Modernist Architecture - The Architecture of the Future

- The Roman invented concrete in the 2nd century, however the process of making it was lost over the centuries. It was rediscovered as 'Portland Concrete' in 1824. This new concrete allowed grand structures to be built.

- The reestablishment on concrete was very cost effective and efficient. Architects now had a more functionalistic approach to historicism.

Sir Joseph Paxton, Crystal Palace, 1851, destroyed in 1936

- Crystal Palace was made of ferrovitreous materials. This enormous structure was a statement proving what the materials of the modern world could achieve.

- The eclectic Paris Opera house by Charles Garnier was the scale that was expected of public buildings at the time. In this sense, the century was both backward, and forward looking.

W. H. Barlow & R. M. Ordish, St. Pancras Station train shed, 1863

George Gilbert Scott, St Pancras Hotel, 1868, London

- St. Pancras is the perfect example. The train shed was made of ferrovitreous materials and was the largest spanning enclosed space; it is perfectly modern, as it's functional, provides shelter and light, but the facade had to be Gothic as it was in the centre of London, and also a hotel, it had to fit in stylistically. The facade is backward looking, in the name of decorum and a celebration of the past.

Louis Sullivan, Wainwright Building, 1890, St Louis, USA

- America had a lack of historical past and so it was more free to experiment with modern materials. The skeleton of the Wainwright Building is made of reinforced concrete, cast iron and glass, these are the load-bearing elements of the building. The structure is completely in the hand of the ferrovitreous skeleton, which is one of the greatest advancements of modern architecture. The external wall is not longer load-bearing, it becomes a curtain wall. Modern buildings have volume rather than mass. There are still elements of a classical buildings here - the base, pilasters, capitals and entablature. Sullivan was struggling between traditional and modern aesthetics. This building still has a masonry facade.

Louis Sullivan, Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building, 1899-1904, Chicago

- The Great Fire of Chicago was in 1871 and destroyed the whole city. Although devastating, this created a new slate for American architects. They could exploit building from new. Here the curtain wall is externally expressed. For the first time, a non-load-bearing wall is expressed for the first time on the facade.

- These American buildings were a completely different world of architecture from that of Europe (e.g. Paris Opera House)

- Gothic cathedrals were the tallest buildings in the previous centuries. The Woolworth building is still quite Gothic in appearance.

- Modernism in its most consistent nucleus is in many ways, a Germanic invention.

Adolf Loos, Goldman & Salatsch Building, 1910, Vienna

- Loos trained with Sullivan before returning to Vienna. He famous wrote Ornament and Crime - arguing that ornament was a crime in a modern world, out of touch with modern society,; it was not functional and thus it was a waste of time, energy and money. His Goldman & Salatsch building has no traces of style or decoration. It was originally a bank and had an immense impact. He eliminated all the decoration and used only concrete and the essentials. Form Follows Function.

- His villas are completely devoid of ornamentation. They were considered to be very shocking.

Walter Gropius, Fagus Factory, 1911

- Gropius is on of the great founding fathers of German modernism. Now almost 100 years old, this was a very famous show factory. Gropius expressed, for the first time in Europe, the exploitation of the curtain wall, completely glass. He was able to experiment in this way as it was a factory - not in the city centre. String windows, flat roof. The reinforced columns do not support the building from the four corners. Gropius eliminates one of the most essential 'post-and-lintel' values.

- Renaissance corners are reinforced with the quoins technique, Gropius' building does the opposite.

Walter Gropius, Bauhaus building, 1925-26, Dessau

- Gropius went on to lead the Bauhaus group - a community of avant-garde artists, through this group they thought they were going to reconfigure the world in which we live. Bauhaus was a think tank for solutions for modernism.

Walter Gropius, Bauhaus building, 1925-25, Dessau

- The building is composed of curtain walls, flat roof, reinforced concrete. The weigh of the building rests on just a few piers. All the different parts of the building are built specifically according to their function. The load is supported internally, so the external wall can be completely glass, allowing an enormous amount of light to be filtered in.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona Pavilion [reconstruction], 1929

- Another of the founding fathers was Mies van der Rohe was a purist, the most orthodox of all the modernists in terms of rationality, functionality and use of modern materials.

Glass skyscraper for Berlin, 1920

- His skyscraper remained a plan, but looks just like the buildings that are still constructed in cities today.

- Mass had almost completely disappeared. It was believed that in the modern world, everything should be visible.

"Less is More"

"God is in the Details" 

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

- Mies van der Rohe believed in reducing everything to the bare minimum, but that every detail should be beautifully executed.

Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, Werkbun Exhibition, 1914, Cologne

- Bruno Taut's Glass Pavilion has been described as 'expressionistic architecture'. It expresses inner passions rather than universal standards. It was lit up to create the effect of the interior of a gothic cathedral, responding to colours and feelings. It was in dialogue with sensibilities.

Hans Poelzig, Great Theatre, 1919, Berlin

Hans Poelzig, Great Theatre, 1919, Berlin

- Hans Poelzig's Great Theatre looks like a stage set of an expressionistic play, with a dome that looks like a spiritual ascension. Unfortunately it has been destroyed.

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, 1928-29

- The third founding father of modern architecture was Le Corbusier, a French-Swiss, moved to Paris and had most of his training in France. He had a more long lasting impact on architecture not only because of his principles but also his town planning solutions. Villa Savoye clearly sets out some of the key principles of modernist architecture. This is the typology for a modernist villa, 1) No ground floor, but an open space supported by piloti. 2) The piano nobile is the living quarters, open, like here, with ribbon windows and a curtain wall. 3) A flat roof, this allows a terrace which can be used as an extra living quarter. 4) Open-plan. It is a machine house, a machine to live in that embraces the aesthetics of the industrial materials but also the principles of the industrial revolution. This villa is substantially post-and-lintel, resting on columns, it has the same gravitas as the Greek temple. One of the most important principles is that the harmony is based on proportionality and modularity.

Mies van der Rohe, Seagram building, 1958, NYC

Minoru Yamasaki, World Trade Centre, 1973, NYC

- van der Rohe's Seagram building has all the principles of modernist architecture, (essentially a rectangular, crystal box). This was the model for all functional skyscrapers all over the world. The end result being the twin towers. These gigantic towers were an exploitation of the principles by Mies van der Rohe. The crucial different is that van der Rohe's skyscraper was constructed with utmost quality and precision. It is raised on a platform of pink granite - the most durable and precious of ancient materials. Raised like a temple, everything on the external curtain is made of bronze, which would have been immensely expensive. The window is the modular of the external building. It is a machine that is very versatile, but it is not a model for everything. The problem is that van der Rohe's building was based on purity and rationality, on geometry and mathematics, this was exploited and ruined by capitalist corporations, who made cheaper, poorer quality versions of van der Rohe's model.

Le Corbusier, Notre-Dame-du-Hunt, 1950-55, Ronchamp

Le Corbusier, Notre-Dame-du-Hunt, 1950-55, Ronchamp

- Le Corbusier is always much more linked to concrete than the crystal cathedrals of van der Rohe. Concrete in itself, is mass. He turned to an architecture where mass is absolutely expressed. His Notre-Dame-de-Hunt has very thick walls. Le Corbusier revalued organic forms, mass heaviness and elements related to the context in which an architecture is placed. He uses concrete in a sculptural way. Inside, his expressive use of openings and stained glass is very effective. In many ways, this is opposite to the modernist credo of the 20th century.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Cascada, 1935, Pennsylvania, USA

- This architecture is site specific, it adapts around the surrounding nature. An architecture that interprets the site, it is inserted in an organic way.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum, 1956, NYC

Frank Lloyd Wright, Guggenheim Museum interior, 1956, NYC

- Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim museum is one of the most famous buildings in New York. He plays with the principles which are in many ways opposite of other architects. Emphasis on curved lines, again very organic. It is much more based on the forms of nature, evoking a large shell.

Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth House III, 1951

- The earliest modernist buildings were harmonious, well balanced, orthogonal, open to the elements, transparent with a flat roof.