MODERNarchitecture
ARCHITECTURE HISTORY & THEORY 3
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Articles: - Frank Lloyd Wright and his Organic Architecture - Brutalism - Bauhaus - International Style & Art Deco - Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius - Oscar Niemeyer - Vienna Secession - Post-Modernism
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
“So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no ‘traditions’ essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but—instead—exalting the simple laws of common sense—or of super-sense if you prefer—determining form by way of the nature of materials...” — Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture, 1939
The Principles of Organic Architecture
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rank Lloyd Wright introduced the word ‘organic’ into his philosophy of architecture as early as 1908. It was an extension of the teachings of his mentor Louis Sullivan whose slogan “form follows function” became the mantra of modern architecture. Wright changed this phrase to “form and function are one,” using nature as the best example of this integration.
Organic architecture involves a respect for the properties of the materials—you don’t twist steel into a flower—and a respect for the harmonious relationship between the form/design and the function of the building (for example, Wright rejected the idea of making a bank look like a Greek temple). Organic architecture is also an attempt to integrate the spaces into a coherent whole: a Although the word ‘organic’ in common usage re- marriage between the site and the structure and fers to something which has the characteristics of a union between the context and the structure. animals or plants, Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture takes on a new meaning. It is not a style Throughout his 70 year career, Frank Lloyd Wright of imitation, because he did not claim to be building published articles, gave lectures, and wrote many forms which were representative of nature. Instead, books. The philosophy of organic architecture was organic architecture is a reinterpretation of nature’s present consistently in his body of work and the principles as they had been filtered through the in- scope of its meaning mirrored the development telligent minds of men and women who could then his architecture. The core of this ideology was albuild forms which are more natural than nature itself. ways the belief that architecture has an inherent 2
relationship with both its site and its time. When asked in 1939 if there was a way to control a client’s potentially bad taste in selecting housing designs for his Broadacre City project, Wright replied, “Even if he wanted bad ones he could find only good ones because in an organic architecture, that is to say an architecture based upon organic ideals, bad design would be unthinkable.” In this way, the question of style was not important to Frank Lloyd Wright. A building was a product of its place and its time, intimately connected to a particular moment and site—never the result of an imposed style. In 1957, two years before his death, Frank Lloyd Wright published the book, A Testament, which was a philosophical summation of his architectural career. In an essay entitled “The New Architecture: Principles”, he put forth nine principles of architecture that reflected the development of his or-
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ganic philosophy. The principles addressed ideas about the relationship of the human scale to the landscape, the use of new materials like glass and steel to achieve more spatial architecture, and the development of a building’s architectural “character,” which was his answer to the notion of style.
Brutalist architecture Brutalism: one of the 20th century’s most controversial architecture movements is back in vogue with design fans as nostalgia mixes with a new-found respect for its socialist principals.
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old, brash and confrontational, there can hardly be a more controversial – or misunderstood – architectural movement than Brutalism. Its very name is misleading, causing many to condemn its concrete creations for their apparent “brutality”. Brutalism’s etymology actually lies in the French béton-brut – literally “raw concrete” – the movement’s signature material. But Brutalism was concerned with far more than materials, emerging in the early 1950s through dissatisfaction with existing forms of Modernism, from which it aimed to make a conscious departure while at the same time recapturing its original heroic spirit.
mainly made of steel, glass and brick. This was Alison and Peter Smithson’s Hunstanton School in Norfolk (1947–54), where the architects transposed the vocabulary of Mies van der Rohe’s Illinois Institute of Technology into an asymmetrical plan with materials left in their raw, unfinished states. This use of materials “as found” was in deliberate contrast to the elegant curving roof, neat tiling and timber detailing of Leslie Martin and Robert Matthew’s Scandinavian-influenced Royal Festival Hall – the type of Modernism the Smithsons had in their sights. For Banham, who became something of a cheerleader for the New Brutalism, Hunstanton was “almost unique among modern Today, we use the term Brutalism to refer to both buildings in being made of what it appears to be a particular moment in post-war British archi- made of”. So stark was the result, he was moved tecture – given the epithet New Brutalism by to suggest that the New Brutalism constituted the critic Reyner Banham – and the broader phe- an ethical, as much as an aesthetic, proposition. nomenon during the 1960s and 1970s of an almost sculptural Modernism rendered in raw concrete, which had manifestations the world over.
Smithdon School, Hunstanston by Peter and Alison Smithson. Photograph by Anna Armstrong
In some ways the Miesian derivations at Hunstanton were something of a false start for the emerging Brutalism. The movement’s most important single influence was undoubtedly Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation in Marseille, both in terms of aesthetics and social programme. Completed in 1952, the Unité comprised 12 storeys of generLe Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation ously proportioned apartments accessed from interior “streets”, raised up on pilotis and topped by For a movement that is synonymous with con- a roof terrace – all built from roughly cast bétoncrete, it is some surprise that the building that is brut. Although the Unité still reflected the utopioften seen as inaugurating the New Brutalism was an aspirations of pre-war Modernism then under 4
attack, Brutalists like the Smithsons saw its form and aesthetic as reflective of the spirit of the present moment and providing a way forward for a broader regeneration of Modern architecture.
As the austerity of the 1950s gave way to the energy and renewed national self-confidence of the 1960s, Brutalism took centre stage, defining British architecture of that decade. Brutalist social housing began appearing all over Britain, Many ideas from the Unité appeared in the Smith- with notable examples, such as Park Hill in Shefsons’ unbuilt 1952 design for the Golden Lane Es- field (1957–61) by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith and tate in London. The interior “streets” of the Unité Southampton’s Wyndham Court (completed became exterior “street-decks” at every third level 1966) by Lyons Israel Ellis, ensuring raw concrete – forerunners to the infamous “streets-in-the-sky” and “streets-in-the-sky” became familiar sights. that would become ubiquitous in social housing projects in the 1960s and 1970s. These made the Preston Bus building’s circulation legible, while aiming to fa- Station by cilitate the type of social interactions one might Keith Ingham have on an actual street. The blocks were arranged and Charles to work with the surrounding street layout, rath- Wilson. Photoer than standing in isolation as per the Corbusian graph is courmodel. Though of different building types, the tesy of BDP Smithsons’ Golden Lane Estate design developed many of the ideas they had explored at Hunstanton, “emphasising visible circulation, [and] identifiable units of habitation,” according to Banham. Brutalism was by no means confined to social housing. The Smithsons’ Economist Building in London’s St James’s (1962–64) showed how Brutalist ideas could be deployed in sensitive settings. Its cluster of three towers of different heights with an elegant plaza at ground level allowed the creation of a deliberately complex relationship to its historic site. Outside London, the Preston Bus Station (1968–69) by Keith Ingham and Charles Wilson of Building Design PartPark Hill by Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith. Photograph courtesy of Ar- nership saw Brutalism used to give municipal civic chitectural Press Archive / RIBA Library Photographs Collection identity to major pieces of infrastructure. This was an idea also explored by Owen Luder and Rodney Rather than presenting their designs through plans, Gordon, whose Trinity Square car park in Gateshead sections and elevations in the conventional way, the (1962–67), made famous by the 1971 film Get Carter, Smithsons created collages, with cut-outs of people and Tricorn Centre in Portsmouth (1962–67) were pasted onto their drawings, so, in Banham’s words, both local landmarks – for better or for worse – be“the human presence almost overwhelmed the arfore their respective demolitions in 2010 and 2004. chitecture”. While, a generation before, Le Corbusier had famously taken inspiration from ocean liners Although the theoretical roots of the New Brutaland motors cars, the Smithsons looked towards evism were decidedly British, even English, rough eryday life – advertisements, bric-a-brac, what they sculptural buildings of raw concrete rose all over called “the stuff of the urban scene”. These concerns the world during the 1960s and 1970s. From Paul were shared by a number of artists, especially those Rudolph’s Yale Art and Architecture Building (comassociated with the Independent Group centred pleted in 1963), to Paulo Mendes de Rocha’s Brazilon London’s ICA, with the parallels coming to pubian Museum of Sculpture in São Paulo (completed lic attention in a seminal exhibition, This is Tomor1988) and Kenzo Tange’s Kuwait Embassy in Tokyo row, held at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1956. 5
the estate was meant to alleviate was instead compounded by a high crime rate and frequent vandalism of communal areas, which were rarely properly maintained. Rather than presenting an idealistic view of the future, Robin Hood Gardens came to represent all that was wrong with the intertwining of architecture and housing policy, and the topRobin Hood Gardens by Alison and Peter Smith- down way those policies were usually implemented. (completed 1970), raw concrete became a global language. Though emerging from different contexts and theoretical viewpoints, these various manifestations of Brutalism shared an ambition to reinvent modernism, to create an architecture that was hard-edged – literally and conceptually – that was radical and often confrontational.
Some hailed it as a masterpiece. However, for many others Robin Hood Gardens was just another “concrete monstrosity” that “brutalised” its inhabitants, and no different from the usually cheap and uninspiring slab blocks erected all over Britain during the post-war years. Despite this frequent lumping together of post-war Modernism, Brutalist buildings always seem to attract particularly harsh criticism. The architecture which so epitomised the golden era of the 1960s became widely reviled and frequent victim to the wrecking ball. For those on the left of the political spectrum, the destruction of Britain’s Brutalist legacy is nothing more than an attempt to erase that brief moment of socialist housing policy from collective memory. But this largely belies the fact many that many housing estates erected in utopian fervour son. Photograph is by Luke Hayes, as main image failed on their own terms, revealing the inherent shortcomings of intertwining architecture and soIn the late 1960s, the Smithsons finally got their cial policy – and, often, of the buildings themselves. chance to put their social housing ideas into practice with Robin Hood Gardens in London’s Nevertheless, in recent years Brutalism has unPoplar, close to Ernő Goldfinger’s Brutalist resi- dergone something of a rehabilitation, becomdential building Balfron Tower (1965–67). Their ing fashionable in certain architectural circles. It scheme comprised two, relatively low-rise blocks is a remarkable reversal (albeit with a long way to arranged around a garden area, which was land- go), especially when one realises the most perniscaped with raised mounds, so that greenery was cious aspect of Brutalism’s legacy – the wedge its visible from the windows of even higher floors. bloody-minded and often rather arrogant polemics The two blocks contained both flats and maison- drove between architects and the public – is still ettes, the idea being to encourage a greater social affecting architecture today. At their best, though, mix than possible with just one type of dwelling. Brutalist buildings have a sublime and haunting With cars banished, residences were accessed via power like few others – and should be preserved ‘streets-in-the-sky’, intended as ever to facilitate for posterity. Walking south along Waterloo Bridge the interactions and social ties between neigh- at dusk with the powerful concrete masses of the bours through which a community might emerge. Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall rearing Robin Hood Gardens in many ways constituted the ultimate realisation of the progressive social ideals that informed much of Brutalist thinking, but by the time it was completed in 1972, the Brutalist moment had passed and it was an almost immediate failure. The rough idealism of the 1950s no longer reflected the consumerist realities of the 1970s. The poverty
up in front of you and The Kinks’ song Waterloo Sunset, released in 1967, the same year those buildings were completed, ringing in one’s ears, it is hard not to be struck by the poignancy of the lyric: “As long as I gaze on Waterloo Sunset, I am in paradise”.
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rchitect Walter Gropius used Bau- any architectural style, however, the Bauhaus haus ideas when he built his monoc Manifesto promoted principles of creative collabhome home in Lincoln, Massachusetts. oration—planning, designing, drafting, and construction are tasks equal within the building colBauhaus is a German expression meaning house lective. Art and craft should have no difference. for building, or, literally, Construction House. In 1919, the economy in Germany was collapsing af- The Bauhaus school originated in Weimar, Germater a crushing war. Architect Walter Gropius was ap- ny (1919), moved to Dessau, Germany (1925), and pointed to head a new institution that would help disbanded when the Nazis rose to power. Walter rebuild the country and form a new social order. Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Called the Bauhaus, the Institution called for a new and other Bauhaus leaders migrated to the United “rational” social housing for the workers. Bauhaus ar- States. The term International Style was applied chitects rejected “bourgeois” details such as cornic- to the American form of Bauhaus architecture. es, eaves, and decorative details. They wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form: functional, without ornamentation of any kind. Generally, 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. Popular construction methods of the time — steel-frame with glass curtain walls — were used for both residential and commercial architecture. More than 7
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ART DECO & THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE
n architecture they are different fields that show the different style, art is not just about painting in a frame or in walls of churches or other things that shows expression of famous artist, painters and other personalities. Now that we change are works in art we relate it in other field to functionality. Another form of art is Art Deco represented elegance, glamour, functionality and modernity. Art deco’s linear symmetry was a distinct departure from the flowing asymmetrical organic curves of its predecessor style. Art Deco is characterized by use of materials such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer, Bakelite, Chrome and inlaid wood. The use of stepped forms and geometric curves, chevron patterns, ziggurat-shapes, fountains, and the sunburst motif are typical of Art Deco. Some of these motifs were ubiquitous – for example, sunburst motifs were used in such varied contexts
as women’s shoes, radiator grilles, radio and clock faces. Here in Manila there are a lot of buildings showing an Art Deco style. Here are some of examples. Granite or terra cotta was popular for facing Art Deco buildings, and ornamental metal, particularly bronze, was often used on both the exterior and interior. The style was also popular for small-scale commercial buildings of the period. Art Deco also shows coolness, clean and filled with light and space. Art Deco can also be seen in skyscrapers and mountained, pyramidal buildings. Art Deco
expressing its playfulness and obsessed art and it was also adaptable in every culture. It also drew on Machine Age or streamline technology, such as modern aviation, electric lighting, the radio, the ocean liner and the skyscraper for inspiration. It is in streamline modern styles that this technology fully manifests itself and, although it is not antithetical to Art Deco, it is now considered to be a separate architectural style. The movement was a mixture of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties and continued strongly in the United States through the 1930s. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was purely decorative.
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nother style that influenced is International Style that contributes in other buildings, International Style, architectural style that developed in Europe and the United States in the 1920s and ’30s and became the dominant tendency in Western architecture during the middle decades of the 20th century.
The most common characteristics of International Style buildings are rectilinear forms; light, taut plane surfaces that have been completely stripped of applied ornamentation and decoration; open interior spaces; and a visually weightless quality engendered by the use of cantilever construction. Glass and steel, in combination with usually less visible reinforced concrete, are the characteristic materials of construction. The International Style is the favored architecture for office buildings, and is also found in upscale homes built for the rich. By the mid-twentieth century, many variations of the International Style had evolved. In southern
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California and the American Southwest, architects adapted the International Style to the warm climate and arid terrain, creating an elegant yet informal style known as Desert Modernism. One of the most famous examples of the International Style is the United Nations Secretariat building, designed by Le Corbusier. The smooth glass-sided slab dominates New York’s skyline along the East River. International Style structures may appear boxy, simplistic, and completely abstract with flat roofs. Generally, they have smooth wall surfaces, windows that turn the corner of the buildings, and windows with minimal exterior reveals that appear to be a continuation of the surface. International Style designers shunned unnecessary embellishment. If it didn’t serve a purpose, it was gone. This ‘machine aesthetic’, although looking superficially like some aspects of Art Deco, was philosophically at the other end of the spectrum. While Deco revelled in aecleticism, the latest fads
and fashions, the International Style was seen as pure – in pursuit of perfect forms. The architecture that developed during this period came to be called the International Style because it spread throughout Europe and the United States. It was not really a style in the traditional sense of the word, with features like Doric columns or pointed arches, but was rather an attitude toward design. The buildings that were grouped together under this name tended to be non-symmetrical in form, with flowing interior spaces, flat roofs, and large areas of glass in plain, undecorated walls. They were intended to represent an abstract, machined simplicity of built form and a modern clarity of thought and action in the lives of those who designed and used them. The example of International building is the Pacific Plaza Tower in Global City, Fort Bonifacio another one is the CCP Complex in Pasay these are the buildings of International Style.
The Rise and Fall of Modernist Architecture LE CORBUSIER, MIES VAN DER ROHE, WALTER GROPIUS, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
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odernism first emerged in the early twentieth century, and by the 1920s, the prominent figures of the movement – Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - had established their reputations. However it was not until after the Second World War that it gained mass popularity, after modernist planning was implemented as a solution to the previous failure of architecture and design to meet basic social needs. During the 1930s as much as 15% of the urban populations were living in poverty, and slum clearance was one of the many social problems of this decade.[1] Modernist planning was a popular idea, and used as a solution to these problems. But the movement could not adequately comprehend and cater for the social dynamics of family and community, and a result, many modernist buildings were pulled down in the seventies. With reference to key architectural studies, this essay discusses the principles of modernism, how modernist architects initially worked to solve design problems through the creation of urban utopias, and why the ambitious modernist dream ultimately failed. Students at the Bauhaus school of design were taught purity of form and to design for a better world by Walter Gropius. The phrase ‘form follows function’ is often used when discussing the principles of modernism. It asserts that forms should be simplified – architectural designs should bear no more ornament than is necessary to function. Modernists believe that ornament should follow the structure and purpose of the building. Family life and social interaction was at the centre of the modernist dream for a planned environment. “The vision was for trouble free areas by mixing blocks with terraces 10
to create squares, zoning services and amenities, all interlinked by roads”.[2] The modernists planned for zoned areas where residential and commercial amenities were distinct and separate. In his introduction to Modernism in Design, Paul Greenhalgh outlined key features in modernist design including function, progress, anti-historicism and social morality.[3] These principles can be found in many of the key realisations of the modernist dream – Le Corbusier’s famous Villa Savoye in Poissy, France is a prime example. It shows no reference to historic architectural design; the pioneering plan was a progressive leap for the late 1920s. The form clearly follows the intended functions of the residential building, bearing no unnecessary ornament, and the open space surrounding the structure as well as the open plan interior lends itself to the ideals of social living and communication. The modernist ideals were not applied to social housing until 1937, when Maxwell Fry’s Kensal House in London applied the principles of the movement to a social housing scheme. It was a success and is still popular with its residents today. It then became the prototype for other social housing projects to follow the example of modern living.
responsibility in that architecture should raise the living conditions of the masses.”[4] seemed so progressive and promising that it was understandable the Architectural Review should herald the movement as the style of the century. One successful project by the architect Ralph Eskrine was the Byker Housing project in Newcastle, which began in the 1960s. Historically, Byker began as a village, but by the late 19th century the dominant type of housing in the working class area was the Tyneside flat. Conditions were poor, and occupants of the area generally suffered from overcrowding, poor sanitation and poverty. Despite the less that desirable situation, Byker was noted for it’s character, and the strength of neighbourly relationships. The design team were keen to retain this sense of community, and as such, “Byker was one of the first major attempts in Britain to create a di-
Many projects of the modernist era were initially successful, and the public came to asso- alogue between community and architecture.”[5] ciate this strong aesthetic with prosperity and progress. In the post war era, the ambitions of The public housing development combines a pethe modernists and their “strong sense of social rimeter type wall of multi storey flats, low rise housing and public spaces and play areas. The wall makes use of a south facing aspect to utilise light and views across the city and of the River Tyne. 20 percent of the accommodation is housed in the wall, but the remaining majority was contained in the low rise houses within.[6] The project took a modern approach to living, yet mixed it with a consideration for those who would reside there, a lack of which has 11
opment was planned according to the modernist principles of Le Corbusier, and comprised of 33 11 storey high rise blocks made up of small individual apartments. There were communal areas including large corridors, outdoor spaces around the blocks, and communal rooms for activities such as laundry, intended to increase the social interaction amongst the community. However by the late 1960s, “the project’s recreational galleries and skipstop elevators, once heralded as architectural innovations, had become nuisances and danger zones. Large numbers of vacancies indicated that even poor people preferred to live anybeen a criticism of many modernist developments. Eskrine adopted a more humane approach to the where but Pruitt-Igoe.”[9] Poverty, crime and segremodernist principles, yet still established clean gation of the community were major problems for lines, function, progress, and above all social moral- the residents of the development. It was suggested ity. He worked his plan around Victorian elements that the modernist style was to blame for these soof the area such as churches, and some of the origi- cial problems, and comparisons with the adjacent nal cobblestones and parts of the demolished Newcastle City Hall, were incorporated into the public areas. Perhaps the integration of local history in this manner, which goes against one of the principles of modernism established by the pioneering architects of the movement, and outlined by Greenhalgh, was a contributing factor to the widely agreed attitude that this project was a success. Although it was expressed that “some missed the streets as places of community and gathering, and as arenas or personal expression.”[7] , The majorities were happy to reside in the new development, thanks to the social continuity and comfortable varied environment provided. This issue was also a concern of Carr Village can be used as an example to back Jane Jacobs, author of The Life and Death of Great this up. The village was made up of low rise dwellAmerican Cities. In her book, Jacobs accused Le Cor- ings, with a similar demographic make-up to Pruitt busier, one of the pioneers of the movement, of an Igoe, yet remained both fully occupied and trouble inhumane planning process that did not properly free throughout the period from construction to consider those who were to live in the planned de- demolition of it’s neighbouring development. [10] velopments. She claimed the modernist aesthetic to be dull, and her writing promoted the street, in par- Much publicity developed in 1972, when the first of ticular the pavement, as a place where a community the buildings was demolished on March 16th. The can meet, socialise, and control their own privacy. [8] day was declared by the architect Charles Jencks to be the day on which modern architecture died in his However not all modernist social housing projects book The Language of Post Modern Architecture. were as successful: many were demolished from the 1970s due to large-scale failure. The ultimate exam- Le Corbusier noted the positive force technolople of the failure of the modernist utopia is the now gy had played in people’s lives with revolutioninfamous Pruitt Igoe urban housing development ary inventions such as the car and the telephone, in St. Louis, Missouri, completed in 1955. The devel- and declared the house should be “a machine for 12
living in”. They utilised glass, steel and concrete in their designs, which allowed them the opportunity to create buildings of radical design, such as the skyscraper, which would not have been plausible were it not for these materials. Buildings like these have no doubt, even today, redefined the urban landscape. He and the other modernist architects believed that a for a home to provide its function it should have the purity of form of a well-designed machine.[11] This principle may work well enough when applied to a commercial building, but which family can honestly say they operate like a machine, like clockwork? Some modernist apartment blocks even went so far as to dictate and include the furniture and blinds, to keep a pure aesthetic throughout the whole building. Removing home comforts from the domestic interior may well encourage purity within design, but it does little to encourage the creation of a ‘home’ rather than a house. The pioneers of the movement held a firm belief that in creating a better architecture, a better world would ultimately follow.[12] We could say they were a little arrogant and ambitious in hoping to change the world with their design principles. There is no doubt that a new architecture would improve towns and the living situation of many, however to assume that it could improve the world as a whole is completely nonsensical. What about problems of economy and political debate? Perhaps the reason the modernist utopia is so often cited as a failure is because of its unrealistic ambitions. There is no doubt that modernism, to an extent, solved some design problems by keeping abreast of technology. Lubetkin’s HighPoint One flats in London are still as desirable accommodations as they were when built in 1935. At the time of completion they were described as “one of the finest, if not absolutely the finest, middle-class housing projects in the world”[13] Residents of the flats had the luxury of central heating and built in refrigerators, as well as the use of communal gardens and even a pool. Today one of the three bedroom apartments is up for sale for the indulgent price of £595,000.[14] Applying the same principles to public housing on a budget was not always as successful. In Britain, the movement was often associated with public housing more than anything else. It’s collapse is often linked with the social problems residents of public housing estates commonly face. During the sixties and seventies, the political parties encouraged the building of high rise, high density tower 13
blocks, which were then, an obvious improvement from the existing Victorian housing throughout the country. In the race to create modernist design solutions for all, corners were cut and substitutions made in design which could not be forgiven. Ronan Point is another example from London – a gas explosion unearthed weaknesses in the buildings structure, when one side collapsed dramatically in 1968. The public were shocked at the structural weakness of this pre fabricated tower and immediately questioned the stability of other high rise blocks which were defining the landscape. This, along with the demolishing of failed projects such as Pruitt Igoe, meant the public no longer had faith in the modernist movement.
OSCAR NIEMEYER
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scar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho, or simply Oscar Niemeyer, was one of the greatest architects in Brazil‘s history, and one of the greats of the global modernist movement. After his death in 2012, Niemeyer left the world more than five hundred works scattered throughout the Americas, Africa and Europe. Niemeyer attended the National School of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro in 1929, graduating in 1934. He began working with the influential Brazilian architect and urban planner Lúcio Costa also in 1932, a professional partnership that would last decades and result in some of the most important works in the history of modern architecture.
In 1936, Niemeyer joined a team of Le Corbusier, Lúcio Costa, Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Carlos Leon, Jorge Moreira and Ernani Vasconcellos to design the headquarters of the Ministry of Education and Health, located in the center of Rio de Janeiro. Aged just 29 years, Niemeyer was assigned as a draftsman for Le Corbusier, however after Le Corbusier left Brazil the young prodigy made changes to the design that greatly impressed Lúcio Costa – so much so that by 1939 he appointed Niemeyer as the project’s lead architect. The building, a horizontal bar that intersects a vertical blade, was completed in 1945 and became the cornerstone of modern Brazilian architecture, attracting international attention.
Ministry of Education and Health Building, Rio de Janeiro. Image © Marina de Holanda Church
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In 1956, then-president Juscelino Kubitshek invited Niemeyer to participate in the largest urban and architectural work of the country’s history: the construction of the new capital in the middle of the savannah, Brasília.
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Lúcio Costa, the masterplanner of the new capital, said in an interview with Ana Rosa de Oliveira in 1992: “when Juscelino became president, he had an architect in his pocket, Oscar Niemeyer. He was a pre-selected architect. This means that the competition was only for the city’s urban planning, the masterplan.” The collaboration of Costa and Niemeyer gave the world something entirely new: the first major city designed entirely on the basis of modernist principles of functionality and aesthetics. Oscar Niemeyer was never a scholar, never interested in theories, jargon, clichés. His freeform, flowing lines were always accurate. Though he had strongly held political views, unlike some other Modernists they were not especially apparent in his work. His goal was simple and innocent: give beauty to the world. And he did.
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Vienna Secession (1897-1939)
Austrian Artistic Movement
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n 1897 a group of Artists, such as Otto Wagner and his gifted students, Josef Hoffmann and Josef Olbrich, with Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser and others aspired to the renaissance of the arts and crafts and to bring more abstract and purer forms to the designs of buildings and furniture, glass and metalwork, following the concept of total work of art and to do so they tried to bring together Symbolists, Naturalists, Modernists, and Stylists.
They gave birth to another form of modernism in the visual arts and they named their own new movement: Secession (Wiener Secession). As the name indicates, this movement represented a protest, of the younger generation against the traditional art of their forebears, a “separation” from the past towards the future. The first chairman was Gustav Klimt. To pursue their goal they created their own exhi-
bition space: the Secession building just off Vienna’s Ringstrasse and the architect would be Josef Maria Olbrich. But the Vienna Secession p r o m o t e d their design aesthetic with exhibition posters and its own journal, Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring). The journal housed reproductions, poetry illustrations, graphic art, decorative borders, object design, and cutting-edge conceptions for layout. Starting with the first exhibition in November 1898, the Vienna Secession Building presented works of the most important artists of the time as: Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Maria Olbrich, Max Klinger, Walter Crane, Eugene Grasset, Signac, Charles Robert Ashbee, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Degas, Arnold Bocklin, Giovanni Segantini, Auguste Rodin, Edvard Munch, van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Vuillard, Bonnard, Redon, Gauguin, Otto Wag16
ner, ... and also a good proportion of Belgian Artists as: Fernand Khnopff, Constantin Meunier, Felicien Rops, Theo van Rysselberghe, George Minne, In 1902, Gustav Klimt created the Beethoven Frieze as part of installation of Max Klinger’s sculpture Beethoven; installation designed by Josef Hoffmann. The Beethoven Frieze was left on view another year, then dismantled and sold. OOn 19th May, 1903 another association, the Wiener Werkstätte (German for The “Vienna Workshop”) was registered in Vienna . The founders, Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser, both members of the Vienna Secession, wanted to provide an outlet for graduates from the Kunstgewerbeschule. In 1905, the ongoing conflict between the naturalists, who had clung to many of the Kunstlerhaus tenets from the beginning of the Secession Movement, and the stylists finally proved irreconcilable. At that time Klimt, Auchentaller, Boehm, Hoffmann, Moser and Roller, seceded from the Secession on the grounds that they could no longer be associated with the more realistic naturalists who refused to commit themselves to the “total work of art”, a fundamental premise of the Secessionist Movement. The “Klimt Group” held their exhibitions in 1908 in the Kunstschau, a temporary pavilion built by Josef Hoffmann, and the year represents the high-point in the decorative phase of late Art Nouveau. 17
Postmodern Architecture
Postmodern architecture seeks to combine functionality with aesthetics in a way not done in past architectural movements. Though postmodern architecture takes many of its cues from Modern Functionalism and its emphasis on utility, it expands the fundamentals further to add a certain irony and paradox to make buildings interesting as well as usable. Postmodern architecture seeks to focus on the needs and desires of the present generation in terms of comfort and design.
Characteristics of Postmodern Architecture There is a sort of “anything goes” attitude associated with postmodern architecture, though its creations are not chaotic by any means. Architects espousing this movement like to add the unexpected touches to buildings that go against convention but still look appealing. For instance, a skyscraper built in the genre of postmodern architecture can sport classical columns to add to the overall beauty of the building. Colors, too, tend to lean toward the unexpected, while continuing to remain within an established color scheme. Aside from function and art, postmodern architecture also embraces a certain continuity within a structure. The “anything goes” mentality must still have a basic cohesive order. Quality is also essential. The theory behind many postmodern works is that if the product is functional and attractive, those who reside or work inside can have happier and more productive lives.
Postmodern architecture, a movement which actually dates back to the 1950’s, continues to surprise and please. While the architecture so often features unexpected additions or color schemes, the goal is still to create a unifying theme throughout the structure. Architects work very hard to generate plans that prove aesthetically pleasing, highly functional, cohesive and sustainable. 18