Unlike the prevailing styles of the late 19th-century Victorian era that looked to the past, Modernism embraced industry and new materials.
Modernism is an architectural movement that emphasizes Louis Sullivan's idea of "form follows function." Modernist structures were characterized by streamlined appearance, lack of ornamentation, and open oor plans.
New materials like steel and reinforced concrete enabled new building forms. Schools like the Chicago School, Werkbund, and Bauhaus explored these materials and functional design. The International Style codi ed modern architecture's emphasis on simplicity, rejection of ornament, and use of materials honestly. Key gures like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Walter Gropius pioneered modern architecture.
New materials:
-Steel (pioneered in Britain, brought into general use in America)
-Reinforced concrete (discovered in France) - church of st. jean-de montmarte, Anatole de baud, Paris, 1897 - rst example of reinforced cement in church construction
Fundamental technical requirement to large-scale modern architecture was the development of
metal framing.
First skyscraper = home insurance building, Chicago 1n 1883-1885 by William le baron Jenny. It is of reproof construction, has metal frame clad in brick and masonry
Modern architecture emerged in the rst half of the 20th century which brought a dramatic change both for art and architecture. Modernism encompasses various di erent styles that emphasize functionalism, puri ed architectural form, clean structure, lack of ornamentation, and use of new-age materials steel, glass, and concrete. Modernism is viewed as an important shift in terms of architectural design and expression. The term ‘Form follows Function’ rede ned a new world of architecture that signi es and sustains to motivate architects today. The great architects that ourished during this era include Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Mies Van De Rohe, and Le Corbusier with their iconic structures like Falling Water, Villa Savoye, Crown Hall, Chicago, etc.
Modern architecture movement
The Modernist style in architecture began in Germany with the Bauhaus movement in the 1920s and the work of Walter Gropius and Mies Van Der Rohe. After the Bauhaus was shuttered by the Nazis in 1933, the architects brought their distinct and novel style to the U.S., where it would continue to ourish.
In uences
Modern design has its oldest roots in the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment when artists and designers embraced rationality and simplicity following the Renaissance's opulence. In the early 1900s, the world changed dramatically due to industry and technology. While homes, furniture, and decor had once been the hard work of individual builders and craftsmen, industry replaced much of this work. Most furniture and decor involve mass production at some level to fl fi fi fi fi fl fl fl fi fi fi fi ff meet demand and increase a ordability. Many artists and designers rebelled and longed to return to simpler times and ideas embodied in styles like William Morris's Arts and Crafts movement.
Others, like those in the Art Deco movement of the 1920s and 1930s, sought to embrace modern manufacturing and its yields, including new materials like plastic, reinforced concrete, and steel. Unlike Victorian and turn-of-the-century revival styles that relied on ornamentation and historical in uences, Art Deco was known for streamlined shapes and minimal decoration. Art Deco's popularity peaked in the development of Art Moderne, which took automation and machine as inspiration, employing motifs taken from transportation and aviation like porthole windows and chrome accents.
Early Modernism architecture, which developed primarily from the Bauhaus movement in Germany, similarly built o this aesthetic of minimalism and industrial materials. While Art Deco itself was very much a style rooted in luxury, mostly designed with wealthy audiences in mind, Modernism, as an architectural period, was hatched in a movement that was very much about social equality and . Modernism strove to be both minimal and accessible, as well as more globally universal in its appeal. For Modernists, industrialization not only created wealth but new opportunities for design and progress.
Modernism
A. Early Modernism - a reaction against eclecticism and the lavish stylistic excesses of Victorian and Edwardian architecture.
Chicago school - logical development of the steel skeleton as a load-bearing structure and in evolving a characteristic architectural form for this new type of construction. - Louis Sullivan - “all things natural have a shape, that is to say, a form, an outward semblance, that tells us what they are that distinguishes them ourselves and from each other.” - Frank Lloyd Wright - B. Modernism - style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction; the idea that form should follow function (functionalism); an embrace of minimalism and a rejection of ornament. 1. Modern European Architecture - in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts. The term Expressionist architecture initially described the activity of the German, Dutch, Austrian, Czech, and Danish avant-garde from 1910 until 1930. - Subsequent rede nitions extended the term backwards to 1905 and also widened it to encompass the rest of Europe. Today the meaning has broadened even further to refer to architecture of any date or location that exhibits some of the qualities of the original movement such as: distortion, fragmentation, or the communication of violent or overstressed emotion. - Expressionism - The style was characterized by an early modernist adoption of novel materials, formal innovation, and very unusual massing—sometimes inspired by natural biomorphic forms and sometimes by the new technical possibilities o ered by the mass production of brick, steel, and glass. - Many expressionist architects fought in World War I and their experiences, combined with the political turmoil and social upheaval that followed the German Revolution of 1919, resulted in a Utopian outlook and a romantic socialist agenda. Hence, ephemeral exhibition buildings were numerous and highly signi cant during this period. fl fi ff ff ff fi - Likewise, scenography for theater and lms provided another outlet for the expressionist imagination, and provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to challenge conventions in a harsh economic climate. - Features of Expressionist Architecture - Expressionist architecture was individualistic and in many ways eschewed aesthetic dogma. While the movement was very broad, some points can be found as recurring in works of Expressionist architecture, and are evident in some degree in each of its works. - A distortion of form for an emotional e ect. - The subordination of realism to symbolic or stylistic expression of inner experience. - An underlying e ort at achieving the new, original, and visionary. - A profusion of works on paper, and models, with discovery and representations of concepts being more important than pragmatic nished products. - Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a single concept. - Themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rock formations. - Utilizes the creative potential of artisan craftsmanship. - A tendency towards the gothic than the classical. - Draws as much from Moorish, Islamic, Egyptian, and Indian art and architecture as from Roman or Greek. - Conceives architecture as a work of art. - Form also played a de ning role in setting apart expressionist architecture from its immediate predecessor, art nouveau, or Jugendstil. While art nouveau had an organic freedom with ornament, expressionist architecture strove to free the form of the whole building instead of just its parts. - Example of a built expressionist project that is formally inventive - Erich Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower. This sculpted building shows a relativistic and shifting view of geometry: devoid of applied ornament, form and space are shaped in uid concrete to express concepts of the architect and the building’s namesake. - Expressionist architecture utilized curved geometries and a recurring form in the movement is the dome. Another expressionist motif was the emphasis on either horizontality or verticality for dramatic e ect, which was in uenced by new technologies like cruise liners and skyscrapers. 2. American Modernism • Art Deco and Streamline Moderne were not necessarily opposites. Streamline Moderne buildings with a few Deco elements were not uncommon, and sometimes there is so much crossover that it can be di cult to di erentiate between the two styles. a. Art Deco • The Art Deco style is often characterized by its use of rich colors, symmetry, bold geometric shapes, simple composition, rectilinear rather than curvilinear shapes, and lavish ornamentation. Emerging during the Interwar period when rapid industrialization was transforming culture, one of the major attributes of Art Deco was its embrace of technology. • During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamor, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress. The urban United States has many examples of Art Deco architecture, especially in New York, Chicago, and Detroit. The famous skyscrapers in these cities are the best known, but notable Art Deco buildings can be found in other neighborhoods. b. Streamline Moderne • As the Great Depression decade of the 1930s progressed, Americans saw a new decorative element of the Art Deco style emerge in the marketplace: streamlining. Streamline Moderne was a concept rst created by industrial designers, who stripped Art Deco design of its ornament in favor of the aerodynamic pure-line concept of motion and speed developed from scienti c thinking. fl ff fi ffi fi fi ff ff fi ff fi fl • This aesthetic was embodied through the use of cylindrical forms and long, horizontal windowing. An array of designers quickly ultra-modernized and streamlined the designs of everyday objects, such as toasters. • Streamline Moderne was both a reaction to Art Deco and a re ection of austere economic times. Gone was unnecessary ornament. Sharp angles were replaced with simple, aerodynamic curves. Exotic woods and stone were replaced with cement and glass. • Some common characteristics of Streamline Moderne include horizontal orientation, rounded edges, corner windows, glass blocks, porthole windows, chrome hardware, smooth exterior wall surfaces (usually stucco), horizontal wall grooves, and subdued colors. C. Postmodernism
Modern Themes Common themes of modern architecture include: • The notion that ” form follows function,” a dictum originally expressed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s early mentor Louis Sullivan, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose • Simplicity and clarity of forms and elimination of “unnecessary detail” • Visual expression of structure (as opposed to the hiding of structural elements) • The related concept of “truth to materials,” meaning that the true nature or natural appearance of a material ought to be seen rather than concealed or altered to represent something else • Use of industrially produced materials • Adoption of the machine aesthetic, particularly in International Style modernism • A visual emphasis on horizontal and vertical lines
Application of Themes • With the Industrial Revolution, the increasing availability of new building materials such as iron, steel, and sheet glass drove the invention of equally new building techniques. In 1796, Shrewsbury mill owner Charles Bage rst used his “ reproof” design, which relied on cast iron and brick with agstone oors. Such construction greatly strengthened the structure of mills, which enabled them to accommodate much bigger machines. Due to poor knowledge of iron’s properties as a construction material, a number of early mills collapsed. It was not until the early 1830s that English engineer Eaton Hodgkinson introduced the section beam, leading to widespread use of iron construction. • This kind of austere industrial architecture and the rolling steel mills that lled the sky with black clouds of smoke and coal dust utterly transformed the landscape of northern Britain, leading the poet William Blake to describe places like Manchester and parts of West Yorkshire as “Dark satanic mills.” The Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851, was an early example of iron and glass construction. It was followed in 1864 by the rst glass and metal curtain wall. A further development was that of the steel-framed skyscraper in Chicago, introduced around 1890 by William Le Baron Jenney and Louis Sullivan. McMillan Plan - after the senator James McMillan, redesign of the monumental core of washington 1909 plan of chicago - one of principal documents of the movement; Chicago School -appeared after the great re of Chicago that created the rebuilding of the city. Architects at that time were encouraged to build higher structures because of the increasing land prices.
Expressionism fl fi fi fl fi fi fl fi Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional e ect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality.
Einstein Tower- Erich Mendelsohn
Its shape looks like a rocket or a futuristic monument, re ecting the spirit of discovery of the time. The tower's slanted lines and bold angles make it stand out, showing the energy of scienti c exploration. This solar observatory was intended to provide experimental proof of Einstein's ndings on the theory of relativity. Albert Einstein itself and the astrophysicist Erwin Finley Freundlich initiated the construction of the observatory. Erich Mendelsohn wanted to give Albert Einstein's theory of relativity an architectural expression. Concrete was to be the construction material of choice, but due to a lack of experience with concrete, the tower was masoned. The brickwork was covered with a special plaster that imitates concrete. Even tough, this tower is not really part of our canon of modern architecture, because it is more expressive and has some details of art nouveau, we see it as building forming the process of early modernism in architecture. fi ff fl fi
