INFLUENCE OF THE WORLD WARS ON MODERN ARCHITECTURE

INTRODUCTION

The transformations of the contemporary world forced architects to face the new needs derived
from industrialization and urban growth. They had two main options, either maintain the models
of the past, or radically break with tradition. In the 19th century the almost unanimous response
was the first through historicist styles.

In the 20th century, in the context of the Avant-garde, the second option prevailed, which some
art historians call the Modern Movement, others Functional Architecture and some International
Style. It was a complex, not very unitary, trend that began at the beginning of the century, reached
its zenith in the 1920s and closed its most creative stage with the Second World War.

FIRST WORLD WAR

World War I was the fundamental cause of a series of cultural changes in the affected areas
throughout the 20th century. After World War I, new designs that were developed for buildings
and construction in Europe and the United States became known as the International Style.

Beginning in 1914 there were two very different styles of modern architecture developing in the
Western world. The Art Nouveau style consisted of fluid lines and figures, based on natural forms.

Art nouveau or (new art) emerged at the end of the 19th century and continued until the first
decades of the 20th century. It is generally expressed in architecture and design.

 In architecture, a fusion is created between structure and ornament that freely combines
materials such as glass and iron.
 It is a style that contrasts with traditional architecture of balance and structural clarity.
 One of its outstanding characteristics is the use of long, sinuous and organic lines. They are
asymmetrical and undulating lines that take the shape of flowers, buds, butterflies, insects
and other elements related to nature and women (due to their sinuous lines).
 It could be said that it is a decorative style developed during the beautiful era in Europe
and the United States.
 It is a style that used various types of materials (stone, brick, glass, ceramics, wood, iron,
etc.), a fact that contributed to the grouping of different productive sectors.
 Art Nouveou takes its origins from Gothic Reviaval, the Art Grafts movement, iron
construction, the fashion for ornamental objects.

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In contrast, other architects began to design buildings in a more functional and modern style,
using steel, glass and reinforced concrete. This became known as ' international style'.

This is an architectural style developed in modern architecture, it can be included within

architectural functionalism, which implemented a universal way of designing, which was not tied
to the characteristics of any specific region. This began to boom from the year 1920. Among its
main features are the following: The fact that it emphasizes orthogonality. • The implementation
of smooth surfaces. • Use polished surfaces. • Lack of ornament. All of this created a light
appearance, making it also possible to use cantilevered constructions, which was an innovation in
that season. The interior spaces were larger than usual, since the use of new techniques and
materials, such as reinforced concrete, were characteristic of this style. The International Style
originated thanks to a diversity of factors that occurred in the Western world and that were being
changed due to engineering, industrialization, mechanics, and materials science, among them: 1.
The disagreement that some architects showed, due to the eclecticism in the architectural styles
of the late 19th century, since combinations of ornaments and all kinds of elements belonging to
different styles and periods were made, forgetting the relationship between form and structure.
function of the works. 2. The fact that the city was increasing rapidly due to industrialization, in
Europe and North America. This caused new styles of buildings to emerge, which had not been
planned until now, for example: office buildings, apartment blocks, new factories equipped with
new machinery and a large number of employees. 3. The most decisive factor was the great
technical advances in the fields of materials science and construction, which is why reinforced
concrete was created and steel alloys were improved. As a result, taller, more resistant and larger
buildings emerged.
European developments

The trend toward more modern and functional design was led by European and American
architects. In Europe, the De Stijl movement, in Holland; of Mies van der Rohe, in Germany, and Le
Corbusier, in France, had unique styles. Le Corbusier in particular used reinforced concrete in a
way that had never been done before. In Germany, the Bauhaus design school was founded in
1919 by architect Walter Gropius. Its influence continued after the Nazis closed it in 1933.

American style

In the United States, Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings that were in harmony with the
landscape. His style greatly influenced European architects before the First World War. In the
1930s he was joined by European architects, such as Mies van der Rohe, who were fleeing
persecution in their own countries. 1. A shortage of space in large cities led to the construction of
tall skyscrapers. The 102-story Empire States building in New York was completed in 1931 and was
the tallest building in the world.

The First World War: neoplasticism and expressionism

In 1917, while the First World War was at its peak and the Russian Revolution broke out, the
neoplasticism of De Stijl appeared in neutral Holland, a group of artists that included, along with
painters, designers and ceramists, the architects Jacobus Johannes. Pieter Oud and Theo van
Doesburg .

Expressionist architecture , which can be traced back to the first decade of the century, developed
in Central Europe until the 1930s, with the Dutch Amsterdam School ( Michel de Klerk , Pieter
Lodewijk Kramer , Johann Melchior Van der Mey ) and a good number of German groups (
Deutscher Werkbund -Munich, 1907-, Arbeitsrat für Kunst -Berlin, 1918-, or Der Ring -Berlin, 1923-)
that included architects such as Bruno Taut , Hermann Finsterlin , Erich Mendelsohn and Hans
Scharoun . The Neues Bauen movement, the architectural aspect of the new objectivity , meant a
reaction by the members of the expressionist movement towards a more rational and practical
approach.

Neoplasticism is defined as an artistic movement that proposes stripping art of all accessory
elements through objective plastic language. This movement was promoted by Piet Mondrian in
1917, from this, Piet Mondrian together with Theo van Doesburg founded the magazine de Stijl.
This magazine was the main driving force of this movement. Mondrian's theories are based on the
cubist works of Georges Braque and Picasso. The characteristics of these works are: They claim a
process of progressive abstraction by virtue of which the forms would be reduced to straight
horizontal and vertical lines, and the three primary colors would be used in addition to white,
black and gray.
Expressionism: In 1914, Paul Scheerbart published his work “Glassarchitectur” (glass architecture),
due to the necessary functional, but above all aesthetic, change. Scheerbart thought that glass
architecture would introduce us to a new culture that would improve the current one, he would
make changes such as the construction of houses with glass walls to change the closed nature of
the rooms and let the light pass through in its entirety, and thus be able to observe the wonderful
world of colors.

Bruno Taut, in 1914, built the “Crystal House”, inspired by Scheerbart. Everything in it was
intended for a didactic function, in such a way that when one was there a journey of knowledge
and transformation of people began, purifying them.

At the end of 1916, Taut organized an epistolary correspondence between artists and architects, in
which personal visions were presented in drawings and comments. This constituted a
development of expressionism, which all architects have gone through at some point in their
career.

But expressionism does not come only with glass, there are other architects whose architecture
maintains a relationship with nature. Mendelsohn, one of these thirteen components, used
expressionist language with a mediating vision towards the new machine era, but ended up
contrasting the old with the new, which produced a shock effect, and in this direction he began to
forget the mechanical world. .

Interwar period, totalitarianism and impact of the avant-garde: "Art Deco" [ edit ]
Main article: Art deco
Chrysler Building , Art Deco style. New York, 1930. William van Allen .

The interwar period (1918-1939) is that of the roaring twenties and the depression of the
thirties , which witnesses the emergence of fascist and Soviet totalitarianism as alternatives to
the liberalism of capitalist democracies, branded as decadent . The architectural programs of
Fascist Italy , Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union , like their aesthetic proposals, range from
an initial avant-garde ( Russian constructivism ) to a repetition of historicist models of
occupation of public spaces compatible with an easy-to-use style. popular consumption that
simultaneously prevails for the plastic arts ( socialist realism , heroic realism ), although as late
as 1938 Italian architecture developed programs as avant-garde as the EUR (universal
exhibition that was never held, scheduled for 1942, and that Architecturally planned by
Marcello Piacentini and Giuseppe Pagano , coordinating opposite aesthetic criteria).
However, it was in the socially advanced democracy of Weimar Germany prior to the rise of
Nazism where the most important events occurred for the emergence of modern architecture in
the sense of aesthetics and functionally renovating: the works of the Bauhaus school. ( Walter
Gropius , 1919-1933). Republican France saw the emergence of Le Corbusier 's workshop, of
comparable influence.
It would not be possible to simply identify rationalist functionalism with modern architecture , in
the sense of the only possible alternative for innovation; because, in addition to not
monopolizing architectural creation, its supporters did not limit themselves creatively either.
The alternatives developed notably included the organic architecture of authors such as Frank
Lloyd Wright (one of the leaders of the modern movement who moved within the parameters of
functionalism), as well as more neoclassical or monumentalist versions, such as that of Nordic
neoempiricism (the Swedes Erik Gunnar Asplund , Sune Lindström and Sven Markelius , and
the Danish Arne Jacobsen ). 3
Precedents of Modern Architecture [ edit ] CONCLUSION
Modern Architecture is a concept of criticism and historiography that has a broader historical
and conceptual meaning than the periods of rationalist architecture or organic architecture ,
since it includes all the currents, movements and trends that since the middle of the 19th
century 19th century tend to renew the characteristics, purposes and principles of architecture.
Modern Architecture arises from the technical, social and cultural changes linked to the
industrial revolution . The theorists of the Modern Movement seek the historical roots of
Modern Architecture in a broad prelude, a stage between the 18th and 19th centuries in which
different cultural sectors or economic activity and political and social life begin to glimpse
define the constructive and urban consequences of the industrial revolution. In the course of
the 19th century, a series of innovations and proposals in various fields related, among others,
to construction, public administration and industry came together in the demand for their
mutual integration.

England : Arts and Crafts

Main article: Arts and Crafts

It could be said that a good part of the foundations of Modern Architecture were born in the last
third of the 19th century in England , when William Morris , influenced by John Ruskin ,
promoted the Arts and Crafts movement as a reaction against the bad taste prevailing in the
objects produced in mass by industry, advocating a return to the artisanal arts, also called
minor, and to Gothic medievalism in architecture.
We must know Gothic architecture in depth, understand what it was and what it means: a magnificent
explanation of the organic spirit. Following this tradition, a structural principle is affirmed that evolves its
own forms adhering to the strictest truth, that is, depending on the conditions of use, materials and
construction techniques. 4
In parallel, hygienist theories together with the movements of utopian socialism lay the
foundations of modern urbanism .

France, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Spain: "Modernism" and its

labels [ edit ]

Vaults of the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia (unfinished), Antonio Gaudí.

At the turn of the century, a new style in architecture and design, opposed to the prevailing
academicism although it never imposed itself on it, spread throughout Europe, receiving
different names: Art Nouveau in France and Belgium, Jugendstil in Germany, Sezession in
Austria, Liberty or Floreale Style in Italy, Modernism in Spain, etc.
Art Nouveau breaks academic schemes and imposes the use of iron in architecture. Until then,
iron was a material associated with the constructions of the engineers who triumphed at the
Paris Universal Exhibition of 1889 with the Eiffel Tower and the Gallery of Machines . Art
Nouveau curves and intertwines iron, in thin ribbons, that form all kinds of shapes and
figurations and places it in the living rooms of houses and on the facades of buildings such as
the Maison du Peuple in Brussels ( Victor Horta ).
In Spain, the development of an active nucleus in Barcelona ( Catalan modernism ,
noucentisme ) stood out, from which the brilliant figure of Antoni Gaudí emerged, who evolved
into personal proposals that are difficult to classify; and a very ambitious urban project in
Madrid: the Ciudad Lineal by Arturo Soria .
The history of modern architecture records the transition of some representative architects of
Art Nouveau ( Henry van de Velde ) or the Viennese Seccession ( Josef Hoffmann ) towards
positions close to those of the Austrian architect Adolf Loos , in what can be considered the
beginning of a new, more disruptively modern stage.

Germany: Werkbund and Bauhaus [ edit ]

Bauhaus building , Dessau, Germany 1926. Architect: Walter Gropius.

Main article: Bauhaus

Main article: Werkbund

The first period of rationalist architecture begins in the years immediately before the First World
War (1914), when the experience of the Arts and Crafts movement was collected and
reworked by the Werkbund movement (1907, Munich ), to which they adhere. Hoffmann and
van de Velde.
Walter Gropius , one of the architects of the Werkbund , directed the Bauhaus from 1919
onwards, first in the city of Weimar and later in Dessau . This second stage of Modern
architecture , understood as rationalist architecture , began in those post-war years and spread
throughout Europe until the Second World War .
A large and important group of architects committed to the movement: Le Corbusier , Mies van
der Rohe , Alvar Aalto , Walter Gropius himself, founded the International Congress of Modern
Architecture (CIAM), with sections in many countries (in Spain the GATEPAC ). and convened
periodically between 1928 and 1959. The success in the dissemination of its principles and
experiences represented the establishment of the concept of Modern Architecture par
excellence in the vocabulary of architects, urban planners, critics and art historians.

United States : "Balloon frame" and Chicago School

Main article: Balloon frame

Main article: Chicago School (architecture)

" Reliance Building ." Architect: Daniel Burnham. Chicago, United States of America.

On the other side of the Atlantic, since the mid-19th century, innovations have been taking
place in the fields of construction and urban planning that lead to industrialization and the
occupation of the territory under the push of uncompromising capitalism. The colonization of
the Far West , the expansion of industry, as well as the massive reception of huge waves of
immigrants , constituted the basis of a cultural tradition typical of the United States of America:
a new and revolutionary construction system, the balloon frame , Designed so that anyone
could build their own house with few tools, it provided the technology necessary for pioneers to
colonize the West .
The ideological predominance of the spontaneity of free initiative was not an obstacle for
planning to also operate. It was in New York City where urban planner Frederick Law Olmsted
planned Central Park on the island of Manhattan , rescuing a large area of land from real
estate speculation . Olmsted also designed the metropolitan park system for the city of
Boston .
With the industrial buildings that line the Missouri River or Lake Michigan , the development of
high-rise construction with an iron structure and factory work began, culminating in the
skyscrapers of the Chicago School , arising from the exceptional opportunity. that provided the
great Chicago fire of 1871, and that they developed a new typology of office or commercial
buildings.
Simultaneously, residential architecture was developed for the middle classes made of wood
and stone , derived from the balloon frame , and which influenced Frank Lloyd Wright 's Prairie
Houses ( Casa Darwin D. Martin , 1903-1905). In the midst of this series of innovations, the
American architect Louis Sullivan , with a studio in Chicago , where Wright began, reflecting on
his own work, coined the famous motto:
form follows function
which would become, throughout the 20th century, the battle cry of new architecture.

Canonization of the Modern Movement

Main article: Modern Movement
Modern movement , in architecture, is the set of trends that emerged in the first decades of
the 20th century, marking a break with the traditional configuration of spaces, compositional
and aesthetic forms. His ideas went beyond the architectural field, influencing the world of art
and design .
The modern movement took advantage of the possibilities of new industrial materials such as
reinforced concrete , laminated steel and large flat glass .
It was characterized by orthogonal floor plans and sections, generally asymmetrical, absence
of decoration on the facades and large horizontal windows made up of steel profiles. The
interior spaces are bright and open.

Le Corbusier 's building, in Stuttgart .

Although the origins of this movement can be sought as early as the late 19th century, with
figures such as Peter Behrens , its best examples were built from the 1920s, designed by
architects such as Walter Gropius , Frank Lloyd Wright , Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier .
The arrival of Hitler to power in 1933 caused the departure of numerous architects and
creators from the country who would extend the principles of this movement to other countries.

1932: The "International Style" [ edit ]

The name International Style began to become widespread in the United States after the
exhibition of modern architecture held in 1932 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York , on
the occasion of which Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson wrote the book
International Style: Architecture since 1922 .
Although after the Second World War there were still important constructions within this style,
the last decades of the 20th century have been dominated by other critical movements , heirs
in any case of the modern movement.

Mid-20th century : Reconstruction of Europe

The Modern Movement continued to develop in Europe during the second post-war period,
driven by the tasks of reconstruction. On a theoretical level, the contributions of the so-called
organic architecture , a trend inspired by the work of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright
, with Alvar Aalto and Arne Jacobsen as prominent representatives, were opposed to the so-
called " International Style " inspired by the work of Le Corbusier , who postulated a "
functionalist " orthodoxy embodied in the " Letter of Athens " (and the famous Sullivan quote)
as well as the absolute purity of composition and details, inspired in turn by the work of Mies.
The quote from Taut at the beginning of this article constitutes a theoretical synthesis of the "
International Style ", which was widely disseminated in the United States, Europe and South
America .
The Modern Movement entered into crisis at the end of the 1950s , when a series of very
severe criticisms were made of the excesses of the " International style " and the urbanism
derived from the " Athens Charter ." A set of trends that claim to be continuators of the Modern
Movement, are the protagonists of architecture from the 1960s to the present.

Main transformations from Modern to Postmodern architecture [

edit ]
The reflection begins by dividing the history of the 20th century into two, the great event of 'modernity'
and what is known as 'postmodernity'. These two periods, visions or positions on the world, were
produced by a series of transformations in the industrialized world, which were later reflected in countries
in the process of industrializing.
Jairo A. Moncada , 2009

Instability, a product of continuous changes in the structures of society, from the

economic, political and socio-cultural structure, are characteristics of our local
architecture.
The transformation of the cultural structure is one of the most important events for local
contemporary architecture.
Marchán Fiz , Panorama of Contemporary Aesthetics in Architecture

Culturally dependent societies, such as Latin America , driven by a forced development

of the great industrialized nations (late 19th century) and practically dependent on the
dictates of these 'superior' cultures, the Eurocentric and North American, conceive
hidden stories that define their ideological panorama incapable of constructing their
own stories make up one of the most complex challenges: the balance between the
local and the global
The criticism and quality of Latin American vernacular architecture went into decline
and the balance between tradition and innovation fell in favor of the global.

 All these transformations also meant a change in the views of reality and aesthetic
taste.
The end of the Second World War with its disastrous consequences, meant for the
contemporary world, not only the end of an era, but the construction of a new social
project against that current modernism that had been characterized by the
simplification of forms. , the absence of ornament and the conscious renunciation of
classical academic composition.
Language as the main aesthetic connector of the new proposal, allows the reworking
of reality
An exaggeratedly expressive language becomes the field of exploration of reality and a
guide to creative production, assumed by the other disciplines to govern their study
interests.
The current paradigms of the time that shape aesthetic trends consider local stories
and the massification of the media, the formation of new collective behaviors, the
image as the main referent of communicability, the transformation of the way of living
and using public spaces. and new senses of beauty.
These transformations can be synthesized mainly in three approaches:

 From the functionalist aesthetics of modernity, to a subjectivist aesthetics of

postmodernity.
 From an abstractionist aesthetic as a rational resource, to a figurative aesthetic
that values the particular.
 From a hygienist aesthetic as a homogeneous and defining construction of order,
to one that values chaos.
Prominent designers of the Modern
Movement [ edit ]
In the 1920s , the most important figures of modern architecture
already had great reputations. The most recognized were Le
Corbusier in France , Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius , the
latter were directors of the Bauhaus in Germany . The Bauhaus
was one of the most important European schools, and its greatest
concern was experimentation with new industrial technologies.
The career of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright
developed parallel to that of European 'modern architects';
However, Wright refused to be categorized alongside them,
developing both the theory and formal precepts of organic
architecture .
In 1932 the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture was
held, curated by Philip Johnson ; Together with his collaborator,
the critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock , Johnson managed to bring
together very diverse currents and trends, showing that they were
stylistically similar and shared a general purpose, and
consolidated them into what came to be called the International
Style . It was an important milestone.
In the 1930s , under pressure from Nazism , which closed the
Bauhaus , the main figures moved to the United States: to
Chicago, to the Harvard design school and to Black Mountain
College . This International Style became the only acceptable
stylistic solution from the 1930s to the 1960s .

The Lake Shore Drive Apartments, by architect Mies van der Rohe.
The architects who developed the International Style wanted to
break with architectural tradition, designing functional buildings
without ornament. They commonly used glass for facades, and
steel and concrete for slabs and structural supports. The style
became more evident in the design of skyscrapers . Perhaps its
most notable exponents are: the United Nations building, the
Seagram Building and the Lever House , all of them in New York .
Detractors of the International Style criticize its rigid, rectangular
geometry as being "dehumanizing." Le Corbusier described
buildings as "machines for living", but people reacted against this
uniformity and rigidity. Even the architect - and personal friend of
Mies van der Rohe - Philip Johnson admitted to being "bored of
boxes". Since the early 1980s , many architects have deliberately
sought to move away from geometric designs.
Although there is much debate regarding the fall or death of
Modern Architecture, criticism of it began in the 1960s with the
arguments that it was universal, sterile, elitist and meaningless.
The emergence of postmodernism is attributed to widespread
disenchantment with Modern Architecture.

Formal characteristics
Rejection of historical or traditional styles as a source of
inspiration for architectural form or as a stylistic resource
(historicism). However, the architecture of antiquity, especially
classical architecture, is often reflected in both the functional
schemes and the resulting volumetric compositions, in:

 adoption of the principle that materials and functional

requirements determine the result: form follows function ,
 adoption of the aesthetics of the machine, as a consequence
of the above,
 newly invented materials and techniques, such as reinforced
concrete,
 rejection of ornament as an accessory; The aesthetics result
from the expressive purpose of the building, the materials
used and its own characteristics;
 simplification of form and elimination of unnecessary details,
taken to the extreme in the works of Mies van der Rohe ,
Theoretical foundations
Relationship with positivist philosophy
Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857), the “prophet of the scientific era”
according to Gideon , developed positivist thought, or positive
philosophy , whose “fundamental character (...) is to consider all
phenomena as subject to invariable natural laws , whose precise
discovery and reduction to the smallest possible number is the
end of our efforts.” 5
“Positive – says Comte – is inseparable from relative, from
organic, from precise, from certain, from real.” Human thought
passes, according to Comte, through three phases: theological,
metaphysical and positive. The last, which is that of complete
maturity of human thought, is characterized by the volitional
renunciation of the first two stages through strict adherence to the
methodologies of science.
Comte's positive thinking adopts the methods of mathematical
sciences as its own, with which he can boast of being systematic
and precise. Since “all positive science is nothing other than a
transformation of observation and experience,” 6 it is by avoiding
all disquisition on the absolute and renouncing ontologies that
Comte can define his method as “common sense.” In this regard,
Littré , one of Comte's intellectual heirs, stated that "those who
believe that positive philosophy denies or affirms something about
final or first causes are deceived; it denies or affirms nothing,
since to affirm or deny would be to declare." that there is some
knowledge of the origin and end of beings.” 7
Positive thinking will come to have undeniable influences on the
creed of modern architects: the apology of progress, order and
science (the metaphor of the machine, modern efficiency and
hygiene), the abstraction of the individual in favor of mythification
of Humanity converted into the ultimate goal (universality, the
typical man), the biological and evolutionary metaphors (the
typical family and the housing block conceived as a
cell/organism).
The daily life of the human being, analyzed with adherence to the
methods of science, will be categorized and classified in the first
Letter of Athens (1932, by Le Corbusier ) into the elementary
functions of Living, Working, Circulating and Spreading. Modern
life, converted into a mathematical-statistical model, can now
manifest itself, tectonic and spatially, in mass-produced housing.
The housing block, which finds its most illustrious prototype in the
Unité d'Habitation, is an invention of modernity; the denial of
personal individuality is materialized in a house/hive.
Rejection of individuality
“Man properly speaking,” he says, “is ultimately nothing more than
an abstraction; “The only real thing is Humanity , especially in the
intellectual and moral order.” 8 This reduction of the human being
to number, - to the mathematical formulation that is the
methodological basis of Comte's positivism - finds its reflection in
the search for Existenzminimun , for minimal housing. Abstract
human life in a network of functions, relationships, processes,
quantifications: “this subject is none other than the Lecorbusian
man-type, the statistical-type family, that mental construct that
allowed orthodox architects to objectify their social behavior and
quantify it in that almost delirious experience that was the
Existenzminimun ”. 9
The Second World War and the aftermath of architecture

The beginning of World War II stopped the development of buildings in Europe. However, in
South America, particularly Brazil, the international style and the work of Le Corbusier influenced
the design of buildings. In 1945, more than 40 million new places were needed in Europe's capital
cities to replace those that had been destroyed during the war. The rapid construction of new
houses became a priority. Schemes to eradicate slums in many cities also led to old houses being
replaced by modern apartment blocks with iron and concrete frames.