AUD 10B Final Spring 2025

Modernism

A 20th Century design movement which sought to break away from tradition in favor of geometric forms, minimal decoration, and an emphasis on technically 'rational' planning.

Raumplan

The concept of spatial arrangement conceived and promoted by Adolf Loos, which favors a gradual, vertical distribution of spaces with differing ceiling heights based on their importance and function. Translated as "spatial plan."

Five Points of Architecture

Five design characteristics laid out by Le Corbusier which he considered fundamental to modern architecture. They are: 1. A grid of pilotis 2. Free plan 3. Free façades 4. Ribbon windows 5. Roof garden

Piloti

A slender column or stilt that lifts the volume of abuilding off the ground, allowing for free passage underneath.

Bauhaus

A massively influential school of arts, architecture, and industrial design that helped to define Modernism. Operated in Germany between 1919 and 1933.

International Style

The name coined by the 1932 MoMA Modern Architecture International Exhibition for the specific type of unornamented, machine-aesthetic Modernist architecture typified by Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and JJP Oud.

De Stijl

A Dutch artistic and utopian movement which sought a universal, modern visual language in abstract geometry rendered with strong lines and bold primary colors.

Expressionism

A design movement which rejected both rigid historicism and functionalism in favor of a more individualistic, emotional, and artistic approach to architecture.

Constructivism

A Soviet design movement which sought to create an architectural style unique to communism. Employed an industrial aesthetic and direct political symbolism to celebrate modernized proletarian labor and mass production.

Art Deco

A visual design style which portrayed modernity through sleek, geometric, graphic forms, luxury materials, and stylized references to technology, motion, and nonwestern styles.

Facism

A form of authoritarian, ultra-conservative government which typically relies on the definition of both an in-group (usually along ethnic lines) and the systematic oppression or extermination of those outside this category.

Socialist Classicism

An architectural movement promoted by Joseph Stalin which employed lavish and eclectic historic revivals, along with some Art Deco influences, in order to showcase the power and prosperity of the Soviet Union under his regime.

Modulor

A system of proportions and measurements devised by Le Corbusier based on the body parts of a man who is 6 feet (1.83 meters) tall. Became a key design consideration in his projects after the Second World War

Brutalism

A postwar Modernist style which emphasizes its structure through visible structural elements and exposed, often monochrome building materials. Derived from the French term for unfinished concrete, béton brut.

Megastructure

A single building or small group of buildings meant to act as a complete and comprehensive urban environment. Very common in public housing designs from the 1950s and 1960s.

Urban Renewal

The destruction of neighborhoods deemed to be 'blighted,' rundown, or unsanitary, in order to replace them with newer, usually more open and modernist planning. In the US, was regularly used to clear out working class neighborhoods of minorities and/or immigrants

Case Study Houses

A project commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine to design and construct model houses for postwar America. Led to the creation of 36 concepts employing modern construction methods and materials to make affordable, mass-producible houses

Interstate Highway Act

An American federal legislation which led to the construction of a nationwide system of freeways between major cities, both to facilitate civilian traffic and as a military infrastructure in case of an attack on the United States. Fully named the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956.

Redlining

The discriminatory use of legal and financial systems to withhold home loans and other services from neighborhoods which, on the basis of significant minority populations, are declared to be unsafe investments. In the United States, was used to prevent suburban homeownership by ethnic minorities, especially Black families.

Brise-soleil

An architectural feature, usually made up of louvers, which shields windows on the outer façade from direct sunlight. Particularly common for Modernist structures, especially in hot climates.

Hyperboloid Structure

A structural form based on the curves of a mathematical hyperbola. Commonly used for strong and stable towers, but can also be employed to produce curved surfaces with entirely straight framing pieces.

Metabolism

A design movement of the 1960s and 70s which employed biological logic and metaphors in the design of architectural and urban space. Most commonly worked on the scale of the megastructure, and frequently employed aspects of prefabrication and modular design.

Critical Regionalism

A term coined by Kenneth Frampton for an alternative to the placeless universality of the International Style - not in a return to traditional architectural or decorative styles, but in the respect for, and use of, techniques and materials which suit the place where something is built

Populuxe

A style of pop art and consumer goods which was popular in the United States 1950s and 60s. Aestheticized the technological progress of the era, often featuring dynamic curves or angles, fins, and modern materials like chrome or plastic. Derived from the words 'popular' and 'luxury.'

Googie

A postwar, primarily commercial architectural style which embodied many aspects of Populuxe, celebrating the Space Age through futuristic, nontraditional forms like boomerangs, paraboloids, hyperboloids, and upswept rooflines.

Archigram

A British architectural magazine published through the 1960s and 70s which featured conceptual designs for futuristic buildings and cityscapes, often presenting these designs through images created along the lines of pop art. Short for "Architectural Telegram."

The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Jane Jacobs' 1961 book on urban planning, which criticizes the Modernist obsession with highways, urban renewal, and single-use zoning. The text instead advocates for mixed-use development, sidewalk culture, and the preservation of existing neighborhoods.

Duck and Decorated Shed

An analogy conceived by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown to explain the differing ways in which buildings express their functions to passersby. A "duck" uses its own form to communicate its purpose, while a "decorated shed" features communicative ornament that is separated from the structural form of the building itself.

Postmodernism

An umbrella term for various reactions against Modernism in architecture roughly from the 1970s through the 1990s. Common features of postmodern architecture include fragmented or irregular forms, multicolored surfaces, historic references, and a tendency toward ironic or even campy humor.

Paper Architect

A designer whose work is primarily or exclusively intended to only be represented in images, often because its forms or required technologies are impractical or outright impossible to build physically. These works may be intended simply as artistic/social statements or as an exploration of new design concepts.

Deconstructivism

An architectural style which rejects ideas like purity of geometric forms, a sense of completion or spatial order, and functionalism; may include intersecting and irregular masses, distortion of conventional building elements, or deliberate asymmetry and discontinuity of its parts.

CAD

Short for 'computer-aided design': the use of digital software to draw, model, refine, and render architectural projects. Allowed for substantial innovation in both the geometric forms that could be built as well as the capacity to predict the functionality of a structure.

Starchitect

A portmanteau of 'star' and 'architect': an architect whose work is so globally known that they become a sort of celebrity, and possession of one of their buildings becomes a point of pride or publicity for a city.

Parametric Design

A mode of design which focuses and the creation and application of algorithms that produce architectural forms, rather than the placement of conventional forms and elements at the whim of the designer. Tends to produce fluid, geometrically irregular forms.

New Urbanism

An urban planning and real estate development movement which focuses on creating walkable communities, often with a mixture of mixed-use zones as well as single family housing, from scratch. Tends to both reference and mimic the design of traditional neighborhoods.