AAH 120 Final Exam Review

Comprehensive review of the AAH 120 final exam topics, including key buildings, architects, dates and theoretical terms from modernism through postmodernism.

Who designed the Radiant City Plan ($1933-35$) and what was its core significance?

Le Corbusier; it conceptualized the functional city where housing, work, recreation, and transport are separated into superblocks of towers in open green space.

What is the significance of the Brasilia Plan / Plano Piloto ($1957-60$)?

Designed by Lucio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer, it features a cross-axis plan with a monumental axis and residential axis, using superblocks to organize housing as a modernist symbol.

Which building by Mies van der Rohe ($1954-58$) became a symbol of the Corporate International Style?

The Seagram Building, NYC; it features a glass/bronze tower on a plaza that relates to NYC zoning and creates a modern civic monument.

What characterizes the Unite d'Habitation ($1946-52$) in Marseilles?

Designed by Le Corbusier, this "vertical city" uses raw reinforced concrete ($beton\,brut$) and Modulor proportions to connect modernism to later Brutalism.

How does the Guggenheim Museum, NYC ($1948-59$) contrast with the Manhattan grid?

Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, its organic curved form and continuous spiral ramp use circulation as the main form, referencing the Ziggurat or Tower of Babel.

What are the key characteristics of the Hunstanton School ($1949-54$) by Alison + Peter Smithson?

It defines New Brutalism through exposed steel, brick, and glass; it emphasizes legible systems and what Banham called "je m'en foutisme."

How does Louis Kahn’s Yale University Art Gallery ($1951-53$) differ from the Hunstanton School?

It shows more material depth and spatial restraint, notably using a tetrahedral concrete ceiling to integrate structure and mechanical systems.

What is the architectural significance of Paul Rudolph’s Yale Art + Architecture Building ($1958-63$)?

It is a Brutalist icon known for its monumental textured concrete, complex geometric massing, and multi-level studio spaces.

What concept did Alison + Peter Smithson introduce at Robin Hood Gardens ($1966-72$)?

The "streets in the sky" concept for Brutalist housing, intended to facilitate neighbor interaction while using a central green mound to shield residents from noise.

What is "Field Theory" in the context of the UIC Campus ($1963-68$)?

A geometric ordering system developed by Walter Netsch (SOM) for campus buildings during an urban renewal project that impacted the Hull-House neighborhood.

According to the "Pruitt-Igoe myth" described by Bristol, why did the project really fail?

The failure was not due to modernist design alone, but also funding, policy, racism, lack of maintenance, and economic decline.

How does the Vanna Venturi House ($1961-64$) challenge modernist purity?

Designed by Robert Venturi, it uses "complexity and contradiction," a symbolic facade, and a split gable to advocate for "both-and" historical references over "less is more."

What is the CIAM (Athens Charter) planning doctrine?

It promotes the Functional City through rational planning: separating housing, work, recreation, and transport into towers in open space with light and air.

Define "New Monumentality" as proposed by Giedion.

The idea that postwar modernism should create public/civic meaning and monumentality rather than focusing solely on functional efficiency.

What is the difference between a "Duck" and a "Decorated Shed" in Postmodernism?

A Duck is a building where the form itself acts as a sign or symbol; a Decorated Shed is an ordinary box where signs or ornament are applied to communicate.

What are the three core principles of the International Style defined by Hitchcock and Johnson?

1. Architecture as volume rather than mass. 2. Regularity rather than symmetry. 3. Avoidance of applied ornament.

According to Jane Jacobs, what are the requirements for safe sidewalks?

Clear public/private boundaries, constant users, density, mixed uses, and "eyes on the street" for informal supervision.

Distinguish between New Brutalism and Brutalism.

New Brutalism emphasizes ethical legibility and material honesty; Brutalism refers to a broader postwar mode of monumental concrete massing and institutional scale.