Notes 1.1.docx

TEST THREE NOTES

• Peter Behrens and Deutscher Werkbund

• Holy roman empire

  • Bunch of small areas and different rules that made up an empire which made industrialization harder than say a large civilized country like France

  • Instead of industrialization you had rich elites and farmers

• The German Reich (1871-1918)

  • Germany is at an economic and political disadvantage

  • Political consolidation in 1871 gave a central government in berlin

    • Standardization of transportation and led to industrialization

    • Turned focus to modernizing and expanding army

    • Want to have an export economy

    • Delegate sent to England who was fascinated with arts and crafts movement

    • Wanted to implement the good qualities of the arts and crafts movement but use industrializations to make them

• Peter Behrens (1868-1940) and Deutscher Werkbund (1907)

  • Peter is a practicing architect

    • Built a settlement around the arts and crafts principles

    • Builds his own house with interesting vernacular architecture

      • Art noveau and vernacular, and interesting details

    • Joined the Werkbund and was a part of the AEG

      • AEG = electrical

      • Essentially rebranded them into a consistent graphic style

      • Created the logo and produced advertisements

      • Redesigned some of their products

      • Werkbund was about taking the necessary parts of products and making them decorative

    • AEG Turbine Factory, Berlin 1900

      • Tried to elevate the type of building by designing and arranging it in a way that it could resemble a historical building without adding decoration

      • Huge amounts of glass

      • Steel columns top to bottom

      • Gambrel (faceted round roof) roof pediment

      • “Temple to Industry”

      • Added artificial perspective with the large bricks (non-load bearing) to make it seem bigger than it actually was.

      • Represented a new culture for Germany

      • Used triple hinged arch in construction

• Rationalism (“Functionalism”)

  • Walter Gropius (1883-1969

    • Hired by Peter Behrens

    • First solo commission was for a shoe mold making factory

    • Applied what he learned from Behrens to this building

    • Use of the building is office space for the factory

    • Wanted ample natural light and ventilation

    • Lots of glazing

    • Banded brick on entrance (like AEG turbine factory)

    • Columns not on the corners to exaggerate the glass

    • Brick pilasters taper to give the verticality and size illusion

  • Walter Gropius

    • Werkbund Pavilion Cologne

      • Building to show off German mechanical equipment

      • Glazed stair towers at the corners are the most visually important

        • Lit at night. Glowed

• Expressionism

  • Bruno Taut

    • Glass pavilion

      • Building to show off the glass making

      • Cologne. Right next to Walter Gropius’s mechanical equipment building

      • Concrete ribs with glass panels inbetween

      • Round egg shape look

      • Interior has a complicated flow to the upper level

      • Glass tile, colorful, patterns

      • Electric colored lighting under the little waterfall

      • All about creating an emotional experience EXPRESSIONISM

  • Erich Mendelsohn (1887-1953)

    • Interested in the notion of movement

      • Lines that would create a sense of movement

    • Department stores

    • Favored buildings at corners so that you could turn on the road and see the effect on the other side

    • Einstein Observatory Potsdam (1920s)

      • Observatory for specific solar events

      • No right angles

      • Organic form with some repetitive elements

      • Very symmetrical plan

      • Light capturing tower in the center

      • Stairs are chiseled off to create a jagged effect

      • Dynamic forms

      • Built 80-90% of the building with brick and the rest was molded with stucco

• Weimar Constitution

  • After WW1- “Every German family is owed a House”

• Bauhaus (1919-1933)

  • School founded by Gropius and others to reform the education system

  • At first did not teach architecture, taught design, art, craft, weaving, etc

  • Only lasted 14 years

  • Based out of three different cities in those 14 years

  • Gropius is director for the first 6-7 years

  • Eventually did get into architecture

  • Many architecture schools still base the early learning exercises off of the Bauhaus 1^st year exercise. (Make 3d objects out of paper)

  • Developed their own typeface

  • Graphic design

  • Photography, stop motion

  • About color, abstraction, new creations, experimentation

  • Furniture design

  • Oscar Schlemmer

    • Director of the theater department

    • Drew his own version of the Vitruvian man “body lives outside of itself”

  • Gropius is responsible for the architectural side

    • They are in their second home at this time

    • New School Building

      • Rectilinear forms, use of industrial type glazing, flat roofs, color accents

    • Gropius’s response to Germanys’ city post WW1

      • German city pre ww1

        • The German cities were very industrial

        • They were not planned at all

        • Growing rapidly

      • His response

        • Planned neighborhood type of living

        • Row housing

Oriented and spaced according to light so that all buildings can get light without being shaded by another building

• Houses would have their own plumbing for each unit

• Walter Gropius Bauhaus Academy, Dessau (1920s)

  • Designed to house all activities of the school, workshops, offices, residential, cafeteria, and theatre

  • Pinwheel form

    • Experiential approach

  • Reduced materials to very simple materials, stucco and windows, (solid and void)

  • White stucco does not continue all the way to the ground.

    • Gives appearance of the building floating

  • Stairs were important for the social aspect of the school

    • Stair landing wide enough to stop and talk

  • Colorful interior

  • Interesting light fixtures throughout

    • The interesting design was all functional

• Mies Van Der Rohe (1886-1969)

  • Third and final director of the Bauhaus while in Berlin

  • Does some theoretical works

  • Designed theoretical tall clad skyscraper buildings

    • Form is the floorplan extruded all the way up

• Lilly Reich (1885-1947)

  • Worked with Mies Van Der Rohe

• Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart 1927

  • Free standing new neighborhood designed also in response to pre WW1 living conditions

  • Mies organizes the exhibition, sets the standards, and designs the largest building

    • Everything is supposed to be white, flat roof, examples of the latest technology

    • His building was an apartment block

  • Le Corbusier did two houses in this exhibition

• Barcelona Pavilion (with Lily Reich) Barcelona, Spain

  • An entry space to the Stuttgart Exhibition

  • Emphasis on horizontality

  • Textured stone

  • Space was not meant to be closed off

  • False perceptions were made about this due to the black and white photo and how the picture was taken above eye level

  • Floor to ceiling glass

  • Pools of water

  • Developed furniture for this project

  • Expensive modernism

• Le Corbusier (Charles-Edourad Jenneret (1887-1965)

  • Villa Fallet (La Chaux-de-Fonds) 1905-06

    • Arts and crafts

    • Local stone

    • Steep roof

    • Vernacular

  • Villa Farve-Jacot (Le Locle)

    • Steep site

    • Round foyer for stair hall

    • Large double volume living room behind stairs

    • Steep pitched roof

    • Stucco façade

    • Abstracted classical orders on columns

    • Interior has simple geometries

  • Villa Schwob 1916

    • Very unusual

    • Blank square of stucco on the exterior

    • Double height interior in the living space

    • White stucco interior

  • The lesson of Rome is the underlining simple geometry

  • Maison Dom-ino (1914)

    • Illustrates the idea of a basic structural system with columns and concrete slabs

    • Thinking about how he can eliminate load bearing walls

  • Towards an Architecture (book of his)

    • 1) search for type: non material essence, consisting of all necessary qualities for a class of thing (as known through studying examples)

    • 2) develop the type rationally

      • The perfect form comes from the increasing iterations

    • 3) search for universally valid results - “object type”

      • Purism style of painting

      • Object types have a basic relationship with perfect geometry

  • Citrohan House (1920-22)

    • Develops idea that house should be elevated above the ground

    • Thinks the houses should not be super large

    • Made different examples while “on the way to the ideal form”

  • Five points of Architecture: How to develop the architectural type rationally

    • 1) raised on “pilotis”

    • 2) open plan

    • 3) free façade

    • 4) ribbon window

    • 5) roof garden

  • Charlotte Perriand

    • Worked with Corbusier did furniture etc. what women were allowed to do

  • Villa Savoye

    • “purest” of all of his buildings

    • Implemented all of his 5 points

    • Was not meant to be approached by foot meant to be driven too

    • Rural environment

    • Geometry is very important

    • Colored the first floor green to try and blend in with the crass

    • Sink In the foyer is seen by him as the ideal object type and was not designed by him was made by factory (home depot sink)

    • Look of the roof deliberately evoked the look of a ship

• Importing Modernism and skyscrapers in America

  • Sullivan’s principles:

    • Exterior expression of functional zones

    • Expression of verticality

    • Ideal Form follows the function is a modern Arts and Crafts movement

• New York Zoning Codes 1916

  • Equitable building in lower Manhattan

    • Take the buildable area and basically just extrude it straight up

    • It was so large and intimidating that it scared people

  • Mandated setbacks

    • As the building rises the façade has to have a setback from the façade below (gives that step up look)

• Art Deco

  • Exposition des Arts Decortifs (Paris 1925)

  • Lots of color

  • Simple planar surfaces

  • Not a lot of ornament

  • Emphasis on curves movements and color

  • Grasped quickly on skyscrapers

• William Van Alen

  • Chrysler Building New York (1929-30)

  • Volume was adapted to the NY zoning codes

  • Abstracted form at the top of the building

  • Stainless steel crown on top

  • Repeated cellular approach to the floors

  • Some Sullivan ideas and some art deco ideas

• Competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower

  • Skyscraper designs by Europeans (generated by theory) VS. skyscraper designs by American Architects (non-theoretical aesthetic criteria, such as style or how the building meets the sky)

  • Walter Gropius’ Entry

    • Based on the notion of the structural frame

    • Rectilinear frame

    • Picturesquely asymmetrical

    • Chicago window

  • Bruno Taut’s Entry

    • Extruded form then tapers to the top

    • Colored lights

    • Crown at the top

    • Emphasis on the vertical grid

  • Adolf Loos’ Entry

    • Two parts with a straight forward base and a doric column extrusion up the top

  • Howells and Hood’s Gothic revival was chosen

    • Why gothic?

      • Emphasis on the verticality

      • Leading your eye up like gothic churches do

      • Gothic in the detail and ornament

    • Formula for the floor layout

    • “core” of the building had the circulation and vertical access (stairs, elevator, mechanical) was beginning to be made

    • Lots of structure within the core

    • Detailing on the exterior was very gothic

  • Woolworth building was the first gothic revival skyscraper built

    • Built in 1913 pre dated the zoning code but appreciated the slimmer tower look

    • Was a form of marketing and advertising by just being a large noticeable building

  • Tower of life in San Antonio is gothic revival with the verticality

• How modernism was brought to the USA

• 1- Modernism brought to the USA by the Chicago tribune competition

• 2- Modernism also brough to the USA by the show “International Modernism”

• 3- Many of the modernist move to the USA

  • 1932 exhibit at the museum of modern art, new York (organized by Philip Johnson and henry Russell Hitchcock): “International Modernism”

    • International Modernism in Europe:

      • Volume (not mass)

      • Regularity (not symmetry)

      • No historical detail

  • Howe and Lescaze

    • Philadelphia savings fund society, Philadelphia (1929-1932

      • Represents the real first true modern building

      • 3 parts, base, repeated floors, and what appears to be a vertical service core

      • Frist large scale advertising with name on top of building

      • Floor plan breaks the rule of having the service core in the center

      • One of the firs applications of escalators

• Famous European architects move to the USA around time of Hitler taking power

  • Mies landed in Chicago and was a teacher

    • Does new campus for IIT

      • Steel frame and very modernist structures

  • Gropius ends up at Harvard

  • Broyer established a practice

    • They come and teach modernism

• Late Le Corbusier

  • Modernist principles

  • Personal expression

  • Expression of material

  • Mainly known for his “purist” villas that follow his 5 points of architecture

  • Maisons Jaoul, Paris (designed 1937)

    • Materials easily recognizable on the outside

    • Green roof

    • Different expressions than his usual “purist” villas

    • Two town home Ish buildings on the same lot

    • Shallow vaults on the interior

    • Very earthy pallet

  • Modular man

    • Thinking of a more humanist approach to architecture

    • Proportions derived from the human man

  • Unite d’Habitation, Marseilles (1946-1952)

    • Multi family project

    • Cast in place concrete frame

    • Briezsole

      • Shading structure used to shade the interior from the summer sun but let the winter sun in

      • Reduced the amount of corridors

      • Very colorful

      • Cross ventilation

      • Double height living spaces

      • Intentionally rough form boarded concrete on the pilote base

      • Worked with auguste perrier

    • Becomes a model for social housing

  • Notre-Dame du Haut, Ronchamp (1955)

    • Does not have 5 points of church architecture

    • Fascinated with tent architecture

    • Form boarded concrete

    • Thick walls

    • Tall structure maybe representing a bell tower

    • White stucco

    • The entrance to the building is at the pinnacle of a hill

    • Irregularly placed windows

    • Preserved the slope of the hill which pulls you down toward the alter

  • Friary at La Tourette, Near Lyons (1953-1961)

    • Engraved into a hill

    • Enter at the middle of the building and can circulate around the whole thing and can go up or down a few floors

    • All board formed concrete

    • Square plan

    • Series of irregular shaped arched struts

• Late Frank Lloyd Wright (1911-1959)

  • Taliesin, Wisconsin

    • Bought a piece of land and developed it for his own home and other functions

    • Built on the brow of the hill not quite the peak

    • Architecture ought to harmonize with nature

    • Emphasis on views to the exterior

    • Arts and crafts total work of art on the interior, built in furniture.

  • Millard House, Los Angeles (1923): “Textile Block”

    • Rectilinear and blocky form with much less windows than his prairie style homes

    • Wants to make quality housing more available and affordable

    • Based on an idea of a repeated module

  • Broadacre City (beginning in 1932)

    • Formulates an idea based on the grid in the western part of the united states

    • Decentralized city

    • Idea of each house having enough acreage to be self sufficient

  • “Usonian” Houses (1936 and later)

    • Houses apart of broadacre city

    • Most productive part of his career

    • Built some communities and solo builds of these houses

    • Slab foundation and flat roof to get rid of attic and basement

    • Wood framed

    • Emphasized connection with exterior with floor to ceiling windows and doors

    • Open plan

    • Floors with radiant heating in the floors

  • Falling Water, Bear run, PA (1935-1938)

    • Kauffman family commission

    • Put the house right on their favorite rock where they had picnics

    • Composed of stone vertical areas where local stone was used “arts and crafts vernacular”

    • Concrete cantilevers painted a cream white

    • Large windows

    • Outward moving force that is similar to his earlier houses

    • No apparent front door (sense of discovery)

    • Glass is tucked into the stone to have the eye follow the stone to the outside

    • Was under engineered where the concrete began to sag

    • Rock where the family use to have their picnics was bulging through the floor right Infront of the fireplace

  • Johnson Wax Headquarters, Racine, Wisconsin (1936-1950)

    • Very odd building for FLW

    • Curved edges

    • Very inward focused

    • Composed mostly of a reddish pink brick

    • Windows are strange, can not see through them which was intentional

    • Solution to being in a not very pretty location was to use light tubes which let light in to the space but you could not see out of the windows

    • Most well known for the structural mushroom columns

      • Had to prove the structural columns ability to work

    • Large work space with tube windows and mushroom columns (feels like you are underwater looking up at Lilly pads)

  • Taliesin Fellowship (1932-1959)

    • His apprentice community

  • Taliesen West, Scottsdale Arizona (1937)

    • Wright and his fellowship spent the fall and winter here and spring and summers in Wisconsin

    • Built with the knowledge of the site

    • Free standing self sufficient structure for when they are there

    • Develops 2 systems based on the environment

      • 1. Masonry system with low volumes

        • Built form work and put local stones and stiff concrete to create these rusticated walls

      • 2. Tent idea that relates to the desert

        • Tall volumes with rib structures and permeable canvas like roofing that allows a breeze through but also water when it does rarely rain

    • Very low ceilings

    • Native plant landscaping which was radical at the time

• How did architects develop upon International Modernism?

  • Lack of historic ornament

• Alvar Aalto (1898-1976)

  • His early work is a variation of academic classicism known as Nordic classicism

    • Nordic classicism is similar to academic classicism but more stripped down

  • Paimio Sanitorium (1929-1933)

    • Asylum for tuberculosis patients

    • Clear forms in term of geometry

    • White stucco

    • Repeated modular window

    • Orange color

    • Built in a remote wooded area

    • Window sizes differ based on the function of the room that the window is associated with

    • Interested in ergonomics (human proportions and movements)

    • Retractable shades to let light in during cold and shade during hot

  • Curvilinear design becomes a signature of his

    • Uses lots of curvilinear forms in his furniture designs

    • Uses plywood

  • 1938 worlds fair in New York

    • Interior of the Finnish pavilion was curvilinear and he designed the interior

  • Villa Mairea, Noormarkku (1937-1939)

    • Complex house

    • 3 sided building and the 4^th side is nature that encloses the back yard

    • White stucco with interesting windows and wood elements

    • Contrasting forms and materials

    • Use of materials made you feel connected with nature

    • Sauna has a green roof that is connected to the main structure with a walk way and the sauna is made out of wood

    • Plays with the perception of the columns to resemble trees

  • Saynatsalo Town Hall, Saynatsalo (1949-1952)

    • Strange mix use building

      • Admin offices

      • Meeting room for town council

      • Library

      • Retail shops under the library area

    • Rectilinear with courtyard space

    • One regular stair (employee stair) and one irregular stair (visitor side)

    • Brick on the exterior

    • Courtyard is completely glazed and does not have a formal relationship with the main exterior material.

    • The pedestrian irregular stair is planted.

    • Employee regular stair is not planted.

    • Brick was a veneer and not load bearing.

  • Church of the Three Crosses, Imatra (1956-1958)

    • Create a place of worship that can be modified by space to hold different events.

      • Achieved the space separation by using partitions.

    • Curvilinear form shown in plan and section

    • Entrance is on the same side as the speaker.

• Modern Architecture in Mexico

  • Juan O’Gorman (1906-1982)

    • Corbusier influence

    • House of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, San Angel D.F. (1931-32)

      • Two separate houses attached by a bridge

      • Color used

      • Fence made out of cactus

      • Similar to Corbusier

    • UNAM Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico City

      • Mario Pani, Enrique del Moral, and Others (completed 1954)

      • Large scale with lots of open space

      • Large buildings with large open space between them

      • Architects used form of local old pyramids to design

        • Stepped ramps

        • Volcanic rock material

      • O’Gorman designs the Library

        • Massive mosaic façade

      • Built retaining wall to create flat surfaces through the slopped site

      • Composed in 2 pieces

        • Long shorter main library area

        • Tall stacked volume for book storage

      • Overall composition of the mosaic resembles the talac which was a mythological Mexican symbol

    • Does his own personal house

      • Built his house on top of and between two very large basalt volcanic rocks

  • Luis Barragan (1902-1988)

    • Very prolific

    • Influenced by Mexican vernacular architecture

    • Loved color

    • Casa Luis Barragan (1947)

      • Blank wall with some windows built right up to the sidewalk

      • Roof terrace – planar surfaces, abstractly arrange, little detail, rough stucco walls, stone paving floor, shadows cast

      • Stairwells used as large light volumes

      • No stair railings

      • Used wood on things that were mainly going to be touched

      • Ceiling to floor window to force your eye outside

    • Tlapan Chapel, Tlapan, Mexico City (1954-60)

      • Addition to existing building

      • Fascinated with water which were used as quite reflective pieces

      • Grid wall used in courtyard as a very interesting reflected light form

      • Strange angle wall in the chapel that reflects light from the adjacent window and illuminates the cross

    • Satellite Towers near Mexico City (1958) with Mathis Goeritz

      • Skinny hollow concrete triangular towers

      • Looks two dimensional from the side

    • San Cristobal Stables near Mexico City (1968)

      • House for people and horses

      • Large, centralized basin for horses to wade in and drink from

      • White stucco, large window openings

      • More rural location

      • Created a wall with trees

      • Water spout fountain thing that poured water into the water basin

    • Casa Gilardi (1977)

      • Sharing wall with neighboring building – hinders ability to bring in light from side walls

      • Very colorful

      • Courtyard used to bring light into the house

      • Rough stucco, bright colors, interesting windows

      • Windows with different colored walls that cast into the home

      • Reflecting pool

    • Felix Candela (1910-1997)

      • Hyperbolic Paraboloid surfaces that work well in both compressive and tensile forces

      • Thin structurally sound concrete forms