissy-sur-Seine, France

9. Le Corbusier The chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut Ronchamp, France, 1955 a departure from earlier work – more organic relationship to site and history, sculptural form, concrete and stone, curved thick walls.

10. --With Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, considered pioneering master of international modernist architecture --attracted to avant garde movements like De Stijl and Constructivism; joined the Bauhaus --Emigrated from Germany to U.S. in 1937, settled in Chicago --Sought to establish 20th-c style that would reflect its era just as Gothic or Classical styles reflected theirs; used modern materials like industrial steel and plate glass --An aesthetic of extreme simplicity, rationality --called his buildings ‘skin and bones’ architecture other aphorisms attributed to him include ‘less is more’ and ‘God is in the details’ Mies Van Der RoheInternational Style High Modernism Lake Shore Drive Apartments, 1951 Chicago Seagram Building, 1958 New York City with Philip Johnson

11. International Style and High Modernism to Post-Modernism Philip Johnson Johnson, AT&T Building (now the Sony Building),1984, NYC With its fanciful Chippendale pediment, may be the most iconic Postmodern building in the United States Johnson, Glass House, 1949 New Canaan CT His own private residence

12. Post Modernism, 1960s-present • Form doesn’t always follow function • Incorporates decorative elements • Suggests playful historical references • Michael Graves Portland Building, 1982 Pioneer: Robert Venturi “Less is a Bore” Built the Vanna Venturi House for his mother, 1961-64; disorienting asymmetries, playful classical references. What asymmetrical elements do you see? What elements are not necessary for the building’s function?

13. Postmodern Architecture DECONSTRUCTIVIST Pompidou notable for exposed Skeleton of brightly colored tubes for mechanical elements (plumbing, electrical, etc.) Pompidou Center, Paris, 1977 Piano & Rogers

14. Two Cool Buildings TWA Flight Center JFK Airport, NY 1962 Eero Saarinen This building was designed to evoke wings in flight; Saarinen’s earlier Dulles Terminal gives a similar soaring impression. Sydney Opera House Sydney, Australia, 1957-73 Jorn Utzon The building’s distinctive roof is a series of interlocking vaulted shells of precast rib segments faced in glazed off-white tiles. Its base, a large terraced platform, serves as a pedestrian concourse.

15. New material: COMPUTER SOFTWARE… how you can successfully engineer an outrageous building Often called a ‘Deconstructivist’ Architect and a ‘starchitect,’ Gehry may be the most famous and sought-after architect currently practicing. Like postmodernist architects, he does not think form has to follow function; unlike architects of 25 years ago, he relies on advanced design software, often developed by his own firm, to make previously unbuildable designs actualities. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (1996) remains Gehry’s signature building. It features sculpted, organic contours, and its brilliantly reflective titanium panels resemble fish-scales (fish are one of Gehry’s favorite motifs). The building was finished on time and on budget! Frank GehryCanadian-American The ‘Dancing House’ (Prague, 1994-96) is actually an office building; Gehry collaborated with the Czech architect Vlado Milunic on the project.