Glass architecture

Modern History of Glass Architecture

Christy Gray

ARTH 205

May 11, 2010

19th Century: Early Modern Glass Architecture

New materials and technology

-Exoticism

-The illusion of Nature in a post-industrial society

-show of wealth

19th Century German Glass Architecture

9

44

Berlin 9

Biebrich

Bonn

Dresden

Frankfurt

Gottingen

Karlsruhe

Kassel

Cologne

Leipzing

Magdeburg

Meiningen

Munich 4

Stuttgart 4

Tubingen

-first known iron-framed house in Germany and possibly the entire continent

-Romanticism- exiled Prince was looking for an exotic escape

Stuttgart- Hohenheim

Hohenheim Park Iron Conservatory

Built: 1789

Berlin

Pfaueninsel Palm House

architect : Albert Ditrich Schadow (assisted by Karl Friedrich Schinkel)

Built: 1829-1831 Burned Down: 1880

-wood and iron building

-one of the first large hothouses in Germany (prototype for future hothouses)

-onion shaped cupola expresses exotic world enshrined in the building

-romanticism/ exoticism

Included ruined castle, a mausoleum, farmhouse. etc-largest display of plant specimens at the time-back wall masonry

Stuggart

Wilhelma and Conservatories

Architects: Ludwig Von Zanth

Built: 1842-1846

Exoticism- inspired by Moorish architecture

-building displays the attributes of ironwork and the ability to produce fine details

-Made for the part time residence of King William of Wurttemberg and rumors were said that it was his “fairy castle”

Karlsruhe

Residenz Conservatories

Architect: Heinrich Hubsch

Built: 1853-1857

-Historicism- use of caryatids emphasize temple –like appearance

-load baring masonry support reduced to a skeleton

Munich

Old Botanical Garden- Glass Palace

Architect: August Von Voit

Built: 1853-54 Burnt Down: 1931

-One of the largest glass and iron buildings built during the 19th century

-Originally built for an exhibition hall

-the building was completed in 87 days (thanks to prefabrication and mass production)

-1700 tons of iron and 37,000 pains of glass-Inspired by Joseph Paxton’s crystal palace, completed for the London exhibition 2 years prior-held, 5 industrial exhibitions, 32 art exhibitions, 26 agricultural exhibitions and an electrical-goods exhibition, plays and festivals-there was talk of dismantling it in 1912, although some were for preservation…in 1931 it burned down

Berlin-Schoneberg

Royal Botanical Garden

Great Palm House

Architect: Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Built: 1857 Demolished: 1907

-early example of 19th century Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity)

-1/2 inch glass with reinforced wire

-double installation

“a demonstration therefore that even northerly climates the iron structure can be considered advantageous for hothouses”

-green design- rain water catch system, hot water heating

-series gardens and hot houses, the earliest was built in 1821 by Schinkel-1907 demolished to make a new botanical garden @ Dahlem

Munich

Old Botanical Garden

Luisen-Sophienstasse Great Palm House

Architect: August von Voit

Built: 1860-1965 Demolished: ?

-functioned as a conservatory and museum-plans were to recycle the glass palace to built, but glass palace cont. to be used

Cologne

Botanical Garden- Flora

Architects: H Martens and Georg Eberlein

Built: 1864 Demolished: 1914

-1st type in Germany to combine public recreation center with a palm house

-served as a model for the London Crystal Palace

Berlin

Central Hotel Winter Garden

Architects: Hermann von der Hude and Julius Hennicke

Built: 1880-01 Demolished: ?

-hotel that was to provide accommodation as well as entertainment

-concerts in every weather

-no interior column, utilized the same technology in bridge construction and railway stations

Berlin-SchonebergRoyal Botanical Garden

Victoria Regia HouseArchitect: SchulzeBuilt: 1882 Demolished: 1907

Herrenhausen

Park Herrenhausen

Palm Houses

Built: 1882

-tallest hothouse in Europe

Berlin- Dahlem

New Botanical Gardens- Great Palm House

Architects: Alfred Koerner

Built: 1905-1907 damaged: 1943 rebuilt: 1960’s

-New objectivity - absence of monumental motifs made it one of the “most modern buildings of the time”

-German Expressionism- pointed arches and “faceted” interpretation of glass paneling

-Inspired Paul Scheebart in his Architecttura Celesta-rebuilt royal garden due to scarcity of land after speculative period-1943- damage from war/ bombs, refitted with large acrylic panels- lost the netting look

-Girder support system expresses the “might of the industry”

-represented the “new art of industrial construction”

-Most important building of its time- span of interior space astounding at the time

Berlin- Dahlem

New Botanical GardensSubtropical HouseArchitect: Alfred KoernerBuilt: 1905-1907 rebuilt: 1958

Inspirations:

-references castle ruin in the garden of the original Berlin Royal garden

-German expressionism seen in crystal ornamented towers

- “west work” and plan similar to Basilica

20th century: The Modern ‘Glass house”-Expressionalism Vs. Functionalism

-Bruno Taut and inspiration from Paul Scheerbart

-Taut: Durability and Transparency= social reform and reaction to the World War

Glass Architecture- by Paul Scheerbart:

• #1 Our culture is to a certain extent the product of our architecture. If we want our culture to rise to a higher level, we are obliged. . .to change our architecture.

• -#31 glass mosaic skin is probably the most durable building material which we have so far discovered.

• #68 (the aerial torpedo) Inevitably draws attention to the danger of brick architecture; if a brick church tower is struck down by a torpedo, it will in every case collapse, kill many people and reduce and entire group of buildings to rubble. . . A glass tower, when it is torpedo; a few iron members will be bent, and number of glass panels will have holes or cracks, but such damage is simple to repair.”

Remains of an iron structure after 1931 fire- is glass really durable

Munich

Jungfrauenaquarium (Virgin Aquarium or the Steiff factory

Built: 1903

-Richard Steiff attended the Stuttgart school of Arts and Crafts

-Company founded in 1880, factory established to manufacture toy bears

-built by unknown architect, but glass seemed to be utilized in a utilitarian fashion; provide light and well ventilated room to the employees

Berlin

Turbinenfabrik (Turbine factory or AEG building)

Architect: Peter Behrens

Built: 1909

-steel arches- similar technology used in bridges and railway stations

-ferroconcrete covering with historicist detailing- hinting at the monumentalism of a classical temple –steel support recall a classical colonnade (interior compared to a giant colonnade)

-glass curtain – “proclaims the present and promises the future”

Cologne

Cologne Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition Glashaus

Architect: Bruno Taut

Built: 1914

-concrete and glass bricks

-German Expressionism

-Bruno Taut wanted to free architecture of it’s “Unitarian demands”

Glass = purity and perfection, a material that would instill social change

“Glass is completely new, pure material in which matter is melted down and recast. Of all the materials we have it works in the most elementary way. All other materials next to glass are derivative and like leftovers.” Functional and practical architecture is outdate. -responsible for starting the Glaserne Kette (Crystal Chain)- where he spread the ideas of Paul Scheerbart

CologneCologne Deutscher Werkbund ExhibitionFagus Factory

Architects: Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer

Built: 1911- 1914

-Gropius was a pupil of Peter Behrens

-supersedes the Turbinenfabrik by bending the curtain wall around the entire building

-utilizes paneling to reveal the 3-storied interior

Dessau

Bauhaus

Architect: Walter Gropius

Built: 1925-26

-in comparison to the evolution of factory types- the Bauhaus once again supersedes all predecessors

-the workshop wing consists of an entire curtain wall (without paneling) and is suspended in the air

-inspired by local airplane factory in shape and conception

Barcelona, Spain

*(International exposition representing Germany)

Barcelona Pavilion

Architect: Mies Van Der Rohe

Built: 1929

-Fusion of De Stijl, open form and overlapping planes in floating space and…

-Le Corbusier’s domino principle

-chrome-plated steel columns, travertine pavements, Tinian (green) marble, onyx and glass walls- all contributed to the sheen and transparency

Bonn

Chancellors bungalow

Architect: Sep Rug

Built: 1958-59

-functions in comparison to the White House, the ceremonial home for the West German Chancellor

-the wing that is purposed for public function is nearly all glass

-the glass architecture was meant to induce and exemplify the government’s transparency, honesty and clarity

Bonn

Der Lange Eugen

Architect: Egon Eiermann

Built: 1969

-government building

-Use of glass but not as transparent

-interior also consists of glass elements in partition walls and screens

21st Century: Present Glass Construction

- “What used to be the boundary of material, its terminus, has become an entryway hidden in most imperceptible entity. From here on, the appearance of surfaces and superficies conceals a secret of transparency, a thickness without thickness, a volume with out volume, an imperceptible quantity”- Marc Taylor Hidden

- A search for “lightness of being”

Berlin

Reichstag

Architect- Paul Wallot, (later) Paul Baumgarten, Norman Foster,

Built: 1884

Fire: 1933

Bombed: 1945

Redesigned:

1960 and 1991-1992 (to present state) -1960- refurbished with new

modern lines- symbolic cleansing of pompous parliament and hateful dictatorship

-1991- symbolizes the reunification of Germany

The Bundesverfassungsgericht

Berlin

DZ Bank

Architect: Frank Gehry and Partners Built: 2001 -Originally 19th

century square that laid to waste between East and West Berlin

-Albert Speer’s (Hitler's architect) bunker wartime bunker found under site

-“reversal of solids and voids”

-Changes the dichotomy of glass- the curved canopy is capable only through complex geometric planning

Dusseldorg

Colorium

Architects: Alsop Architects

Built: 2001

-Glass curtain with pre-fabricated screen printed glass enveloped in an aluminum frame

-”Combined with the sophistication of modern glass curtain wall building technology, in which Germany is a recognized leader, the Colorium illustrates the rich and exciting possibilities for the future of glass façade treatments.”

Finish Embassy, Berlin

Meteorit Exhibition Centre- Essen

Soebeck house, Stuttgart

Photonics Centre, Berlin

Dormund Municipal Library, Dormund

North German Regional Clearing Bank, Hannover

Embassy of the Nordic Countries,

Berlin

Mont- Cenis Academy, Sodigen

“Glass continues its transformation from the physical to the sensorial and which in its poetic state is at once transient, transcendental and profound. And so the journey continues . . . towards the light”

And the List goes on…..

check out: http://aedesign.wordpress.com/?s=germany

for more Glass Architecture

P&C Department Store, Cologne

Bibliography

• Barnston, Ascher. The Transparent State: Architecture and Politics in Postwar Germany. New York: Routledge, 2005. Print.

• • Ersoy, U.. (2007). The fictive quality of glass. Arq : Architectural Research • Quarterly, 11(3-4), 237-243.  Retrieved April 19, 2010, from Arts Module.

(Document ID: 1451395241).• " germany « Search Results « AEWORLDMAP.COM." AEWORLDMAP.COM.

N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2010. <http://aedesign.wordpress.com/?s=germany>.• Kohlmaier, Georg. Houses of Glass: A Nineteenth-Century Building Type. First

edition first printing. ed. Pennsylvania: Mit Press (Ma), 1986. Print.• Richards, Brent. New Glass Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Print.• Scheerbart, Paul, and Sharp, Dennis, and Taut, Bruno,  Glass architecture, by Paul

Scheerbart; and Alpine architecture, by Bruno Taut. Edited with an introd. by Dennis Sharp. Glass architecture translated by James Palmes. Alpine architecture translated by Shirley Palmer  Praeger New York,  1972.

• Whyte, Iain Boyd. Bruno Taut and the Architecture of Activism (Cambridge Urban and Architectural Studies). New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Print.