Architecture History
Architecture conceives the building and helps the builders understand how to construct it.
Specialised body of knowledge articulated in the context and f two sets of social relationships
between those who conceive the building and those who physically construct it
between those who commission the building (patron) and those who mediate between client and constructor
Knowledge is based in guilds (collection of people who do the same craft
Credit goes to the client not much authorship for architects back in the day
14th century there was renaissance (rebirth) architects began to rebel against gothic style saying it was unclassical and began to study Roman and classical architecture while discovering how to build new things
Structural innovation in Florence cathedral by Fillippo Bruneschelli
Imagines space in depth (now a days 1 point 2 point perspective)
need for broader cultural framework and architects to have individual authority setting the profession on a path for recognition and individual identity
Before renaissance they couldn’t read but could communicate ideas through stories and figures
Lot of architecture was not built by architects it was craftsmans, artists etc
International style people say it’s 21st century but people have been colonising architecture for a long time
Developing this idea to change the role of the architect from social scale from builder to theorist and to form an ideal, modern engineering was more scientific and mathematical and established the distinction between engineers and architects.
Passed on authority to engineers to quantitatively assess design in the construction of built environments
Architects rely on taste and judgement whereas engineers say exactly what they’re going to do
De Beaux Arts became standard from hundred years how architecture should be to use watercolours and sketching style.
started working in studios under a patron or supervisor giving them briefs and students run the designs themselves creating autonomy for the students and end of year they have their exhibition designing things that were not designed before (classical vocabulary was their only precedent) and designed new things like theatres, hotels, railway stations etc
When local practitioners visited the school they did not like that they were not interested in modern construction gap between education and practice. Logic is instead prioritised.
Neoclassical style was monumental
Architects designed front facades for hotels in classical style while interior train stations had engineers experimenting with new cast iron
Elegant structural columns in neoclassical style
In 20th century modernism starts to form, overpopulation in large cities with small spaces and increased unsanitary environment
Architect movement include arts and crafts movement grew in Europe as well as Japan and China, they believed all education should be apprenticeship because it was becoming too abstract, learning by doing.
Art nouveau as a reaction to industrialisation and engineering, architects explore looking at natural patterns different ways of organising spaces, integrating traditional precedents with new technological possibilities, and new forms instead of rectilinear mass produced elements
Futurism was very fascist, emphasised dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, objects related to industrial city to go away from its soft indulgent past, main idea of speed
Expressionism prioritised formal innovation and unusual massing sometimes inspired by biomorphic forms and new technical possibilities through mass production of brick, glass, and steel. many expressionist architects fought in world war 1
Bauhaus took in artists and architects to align architecture to creative arts to be playful and intuitive, magpie discipline saying this is interesting and we take ideas form other places and create some environments and adapt it to where it is being built.
Innovation of trains and cars created unpredictable problems and new typologies for them as well.
transforms country side nature from these industrialised innovations
City more polluted with fumes
Boulevards made wide in Pairs to clear space for military and artillery through the city quickly to defend it, also created big wide spaces for people to protest together in large groups
1914 first commercial passenger flight St Petersburg Tampa airboat
Industrial Revolution 1750-1914 shifted from manual labour to machine manufacturing, demanding new machinery to create innovation of structures such as milling and glass panels.
Chicago there was a fire and al other buildings burned down and needed to be rebuilt and to make it fireproof so they steel
iron and steel structure curtain wall co-evolved with the development of modern elevators
Pompidou centre good example circulation outside so inside could be flexible and structural innovation to achieve this light exterior
beginning of architecture where people build lightweight frame structures and clad them with something because of the materials of the location it makes the architecture a pet of that place
earth, hearth, frame, textiles was the starting framework consisting of 4 elements of tectonics that give building its character so the material and patterns are specific to the local context making it unique
Communicates place and structure to everyone.
Rational was proletarian to do good for everyone then fascists come in and then things changed radically around 1930.
Louis Sullivan says form follows function, buildings needs to look like what it is supposed to be doing
Hugh Ferris developed tall and Gotham like structures, such as metropolis of tomorrow, every developer in New York wanted him to make a visualisation of their building as this was the language in the 1920s
Modernity now seen with white buildings, villa savoye. Problems faced in 1920 not too different than now such as pandemics, sunlight and fresh air importance functionalism and hygiene, open terraces and spaces that area easy to clean as well as take in sun, that idea of cleanliness became a driving force of early modernism.
Modern innovation influenced architecture
X-ray invention revealed idea of transparency
Hotels started to put indoor bathrooms which was radical and promoted ideas of cleanliness
Le Corbusier was influential saying house is a machine for living, using metaphorical language where the mechanisms allow us to live in the environment
Plan voisos with tall buildings spaced out far from each other with trees and all cars and trains underground’s
this is now seen in Asia that create conditions for these buildings to be built such as in Singapore minimising cost of housing and be a green city, Hong Kong same buildings from Corb but much closer together and very high
Dense living in Kowloon walled city 1898-1994 in Hong Kong that started as a Chinese fort and abandoned it so overtime they built a dense rock with one big space in the middle, showing community led development but then demolished in 1994.
Le Corb did a lot of monasteries as well
Ideas of double height terrace, recessed gardens, central courtyards
Modernists recognised there was an environment that was not fit for purpose that is enclosed with overpopulation, which resulted in planned cities.
Vers Une Architecture
efficiency and mass production focused
architecture prevent revolution and inequalities
First time in architecture all people should have good housing school hospitals etc, before hand it was for the rich but now pushing for everyone to have the opportunity to be in good buildings
Frank Lloyd Wright
disappearing city idea of everyone having a farm and gas stations as nodes of a network
Mies van de rohe
Lafayette park super blocks 1959 series of tall blocks and high rise far apart and series of townhouses and row houses has relatively mixed community.
Lots of green spaces incorporated into buildings and with focus on local, biodiverse, and low maintenance
“Architecture wants to do the right thing beautifully”
Like any creative field you start by learning the rules and then learn what can be broken
Architecture tends to always look back to when things were better
Starts with primitive but and that becomes beginning of the temple and then develops onto structure and architecture,
Lot of people say Indigenous v Western architecture very different but there is a spectrum of many architecture that do have similar concepts just done differently.
Governance emerged from understandings of different regions (eg some places have different leaders for different seasons because they specialised in different things)