604 Lec 7 International Architecture.pdf 223x6s

604 THEORY OF DESIGN LECTURE 7 INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE

The International Style

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

The international style’s three most influential pioneers were Gropius, Corbusier, and Mies. Walter Gropius, founder and first director of the Bauhaus, designed the buildings of the school’s second campus. Plain walls (white and grey) and screens of glass, sometimes several stories in height, predominate. Gropius’ balconies showcase an impressive new structural possibility of steel-frame construction: cantilevering (platforms fixed only at one end), which further contributes to a sense of architectural weightlessness.

The 5 points of Architecture in the Villa Savoye: 1.Ribbon Window, 2.Roof gardens, 3.Pilotis, 4.free plan,5.free facade

The Swiss architect Le Corbusier, though not a member of the Bauhaus, absorbed and became a leading figure of the international style. He preferred smooth expanses of white reinforced concrete pierced with horizontal strip windows, as well as a degree of curvilinear geometry . Le Corbusier’s masterpiece is the Villa Savoye.

The Seagram Building

The Lakeshore Drive ApartmentsChicago

While Gropius and Le Corbusier made ample use of reinforced concrete, pure glassand-steel construction in the international style was perfected by Mies van der Rohe (another director of the Bauhaus), who believed so firmly in eliminating all embellishment that his guiding principle was simply “less is more”. Mies brought the international style to the height of its influence, as descendants of his glass-and-steel skyscrapers appeared in every corner of the globe. The Seagram Building in New York, essentially a steel frame sheathed in curtains of glass, is often considered his masterpiece. The Lake Shore drive apartments brought in a revolution in high-rise residential lifestyle.

Contemporary with the “Bauhaus age” was the career of the greatest American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, who focused primarily on residential designs. Wright sought to make his buildings organic; that is, to adjust their layouts and features until they merge with their natural surroundings, rather than simply imposing a rectangular box of a house on any given locale. Wright felt that a house should not be located on a site, but rather be a natural extension of the site.The exterior walls of a Wright house are articulated in a relatively complex, asymmetrical manner (so as to avoid a stiff, “boxy” appearance), and the house is often visually united with the earth via broad, flat surfaces parallel with the ground (e.g. eaves, cantilevered balconies). Interiors are open and flowing (rather than mechanically subdivided into small rooms), and ample windows (including windows that bend around corners) throughout the house merge the interior with the world outside. A mixture of building materials (e.g. brick, wood, stone, concrete) further contributes to the sense of the house as an organic feature of the landscape.

Despite the contrast between functionalism and Wright’s “organicism”, both are clearly modern (i.e. not based on anything traditional), and consequently similar in appearance to a significant degree. Wright shared the functionalist appreciation for simple geometry and plain, unadorned surfaces, and he embraced mass-produced building materials. One could categorize Wright’s architecture as a branch of the international style, or as a cousin. Wright’s first great works were his Prairie Houses, built in the Midwest; best-known among them is Robie House in Chicago. His most famous building of all is Fallingwater, Pennsylvania, while his foremost urban work is the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

After The International Style Toward the end of the Late Modern period, the international style experienced two notable trends. One was more extensive use of curvilinear geometry (as illustrated by Wright’s Guggenheim Museum, as well as Corbusier’s later work). The other was brutalism: a style that features harsh, bulky concrete structures, often with unfinished surfaces. These trends are considered the transitional phase to postmodern architecture, as architects grew impatient with the severe simplicity of the international style.

The piers read as pillars

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Le Corbusier: The International Style Villa Savoye, 1929

Le Corbusier: Villa Savoye interior, 1929

Le Corbusier: Unité d’Habitation, 1947-52

Le Corbusier:

Unité d’Habitation, 1947-52

Le Corbusier: Unité d’Habitation, 1947-52

Philip Johnson: Glass House, 1949

1928 – formation of the Congres Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne – an international group of architects. There was a push for building designs which could be truly international. Where the ideas of the Bauhaus were concerned with social ideals, the International Style eventually came to be associated with Capitalism and the wealth of the Western world.

Alvar Aalto, (Finland 1898-1976) Tuberculosis Sanitarium Finland, 1929-33, an example of International style.

Characteristics of the International Style: ▪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.

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”

“truth to materials”

“form follows function”

“machines for living” (Le Corbusier)

Identifying features/characteristics: ▪ Concrete

▪ Bands of glass

▪ Glass

▪ Balance and regularity

▪ Steel (most common)

▪ Flat roof, without ledge

▪ Occasionally reveals skeleton frame construction

▪ Often with thin, metal mullions and smooth spandrel s separating large, singlepane windows

▪ Exposing its structure ▪ Rejected non-essential decoration

▪ Ribbon windows ▪ Corner windows

Access to new building technologies like reinforced concrete , and steel framework for building meant that designers could seek a whole new approach to what is known as the plan or the layout of the interiors of buildings. The enormous strength of these new materials opened new worlds for designers that were unheard of in building before.

The typical International Style highrise 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

Glass Palace (the Netherlands – Frits Peutz) 1935

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe Chicago, Illinois 1949

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe Chicago, Illinois 1973