Modern Architecture Final

Unité d'Habitation Le Corbusier Marseilles, France 1947-53

• Built as response to France's postwar housing crisis. Goal to create dense, mass-produced housing that still provided adequate light and air

• first skip-stop housing type.

• Early example of béton brut (became brustalism when mistranslated into english)

• raw concrete that left textures from the board forms on the final product.

• Contained some of Corbusier's principals on modern architecture (raised on columns, roof garden/terrace)

Notre-dame du Haut Le Corbusier Ronchamp, France 1950-54

• New concrete expressionism through curvilinear forms.

• The heavy sculptural concrete roof droops down inside, yet is held up by thin columns allowing for an open clerestory - plays with the idea of structure.

Convent La Tourette

Le Corbusier

near Lyons, France 1953

• Monastery designed for the Dominican order to reflect commitment to poverty and simplicity

• Program for silent convent - ring of individual circular cells with walkways

• Expressed on the exterior through beton brut.

• Entire building is lifted on pilotis with a central courtyard, bringing light and air into the convent.

Hunstanton School Alison and Peter Smithson Norfolk, England 1949-54

• Early form of British New Brutalism -  Focus on material honesty, structural clarity overall legibility, the building is made of what it looks like

• Language of black steel frame with white brick infill.

• Highly photogenic and there are lots of photos from the construction process, circulated to spread the New Brutalism movement.

Golden Lane Project Alison and Peter Smithson 1952

• Search for a way to bring nature into the city while preserving density, against Corbusier's radiant city ideals.

• Celebrates urban life through streets in the sky, showing people as the decoration of cities through new collage techniques.

• use of raw concrete and bold geometric forms is a defining characteristic of the Brutalist style

• Designed to provide high-quality, affordable housing for the working-class residents of London

Robin Hood Garden Alison and Peter Smithson East London 1969-72

• Constructed idea of the Golden Lane Project, bringing "streets in the sky" to London, preserving urban density.

• London weather made streets see limited use and building demolished in 2017.

• Debate whether to preserve or not, ultimately decided building did nothing new/first so didn't warrant preservation.

Ham Common James Stirling Richmond, England 1955-58

• Response to Le Corbusier's Maison Jaoul, seeking a way to refine on the structural ideas of the building. Plain rectangular forms bring focus to structure and materiality, different from Corbusier’s portrayal of modernism

• Mortar carved out to express bricks more clearly, gap between concrete

• strict kit of window types that express interior program on structure

• applied concrete panels on walls express use of concrete in foundation (50/50 material split).

Leicester Engineering Building James Stirling Leicester University, England 1959-63

• Celebrated for "reinventing modernism." Uses red brick and tile as reference to brick university buildings; bold use of color

• Brutalist aesthetic

• Exterior forms express interior programs: sloped cantilevered lecture halls, glass curtain wall offices and labratory spaces, etc.

Florey Building James Stirling Oxford, England 1966-71

• Push to modernize Oxford, breaking away from vernacular and banal modernism.

• Incorporates traditional courtyard and tower forms into a new clamshell form.

• One tower houses dorms with the other housing classrooms and dining hall in between, circulation passes from one side to the other throughout the day

• made of red brick, with blue, yellow, and green accents that add a playful and vibrant touch to the overall design.

Plug-in City

Archigram

1964

• Highly avant-garde idea for modular city design, where elements are slotted into a central grid system.

  • prefabricated modules that could be easily transported and reconfigured, allowing for continuous change and evolution

• conceived as a radical vision for a futuristic, mobile, and adaptable urban environment.

• Expressed through pop art style, looking to bring fun and play back into representation - not necessarily interested in tackling larger societal issues.

Richards Medical Research Laboratories Louis Kahn Philadelphia, PA 1957-65

• Kahn distanced himself from rationalism and functionalism - tried to evoke history through the expression of universal ideas as opposed to specific characteristics

  • tower typology inspired by medieval Italian towers

• Central “served” space surrounded by serving spaces on tall and thin cores.

• Expressed concrete frame with a brick infill. Concrete slabs get thinner at corners to express decreased loads they need to carry.

Jonas Salk Institute for Biological Studies Louis Kahn La Jolla, CA 1959-65

• Monumental feel created by strong axiality/line of symmetry and extensive use of heavy concrete and stone.

• Strong geometric order, frames view to ocean

• Wood paneling returns some warmth to building on exterior of office spaces.

• Layering of open lab spaces with thickened ceilings to support lab equipment and maintenance.

Center for British Art Louis Kahn New Haven, CT 1969-70

• Uses concrete frame grid as underlying order for the building with metal infill on exterior and wood infill on interior (large contrast between interior and exterior).

  • Grid system ideal for galleries, allowing larger and smaller spaces as needed.

  • Skylighting system and atrium produces diffused light for exhibits

Exeter School Library Louis Kahn Exeter, NH 1965-72

• Brick frame with wood infill, reference to brickwork common in Exeter.

• Interior atrium entirely different, concrete frame with circular openings. Inside light and airy while exterior solid and monolithic.

• Windows are trapezoidal and widen at each level - causes entasis of columns

National Assembly Building Louis Kahn Dhaka, Bangladesh 1962-75

• Parliament building surrounded by administrative buildings - extremely monumental

• Concrete with simple geometric cutouts.

  • Simple geometry removes cultural context, making it understandable and meaningful for everyone.

• Mosque slightly angled to face Mecca

• Use of water as a design element used for cooling and reflection

Levittown William J. Levitt Long Island, NY 1946-51

• Suburb of easy to build, mass produced housing built around network of streets, creating reliance on cars.

  • Birth of the typical American suburb

• Houses built out of a prefabricated kit of materials

• Heavily subsidized by US gov, supported white flight from cities post-war. Mortgages limited to only white families.

Eames House Charles and Ray Eames Santa Monica, CA 1945-49

• Goal of maximizing volume with minimal material use, limited to only off-the-shelf parts. Uses black steel frame with variety of infill materials and moments of bright color.

• Linear plan composed of two main volumes - living and studio space separated by courtyard

• Connection to surrounding nature was important

Case Study House 22 Pierre Koenig Los Angeles, CA 1959-60

• Extreme cantilever off small, steep site in LA.

• Large windows emphasize view overlooking city.

• Massive sheets of glass used - visual connection to carport

Farnsworth House Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Plano, IL 1950

• Built for Edith Farnsworth. House is raised on pilotis over floodplains and embodies the forms of modern architecture.

• Heavily criticized by Edith Farnsworth for Mies' overbearing control and poor construction, leading to undesirable living conditions.

• Use of free plan with central core, I beams for structural support

Glass House Philip Johnson New Canaan, CT 1949-50

• Takes inspiration from the Farnsworth house, although its outer frame is black and feels more grounded

• Columns are not offset and used as mullions

• Works in conjunction with solid brick house on the property for primary living space, juxtaposes his public life with his attempt to hide his identity as a gay man

Pruitt-Igoe Housing Minoru Yamasaki St Louis, MO 1954, demolished 1972

• Inspired by Corbusier’s “towers in the park” style of urban planning

• Mass produced housing complex creating density with open green spaces in between.

• Faced lots of maintenance and social issues including segregation, lack of investment and crime.

• Demolition in 1972 referred to as the death of modern architecture.

Central Artery (I-93) Boston, MA construction began 1950s

• Highway construction that cut straight into center of Boston.

• Highly subsidized by federal government. Demolished lots of housing and displaced many citizens, many who were minorities.

• Eventually moved underground with the Big Dig project, biggest infrastructure project in the US

West End urban renewal Boston, MA late 1950s

• Framed as removing blighted areas from the city - the West End was demolished, destroying 1/3 of the original city.

• Resulted in the destruction and displacement of low income and minority communities.

• Included Gov’t center development

Government Center Development Boston, MA began late 1950s

• Cleared portions of old neighborhoods of central Boston.

• Framed as repairing and revitalizing center of Boston by bringing government and commercial buildings.

• Created large plaza to support civic engagement, though achieved through forced displacement.

Lincoln Center Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz with Philip Johnson New York City, NY 1961-65

• Cleared housing to create high cultural center for New York City.

• Doesn't attempt to reconcile displacement with public spaces, creates closed upper class space unwelcoming to those of lower incomes.

• Still an important cultural center for the city.

Cross-Manhattan Arterial Proposal Robert Moses New York City, NY 1955

• Would cut through multiple neighborhoods of Manhattan, many minority and low income.

• Designed to support bringing people between city and suburbs.

• Successfully prevented by grassroots social movement, headed by Jane Jacobs and others.

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Houses and Studios Juan O'Gorman México City, México 1932

• Based on ideas of European modernism, but also incorporates features that are intrinsically Mexican

  • Uses lots of color, hand-crafted materials from around the area, and cacti in the landscaping.

• Semi-detached houses were a display of radical architecture but also expresses their frayed social relationship

Cecil O'Gorman House Juan O'Gorman México City, México 1929

• Heavily influenced by Le Corbusier's 5 points (glass curtain wall studio, lifted on pilotis, free plan, free facade, flat roof).

• Simple, half spiral staircase

• All aspects of modernism has Mexican influence attached to them: bright, bold colors, hand-crafted materials, use of cacti in landscaping.

Houses at 10 and 12 Avenida de las Fuentes Luis Barragán and Max Cetto Jardines del Pedregal, México 1949-50

• Previously untouched land developed into housing complex.

• Modern ideas evident in use of clean, cubic forms

• Integrates buildings directly into the landscape, a way to adapt international modernisms into the Mexican context.

  • site specific condition of lava rock incorporated into the design - sets it apart from traditional modernism

Ministry of Education and Health Oscar Niemeyer, Lúcio Costa, Robert Burle Marx, and others Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 1937-43

• Getulio Vargas comes to power, MES implemented as part of desire to modernize

• Le Corbusier invited for initial design, but was not included in final design.

• Built on a cleared hill, using the land as infill for the building.

• Uniquely situated to context: cooling/sun shading: uses traditional Portuguese tiles, brise-soleil and N-S orientation, gardens to cool off exterior and show off native fora.

Plan Piloto Lúcio Costa Brasília, Brazil 1957

• Plan for new capital, intended to bring population inland from coastal cities.

• Image for a new and modernizing Brazil: plan looks like a plane, organized around central road networks.

• Located between a gradient in population density - the coast was heavily populated than the interior

• Seen as break from colonial past

Alvorada Palace Oscar Niemeyer Brasília, Brazil 1957-58

• First building of Plan Piloto, built on Eastern edge as symbol of dawn of new era for Brazil.

• Plays with idea of structure by flipping thinness of columns to showcase new technology - creates a dynamic arcade with dramatic points supporting roof

• Entirely glazed free plan building set back from colonnade to provide sun shading.

• Reflective pool

National Congress Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa Brasília, Brazil 1958-60

• Bowls mirror each other with flipped forms to show relationship of political programs (senate and chamber rooms)

• Water creates reflections

Superblocks/Superquadras Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer Brasília, Brazil 1956-59

• High density mixed-use blocks with housing, commercial, schools, and other amenities.

• Lined the North and South winds of Plan Piloto along the central highway axis.

• Sought to create a new pattern of social interaction and improve relationships between various social classes by mitigating differences in living standards

Area Descriptions for Home Owners' Loan Corporation Security Map of Greater Boston 1938

• Redlining map of Boston, defined by loan risk assessments. Areas of high risk correlated predominantly to black and minority neighborhoods.

• These maps were later used for urban renewal assessments in the postwar period and informed demolition decisions for highways

Master Highway Plan for the Boston Metropolitan Area 1948

• Marked areas for new highways going in and out of Boston, as well as multiple rings radiating out from the center.

• Created in response to the rapid growth of the Boston metropolitan area

• Proposed Massachusetts Turnpike, the Central Artery, and the Inner Belt Expressway

Proposed path of Inner Belt and the Southwest Expressway Boston Redevelopment Authority, Family Relocation Department 1967

• Inner Belt was intended to be a six-lane highway that would connect the various highways around Boston and provide a direct route through the city. The proposed path would have cut through several red-lined neighborhoods, including the South End, Roxbury, and Jamaica Plain.

• Framed as success story because the highways were never built, but lots of buildings were still demolished in preparation for the Southwest Expressway (later becomes the Southwest Corridor).

Perspective sketches of proposed highway development Date unknown, pre-1968

• Showed perspective views of the highway developments placed into the neighborhoods of Boston.

Anti-highway sign along Southwest Corridor embankment 1969

• Showcased grassroots movement pushing back against highway development.

• One of the people painting it recalled being caught by cops, but cops turned away and let them complete it because they were also against highway development - shows opposition to highway construction.

• Part of a larger campaign to raise awareness about the negative impacts of highways on urban communities, including increased traffic congestion, air pollution, and displacement of residents and businesses

Urban Design Concept Plan Stull and Associates 1978

• Redevelopment plan for demolished housing for the proposed path of the Southwest expressway.

• Traveled through multiple different neighborhoods with a variety of development levels, seen in different levels of park and transit space throughout the plan.

• Created a pedestrian friendly environment, promoted mixed-use development, encouraged public transportation and preserved historic buildings and neighborhoods

Ruggles Station Stull Associates Boston, MA Drawings 1979, completed 1987

• Inter modal transit hub linking neighborhoods across the rail tracks, as well as those traveling in and out by train.

• High arches and well-lit spaces as a way to evoke grand feeling of traditional train stations, giving a celebratory space to underrepresented communities.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum Kenzo Tange Hiroshima, Japan 1955

• Built on site of nuclear bomb drop, creating a post WW-II symbol of nationalism, modernism, and peace.

• Rigid master plan with set of museums and memorials.

• Parabaloid concrete “atomic dome” references traditional Haniwa tomb form.

• Central buildings use modern beton brut, but use the form of traditional Japanese wooden construction and joinery

Olympic Gymnasium Kenzo Tange Tokyo, Japan 1961-64

• Opportunity for Japan to show its postwar development in technology and design.

• Uses parabaloid form and hanging cables in a catenary curve to create large free plan interior

• Exterior forms are highly monumental and use natural forms to remove any direct cultural references.

Tokyo Bay Project Kenzo Tange 1960

• Early beginnings of Metabolism Movement, looking to natural systems for planning urban growth

  • Proposed viewing cities as organic shapes as opposed to singular static elements - critique of western concept of the city

  • Preferred linear over radial planning - analogy of human development from a radial cellular body into a large linear form with arms and legs

• Large megastructure grid that can be added to and removed from as needed.

  • Embraced mobility, adaptability, change and growth

Yamanashi Press and Radio Center Kenzo Tange Kofu, Japan 1961-67

• Metabolism-like, but not explicitly part of movement.

• Stair cores embedded in towers with blocks “clipped” onto the side

• Building spaces infilled between cores. Media forms change depending on height, with printing on bottom and radio on top.

Clusters in the Air Arata Isozaki 1962

• Unbuilt metabolist buildings with adaptable, tree-like structure

• pods can be added or subtracted

Nakagin Capsule Tower Kisho Kurokawa Tokyo, Japan 1971

• Idea for new living typology as Tokyo grows and develops

• Steel and concrete structural tower with capsules “plugged in” to the tower

• People would own their units and be able to move between towers, though only one core ever built.

• Champions the ideal of life (metamorphosis) as opposed to the ideal of the machine

Koshino House Tadao Ando Hyogo, Japan 1979-81

• Retreat away from city, integrated into nature and landscape

• Japanese minimalism, refined and polished concrete

• Search for design devoid of symbolism, explores interplay of light and shadow, form and geometry

Library entrance at the University College

Fry and Drew

Ibadan, Nigeria 1955

• International Style adapted to Tropics.

• Open screen applied to exterior to increase ventilation and interior shading

• Argues for use of concrete as way to combat termites

• First shell concrete structure built in Nigeria.

• Brise solei facade

OAU Faculty of Humanities Arieh Sharon Ile-Ife, Nigeria 1962

• Upside-down pyramid form where each cantilever provides sun shading and protection from monsoon rains to floor below.

• Horizontal forms emphasized by deeply recessed windows and black/white color split.

• Found climactic responses in form without need for applied screens or other ornament.

• Sharon was an Israeli architect who designed OAU buildings as part of Israel’s “technical assistance program”

OAU Assembly Hall Arieh Sharon Ile-Ife, Nigeria 1970-76

• Freeform and chaotic, departing from simple modern forms.

• Theater for arts, performances, ceremonies which is expressed with exterior murals referencing traditional Yoruba art.

• Sharon was an Israeli architect who designed OAU buildings as part of Israel’s “technical assistance program”

Dominican Monastery Demas Nwoko Ibadan, Nigeria 1966-70

• Zaria Art Society rejected traditional art education and searched for new forms that are rooted in African tradition and borrow from international style, rather than reverse.

• Central circular building form contained with moat has open walls allowing for ventilation and sun shading.

• Western crosses and steeple added to traditional forms.

Smiling Lion Apartment Building Amancio "Pancho" Guedes Lourenço Marques (now Maputo), Mozambique 1956-58

• Developed from child's drawings. Take on postmodern language of traditional building forms that reincorporate vernacular and historical references.

• Entrance to the building is marked by a large sculptural relief of a smiling lion

• The apartments themselves are arranged around a central courtyard, which provides natural light and ventilation to the building's interior spaces

Vanna Venturi House Robert Venturi Chestnut Hill, PA 1959-64

• Early postmodern building that subverts ideas of what a house should look like.

• Front facade uses traditional gable and chimney form, but houses rooms and other functions into these spaces rather than just a roof and chimney. Uses both arch and lintel over opening, subverting idea of structure.

• Symmetrical form broken by asymmetrical windows, yet all constructed from same prefabricated window unit.

• Plans crash hearth and stair together, two common and traditional elements to houses. Criticized for thinness of both facade and ideas.

Franklin Court

Venturi and Rauch Philadelphia, PA 1976

• Attempt to grapple with historical site of Benjamin Franklin's house and workshop.

• Lacked documentation of original house, so do they rebuild or just place a marker? Chose to outline traditional house shape, suggesting placement and scale but allowing visitors to fill in gaps themselves.

• Abstracted, diagrammatic retelling of history rather than directly referencing it

AT&T Building Philip Johnson New York City, NY 1979

• Often referenced as "first monument of post modernism."

• Same structural skeleton as modern glass skyscrapers, but with traditional New York stone cladding?

• References classical motifs: tripartite division, broken pediment, high arches in portico.

• Highly controversial for subversion of international style.

Portland Building Michael Graves Portland, OR 1980-83

• Another early example of post modern architecture.

• Incorporates multiple layers of ornament and historical motifs: fluted classical columns, keystones, use of color, miniature acropolis on roof, front statue, ribbons along exterior sides.

• Praised for re embracing architecture as playful and public art, criticized for poor construction and tackiness.

Piazza d'Italia Charles Moore New Orleans, LA 1975-79

• Over the top postmodern plaza.

• Ground made of topographical map of Italy centered around Sicily, made up column orders, uses Moore's face for fountains., all in an effort to bring classicism back to modern life.

• Criticized for being garish and disrespectful.

San Cataldo Cemetery Aldo Rossi Modena, Italy 1972

• Centered around deeper look into historical references and the idea of architectural typologies, forms and elements that transcend time and space.

• Colonnades surrounding central cuboid ossuary.

  • Simple shell without floor or roof, walls filled with regular square openings - references collective memory

Neue Staatsgalerie James Stirling and Michael Wilford Stuttgart, Germany 1977-84

• Expansions to Alte Staatgalerie that merges tradition with modernism through variety of historical references.

• Central rotunda reference to Schinkel's Altes Museum, though without dome as reference to postwar ruins.

• Uses traditional rusticated stone blocks mixed with painted metallic railings

• Pink limestone gives it a warm and inviting appearance; interior brightly colored in blue, red and green