Bulacan State University

College of Architecture and Fine Arts

THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE 2
(TOA 123)

LIFE AND WORKS

OF
IMPORTANT ARCHITECTS

Presented by:
NOEMI G. CHAN
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Introduction 3

Antonio Gaudi 4-14

Frank Lloyd Wright 15- 24

Richard Meier 25- 33

Appendix 34-35

References 36-37
Modern architecture


 Modern Architecture the buildings and building practices of the late 19th and the 20th centuries. The history of modern
architecture encompasses the architects who designed those buildings, stylistic movements, and the technology and
materials that made the new architecture possible. Modern architecture originated in the United States and Europe and
spread from there to the rest of the world.


 Modern architects reacted against the architecture of the 19th century, which they felt borrowed too heavily
from the past. They found this architecture either oppressively bound to past styles or cloyingly picturesque
and eclectic. As the 20th century began they believed it was necessary to invent an architecture that
expressed the spirit of a new age and would surpass the styles, materials, and technologies of earlier
architecture. This unifying purpose did not mean that their buildings would be similar in appearance, nor
that architects would agree on other issues.


 The aesthetics (artistic values) of modern architects differed radically. Some architects, enraptured by the
powerful machines developed in the late 19th century, sought to devise an architecture that conveyed the
sleekness and energy of a machine. Their aesthetic celebrated function in all forms of design, from
household furnishings to massive ocean liners and the new flying machines. Other architects, however,
found machine-like elegance inappropriate to architecture. They preferred an architecture that expressed,
not the rationality of the machine, but the mystic powers of human emotion and spirit.
Antonio gaudi
Bibliography
 Antoni Gaudí
(1852-1926)

Born June 25, 1852, in Reus, Catalonia,

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was the son of a coppersmith.

He attended the School of Architecture in Barcelona (1874-1878),

the city where he spent his life.

Barcelona
-Where Antonio Gaudi spent his life
and finished his occupation
 As a student he was already involved in several building projects.

Such as:
Casa Vicens (1878-1880), a private home in Barcelona

Güell (1885-1889), distinguished by parabolic arches and rich ironwork

the bizarre Park Güell (1900-1914),

with its stone trees, reptilian fountains, and mosaics of broken ceramic pieces
set in concrete
Dictums
and
principles
in life
Antonio Gaudi
Antonio Gaudi’s Theory

Based on the theory of Gaudi, he proclaims the probable idea for a certain manner that the concept
requires a massive area and great aesthetic conditions.

v he preferred more in having an extravagant designs and materials to acquire the

true beauty and aesthetics.
v
v
v he reorganized the theories based on his own perception
v
v
v different proposed theory on designing, he actually show his feelings in acquiring
functional design, such as the bone structure in his own building which captures one’s attention.

“A design may be just a temporary structure but permanent memory.”

- Antonio Gaudi
Works
and
achievements
Antonio Gaudi
Park Güell
The serpentine benches and other colorful
structures in Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain,
are covered with mosaics made from
ceramic pieces set into concrete. The
unusual park was designed by Spanish
architect Antoni Gaudí in the first decades of
the 20th century.
Antoni Gaudí is one of the most creative practitioners of his art in
modern times. His style is often described as a blend of neo-Gothic
and art nouveau, but it also has surrealist and cubist elements

Bishop’s Palace, Astorga, Spain

Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí undertook

the design of the bishop’s palace in Astorga, near León, Spain.
Six years later, following the bishop’s death,
he abandoned construction of this building,
which was designed in the architect’s own version of the Gothic style.
The project was later finished in a style close to Gaudí’s original plan.
Antoni Gaudí redesign the front of a conventional apartment building in Barcelona,
Spain, he produced the curving facade of the Casa Batlló (1907). The organic
forms--the pillars look like leg bones--and the undulating shapes link Gaudí with
the art nouveau movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The art nouveau movement in Spain is best exemplified
in the work of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí i Cornet,
whose designs represent a highly personal response
to the art nouveau ideas of his time.
Dominated by four disproportionately tall spires,
the church appears to be a fantastical outgrowth of the
earth.
Floral designs cover the building façade,
and broken tiles glitter on the rippling surface of the towers.
Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia
The Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) is a church in
Barcelona, Spain, designed by Catalan architect
Antoni Gaudí y Cornet. Construction began in
1883, but the church remained unfinished during
Gaudí’s lifetime.
Frank lloyd wright
Bibliography
 Frank Lloyd Wright
(1867-1959)

Wright was born either in Richland Center, or in nearby Bear Valley, Wisconsin, and grew up largely under the
protection of his mother, Anna, and his aunts and uncles on farmland near Spring Green, Wisconsin. His
father, a musician, abandoned the family in 1885

In addition to being an architect, Wright was also a

teacher, a lecturer, and a writer. He published several
books and maintained studio-workshops in Spring
Green, Wisconsin, and Scottsdale, Arizona. He
published Natural House in 1954.
Wright briefly studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin, displaying a knack for
drawing, and in 1887 he moved to Chicago, Illinois. From 1888 to 1893 he worked as an
assistant at the Chicago architectural firm of Adler and Sullivan, learning much before
embarking on an independent architectural path in 1893.

Wright’s life was spoiled by marital troubles, and the scandals connected with them petrified
away many prospective clients. He left his first wife, Catherine, and their six offsprings in
1909, after 20 years of marriage, and went to Europe with Mamah Cheney, the spouse of a
client. Still married to Catherine, he returned to Spring Green in 1911 with Cheney. There,
he built a home and studio that he called Taliesin after a Welsh word meaning “shining
brow,” a reference to the building’s situation, clinging to the brow of a hill. Tragedy struck in
1914, when a servant at Taliesin murdered Cheney, her two children, and four other people,
and set the house on fire. Wright began rebuilding Taliesin soon afterward.
After Catherine granted him a divorce in 1922, Wright married Miriam Noel, an emotionally
unstable woman from whom he soon separated. In 1927 he obtained a divorce from Miriam.
Only with his third wife, Olgivanna Milanoff, whom he married in 1927, did he find the restful
environment he needed to foster his creativity. Wright and Olgivanna lived at a rebuilt
Taliesin, which became his studio and a center for training apprentices in his architectural
principles. Those who came to study with Wright at Taliesin also helped farm the land. In the
mid-1930s Wright built Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, and from then on, the studio
and apprentices moved to Arizona for the winter.

Wright also supported himself by lecturing and writing. Among his writings are An
Autobiography (1932, revised 1943) anad The Future of Architecture (1953), a collection of
his articles from the 1930s.
Theories
and
dictums
in life
Frank Lloyd Wright
 Frank Lloyd Wright said these as his principle’ s in life:

“An architect's most useful tools are an eraser at the drafting board, and a wrecking bar
at the site.”

“Architecture is life, or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest
record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be
lived.”

“No house should ever be built on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging
to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.”

“The tall modern office building is the machine pure and simple...the engine, the motor
and the battleship are the works of art of the century”

“An expert is a man who has stopped thinking. Why should he think? He is an expert.”

“Chewing gum for the eyes.”

Works
and
achievements
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frederick C. Robie
House(1906-09)
Chicago, Illinois
-The finest expression of
the Prairie house style

A continuous narrow band of windows beneath the overhanging

roof repeats the horizontal lines of the house, as does the
series of doors on the floor below. In many of his windows
Wright used glass with colored panes and leading to produce
patterns, often of wheat or other plants that grow on the
prairie.
At the center of the roof a broad fireplace-chimney block
separates the front and back sections of the house, and the
living room from the dining room on the main floor. The
central hearth around which the family gathers is a key
feature of Wright's prairie houses.
The long limestone sills echo the horizontal lines of
house and prairie. Planters at the ends hold ornamental
grasses and other prairie plants.
Hills/DeCaro House
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, a pioneer of modern architecture,
lived and worked in the Chicago area during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. He designed many single-family houses, known as prairie houses.
The Hills/DeCaro house in Oak Park, west of Chicago, is one of more than
20 houses Wright designed while living in the town between 1890 and 1910.
Fallingwater House
Fallingwater, the house designed by American architect Frank Lloyd
Wright for the Kaufmann family, is cantilevered dramatically over a
waterfall. The house was built of reinforced concrete and stone in the
1930s in Bear Run, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and appears to
emerge from the landscape surrounding it.
Guggenheim Museum
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright's spiral gallery design for the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum serves as an innovative solution
to the problem of restricted building space in New York City. Other
museums were subsequently designed with variations on the spiral
plan. Because of delays attributed to the outbreak of World War II
(1939-1945) and rising building costs, the project was not completed
before the deaths of Guggenheim and Wright. The museum was
dedicated in 1959

Among the best-known

buildings of architect Frank
Lloyd Wright is the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum in
New York City, which was
completed in 1959. Within its
spacious interior, ramps for
displaying and viewing art
spiral upward and outward.

The galleries of the Solomon

R. Guggenheim Museum in
New York City curve upward in
a six-floor spiral. Designed by
American architect Frank
Lloyd Wright, the building
features a large glass skylight
above the center of the spiral,
illuminating the artwork
displayed at each level.
Richard meier
Bibliography
 Richard Meier
(1934 - )

•Meier was born in Newark, New Jersey.

•
•Meier earned his bachelor of architecture degree from Cornell University in 1957.
•
•He began independent practice in 1963, after apprenticeships at several leading
architectural firms in New York City—Davis, Brodie and Wisnieski; Skidmore, Owings and
Merrill; and Marcel Breuer and Associates.
•
•He taught architecture at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art from
1963 to 1973
•
•And later, taught at other prestigious institutions, including Yale, Harvard, and Princeton
universities.
•
•
•
•They established themselves as leaders in avant-garde architecture when they published
their work in the book Five Architects in 1975.
•
•Although their individual styles soon diverged, for a time they came to be known as the New
York Five, or “whites,” for the color that predominated in their buildings.

Flag of New
Jersey where
Meier lived
 Le Corbusier

In the late 1960s Meier became

associated with architects Peter
Eisenman (whom he had met at Cornell),
John Hejduk, Michael Graves, and
Charles Gwathmey, who all shared his
interest in the ordered forms of Le
Corbusier.

•Meier’s initial recognition during the 1970s came from designs for several
houses, notably the Smith House (1967) on the seaside in Darien, Connecticut,
and the Douglas House (1973) on a steep hillside in Harbor Springs, Michigan.
•
•The visitor enters the Douglas House by a bridge that leads to the top level of a
three-story living room; from the first floor of this dramatic glassed-in space, a
series of exterior staircases lead down to a river below.
•
•Bigger commissions followed, including:
•The Bronx Developmental Center (1976-1977) in New York City;
•
•The Atheneum (1978-1979) in New Harmony, Indiana
•
•The High Museum of Art (1983) in Atlanta, Georgia.
•
•As his reputation grew internationally, Meier designed buildings in Italy, Germany,
Spain, in the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
•
•
•In 1995, a new city hall and central library designed by Meier were completed in
The Hague, The Netherlands. With the soaring, light-filled Jubilee Church (1996-
2003) in Rome, Italy, Meier demonstrated his ability to create a powerful sacred
space
Theories
and
dictums
in life
Richard Meier
 He preferred more in developing museums rather than any
type of building.
It is because the way that the museum is build, larger people
acquire their knowledge into it.

Richard Meier developed a more austere version of

postmodernism, influenced by Le Corbusier, in his
designs for museums and private houses

Glasses are made as windows to connote different blend to

the feelings of the users, as well, to provide manageable
views in it.

He also preferred on having a “white”-colored

structure and handle a nice, and gentle views.

“Having an artistic mind is better than having good qualities of sight…”

- Richard Meier
Works
and
achievements
Richard Meier
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
The High Museum of Art, in Atlanta’s midtown arts district,
houses European, American, and African painting and
sculpture. Founded in 1926, the High’s collections were
given a postmodern home, designed by Richard Meier, in
1983.
City Hall, The Hague
American architect Richard Meier designed a city hall for
The Hague in The Netherlands, which opened in 1995. A
glass-roofed public area, known as the citizens’ hall,
shown here, stands at the center of the building. Two
wings holding offices form the sides. The Hague’s city
hall also houses municipal archives and the central
library.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Spain,
opened in 1995. It was designed by American architect
Richard Meier and features Meier’s trademark white surfaces
and geometric shapes.
appendix
Life and Works of Important Architects
Projection upon the  topics:

Architects of this century had been able to acquire their knowledge and able to fix ideas
in major roles.

Art Nouveau, which flourished in Europe between 1890 and 1910, was one of
the earliest (and shortest-lived) efforts to develop an original style for the
modern age. Art nouveau artists and designers transformed modern industrial
materials such as iron and glass into graceful, curving forms often drawn from
nature, though with playful elements of fantasy. In contrast to both Perret and
the architects of the Chicago School, art nouveau designers were interested in
architecture as a form of stylistic expression rather than as a structural
system.
References
Pictures and Informations
Encarta Encyclopedia online

http://encartaupdate.msn.com/teleport/teleport.aspx?Lang=A&Year=2007&tname=weblinks&ty=chk&ud=681503795&ca=1

http://encartaupdate.msn.com/teleport/teleport.aspx?Lang=A&Year=2007&tname=weblinks&ty=chk&ud=1741626185&ca=

http://encartaupdate.msn.com/teleport/teleport.aspx?Lang=A&Year=2007&tname=weblinks&ty=chk&ud=1761501299&ca=

Knowledge and Pledge of Architecture, 2nd Ed.

By Jennifer Hidden

Design for This Tomorrow

by GE Kidder Smith/ Corbis

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By David Schertz