Download THE MODERN ERA IN ARCHITECTURE Between two centuries

THE MODERN ERA IN ARCHITECTURE
Between two centuries
The beginning of the twentieth century in Britain marked the start of a new century, but the
closing years of the Victorian era. Two architectural styles were dominant at the time: Classical and
Gothic architecture. Classical architecture is inspired by ancient Greece and Rome. Gothic architecture in
Victorian Britain was not Gothic in its strictest sense, but a romanticised revival of the medieval style of
Gothic architecture, popularised in medieval France. Examples of Victorian Classical architecture include
in Buckinghamshire and of Victorian Gothic architecture include the former Midland Grand Hotel
and St Pancras Station in London.
Over time the popularity of architectural styles will change and fresh styles begin, partly as a
reaction to pre-existing styles. In this way styles such as the Arts and Crafts Movement became
established in Britain. Originating in the latter half of the nineteenth century the Arts and Crafts
Movement focussed on aesthetics and craftsmanship and was a reaction to increased mass production
and a perceived decline in the decorative arts. A leading light of the movement was designer William
Morris. Although inspiration for the Arts and Crafts Movement came from medieval design, it was a
much simpler interpretation unlike the very severe Victorian Gothic style.
Classical, Gothic and Arts & Crafts architecture all drew influence from historic styles of
architecture. However, towards the end of the nineteenth century the Art Nouveau movement broke
this trend of looking back. Art Nouveau did, like the Arts and Crafts Movement, focus on high quality
craftsmanship but it also looked for inspiration elsewhere. Art Nouveau drew inspiration from nature
with curvilinear forms and design motifs based on stylised plants and flowers.
The Early 20th Century
Architecture of the early 20th century is notable for radical new types of steel-and-glass
buildings – particularly skyscrapers – and the widespread use steel-reinforced concrete. The steelframed skyscraper was pioneered in Chicago in the 1880's, but did not become widespread until the
first decades of the 20th century. As construction techniques were refined, skyscrapers became higher
and higher; for example the Empire State Building of 1929-1931 has 102 storeys. Many buildings of this
period were constructed from lightweight concrete slabs, which could be supported by cantilever
beams or by pilotis (stilts), as in the Villa Savoye. The early 20th century also produced a great variety of
architectural styles. Despite their diversity, the styles of this period generally had one thing in common:
they were completely new, with few links to past architectural styles. This originality is in marked
contrast to 19th century architecture much of which was revivalist.
Modern Buildings
Architecture since about the 1950's is generally known as modern architecture. One of its main
influences had been functionalism – a belief that a building's function should be apparent in its design.
The Centre Georges Pompidou and the Honk Kong and the Shanghai Bank are functionalist buildings.
In the 1980's some architects rejected functionalism in favour of post-modernism in which
historical styles – particularly Neo-Classicism – were revived, using modern building materials and
techniques.
Contemporary architecture in Britain was dramatically influenced by early 20th century
modernist thought from continental Europe, but this in turn has roots in a philosophy of architecture
propounded in the mid 19th century by Pugin and Morris, and later by Voysey and Mackintosh. It was
their preoccupation with `honesty' in architectural form and details, that found itself transposed into the
functionalism propounded by Gropius and the theoreticians of the Bauhaus. All these Modernist styles
reflected advances in industry and engineering and used developments in construction and materials the use of metals, glass and concrete - to revolutionise architectural design and produce some
exceptional buildings.
BRITISH ARCHITECTURE IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Great movement in British architecture was in the years 1920-1929 and the outstanding fugure
of the time was Sir Edwyn Lutyens.
Only from 1955-1965 architecture became more modern and large-scale. Garden cities, flats,
housing estates and new towns were the chief means housing a rising population in the 20th century.
The aim was to create a new centre of population in a planned housing area with amenities such as,
churches, shops, etc. and produce a self-supporting community in a rural area.
After 1930 congestion in large cities led to build flat accommodation in order to solve housing
problems. After World War II the main idea was the new town: a town centre with large shops, car parks,
culture buildings and schools.
FOUR CONTEMPORARY WORLD-WIDE ARCHITECTS
Read about the four following architects and then answer the questions below
LE CORBUSIER
Le Corbusier was the most important, influential and Famous Architect of the 20th century. Swiss by
birth and trained as an artist in his home town under a fastidious teacher, L’Eplattenier, Charles Edouard
Jeanneret (he adopted the pseudonym Le Corbusier only in the early 1920s) was a remarkably talented
pupil. He travelled widely in the Near and Middle East, and worked his way through a study tour of
Germany at a time when the ideas for a new architecture were being formulated.
In 1908-9 he went to Paris, where he was absorbed in the cultural and artistic life of the great city. His
dedication to the synthesis of the arts – particularly sculpture, painting and drawing and designing –
never wavered. His early work, like that of his most important contemporary, Frank Lloyd Wright, was
related to nature. He began his career as an architect in his native town. In 1917 he settled in Paris,
where, he issued his Purist manifesto Apres le Cubisme (1918). His book Vers une architecture, appeared
in French: it was to have worldwide repercussions, the most discussed architectural text of the age. It
was translated into German in 1926 and English in 1927, and is still in print.
The early executed domestic projects, mainly for wealthy clients but not necessarily expensive
structures, established the form language of the new rational architecture, which seems to epitomize its
definition as a machine a habiter (“a machine for living in”). He produced town-planning schemes for
many parts of the world, often as an adjunct to a lecture tour. In these schemes the routes of mankind
(vehicular and pedestrian) and the functional zones of the settlements were always emphasized.
In 1947 he began work on his monumental Unite d’habitation at Marseille, completed in 1952. A
prototype block of over 300 flats, it had internal streets, duplex maisonettes and internal shopping
malls. It was followed by further examples in Berlin, Nantes, Meaux etc. Towards the end of his career Le
Corbusier was appointed architect for the public buildings at Chandigarh, the new capital city of the
Punjab in India (1952-64). With the Shodan House (1956) and the Mill Owners Association (1951-9)
some of his early design themes were taken up once again, such as the route, the recessed structural
column and the expressive staircase and, of course, the flat undecorated plane, most of which formed
part of his celebrated five principles of a free architecture which derive from the late 1920s.
With Le Corbusier, every building worked within its time as a testimony to his unremitting genius as the
architect of the epoch.
1. Who was Le Corbusier?
4. What was his most famous book?
2. What were the stages of his artistic training?
5. In what type of construction did Le Corbusier
express the concept of rational architecture?
3. What was the main feature of Le Corbusier's
early work?
6. Explain what “free architecture” was for Le
Corbusier
RENZO PIANO
Leading Italian architect and designer concerned with technological innovations and environmentally
balanced buildings. From 1959 to 1964 Renzo Piano studied at the Milan Politecnico, where he
subsequently taught until 1968. In 1970 he set up in partnership with the English architect Richard
Rogers and undertook a number of commissions in Italy and England, including the PAT-Scentre in
Cambridge in 1975.
The practice's most important work, however, was its winning entry for the Place Beaubourg
competition for a national arts centre in the middle of Paris, organized by the French government in
1973 (the Pompidou Centre). The imposing six-storey design takes the metaphor of “cultural machine”
to its technological extreme by placing the structural skeleton and colour-coded servicing elements on
the outside of the building.
Piano's use of technological function as a point of departure characterizes the work of what has become
known as the “High-Tech” group of architects. This movement includes English designers such as
Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw and Michael Hopkins. However, Piano's desire to achieve a
particular aesthetic quality is tempered by a concern for accommodating the user's needs.
In his later work Piano has continued the structural experiments of the Pompidou Centre, applying them
to a range of social and civic projects such as the residential quarter at Corciano in Perugia, the museum
building for the De Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, and, most recently, a new football stadium in
Bari, built for the 1990 World Cup.
The Stadio Nuovo continues Piano's fruitful collaboration with the English engineer Peter Rice of Ove
Arup and Partners.
1. Who is Renzo Piano?
5. how was the design for the Beaubourg in
Paris been called?
2. Where did he study?
3. What did he do in 1970?
6. What are the main characteristics of the
“High-Tech” group of architects?
4. What did the French government organize in
1973?
7. What does Piano take into account in his
projects?
8. What has Piano done in his later work?
RICHARD ROGERS
British exponent of High-Tech”, Late Modern architecture. He was educated at the AA school, London at
at Yale University. He and his first wife, Sue, were in dual husband-and-wife partnership with Norman
and Wendy Foster (Team 4). Their first work, the Reliance Controls Factory at Swindon, England (196667), an innovatory high-tech industrial building, received considerable attention.
Roger's designs are exuberant. The Pompidou Centre, Paris (1973-77), with Renzo Piano, which
established his international reputation, is an inside-out building: the structure and servicing is on the
exterior to achieve uninterrupted flexible interior spaces. The brightly coloured pipes and funnels
replace the detail and decoration of traditional façades but are determined by functional requirements
and intended to present an industrial appearance.
In many ways, Rogers is one of the heirs to the functionalist tradition: he is interested in the crossover of
new technologies into the building industries, which is continued in his other well-known work, the
controversial Lloyd Building (1979-1984). But his concern with total flexibility and overt technical
imagery has been termed Late Modern. In his most recent work he has returned to the images of the
early Modernists.
1. Who is Richard Rogers?
5. What kind of construction is the Pompidou
Centre?
2. Where was he educated?
3. What kind of team did he form?
6. What are the functions of the pipes and
funnels in the French construction?
4. What was his first work? What does it
represent?
7. Give an example of Rogers's functionalism
8. What is known as Late Modern?
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
The best-known and most talented architect of the 20th century: an American with Welsh ancestry. He
was inspired by his mother to become an architect. Boyhood summers on his uncle's farm embued a
love of nature.
Wright's first building dates from 1886. from then until his death he produced countless architectural
projects: in 1974 it was estimated that some 433 buildings remained extant. His publication output was
phenomenal. Wright's family houses for middle-class businessmen initiated a spatial revolution where
rooms were not box containers but were volumes overlapped and interpenetrated. In 1909, with his
lover Mrs Mamah Cheney, Wright travelled to Europe, where his early work was published in Berlin by
Ernst Wasmuth (1910-11). It had a profound influence on continental architects. In 1913 Wright was in
Japan, where he secured the Imperial Hotel commission. It brought him fame when it failed to collapse
in the 1923 Tokyo earthquake.
The second most successful period of Wright's career came around the '30s, with many important
houses, including the two Taliesins, Kaufmann's “Falling Water” and the Johnson Wax Company Offices
in Racine, Wisconsin, and the Johnson house, “Wingspread”. Wright believed in and promoted an
“organic” architecture and way of life within a framework that was domestic, even at times utopian (e.g.
the Broadacre City and Mile High Projects, and his “Usonlian” houses – a concept of modest dwelling
close to earth, for the average American). During his international period of the 1930s he visited the
USSR and gave the Princeton and Sulgrave Manor lectures.
In 1941 he received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal. In the post-war period large-scale projects followed,
including the Guggenheim Museum, New York, Marine County Court and offices as well as more
houses, theatres, churches, and auditoria.
1. Who was Frank Lloyd Wright?
6. What did the Imperial Hotel Commission
represent for Wright?
2. What attracted Wright during his boyhood?
3. What did Wright's activity as an architect
consist of?
7. List Wright's buildings of his second most
successful period
8. What kind of architecture did Wright create?
4. Explain what the spatial revolution promoted
by Wright consists of
9. What did Wright do after the Second World
War?
5. Who did Wright influence?
Exchange information and discuss the following points in plenary:

type of architecture promoted by the four architects
 analogies and differences among the architects