Radiant City Plan Study Material

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering the Radiant City Plan architectural and urbanist project by Le Corbusier.

Radiant City Plan

• Architect: Le Corbusier

• Date: 1933–35

• Style: Modernism / Urbanism

Form:

• towers in open green space

• strict geometric layout

Function:

• efficient, rational city

Historical Context:

• response to industrial overcrowding

Brasília Plan

• Planner: Lúcio Costa

• Date: 1957

• Style: Modernist Urbanism

Form:

• airplane/axis shape

• superblocks

Function:

• planned capital city

Historical Context:

• national identity + modern progress

Seagram Building

• Architect: Mies van der Rohe

• Date: 1954–58

• Style: International Style

  • Form:

• strict grid

• glass curtain wall

Function:

• corporate office tower

Historical Context:

• rise of corporate modernism

Unité d’Habitation

• Architect: Le Corbusier

• Date: 1946–52

• Style: Modernism → Proto-Brutalism

Form:

• massive block

• repetitive units

Function:

• mixed-use housing

Historical Context:

• postwar housing shortage

Guggenheim Museum

Back:

• Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright

• Date: 1948–59

• Style: Organic Modernism

Form:

• spiral geometry

Function:

• continuous museum circulation

Historical Context:

• alternative to rigid modernism

Hunstanton School

• Architects: Alison and Peter Smithson

• Date: 1949–54

• Style: New Brutalism

Form:

• exposed steel frame

Function:

• school

Historical Context:

• reaction to polished modernism

Yale Art Gallery

• Architect: Louis Kahn

• Date: 1951–53

• Style: New Brutalism / Early Kahn

Form:

• geometric ceiling

Function:

• museum

Historical Context:

• structure as expression

Yale A&A Building

• Architect: Paul Rudolph

• Date: 1958–63

• Style: Brutalism

Form:

• rough concrete

• complex sections

Function:

• architecture school

Historical Context:

• peak Brutalism

Robin Hood Gardens

• Architects: Alison and Peter Smithson

• Date: 1966–72

• Style: Brutalism

Form:

• long slabs + balconies

Function:

• social housing

Historical Context:

• welfare-state housing

UIC Campus

• Architect: Walter Netsch

• Date: 1963–68

• Style: Brutalism

Form:

• repetitive concrete modules

Function:

• university campus

Historical Context:

• urban renewal

Pruitt-Igoe

• Architect: Minoru Yamasaki

• Date: 1954

• Style: Modernist Housing

Form:

• repetitive towers

Function:

• public housing

Historical Context:

• failure → symbol of modernism collapse

Vanna Venturi House

• Architect: Robert Venturi

• Date: 1961–64

• Style: Postmodernism

Form:

• broken symmetry

• historical references

Function:

• house

Historical Context:

• reaction to modernism