Introduction to Modern Architecture and Ground Abstraction

Flashcards covering the introductory concepts of modern architecture, Le Corbusier's theories, the importance of reinforced concrete, and the abstraction of ground and space.

Le Corbusier (Corb)

A self-promoting influential architect and painter who codified his work and linked early twentieth-century cubism to architectural forms.

Cubism

An intellectual movement emerging between the early 1900s and 1910s that represents objects as the brain understands them rather than how the eye perceives them, introducing the element of time into art.

Theory of Relativity

A scientific theory written by Einstein regarding the relativity of time, which influenced the intellectual development of cubism.

Towards a New Architecture

A foundational 1923 book by Le Corbusier that is required reading for first-year architecture students and discusses the technological basis for twentieth-century architecture.

Five Points of Architecture

A set of architectural principles including building off the ground (pilotis), strip (ribbon) windows, free plan, free facade, and roof garden.

Reinforced Concrete

The invention that enables modern architectural features like lifting buildings off the ground and creating independent structures from enclosures.

Urbanity

A vision for spaces that allows people to navigate and feel comfortable, distinct from the mere focus on density or maintenance concerns of facilities managers.

Architecture or Revolution

The title of the last chapter in Towards a New Architecture, suggesting architecture can solve social tensions and prevent riots by providing adequate housing for the working class.

Domino Plan

An architectural plan designed by Le Corbusier to address housing for the working class.

Ground

The simple surface we walk on, which is root to place.

Land

The government's ground, defined by politics, law, economies, and feudal legacies such as property rights and measured property lines.

Datum

An abstraction of the ground serving as an organizing element, level surface, line, or point used as a reference for the arrangement of elements in a composition.

Grid

An ordering system, such as a field of columns, used as a tool to impose order and organize architectural projects.

Proportioning Systems

Ways of imposing order on design, such as using the golden mean, Fibonacci series, or $\sqrt{2}$, to ensure choices are not merely casual or leftover.

Ribbon Window

A long horizontal window characteristic of modernism, made possible by reinforced concrete, serving as a rejection of vertically proportioned traditional windows.

Postmodernism

An architectural movement that rejected modernism and returned to historicism, often characterized by square windows and pastel colors.

Villa Savoye

A 1931 building by Le Corbusier that serves as the most iconic example of the white villa period, showcasing a field of columns and a car-integrated garage.

Ramp

A spatial extension of the ground used in buildings like Villa Savoye to allow inhabitants to experience cubist-like spatial compositions in motion over time.

Purism

A more pure form of cubism developed by Le Corbusier, focusing on shapes and forms in relationship with geometry.

Linear Perspective

A technique attributed to Brunelleschi that provides a view of space from one specific point in space and time.

Abstraction

In architecture and art, the process of reducing something to its essential idea rather than just creating shapes.

Feudalism

A society structured around relationships derived from holding land in exchange for service or labor, which modernism sought to reject in favor of democratic processes.

Farnsworth House

A house designed by Mies van der Rohe that features proportions based on the Parthenon and is known for being raised off the ground but prone to flooding.

Glass House

A project by Philip Johnson built shortly before the Farnsworth House after Johnson saw Mies van der Rohe's office drawings.

International Style Exhibition

An exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) curated by Philip Johnson that showcased European modernist architecture.