modern architecture quiz 3

Tugendhat House

Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with interior collaboration by Lilly Reich, is a modernist residential building located in Brno, Czech Republic, constructed between 1928 and 1930. The house exemplifies an interest in materiality, featuring luxurious elements such as an onyx wall, ebony wood partitions, and chrome-covered steel supports. It is known for its open spatial planning, showcasing Mies's signature use of structural skeletons and his interest in the fluidity and interpenetration of interior spaces.

exoskeleton

a structural skeleton that is created on the exterior of a building. Unlike traditional interior skeleton structures, it visibly supports and defines the building's exterior form, often emphasizing the material and aesthetic qualities of the structural elements themselves.

Seagram Building

Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1958 in New York, is a hallmark of modernist skyscraper architecture. It is characterized by its reinforced concrete skeleton and bronze-clad I-beams, combined with distinctive pink-grey heat-resistant glass. The building exemplifies Mies's principles of clarity, precision in detailing, and integration of structural elements as aesthetic features. It is widely regarded as one of the most influential buildings in 20th-century architecture.

Modernist Glamour

an architecture that indulges the leisurely, consuming body through organic form, sensuous surfaces, and spaciousness. It shares aesthetic features with Art Deco, including a focus on ornamentation symbolizing progress, machinery-inspired aesthetics, curves reminiscent of nature and the human body, and an emphasis on surface qualities enhanced by incandescent and fluorescent lighting.

Fontainebleau Hotel

Designed by Morris Lapidus and opened in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1952, epitomizes Modernist Glamour. Known for its luxurious interiors and dramatic, sensuous lobby spaces, it embodies ideals of glamour through its use of indulgent materials, spaciousness, and organic shapes designed to appeal to leisure-seeking guests.

General Motors Technical Center

Designed by Eero Saarinen between 1945 and 1956 in Warren, Michigan. An example of modern architecture combining aesthetics of industry and leisure. It features innovative use of materials like brick, granite, steel, and stone, and incorporates new geometries and organic forms. The complex exemplifies modernist glamour's interest in machinery, speed, and progress, integrating functional industrial design with visually appealing forms and structures intended to inspire creativity and innovation.

CIAM

An influential organization active from 1928 to 1959. It involved key modernist architects such as Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Richard Neutra. Addressed modern architectural expression, standardization, hygiene, urbanism, primary school education, governments and the modern architecture debate and existenzminimum (minimum existence housing, 1929) and the functional city (1931-39) with the ultimate goal of establishing rational and healthy living environments through architecture and urbanism.

Pruitt-Igoe Housing

subsidized low-rent housing, a large-scale, subsidized housing project designed by Minoru Yamasaki and constructed in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1955. Inspired by CIAM principles, it aimed to provide affordable, rationally-planned housing for lower-income populations. However, due to poor construction quality, inadequate maintenance, and design oversights—such as exposed pipes and inadequate public facilities—the project rapidly deteriorated. By 1972, its failure culminated in the symbolic demolition of the buildings, marking a significant moment in the critique of modernist architectural ideals.

Prefabrication

to fabricate the parts of something at a factory so that construction consists mainly of assembling and uniting standardized parts. Often characterized by fast assembly, low-skilled work and affordability

Brutalism

Exposure of building materials and construction, especially an unadorned reinforced concrete; also seen in Le Corbusier’s Unité d’habitation. Developed in the 1950s and accentuated exposed technology, construction process, and common industrial materials; its aesthetic was considered raw, bare, and “brutal”.

International Style

was a name given to the emergence of what seemed to be a codified new style to suit the modern world. The name was given by MoMA curators Henry Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, and the style was defined by three principles; architecture as volume, regularity and the avoidance of applied decoration.

Brise-soleil

a grid with enough depth to shade windows and other openings,

Brasilia

Brazil had been colonized since the 16th century by the British, Dutch French, and Portuguese. Colonization ended in 1822. This term is an entirely new capital city designed by Costa and Niemeyer for Brazil, made to replace the former capital of Rio de Janeiro. Designed by planner Lucio Costa and architect Oscar Niemeyer between 1957-60, is the planned capital city of Brazil. Influenced by Le Corbusier’s modernist principles and CIAM’s ideas about rational urban planning. Represents mid-20th-century ideals of modernization, economic progress, and social order through architecture. Notable for its distinctive modernist buildings, monumental spaces, and clear zoning of functions, the city embodies Brazil's aspirations for rapid development and modernization.

Salk Institute

A research facility in La Jolla, California, designed by architect Louis Kahn between 1959 and 1965. It was commissioned by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine. Known for its modernist architectural design, featuring reinforced concrete structures, teak office walls, and an open courtyard with a striking view of the ocean. The design integrates Kahn’s concepts of served and servant spaces to optimize functionality.

served space

a space that is served; a space that is occupied by inhabitants

servant space

a space that serves another space providing such things as air ventilation, water, and electricity to that space.

High Tech

Buildings which feature in a highly visible and legible manner their technology and function, which gives them a distinct stylistics character; most popular in the 1970s and 80s. This style often used technology to be eye catching and entertain the viewer (much like technology tended to do in culture more broadly)

Postmodernism

style where architects engaged in a very self-conscious play with traditional ornamental forms, particularly of classicism, and through exaggeration and distortion, attempted to create a light, humorous style. This style explicitly rejected many of modernism’s central concerns and characteristics, in particular its lack of ornament. These architects tended to consider modernism too restricting, serious and dull. These type of architects were like anthropologists reveling in the cultural forms of everyday life versus the opposite style of architectures who were more so scientists.

Deconstructivism

Another architectural trend of this time. It was an insular style that spoke to other architects and to other “insiders,” such as critics. Its aim was to “deconstruct” and expose assumptions about architecture. Unlike post-modernism, it did not tend to indulge in ornamentation.