Modern Architecture

• Module IV
• Modern Architecture: Introduction to Modern Architecture
• Chicago School of Architecture, Bauhaus School, and Taliesin
School of Architecture
• CIAM Congresses and Declarations - Great masters like Louis
Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius ,
Mies Vander Rohe.
• Contributions of Auguste Peret (Classical Rationalism) , Peter
Behrens (Werkbund)
• Futurist Movement Manifestos and the works of Sant’Elia
• Expressionism and the works of Eric Mendelson
• Impressionism, Cubism , Constructivism and its influence on
Architecture
• De-stijl Movement : Ideas and works - Schroder House
 Modern Architecture
• The birth of modern architecture came from a
realization that the future should not hinge on the
past
– Earlier periods had relied on even earlier periods to gain
inspiration
– Modern architecture wanted to look to the future
 The Chicago School
• Early Modernism
– The Chicago School
• Late 19th and early 20th century
• Vast building boom in the heart of Chicago in 1885
– Great Fire of 1871 had destroyed much of the city
• Leading architectural teams
– Burnham and Root
– Holabird and Roche
– Adler and Sullivan
Early Modern Architecture
ca. 1850-1900

The next step in the development of modern architecture was the shift from iron-frame to steel-frame
construction. Steel-frame architecture emerged in Chicago, among a circle of architects known as the
Chicago school, which flourished ca. 1880-1900. At this point in history, architects faced growing pressure to
extend buildings upward, as cities grew and property values soared. In response, the Chicago school built
the world’s first skyscrapers. (A good definition of “skyscraper”, for the purposes of architectural history, is
“a metal-frame building at least one hundred feet tall”.) The Home Insurance Building (1884; demolished),
by William Le Baron Jenney (a member of the Chicago school), is usually considered the very first
skyscraper.
12
Monadnock Building
– 1889 – 1891
– Burnham and Root
– Client had demanded
an extremely simplified
appearance
– Features
• Tall, elongated building
• 16 stories
• Sheer brickwork
• Very simple with no
decoration or carvings
Daniel Burnham and John Root,
Reliance Building, Chicago,
Illinois, 1890-1895
Pioneering skyscraper design,
three parts:
•a two story base to provide a
solid foundation
•a tall central portion with
alternating strips of projecting
and flat windows and
continuous vertical piers to
express the steel frame and
emphasize height, and
•a top treated as a separate unit
with prominent cornice
•Classical column: base, fluted
shaft, capital
The four initial floors of the fourteen-storey
Reliance Building, designed by Charles B.
Atwood of Daniel Burnham's office and the
structural engineer E.C. Shankland, were
erected in 1890.
First comprehensive achievement of the
system now known as Chicago
construction, was repeated innumerable
times in Chicago in the building boom that
lasted from 1890 to 1893.
It consisted of a riveted steel-frame
superstructure, hollow-tile flooring on steel
joists, plaster fire-proofing, perimeter bay
windows filled with plate glass, steel-
trussed wind bracing and bedrock concrete
caissons sometimes extending for as much
as 125 feet beneath the footing.
• Marquette Building
– Holabird and Roche
– 1893 – 1894
– Has a modern theme
with a hint of the
Classical
– Features
• Paneling and cornice
work at the top
• Continuous piers that
support massive lintels
recessed in the center
bays
• Walker Warehouse
– 1888 – 1889
– Adler and Sullivan
– Considered a stripped
Romanesque style
• Lack of rhythms,
rustication, and carved
ornament
– Features
• Twin, arched
entranceways
• Trabeated, flanking
bays
Henry Richardson, Marshall Field
Warehouse, Chicago

• Rounded arches, rusticated masonry

which decreases as it goes up
• Flat cornice on top
• Iron columns as interior supports
• Self-bearing masonry loads
• 7 story embryonic skyscraper
• Arranged around a central court
• No architectural features: pediments,
pinnacles, capitals
• Main entrance unaccented
• Subtle grouping of windows: variation
in size and shape of bays
• Simplification of rhythm
• Solid look of building despite large
proportion of window space
• Masculine image of wholesale store,
rather than the feminine image of a
retail store
Early Modern Architecture
ca. 1850-1900
The Guaranty Building, which is now called
the Prudential Building, was designed by
Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, and built
in Buffalo, New York. Sullivan's design for the
building was based on his belief that "form
follows function"
Louis Sullivan, Guaranty Building, Buffalo
• Building entirely covered in
decorative terra cotta panels
• Taller and more slender, with
windows recessed to allow for
height of piers to seem more
dramatic
• No office space more than 25 feet
from windows
• Generous rear lighting courts
• Steel frame with lighter outer
walls
• First building to use Gray columns,
designed with distinctive open
webs, had lateral stiffness against
wind loads
• Arrow-like motifs on façade are a
playful account of stress forces on
the building
Early Modern Architecture
While this building featured a metal frame
composed of both iron and steel, pure steel-frame
construction emerged (in works of the Chicago
school) within a decade.
It should be emphasized that in metal-frame
architecture, the entire weight of the building is
supported by the frame. The building’s walls thus
serve as mere “curtains” or “screens”, which are
hung upon the frame merely to seal the building’s
interior from the elements. In other words, the
metal frame is the building’s skeleton, while the
walls are its skin.
The skyscraper was the great technical achievement
of the Chicago school. Yet the school is also
responsible for a great aesthetic achievement: the
gradual reduction of traditional ornamentation in
skyscraper design.
Whereas buildings of ordinary height lend
themselves well to traditional styles, skyscrapers
were an entirely new building type, for which
traditional aesthetics proved unsatisfactory;
consequently, skyscrapers accelerated the
development of the modern aesthetic.
Early Modern Architecture
This transition away from traditional ornamentation
culminated in the development of functionalism by Louis
Sullivan, the foremost architect of the Chicago school.
Functionalism is an aesthetic approach in which a building
is simply designed according to its function, then graced
with features that are naturally suggested by its internal
structure.This approach, which leads to the simple
geometry of the modern aesthetic, is aptly summarized in
Sullivan’s guiding principle: “form follows function”.

Functionalism provided the modern aesthetic with a

theoretical foundation; consequently, Sullivan is often
referred to as the “father of modern architecture”.
Sullivan’s masterpiece is the Wainwright Building. The
exterior of this building reflects its three-part internal plan
(a two-story base, a middle section with seven floors of
offices, and a service floor at the top), and a brick pier
The intricate frieze along
indicates each column in the steel frame.
the top of the building
The horizontal dividers are recessed behind the piers, along with the bull's-eye
which emphasizes the building’s verticality: an aesthetic windows
choice that illustrates the creative freedom within the
bounds of functionalism.Most surfaces are plain, although
the horizontal dividers feature stucco decoration. 24
 Early Frank Lloyd Wright
• Frank Lloyd Wright
– The youngest member of the Chicago School
– Flamboyant personality and a sense of prophetic
mission in architecture
– Studied for two years at the University of
Wisconsin as an engineer
• Decided he did not want to be an engineer
– Designed the Larkin Building in Buffalo, NY
• A radical leap into modern architecture
 Early Frank Lloyd Wright
• Winslow House
– 1893
– River Forest
– A study in contrasts
• Front of the house was all geometric
• Rear garden of the house was completely different than
the front
• Shattered the front’s boxlike structure with splintered,
aggressive forms
 Early Frank Lloyd Wright
• Larkin Building
– Buffalo, NewYork
– 1904
– Represented a leap
into modern
architecture from
the 19th century
– Features
• Rectangular,
• skylight atrium
• Reception facilities,
lavatories, lockers,
and office space
• The Latter years (1932-1959)
 Taliesin School of Architecture
• In 1932, Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife started the Taliesin Fellowship, which
then became the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
• Twenty-three apprentices came to live and work on wrights farm in Spring
Green.
• The farm was a self-sustaining entity, with the apprentices growing and
harvesting their own food, building their own living quarters and other
buildings needed on the farm. They also learned drafting, construction
methods, and other crafts, as well as overseeing the construction of Wright’s
projects.
• "The fine arts, so called," they asserted, "should stand at the center as
inspiration grouped about architecture . . . . (of which landscape and the
decorative arts would be a division)." Education at Taliesin would emphasize
painting, sculpture, music, drama, and dance "in their places as divisions of
architecture." Frank Lloyd Wright (1931).

• The school continued Throughout his life, having upward to 100 students at a
time. Apprentices worked on their own designs as well as projects assigned to
them by Frank lloyd Wright.
 Taliesin School of Architecture
TALIESIN, FARM AND
OUTBUILDINGS
RENDERED BY
FRANK LLOYD
WRIGHT (1933)

TALIESIN WEST - LIVING

ROOM
SCOTTSDALE ARIZONA
Late Modern Architecture ca. 1900-1960

The piers read as pillars

The Bauhaus, German school of design by Walter Gropius

In the early twentieth century, the modern aesthetic (simple, unadorned geometric forms) finally matured,
becoming the mainstream aesthetic of architecture and design across the world. This was achieved primarily by
the Bauhaus, a German school of design that operated for most of the interwar period. The school was closed
when the Nazi government came to power, forcing many of its scholars to emigrate to the United States, where
they continued to serve as leaders of the architecture/design world (such that the “Bauhaus age” actually
stretched decades beyond the closure of the school).

41
 The piers read as pillars

The scope of Bauhaus included

interiors, furniture and accessories

The International Style

The scope of Bauhaus efforts included architecture, visual art, interior design, graphic design, and industrial design
(product design). It should be noted that while Bauhaus designers generally embraced the aesthetic theory of
functionalism, deliberate use of this theory (or even familiarity with it) is not a prerequisite to designing works that feature
the modern aesthetic. Thus, for any given modern-style building or object, the designer may or may not have had
functionalism in mind.
The modern aesthetic reached maturity when excess material (including traditional ornamentation) had been stripped
away, leaving only a basic structure of plain geometric forms. As noted above, this maturation was achieved in the early
twentieth century, with the Bauhaus leading the way (in terms of both innovation and propagation). Architecture that
features the mature modern aesthetic is known as international style architecture, due to the rapid global diffusion of this
style once it emerged.

42
 Bauhaus
Bauhaus is an art and architecture
school in Germany that operated
from 1919 to 1933.
Bauhaus is also the name for an
approach to design that was
developed and taught in the
school.
The most natural meaning for its
name (related to the German verb
for "build") is Architecture House.
Bauhaus style became one of the
most influential trends in
Modernist architecture.
The Bauhaus school tried to
combine art, craft, and
technology.
Machinery and new technology
were considered positive
elements. Therefore industrial
and product design were
important.
There was no teaching of
history of design and art, in the
school, because everything was
supposed to be a new design
and creation.
Walter Gropius who founded the Bauhaus
School, believed that a new period of history had
begun at the end of the war.(WW1)
He wanted to create a new style to reflect this
new era.
His style was functional, cheap, and consistent
with mass production.
Gropius wanted to reunite art and craft and
produce high-end functional products that were
stylish and contemporary.
What do the following words mean:
•Functional
•Mass Production
 Marcel Breuer (1902 Hungary –1981
New York City) Architect and Furniture
designer, was an influential
Modernist. One of the fathers of
Modernism, Breuer showed a great
interest in modular construction and
simple forms.

Hard-edge painting is a style that uses very straight and clean linear
patterns and/or lines to create a 3-D effect on a 2-D surface. Many
tools can be used to do such work; most often, normal masking tape.
Using a flat and very soft paintbrush or a roller can have a nice smooth
look without seeing any of the marks usually left by rough bristles.
As well as art and architecture there
are many Bauhaus inspired products
 The piers read as pillars

The international style’s three most influential pioneers were

Gropius, Corbusier, and Mies.
Walter Gropius, founder and first director of the Bauhaus, designed the
buildings of the school’s second campus.
Plain walls (white and grey) and screens of glass, sometimes several
stories in height, predominate. Gropius’ balconies showcase an
impressive new structural possibility of steel-frame construction:
cantilevering (platforms fixed only at one end), which further
contributes to a sense of architectural weightlessness.
 Le Corbusier and Pierre
Jeanneret: Villa La Roche,
Paris 1925

(Foto: Findal, 2007)

Foto: Davies, 2006
 The functionalist doctrine
4 elements:
• Integrity and usability of materials
• Expression of new construction technology and
production methods
• Efficient use and organising of buildings
• Propagation of a new spatial order – free from
references to the past
New Spaciality:
• and vertical organisation in which the rooms
were connected by a centrally located
staircase
The International Style

The 5 points of Architecture in the Villa Savoye:

1.Ribbon Window, 2.Roof gardens, 3.Pilotis, 4.free plan,5.free facade

The Swiss architect Le Corbusier, though not a member of

the Bauhaus, absorbed and became a leading figure of the
international style. He preferred smooth expanses of white
reinforced concrete pierced with horizontal strip windows, as
well as a degree of curvilinear geometry . Le Corbusier’s
masterpiece is the Villa Savoye.
 Le Corbusier’s five
principles for a new
architecture

• Pilotis

• Roof terrasses

• Open plans

• Open fasades

• Horisontal window
bands
…made possible by help av new construction
techniques

Eksempel på åpen plan:

Villa Tugendhat, Brno (1928-30)

Mies van der Rohe
Foto: Davies, 2006
 The piers read as pillars

The Robie House

Contemporary with the “Bauhaus age” was the career of the greatest American architect, Frank Lloyd
Wright, who focused primarily on residential designs. Wright sought to make his buildings organic; that is, to
adjust their layouts and features until they merge with their natural surroundings, rather than simply
imposing a rectangular box of a house on any given locale. Wright felt that a house should not be located on
a site, but rather be a natural extension of the site.The exterior walls of a Wright house are articulated in a
relatively complex, asymmetrical manner (so as to avoid a stiff, “boxy” appearance), and the house is often
visually united with the earth via broad, flat surfaces parallel with the ground (e.g. eaves, cantilevered
balconies). Interiors are open and flowing (rather than mechanically subdivided into small rooms), and
ample windows (including windows that bend around corners) throughout the house merge the interior
with the world outside. A mixture of building materials (e.g. brick, wood, stone, concrete) further
contributes to the sense of the house as an organic feature of the landscape.
The International Style
Despite the contrast between
functionalism and Wright’s “organicism”,
both are clearly modern (i.e. not based The piers read as pillars
on anything traditional), and
consequently similar in appearance to a
significant degree. Wright shared the
functionalist appreciation for simple
geometry and plain, unadorned
surfaces, and he embraced mass-
produced building materials. One could The Falling Water –Bear Run Pennsylvania
categorize Wright’s architecture as a
The Guggenheim Museum
branch of the international style, or as a
cousin.
Wright’s first great works were his
Prairie Houses, built in the Midwest;
best-known among them is Robie House
in Chicago. His most famous building of
all is Fallingwater, Pennsylvania, while
his foremost urban work is the
Guggenheim Museum in New York.
65
A. Loos: Moller Haus, Wien, 1928
Plan 1.etg

A. Loos: Moller Haus, Wien, 1928

(Siktlinjer og foto: Colomina, 2005)

A. Loos: Müller house,
Prague (1930)

Fotos: Colomina, 2005 og Davies, 2006

 A new aesthetic

• the inherent logic of new materials and construction

techniques
• avoid all unnecessary and superficial elements
(absence of decoration)
• Simple lines, primary colors, clear geometrical forms
– contrast to the surrounding nature (abstraction)
 The piers read as pillars

The Seagram Building The Lakeshore Drive Apartments-

Chicago
While Gropius and Le Corbusier made ample use of reinforced concrete, pure glass-
and-steel construction in the international style was perfected by Mies van der Rohe
(another director of the Bauhaus), who believed so firmly in eliminating all
embellishment that his guiding principle was simply “less is more”. Mies brought the
international style to the height of its influence, as descendants of his glass-and-steel
skyscrapers appeared in every corner of the globe. The Seagram Building in New York,
essentially a steel frame sheathed in curtains of glass, is often considered his
masterpiece. The Lake Shore drive apartments brought in a revolution in high-rise
residential lifestyle.
 CIAM (International Congresses of
Modern Architecture)
• The Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne
• organization founded in 1928 and disbanded in 1959
• by a group of 28 European architects organized by Le
Corbusier
• responsible for a series of events and congresses
arranged around the world by the most prominent
architects of the time, with the objective of spreading
the principles of the Modern Movement focusing in all
the main domains of architecture (such as landscape,
urbanism, industrial design, and many others).
• CIAM was one of many 20th century manifestos meant
to advance the cause of "architecture as a social art".
Goals
 CIAM (International Congresses of
Modern Architecture)
It was not only engaged in formalizing the architectural principles of
the Modern Movement, but also saw architecture as an economic
and political tool that could be used to improve the world through
the design of buildings and through urban planning
• Principles of "The Functional City", broadened CIAM's scope from
architecture into urban planning.
• Based on an analysis of thirty-three cities, CIAM proposed that the
social problems faced by cities could be resolved by strict functional
segregation, and the distribution of the population into tall
apartment blocks at widely spaced intervals. These proceedings
went unpublished from 1933 until 1942, when Le Corbusier, acting
alone, published them in heavily edited form as the "Athens
Charter“
• The CIAM organisation disbanded in 1959 as the views of the
members diverged.
CIAM Discussions on