ARCH 352 QUIZ CONCEPTS

Arts and Crafts Buzz Words

Morris, Ruskin, Mackintosh, Garden Cities, Werkbund

American Skyscrapers and Automobiles Buzz Words

Manhattanism, Ford, Wright, Rockefeller Center, Fallingwater

European Modernisms Buzz Words

Le Corbusier's Five Points and Villa Savoye, Soviet Constructivism, the Bauhaus, Mies and Barcelona Pavilion

Totalitarian Settings

Italian Rationalism, EUR, Nazi Heimatstil, Speer

International Style and Third World

Stalin skyscrapers, Stalinallee, Plattenbau, Mexico City

Arts and Crafts Movement

Late 19th-century British movement rejecting industrialism; revived handicrafts, vernacular building, and the dignity of the craftsperson. Inspired by Ruskin and Morris. Spread to Europe, the US, Australia, and colonial India.

John Ruskin

Art critic who condemned industrialism's moral decline; celebrated medieval cathedral builders and handcraft; founded St. George's Guild (1870s). Influenced William Morris and generations of architects.

William Morris (1834–1896)

Key figure of Arts and Crafts; declared "Art is mankind's expression of his joy in labor." Founded handicraft business; later advocated socialism. Wrote utopian novel News from Nowhere (1890). Contradiction: his handmade goods were only affordable to the elite.

Red House, Bexleyheath (1860)

Built by Morris and architect Philip Webb. Manifesto of Arts and Crafts ethics: red brick, high-pitched tile roof, L-shaped plan, windows placed by need not symmetry. Launched Webb's career.

Philip Webb (1831–1915)

Architect, collaborated with Morris on Red House. Inspired the "English Free Style."

English Free Style

Regionalist vernacular approach free of specific historical references; used asymmetry, varied window shapes, local materials. Associated with Webb, Voysey, Shaw.

Charles F. A. Voysey (1857–1941)

Arts and Crafts architect; used white roughcast plaster, horizontal compositions, battered buttresses, and bow windows. The Orchard (1900) is a key house. Crisp lines anticipated modernism.

Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944)

Most successful architect from the Arts and Crafts milieu; partnered with landscape designer Gertrude Jekyll. Later turned to Beaux-Arts classicism. Designed Munstead Wood (1896) and New Delhi.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928)

Scottish Arts and Crafts architect in Glasgow. Works: Glasgow School of Art (1897–1907), Hill House (1901). Synthesized architecture, furniture, textiles, stained glass with his group "The Four."

Glasgow School of Art (1897–1907)

Mackintosh's major project. Functional, plain facade with iron brackets; library wing added 1907 with stacked bay windows. Combines handicraft and modern functionalism.

Hill House, Helensburgh (1901)

Mackintosh. White roughcast plaster, irregular L-shaped plan, 40 different window shapes placed asymmetrically. Described by Mackintosh as simply "a Dwelling House."

Ebenezer Howard (1850–1928)

Proposed the "Garden City" in To-morrow, a Peaceful Path to Real Reform (1898): self-sufficient small cities separated by greenbelts. Influenced by Morris's socialism.

Garden City

Howard's urban theory: dense but human-scale towns separated from metropolis by green space, combining agriculture and industry. Intended to control urban sprawl and maintain human dignity.

Letchworth (1903)

First built Garden City, designed by Raymond Unwin and Barry Parker. Arts and Crafts style, 12 units/acre, large parkland. Only ~5,000 population achieved.

Hampstead Garden Suburb (1907)

Designed by Raymond Unwin, central square by Lutyens. Contradicted Howard's theory (not self-sufficient) but incorporated Garden City social ideals. Social reformer Henrietta Barnett was the patron.

Superblock

Urban planning innovation by Raymond Unwin: enlarged block eliminating interior streets, distributing more open space per unit. Precursor to 20th-century urban planning concept.

German Werkbund (1907)

National syndicate promoting design quality, founded in Munich. Surpassed English craft-guild concept; published and exhibited design nationally. Key figures: Hermann Muthesius, Peter Behrens.

Hermann Muthesius (1861–1927)

Wrote Das englische Haus (1904) promoting vernacular English styles in Germany. Built houses in English Free Style near Berlin.

Tony Garnier (1869–1948)

French architect who proposed Une Cité Industrielle (1917): a modern industrial city with zoned functions, linear rail, flat-roofed concrete buildings. Rejected romantic Garden City aesthetics.

Manhattanism

Tendency in NYC skyscraper design driven by the 1916 Zoning Law: step-back massing of towers at regular intervals to allow daylight to streets. Created characteristic ziggurat profiles.

1916 Zoning Law (New York)

Imposed "floor area ratio" limits and step-back requirements for tall buildings, triggered by the massive Equitable Building (1915). Produced the stepped, zigzag profiles of 1920s NYC towers.

Zigzag Moderne / Art Deco Skyscraper Style

Skyscraper style of 1920s NYC featuring stepped massing, geometric decoration, and vertical emphasis. Key examples: Chrysler Building, Empire State Building.

Chrysler Building (1929–1931)

By William Van Alen. 77 stories; seven-tiered starburst steeple; hubcap friezes and gargoyle hood ornaments advertising the Chrysler auto brand. Quintessential Zigzag Moderne.

Rockefeller Center (1930–1939)

NYC. Designed by consortium "Associated Architects" coordinated by Raymond Hood. Coordinated set of buildings with civic purpose; RCA Building at center; sunken plaza with Prometheus statue, underground infrastructure, Radio City Music Hall. Privately sponsored public space.

Raymond Hood (1881–1934)

Beaux-Arts-trained architect; won 1922 Chicago Tribune Tower competition. Designed American Radiator Building (1924), Daily News Building (1929), and coordinated Rockefeller Center. Moved toward functionalism over career.

Chicago Tribune Tower Competition (1922)

Famous competition for "the most beautiful skyscraper." Winner: Hood and Howells (Neo-Gothic). Runner-up: Eliel Saarinen (step-back massing, more influential on modernism).

Hugh Ferriss (1889–1962)

Draftsman who visualized Hood's and others' skyscraper designs. Created sublime visions of NYC's zoning-driven ziggurat towers; published Metropolis of Tomorrow.

PSFS Building, Philadelphia (1931)

By George Howe and William Lescaze. Landmark of early functionalist skyscraper: exposed piers, flat top, streamlined granite base, escalators, one of first air-conditioning systems.

Taylorism

Scientific management system by Frederick Winslow Taylor; standardized factory piecework, timed workers' movements to eliminate waste. Applied to industrial production and later to architecture.

Fordism

Henry Ford's assembly-line system of mass production (conveyor belt, single task per worker). Enabled mass production of the Model T; democratized the automobile. Also represents a model of industrial capitalism.

Albert Kahn (1869–1942)

Ford's architect; designed Highland Park Ford Factory (1908–1910) and River Rouge plants. Designed 2,000+ US factories. Patented the Kahn System of Reinforced Concrete. Designed in Beaux-Arts for offices, functional for factories.

Model T

Ford's standardized automobile; reduced cost by 50% via mass production. By 1920 accounted for over half of world auto production. Ford's insistence on it past its time led to a sales collapse.

Sloanism

Alfred Sloan (GM) strategy: styling, variety, and marketing (colors, "research and development") as alternatives to Ford's single-model standardization. Introduced the idea of planned obsolescence.

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

US government agency (1930s New Deal); built dams for hydroelectric power, flood control, rural planning. Architect Roland Wank designed Norris Dam (1933) with rusticated concrete — precursor to Brutalism.

Broadacre City

Frank Lloyd Wright's vision of decentralized America: every citizen gets an acre, cities dissolve into a network of freeways. Exhibited 1935 at Rockefeller Center. Anti-urban, individualist philosophy.

Frank Lloyd Wright — Usonian Houses

Affordable, prefabricated-assembly houses for middle-class Americans. First Jacobs House (1936, Madison WI), cost $5,500. L-shaped plan, brick core with hearth, radiant floor heating, clerestories, board-and-batten walls. Named for "Usonia" = United States of North America.

Fallingwater (1936)

Bear Run, PA. Villa for Edgar Kaufmann. Cantilevered reinforced concrete terraces over a waterfall; hearth on live rock; "architectural promenade." Wright's most famous work; integrates building with landscape.

Taliesin Fellowship (1932)

Wright's cooperative educational atelier at his Wisconsin farm. Students collaborated on his architectural and agricultural projects. Winter studio: Taliesin West (1937), Scottsdale AZ, built of boulders and originally canvas-roofed.

Johnson Wax Building, Racine WI (1936–1939)

Wright. Windowless hall (like Larkin Building); hollow "dendriform" (tree-like) columns inspired by cactus; glass-tube Pyrex skylights. Research Tower added 1944: cantilevered floors like tree branches, services in central shaft.

Dendriform Columns

Wright's invention for Johnson Wax Building; mushroom-shaped hollow columns widening from 9-inch base to lily pad disk ceiling. Structural and aesthetic, inspired by cactus.

Rudolph Schindler (1887–1953)

Viennese émigré, worked for Wright. Lovell Beach House, Newport Beach (1926): reinforced concrete frame of five vertical planes, cantilevered balconies, ground floor open.

Richard Neutra (1892–1970)

Viennese émigré. Lovell Health House, LA (1927): steel frame assembled in 40 hours, gunnite walls, prefabricated components. Machine-made minimalism.

Radburn Plan (1929)

Experimental suburb, NJ. Planned by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright for the Regional Planning Association. Superblocks with cul-de-sacs; houses face interior park, not street; pedestrian paths under car roads.

GM Futurama (1939 World's Fair)

Designed by Norman Bel Geddes. Immersive exhibition predicting 1960s America dominated by 14-lane freeways, aerial walkways, and sprawl. Glorified the automobile city. Assembly-line visitor experience.

Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, 1887–1965)

Most influential modernist architect of the 20th century. Swiss-born, worked in Paris. Key texts: Toward an Architecture (1923). Key concepts: Dom-ino system, Five Points, Purism, Radiant City, Unité d'Habitation.

Dom-ino System (1914)

Le Corbusier's patent for reinforced concrete construction: grid of columns supporting horizontal slabs, columns recessed from wall planes. Freed the plan, facade, and ground floor.

Five Points of a New Architecture (1926)

Le Corbusier's design manifesto: (1) pilotis (columns freeing ground), (2) free plan, (3) free facade, (4) horizontal strip windows, (5) rooftop garden. Antithesis of traditional masonry construction.

Pilotis

Slender structural columns that raise a building off the ground, freeing the ground plane. Key element of Le Corbusier's Five Points; used in Villa Savoye, Unité d'Habitation.

Villa Savoye, Poissy (1928–1931)

Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. The purest expression of the Five Points: white box on pilotis, strip windows, rooftop terrace, architectural promenade of ramps. Technically a failure (leaky, unheatable); aesthetically revolutionary.

Architectural Promenade

Le Corbusier's concept of movement through a building on ramps, creating constantly changing oblique vistas; experienced most fully at Villa Savoye.

Purism

Art/design movement by Le Corbusier and Ozenfant; critique of Cubism's decoration; favored pure geometric forms. Published in L'Esprit Nouveau (1920–1925).

Esprit Nouveau Pavilion (1925)

Le Corbusier's full-scale mock-up at the Paris Decorative Arts Exposition. Modeled the Carthusian monk's cell: L-shaped unit with double-height living space and terrace. Demonstrated ideal apartment-villa.

Radiant City / "City for Three Million"

Le Corbusier's urban vision: cruciform skyscrapers in park settings, multi-level transportation plinth at center, high density with maximum open space. "Death of the street." Later called Radiant City (Ville Radieuse).

CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne)

Founded 1928 in solidarity with Le Corbusier. International organization promoting modernist urbanism: slab housing, tower-in-the-park. Widely diffused Le Corbusier's ideas during postwar reconstruction.

Unité d'Habitation, Marseille (1947–1952)

Le Corbusier. Housing ~1,600 people; corridors only on alternate floors (cross-section units); built-in furniture; raw concrete (brut béton); rooftop playground/pool. Prototype for postwar housing.

Brutalism

Term derived from béton brut (raw concrete); associated with Le Corbusier's Unité and TVA dams. Buildings that expose raw concrete with formwork marks as intentional aesthetic. Popularized from 1950s onward.

Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp (1954)

Le Corbusier. Pilgrimage church; massive curved concrete roof, irregular deep-set windows, rough walls. Departure from machine-age aesthetics toward primitive/organic modernism.

Constructivism (Russia)

Post-revolution Soviet avant-garde art and architecture movement; industrial materials in dynamic, interpenetrating compositions. Founded by Vladimir Tatlin. Inspired by Suprematism.

Vladimir Tatlin (1885–1953)

Founder of Constructivism. Monument to the Third International (1920): scale model of open iron tower taller than the Eiffel Tower, coiling two spirals around a tilted mast, containing rotating geometric volumes (cube, prism, cylinder).

Vkhutemas

Soviet state design school in Moscow, founded 1920. Equivalent to the Bauhaus; taught Constructivism. Included influential teachers Lyubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova.

El Lissitzky (1890–1941)

Soviet graphic artist and architect; spread Constructivist ideas to Western Europe through exhibitions. Wolkenbiigel (Cloud Hanger, 1923, with Mart Stam): U-shaped loft office cantilevered over four-story shafts; anti-capitalist urbanism.

Konstantin Melnikov (1890–1974)

Most prolific Russian avant-garde architect. Soviet Pavilion at 1925 Paris Art Deco exhibition. Six workers' clubhouses in Moscow (incl. Rusakov Club). Own house (1927): two interlocking cylinders, hexagonal windows, nonbearing interior partitions.

Narkomfin Housing Block (1928)

By Moisei Ginzburg. "Social condenser": units without kitchens, collective laundry/childcare. Influenced by Le Corbusier's five points; corridors on alternate floors. Model for Soviet collectivist housing.

Disurbanism / Linear City

Soviet urban theory by Nikolai Milyutin: city spread in linear bands along rail lines — industry, greenbelt, residences, park. Applied to Magnitogorsk (1930). Echoes Ford's assembly line applied to urban life.

Socialist Realism

Stalin-era Soviet architectural style from early 1930s onward: classical decoration, academic styles, grandiose scale. Replaced Constructivist avant-garde; exemplified by Palace of the Soviets competition winner (Boris Iofan).

Walter Gropius (1883–1969)

First director of the Bauhaus; proposed it as a "cathedral of the future." Bauhaus building in Dessau (1926): glass curtain wall workshop wing, steel frame, flat roofs; manifesto of the school's aesthetic.

Bauhaus

German state design school founded 1919 in Weimar by Walter Gropius. Most influential matrix of modernist design. Moved to Dessau (1926), then Berlin. Closed by Nazis (1933). Combined fine arts, crafts, and architecture.

Bauhaus Building, Dessau (1926)

Gropius. Workshop wing with glass curtain wall; asymmetrical pinwheel plan; flat roofs; bridge connecting to vocational school. Embodied Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity).

New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit)

Late-1920s shift in German modernism toward utilitarian functionalism; rejected Expressionism and individualism; focused on mass housing and standardization. Precursor to "International Style."

International Style

Term coined by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson (MoMA, 1932) to describe global modernism: flat roofs, open plans, strip windows, white surfaces, steel/glass/concrete. Standardization with little avant-garde pretense.

Mies van der Rohe (Ludwig Mies, 1886–1969)

German modernist, director of Bauhaus (1930–33). Famous for "less is more" and rigorous geometry. Key works: Barcelona Pavilion (1929), Tugendhat House (1930), Farnsworth House, Lake Shore Drive apartments.

Barcelona Pavilion (1929)

Mies. German Pavilion at 1929 International Exposition. Open flowing plan; travertine, marble, water, chrome-plated columns; no program except demonstration of space and material. Landmark of modern architecture; demolished 1930, reconstructed 1986.

"Less is More" / Mies's Aesthetic

Principle of maximum spatial refinement with minimal structural/decorative elements. Achieved through precise proportioning, luxurious materials, and open universal plans.

Crystal Chain (1919)

Exchange of utopian letters among German Expressionist architects including Bruno Taut, Gropius, and Hans Scharoun. Theorized dissolution of cities and spiritual communities.

Expressionism (Architecture)

German post-WWI movement using organic, dynamic forms to convey emotion. Key works: Einstein Tower (Mendelsohn), early Mies glass skyscraper proposals, Bruno Taut's Stadtkrone drawings.

Stadtkrone

Literal "city crown." Bruno Taut's vision of a glass spiritual center for socialist communities. Expressionist ideal of a visionary monument at the heart of a collective urban order.

Einstein Tower, Potsdam (1919–1921)

By Erich Mendelsohn. Astronomical observatory for Albert Einstein. Organic flowing shapes; appeared concrete but mostly brick with plaster. Key Expressionist building.

Weissenhof Siedlung, Stuttgart (1927)

Housing exhibition organized by Mies for the Werkbund; featured Le Corbusier, Gropius, Oud, and others. Showcase of International Style modernism. Attacked by Nazis as an "Arab village."

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931)

Dutch de Stijl theorist whose visit to the Bauhaus shifted its curriculum from Expressionism toward constructive, rational principles.

De Stijl

Dutch movement in art and architecture (Mondrian, van Doesburg, Rietveld); primary colors and right-angle geometries; universal abstract language. Influenced Bauhaus and International Style.

Gerrit Rietveld

De Stijl architect; Schröder House, Utrecht (1924): open plan, sliding partitions, primary colors, interpenetrating planes — three-dimensional realization of Mondrian's paintings.

Italian Rationalism

Italian modernist architecture of Fascist era; flat roofs, banded windows, smooth planes, geometric clarity. Represented a compromise between modernism and the regime's desire for an imperial image.

EUR (Esposizione Universale Roma, 1942)

World Exposition planned for Rome's 1942; Piacentini's master plan. Evolved from rationalist glass/steel to travertine-clad Novecento classicism. "Square Colosseum" (Palace of Italian Civilization): six levels of crisply etched arches encasing a glass/steel cube.

Sabaudia (1932–1934)

Fascist new town near Rome's coast. Rationalist architecture (flat roofs, banded windows), but Garden City layout. One of 11 new towns sponsored by Mussolini.

Novecento Style

Italian architectural style blending modernist simplicity with classicizing elements (columns, arches); associated with Fascism's later imperial phase.

Albert Speer (1905–1981)

Hitler's state architect; designed Nuremberg rally grounds (Zeppelinfeld) and planned monumental new Berlin (Germania). Used colossal classical forms as propaganda.

Heimatstil

"Homeland style"; vernacular pitched-roof German architecture promoted by Nazi regime as racially pure alternative to modernism. Rural settlements in this style were part of Nazi cultural policy.

Nazi Rejection of Modernism

Nazis condemned modernist flat roofs as "Oriental" and "nomadic," called functionalism "cultural Bolshevism." Closed the Bauhaus (1933). Promoted classicism and Heimatstil instead.

Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940)

Swedish architect; Stockholm Public Library (1924–1928): stark cylinder above a cube, combining classical models with abstract geometry. Influenced Nordic Classicism and appealed (unintentionally) to totalitarian taste for monumental simplicity.

Werner March — Olympia Stadium, Berlin (1936)

Stadium for 1936 Berlin Olympics; modernist construction encrusted with Nazi insignia. Shows how the regime used both modern technique and classical symbolism.

Socialist Realism (Soviet Architecture)

Official Soviet architectural doctrine under Stalin: academic classicism, grandiose scale, historicist decoration. Stalin's vysotki (seven "Stalin skyscrapers") in Moscow, 1940s–50s. Exported to East Bloc (Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw; Stalinallee, East Berlin).

Stalinallee (Karl-Marx-Allee), East Berlin (1951–1956)

Grand 90-meter-wide boulevard lined with eight-story housing blocks in Socialist Realist style; classical arcades, tempiettos. Designed by Henselmann and Hartmann. Completed 1961 with prefab slabs (Plattenbau).