ARC 4109 : History Theory & Criticism - V

UNIT 2: L-6,L-7 & L-8

Modernism in Architecture: Development of Rationalism & Functionalism; Bauhaus;

Principles of Modernism; International style; Schools of thought;

Ideas & works of Great Masters: Le-Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Mies Van Der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright,
Alvar Alto, Oscar Niemeyer & others; Case studies from across the world

Prepared By: Edited By:

Prof. Jambavati.Gouda Prof. Kailas Mallaiah
Assistant Professor- Senior Scale Assistant Professor- Senior Scale
B.Arch, M.Arch (Urban Design) B.Arch, M.Arch (Advanced Design)
CONTENTS:

Part- A
1. Development of Rationalism & Functionalism
2. Schools of thought

Part-B
1. Principles of Modernism; International style
2. Ideas & works of Great Masters
SYLLABUS:

Modernism: Development of Rationalism & Functionalism; LEARNING OUTCOMES:

Bauhaus; Principles of Modernism; International style;
Schools of thought; Ideas & works of Great Masters:
Le- Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Mies Van Der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright,
• Relate to the various geographical and political
Alvar Alto, Oscar Niemeyer & others; Case studies from across the world locations and its regional and social influences of
Modern International Style(C2)
TASK:

Analysis and Documentation through sketches, the different details introduced in the • Distinguish the architectural typologies
era of modernism through different ‘isms’, styles and schools of thoughts. (A3 and developments with social, cultural, political
sheets)
influences (C4)

• Illustrate key buildings of different regional

influences (C2,P4)
What is Modernism in Architecture?
Modernism is a global architecture and design movement that emerged in the 1920s as a response to
accelerated industrialization and social changes.

Pursuing order and universals in architecture, modernism utilized new materials and advanced
technology and rejected old, traditional, historical ideas and styles, and ornamentation.

Modernism emphasized function, simplicity, and rationality, and created new forms of expression with a
new aesthetic.

This new aesthetic resulted in modern buildings characterized by clean lines, simple geometric shapes,
pure cubic forms, ribbon windows, flat roofs, and functional, flexible open interior spaces with plain
exposed structures that were considered appropriate for all nations and cultures.
History of Modernism
The rise of modernism in architecture is between the 1920s and 1950s.
Its history can be divided into three periods, as early, modern, and late, at which the most famous mottos of
architecture were coined.

Eighteenth Century:
Modernism was influenced by the Enlightenment (Age of Reason), which brought the Industrial Revolution.
Modernism took rationalism as accuracy in designing and adaptation of architectural conditions to industry.

Late Nineteenth Century: ''ornament is a crime.'' , Adolf Loos

The aesthetic purism with pragmatic reasoning was reflected in modernism as simplicity and elimination of
ornament. Echoing Loos in their works, modernist architects regarded ornamentation as a symbol of the past,
traditional, historical styles and rejected it in favor of clean structures with plain, unornamented surfaces.

Early Twentieth Century: ''form follows function,'' ,Louis Sullivan, Mies van der Rohe
Father of modernism, Louis Sullivan coined another famous motto, ''form follows function,'' in 1918. Modernist
architects like Mies van der Rohe were highly influenced by Sullivan's slogan expressing the purpose of the
building by emphasizing function and design from inside out. In modernism, priority was given to function, and
function was the basis of form.
Rationalism
Rationalism

• Rationalism as a movement implied the complete devotion to logical, functional, and mathematically
ordered architecture.
• 20th century rationalism represented a reaction to historicism and a contrast to Art Nouveau and
Expressionism.

Focused on simple geometric shapes like circles, squares, and triangles, breaking complex forms into
basic units. This movement was largely a rejection of the extremely fancy and ornate Baroque
movement.

Neo-rationalism • In the late 1960s, a new rationalist movement emerged in architecture, claiming
inspiration from both the Enlightenment and early-20th-century rationalists.
FEATURES OF Rationalism

•BUILDING ELEMENTS
• The wall is not a support any longer, and it is reduced to a light skin for closing, with a huge number of windows that allows
light and air entering inside the building.
• The supports are pillars with different sections, made of steel and concrete.
• The covers, in general, are lintels standing on the support and forming with them the skeleton, giving to the construction a
light and non-weighty aspects of great construction audacity.
Gallaratese Quarter / Aldo Rossi & Carlo Aymonino
 FEATURES OF Rationalism
•DECORATIVE ELEMNTS
• The decorative elements disappear in favor of the straight and nude form.
• There is a worry about proportion, simplicity and asymmetry.
• The internal sapce is based of the free plan with interior walld that curve and move freely, adaptig to the different functions.
• In the exterior the projecting, the free low level and the terrace in horizontal desfine new image.

• BUILDING TYPOLOGY
• There is a great interest about urbanism because they aim at accommodating people to the new leaving standards and
organize their groups, proposing new formulas as the garden city or industrial city.
• The representative buildings are - social houses - skyscrapers - industrial buildings - administrative constructions - theatres -
concert halls and stadiums.
Gallaratese Quarter / Aldo
Rossi & Carlo Aymonino
Gallaratese Quarter / Aldo
Rossi & Carlo Aymonino
Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project of St. Louis, Missouri.
Functionalism
Functionalism
Functionalism was introduced during the second quarter of the 20th century as a result of changes in
building technique, new types of buildings required, and changing cultural and aesthetic ideals.

Form follows function’ – a famous quote by architect Louis Sullivan, one of the first architects to
design skyscrapers (in Chicago USA.)
What he meant by this was that the use to which the building would be put should dictate what it
looked like; how it should be designed.
This emphasis on function is characteristic of Modernist architecture, though interpreted in
various ways.
Functionalism

Functionalism, in terms of aesthetics, is characterized by low levels of ornamentation and

extraneous decoration, as well as a prominent display of raw materials.

Following the idea that function comes first, the building materials used to make a structure are
often left uncovered and undecorated

Rather than relying on hand-crafted designs, functionalist structures could proudly display identical,
industrially-produced elements created for their functional purpose, not their craftsmanship or
design.
the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York "Father of Skyscrapers," Louis Sullivan
Wainwright Building in St Louis
 THE SCHOOLS OF
ARCHITECTURAL THOUGHTS

• THE CHICAGO SCHOOL, THE PRAIRIE SCHOOL, THE BAUHAUS SCHOOL

THE CHICAGO SCHOOL

The Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of the 20th
century.

The style is also known as Commercial style.

A "Second Chicago School" later emerged in the 1940s and 1970s which pioneered
new building technologies and structural systems

The Chicago school was a style that developed as a result of the Great Fire of Chicago
in 1871.

Chicago presented a clean slate for new ideas

In the beginning, it was thought of as merely commercial or industrial architecture.

In the 1920s, many critics dismissed it as representing a crude 'commercial' style to be
'refined' by other architects.
THE CHICAGO SCHOOL

Architects associated with the Chicago School include:

Henry Hobson Richardson.
Dankmar Adler.
Daniel Burnham.
William Holabird.
William LeBaron Jenney.
Martin Roche.
John Root.
Solon S. Beman.
Louis Sullivan.
Frank Lloyd Wright started in the firm of Adler and Sullivan but created his own Prairie
Style of architecture.
Source: Boundless. “Chicago School of Architecture.” Boundless Art History. Boundless, 21
Jul. 2015.
Features of the Chicago School are

• The use of steel-frame buildings with masonry cladding (usually terra cotta),

• Large plate-glass window areas and

• Limiting the amount of exterior ornamentation.

• Elements of neoclassical architecture are used in skyscrapers.

• The skyscrapers contain the three parts of a classical column.

The first floor functions as the base, the middle stories, usually with little ornamental
detail, act as the shaft of the column, and the last floor or so represent the capital, with more
ornamental detail and capped with a cornice.
 • Distinctive features are:

• The Chicago Building by Holabird & Roche (1904–

1905): This steel frame building displays both
variations of the Chicago window; its facade is
dominated by the window area (limiting
decorative embellishments) and it is capped with
a cornice, elements that are all typical of the
• Chicago School.
The facades of these buildings were organized as columns
(base, shaft, capital) and clad in terra cotta.

The Chicago Building by Holabird & Roche

 • Distinctive features are:
• large arched windows
• decorative terra cotta panels
• decorative bands
• vertical strips of windows with pilaster-like
mullions
• highly decorated frieze
• The facades of these buildings were organized as columns
(base, shaft, capital) and clad in terra cotta.

Mills Building and Mills Tower in San Francisco

Foundations

The first design breakthrough by the Chicago School was in the area
of structural foundations. It arose largely because Chicago was built
on marshy ground, which was unable to support tall buildings.
Frederick Baumann had suggested that each vertical foundation of a
building should stand on a wide pad that would distribute its weight
more widely over the marshy land.. But this type of foundation took
up too much basement space and was only able to support a
structure of 10 stories in height. The way forward was provided by
Dankmar Adler, who used his experience as a military engineer in
the Union army, to devise a foundation "raft" of timbers, steel
beams, and iron I-beams. An idea used successfully in the
construction of Adler and Sullivan's Auditorium Building (1889).
Steel Frames

The first series of high-rises in both New York and Chicago - including the
Tribune Building (1873-5) designed by Richard Morris Hunt, and the
Auditorium Building (1889), by Adler and Sullivan - had traditional load-
bearing walls of stone and brick. Unfortunately, these could not support
supertall structures, a problem which stimulated Chicago School
designers to invent a metal skeleton frame - first used in Jenney's Home
Insurance Building (1884) - that enabled the construction of real
skyscrapers. A metal frame was virtually fireproof and, since the walls
no longer carried the building's weight, enabled architects to use thinner
curtain walls, thus freeing up more usable space. The same applied to
the exterior walls, which could now be replaced by glass, reducing the
amount of electrical lights required. An important European influence in
the use of metal skeletal frames, was the French architect Viollet-le-Duc
(1814-79).
Architectural Terra Cotta

• First was its light weight. The material could be manufactured in hollow blocks
with cell walls only one to two inches thick. These blocks could be laid up
against common brick masonry efficiently, and tied back to the masonry with
thin steel wires
• Second was the quality of its manufacture, which rose as temperature-
controlled kilns and perfectly mixed clays were developed. Identical blocks for
uniform bays between steel columns could be designed, formed, baked, glazed,
and delivered to a job site predictably, without the hand finishing that stone
masonry still required.
• Third, and most important, were the expressive possibilities. The variety of
color, texture, and sheen available to surface terra cotta was limited only by
the number of glazes which could be fired onto baked clay.
• The "Chicago window“ originated in this school.
• It is a three-part window consisting of a large fixed center panel flanked
by two smaller double-hung sash windows.
• The arrangement of windows on the facade typically creates a grid
pattern, with some projecting out from the facade forming bay windows
Auditorium Building in Chicago (1886-1889)

• Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan.

• Completed in 1889
• Office block and a first class hotel
• Multiple-use building

• The Auditorium is a heavy, impressive structure externally, and was more striking in its day when buildings of its scale
were less common. When completed, it was the tallest building in the city and largest building in the United States.
• The Theatre was (and is) renowned for its acoustical perfection, among other technical innovations .
• It was the first building to employ a system of central air conditioning,
• First to be lit exclusively with incandescent light bulbs, and
• Firstmixed use building Auditorium Theatre, but also a hotel and rental office space.
 Second Chicago School
• In the 1940s, a "Second Chicago School" emerged from the work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and his
efforts of education at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

• Its first and purest expression was the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments (1951) and their
technological achievements.
• This was supported and enlarged in the 1960s due to the ideas of structural engineer Fazlur Khan.
• He introduced a new structural system of framed tubes in skyscraper design and construction.
Second Chicago School

Framed tube structure as "a three dimensional space structure composed of three, four, or possibly more
frames, braced frames, or shear walls, joined at or near their edges to form a vertical tube-like
structural system capable of resisting lateral forces in any direction by cantilevering from the foundation.“

Closely spaced interconnected exterior columns form the tube.

Horizontal loads, for example wind, are supported by the structure as a whole.

About half the exterior surface is available for windows.

Framed tubes allow fewer interior columns, and so create more usable floor space.
Where larger openings like garage doors are required, the tube frame must be interrupted, with transfer
girders used to maintain structural integrity.
Second Chicago School

John Hancock Building, 1979

Second Chicago School
THE PRAIRIE SCHOOL

Features of the Prairie School are:

Low–pitched hipped or flat roofs with wide, projecting (or cantilevered)

overhangs that reflect the horizontal lines of the Midwestern prairie);
• Central broad chimneys;
• Ribbon windows (often with leaded art glass);
• Roman brick or stucco siding with dark wood bands; and
• Massive porch supports.
Prairie style masterpiece, the Frederick C. Robie House, by Wright
Robie House: cantileverCantilever on the Robie House, Chicago, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Frank Lloyd Wright: Robie HouseInterior of the Robie House, Chicago, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Robie House
Wright outlines the objectives of the Prairie style as follows:

• To reduce the number of necessary parts of the house and make all come together as enclosed space—so divided that
light, air and vista permeated the whole with a sense of unity.

• To associate the building as a whole with its site by extension and emphasis on the planes parallel to the ground, but
keeping the floors off the best part of the site.

• To eliminate the room as a box and the house as another box by making all walls enclosing screens. Make all house
proportions more literally human, with less wasted space in structure.

• To get the unwholesome basement up out of the ground.

• To harmonize all necessary openings to ’outside’ or to ’inside’ with good human proportions and make them occur naturally.
The room as such was now the essential architectural expression and there were to be no holes cut
in walls as holes are cut in a box, because this is not in keeping with the ideas of ’plastic.’
• Cross-axial planning. Wings project outward from a central fireplace and terminate in porches and terraces

• Horizontal emphasis. The horizontal is emphasized by wide overhangs and further

reinforced by wood strips that mark the division between the stories

• Geometric forms. Crisp geometric forms impart a sculptural quality enhanced by the interplay of apparent voids and
solids

• Ribbon windows. Windows are grouped in a series with continuous heads and sills forming a band broken only by
narrow mullions.

• Limited exterior materials. Exterior wall coverings include: stucco with inserts of heavy wood bands, brick courses
projected or recessed or, on a rare occasion, horizontal board and batten.

• Interior horizontal emphasis. Activity areas are not separated from each other by the enclosure of four walls.
Instead, the entire floor is one large, irregularly shaped room with high cabinets, a fireplace, a sunken floor, a raised
ceiling, or some barrier (occasionally even a wall) identifying and separating the spaces set aside for different
purposes.
Heurtley House, Oak Park, Ill.; the house was designed in the Prairie style by Frank Lloyd
Wright, 1902.
The Heurtley House, commissioned by one of Wright’s wealthier clients, is considered one of the earliest examples of the
Prairie style
Avery Coonley House
Frank Lloyd Wright, the Willits House
The Willits House is the first house in true Prairie style Full development of Wright's wood frame and stucco system of
construction.
Wright used a cruciform plan with the interior space flowing around a central chimney core and extending outward onto
covered verandas and open terraces.
Entrance-stair hall, living room, dining room and kitchen rotate around the central fireplace.
THE BAUHAUS SCHOOL
Bauhaus
German style movement from 1919-1933
All of the Bauhaus directors were architects.
(“The ultimate aim of all creative activity is a
building”)
Walter Gropius, Founder
Staatliches Bauhaus, commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined
crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught.

It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building”

The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar.

The Bauhaus style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design

The school existed in three German cities (Weimar from 1919 to

1925, under Walter Gropius from 1919 to 1928

Dessau from 1925 to 1932 under Hannes Meyer from 1928 to

1930

and Berlin from 1932 to 1933), under Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe from 1930 until 1933, when the school was closed by its
own leadership under pressure from the Nazi regime..
Features of the Bauhaus School are:

• Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs, smooth façades and cubic shapes.

• Colors are white, gray, beige or black.

• Floor plans are open and furniture is functional.

• Characterized by economy of method, a severe geometry of form and design that took into
account the nature of the materials employed.

• The Bauhaus, encouraged designers to develop products that could be manufactured on an

industrial scale and yet be aesthetically pleasing.

• Art Nouveau had been about creating ornate, complicated, decorative products.

• The Bauhaus reduced the complexity of design to simplicity, functionality and an pure form of
aesthetics.
Bauhaus
20th Century contributions include the CANTILEVER CHAIR
Bauhaus and the International Style:
The Seagram Building
The Gropius House
The Farnsworth House
Philip Johnson's Glass House
The Transco Building by Philip Johnson
United Nations Headquarters by Le Corbusier
The Miller House by Richard Neutra
The Lovell House by Richard Neutra
The Bauhaus Building in Dessau, Germany
Furniture by Bauhaus Architects
Architects Inspired by the Bauhaus Movement
• Walter Gropius
• Le Corbusier
• Richard Neutra
• Philip Johnson
• Mies van der Rohe
• Marcel Breuer
Mies Van Der Rohe
Mies Van Der Rohe
Seagram Building, 1958.

Concept
Symbol of contemporary industrial world, illustrates the
architect’s motto “Less is more” showing that a simple
building can be just as surprising that a building with more
composite designs.
The Seagram Building is a refined synthesis of rationalist
architecture in which Mies had formed, the international
style that was beginning to dawn on architecture since 1950
and the contributions of the Chicago school.
Mies Van Der Rohe
German Pavilion, 1929. BAUHAUS
On a specially selected parcel of land, Mies fulfilled an only Mies Van Der Rohe
vaguely formulated architectural assignment by constructing a German Pavilion, 1929. BAUHAUS
flat-roofed representational building with a “free floor plan”,
that is, flexible spaces with flowing transitions from one room
to the next. The use of the finest materials such as onyx doré,
green marble and travertine, combined with large glass façades
that “floated” in a steel skeleton construction, gave the pavilion
its transparency and spaciousness. The building’s specially
designed furniture was probably created by virtue of a close
exchange with Lilly Reich, who quite probably advised Mies with
respect to the colour concept and the choice of materials.

The grounds, which incorporated a small courtyard with two

ponds and a service building, radiated a calm and dignified
ambience. The absence of traditional national emotive themes
contributed substantially to the pavilion’s positive impact and
increased the building’s acceptance among the visitors
Mies Van Der Rohe
German Pavilion, 1929. BAUHAUS
 Mies Van Der Rohe
German Pavilion, 1929. BAUHAUS

(ARC - 14 – 310) Contemporary Built Environment – VI Topic: Unit-II, Modernism

REFERENCES

Modern Architecture: Explore Icons of the Recent Past,” Saving Places: The Website of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, (Washington,
D.C.: The National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2018), https://savingplaces.org/modern-architecture#.WmgQIPjwZ-U.

Mark Gelernter, A History of American Architecture: Buildings and their Cultural and Technological Context, (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2001)

Alexandra Griffith Winton, “The Bauhaus, 1919–1933,” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–
,August 2007; last revised October 2016), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm.

Bauhaus Dessau, “Bauhaus Buildings in Dessau: Masters’ Houses by Walter Gropius (1925-1926)” (2017), http://www.bauhaus-
dessau.de/en/architecture/bauhaus-buildings-in-dessau/masters-houses.html.

Anna Marcum, Modern Prospective Easement Survey for Historic New England (Boston: Historic New England, 2017).
 Principles of
Modernism & International style;
INTRODUCTION

Major architectural style in Europe & USA

• Began in the 1920’s – 1930’s (Formative decade of Modernism)

• Term coined by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Phillip Johnson Henry-Russell Philip Cortelyou
Hitchcock Johnson
(1903-1987) (1906-2005)
What led to MODERNISM ?

• Population increase

• Industrialization led Urbanization and massive building exercise

• New materials for building

• World War I (1914-18) & World War II (1939-45)

• World War II and End of Colonialism • New Typologies – Railway Station, Department Store, Office,
Apartment towers, Factories, Dams and Airports…

• New Clients – Municipalities, cooperatives, institutions, social groups

Louis SullivanConsidered “The Father of Modern Architecture”
“Form follows Function”
Mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright and influence on the
PRAIRIE SCHOOL

“Form follows function” The Guaranty (Prudential

Building), Buffalo, NY, 1894.
Louis Sullivan
This building is world famous for two reasons:
1 - It has great historical value because it is an early
skyscraper (the last building designed by Adler and
Sullivan), and
2 - The interior and exterior Art Nouveau
ornamentation is aesthetically exquisite.
FEATURES OF MODERNISM IN ARCHITECTURE:

•Clean lines lacking ornament

•Emphasis on low, horizontal massing with horizontal planes and broad roof overhangs

•Generous use of glass to allow natural light into open, flowing floorplans

•Emphasis on well-defined, rectangular forms

•Use of modern materials and systems like steel columns, exposed concrete block, stained concrete floors,
column-free spaces, and radiant heating systems

•Innovative use of traditional materials like wood, brick, and stone in simplified ways that showcase their
natural features and are installed in large smooth planes

•A thoughtful relationship between the site and the building where interior space is planned to best
compliment the surrounding natural environment
http://www.hammondhistoricdistrict.org/what-is-modern-architecture
http://www.hammondhistoricdistrict.org/what-is-modern-architecture
 FEATURES OF MODERNISM IN ARCHITECTURE:

Sea Lane House, Angmering-on-Sea, West Sussex

Commercial Union Tower
(Aviva Tower), I Undershaft,
Form follows function City of London,
Functional design. Asymmetrical compositions with the use Modernist materials
of geometric forms, often with flat roofs. Emphasis on Modern materials: reinforced concrete, steel frames,
horizontal lines. curtain walls and ribbon windows.
FEATURES OF MODERNISM IN ARCHITECTURE:

Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois Moro house, 20 Blackheath Park,

London: the sitting room

Less is more Open plan interiors

Minimal or no ornamentation, with a tendency towards a Light filled, open plan interiors, with a feeling of
white or a neutral palette. spaciousness.
LIST OF NOTED MODERNIST ARCHITECTS

Frank Lloyd Wright

Norman Foster
Antoni Gaudí
Daniel Libeskind
Renzo Piano
Santiago Calatrava
Philip Johnson
Eero Saarinen
Frank Gehry
 LIST OF NOTED MODERNIST STYLES

Dessau Bauhaus / Walter Gropius.

Bauhaus De Stijl
Derived from the German for “Construction House,” The Bauhaus Founded in 1917, De Stijl (Dutch for “The Style”) originated in the
originated as a German school for architecture and the arts founded Netherlands, and is considered to have peaked between 1917 and
by Walter Gropius in 1919. As well as being a template for many 1931. Characteristics of the style include the reduction of design to
architectural schools that followed, the institution gave its name to essential forms and colors, with simple horizontal and vertical
a distinctive style characterized by an emphasis on function, little elements, and the use of black, white, and primary colors. The style
ornamentation, and a fusion of balanced forms and abstract shapes is also synonymous with the De Stijl journal published by Dutch
designer Theo van Doesburg at the time, which championed the style.
 Grundtvig’s Church / Peder Vilhelm Jensen-
Klint.
Constructivism Expressionism
While the Bauhaus and De Stijl styles developed in 1920s Western Europe, The biomorphic, organic, emotional forms which defined the
Constructivism emerged in the Soviet Union. Constructivism combined Expressionist style stood in contrast to the clean, linear definitions of
technological innovation with a Russian Futurist influence, resulting in Bauhaus architecture, despite their coexistence between 1910 and 1930.
stylistically abstract geometric masses. The style fell out of favor in the Derived from German Dutch, Austrian, Czech, and Danish Avante Garde,
early 1930s. Well-known Russian constructivist architects include El Expressionism explored new technical possibilities which emerged from
Lissitzky and Vladimir Tatlin, though both are most recognized by their the mass production of steel, brick, and glass, while also evoking
proposals and unbuilt work. unusual massings and utopian visions
Functionalism Minimalism
Functionalism is based on the principle that the design of a building Minimalism evolved from the De Stijl and Bauhaus movements of the
should reflect its purpose and function. Emerging from the aftermath of 1920s, and emphasized the use of simple design elements without
the First World War, the style is associated with ideas of socialism and ornamentation or decoration. Popularized by architects such as Mies
modern humanism. As the style developed through the 1930s, notably van der Rohe, the style proposed that deriving a design to its base
Germany, Poland, USSR, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia, the essentials reveals its true essence. Features of the style include pure
central idea of “form follows function” was infused with the idea of geometric forms, plain materials, repetition, and clean lines.
using architecture as a means to physically create a better life for
citizens.
Villa Savoye / Le Corbusier
Nagakin Capsule Tower / Kisho Kurokawa.
International Style Metabolism
The International Style was coined in 1932 by curators Philip Johnson and Henry- Metabolism was a post-war Japanese movement that infused
Russell Hitchcock at the Modern Architecture International Exhibition. An evolution megastructures with organic biological growth. Influenced by
of early Modernist principles in Europe, the International Style describes the era Marxist theories and biological processes, a group of young
where European Modernism spread throughout the world, notably the United designers including Kiyonori Kikutake, Kisho Kurokawa and
States. Characterized by simple geometry and a lack of ornamentation, the style Fumihiko Maki published their Metabolism manifesto in 1960,
was appropriated in the United States characterized by monolithic skyscrapers giving the style significant public attention. Characteristics
with curtain walling, flat roofs, and ubiquitous glazing. include modularity, prefabrication, adaptability, and strong core
infrastructures.
 Barbican Estate / Chamerlin, Powell and Bon Architects

Brutalism
Brutalism emerged in the 1950s, coined by British architects Alison and Peter
Smithson. derived from the ‘Béton brut’ (raw concrete) first associated with
Le Corbusier, the style is characterized by monolithic forms, rigid geometric
styles, and unusual shapes. Brutalist buildings, often government projects,
educational buildings, or high-rise apartments, are typically clad in rough
unfinished concrete.
 The International Style was striving towards:
“Simplification, Honesty and Clarification”

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

“ornament is a crime” (Adolf Loos)

“truth to materials”
“form follows function” (Louis Sullivan)
“machines for living” (Le Corbusier)
Characteristics of the International Style,

which started in 1920s but which only took off after WW2, were:
•Steel skeleton allowing flexibility with both positioning, and materials used for walls;
•No or minimal ornamentation;
•Flat roof;
•Created with the function of the building in mind;
•Standardised, prefabricated parts.
•No historicism – that is, harking back to classical or other styles.
•The look is more abstract & simple.
Weissenhof-Siedlung Houses 14 and 15 / Le Corbusier + Pierre Jeanneret
The typical International Style high-rise usually consists of the following:

1. Square or rectangular footprint

2. Simple cubic "extruded rectangle" form
3. Windows running in broken horizontal rows forming a grid
4. All facade angles are 90 degrees
 The most important figures
“The big three”
Le Corbusier (France)
Ludwig Mies van Rohe (Germany)
Walter Gropius (Germany)
 Ideas &
works of Great Masters:
 THE FATHER OF
INTERNATIONAL
STYLE

Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier maintained that this new age deserved a brand-new
architecture.
“We must start again from zero,” he proclaimed.

The new architecture came to be known as the International Style.

Of its many partisans — among them Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
and Walter Gropius in Germany, Theo van Doesburg in Holland —
none was better known than Le Corbusier.

He was a tireless proselytizer, addressing the public in

manifestos, pamphlets, exhibitions and his own magazine.
Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret
He wrote books — dozens of them — on interior decoration, in Switzerland in 1887.
Small town architect,
painting and architecture. Visionary
Believed that
They resembled instruction manuals.
Architecture had lost its way
THE FIVE POINTS OF ARCHITECTURE
 THE FIVE POINTS OF ARCHITECTURE

1. Lift The Building Over Pilotis. The ground floor of the house, like the street, belongs to the automobile. Therefore housing is
raised on pilotis to allow the vehicle’s movement or the green continuity.

2. Free Designing Of The Ground Plan. A building floor plan should be free from structural condition, so partitions can be
organized in any way.

3. The Free Façade. The structure separates from the façade, relieving it of its structural function.

4. The Horizontal Window. The façade can be cut along its entire length to allow room to be lit equally.

5. The Roof Garden. A building should give back the space it takes up on the ground by replacing it with a garden in the sky.
Villa Savoye / Le Corbusier
In response to his aspirations and admiration of mechanized design, Le
Corbusier established “The Five Points” of architecture, which is simply a list of
prescribed elements to be incorporated in design.
Villa Savoye is thoroughly tailored to Corbusier’s Five Points.

_Pilotis
_Flat Roof Terrace
_Open Plan
_Ribbon Windows
_Free Façade
The pilotis that support the decks, the ribbon windows
that run alongside the hull, the ramps providing a
moment of egress from deck to deck; all of these
aspects served as the foundation of the Five Points of
Architecture and are found in the overall composition of
Villa Savoye.

The lower level serves as the maintenance and service

programs of the house. One of most interesting
aspects of the house is the curved glass façade on the
lower level that is formed to match the turning radius
of automobiles of 1929 so that when the owner drives
underneath the larger volume they can pull into the
garage with the ease of a slight turn.
Villa Savoye / Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye / Le Corbusier
By 1950 he had changed course, abandoning Purism, as he called it, for
something more robust and sculptural.

His spartan, lightweight architecture turned rustic, with heavy walls of brick and
fieldstone and splashes of bright color.

He discovered the potential of reinforced concrete and made it his own, leaving
the material crudely unfinished, inside and out, the marks of wooden
formwork plainly visible.

Concrete allowed Le Corbusier to explore unusual shapes.

 Ronchamp / Le Corbusier

(ARC - 14 – 310) Contemporary Built Environment – VI Topic: Unit-II, Modernism

Ronchamp / Le Corbusier
 Master Plan for Chandigarh / Le Corbusier

As a Planner…….

There were to be no more congested streets and sidewalks,

no more bustling public squares,
no more untidy neighborhoods.
People would live in hygienic,
regimented high-rise towers,
set far apart in a park like landscape.
This rational city would be separated into discrete zones for
working, living and leisure.
Above all, everything should be done on a big scale — big
buildings, big open spaces, big urban highways.
Master Plan for Chandigarh / Le Corbusier
Master Plan for Chandigarh / Le Corbusier
 "less is more"

Mies Van Der Rohe

Born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; march
27, 1886 – august 19, 1969
German family : stone-carving business

Experimented with steel frames and glass

walls.
Director of the Bauhaus School of Design
from 1930 until it disbanded in 1933

Taught his students to build first with

wood, then stone, and then brick before
progressing to concrete and steel.

Brought ideals of rationalism and

minimalism to new levels.
CHARACTER OF WORKS:
• Simple rectangular forms
• Open, flexible plans and multi-functional spaces
• Widespread use of glass to bring the outside in
• Mastered steel and glass construction
• Exposed and very refined structural details
Seagram Building / Mies van der Rohe
His abiding achievement was to strip architecture down to
its purest essence – to "almost nothing", as he put it.

He was well placed to achieve this technically, taking

advantage of progress in materials and engineering,
but he was also philosophically driven towards his
reductivist goal.

He believed in revealing the underlying "truth" of the

world, primarily through pure geometric forms and
proportions. BARCELONA PAVALLIAN
The chair consists of two sets - joined by three
horizontal bars - of the intersection between two
curved pieces of steel: one arc of a circle crossed
by a graceful S-curve. The joint between them
was originally bolted, but in 1950 it was
redesigned to be welded. Although upholstered
with two large, wide leather cushions, the chair is
not very comfortable, unlike some of Mies' other
designs, most notably the MR chair.
 S.R. Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology,
Chicago

Born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; march

27, 1886 – august 19, 1969
German family : stone-carving business

Experimented with steel frames and glass

walls.
Director of the Bauhaus School of Design
from 1930 until it disbanded in 1933

Taught his students to build first with

wood, then stone, and then brick before
progressing to concrete and steel.

Brought ideals of rationalism and

minimalism to new levels.
S.R. Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago
Crown Hall is integrated perfectly into the overall campus scheme not only by the uniformity of style, but by
abiding by the exact same modular grid that Mies used for the grounds. Approached by a low staircase at the
center of one of the long façades, the building employs thus a classical exterior symmetry, elevated on the
basement plinth, that gives it an understated monumentality and points to the centrality of the architecture
school, which it houses, within IIT's curriculum.

Crown Hall is especially significant for the way that it demonstrates the ability of industrialized construction
to open up interior space. The entire structure is essentially "hung" from a super structure of four flat
arches of I-beams that traverse the building from front-to-back. This eliminates the need for any interior
load-bearing structures, and to reveal this facet of construction, Mies has left the entire main floor above
ground as one massive open studio space. (All of the auxiliary spaces - professors' offices, the library,
lecture halls - are located below in the semi-submerged basement.)
Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe
Farnsworth House / Mies van der Rohe
Mies' signature postwar residence, the Farnsworth House arguably represents the ultimate in minimalist
residential architecture using industrial materials.
The house was designed as a weekend retreat for Edith Farnsworth, a physician who owned nine acres of
land along the Fox River 50 miles outside Chicago near Plano.

The skin-and-bones construction is nakedly apparent in the house's I-beams and concrete-slab frame, with
a simple box enclosed on all four sides by floor-to-ceiling curtain walls of glass.
This strategy nearly completely dissolves the distinction between interior and exterior, thus bringing the
inhabitants into constant dialogue with nature - both suspended above it and immersed in it
Building designed by Mies van der Rohe epitomizes elegance and the principles
of modernism. The 38-story building on Park Avenue was Mies' first attempt at
tall office building construction. Seagram Building / Mies van der Rohe
Mies' solution set a standard for the modern skyscraper. The building became a
monumental continuity of bronze and dark glass climbing up 515 feet to the
top of the tower, juxtaposing the large granite surface of the plaza below.

The plaza attracts users with its two large fountains surrounded by generous
outdoor seating. By making this move, Mies distanced himself from New York
urban morphology, lot line development, and the conventional economics of
skyscraper construction.

. These floors also get maximum natural lighting with the exterior being glass
panes of gray topaz that provide floor-to-ceiling windows for the office spaces.

The metal bronze skin that is seen in the facade is nonstructural but is used to
express the idea of the structural frame that is underneath
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior
designer, writer and educator, who designed more
than 1,000 projects, which resulted in more than 500
completed works.
• Wright promoted organic architecture was a leader
of the Prairie School movement of architecture.
The principles of Wright’s organic architecture

Building and Site:

The two have a very special relationship in organic architecture.
The site should be enhanced by the building, and the building
derives its form partially from the nature of the site.

Materials :In organic architecture, only a few materials are used,

both inside and outside.

Ornament: Not all organic architecture has ornament, but when

used, it is developed as an integral part of the material, not
applied.
Proportion and Scale—to have all details so designed as to
make the human relationship to architecture not only convenient
but charming.”
Fallingwater,
1935 - 1939
Falling water has been described as the "the best-known private home for someone not of royal blood in the
history of the world.”
Falling water was built between 1936 and 1939.
It instantly became famous, and today it is a National Historic Landmark.
The key to the setting of the house is the waterfall
over which it is built.
• The falls had been a focal point of the Kaufmann's
activities, and the family had indicated the area
around the falls as the location for a home.
• They were unprepared for Wright's suggestion that
the house rise over the waterfall, rather than face it.
• But the architect's original scheme was adopted
almost without change.
ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENTS
• Radical and Mechanical in appearance
• Geometrical proportions and plain wall surfaces
• Metal casement windows, flat roof tops, and curtain walls of glass.
• The other characteristics are large rectangular windows, linear elements, such
as the chimneys and absence of cornices.
• Cantilevers were used to make the balconies of the house look like it is floating
in space above the waterfall.
• These are some of the components and characteristics of the International
Style of Falling water.
• Frank Lloyd Wright designed Falling water to look like it was blending in with
the surroundings.
• Fallingwater also has flat roof tops and it has built-in furniture.
The other architectural components that Falling water has is steel grid,
concrete, and stacked stones.
• The house does not have a spectacular door, but instead it has a cave like
entrance. Fallingwater also has a a big boulder on the living room floor and
there is a waterfall [known as Bear Run] is beneath the house.
Visual Analysis - lines
• Line is used to emphasize the oneness with nature.
• Horizontal lines can be found in the ferro-concrete balconies. These are
repetitive and also in line with the rock formations below.
• Vertical lines can be found in the stone columns that shoot upward from the house.
Visual Analysis- light and shadow
• Light is sporadic throughout the building, and the only constant light is visual
at night when the building is lit.
• During the day, light is found in its most natural form.
• Shadows are cast by the arrangement and construction of the building itself.
Visual Analysis- colour
• Natural tones are used for color.
• No extremely bright colors are used, nor any colors that would not be found in
nature around the structure.
Visual Analysis- shapes and volume
• Shape and volume vary throughout the structure.
• There are many rectangular shapes, but they are different sizes and oriented
differently.
• The shape and volume again correlate strongly with the randomness of nature
and how one thing might protrude, but looks as though it is almost meant to
be there.
First Floor Plan
Second Floor Plan
Third Floor Plan
Guest Floor Plan
Guest Floor Plan
Gropius House / Walter Gropius
Berlin-born Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (1883-1969) was the founder
of the famous Bauhaus school of design.
After a year of travel in Europe, Gropius joined
Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919. the architectural firm of Peter Behrens in 1908.
He studied architecture in Berlin and Munich, but never received a Other modernists working in that office included
degree in that field. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier
CHARACTER OF WORKS:
•Simple geometry, often rectangular Gropius' Fagus Factory in Alfeld made his name
•Use of modern materials like steel and glass
•Smooth surfaces
•Primary colors
•Linear and horizontal elements
 Gropius established the first Bauhaus school in
Weimar

In 1911, he and Adolf Meyer designed the Fagus Factory, a glass and steel
cubic building which pioneered modern architectural devices such as glass
curtain walls, and was built from the floor plans of the more traditional
industrial architect Eduard Werner.
Gropius House / Walter Gropius
Gropius House / Walter Gropius
Situated amidst war and the spread of the modern architectural movement to the United States, the Gropius House is a fairly
modest building that maintains the scale and materially identity with the surrounding area.

The facade of the house combines common brick and local clapboard with manufactured ribbons windows and glass block
evoking a sense of stability and balance between old and new, traditional and modern, New England and European.

In regards to the interior of the house, Gropius did not take the New England architectural vernacular into consideration,
rather the interior is a mix of fabricated pieces from the Bauhaus and furniture by Marcel Breuer.
REFERENCE
Modern Architecture: Explore Icons of the Recent Past,” Saving Places: The Website of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, (Washington,
D.C.: The National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2018), https://savingplaces.org/modern-architecture#.WmgQIPjwZ-U.

Mark Gelernter, A History of American Architecture: Buildings and their Cultural and Technological Context, (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2001)

Alexandra Griffith Winton, “The Bauhaus, 1919–1933,” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–
,August 2007; last revised October 2016), http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm.

Bauhaus Dessau, “Bauhaus Buildings in Dessau: Masters’ Houses by Walter Gropius (1925-1926)” (2017), http://www.bauhaus-
dessau.de/en/architecture/bauhaus-buildings-in-dessau/masters-houses.html.

Anna Marcum, Modern Prospective Easement Survey for Historic New England (Boston: Historic New England, 2017).
Thank you