19th C. forerunners: E.E.

Viollet-leduc and William Morris

Ruskin's ideals underpinned the emergence of the Arts & Crafts movement exemplified by the writings of William Morris, a Socialist, and member of the PreRaphaelite Brotherhood This in turn formed the basis for Art Nouveau in England (Mackintosh), and influenced the Vienna Secession The theories of le-Duc provided the springboard for vitality of thought dedicated to architectural innovation and the renovation Restorations of Vezelay abbey, Sainte- Chappelle, and Notre Dame refine le-Ducs gothic vocabulary Viollet-le-Duc stimulated theoretical study of the Gothic, by confronting the challenge of combining the Gothic Revival with new building techniques and materials For Viollet-le-Duc, the cathedral became an organic unity, which he once described as a paneled structure supported by a skeleton of ribs (for his successors it became skeleton and skin) 19th C. revivals convey romantic nostalgia for the past mixed with enthusiasm for the present Gothic boldness would eventually be converted into new forms that made no reference whatsoever to medieval times

Queen Anne v. Shingle Style

Queen Anne
Coined in England to describe buildings supposedly inspired by pre-Georgian, late Medieval styles with half-timbered and/or masonry Represented culmination of picturesque, romantic styles of 19th C. Anything goes: style itself is based on "decorative excess" and variety No focus on specific historical detailing; rather, a combination of various forms/styles Steeply pitched, irregular roof shapes; dominant, front-facing gable; patterned shingles, bay windows, picturesque massing, polychromatic and decorative ornamentation; partial or full-width porches of one story; multiple gables and dormers; occasional towers and turrets, rounded or

Shingle Style
Popularized by the rise of the New England school of architecture English influence was combined with the renewed interest in Colonial American architecture which followed the 1876 celebration of the Centennial Architects emulated colonial houses' plain, shingled surfaces as well as their massing The Shingle Style also conveyed a sense of the house as continuous volume This effect of the building as an envelope of space, rather than a great mass, was enhanced by the visual tautness of the flat shingled surfaces, the horizontal shape of many shingle style houses, and the emphasis on horizontal continuity

Domestic Revival: Old English, Queen Anne, and Shingle Styles

Norman Shaw, Leyswood, Sussex, 18689.-Old English

Charles Voysey, Shackleford House, Surrey, 1897.- English Domestic Revival

Peabody and Stearns, Kragsyde, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, 1882-84.- Shingle Style

Shaw, Shaw's house, Hampstead, 1874-6.-Queen Ann

McKim, Mead, and White, Interior, H. Victor Newcomb House, Elberon, NJ, 1880-1.-Shingle Style

McKim, Mead and White, William G. Low House, Bristol, Rhode Island, 1887.- American Classicism

Richardsonian Romanesque
Revival style named for Henry Hobson Richardson with continuity and unity as keynotes, based on French/Spanish Romanesque precedents of the 11th C. Eclipsed both the Second Empire Baroque and the High Victorian Gothic styles; the style had a powerful effect on Sullivan and Wright Hallmarks of Romanesque Buildings Massive, structural appearance, almost always in masonry, often undressed (rough) Masonry of different types often appeared together: brick with stone, brownstone ashlar with granite lintels and carved brownstone ornament Arched openings, arcaded windows, tower or turret with conical roof Bold ornament, oversized carvings, Celtic twining motifs, belt courses, web arches, carved figures (including cherubs, griffins, and lions), and corbels at cornices Queen Anne details: bay or oriel, divided windows, or decorative panels Romanesque Interior Rooms inside are often as bold as the exterior, with arches, massive staircases, paneled walls, huge fireplaces, and carvings, dark oak common Richardsons houses centered on a living hall, off of which the staircase and parlor flowed Mid-Victorian, Jacobean, and Aesthetic Movement furniture mingled Rooms in the 1890s were often decorated in historical revival styles, from Colonial to French Beaux Arts

Henry Hobson Richardson, M.F. Stoughton House, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1882-83.

Richardson designed the house in 1882 in the Shingle Style, with a minimum of ornament and shingles stretching over the building's irregular volumes like a skin With its small panes, asymmetric massing, the bay, turret, and dormer is reminiscent of Voysey's houses, but the transformation is in the convenience, spaciousness, and architectural purity that defines them Two-wings of the L-shaped massing are balanced Employs uniform shingles Plain, small, but functional window panes

Richardson, Ames Gate Lodge, North Easton, Massachusetts, 1880-1.

Gate Lodge is a synthesis of oversize stone wall, arched gate, and gatehouse building It forms a long, low mass lying directly athwart the estate's entry road, which runs southward within its dominating, semicircular arch The massive walls appear to be crude heaps of rounded boulders from the estate soil -"cyclopean rubble" trimmed in Longmeadow brownstone The 2-story lodge proper stands west of the arch and originally housed the estate gardener on the lower floor with rooms for bachelor guests above Across the arch is a long, low wing ending in a circular bay, once used for storing plants through the winter The northern facade is relatively flat and austere The southern facade, is highly shaped with protrusions and a large porch Capping all is the lodge's prominent, hipped, reddish-tiled roof with its eyelid dormers

Richardson, Trinity Church, Boston, 1873-77.

The church and parish house were designed by Richardson and construction took place from 1872-7, when the complex was consecrated It is the birthplace and archetype of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, characterized by a clay roof, polychromy, rough stone, heavy arches, and a massive tower General vertical massing and polychromy revealed traces of High Victorian Gothic The strong geometric order and the French Romanesque ornament motifs were new however The tower would have been taller and more inventive, but structural problems due to the spongy soil necessitated a shorter version It was decided to pattern the lantern of the tower after that of the Cathedral of Salamanca, Spain

Henry Hobson Richardson, Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Chicago, 1885-7

Commissioned in 1885 by merchant Marshall Field Richardson, known from Buffalo's NY State Asylum, designed the exterior masonry piers and arches with interior framing of wood and iron Intended for the wholesale business of his eponymously name department store, it opened in 1887 encompassing the block near the location of the Chicago Board of Trade Building Rejects Classical Revival and NeoGothic in favor of the more heavily rusticated styles used in the Romanesque or even Italian Renaissance palaces with red sandstone and rough blocks of granite

Chicago School

Within a decade after the fire of 1871, Chicago was a boomtown Chicago stood at the center of innovations like the Pullman sleeping car, the McCormick reaper, and mailorder retailing would now be the place where the tall office building would be perfected One of the keys to this development was the invention of the elevator Dense construction started in the "The Loop", before expanding northward across the river along Michigan Avenue The use initially of iron, then of steel framing allowed for the birth of curtain wall buildings

First generation Chicago School: Martin Roche, William Holabird, and Louis Sullivan, William Le Baron Jenney, Dankmar Adler, and Henry Hobson Richardson They were among the first to promote the new technologies of steel-frame construction in commercial buildings, and developed a spatial aesthetic which co-evolved with, and then came to influence, parallel developments in European Modernism

William Le Baron Jenney, Fair Store under construction, Chicago, 1890-1.

Jenney is considered the father of the American skyscraper The Fair Store was one of the first buildings to use the fireproof steel frame detail, along with "standard" steel members and connection details The separation of the column from the outside wall also freed the envelope from load bearing responsibilities The Fair Store building makes a play of the light frame and heavy cladding to give the appearance of a freer ground floor level

The section detail is similar to that used in the Fair Store, except for the detail of the outriggers that supported the terra cotta cladding and glazing system This was considered to be the first "curtain wall" building in that the terracotta and glass exterior walls were non-load bearing, the windows the largest ever constructed to this point in history The window style was mimicked in subsequent buildings throughout Chicago The site was acquired in 2 stages Burham built the first 2 floors, then the upper 13 later once the tenants of the previous building moved out The upper floors were shored in place while the construction of the lower two went ahead
Daniel Burnham and Co. Reliance Building, Chicago, 1894-95.

Holabird and Roche, Marquette Building, Chicago, 1893-94.

The building was one of the early steel frame skyscrapers of its day, and is considered one of the best examples of the Chicago School of architecture The building originally had a reddish, terracotta exterior that is now somewhat blackened due to decades of Loop soot It is noted both for its then cutting edge frame and its ornate interior Holabird & Roche, used trademark long horizontal bay "Chicago windows" on the Marquette Building (large panes of glass flanked by narrow sash windows) The grid-like window frames and spandrels are facilitated by the steel structure which enables non-load-bearing masonry walls The building is built around a central light court featuring an ornate lobby

Adler and Sullivan, Walker Warehouse, Chicago, 1888-89.

Done in Richardsonian Romanesque style by the Chicago school c. 1873 Baumann had proposed that each vertical element of a building should have a separate foundation ending in a broad pad that would distribute its weight over the marshy ground since Chicago had a special problem, it stood upon a swamp Baumann's foundation occupied valuable basement space and could support only 10 stories Dankmar Adler's experience as an engineer with the Union army during the Civil War helped him devise a vast raft of timbers, steel beams, and iron I-beams to float a Building Adler & Sullivan developed a type of caisson construction which quickly became routine for tall buildings across the U.S.

Louis Sullivan, Wainwright Building, St. Louis, 1890-91.

Steel frame sheathed in masonry, yet Sullivan made his sheathing light The 11-story Wainwright Building represents Sullivan's first attempt at a truly multi-story format, in which the device of the suppressed transom taken from the facade of Richardson's Marshall Field Store, is used to impart a decidedly vertical emphasis to the building's overall form The 2-story base of the classical tripartite composition is faced in fine red sandstone set on a 2ft high string course of red Missouri granite While the middle section consists of red brick pilasters with decorated terracotta spandrels, the top is rendered as a deep overhanging cornice faced in an ornamented terracotta skin to match the enrichment of the spandrels and the pilasters below

Sullivan, Schlesinger and Meyer Store, Chicago, 1899-1904.

Originally built for the established firm of Schlesinger and Meyer, the first 3 bay, 9story phase of this department store was erected in 1899, and the second, 12-story increment between 1903-4 Sullivan's building finally comprised a 7x8 bay loft volume with each structural bay measuring approximately 22 x20' The department store required broad horizontal open spaces where goods could be displayed; at the ground floor the windows were to be showcases highlighting selected wares Thus, in the finished building the horizontal line, is dominant, with the broad spandrel panels brought up flush with the narrow vertical piers The tripartite division is present with (a) ground floor windows richly encrusted with cast iron frames by Sullivan, (b) midsection, and (c) the terminating attic and cornice slab There is a change in color, to glazed white terracotta

Larkin Building and plan. Demolished 1950.

"I think I first consciously began to try to beat the box in the Larkin building. I found a natural opening to the liberation I sought when [after a great struggle] I finally pushed the staircase towers out from the corners of the main building, made them into freestanding, individual features. The building was constructed of dark red brick, utilizing pink tinted mortar Five stories high, the main building was attached to an annex of approximately 3 stories The entire roof was paved with brick and served as a recreation area for the building's employees, their families and guests The entrances of the building were flanked by 2 waterfall-like fountains

The interior consisted of a 5-story central court or nave, surrounded by balconies The upper level contained a kitchen, bakery, dining rooms, classrooms, a branch of the Buffalo Public Library, restrooms, a roof garden, and a conservatory The interior walls of the building were made of semivitreous, hard, cream-colored brick Natural and artificial light was provided by Wrightdesigned hermetically sealed double-paned windows, Wright-designed the electrical fixtures, metal office furniture, and AC system Wright's use of magnesite in the building's interior is interesting, since magnesite is mainly used to line the inside of steel-making furnaces Magnesite was used in the construction of stairs, doors, window sills, coping, capitals, partitions, desk tops, and plumbing slabs The floors consisted of a base of concrete, cushioned with a mixture of wood fiber and magnesite, then covered with sheets of magnesite from Greece shipped to Buffalo Frank Lloyd Wright, Interior, Larkin Building, Buffalo, 1904.

Japanese temple at the Chicago Worlds Fair, 1893.

The World Columbian Exposition was held from May to October 1893 in Chicago in honor of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the new world In competition with many other cities, Chicago was finally designated the official site and the Exposition was built on 630 acres in and around Jackson Park It was a display of progress and prosperity, and included among its many wonders electrical exhibits, exhibits from other countries, and a popular amusement area on with carnival rides, among them the first Ferris Wheel Burnham with the help of his partner, John W. Root assembled an array of artistic and architectural talent to design the fair's main, palatial exhibition buildings on grounds that landscape architect ,Olmsted, envisioned becoming a public park that would rival Central Park With the exception of Sullivan's long-remembered Golden Door, the buildings were decidedly neoclassical, lathered with plaster of Paris, and painted a chalky white, thus bestowing the moniker of White City on the area around the Court of Honor

Wrights Prairie Style

Low horizontal lines Low-pitched roof Overhanging eaves Central chimney Open interior space floor plan Clerestory windows

Prairie style made subtle use of Japanese architecture's use of horizontal space, flowing interior spaces, hipped roofs with broad eaves, and long bands of windows that apparently invoke the idea of Japanese screens (small, patterned pane glass)

Frank Lloyd Wright, Winslow House, River Forest, Illinois, 1893.

William Winslow, publisher of House Beautiful, was Wright's first client when he opened his own architectural practice in Chicago in 1893 It was here that Wright first developed the exterior forms and elevational concepts that would allow him to begin to give shape on the outside to the dynamic qualities of interior space The front of the house is completely symmetrical and formal in appearance The masonry elements bear a foliage ornament in the style of Louis Sullivan Roman brick is the basic material, while stone and plaster are also employed The half-story space between the cornice topping the brick mass and the widely overhanging roof is filled with heavily textured dark brown terracotta panels The windows take up the entire space of the terracotta paneling, extending from the cornice to the moulding under the roof The result is that the roof seems to float above the brick mass, as though it were physically separated from the rest of the structure

Wright, Ward Willits House, Highland Park, Illinois, 1902.

The Willits House is the first house in true Prairie style and marks the full development of Wright's wood frame and stucco system of construction Wright used a cruciform plan with the interior space flowing around a central chimney core and extending outward onto covered verandas and open terraces Horizontal orientation reveals a Japanese influence, with low interior ceilings

Wright, Robie House, Chicago, 1909.

Plan, Robie House.

Sheathed in Roman brick it shows an integration of mechanical and electrical systems designed by Wright into the visual expression of the interior Living and dining space are in-line, with only the fireplace-chimney block providing separation...sleeping quarters are yet a floor above, play and billiard rooms below The garage and surrounding wall were later altered from the original design The building has a low-proportioned, horizontal profile which gives it the appearance of spreading out on the flat prairie land Steel-framed cantilevered roof overhangs, continuous bands of art-glass windows and doors, and the use of natural materials are typical Prairie Style features which emphasizes this "horizontal line" of the building A chimney mass containing the house's four fireplaces rises through the center of the house acting as the anchor to which the house is designed around on all three levels

The exterior walls are constructed of a Chicago common brick core with a redorange iron-spotted Roman brick veneer The planter urns, copings, lintels, sills and other exterior trimwork are of Bedford limestone The fireplaces and chimneys are constructed of the same brick and limestone as the exterior and have a sense of an artistic sculptural shape of their own as opposed to being a part of a wall The design of the art glass windows and doors is a sharp-angled multicolored pattern whose geometry Wright also used for designs of tapestries inside the house and for gates in some of the porches and garden walls outside The structural steel framing that support the cantilevered roof overhangs also creates interior spaces that are absent of posts, walls, and other typical obstructions which results in the open flowing interiors that symbolizes the openness of the American prairie

Art Nouveau
Rejection of historical themes and academic classicism uses new forms and materials to express modernity Characterized by complex decorative motifs from the English arts and crafts movement Uses machine technology to create new forms of art Influences Medieval simplicity=golden age Asian preference for linear rhythm towards abstraction Japanese/Chinese ceramic/painting motifs Celtic interlace Saxon metallurgy Oriental prints Rococo style

Victor Horta, Interior stair, Tassel House, Brussels, 1892-93.

Belgian artist influenced by Gustave Eiffel, le-Duc, Baroque, and Rococo styles Tassel House was the residence of a professor Arabesque designs crawl along the walls and floors, a sense of rhythm emanates from the stair

Hector Guimard, Metro station, Paris, 1900. Served more as decorative signs/symbols than architectural structures made of ready-made parts of iron and glass used for exhibition at the Exposition Universelle in 1900 Guimard was a precursor of industrial standardization, as he wished to diffuse the new art on a large scale His famous entrances to the Paris Metro, based on the ornamented structures of Viollet-le-Duc Guimard's inimitable stylistic vocabulary suggests plants and organic matter, while remaining abstract Flexible mouldings and a sense of movement are found in stone as well as wood carvings Guimard created abstract two-dimensional patterns that were used for stained glass, ceramic panels, wrought iron, wallpaper or, fabric

Antonio Gaudi, Faade, Casa Batll, Barcelona, 1905-7.

Here Gaud designed a new facade, added a fifth floor, and altered the interior of this apartment building and residence for the textile industrialist Josep Batll i Casanovas The facade is unique in that it eliminates the corner and the edge, with curvilinear undulations dominating the design Even balcony railings seem twisted

Integrates nature's organic shapes, and the fluidity of water into his architecture Gaudi observed the forces of gravity and related catenary principles Gaud designed many of his structures upside down by hanging various weights on interconnected strings or chains, using gravity to calculate catenaries for a natural curved arch or vault Gaud often decorated surfaces with broken tile It could be compared with the steep cliff walls in which African tribes build their cave-like dwellings The wavy facade, with its large pores suggests undulating beach of fine sand, formed by a receding dune or, bees honeycomb Gaudi created a paradox, an artificial but natural building The roof sports an imitation of the bench from Guell Park as well as an ever more impressive series of bizarre chimney stacks Gaudi, Faade, Casa Mila, Barcelona, 1905-10.

"Those who look for the laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator"- God's Architect.

Symbol of Catalonian nationalism, sought to make use of natural form on a spiritual level in architecture. Inspired by Gothic revival style Extravagant use of texture and color for his first work (unfinished) that has Gothic and Moorish influence (mosaic) and fantastical ornamentation

Antonio Gaudis Church of the Sagrada Familia

Erich Mendelsohn, Einstein Tower, Potsdam

Small yet powerful tower built to signify the greatness of Einsteinian concepts at the same time serving as a astrophysical observatory Designed to house a solar telescope Mendelsohn sought the plastic, with the structure to be molded rather than built w/o angles but instead smooth rounded corners Due to post-war shortages only portions are reinforced concrete other areas are brick so, stucco became crucial to surface smoothness

Hans Poelzig, Grosses Schauspielhaus (Great Theater), Berlin, 1919.

Originally a market thus retains its external gabled form as a circus arena Was renovated (painted red) and reopened for 3,500 people in 1919 by Poelzig Without balconies but with honeycombed pendentive ornament Ceiling plays to night sky Taken over by the Nazis in 1933

Art Deco
Streamlined art deco architecture mimicked the sleek design of ocean liners, but it also drew on the decorative qualities of art nouveau and the flowing forms of expressionism Bruno Taut and Peter Behrens in Germany and Rob Mallet-Stevens in France were among the most prominent art deco designers Art deco enjoyed the widest diffusion in the United States, where it was employed in the design of many post offices and government buildings of the 1930s

Art Deco combined the exuberance of expressionism with the clean, functional lines of rationalism Named after an exposition of decorative art held in Paris in 1925, art deco rapidly spread through Europe and the U.S As had architects in the arts and crafts movement, art deco architects produced lamps, tableware, household appliances, and jewelry

Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, Cologne, 1914. Staircase, Glass Pavilion.

Tauts structure demonstrated the various ways glass could be used in a building, but also indicated how the material might be used to orchestrate human emotions and assist in the construction of a spiritual utopia Tauts interest in this aspect of glass had been stimulated by the writer, Scheerbart, who argued for an earthly paradise based on a new architecture of glass and color The Pavilion structure was raised up on a concrete plinth, the entrance reached by 2 flights of steps= a temple-like quality The glazed walls were topped by a dome of reinforced concrete ribs and a double skin of glass: In the interior, the color effects produced by sunlight were enhanced by the reflections of the pool and water cascade on the lower level, visible through a circular opening in the floor Two flights of glass steps enclosed with glass walls produced the sensation of descending to the lower level as if through sparkling water The cascade was made of yellow glass, while the pool was of its complementary color, violet A mechanical kaleidoscope overhead projected images, an early version of a light show

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Library, Glasgow School of Art

Influences from Celtic art and Scottish baronial style architecture with its volumetric masses of heavy masonry, art nouveau motif with the floral and geometric motifs in the ironwork, tiles, and details, and modern materials and techniques with the large industrial braced windows Mackintosh was uncompromising in his rejection of historicism, and his buildings have more in common with the vertical geometry and sinuous curves of Art Nouveau work in France, Belgium and Austria But his decadent approach to design met with hostility in Britain and, a few years after the School of Art was completed in 1909, he gave up architecture

Josef Maria Olbrich, Secession Building, Vienna, 1808-9.

Olbrich, Art Noveau and Viennese secession architect said he wanted "to erect a temple of art, which would offer the art lover a quiet, elegant place of refuge" He saw that "there would have to be walls white and gleaming, holy and chaste [expressing] pure dignity" The building's spare design shares the geometrical proportion and axial focus of ancient temples This parallel was unusual in a day when museums and exhibition spaces were more often conceived as great palaces of art Here the references are not baroque but classical -- seen in the clarity of the faade's organization, the decoration of laurel, the furies who guard the doorway, and the dome The building's forms are simple and confident, yet they were perceived by contemporaries as exotic Secession style art gained an appreciative audience among wealthier Viennese and even won official support

6-story trapezoidal shaped building used unadorned metal and glass Similarity in style to Victor Horta The glazed vault was suspended from cables in the original competition design and a larger area was involved, but in the final design, a secondary roof was incorporated above the curved ceiling The floor to the Hall was also finished in glass to allow light to penetrate rooms below

Otto Wagner, Post Office Savings Bank, Vienna, 1904-6.

Adolf Loos, Garden view, Steiner House, Vienna

Permission only given for 1 story house with converted mansard roof Loos arched a metal roof down to the ceiling of the ground floor at the front of the house, but turned it into a flat woodand-cement roof at the apex This made possible the garden front on 3 stories to fulfill the comprehensive spatial program the owners wanted

Antonio SantElia, Train and plane station for project for Citta nuova 1914, ink on paper, Musei Civici, Como. Between 1912 and 1914, influenced by industrial cities of the U.S. and the Viennese architects, Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos, he began a series of design drawings for a futurist Citt Nuova ("New City") that was conceived as symbolic of a new age

Tony Garnier, Transport center, Cite Industrielle, 1917.

Designed as a utopian form of living The plan allowed schools and vocational-type schools to be near the industries they were related to so that people could be more easily educated There were no churches or law enforcement buildings, in hope that man could rule himself This plan was highly influenced by the writings of Emile Zola In 1901, after extensive study of sociological and architectural problems, he began to formulate an elaborate solution to the perceived issues concerning urban design and published his major treatise, Une cit industrielle, in 1918 His basic idea included the separation of spaces by function through zoning into four categories including leisure/recreation, industry, work, and transport

Francois Hennebique, Trabeated system for reinforced concrete, 1892.

Hennebique patented a reinforced concrete building system Note the two intersecting cantilevers carry weight of 200 ton tower Hennebique was responsible for the widespread acceptance of reinforced concrete

Auguste Perret, Interior, Le Raincy Church, Near Paris, 1922. Perret's Notre Dame du Raincy employs reinforced concrete; the relatively new material had literally replaced traditional masonry and brought with it the 'intimation of ineffable space' which the great Gothic builders referred to Tall, slim columns rising to a height of 35 feet are no thicker than 14 inches around their girths; large windows (also in concrete) encompass the space of the church itself like filigree grills Rationalism in the design of this building has replaced 'mysticism', and the whiff of Gothicism is subordinated to Perret's mastery of his material and its structural potential

Max Berg, Interior, Jahrhunderthalle, Breslau, 1912-13.

This reinforced concrete structure was simultaneously daring and conservative; daring in its unprecedented span of 225ft and conservative in that the extraordinary structure was largely masked on the exterior by the stepped tiers of its clerestory fenestration Bergs invention was a radial ribbed dome, spanning onto a tension ring-beam which in turn transmitted its weight to a series of 4 great arches

Peter Behrens, Turbinenfabrik (turbine factory), Berlin, 1909.

Uses bold structural engineering to function for both the processes of manufacture and the working conditions of the employees at a turbine factory Massive corner masonry piers, but essentially a glass-and-steel structure Behrens achieved a plastic effect and a dynamic form of construction of the trusses, which were pulled towards the outside, as well as through the tapering iron trusses and the glass areas which were drawn towards the inside In particular, the monumental shape of the facade with corner pylons, which could not be considered a necessity for construction, and which were built with a thin ferroconcrete shell, caused criticism among younger architects

Walter Gropius and Adolph Meyer, Fagus Shoe Factory, Alfeld-an-der-Leine, Germany, 1911-3.

The whole operational procedure was newly thought through, according to the inner functions, and then articulated in a threedimensional form The client's wish for an attractive facade was solved by Gropius by means of a projected steel skeleton, which pulled the function of support to the inside This skeleton made possible a broad dissolution of the exterior envelope into glass walls The idea of the 'curtain wall' was at this point first expressed in a consistent manner

High Modernism and the Bauhaus

Nostalgia for the medieval guild systems and collective community spirit Expression of social idealism in Germany early in the Weimar Republic Gropius commitment to functionalism, sympathy for Constructivist ideas, and belief that art could improve society launches the Bauhaus Masters of the Bauhaus: Albers Bayer Breuer Feininger Gropius Itten Kandinsky Klee Meyer van der Rohe Moholy-Nagy Muche Schlemmer

The Vorkurs: Basis of the Bauhaus Curriculum

International Abstraction Between the Wars
Paris and Berlin serve as fertile artistic meeting grounds in Europe Many artists are drawn to Surrealism or figurative art--but there was a dedicated utopian core of abstract artists: Constructivists, the De Stijl, and the Bauhaus After 1933, when the Bauhaus closed, Kandinsky went to Paris, Gabo to London many other artists abandoned abstraction and devoted their art to revolution

The Building as an Entity

Aimed to incorporate art and industry One of the first schools of design Brought together some of the most influential contemporary architects and artists in a training center environment A place of production and a focus of international debate At a time when industrial society was in the grip of a crisis, the Bauhaus stood almost alone in asking how the modernization process could be mastered by means of design

Gropius, Workshop Wing, Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 1925-6.

The pinwheel configuration when viewed from the air represents in form the propellers of the airplanes manufactured in the Dessau area This complex embodies various technological and design oriented advancements including the creation of architecture in the form of transparency with the supporting structure rising behind the facing skin It was a radical structure populated by progressive minds touting a unique grouporiented approach to learning

Gerrit Rietveld, Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924.

A cardboard Mondrian or an enormous piece of furniture masquerading as a house All windows could only be opened up completely, at right angles to frames, repeating the devices by which the upper floor could be transformed from one single space into a series of smaller onesthe point being that in either positioning of windows or moveable walls, the house retained its neoplastic hypothesis Rietveld belongs to the De Stijl movement As part of the movement, primary colors such as red, blue, and yellow, are used predominantly

In 1917, Rietveld designed the Red Blue Chair, which signaled a radical change in architectural theory His unusual furniture designs led to several housing commissions which he invariably designed in a Neo-plastic style The designs utilized the free and variable use of space and showed a profound understanding of dynamic spatial ideas

Interior, second story, Schrder The lower floor consists of the kitchen/dining/living area, a reading room, a studio space which until 1933 House Rietveld used for his own office, the servant's bedroom, and a storage room The upper floor was considered attic space according to the building code All the sleeping areas were located up in that space and the bedrooms were divided only by portable partitions The concept was used so that the children could have a bigger open space to play during the day and then close it to have a more private bedroom at night

Le Corbusier, Domino House, construction system, 1914. Le Corbusier's early work was related to nature, but as his ideas matured, he developed this basic building prototype for mass production with free-standing pillars and rigid floors This model proposed an open floor plan consisting of concrete slabs supported by a minimal number of thin, reinforced concrete columns around the edges, with a stairway providing access to each level on one side of the floor plan

Le Corbusier, Citrohan House, 1920-22. Le Corbusier's first attempt to deal with the problem of mass housing was Maisons Citrohan All parts of the house are united by a spatial continuum, while the open space created by the pilotis and the flat roof increase the otherwise small available area The prototype of a single-family unit, which was later modified to a module within a collective building Le Corbusier established his concept of the dwelling as standardized, mass produced, and serviceable like the modern car Makes use of a reinforced concrete frame The building is raised off the ground on pilotis, which 'free' the ground for vehicular circulation and for services The roof-garden or terrace functions as a component of private, domestic space

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy, 1928-29. An early and classic example of the "International Style", which hovers above a grass plane on thin concrete pilotti, with strip windows, and a flat roof with a deck area, ramp, and a few contained touches of curvaceous walls Has the characteristic elements such as the entrance ramp (which cuts through the middle of the grid), the curving walls of the solarium, and the pilotis and slab construction Once inside the ground floor, one can promenade through either by a ramp or a curving staircase The first floor, surrounded entirely by a ribbon window, consisted of the complete lining accommodation wrapped in the open terrace to allow light and air to penetrate everywhere Direct contact with the surrounding landscape is achieved by various openings, views are framed like a picture

These also suggest a modernized classicism: -no historical ornament -abstract sculptural design -pure color: white on the outside, a color with associations of newness, purity, simplicity, health, and planes of subtle color in the interior living areas - open interior plan with dynamic , non-traditional transitions between floors -- spiral staircases and ramps -built-in furniture -ribbon windows (echoing industrial architecture, but also providing openness and light) -roof garden, with both plantings and architectural (sculptural) shapes -integral garage (the curve of the ground floor of the house is based on the turning radius of Citroen) A modular design -- the result of Corbusier's researches into mathematics, architecture (the golden section), and human proportion "pilotis"

First office building to rise over 1000 ft Dependent on Chrysler's demand for cheap building materials and labor, but to also convey the success of the company Art Deco: wasn't coined until the '60's, but it takes its name from the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs of 1925 Art Deco is a style associated with the late 1920s and early 1930s with emphasis on richly-colored and geometric patterns, new materials and styles and a decorative approach to modernism Spire terminates in layers of overlapping sunbursts Eagles jut from the corners

William Van Alen, Chrysler Building, NY, 1930.

Le Corbusier, Contemporary City for Three Million Inhabitants, 1922.

The centerpiece of this plan was the group of 60-story, cruciform skyscrapers built on steel frames and encased in huge curtain walls of glass They housed both offices and the apartments of the most wealthy inhabitants These skyscrapers were set within large, rectangular park-like green spaces At the very middle was a huge transportation centre that on different levels included depots for buses and trains, as well as highway intersections, and at the top, an airport He had the fanciful notion that commercial airliners would land between the huge skyscrapers Le Corbusier segregated the pedestrian circulation paths from the roadways, and glorified the use of the automobile as a means of transportation

Ludwig van der Rohe, Barcelona Pavilion, International Exposition, Barcelona, 1929.
The covered portion of the pavilion, one story high, occupied roughly the north half of the podium. Beneath its flat roof ran the series of interwoven spaces The roof rested on walls, or more properly wall planes, placed asymmetrically but always in parallels or perpendiculars, so that they appeared to slide past each other in a space through which the viewer could walk more or less endlessly, without ever being stopped within a cubical area

The open plan, with its intimation of an infinite freedom of movement, was at the same time qualified by two rows of equally spaced, cruciform columns that stood in martial formation amid the gliding walls The columnar arrangement constituted Mies's first use of the grid as an ordering factor in his building, a prefiguration of the monumental regularity that marked the work of his American years

Ludwig van der Rohe, Weissenhof Siedlung, Stuttgart, 1927.

Mies began to resolve this opposition between structure and form by means of the steel frame, the first time that he actually employed one in either project or realized structure The exterior walls of the three-story apartment block consisted of masonry infill covered by a smooth stucco, large windows, and glass doors; floors and roof were hollow block between joists The steel frame was crucial to Mies' architectural vision in this project He referred to the frame as 'the most appropriate system of construction It can be produced rationally and permits every freedom for the division of spaces inside It enabled him to limit the use of solid walls to separations between apartments, to introduce moveable partition walls, and to extensively open the facades with glass

Late Modernism
With a total of 33 stories, 485 ft high, Mc Graw-Hill was completed in 1931, the same year as the completion of the Empire State Building The exterior walls of the building are panels of blue-green terracotta ceramic tiles, alternating with green-metal-framed windows, with a strongly horizontal orientation The building was the only NY building shown in the influential International Style exhibition in 1932 It's also been cited as a landmark of Art Deco design

Raymond M. Hood, McGrawHill Building, New York, 1931.

Richard Neutra, Lovell House, Los Angeles, 1929. The open-web skeleton, in which standard triple steel casements were integrated, was fabricated in sections and transported by truck to the steep hillside site, and the lightweight bar joists of floors and ceilings were electrically welded in the shop The shop work was held to a decimal tolerance to avoid the costliness of changes during assembly on the site, and as a result the skeleton was erected in forty hourstoo fast to photograph the various stages of construction The balconies, usually called cantilevered, are instead suspended by slender steel cables from the roof frame This use of members in suspension, and also the U-shaped reinforced thin concrete cradle in which the pool was suspended, created a stir in architectural circles The walls of the house are of thin concrete, shop from two-hundred-foot-long hoses, against expanded metal, which was backed by insulation panels as forms

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1937.

Structures should blend with their environment, interior and exterior of the house should be integrated Three terraces projecting outward 2 cantilevered over the waterfall of stream over which the house was constructed Cantilever: horizontal form supported at one end and jutting out into space at the other One large room that opens to terraces, massive stone fireplace serves as the rooms core Most of the furniture was built by Wright into the structure

Frank Lloyd Wright, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY, 1956-9. It is a continuous spatial helix, a circular ramp that expands as it coils vertiginously around an unobstructed well of space capped by a flat-ribbed glass dome A seamless construct, the building evoked for Wright 'the quiet unbroken wave Wright's attempt to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture Instead, Wright whisked people to the top of the building via elevator, proceeding downward at a leisurely pace on the gentle slope of a continuous ramp

The galleries were divided like the membranes in citrus fruit, with self-contained yet interdependent sections The open rotunda afforded viewers the unique possibility of seeing several bays of work on different levels simultaneously The spiral design recalled a nautilus shell, with continuous spaces flowing freely one into another

Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, 1954-8, NY . Vertical slab-like essence of minimalism on stilts creates rises and ends abruptly w/ the interest coming from the bronze colored steel and amber glass that sheaths it The curtain wall tower is not built to the edge of the site It occupies only 40 % of the allowable zoning envelope, freeing up space for a granitepaved public plaza enhanced by two reflecting pools and marble benches that is widely regarded as one of the most successful in the city The plaza is an expensive aesthetic and symbolic gesture, especially significant in the dense urban environment which surrounds it Marble is used for the plaza benches, travertine for the lobby walls and floor, tinted glass and bronze for the curtain wall Carefully controlled customized details pervade the building

Le Corbusier, Unite dHabitation, 1947-52, Marseilles, France.

The 12-story apartment block is the late modern counterpart of the mass housing schemes of the 20s, similarly built to alleviate a severe postwar housing shortage Although the program of the building is elaborate, structurally it is simple: a rectilinear ferroconcrete grid, into which are slotted precast individual apartment units, like 'bottles into a wine rack' as the architect put it Through ingenious planning, 23 different apartment configurations were provided to accommodate single persons and families as large as 10, nearly all with double-height living rooms and the deep balconies that form the major external feature

"Here we will build a monument dedicated to nature and we will make it our lives' purpose."

Le Corbusier, Notre-Dame-du Haut, 1950-4, Ronchamp, France. Le Corbusier's "chapel of our lady of the height" is a pilgrimage chapel Stone from the earlier structure destroyed in WWII was recycled in the structure The thick, curved walls - especially the buttress-shaped south wall - and the vast shell of the concrete roof give the building a massive, sculptural form Small, brightly painted and apparently irregular windows punched in these thick walls give a dim light within the building, enhanced by further indirect light coming down 3 light towers

The interior of the chapel is modest, with plain pews down the south side only The walls, roof, and floor curves down towards the altar, following the shape of the hill Above the plain altar, the east wall is punctuated by several pinhole-windows and by a single substantial window with the Madonna and Child in silhouette; through the window this image also serves the outside altar used during pilgrimages The complex shapes at Ronchamp play a practical role on the east wall to reflect the sound from the outside altar for the pilgrims gathered on the hill Simple, geometric shapes from Le Corbusier's earlier buildings have given way to more subtle, fractal, "natural" shapes here, leading to the description of Ronchamp as the first Post-Modern building

The building featured a 24-story blue-green heatresistant glass and stainless steel curtain-wall which helped to keep AC costs down The curtain-wall was designed to reduce the cost of operating and maintaining the property completely sealed with no operating windows Has a roof-top window-washing gondola that moved about the parapet wall on tracks The ground floor featured an open plaza with garden and pedestrian walkways Only a small portion of the ground floor was enclosed in glass and marble although it featured space for displays and waiting visitors, a demonstration kitchen, and an auditorium The 2nd and largest floor contained the employees' lounge, medical suite, and general office facilities The 3rd floor was the employees' cafeteria and terrace The offices of Lever Brothers and subsidiaries occupied the remaining floors with the executive penthouse on the 21st floor The top 3 stories contained most of the property's Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, Lever mechanical space House, 1951-2, NY.

Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, John Hancock Center, Chicago, 1965. One of the most famous buildings of the structural expressionist style, the skyscraper's distinctive X-bracing exterior is actually a hint that the structure's skin is indeed part of its 'tubular system' This idea is one of the architectural techniques the building used to climb to record heights (the tubular system is essentially the spine that helps the building stand upright during wind and earthquake loads) This X-bracing allows for both higher performance from tall structures and the ability to open up the inside floor plan (and usable floor space) if the architect desires Original features such as the skin have made the John Hancock Center an architectural icon It was pioneered by BangladeshiAmerican structural civil engineer, Fazlur Khan

I.M. Pei and Henry N. Cobb, John Hancock Tower, Boston, 1977.

It is a 60 story, 790 ft tall skyscraper designed by Pei and Henry N. Cobb of the firm now known as Pei, Cobb and Freed A sculpted parallelogram with v-grooves in the short sides The buildings skin has become a frameless grid of identical, opaque, mirrorglass panels that mask the structure and all the internal features of the building While assisting with the AC system the glass also creates an aloof distancing aesthetically

John Portman, Lobby, Hyatt Regency Hotel, San Francisco, 1972. Like the lobbies of many of Portman's hotels, this lobby has a huge open atrium extending to a height of 170 ft Tiered floors, open to the lobby, are part of the unique design Balcony hung, pool and greenery filled spaces of Portman lend to a Neo-Futuristic hotel lobby

Paul Rudolph, School of Art and Architecture Building, Yale University, New Haven, 1959-63. Designed by Rudolph and completed in 1963, the complex building contains over thirty floor levels in its 7 stories The building is made of ribbed, bush-hammered concrete The design was influenced by Wright , Breuer, and Le Corbusier

Marcel Breuer, Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, 1966. 100x125 ft site in the art gallery district of mid-town Madison Avenue where, among an environment of tall apartment buildings, a new, distinctive, and significant home was to be located The housing of changing exhibitions rather than a permanent collection has determined the new museum's philosophy, planning, and details Three of its floors have large, open gallery spaces with suspended precast concrete open grid ceilings, detailed to receive movable wall panels and flexible lighting that can be rearranged for each new show Outside, the cube-like building is sheathed with granite

Eero Saarinen, Trans World Airlines Terminal, JFK Kennedy Airport, NY, 1962.
The flowing, curvilinear forms which define this airport terminal align this work with expressionist architecture The forms symbolically suggest flight. Interior spaces are also open and flowing Reinforced concrete makes these wing-like "sails" possible Design of the terminal was awarded to Detroit-based Eero Saarinen and Associates It was completed in 62 and is the airport's most famous landmark (as well as being a National Historic Landmark).

Richard Meier, Douglas House, 1971-3, Harbor Springs, Michigan. The house is gently placed on a steep slope over the water, almost as if it is floating amongst the trees Meier layered 4 floors and anchored the house into the hill The entry is on the east side of the house facing the road, which Meier considers the private zone and is expanded by a roof-level bridge Once inside the entry vestibule there is a continuation to a roof-deck, and the living room and kitchen are seen 2 stories below with the fire place in view across from the entry