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POST WAR

DECADES......

… INTERNATIONAL STYLE
(Walter Gropius ,
Mies Vender Rohe,
Le Corbusier)
- Represented elegance, glamour, functionality and
ART DECO STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE modernity.
- Its linear symmetry was a distinct departure from
the flowing asymmetrical organic curves of its
predecessor style art nouveau; it embraced
influences from many different styles of the early
twentieth century, including neoclassical,
constructivism, cubism, modernism and
futurism and drew inspiration from
ancient Egyptian and Aztec forms.
-Purely decorative.
- most significant of its
features was its dependence
upon ornaments and motifs.
-influenced partly by styles The art deco spire of
such as Cubism, Russian the Chrysler Building
in New York, built
Constructivism and Italian 1928–1930
Futurism. City Hall in Buffalo,
- uses symmetry and New York; John Wade
with George Dietel,
repetition. built 1929–1931
-materials : aluminium, stainless steel , lacquer,
Bakelite, Chrome and inlaid wood. Exotic
materials such as sharkskin (shagreen), and
zebra skin were also used
- The use of stepped forms and geometric
curves (natural curves of Art Nouveau),
chevron patterns, ziggurat-shapes, fountains,
and the sunburst motif are typical of Art
Deco.

Terracotta sunburst design


above the front doors of the
Eastern Columbia Building in
Los Angeles; Claud Beelman,
1930

Art deco bevel


sunburst using
natural curves
ART MODERNE STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE
Art Moderne or Streamline Moderne was a late type of the Art Deco
design style which emerged during the 1930s. Its architectural style
emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical
elements ,embraced transportation metaphors for decoration,
Common characteristics
•Horizontal orientation
•Rounded edges, corner
windows, and glass brick walls
•Glass block
•Porthole windows
(streamline moderne)

•Smooth exterior wall


surfaces, usually stucco (smooth
plaster finish)
•Flat roof with coping Hamilton ontario
•Horizontal grooves or lines in •corner windows with sash, and as well as
walls making an unusual and interesting
exterior look,
•Horizontal lines of the building are
emphasized by the banding.
•The exterior finish is smooth, clean and
really wonderfully streamlined.
•no extraneous detailing to detract from
Greyhound bus terminal, Cleveland, Ohio
the clean lines of the façade.
•Subdued colors: base colors were typically light earth tones, off-
whites, or beiges; and trim colors were typically dark colors (or bright
metals) to contrast from the light base.
Examples:
-The Normandie Hotel
- Although Streamline Moderne houses are less common
than streamline commercial buildings.The Lydecker House in Los
Angeles, built by Howard Lydecker,
- elements of the style were frequently used as a variation in
post-war row housing in San Francisco.

Row housing

Lydecker
House in Los
Angeles, built
Normandie Hotel, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was by Howard
inspired by SS Normandie, the ship, and includes Lydecker,
the ship's original sign
Nazi’s rejected the modern architecture forcing an entire generation of
INTERNATIONAL STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE
architects out of Europe.
Mies fled to the USA in 1936 extending his influence and promoting
Bauhaus which later became the primary source of architectural
modernism.
The International Style became the dominant approach for decades.
• International quality
• Developed by European architects
1920-1945

• Walter Gropius, Ludwig Meis Van Der Rohe, Marcel Breuer,


and Le Corbusier, among others used this style in their early
careers. The Bauhaus School was particularly influential.
• Purposeful critique of and break from the past
• Modular, uniform architecture for the masses
• Architecture for industry, business, and institutions
 International Style viewed buildings as factories for living and sought
to emulate the extreme functionality and modularity of spaces.

 Rejection of "unessential" decoration is one characteristic that


separates International style from Art Deco and Art Moderne.
• The International Style was striving towards:

- Simplification
- Honesty
- Clarification

• The ideals of the style can be summed up in four slogans:

“ornament is a crime”
“truth to materials”
“form follows function”
“machines for living”
(Le Corbusier)
CHARACTERISTICS :
• Simple ,undecorated , uniform
• Concrete , Glass , Steel
• Occasionally reveals skeleton frame construction
• Exposing its structure
• Ribbon windows , Corner windows , Bands of glass
• Balance and regularity
• Emphasis on horizontality
• Flat roof, without ledge
• Often with thin, metal mullions and smooth spandrel panels
separating large, single-pane windows
• Cantilevered balconies
 The typical International Style high-rise usually consists of the
following:
• Square and rectangular foot prints
• Simple cubic “extruded rectangle” form
• Windows running in broken horizontal rows forming a grid
• All façade angles are 90 degree
 Major architectural style in Europe & USA
 Began in the 1920’s – 1930’2 (1980’s)
 Term coined by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Phillip Johnson

Henry-Russell Hitchcock Philip Cortelyou Johnson


(1903-1987) (1906-2005)
•Philip Johnson born in 1906,in Cleveland ,
Ohio
•After graduating from high school he attended
harward college , where he studied classics.
•At the age of 26 he became the director of
museum of modern art’s new architecture
department
•Founder of influential department of
PHILIP JOHNSON ..

architecture and design at Moma. As co-author


with Henry Russell Hitchcock of Moma
exhibition catalog “the international style
:architecture since 1922”

PHILOSOPHIES :
According to Philip Johnson ‘crutches’ by which architects evade their real
responsibilities are-
•History – i.e. Justifying elements which are earlier used.
•Utility- i.e. If utility of a building overcomes artistic inventions ,then it is
merely an assemblage of useful parts.
HOUSE
PHILIP JOHNSON ..GLASS

• Glass house ,new canaan(1949)

• One of the world's most beautiful yet least functional houses


• Transparent open-plan frame structure which was his own residence.
• Is heavily influenced by mies' farnsworth house
• Bath in brick cylinder.
• Includes outdoor sculpture and a separate blank-walled brick guest
house
•Spatial divisions in
the glass building
are achieved by a
brick cylinder
containing a
bathroom, and by
low walnut cabinets
—one of them
containing kitchen
equipment.

•It was a building really expressing


many concerns of classic design,
from the elevated placement of an
object in a space, to its serene
proportion, general overall
symmetry, and combining of a
balance of elements
MASTER ARCHITECTS :

Le Corbusier (France)
Walter Gropius
(Germany)
Ludwig Mies van Rohe
•Bauhaus school
(Germany)
The German-American architect, educator,
and designer Walter Gropius (1883-1969)
was director of Bauhaus in Germany from
1919 to 1928 and occupied the chair of
architecture at the Harvard University
Graduate School of Design from 1938 to
WALTER GRUPIUS …

1952.

PHILOSOPHIES …

•Use of machine and modern prefabrication.


•Unitation of the various arts of painting, architecture, theatre,
photography, weaving, typography, etc., into the design.
•Various functional techniques should be used:
Simpicity , Symmetry , Angularity , Abstraction , Consistency ,
Unity ,Organization ,Economy ,Subtlety ,Continuity ,Regularity
,Sharpness ,Monochomaticity.
•His goal was to raise the level of product design by combining art and
industry.
•Bauhaus is a German
WALTER GRUPIUS …BAUHAUS
expression meaning "house
for building."
•Bauhaus architects
rejected "bourgeois" details
such as cornices, eaves and
decorative details.
•Use principles of Classical
architecture in their most
pure form: without
ornamentation of any kind.
•It shuns ornamentation , ostentatious facade and favors
functionality
•flat roofs, smooth facades and cubic shapes.
•Floor plans are open and furniture is functional.
BAUHAS
VIEW

SITE
PLAN

•The Bauhaus school disbanded when the Nazis rose to


power. Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and other
Bauhaus leaders migrated to the United States. The term
International Style was applied to the American form of
Bauhaus architecture.
•The name came from the book The International Style by
historian and critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Architect
Philip Johnson.
GROPIUS HOUSE
• In 1925 Walter Gropius designed
his house at Dessau , according to
his needs, and areas were selected
according to function. In his own
house he used steel frames and glass.
•maximum openings for maximum
advantage of daylighting , nature’s
beauty and flow of space.
• Its detailing keeps strongly to the
principles of the Bauhaus
WALTER GROPIUS …

architecture
•Brick and cement
for external
treatment but for
internal treatment
•Gropius used all
new materials which
give it an
extraordinary
beauty inside as well
as outside.
•The plan of the Cologne
FAGUS FACTORY building was axially designed in the
Beaux-Arts tradition, but the
major influence was predominantly
that of Frank Lloyd Wright.
•Gropius and Meyer were
influenced by Wright's style
especially in the horizontality
and the wide
overhanging eaves, but also in
WALTER GROPIUS ..

the symmetry, the corner


pavilions, and the whole spirit
of Wright's concept
•It used elements that later characterized the International Style.
•Glass curtain walls between expressed steel supports, corners left free
of solid masonry, and simple rectangular massing with a flat roof.
•The front façade was windowless and clad with limestone resembling
brick.
•Most important was architecture of the administration block with its
transparent staircase, the glass walled offices with continuous round the
corners, and the roof terraces.
MIES VAN DER ROHE … PHILOSOPHIES …

Fransworth house

•Beauty is splendour of truth


Fransworth house

•Structure & Bauknst

Crown hall
•Skin and bone concept Entrance of Seagram Building

•Material and technology


CURTAIN
TRACK
DETAILS

•God is in the detail Barcelona pavilion

•Less is more

•Universality

•The classical
serenity of building
Barcelona pavilion in its surroundings
FRANSWORTH HOUSE
MIES VAN DER ROHE ..

Construction System : Steel frame with glass


• In the late 1940s, Mies Vander Rohe continued to develop
his steel-and-glass vocabulary.
• Its interior, a single room, is subdivided by partitions
and completely enclosed in glass.
• The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the
Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies.
• No partitions touch the
surrounding all-glass enclosure.
Without solid exterior walls,
full-height draperies on a
perimeter track allow freedom
to provide full or partial privacy
when and where desired

Plan of Farnsworth house

• A wood-paneled fireplace is positioned within the open space to


suggest living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls.
Concept: The
BARCELONA PAVILION Commissioner, Georg von
Schnitzler said it should
give "voice to the spirit of a
new era". This concept
was carried out with the
realization of the "free
plan" and the "floating
room
Planning : This lack of
MIES VAN DER ROHE ..

accommodation enabled
Construction System : steel frame with
Mies to treat the Pavilion glass and polished
as a continuous space; stone
blurring inside and outside
•Another unique feature of
this building is the exotic
materials Mies chooses to
use. Plates of high-grade
stone materials like veneers
of Tinos verde antico
marble and golden onyx as
well as tinted glass of grey,
green, white, as well as
translucent glass, perform
exclusively as spatial
dividers.

•The floor slabs of the pavilion


project out and over the pool—
once again connecting inside and
out.
•style's characteristic traits was to
SEAGRAM BUILDING express or articulate the structure
of buildings externally
•style that argued that the
functional utility of the building’s
structural elements when made
visible, could supplant a formal
decorative articulation; and more
honestly converse with the public,
than any system of applied
ornamentation.
MIES VAN DER ROHE ..

Seagram Building
New York, NY, 1956-58, L. Mies van
der Rohe & P. Johnson
PLAN
•built of a steel frame, from which
non-structural glass walls were hung.
•used non-structural bronze-toned I-
beams to suggest structure visible
from the outside of the building, and
run vertically, like mullions,
surrounding the large glass windows.

•method of construction using an interior reinforced concrete shell


to support a larger non-structural edifice has since become
commonplace
The interior was designed to assure cohesion with the external
features, repeated in the glass and bronze

WINDOW BLINDS: To reduce this disproportionate


appearance, Mies specified window blinds which only operated in
three positions – fully open, halfway open/closed, or fully closed.
•The towers were simple rectangular
LAKE SHORE DRIVE APARTMENTS boxes with a non-hierarchical wall
enclosure, raised on stilts above a glass
enclosed lobby.
•The lobby is set back from the perimeter
columns, exposed around the perimeter of
the building above.
•The steel skeletal frame is based on a
21-foot grid and is clearly expressed in the
elevations, indicated by black painted
steel sheets covering the fireproofed
MIES VAN DER ROHE ..

columns and beams.

•designed a series of four


middle-income high-rise
apartment buildings
PLAN
•These towers, with
façades of steel and glass.
Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
AS A FURNITURE DESIGNER

worked under Bruno Paul,
architect and furniture designer
in Berlin.
 Mies Van Der Rohe furniture
is influenced by a design
approach based on advanced
structural techniques and
Prussian Classicism.
The Barcelona Chairs create
MIES VAN DER ROHE ..


ambience of sophistication and
sport clean lines and smooth
finishes. A perfect mix of metal
and soft leather, Mies Van Der
Rohe furniture includes smart
pieces like Mies van der Rohe
Cantilever Chair with no arms,
Barcelona Ottoman, Mies van
der Rohe Barcelona Day Bed
and Barcelona Chair etc.
Le Corbusier …is one of the most
imaginative architect of the last
century to whom we owe the
revolutionary, structural change of
modern architecture.

•Le Corbusier dominated twentieth-


century architecture in much the same
way that Picasso dominated painting.
LE CORBUSIER …

•Le Corbusier is the most influential, most admired, and most maligned
architect of the twentieth century.
•Through his writing and his buildings, he is the main player in the
Modernist story, his visions of homes and cities as innovative as they are
influential.
•Many of his ideas on urban living became the blueprint for Post-war
reconstruction, and the many failures of his would-be imitators led to Le
Corbusier being blamed for the problems of western cities in the 1960s
and 1970s.
Le Corbusier was deeply involved in the
purist movement which focused on seeing
objects in the world and rendering them
AS A PURIST

exactly as they appear in their purest forms.

This was the


architects way of
rationalizing his unique
style of housing.
LE CORBUSIER …

Much of his radical


design was centered
on the basic shape
and form of the cube.

Postmodernism was the return to classical


architecture which at the time was very
unpopular with many critics and underwent
severe persecution.
5 points towards architecture
A New Architecture finally
formulated in 1926 included…..
1) Supports – The
replacement of supporting
walls by a grid of reinforced
concrete columns that bears
the load of the structure is
the basis of the new
aesthetic.

2) The free designing of the


ground plan – The absence
LE CORBUSIER ..

of supporting walls means


that the house is
unrestrained in its internal
usage.

3) The free design of facade –


By separating the exterior
of the building form its
structural function the
façade becomes free.
4) The long horizontal sliding window
The horizontal window – The façade can be cut along its entire
length to allow rooms to be lit equally.

5) Roof gardens
The flat roof can be utilization for a domestic purpose while also
providing essential protection the concrete roof.
•One of the most famous houses
..VILLA SAVOYE (1920-30) of
the modern movement in
architecture,
the Villa Savoye is a masterpiece
of Le Corbusier's purist design.
• It is perhaps the best example of
LeCorbusier's goal to create a
house which would be a "machine a
habitat," a machine for living (in). Glass facade
• Located in a suburb near Paris, Pilotis
the house is as beautiful and (supporti
functional as a machine.
LE CORBUSIER

ng
column)

Spiral staicase
3d view
•Modular design -- the result of
corbusier researches into mathematics,
architecture (the golden section), and
VILLA SAVOYE … DESIGN FEATURES

human proportion .
•"Pilotis" -- the house is raised on stilts .
•No historical ornament . Horizontal window
•A very open interior plan .
•Built-in furniture .
•Abstract sculptural design .
•Roof garden.
•Pure color -- white on the outside, a
color with associations of newness,
purity, simplicity, and health and planes
of subtle color in the interior living areas Roof garden
•Dynamic , non-traditional transitions
between floors -- spiral staircases and
ramps.
•Ribbon windows (echoing industrial
architecture, but also providing
openness and light) .
Free plan
•The church is simple—an oblong nave,
LE CORBUSIER .. NOTRE DAME DU HAUT two side entrances, an axial main altar,
and three chapels beneath towers—as is
its structure, with rough masonry walls
faced with whitewashed Gummite
(sprayed concrete) and a roof of
contrasting baton brut.
•Buttress-shaped south wall - and the
vast shell of the concrete roof give the
building a massive, sculptural form.
•Small, brightly painted and apparently
irregular windows punched in these
thick walls give a dim but exciting light
within the cool building, enhanced by
further indirect light coming down the
three light towers.

Vertical
triangular
frames
Plan Elevation
UNITED NATION HEADQUATER
•The complex has served as the official
headquarters of the United Nations since
its completion in 1952.
•The most notable of the architects were
Oscar Niemeyer, Le Corbusier and
Wallace K. Harrison, who headed the
board .
•Some renowned architects including Mies
Van Der Rohe and Walter Gropius were
excluded due to their historic links with
Germany, the enemy during the war.
•The International Style was chosen by the
board members as it symbolized a new start Titled: Let
LE CORBUSIER ..

after the Second World War. Us Beat


• A plan by Le Corbusier, known as project Swords into
23A, was taken as the basis for the design. Plowshares..
•It consists of a complex with 4 buildings: the
Secretariat building, the General Adjacent to the United
Assembly building, the Conference Nations complex is a small
building and the Dag Hammarskjold public Park bordering the East
River. It is littered with artwork
Library. donated by many countries…
The National Museum of Western Art …. is the premier public Art gallery
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WESTERN ART in Japan specializing in art from the Western tradition.

•The NMWA was established on June 10, 1959.


• The museum is square in plan with the main body
of the galleries raised on Piloti to first floor level.
• The layout is influenced by Le Corbusier's
Shankar Kendra museum in Ahmadabad which
was being designed at the same time.
•This double height space is lit from above with a north glazed pyramidal
skylight intersected with reinforced concrete beams and a column.
•On the opposite side of the hall from the entrance, the ascent to the
LE CORBUSIER ..

paintings gallery is via a promenade ramp which affords better views


of Rodin's sculptures.
• Le Corbusier designed the paintings gallery to be lit by natural daylight
via four lighting troughs but these are no longer used and the galleries are
now artificially lit.
•Externally the building is clad in prefabricated concrete panels which sit
on U-shaped frames supported by the inner wall.
•The building generally is constructed of reinforced concrete and the
columns have a smooth concrete finish.
THE FURNITURE DESIGNER
•In his creative work …...aesthetic is one
of the focal points.
•Most of Le Corbusier's furniture
designs were developed with the aim of
exploring this concept in creative
collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret
and Charlotte Perriand, designers who
shared his interest in the research for
distinctive looks related to a concept Resting chair
of new functionalism.
•In 1928 the team introduced a series
LE CORBUSIER ..

of innovative metal furniture which


immediately became classic.
•During his lifetime, Le Corbusier
licensed Heidi Weber with two
contracts in 1959 and 1963 for the
production and sales of four different
chairs designs, which he officially
declared as his own.
QUOTATIONS….
"You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with
these materials you build houses and palaces: that is
construction, Ingenuity is at work.
"Space and light and order. Those are the things
that men need just as much as they need bread or a
place to sleep."
"The house is a machine for living in."
"Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind
of plan, both for the house and the city."
"The 'Styles' are a lie."
“Architecture or revolution. Revolution
can be avoided."
Modular
CORBUSIER AS….. Lamp designer
Painter

Women in window
REFERENCES …
Internet
 http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Walter_Gropius.aspx
www.answers.com › ... › Britannica Concise
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/biographies/mainbiographies/
g/gropiuswalter/1.html
www.walter-gropius.com
www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Bauhaus.html
www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/gropius.html
Wikipedia.com
Greatbuildings.com
Designcenter.com
Architectbiography.com
Archinomy.com
Simplycharly.com
Designdictionary.com
THANK
YOU
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Abhilasha (0906002)
Ishani (0906013)

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