Modern Architecture - Lecture 3

Jordan University of Science and TechnologyCollege of Architecture and Design / Department of Architecture Arch. 331 Modern Architecture Instructor: Dr. Raed Al Tal Summer 2012

The International Style

The term of the International Style was born in 1932; the First International Exhibition of Modern Architecture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York

Modern architecture form 1920s to the end of the 1950s – or possibly the 1970s

The book published for this occasion indicates their principles :

“There is first a new conception of architecture as volume rather than mass. Secondly, regularity rather than axial symmetry serves the chief means order design.”

They hoped to “put architecture back on its real plane, the economic and social plane,”

“The most efficacious production is derived from rationalization and standardization, ” they declared

Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret ) 1887-1966 , one of the spiritual founders of the modern architecture / International Style

He was a writer, painter, architect and urban planner

urban planner

painter

Le Corbusier Dining Table

In his book Towards a New Architecture (1927), Le Corbusier announced his” five points of a new architecture,”

- free standing supports – pilots

- the roof garden

- the free plan

- the ribbon window

- the freely composed façade

The Villa Savoye fulfilled the principles of the five "Points of a New Architecture" Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret had formulated: The pilotis (columns which raised the house above the ground), free plan (due to free-standing walls, everything is optional), free façades (the exterior walls are no longer load-bearing), flat roof with roof garden (replacing land lost underneath the building), and ribbon windows.

The American architect Frank Lloyd characterized these solid cubes, which appear to rest precariously on thin supporting poles, "big boxes on sticks."

Quotations "Space and light and order. Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.“

"The house is a machine for living in." (Vers une architecture, 1923)

"It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution." (Vers une architecture, 1923)

"Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city." (Vers une architecture, 1923)

"The 'Styles' are a lie." (Vers une architecture, 1923)

We can see all of Le Corbusier’s principles in Villa Savoye at Poissy 1928-1931

Villa Savoye - Main Floor Perspective

Villa Savoye - Ground Floor Perspective

Villa Savoye - Ground Floor Plan

Villa Savoye - Roof Perspective

Villa Savoye - Living Room

Villa Savoye - Front Facade

Villa Savoye - Ramp up to Main Floor

Le Corbusier’s concept of a cube as a Cubist painter where he saw vertical and horizontal planes in movement (flow of space)

The project of Domino House, 1914

The project of Domino House, 1914

It is simple a frame (the basis for low cost housing)

Consists of two concrete slabs kept apart by columns and linked only by an open stair

Flat roofs are convenient because they make possible a totally free plan. In traditional architecture, pitched roofs must rest on a wall; now you could put the walls wherever you liked.

Le Corbusier’s Modulor , a scale of architectural proportions based on the human body and the golden section Modulor considered the standard human height as 1829 mm

The Pavillon Suisse at the Citè Universitaire, Paris 1930

-pilots and ribbon windows

-he introduced the idea of hierarchy of function: the 45 bedroom block is lifted up on pilots

-the communal areas at ground level flow freely, enclosed by a wall of random rubble stonework

the Pavillon Suisse (1932)

Unitè d’Habitation , Marseilles, 1946

-carefully taken from the Modulor-337 split-level apartments in 23 different types -Apartments entered from wide internal corridors

or streets -There are 18 floors

-About third of the way up, the internal corridor is -a two storey shopping mall

Unitè d’Habitation , Marseilles, 1946

-On the top floor there is roof garden/ fantastic landscape (includes- gymnasium, running track, a

nursery school, tunnels and caves for children play in, a swimming pool, seats, cantilevered balcony and

a restaurant.

Carpenter Center for the Visual ArtsLocation : Harvard U., Cambridge, MA Date : 1960-63 (W: 1961-64) Construction : concrete

The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts is the only building actually built by Le Corbusier in the United States, and one of only two in the Americas (the other is the Curutchet House in La Plata, Argentina.)

The Carpenter Center at nightIt houses the department of Visual and Environmental Studies of the University, as well as the Harvard Film Archive, the largest collection of 35mm films in New England. It screens a large quantity of independent, international and silent films.

Le Corbusier never actually saw the building. He was invited to the opening ceremony, but he declined the invitation on account of his poor health.

Some have humorously described the building's appearance as that of two pianos mating.

Brutalism

Le Corbusier used the French phrase béton brut, or raw concrete, to describe the construction of his rough, concrete buildings. Brutalism grew out of the Bauhaus Movement and the béton brut buildings by Le Corbusier and his followers.

Heavy and angular, Brutalist buildings can be constructed quickly and economically.

Common features include: Precast concrete slabs

Rough, unfinished surfaces Exposed steel beams Massive, sculptural shapes

f: passage

Sainte Marie de La Tourette, Lyon, France (Le Corbusier, 1960)

The Palace of Soviets, Boris Iofan