Early Modern Architecture: From Berlage to Expressionism

Historical Context and the Roots of the Modern Movement

• The Pre-World War I Period ($1914$): This era is characterized by rapid change, increasing technological applications, and the emergence of roots for the modern movement in architecture that would coalesce after the war.
• The Nature of the Modern Movement: Modernism in architecture was not a singular, unified entity; rather, it was an amalgam of diverse influences and different architectural emphases.
• Political and Social Climate in Europe:
      * The European continent was governed by decadent monarchies.
      * It was an era of relative peace; no large-scale war had occurred on the continent for nearly a hundred years, since the defeat of Napoleon in $1814$ (with minor exceptions like the Franco-Prussian War).
• Industrialization and Urbanization:
      * Industrialization spread to countries previously less affected, such as Austria and Italy.
      * There was a massive migration from rural agricultural areas to cities to work in industry.
      * This led to the emergence of mass political movements as a response to primitive, uninhabitable living conditions in old European cities.
      * Environmental issues were rampant: Rivers were polluted with industrial waste, and housing rows often lacked natural light or air.
• Cultural Shifts in the Arts:
      * Music: Composers like Debussy, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky introduced atonal music, violating traditional conventions of melody and structure.
      * Art: The emergence of Cubism, particularly through the abstract work of artists like Picasso and George Braque, marked a move from representational to modern modes of expression.

Structural Rationalism in Amsterdam: Heinrich Petrus Verlage

• The Exchange (Amsterdam): Located in the center of the city, this long building is a key example of the movement's early development.
• Core Principle: Structural Rationalism:
      * Heinrich Petrus Verlage (also referred to as Berlaget) argued that a building must possess a logical structure and explicitly reveal its structural mechanisms.
      * The building uses load-bearing masonry construction rather than an internal steel frame.
• Detailed Structural Legibility:
      * Masonry and Stone Logic: Stone is placed specifically where arches meet the walls to transfer loads around openings. Arches feature distinctive stone keystones based on Roman antiquity models.
      * Windows: Stone headers over windows visibly transfer brick loads around the openings.
      * The Interior Hall: The exchange (used for commodities like diamonds or stocks) features walls with tie rods stretching across the space to counteract the outward thrust of arches.
      * Load Distribution: Trusses come down into pilasters that corbel ($corbelline$) out from the brick wall.
      * Corbelling: A method where each brick extends slightly further than the one below it to create a support.
      * Hierarchy of Supports: Wide and narrow columns differentiate between those carrying the heavy loads of the roof/trusses and secondary columns carrying only the wall's weight.
      * The Bernbacher Diagram: Illustrates how the arch sits on a hinge upon the stone and brick corbel, with revealed rivets and tie rods.

Reinforced Concrete and the Rue Franklin: Auguste Pare

• Auguste Pare ($1874$–$1954$): Influential over an $80$-year career for demonstrating reinforced concrete as an acceptable architectural material.
• Apartment on Rue Franklin (Paris):
      * Legal Compliance: Paris law required every occupiable room to have exterior exposure for fresh air. Pare designed the building with a setback to create an outdoor space, allowing rooms like the bedroom, drawing room, and dining room to have windows, while only the bath remained tucked away.
      * Structural Grid: The building uses reinforced concrete with a grid of rectangular columns, which are revealed on the facade.
• Exterior Differentiation:
      * Pare uses terracotta tile to cover the concrete frame.
      * Flat Tiles: Used where a concrete structural column exists behind the surface.
      * Floral Patterns: Used as infill for walls that are non-structural. These patterns represent Pare's reinterpretation of Art Nouveau organic motifs.
      * Dot-Pattern Tiles: Further differentiate surface materials to show where the structure is versus where the walls are just hanging.
• Garage at Ponthieu ($1905$): An early example of a new building type (the parking/auto service garage) using an exposed, utilitarian concrete frame.

German Design Reform: The Deutsche Wurttbund

• Founding and Membership: An organization of industrialists, engineers, architects, and artists aimed at improving German design and competitiveness.
• Standardization vs. Creativity:
      * Norm (Standardization): The argument that design should follow standards to allow for efficient mass production and interchangeable parts.
      * Form (Creative Expression): The argument that artists and architects should be free to follow their imagination without industrial constraints.
• Peter Birens ($1868$–$1940$):
      * Began in the Darmstadt artist colony practicing Jugendsteel (German Art Nouveau).
      * The Birenz House: Featured curvy plaster lines, Art Nouveau glass, and Jugendsteel murals.
      * The Crematorium: Represented a shift toward flat, abstracted classicism with rectangular columns.
• AEG (Aldermine Electricitas Gisselstaff): Birens was appointed architect and designer in $1907$ to develop a "house style."
      * Product Design: Drastically simplified products for manufacturing, such as light fixtures made of sheet metal and tea kettles with straw-wrapped handles for heat safety. Glassware became clean and undecorated.
      * AEG Turbine Factory: A pivotal building made of concrete, steel, and glass.
      * Architecture as Temple: Some describe it as a "temple to industrial power," but it used modern materials impossible only $20$ years prior.
      * Engineering Details: The building features a cantilevered corner with no supporting column, making the glass appear to hang. Steel columns are visibly hinged at the concrete base to reduce moment transfer, following the principles of structural rationalism.

Walter Gropius, Adolf Meyer, and the Fagas of Werk

• Gropius and Meijer Partnership: Key figures before Gropius led the Bauhaus; Meyer died in $1925$.
• Fagas of Werk (Shoe Factory):
      * Innovative Corner: Features glass wrapping around the corner with a cantilevered concrete staircase inside, requiring no corner support column.
      * Asymmetrical Composition: The entrance is offset from the building's centerline, yet balanced.
      * Symbolism of Efficiency: A clock is placed at the entrance, signifying the factory's industrial discipline over decorative history.
• Wassmuth Portfolio ($1911$): A collection of Frank Lloyd Wright’s drawings published in Europe that deeply influenced Brokius and Birens toward abstraction.
• Model Factory at the Wurttbund Exhibition ($1914$):
      * Showcased German industrial advances before the outbreak of war in fall $1914$.
      * Featured glass curtain walls and transparent stair towers with spiral stairs cantilevered from a central cylinder.

Expressionism and the Will to Form

• Definition: Expressionism was a retroactive label for architects favoring form over standard norms.
• Kunstbohlen (Will to Form): A subjective, non-rational process coming from the "unconscious" or primordial forces of the mind to create form.
• Bruno Tout: Glass Pavilion ($1914$):
      * Built to showcase glass products (glass block, translucent tiles).
      * Choreographed Experience: Visitors were led through a sequence: ascending glass-block stairs to a dome, then descending to a dark pool area with cascading water and colored reflective tiles.
      * Atmosphere: Described as ethereal and another world, reaching past the rational mind.
• Max Berg: Centennial Hall (Breslau):
      * The largest exhibition hall of its date, built in what is now Poland.
      * A "tour de force" of concrete construction featuring massive arches on a circular curve supporting a dome.
      * Used significant buttresses to support the weight of the enormous concrete form.

The Amsterdam School: Michel de Clerc

• The Amsterdam School: A group of expressionists focused on building craft, often contrasted with the Rotterdam school.
• Michael de Clerc ($1884$–$1923$): The leader of the movement, known for his work in social housing.
• Eigenhardt Complex (Heidenhardt):
      * Built for the masons' union for brick workers.
      * Brick Expressionism: Highly detailed and idiosyncratic. Instead of standard horizontal courses, brick is used vertically, at angles, and in "football" shapes (radii that are not constant).
      * Artisanal Quality: Features cantilevered brick, custom-fitted joints, and diverse patterns (vertical vs. horizontal) that required extraordinary craftsmanship.
      * Legacy: Dutch expressionism largely faded after de Clerc’s death in $1923$.