Modern architecture
Years active | 1920s–1980s |
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Location | International |
Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, was an
According to Le Corbusier, the roots of the movement were to be found in the works of Eugène Viollet le duc.[2] The movement emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II until the 1980s, when it was gradually replaced as the principal style for institutional and corporate buildings by postmodern architecture.[3]
Origins
Modern architecture emerged at the end of the 19th century from revolutions in technology, engineering, and building materials, and from a desire to break away from historical architectural styles and invent something that was purely functional and new.
The revolution in materials came first, with the use of
French industrialist François Coignet was the first to use iron-reinforced concrete, that is, concrete strengthened with iron bars, as a technique for constructing buildings.[5] In 1853 Coignet built the first iron reinforced concrete structure, a four-storey house in the suburbs of Paris.[5] A further important step forward was the invention of the safety elevator by Elisha Otis, first demonstrated at the New York Crystal Palace exposition in 1854, which made tall office and apartment buildings practical.[6] Another important technology for the new architecture was electric light, which greatly reduced the inherent danger of fires caused by gas in the 19th century.[7]
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The Berlin Bauakademie, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1832–36), is considered one of the forerunners of modern architecture due to its hithertofore relatively streamlined façade of the building
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cast-ironframe
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The first house built of reinforced concrete, designed by François Coignet (1853) in Saint-Denis near Paris
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The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, by William Le Baron Jenney (1884)
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The Eiffel Tower being constructed (August 1887–89)
The debut of new materials and techniques inspired architects to break away from the neoclassical and eclectic models that dominated European and American architecture in the late 19th century, most notably eclecticism, Victorian and Edwardian architecture, and the Beaux-Arts architectural style.[8] This break with the past was particularly urged by the architectural theorist and historian Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. In his 1872 book Entretiens sur L'Architecture, he urged: "use the means and knowledge given to us by our times, without the intervening traditions which are no longer viable today, and in that way we can inaugurate a new architecture. For each function its material; for each material its form and its ornament."[9] This book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan, Victor Horta, Hector Guimard, and Antoni Gaudí.[10]
Early modernism in Europe (1900–1914)
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The Glasgow School of Art by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1896–99)
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Reinforced concrete apartment building by Auguste Perret, Paris (1903)
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Austrian Postal Savings Bank in Vienna by Otto Wagner (1904–1906)
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The AEG Turbine factory in Berlin by Peter Behrens (1909)
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The Steiner House in Vienna by Adolf Loos, main façade (1910)
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Stoclet Palace by Josef Hoffmann, Brussels, (1906–1911)
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The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris by Auguste Perret (1911–1913)
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Stepped concrete apartment building in Paris by Henri Sauvage (1912–1914)
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The Ginsburg skyscraper in Kyiv(1910–1912) by Adolf Minkus and Fyodor Troupianskyi, Europe's tallest building by roof height before 1925.
At the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the traditional
Architects also began to experiment with new materials and techniques, which gave them greater freedom to create new forms. In 1903–1904 in Paris Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage began to use reinforced concrete, previously only used for industrial structures, to build apartment buildings.[13] Reinforced concrete, which could be molded into any shape, and which could create enormous spaces without the need of supporting pillars, replaced stone and brick as the primary material for modernist architects. The first concrete apartment buildings by Perret and Sauvage were covered with ceramic tiles, but in 1905 Perret built the first concrete parking garage on 51 rue de Ponthieu in Paris; here the concrete was left bare, and the space between the concrete was filled with glass windows. Henri Sauvage added another construction innovation in an apartment building on Rue Vavin in Paris (1912–1914); the reinforced concrete building was in steps, with each floor set back from the floor below, creating a series of terraces. Between 1910 and 1913, Auguste Perret built the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, a masterpiece of reinforced concrete construction, with Art Deco sculptural bas-reliefs on the façade by Antoine Bourdelle. Because of the concrete construction, no columns blocked the spectator's view of the stage.[14]
Otto Wagner, in Vienna, was another pioneer of the new style. In his book Moderne Architektur (1895) he had called for a more rationalist style of architecture, based on "modern life".[15] He designed a stylized ornamental metro station at Karlsplatz in Vienna (1888–89), then an ornamental Art Nouveau residence, Majolika House (1898), before moving to a much more geometric and simplified style, without ornament, in the Austrian Postal Savings Bank (1904–1906). Wagner declared his intention to express the function of the building in its exterior. The reinforced concrete exterior was covered with plaques of marble attached with bolts of polished aluminum. The interior was purely functional and spare, a large open space of steel, glass, and concrete where the only decoration was the structure itself.[16]
The Viennese architect
In Germany, a modernist industrial movement, Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) had been created in Munich in 1907 by Hermann Muthesius, a prominent architectural commentator. Its goal was to bring together designers and industrialists, to turn out well-designed, high-quality products, and in the process to invent a new type of architecture.[18] The organization originally included twelve architects and twelve business firms, but quickly expanded. The architects include Peter Behrens, Theodor Fischer (who served as its first president), Josef Hoffmann and Richard Riemerschmid.[19] In 1909 Behrens designed one of the earliest and most influential industrial buildings in the modernist style, the AEG turbine factory, a functional monument of steel and concrete. In 1911–1913, Adolf Meyer and Walter Gropius, who had both worked for Behrens, built another revolutionary industrial plant, the Fagus Factory in Alfeld an der Laine, a building without ornament where every construction element was on display. The Werkbund organized a major exposition of modernist design in Cologne just a few weeks before the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. For the 1914 Cologne exhibition, Bruno Taut built a revolutionary glass pavilion.[20]
Early American modernism (1890s–1914)
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William H. Winslow House, by Frank Lloyd Wright, River Forest, Illinois (1893–94)
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The Arthur Heurtley House in Oak Park, Illinois (1902)
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The Robie House by Frank Lloyd Wright, Chicago (1909)
Early skyscrapers
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Home Insurance Building in Chicago by William Le Baron Jenney (1883)
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The Flatiron Building in New York City (1903)
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TheCarson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building in Chicago by Louis Sullivan(1904–1906)
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Theneo-Gothicon the outside.
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The neo-Gothic crown of the Woolworth Building by Cass Gilbert (1912)
At the end of the 19th century, the first
Rise of modernism in Europe and Russia (1918–1931)
After the first World War, a prolonged struggle began between architects who favored the more traditional styles of
International Style (1920s–1970s)
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Corbusier Haus in Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany (1927)
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Citrohan Haus in Weissenhof Estate, Stuttgart, Germany by Le Corbusier (1927)
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The Villa Savoye in Poissy by Le Corbusier (1928–31)
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Villa Paul Poiret by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1921–1925)
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The Villa Noailles in Hyères by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1923)
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Hôtel Martel rue Mallet-Stevens, by Robert Mallet-Stevens (1926–1927)
The dominant figure in the rise of modernism in France was Charles-Édouard Jeanerette, a Swiss-French architect who in 1920 took the name Le Corbusier. In 1920 he co-founded a journal called 'L'Espirit Nouveau and energetically promoted architecture that was functional, pure, and free of any decoration or historical associations. He was also a passionate advocate of a new urbanism, based on planned cities. In 1922 he presented a design of a city for three million people, whose inhabitants lived in identical sixty-story tall skyscrapers surrounded by open parkland. He designed modular houses, which would be mass-produced on the same plan and assembled into apartment blocks, neighborhoods, and cities. In 1923 he published "Toward an Architecture", with his famous slogan, "a house is a machine for living in."[24] He tirelessly promoted his ideas through slogans, articles, books, conferences, and participation in Expositions.
To illustrate his ideas, in the 1920s he built a series of houses and villas in and around Paris. They were all built according to a common system, based upon the use of reinforced concrete, and of reinforced concrete pylons in the interior which supported the structure, allowing glass curtain walls on the façade and open floor plans, independent of the structure. They were always white, and had no ornament or decoration on the outside or inside. The best-known of these houses was the Villa Savoye, built in 1928–1931 in the Paris suburb of Poissy. An elegant white box wrapped with a ribbon of glass windows around on the façade, with living space that opened upon an interior garden and countryside around, raised up by a row of white pylons in the center of a large lawn, it became an icon of modernist architecture.[25]
Bauhaus and the German Werkbund (1919–1933)
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TheBauhaus Dessau building in Dessau, designed by Walter Gropius(1926)
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The Barcelona Pavilion (modern reconstruction) by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1929)
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TheGerman Werkbund(1927)
In Germany, two important modernist movements appeared after the first World War, The
.Gropius became an important theorist of modernism, writing The Idea and Construction in 1923. He was an advocate of standardization in architecture, and the mass construction of rationally designed apartment blocks for factory workers. In 1928 he was commissioned by the Siemens company to build apartment for workers in the suburbs of Berlin, and in 1929 he proposed the construction of clusters of slender eight- to ten-story high-rise apartment towers for workers.
While Gropius was active at the Bauhaus, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe led the modernist architectural movement in Berlin. Inspired by the De Stijl movement in the Netherlands, he built clusters of concrete summer houses and proposed a project for a glass office tower. He became the vice president of the German Werkbund, and became the head of the Bauhaus from 1930 to 1933. proposing a wide variety of modernist plans for urban reconstruction. His most famous modernist work was the German pavilion for the 1929 international exposition in Barcelona. It was a work of pure modernism, with glass and concrete walls and clean, horizontal lines. Though it was only a temporary structure, and was torn down in 1930, it became, along with Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, one of the best-known landmarks of modernist architecture. A reconstructed version now stands on the original site in Barcelona.[26]
When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they viewed the Bauhaus as a training ground for communists, and closed the school in 1933. Gropius left Germany and went to England, then to the United States, where he and Marcel Breuer both joined the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and became the teachers of a generation of American postwar architects. In 1937 Mies van der Rohe also moved to the United States; he became one of the most famous designers of postwar American skyscrapers.[26]
Expressionist architecture (1918–1931)
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Foyer of the Großes Schauspielhaus, or Great Theater, in Berlin by Hans Poelzig (1919)
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The Einstein Tower near Berlin by Erich Mendelsohn (1920–24)
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The Mossehaus in Berlin by Erich Mendelsohn, an early example of streamline moderne (1921–23)
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TheFritz Höger(1921–24)
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Horseshoe Estate public housing project by Bruno Taut(1925)
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Second Goetheanum in Dornach near Basel (Switzerland) by the Austrian architect Rudolf Steiner (1924–1928)
The Austrian philosopher, architect, and social critic
Constructivist architecture (1919–1931)
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Model of the Tower for the Third International, by Vladimir Tatlin (1919)
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TheLenin Mausoleum in Moscow by Alexey Shchusev(1924)
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The USSR Pavilion at the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Arts, by Konstantin Melnikov (1925)
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Rusakov Workers' Club, Moscow, by Konstantin Melnikov (1928)
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Open air school in Amsterdam by Jan Duiker (1929–1930)
After the
One of the first prominent constructivist architects to emerge in Moscow was
The main centers of constructivist architecture were Moscow and Leningrad; however, during the industrialization many constructivist buildings were erected in provincial cities. The regional industrial centers, including Ekaterinburg, Kharkiv or Ivanovo, were rebuilt in the constructivist manner; some cities, like Magnitogorsk or Zaporizhzhia, were constructed anew (the so-called socgorod, or 'socialist city').
The style fell markedly out of favor in the 1930s, replaced by the more grandiose nationalist styles that Stalin favored. Constructivist architects and even Le Corbusier projects for the new Palace of the Soviets from 1931 to 1933, but the winner was an early Stalinist building in the style termed Postconstructivism. The last major Russian constructivist building, by Boris Iofan, was built for the Paris World Exhibition (1937), where it faced the pavilion of Nazi Germany by Hitler's architect Albert Speer.[34]
New Objectivity (1920-1933)
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Heimatsiedlung in Frankfurt an Main by Franz Roeckle (1927–1934)
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Apartment house inMies van der Rohe(1927)
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Flats in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg by Bruno Taut (1920s)
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Flats in Siemensstadt, Berlin, by Hans Scharoun (early 1930s)
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Former Schocken Department Store, Chemnitz, by Erich Mendelsohn (1927-1930)
The New Objectivity (in German Neue Sachlichkeit, sometimes also translated as New Sobriety) is a name often given to the Modern architecture that emerged in Europe, primarily German-speaking Europe, in the 1920s and 30s. It is also frequently called Neues Bauen (New Building). The New Objectivity took place in many German cities in that period, for example in Frankfurt with its
Modernism becomes a movement: CIAM (1928)
By the late 1920s, modernism had become an important movement in Europe. Architecture, which previously had been predominantly national, began to become international. The architects traveled, met each other, and shared ideas. Several modernists, including
Art Deco
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Pavilion of the Galeries Lafayette Department Store at the Paris International Exposition of Decorative Arts (1925)
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La Samaritaine department store, by Henri Sauvage, Paris, (1925–28)
The
Later French landmarks in the Art Deco style included the Grand Rex movie theater in Paris, La Samaritaine department store by Henri Sauvage (1926–28) and the Social and Economic Council building in Paris (1937–38) by Auguste Perret, and the Palais de Tokyo and Palais de Chaillot, both built by collectives of architects for the 1937 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne.[37]
American Art Deco; the skyscraper style (1919–1939)
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The American Radiator Building in New York City by Raymond Hood (1924)
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Guardian Building in Detroit, by Wirt C. Rowland (1927–29)
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Chrysler Building in New York City, by William Van Alen (1928–30)
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Crown of the General Electric Building (also known as 570 Lexington Avenue) by Cross & Cross (1933)
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30 Rockefeller Center, now theComcast Building, by Raymond Hood(1933)
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, an exuberant American variant of Art Deco appeared in the Chrysler Building, Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center in New York City, and Guardian Building in Detroit. The first skyscrapers in Chicago and New York had been designed in a neo-gothic or neoclassical style, but these buildings were very different; they combined modern materials and technology (stainless steel, concrete, aluminum, chrome-plated steel) with Art Deco geometry; stylized zig-zags, lightning flashes, fountains, sunrises, and, at the top of the Chrysler building, Art Deco "gargoyles" in the form of stainless steel radiator ornaments. The interiors of these new buildings, sometimes termed Cathedrals of Commerce", were lavishly decorated in bright contrasting colors, with geometric patterns variously influenced by Egyptian and Mayan pyramids, African textile patterns, and European cathedrals, Frank Lloyd Wright himself experimented with Mayan Revival, in the concrete cube-based Ennis House of 1924 in Los Angeles. The style appeared in the late 1920s and 1930s in all major American cities. The style was used most often in office buildings, but it also appeared in the enormous movie palaces that were built in large cities when sound films were introduced.[38]
Streamline style and Public Works Administration (1933–1939)
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Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles (1936)
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TheSan Francisco Maritime Museum, originally was a public bathhouse (1936)
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Intake towers of Hoover Dam (1931–36)
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Long Beach Main Post Office (1933–34)
The beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 brought an end to lavishly decorated Art Deco architecture and a temporary halt to the construction of new skyscrapers. It also brought in a new style, called "Streamline Moderne" or sometimes just Streamline. This style, sometimes modeled after for the form of ocean liners, featured rounded corners, strong horizontal lines, and often nautical features, such as superstructures and steel railings. It was associated with modernity and especially with transportation; the style was often used for new airport terminals, train and bus stations, and for gas stations and diners built along the growing American highway system. In the 1930s the style was used not only in buildings, but in railroad locomotives, and even refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. It both borrowed from industrial design and influenced it.[39]
In the United States, the Great Depression led to a new style for government buildings, sometimes called
American modernism (1919–1939)
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Ennis House in Los Angeles, by Frank Lloyd Wright (1924)
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Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright (1928–34)
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Newport Beach by Rudolph Schindler(1926)
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Lovell Health House in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, California, by Richard Neutra (1927–29)
During the 1920s and 1930s, Frank Lloyd Wright resolutely refused to associate himself with any architectural movements. He considered his architecture to be entirely unique and his own. Between 1916 and 1922, he broke away from his earlier prairie house style and worked instead on houses decorated with textured blocks of cement; this became known as his "Mayan style", after the pyramids of the ancient Mayan civilization. He experimented for a time with modular mass-produced housing. He identified his architecture as "Usonian", a combination of USA, "utopian" and "organic social order". His business was severely affected by the beginning of the Great Depression that began in 1929; he had fewer wealthy clients who wanted to experiment. Between 1928 and 1935, he built only two buildings: a hotel near Chandler, Arizona, and the most famous of all his residences, Fallingwater (1934–37), a vacation house in Pennsylvania for Edgar J. Kaufman. Fallingwater is a remarkable structure of concrete slabs suspended over a waterfall, perfectly uniting architecture and nature.[41]
The Austrian architect Rudolph Schindler designed what could be called the first house in the modern style in 1922, the Schindler house. Schindler also contributed to American modernism with his design for the
Paris International Exposition of 1937 and the architecture of dictators
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The Palais de Chaillot by Louis-Hippolyte Boileau, Jacques Carlu and Léon Azéma from the 1937 Paris International Exposition
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The Pavilion of Nazi Germany (left) faced the Pavilion of the Soviet Union (right) at the 1937 Paris Exposition.
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Reconstruction of the Pavilion of theJosep Lluis Sert (1937) displayed Picasso's painting Guernica(1937)
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The Zeppelinfield stadium in Nuremberg, Germany (1934), built by Albert Speer for Nazi Party rallies
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The Casa del Fascio (House of Fascism) in Como, Italy, by Giuseppe Terragni (1932–1936)
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Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
The
The rise of nationalism in the 1930s was reflected in the Fascist architecture of Italy, and Nazi architecture of Germany, based on classical styles and designed to express power and grandeur. The Nazi architecture, much of it designed by Albert Speer, was intended to awe the spectators by its huge scale. Adolf Hitler intended to turn Berlin into the capital of Europe, grander than Rome or Paris. The Nazis closed the Bauhaus, and the most prominent modern architects soon departed for Britain or the United States. In Italy, Benito Mussolini wished to present himself as the heir to the glory and empire of ancient Rome.[44] Mussolini's government was not as hostile to modernism as The Nazis; the spirit of Italian Rationalism of the 1920s continued, with the work of architect Giuseppe Terragni. His Casa del Fascio in Como, headquarters of the local Fascist party, was a perfectly modernist building, with geometric proportions (33.2 meters long by 16.6 meters high), a clean façade of marble, and a Renaissance-inspired interior courtyard. Opposed to Terragni was Marcello Piacitini, a proponent of monumental fascist architecture, who rebuilt the University of Rome, and designed the Italian pavilion at the 1937 Paris Exposition, and planned a grand reconstruction of Rome on the fascist model.[45]
New York World's Fair (1939)
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The Trylon and Perisphere, symbols of the 1939 World's Fair
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Pavilion of the Ford Motor Company, in the Streamline Moderne style
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The RCA Pavilion featured early public television broadcasts
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Living room of the House of Glass, showing what future homes would look like
The 1939 New York World's Fair marked a turning point in architecture between Art Deco and modern architecture. The theme of the Fair was the World of Tomorrow, and its symbols were the purely geometric trylon and periphery sculpture. It had many monuments to Art Deco, such as the Ford Pavilion in the Streamline Moderne style, but also included the new International Style that would replace Art Deco as the dominant style after the War. The Pavilions of Finland, by Alvar Aalto, of Sweden by Sven Markelius, and of Brazil by Oscar Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, looked forward to a new style. They became leaders in the postwar modernist movement.[46]
World War II: wartime innovation and postwar reconstruction (1939–1945)
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The center of Le Havre destroyed by bombing in 1944
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The center of Le Havre as reconstructed by Auguste Perret (1946–1964)
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Quonset hut en route to Japan (1945)
The unprecedented destruction caused by the war was another factor in the rise of modern architecture. Large parts of major cities, from Berlin, Tokyo, and Dresden to Rotterdam and east London; all the port cities of France, particularly Le Havre, Brest, Marseille, Cherbourg had been destroyed by bombing. In the United States, little civilian construction had been done since the 1920s; housing was needed for millions of American soldiers returning from the war. The postwar housing shortages in Europe and the United States led to the design and construction of enormous government-financed housing projects, usually in run-down center of American cities, and in the suburbs of Paris and other European cities, where land was available,
One of the largest reconstruction projects was that of the city center of Le Havre, destroyed by the Germans and by Allied bombing in 1944; 133 hectares of buildings in the center were flattened, destroying 12,500 buildings and leaving 40,000 persons homeless. The architect Auguste Perret, a pioneer in the use of reinforced concrete and prefabricated materials, designed and built an entirely new center to the city, with apartment blocks, cultural, commercial, and government buildings. He restored historic monuments when possible, and built a new church, St. Joseph, with a lighthouse-like tower in the center to inspire hope. His rebuilt city was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005.[49]
Le Corbusier and the Cité Radieuse (1947–1952)
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Salon and Terrace of an original unit of theUnité d'Habitation, now at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoinein Paris (1952)
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TheChapel of Notre-Dame-du-Hautin Ronchamp (1950–1955)
Shortly after the War, the French architect
Team X and the 1953 International Congress of Modern Architecture
In the early 1950s,
At the 1953
Late modernist architecture
Late modernist architecture is generally understood to include buildings designed (1968–1980) with exceptions.
Postwar modernism in the United States (1945–1985)
The
Frank Lloyd Wright and the Guggenheim Museum
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The Pfeiffer Chapel at Florida Southern College by Frank Lloyd Wright (1941–1958)
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The tower of the Johnson Wax Headquarters and Research Center (1944–50)
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TheBartlesville, Oklahoma (1956)
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Solomon Guggenheim Museum, by Frank Lloyd Wright(1946–1959)
Frank Lloyd Wright was eighty years old in 1947; he had been present at the beginning of American modernism, and though he refused to accept that he belonged to any movement, continued to play a leading role almost to its end. One of his most original late projects was the campus of Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, begun in 1941 and completed in 1943. He designed nine new buildings in a style that he described as "The Child of the Sun". He wrote that he wanted the campus to "grow out of the ground and into the light, a child of the sun".
He completed several notable projects in the 1940s, including the
In 1943 he was commissioned by the art collector Solomon R. Guggenheim to design a museum for his collection of modern art. His design was entirely original; a bowl-shaped building with a spiral ramp inside that led museum visitors on an upward tour of the art of the 20th century. Work began in 1946 but it was not completed until 1959, the year that he died.[46]
Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer
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The Stillman House Litchfield, Connecticut, by Marcel Breuer (1950) The swimming pool mural is by Alexander Calder
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The PanAm building (Now MetLife Building) in New York, by Walter Gropius and The Architects Collaborative (1958–63)
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
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Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic (1928–30)
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The Farnsworth House in Plano, Illinois (1945–51)
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Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago (1956)
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The Seagram Building, New York City, 1958, by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Richard Neutra and Charles and Ray Eames
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Neutra Office Building by Richard Neutra in Los Angeles (1950)
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The Constance Perkins House by Richard Neutra, Los Angeles (1962)
Influential residential architects in the new style in the United States included Richard Neutra and Charles and Ray Eames. The most celebrated work of the Eames was Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California, (1949) Charles Eames in collaboration with Eero Saarinen It is composed of two structures, an architects residence and his studio, joined in the form of an L. The house, influenced by Japanese architecture, is made of translucent and transparent panels organized in simple volumes, often using natural materials, supported on a steel framework. The frame of the house was assembled in sixteen hours by five workmen. He brightened up his buildings with panels of pure colors.[64]
Richard Neutra continued to build influential houses in Los Angeles, using the theme of the simple box. Many of these houses erased the line distinction between indoor and outdoor spaces with walls of plate glass.[65] Neutra's Constance Perkins House in Pasadena, California (1962) was re-examination of the modest single-family dwelling. It was built of inexpensive material–wood, plaster, and glass–and completed at a cost of just under $18,000. Neutra scaled the house to the physical dimensions of its owner, a small woman. It features a reflecting pool which meanders under of the glass walls of the house. One of Neutra's most unusual buildings was Shepherd's Grove in Garden Grove, California, which featured an adjoining parking lot where worshippers could follow the service without leaving their cars.
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and Wallace K. Harrison
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Manhattan House by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1950–51)
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Lever House by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1951–52)
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Manufacturers Trust Company Building, by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, New York City (1954)
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Beinecke Library at Yale University by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill(1963)
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(1952)
Many of the notable modern buildings in the postwar years were produced by two architectural mega-agencies, which brought together large teams of designers for very complex projects. The firm of
Philip Johnson
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The IDS Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by Philip Johnson (1969–72)
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TheCrystal Cathedralby Philip Johnson (1977–80)
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The Williams Tower in Houston, Texas, by Philip Johnson (1981–1983)
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PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by Philip Johnson (1981–84)
Philip Johnson (1906–2005) was one of the youngest and last major figures in American modern architecture. He trained at Harvard with Walter Gropius, then was director of the department of architecture and modern design at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1946 to 1954. In 1947, he published a book about Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and in 1953 designed his own residence, the Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut in a style modeled after Mies's Farnsworth House. Beginning in 1955 he began to go in his own direction, moving gradually toward expressionism with designs that increasingly departed from the orthodoxies of modern architecture. His final and decisive break with modern architecture was the AT&T Building (later known as the Sony Tower), and now the 550 Madison Avenue in New York City, (1979) an essentially modernist skyscraper completely altered by the addition of broken pediment with a circular opening. This building is generally considered to mark the beginning of Postmodern architecture in the United States.[67]
Eero Saarinen
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The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis, Missouri (1948–1965)
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Main building of the General Motors Technical Center (1949–55)
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TheNew Haven, Connecticut (1953–58)
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The TWA Terminal at JFK Airport in New York, by Eero Saarinen (1956–62)
Louis Kahn
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The First Unitarian Church of Rochester by Louis Kahn (1962)
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TheSalk Institute by Louis Kahn(1962–63)
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Richards Medical Research Laboratories by Louis Kahn (1957–61)
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TheFort Worth, Texas (1966–72)
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TheNational Parliament Building in Dhaka, Bangladesh(1962–74)
I. M. Pei
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The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado by I. M. Pei (1963–67)
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East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., by I M. Pei (1978)
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Pyramid of theLouvre Museumin Paris by I. M. Pei (1983–89)
Between 1963 and 1967 Pei designed the Mesa Laboratory for the National Center for Atmospheric Research outside Boulder, Colorado, in an open area at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The project differed from Pei's earlier urban work; it would rest in an open area in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. His design was a striking departure from traditional modernism; it looked as if it were carved out of the side of the mountain.[71]
In the late modernist area, art museums bypassed skyscrapers as the most prestigious architectural projects; they offered greater possibilities for innovation in form and more visibility. Pei established himself with his design for the
Fazlur Rahman Khan
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John Hancock Center in Chicago by Fazlur Rahman Khan was the first building to use X-bracing to create the trussed-tube design.
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Willis Tower in Chicago was the first building to use the bundled-tube design.
In 1955, employed by the architectural firm
He believed that engineers needed a broader perspective on life, saying, "The technical man must not be lost in his own technology; he must be able to appreciate life, and life is art, drama, music, and most importantly, people." Khan's personal papers, most of which were in his office at the time of his death, are held by the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at the Art Institute of Chicago. The Fazlur Khan Collection includes manuscripts, sketches, audio cassette tapes, slides and other materials regarding his work.
Khan's seminal work of developing tall building structural systems are still used today as the starting point when considering design options for tall buildings. Tube structures have since been used in many skyscrapers, including the
Khan invented a new way of building tall. ... So Fazlur Khan created the unconventional skyscraper. Reversing the logic of the steel frame, he decided that the building's external envelope could – given enough trussing, framing and bracing – be the structure itself. This made buildings even lighter. The "bundled tube" meant buildings no longer need be boxlike in appearance: they could become sculpture. Khan's amazing insight – he was name-checked by Obama in his Cairo University speech last year – changed both the economics and the morphology of supertall buildings. And it made Burj Khalifa possible: proportionately, Burj employs perhaps half the steel that conservatively supports the Empire State Building. ... Burj Khalifa is the ultimate expression of his audacious, lightweight design philosophy.[75]
Minoru Yamasaki
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The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (1973–2001) in Lower Manhattan by Minoru Yamasaki (1913–1986)
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The Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe Apartments Housing Project, in St. Louis (1955–1976)
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The Century Plaza Towers in Los Angeles, California (1975)
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One Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan (1962)
In the United States, Minoru Yamasaki found major independent success in implementing unique engineering solutions to then-complicated problems, including the space that elevator shafts took up on each floor, and dealing with his personal fear of heights. During this period, he created a number of office buildings which led to his innovative design of the 1,360 ft (410 m) towers of the World Trade Center in 1964, which began construction 21 March 1966.[76] The first of the towers was finished in 1970.[77] Many of his buildings feature superficial details inspired by the pointed arches of Gothic architecture, and make use of extremely narrow vertical windows. This narrow-windowed style arose from his own personal fear of heights.[78] One particular design challenge of the World Trade Center's design related to the efficacy of the elevator system, which was unique in the world. Yamasaki integrated the fastest elevators at the time, running at 1,700 feet per minute. Instead of placing a large traditional elevator shaft in the core of each tower, Yamasaki created the Twin Towers' "Skylobby" system. The Skylobby design created three separate, connected elevator systems which would serve different segments of the building, depending on which floor was chosen, saving approximately 70% of the space used for a traditional shaft. The space saved was then used for office space.[79] In addition to these accomplishments, he had also designed the Pruitt-Igoe Housing Project, the largest ever housing project built in the United States, which was fully torn down in 1976 due to bad market conditions and the decrepit state of the buildings themselves. Separately, he had also designed the Century Plaza Towers and One Woodward Avenue, among 63 other projects he had developed during his career.
Postwar modernism in Europe (1945–1975)
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Sainte Marie de La Tourette in Evreaux-sur-l'Arbresle, France by Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis (1956–60)
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Royal National Theatre, London, by Denys Lasdun (1967–1976)
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Auditorium of the University of Technology, Helsinki, by Alvar Aalto (1964)
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University Hospital Center in Liège, Belgium by Charles Vandenhove (1962–82)
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TheJosep Lluis Sert(1959–1964)
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Church of St. Martin, Idstein Germany by Johannes Krahn (1965)
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Warszawa Centralna railway station in Poland by Arseniusz Romanowicz (1975)
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Municipal Orphanage in Amsterdam by Aldo van Eyck (1960), "Aesthetics of Number", architectural movement Structuralism.
In France, Le Corbusier remained the most prominent architect, though he built few buildings there. His most prominent late work was the convent of Sainte Marie de La Tourette in Evreaux-sur-l'Arbresle. The Convent, built of raw concrete, was austere and without ornament, inspired by the medieval monasteries he had visited on his first trip to Italy.[80]
In Britain, the major figures in modernism included
In Belgium, a major figure was Charles Vandenhove (born 1927) who constructed an important series of buildings for the University Hospital Center in Liège. His later work ventured into colorful rethinking of historical styles, such as Palladian architecture.[81]
In Finland, the most influential architect was Alvar Aalto, who adapted his version of modernism to the Nordic landscape, light, and materials, particularly the use of wood. After World War II, he taught architecture in the United States. In Denmark, Arne Jacobsen was the best-known of the modernists, who designed furniture as well as carefully proportioned buildings.
In Italy, the most prominent modernist was
The most famous Spanish modernist was the Catalan architect
Notable German modernists included Johannes Krahn, who played an important part in rebuilding German cities after World War II, and built several important museums and churches, notably St. Martin, Idstein, which artfully combined stone masonry, concrete, and glass. Leading Austrian architects of the style included Gustav Peichl, whose later works included the Art and Exhibition Center of the German Federal Republic in Bonn, Germany (1989).
Latin America
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Ministry of Health and Education in Rio de Janeiro by Lúcio Costa (1936–43)
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MAM Rio museum, by Affonso Eduardo Reidy (1960)
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The National Congress building inBrasiliaby Oscar Niemeyer (1956–61)
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TheCathedral of Brasilia by Oscar Niemeyer(1958–1970)
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The Palácio do Planalto, offices of the Brazilian president, by Oscar Niemeyer (1958–60)
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São Paulo Museum of Art, MASP, by Lina Bo Bardi (1957–68)
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TheAugusto H. Alvarez(1956)
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TheColegio de México in Mexico City by Teodoro González de León and Abraham Zabludovsky(1976)
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Interior of theLuis Barragan(1948)
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The Alfonso Caro Auditorium in UNAM, Mexico City, by Eugenio Peschard (1953)
Architectural historians sometimes label Latin American modernism as "tropical modernism". This reflects architects who adapted modernism to the tropical climate as well as the sociopolitical contexts of Latin America.[83]
Brazil became a showcase of modern architecture in the late 1930s through the work of
Lúcio Costa also had overall responsibility for the plan of the most audacious modernist project in Brazil; the creation of new capital,
Following a military coup d'état in Brazil in 1964, Niemeyer moved to France, where he designed the modernist headquarters of the French Communist Party in Paris (1965–1980), a miniature of his United Nations plan.[85]
Mexico also had a prominent modernist movement. Important figures included Félix Candela, born in Spain, who emigrated to Mexico in 1939; he specialized in concrete structures in unusual parabolic forms. Another important figure was
Asia and Australia
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House of Kunio Maekawa in Tokyo (1935)
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International House of Japan by Kunio Maekawa, Tokyo (1955)
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Kenzo Tange(1964)
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Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia, by Jørn Utzon (1973)
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A modernist building in Pune, India
Japan, like Europe, had an enormous shortage of housing after the war, due to the bombing of many cities. 4.2 million housing units needed to be replaced. Japanese architects combined both traditional and modern styles and techniques. One of the foremost Japanese modernists was Kunio Maekawa (1905–1986), who had worked for Le Corbusier in Paris until 1930. His own house in Tokyo was an early landmark of Japanese modernism, combining traditional style with ideas he acquired working with Le Corbusier. His notable buildings include concert halls in Tokyo and Kyoto and the International House of Japan in Tokyo, all in the pure modernist style.
The Danish architect Jørn Utzon (1918–2008) worked briefly with Alvar Aalto, studied the work of Le Corbusier, and traveled to the United States to meet Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1957 he designed one of the most recognizable modernist buildings in the world; the Sydney Opera House. He is known for the sculptural qualities of his buildings, and their relationship with the landscape. The five concrete shells of the structure resemble seashells by the beach. Begun in 1957, the project encountered considerable technical difficulties making the shells and getting the acoustics right. Utzon resigned in 1966, and the opera house was not finished until 1973, ten years after its scheduled completion.[87]
In India, modernist architecture was promoted by the postcolonial state under Prime Minister
Post independence architecture in Pakistan is a blend of Islamic and modern styles of architecture with influences from Mughal, indo-Islamic and international architectural designs. The 1960s and 1970s was a period of architectural Significance. Jinnah's Mausoleum, Minar e Pakistan, Bab e Khyber, Islamic summit minar and the Faisal mosque date from this time.
Africa
Some notable modernist architects in Morocco were Elie Azagury and Jean-François Zevaco.[51]
Asmara, capitol of Eritrea, is well known for its modernist architecture dating from the period of Italian colonization.[88][89]
Preservation
Several works or collections of modern architecture have been designated by
Private organizations such as Docomomo International, the World Monuments Fund, and the Recent Past Preservation Network are working to safeguard and document imperiled Modern architecture. In 2006, the World Monuments Fund launched Modernism at Risk, an advocacy and conservation program. The organization MAMMA. is working to document and preserve modernist architecture in Morocco.[90]
See also
- Complementary architecture
- Critical regionalism
- Ecomodernism
- List of post-war Category A listed buildings in Scotland
- Modern art
- Modern furniture
- Modernisme
- New Urbanism
- Organic architecture
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- Burchard, John; Bush-Brown, Albert (1966). The Architecture of America- A Social and Cultural History. Atlantic, Little and Brown.
- Conrads, Ulrich, ed. (1971). Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture. Translated by Bullock, Michael. Boston, Mass.: The MIT Press. OCLC 959124824.
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- Duncan, Alastair (1988). Art déco. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 2-87811-003-X.
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Further reading
- USA: Modern Architectures in History Request PDF – ResearchGate
- The article goes in-depth about the original main contributors of modern architecture.
- Pfeiffer, Bruce Brooks. Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867–1959: Building for Democracy. Taschen, 2021.
- This article goes into depth about Frank Lloyd Wright and his contributions to modern architecture. and what he focused on to be a part of modern architecture.
- "What Is Modern Architecture?" Hammond Historic District.
- The article goes through the elaborations of the origin of modern architecture and what constitutes modern architecture.
External links
- Harrison, Stuart (20 November 2019). "South Australian modernism exhibition a study in modesty". ArchitectureAU. Review of the exhibition Modernism & Modernist SA Architecture: 1934–1977. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
- Six Building Designers Who Are Redefining Modern Architecture, an April 2011 radio and Internet report by the Special English service of the Voice of America.
- Architecture and Modernism
- "Preservation of Modern Buildings" edition of AIA Architect
- Brussels50s60s.be, Overview of the architecture of the 1950s and 1960s in Brussels
- A Grand Design: The Toronto City Hall Design Competition Modernist designs from the 1958 international competition
- "Research of American Brutalism"