HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE - V

Module – UNIT II – Modernism and International Style

Year III, Sem V, School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada
Faulty In charge – Dr. Prashanti Rao
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Bauhaus Movement
INTRODUCTION

 Bauhaus, was a school in Germany, founded

by Architect Walter Gropius; famous for the
approach to design that it publicized and
taught. It existed in three German cities, under
three different architect-directors: Walter
Gropius, Hannes Meyer & Mies van der Rohe.

 Bauhaus- a German world that literally means

– ‘House of Construction’ stood for ‘School of
Building’. The Bauhaus style became one of
the most influential currents in Modernist
architecture and modern design and had a
profound influence upon subsequent
developments in art, architecture, graphic
design and interior design.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Bauhaus Movement
THE BAUHAUS STYLE AND GERMAN MODERNISM
 The most important influence on Bauhaus was modernism, a cultural movement
whose origins lay back in the 1880s, and which had already made its presence felt in
Germany before the World War, despite the prevailing conservatism. The other
influences include the English Arts and Crafts Movement and the Idea of
‘Constructivism’.
 Main Ideas and Features of the Bauhaus School/Movement:
(i) Simplified Forms and Absence of Ornamentation
(ii) Harmony between the function of a building and its design.
(iii) Unity of form and function.
(iv) Integration of art and mass production.
(v) Inexpensive Building.
(vi) The idea that design is in service of the community
(vii)Perfection and efficiency of geometry.
 The Bauhaus was founded at a time when the German zeitgeist had turned from
emotional Expressionism to Pure Objectivity. Following this, an entire group of
working architects turned away from fanciful experimentation, and turned towards
rational, functional and sometimes standardized buildings. The architectural focus
shifted away from aesthetics and towards functionality.
 This entire movement of German architectural modernism was known as Neues
Bauen.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Bauhaus Movement
IMPORTANCE AND IMPACT OF BAUHAUS IN
MODERN ARCHITECTURE

 In every single modern building there are two paths that

the architect can take when designing it: One is that he
can replicate one of the other hundreds of modernist
buildings that are down the street or he can take a step
back and apply the general principles of the Bauhaus
and end up with a remarkable looking building, simply
by using geometric shapes and unusual angles.

 Following this, Bauhaus had a major impact on modern

art and architecture trends in Western Europe, the
United States, Canada and Israel in the decades
following its demise. The buildings started being
designed in such a way that they subtly show reference
to the Bauhaus, with the inclusion of modern glass and
other features.
Year III, Sem V, School of Planning and Architecture, Vijayawada
Faulty In charge – Dr. D. Srinivas, Ar. Luvditya Khurana
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works of Le Corbusier
(1887-1965)
INTRODUCTION
Le Corbusier was a famous French Architect, Designer and Painter, famous for his
contributions to Modern Architecture and theoretical studies of modern design. His
career spanned five decades, with his iconic buildings constructed throughout
central Europe, India, Russia, and one structure each in North and South America.

EARLY CAREER: VILLAS

 Corbusier was attracted to visual arts and studied under painter L’Eplattenier,
who persuaded him to become an architect. Because of him, He got his first
project Villa Fallet (1905).
 In 1907, he travelled around Europe which led him to Vienna, where he
designed Villa Stotzer and Villa Jaquemet.
 Similarities between first three villas: Villa Fallet, Villa Stotzer and Villa
Jaquemet:
(i) Each house is composed on the basis of a rusticated stone podium with an
elaborate and expressive roof.
(ii) Impressive symmetrical main facades with dominant linear axis.
Villa Fallet (1905).
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works of Le Corbusier
CORBUSIER’S FIVE POINTS OF NEW ARCHITECTURE

In 1926, Le Corbusier formulated his ideologies and schemes adopted in his ‘5

Points of New Architecture’. The villa Suvoye and the Monastery la tourette are
one of the most important examples of his adopted schemes that reflect these five
points that include:

1. The pilotis (Column) elevating the mass off the ground: He lifted the bulk of
the structure off the ground, supporting it by columns, piers or reinforced
concrete stilts. These pilotis, in providing the structural support for the house,
allowed him to elucidate his next two points.
2. The free plan: achieved through the separation of the load-bearing columns
from the walls subdividing the space.
3. A Free Façade: meaning non-supporting walls that could be designed as the
architect wished. The free façade is the corollary of the free plan in the
vertical plane.
4. The long horizontal strip of sliding windows.
5. Roof Garden: to compensate for the green area consumed by the building and
replacing it on the roof.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works of Le Corbusier
CORBUSIER’S ‘MODULAR’ THEORY
 Corbusier took Leonardo's suggestion of the golden ratio in human
proportions to an extreme: he sectioned his model human body's height at the
navel with the two sections in golden ratio, then subdivided those sections in
golden ratio at the knees and throat; he used these golden ratio proportions in
the Modulor system.
 He then claimed that the proportions of ideal human figures embodied the
golden ratio, and that buildings designed in accordance with it would be both
beautiful and well-adapted to human needs and hence defined the ‘Modulor’
as ‘A harmonic measure to the human scale Universally applicable to
architecture and mechanics.
 The Importance of Modular:
(i) Harmonious Proportions to everything.
(ii) Helped to design with regard to Human scale.
(iii) He considered it to be in accordance with nature.

 The application of the Modulor can be best seen at Unite d’Habitation at

Marseilles in France, Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp, France,
the administrative centre at Chandigarh, Punjab, etc.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works of Le Corbusier
CORBUSIER’S LATER WORKS

CHAPEL OF NÔTRE DAME DU HAUT, RONCHAMP, FRANCE (1955)

 This was Corbusier’s first Post Modern Building: he departs from his principles of standardization and
the machine aesthetic, giving in instead to a site-specific response:
(i) It was difficult to transport bulky material as the site was on a hill, so he used cement and sand used as
primary building materials.
(ii) It is built on a site where a church destroyed during the Second World War once stood. Much of the
stone from the earlier church has been reused for filling.
 Instead of rectilinear and standard geometries, his architecture now became more ‘primitive’ and
sculptural.
 Main Features of the Chapel:
(a) Roof seems to be hovering above walls as 10 cm gap left between the walls and the roof; which gives a
supernatural feeling.
(b) Small windows carved out in the South wall. These windows are smaller from outside but provide
brilliant diffused light to the interior.
(c) The windows seem to be randomly placed, but are actually based on careful calculations through the
Modulor.
(d) Bands of light with colored glazing infuse color into the otherwise monotone.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works of Le Corbusier
SAINTE MARIE DE LA TOURETTE (1957)
 It is an institutional building that consists of a hundred bedrooms for
teachers and students, study halls, a hall for work and one for
recreation, a library and a refectory.
 The structural frame of the building is of rough reinforced concrete.
The panes of glass located on the three exterior faces are similar to
those of the Secretariat at Chandigarh.
 The fenestration is also composed of large concrete elements reaching
from floor to ceiling, perforated with glazed voids and separated from
one another by ventilators-vertical slits covered by metal mosquito
netting and furnished with a pivoting shutter.
 At La Tourette, aspects of Corbusier's developed architectural
vocabulary are visible:
(i) The vertical brise-soleils used with effect in India.
(ii) Light-cannons piercing solid masonry walls.
(iii) Window-openings separated by Modulor-controlled vertical divisions.
 In contrast with Ronchamp, the building does not crown and
complement the site, but instead dominates the landscape composition.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works of Le Corbusier
HEIDI WEBER MUSEUM (1960)
Heidi Weber Museum is an art museum in Zürich dedicated
to the work of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier.
 It is the last building designed by Le Corbusier marking
a radical change of his achievement of using concrete
and stone, framed in steel and glass, in the 1960s
created as a signpost for the future.
 Corbusier made intensive use of prefabricated steel
elements combined with multi-colored enameled plates
fitted to the central core, and above the complex he
designed a 'free-floating' roof to keep the house
protected from the rain and the sun.
 The walls consist of enameled panels. The placing of
these enamel panels was planned according to a
particular rhythmic system. The entire building
complex was placed on a concrete ground floor. The
building has two floors – five single-storied and one
double-storied room.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

He was a German-American architect, regarded as the master of modern
architecture with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier who made major contributions
to the architectural philosophies of the late 1920s and 1930s as artistic director of
the Werkbund-sponsored Weissenh of project and as Director of the Bauhaus.

HIS IDEOLOGY AND BELIEFS

 He believed that Architecture should express structure honestly and clarity

and often called his buildings ‘skin and bones’ architecture.
 Famous for his dictum ‘less is more’ and ‘God is in details’. He is known for
the use of principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form: without
ornamentation of any kind. He believed in minimal decoration and said that
structure is all that is necessary.
 He made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to
define interior spaces; he believed that the use of glass opens the buildings by
merging the exterior and the interiors.
 Flat roofs and smooth plaster finish on external walls; excessive use of glass
with metal frames and simple doors and windows are some of the common
features of his buildings.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

THE SEAGRAM BUILDING
 The Seagram Building, like virtually all large
buildings of the time, was built of a steel frame,
from which non-structural glass walls were hung.
 Mies believed that Concrete hid the structure of the
building — something he wanted to avoid at all
costs — so he used non-structural bronze-toned
I-beams to suggest structure instead. These are
visible from the outside of the building, and run
vertically, like mullions, surrounding the large glass
windows.
 The building is noted for it's amber toned windows
and public Plaza: Mies separated his architecture
from the city, the tower from the avenue by a pink
travertine-clad open plaza with twin fountain pools
flanked by trees.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe

FARNSWORTH HOUSE
 It is an Icon of international style modernism
and represents the ultimate refinement of Mies’
minimalist expression of structure and space -
Eight steel columns form the structure, with
interior and exterior floors of roman travertine
marble.
 It is composed of three strong, horizontal steel
forms – the terrace, the floor of the house, and
the roof – attached to attenuated, steel flange
columns. Its interior, a single room, is
subdivided by partitions and completely
enclosed in glass. Continuous visual space is
the essence of the house.
 The exterior glazing and the partitions of the
interior work together, shifting the viewer’s
awareness between the thrill of exposure to the
raw elements of nature and the comforting
stability of architectonic enclosure.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Later Works Of Frank Llyod Wright

INTRODUCTION

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect who

believed in designing structures which were in harmony
with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he
called ‘organic architecture’ which was best exemplified
by his design for ‘Falling-water’ (1935).Wright was a
leader of the ‘Prairie School’ movement of architecture
and developed the concept of the ‘Usonian’ home, his
unique vision for urban planning in the United States.
His work includes original and innovative examples of
many different building types, including offices,
churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Later Works Of Frank Llyod Wright

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S MAIN IDEAS AND KEY FEATURES

1. Form and Function: Form and function are considered as one with equal priority.
2. Response to Context: The built form is born out of the site and not just over the site. Context was an important part of his
architecture.
3. Response to Usage: Buildings were made in order to respond to its users. Each building was designed as per its usage: Public
buildings were made prominent and bulky to showcase its power whereas; the houses were designed to look friendly to human scale.
4. Horizontal Lines: Use of horizontal lines can be seen. The houses were mainly horizontal with a high chimney marking the vertical
axis.
5. Local Material: Use of locally available materials is a prominent feature. Different materials were also used to make the horizontal
axis look more prominent in certain buildings.
6. Open Plans: He reduced the spaces to the basic requirements and made them flow with the use of open plans by removing unwanted
partitions.
7. Japanese Influence: Integration of the outside and inside environment is also another prominent feature that shows the Japanese
influence.
8. Use of Natural Light: Use of natural light can be seen in public buildings. Diffused lighting from the top illuminating the entire
structure can be seen in buildings like Larkin's building, Guggenheim museum, etc.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Later Works Of Frank Llyod Wright

LLOYD’S LATE CAREER AND CONTRIBUTION
1. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM (NEW YORK)
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City occupied Wright for 16 years (1943–1959) and
is his most recognized masterpiece of modern architecture in New York.

 The building rises as a warm beige spiral from its site on Fifth Avenue, its interior being similar to the
inside of a seashell. With this building, he departs from his traditional style with pitched roofs and
right angles to more free-flowing and organic forms giving his own definition to Modern
Architecture.
 From the street, the building looks like a white ribbon curled into a cylindrical stack, slightly wider at
the top than the bottom. Its appearance is in sharp contrast to the more typically boxy Manhattan
buildings that surround it.
 The building’s unique central geometry was meant to allow visitors to easily experience
Guggenheim's collection of geometric paintings by taking an elevator to the top level and then
viewing artworks by walking down the slowly descending, central spiral ramp, the floor of which is
embedded with circular shapes and triangular light fixtures to complement the geometric nature of the
structure.
 However, when the museum was completed, a number of details of Wright's design were ignored,
such as his desire for the interior to be painted off-white. Further, the Museum currently designs
exhibits to be viewed by walking up the curved walkway rather than walking down from the top level.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Later Works Of Frank Llyod Wright

2. PRICE TOWER (OKLAHOMA)
The Price Tower, corporate headquarters of a private company in Oklahoma, is the only realized 19 storey
skyscraper designed by Wright; skyscrapers being a pure expression of modernist architecture.

Main Design Features:

1. Floor Plan: The design of the floor plans of the tower is like a quadrant plan—one quadrant dedicated for
double-height apartments, and the other three for offices.
2. Materials: The materials for the Price Tower are innovative for a mid-twentieth-century skyscraper: cast
concrete walls, pigmented concrete floors, aluminum-trimmed windows and doors, and patinated
embossed and distressed copper panels.
3. Geometrics Element: The general geometric element is the equilateral triangle, and all lighting fixtures
and ventilation grilles are based upon that form while the angled walls and built-in furniture are based on
fractions or multiples of the triangular module.
4. Interiors: Inside the Price Tower there are decoration paintings on the walls which consist of solid gold.

Why is it Called – ‘The tree that escaped the crowded Forest’?

 It is named ‘the tree that escaped the crowded forest’ because the is supported by a central ‘trunk’ of four
elevator shafts which are anchored in place by a deep central foundation, just as a tree is by its taproot.
 Moreover, the nineteen floors of the building are cantilevered from this central core, like the branches of
a tree and the outer walls hang from the floors and are clad in patinated copper ‘leaves’.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Louis I Kahn

Louis Kahn was an American architect based in Pennsylvania.

HIS STYLE AND IDEOLOGY

1. Monumentality: He created a style that was monumental and monolithic, influenced by
ancient ruins. His works are considered as monumental beyond modernism. His heavy
buildings do not hide their weight, their materials, or the way they are assembled. Brick and
concrete were the common materials that he built with.
2. Symbolic Buildings: He believed that all materials had their own destiny and wouldn’t tolerate
any attempts to deviate from that. During the age of clean modernism and the use of cutting
edge materials his architecture was often dismissed for being overly symbolic and heavy
venerating buildings of the past.
3. Ruins in Reverse: Influenced by the arid nature of many of his sites khan’s building often took
the form of cavernous brick shells with large geometric cut outs which he describes them in his
way as ‘ruins in reverse’.
4. Natural Light: Khan believes that natural light was an architectural element at pat with any
other element of the structure. He said that every space must have natural light because it is
impossible to read the configurations of space by having only one or two ways of lighting it.
Natural light enters the space released by the choice of construction.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Louis I Kahn

UNITARIAN CHURCH OF ROCHESTER, NEW YORK

 Style: He began by creating a form drawing to represent the essence of

what he intended to build. He used materials which did not require any
additional finish - brick. Exposed wood, concrete. Also the elevation of
each side differs as the room inside differ, thus reflecting each room/s
function in the shape of its exterior.
 Techniques: Its exterior is characterized by deeply folded brick walls
created by a series of thin 2-storyed light hoods that shield windows from
direct sunlight. Light towers in each of the four corners of the sanctuary
rise above the building’s outer walls making the shape of the sanctuary
easy to visualize from outside. The impression that Kahn created out of the
sanctuary embedded within the larger building is similar to the ‘box within
a box’ approach.
 Specialty: to bring natural light into a totally enclosed space, he
constructed four towers piercing the central room.
 Manner: the building echoes the design of Scottish castle: the large central
room is the sanctuary and the ‘inhabited walls’ (unusually thick walls in
which it is possible to carve entire secondary rooms) can be perceived as
the surrounding two floors of the rooms.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Louis I Kahn

KIMBELL ARTS MUSEUM, TEXAS
Built is 1969, it is considered crown jewel of Kahn. This is a great example of
a modern building where natural light plays a vital role and the form is a work
of art of modest scale.
 Style: this is a great example of a modern building highlighting the
simplicity yet efficient functioning of the form. He brings out the
materials used in the structure without any external decorative elements.
 Techniques: the art galleries are located on the upper floors of the
museum to allow access of natural light through skylights while the
ground floor has the services and another gallery. Each interior vault has a
slot along its apex to allow focused natural light into the galleries while
the air ducts and channels are located in the inside of the vaults.
 Specialty: sensitive designing of the roofs and walls in certain areas that
allow maximum usage of natural sunlight into the building which is one of
the most important requirements in a museum.
 Manner: vaults in the building are inspired by roman vaults that Kahn
always admired. The true vaults in roman architecture would require
structural columns all along the lengths but in a gallery this would
obstruct the view - so in the modern adaption of the vaults, the columns
are only on the four corners.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Alvar Alto

Alvar Aalto is a Finnish architect and designer. His works include architecture, furniture
textiles and glassware. He was highly interested in treating the interiors of his buildings.

STYLE AND IDEAS

Early Career: Nordic Classism and Functionalism
 Aalto’s early works reflect the so-called Nordic Classicism style. It was a style of
architecture that briefly blossomed in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway
and Finland) between 1910 and 1930.
 He took off from classical traditions already existing in the Nordic countries, and from
new ideas being pursued in German-speaking cultures. And so he is sometimes
regarded as the first and most influential architects of Nordic modernism.
 His works also suggest a combination of direct and indirect influences from vernacular
architecture (Nordic, Italian and German) and Neoclassicism. A summer Villa for
Jyvaskyla Chief constable and the Aalto farmhouse in Tarvaala reflect his ideologies.

Late Career: Monumentalism

Aalto’s later works represent a rational International Style Modernism blending with a
monumentalist approach for buildings like museums and concert halls. Finlandia Concert
Halls and the Headquarters of Finnish Academy are true to the international modern style
and his ideas of Monumentalism.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Alvar Alto

JYVÄSKYLÄ DEFENCE CORPS BUILDING
It was a multipurpose building, built in order to solve the long-term space shortage of the
local defense corporations. It includes offices, training centers, hostel facilities, cinema,
auditorium, a restaurant, bank and a market hall. It belonged to the last stages of Nordic
Classicism but also heralds the beginnings of Functionalism.
 The treatment of the spaces and the interior design solutions were already somewhat
rational and indicated the turning point towards Modernism in Alvar Aalto’s
architecture at that time.
 Poul Henningsens standard lamps, the Bauhaus-inspired lettering in the advertising,
opaque glass and shiny nickel had been adopted from the continental pioneers of
Functionalism.
 It has huge gallery spaces with no direct sunlight reflected shadow-free light enters the
interiors from a conical funnel like skylight,

VIIPURI LIBRARY
 The shift in Aalto's design approach from classicism to modernism is epitomised by
the Viipuri Library. His humanistic approach is in full evidence in the library: the
interior displays natural materials, warm colours, and undulating lines.
 His work on the Viipuri building started to show his individuality in a departure from
the European norms.
Unit 02 – Modernism and International Style | History of Architecture V

Works Of Alvar Alto

BAKER HOUSE
It is co-ed dormitory at and corresponds to Aalto’s mid career years when he was experimenting
with forms and materials.
 It has an undulating shape - which allows most rooms, having a wedged shaped layout, a view
of the Charles River.
 No room was oriented at right angles to the street and its traffic: the windows face diagonally to
the passing automobiles and thus afford a quieter environment for the person within the room.
 The stairway system is housed in a paneled structure rising up the north side of the building
which allows an unobstructed view along its entire length from the lowest landing. The dining
hall features a ‘moon garden’ roof.

VILLA MAIREA
Aalto's early experiments with wood and his move away from a purist modernism are reflected in
Villa Mairea (1939) in Noormarkku.
 The building forms a U-shape around a central inner ‘garden’ the central feature of which is a
kidney-shaped swimming pool. Adjacent to the pool is a sauna executed in a rustic style,
alluding to both Finnish and Japanese precedents.
 The design of the house is a synthesis of numerous stylistic influences, from traditional Finnish
vernacular to purist modernism, as well as influences from English and Japanese architecture.
Thank You