20th Century Architecture

Question 1

The International Style: Architecture Since 1922

Answer 1

• authors Hitchcock and Johnson, 1932

- announced European Modernism as a style, renames it the International

Question 2

Adolf Loos

Answer 2

• affiliated w/Vienna Secession, became estranged from it
• worked and traveled in the US, influenced by the Chicago School and Louis Sullivan
• against inclusion of ornament
• new method of spatial composition, the Raumplan

Question 3

Moller House

Answer 3

• Moller House
• Vienna
• Adolf Loos
• 1930
• architectural elements parts within a balanced asymmetrical whole (doors, windows, etc.)
• multiple ceiling heights and mezzanine levels
• bold openings b/w spaces
• overt use of stairs to unify vertical spaces
• rich materials on interior

Question 4

Frank Lloyd Wright

Answer 4

• profoundly influenced by Louis Sullivan
• early years explored many styles
• Winslow House first independent commission
• Prairie House from search for regional expression

Question 5

Winslow House

Answer 5

• Winslow House
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• River Forest, IL
• 1893
• symmetrical w/Sullivanesque ornament
• organized around central fireplace and dominated by horizontal lines
• broadened chimney mass
• house hugs the ground

Question 6

Prairie House

Answer 6

• the Prairie House
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Chicago, IL
• 1909
• search for appropriate regional expression
• low to the ground
• tied organically to landscape
• brick and standard lumber sizes
• flowing interior spaces (open concept)
• environmental factors: broad overhangs, cross ventilation, central fireplace

Question 7

Larkin Building

Answer 7

• Larkin Building
• Frank Lloyd Wright
• Buffalo, NY
• 1904
• forward looking (A/C, modular furnishings and flexibility, employee recreation, suspended toilet bowls)
• demolished in 1949 to create a parking lot

Question 8

Deutscher Werkbund

Answer 8

• Deutscher Werkbund
• Peter Behrens
• Berlin
• 1909
• polygonal roof over factory hall
• no applied ornament
• exposed steel frame
• concrete panels dominate end elevations
• front window projects beyond concrete
• lower 2-story block on left w/bank of windows and concrete follow classical proportions

Question 9

Futurism

Answer 9

• developed by Filippo Marinetti in Italy in 1909
• Italian culture and architecture in decrepitude
• called for radical transformation: paving Venice’s canals; praised speed, danger, audacity and war as cleanser of society
• announced end of traditional space and time
• found inspiration in Cubism
• Antonio Sant’Elia most famous Futurist architect

Question 10

Città Nuova

Answer 10

• Sant’Elia
• 1914
• bold massing
• no ornament
• verticality and battered walls
• layered horizontal circulation
• external elevators
• exposed power production facilities

Question 11

Constructivism

Answer 11

• Russia
• rejection of idea of autonomous art
• promoted art as practice for social purposes
• imagined architecture driven forward by forces of industrialization
• ideas exceeded technical capabilities of country
• promoted use of steel, concrete, lots of glass

Question 12

Rusakov Worker’s Club

Answer 12

• Rusakov Worker’s Club
• Moscow
• Melnikov
• 1927-28
• fan-shaped plan, designed as theater for workers in nearby printing factories
• 3 cantilevered seating areas can be used as separate auditoriums or combined
• reinforced concrete, brick, glass

Question 13

Modern Architecture

Answer 13

• complex and polemic
• disillusionment after WW2, architecture should play central role in transformation
• believed rational, economical and functional designs best produced through mechanization