Lecture 01

Zoom Out I – A Cultural History of Modern Architecture: Circuits of Tradition and Dissent

Friday 23rd September Stage 2 Lecture 1/ Unit Intro

Dr. Mark Bartlett

Coop Himmelb(l)au, Art Museum Strongoli in Calabria, Italy, 2014 Gordon Matta-Clark, Split House, 1974

The lecture titles that follow are designed so that we may take an historical and comparative approach.

Motivations I-III will allow us to complicate each of the five categories;

1. ‘form’ will include, for example, debates about ornament, the machine aesthetic, ecology, and smart buildings.

2. Function will allow us to compare building typologies like housing, cultural centers, churches, theaters, shopping centers, or corporate headquarters.

3. Narrative will cover memory palaces, concepts of circulation and the performative development of plans, relations of interiority and exteriority, and architectures of political oppression and resistance.

4. History will examine monuments, aesthetic references, key transitional moments, and politics.

5. Site will include such topics as landscape, the city, cultural specificity, and the environment.

Theory I & II will cover key philosophies and theories of architecture like phenomenology, structuralism, deconstruction, the regional vernacular, and the cinematic.

Finally, Case Studies I & II will elaborate on previous lectures by examining significant projects in which architects and artists have collaborated, or an architecture designed entirely by artists and other ‘non-architects,’ like ‘informal communities’ in the ‘slums’ of Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

All of these categories of course overlap; it will be up to you to find the intersections (though I will of course help out).

John Hedjuk, drawing

Friday 23rd September

Stage 2 Lecture 1/ Unit Intro1400 Cragg Lecture TheatreZoom Out I – A Cultural History of Modern Architecture: Circuits of Tradition and Dissent______________________________________________________________Friday 30th September

Stage 2 Lecture 210-12 Cragg Lecture Theatre Allan Atlee - I’ll be away

______________________________________________________________Friday 7th October Stage 2 Lecture 3

Modern Motivations I: Form, Function, Narrative, History, Site______________________________________________________________Friday 14th October

Stage 2 Lecture 4 + Essay Briefing

Postmodern Motivations II: Form, Function, Narrative, History, Site______________________________________________________28th October

Stage 2 Lecture 5

Global Motivations III: Form, Function, Narrative, History, Site_______________________________________________________Friday 4th November

Stage 2 Lecture 6

Theory I: Philosophies of Architecture: 1890 - 1960

Friday 11th November

Stage 2 Lecture 7

Theory II: Philosophies of Architecture: 1960 - today______________________________________________________________Friday 18th November

Stage 2 Lecture 8

Art-Architecture Comparative Case Studies I: Modernism______________________________________________________________Friday 2nd December

Stage 2 Lecture 9

Art-Architecture Comparative Case Studies II: Postmodernism and Beyond

______________________________________________________________Friday 9th December

Stage 2 Lecture 10

Architecture as Audio-Visual Argument

______________________________________________________________Friday 16th December

ALL DAYStage 2 Essay Tutorialswith Allan Atlee

______________________________________________________________Monday 9th January STAGE 2 ESSAY SUBMISSION

Description of assessment task:

2500 word image-text document developed around a topic of your choosing, developed in consultation with me. The document will consist of three sections.

The first section will be a brief 500 word introduction to your topic and the second section.

The second section will include 10-15 images that illustrate your topic. Each image must be annotated with commentary that explains how it

1. historically, and 2. theoretically supports your thesis.

The third section will consist of a fully considered 2000 word essay about your topic.

The paper should draw upon the lectures, set readings, bibliographies and your own experiences of the course. It should be fully referenced using the Harvard System. You should ensure that you have attended a Library Induction and that you are familiar with the Harvard System of referencing and the Universities Policies on Academic Misconduct, in particular in relation to Plagiarism. (see Student Regulations Handbook 200910)

Katura Palace, Garden Stepping Stones

Katura Palace, Garden Stepping Stones

Zoom-Out: What is modernism?

Rene Magritte, Euclidean Walks, 1955

John Hedjuk, Security Structure John Hedjuk, Identity Card Man, Identity Card Unit

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

J. J. Lequeu

Buckminster Fuller Atelier Van Leishout, Asshole Bar, Basel

Aesthetically, modernism drew massively on traditional Japanese art and architectural styles

Japanese Zen garden minimalism

Japanese Palace minimalism

Ise Shrine

Ise Shrine

Ise Shrine

The landscape and urban planing were rationalized with geometric organization

Friedrich Fechhelm, 1756.

A bourgeoise boulevard: Vienna, the Ringstrasse, 1873.

A socialist magistrale: East Berlin’s Stalinallee, 1952 - 1957

Comparison of historical transformation of public space

Garden Cities and Suburbs

Typical American High Street

Rational City plans, and today’s suburb (left)

Chicago, Lincoln Park

Louis SullivanPrudential Building, also known as the Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New York, 1894

Joseph PaxtonThe front entrance of the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park, London that housed the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first World's Fair. Contemporary engraving.

Comparison of historical development of architectural styles

Wright's studio (1898) viewed from Chicago Avenue Fallingwater, Mill Run, Pennsylvania (1937)

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City (1959)

Frank Lloyd Wright, from Arts and Crafts to Modernism

Arts and Crafts design principles:

1. objects were simple in form

2. avoided superfluous decoration

3. constructed methods visible

4. "truth to materials

5. patterns inspired by British flora and fauna

6. referred to the vernacular and domestic traditions of the British countryside.

7. influenced by the Gothic Revival (1830–1880)

8. used bold forms and strong colors based on medieval designs

9. believed in the moral purpose of art

10. opposed to mechanical production, stressed craft of the handmade

Julia Morgan, St. John’s Presbytarian Church, Berkeley, CA, 1910

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

"Artichoke" wallpaper, by John Henry Dearle for William Morris & Co., circa 1897

Frank Lloyd Wright, The Robie House, 1910, in Chicago, Illinois.

Katsura Palace

Le Corbusier, High Court in Chandigarh, India, 1952Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye (1929–1931)

1. Support of ground-level pilotis, elevating the building from the earth and allowed an extended continuity of the garden beneath.

2. Functional roof, serving as a garden and terrace, reclaiming for nature the land occupied by the building.

3. Free floor plan, relieved of load-bearing walls, allowing walls to be placed freely and only where aesthetically needed.

4. Long horizontal windows, providing illumination and ventilation.

5. Freely-designed facades, serving as only as a skin of the wall and windows and unconstrained by load-bearing considerations.

Le Corbusier, Assembly Building, Chandigarh, India, 1955

Corbusier’s 5 Points of Architecture

Unité d'Habitation, Marseille, 1947–1952

Cartesian City, proposed redesign of Paris, 1938

Le Corbusier, rationalism and the estate as a “machine for living”

Walter Gropius ,The Gropius House, Lincoln, MA, USA, 1938

New Objectivity:

to build as much cost-effective housing as possible

to address Germany's postwar housing crisis

to fulfill the promise of Article 155 of the 1919 Weimar Constitution, which provided for "a healthy dwelling" for all Germans.

This phrase drove the technical definition of Existenzminimum (subsistence dwelling) in terms of minimally-acceptable floor space, density, fresh air, access to green space, access to transit, and other such resident issues.

Mies conceived the building as an indoor-outdoor architectural shelter simultaneously independent of and intertwined with the domain of nature.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth House, Chicago, 1945-51

This interior view of the Neue Nationalgalerie's ground floor shows the play of light off the reflective floor, as well as the animated red LCD tracks on the ceiling.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, National Gallery, Berlin, 1968

Three principles of the International Style:

1. expression of volume rather than mass2. balance rather than preconceived symmetry3. elimination of applied ornament.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, IBM Plaza, Chicago, 1973

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, IBM Plaza, Chicago, 1973, with Alexander Caulder’s stabile, Man Stalking the City

Marcel Breuer

Saint John's Abbey Church, on the campus of Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA, 1961.

Louis Kahn, The Salk Institute complex for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California, 1963.

Kahn, First Unitarian Church, Rochester, New York, 1959

Louis Kahn, Exeter Academy Library, 1971

Louis Kahn, The National Assembly Building of Bangladesh, 1974

Kahn's work fastidious, highly personal taste, a poetry of light. Isamu Noguchi called him "a philosopher among architects." He was known for his ability to create monumental architecture that responded to the human scale. He was also concerned with creating strong formal distinctions between served spaces and servant spaces. What he meant by servant spaces was not spaces for servants, but rather spaces that serve other spaces, such as stairwells, corridors, restrooms, or any other back-of-house function like storage space or mechanical rooms. His palette of materials tended toward heavily textured brick and bare concrete, the textures often reinforced by juxtaposition to highly refined surfaces such as travertine marble.

The modern world died at 3.32pm in St Louis, Missouri, on 15 July 1972

http://vimeo.com/18356414 – director Chad Freidrichs

Minoru Yamasaki

Pruiit-IgoeSt. Louis1954-1956

Quonset hut, originally barracks for the 736th Engineers, is set in place to be reused as office space by the 598th Engineer Base Depot, 1947-48, post-WWII Japan.

Lustron Houses, Albany, New York, United States, prefabricated enameled steel houses developed post-World War II era United States in response to the shortage of houses for returning GIs.

Modernism

romanticism/symbolism

form (closed)

purpose

design

heirarchy

mastery/reason

art object/finished work

distance

creation/totalization/synthesis

presence

centring

genre/boundary

semantics

paradigm

metaphor

selection

root/depth

interpretation/reading

signified

narrative

master code

origin/cause

determinacy

transcendence

Postmodernism

Dadaism

antiform (open)

play

chance

anarchy

exahaustion/silence

process/performance/happening

participation

decreation/deconstruction/antithesis

absence

dispersal

text/intertext

rhetoric

syntagm

metonomy

combination

rhizome/surface

against interpretation/misreading

signifier

anti-narrative

ideolect

difference/trace

indeterminacy

immanence

Source: Hassan (1985, 123-4)

Stylistic Differences

1977 – Charles Jencks, The Language of Post-Modern Architecture

1979 – Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition

1984 – Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990 is at the Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 from 24 Sept until 15 January 2012.

The Sony Building (formerly AT&T building) in New York City, 1984, by Philip Johnson, illustrating a "Postmodern" spin with the inclusion of a classical broken pediment on the top which diverged from the boxy office towers common in Modern Architecture.

Robert Venturi, Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London, 1991.

London UK - James Stirling - Poultry n°1 1998 - Photo: Sandro Maggi ©

Daniel Liebeskind, Royal Ontario Museum, 2007

Frank Ghery and Vlado Milunić, Fred and Ginger (after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers - the house resembles a pair of dancers), Dancing House, Prague, 1996.

Santiago Calatrava, Gare do Oriente (Lisbon, Portugal).

Hammond, Beeby and Babk,The Harold Washington Library in Chicago, Illinois, 1991

Santiago Calatrava, Auditorio de Tenerife in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 2003.

Rem Koolhass, McCormic tribune Campus Center, A southbound Green Line train passing through the stainless steel tube shielding the McCormick Tribune Campus Center from excessive noise, 2003

Peter Eisenman, engineer Buro Happold, Holocaust Museum, Berlin, December 15, 2004

19,000 square metres (4.7 acres) site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a grid pattern on a sloping field. The stelae are 2.38 m (7 ft 10 in) long, 0.95 m (3 ft 1 in) wide and vary in height from 0.2 to 4.8 m (8 in to 15 ft 9 in).