142-410: The Unité d'habitation ( French pronunciation: [ynite dabitasjɔ̃] , Housing Unit ) is a modernist residential housing typology developed by Le Corbusier , with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afonso . It formed the basis of several housing developments throughout Europe designed by Le Corbusier and sharing the same name. The most famous of these buildings is located in
284-453: A communal terrace with sculptural ventilation stacks , a running track, and a shallow paddling pool for children. There is also a children's art school in the atelier. The roof, where a number of theatrical performances have taken place, was renovated in 2010 and 2022, and since 2013 it has hosted an exhibition center headed by designer Ora-Ïto called the MaMo. The roof has unobstructed views of
426-476: A compromise between the two, combining modernist forms and stylized decoration. 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
568-528: A dozen photographs of factories and grain elevators in North America. A very influential text, this article had a strong influence on other European modernists, including Le Corbusier and Erich Mendelsohn , both of whom reprinted Gropius's grain elevator pictures between 1920 and 1930. Gropius's career was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in 1914. He was drafted in August 1914 and served as
710-463: A faculty that included Paul Klee , Johannes Itten , Josef Albers , Herbert Bayer , László Moholy-Nagy , Otto Bartning and Wassily Kandinsky . In principle, the Bauhaus represented an opportunity to extend beauty and quality to every home through well designed industrially produced objects. The Bauhaus program was experimental and the emphasis was theoretical. One example product of the Bauhaus
852-467: 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. The Austrian architect Rudolph Schindler designed what could be called the first house in the modern style in 1922,
994-559: 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". Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969)
1136-649: A lighthouse-like tower in the center to inspire hope. His rebuilt city was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005. Shortly after the War, the French architect Le Corbusier , who was nearly sixty years old and had not constructed a building in ten years, was commissioned by the French government to construct a new apartment block in Marseille . He called it Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, but it more popularly took
1278-600: 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. Frank Lloyd Wright was a highly original and independent American architect who refused to be categorized in any one architectural movement. Like Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , he had no formal architectural training. From 1887 to 1893 he worked in
1420-734: A manifestation of his lifelong belief in the significance of teamwork, which he had already successfully introduced at the Bauhaus. Based in Cambridge, the original TAC partners included Norman C. Fletcher , Jean B. Fletcher , John C. Harkness , Sarah P. Harkness , Robert S. MacMillan , Louis A. MacMillen, and Benjamin C. Thompson . Among TAC's earliest works were two residential housing developments in Lexington, Massachusetts : Six Moon Hill and Five Fields . Each incorporated contemporary design ideas, reasonable cost, and practical thinking about how to support community life. Another early TAC work
1562-763: 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
SECTION 10
#17327722197321704-452: A new architecture. For each function its material; for each material its form and its ornament." This book influenced a generation of architects, including Louis Sullivan , Victor Horta , Hector Guimard , and Antoni Gaudí . At the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the traditional Beaux Arts and Neoclassical styles that dominated architecture in Europe and
1846-501: A new style for government buildings, sometimes called PWA Moderne , for the Public Works Administration , which launched gigantic construction programs in the U.S. to stimulate employment. It was essentially classical architecture stripped of ornament, and was employed in state and federal buildings, from post offices to the largest office building in the world at that time, Pentagon (1941–43), begun just before
1988-474: A new style. They became leaders in the postwar modernist movement. World War II (1939–1945) and its aftermath was a major factor in driving innovation in building technology, and in turn, architectural possibilities. The wartime industrial demands resulted in shortages of steel and other building materials, leading to the adoption of new materials, such as aluminum, The war and postwar period brought greatly expanded use of prefabricated building ; largely for
2130-470: A nursery school, and other serves, and the flat terrace roof had a running track, ventilation ducts, and a small theater. Le Corbusier designed furniture, carpets, and lamps to go with the building, all purely functional; the only decoration was a choice of interior colors that Le Corbusier gave to residents. Unité d'Habitation became a prototype for similar buildings in other cities, both in France and Germany. Combined with his equally radical organic design for
2272-428: A pioneer in the architecture of collective housing , though his Moroccan colleague Elie Azagury was critical of him for serving as a tool of the French colonial regime and for ignoring the economic and social necessity that Moroccans live in higher density vertical housing. Late modernist architecture is generally understood to include buildings designed (1968–1980) with exceptions. Modernist architecture includes
2414-484: 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. 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 . In 1909 Behrens designed one of
2556-618: 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. 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
2698-474: A rooftop gallery, educational facilities, a hotel that is open to the public, and a restaurant, "Le Ventre de l'Architecte" ("The Belly of the Architect"). The building is constructed in béton brut (rough-cast concrete ), as the hoped-for steel frame proved too expensive due to the post-war steel shortage. Inside, wide corridors ("streets in the sky") run along the central long axis of every third floor of
2840-456: A row of white pylons in the center of a large lawn, it became an icon of modernist architecture. In Germany, two important modernist movements appeared after the first World War, The Bauhaus was a school founded in Weimar in 1919 under the direction of Walter Gropius . Gropius was the son of the official state architect of Berlin, who studied before the war with Peter Behrens , and designed
2982-593: A sergeant major at the Western front during the war years (getting wounded and almost killed) and then as a lieutenant in the signal corps . Gropius was awarded the Iron Cross twice ("when it still meant something," he confided to his friend Chester Nagel) after fighting for four years. Gropius then, like his father and his great-uncle Martin Gropius before him, became an architect. Gropius's career advanced in
SECTION 20
#17327722197323124-521: A study of Casablanca's bidonvilles entitled "Habitat for the Greatest Number". The presenters, Georges Candilis and Michel Ecochard , argued—against doctrine—that architects must consider local culture and climate in their designs. This generated great debate among modernist architects around the world and eventually provoked a schism and the creation of Team 10 . Ecochard's 8x8 meter model at Carrières Centrales earned him recognition as
3266-408: 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;
3408-463: Is a machine for living in." 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
3550-720: 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 Neues Frankfurt project. 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 Le Corbusier , had participated in
3692-488: Is known as Brick Expressionism . Erich Mendelsohn , (who disliked the term Expressionism for his work) began his career designing churches, silos, and factories which were highly imaginative, but, for lack of resources, were never built. In 1920, he finally was able to construct one of his works in the city of Potsdam; an observatory and research center called the Einsteinium , named in tribute to Albert Einstein . It
3834-559: Is remembered not only by his various buildings but also by the district of Gropiusstadt in Berlin. In the early 1990s, a series of books entitled The Walter Gropius Archive was published covering his entire architectural career. The CD audiobook Bauhaus Reviewed 1919–33 includes a lengthy English Language interview with Gropius. Upon his death his widow, Ise Gropius, arranged to have his collection of papers divided into early and late papers. Both parts were photographed with funds provided by
3976-650: Is the Graduate Center of Harvard University in Cambridge (1949/50). TAC would become one of the most well-known and respected architectural firms in the world before it closed its doors amidst financial problems in 1995. In 1967, Gropius was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1968. Gropius died on July 5, 1969, in Boston , Massachusetts, aged 86. He had been diagnosed with inflammation of
4118-657: 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. The Viennese architect Adolf Loos also began removing any ornament from his buildings. His Steiner House , in Vienna (1910),
4260-455: The Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building , in the heart of Chicago in 1904–1906. While these buildings were revolutionary in their steel frames and height, their decoration was borrowed from Neo-Renaissance , Neo-Gothic and Beaux-Arts architecture . The Woolworth Building , designed by Cass Gilbert , was completed in 1912, and was the tallest building in the world until the completion of
4402-620: The Chapel of Notre-Dame du-Haut at Ronchamp , this work propelled Corbusier in the first rank of postwar modern architects. In the early 1950s, Michel Écochard , director of urban planning under the French Protectorate in Morocco , commissioned GAMMA ( Groupe des Architectes Modernes Marocains )—which initially included the architects Elie Azagury , George Candillis , Alexis Josic and Shadrach Woods —to design housing in
Unité d'habitation - Misplaced Pages Continue
4544-602: The Charles Oakley Building , (1963), both former buildings of the City of Glasgow College - were designed in the late 1950s by architect Peter Williams of the local firm Walter Underwood & Partners . They are non-residential educational blocks that differ greatly from Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation, inside and outside. Yet the roof terrace of the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille inspired Peter Williams to design
4686-546: The Chrysler Building in 1929. The structure was purely modern, but its exterior was decorated with Neo-Gothic ornament, complete with decorative buttresses, arches and spires, which caused it to be nicknamed the "Cathedral of Commerce". After the first World War, a prolonged struggle began between architects who favored the more traditional styles of neo-classicism and the Beaux-Arts architecture style, and
4828-548: The Faguswerk in Alfeld-an-der-Leine, Germany , a shoe last factory. Although Gropius and Meyer only designed the facade, the glass curtain walls of this building demonstrated both the modernist principle that form reflects function and Gropius's concern with providing healthful conditions for the working class. The factory is now regarded as one of the crucial founding monuments of European modernism. Gropius
4970-649: The Hay Mohammedi neighborhood of Casablanca that provided a "culturally specific living tissue" for laborers and migrants from the countryside . Sémiramis , Nid d’Abeille (Honeycomb), and Carrières Centrales were some of the first examples of this Vernacular Modernism . At the 1953 Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM), ATBAT-Afrique —the Africa branch of Atelier des Bâtisseurs founded in 1947 by figures including Le Corbusier , Vladimir Bodiansky , and André Wogenscky —prepared
5112-506: The IG Farben building , a massive corporate headquarters, now the main building of Goethe University in Frankfurt. Bruno Taut specialized in building large-scale apartment complexes for working-class Berliners. He built twelve thousand individual units, sometimes in buildings with unusual shapes, such as a giant horseshoe. Unlike most other modernists, he used bright exterior colors to give his buildings more life The use of dark brick in
5254-466: The Mediterranean Sea and Marseille. According to Peter Blake, members of CIAM held a "great celebration" for the building's opening on its roof, on a summer evening in 1953. "Architects from every part of the world attended", including Walter Gropius , who said at the event: "Any architect who does not find this building beautiful, had better lay down his pencil." Le Corbusier stated that
5396-595: The New Objectivity movement, including a contribution to the Siemensstadt project in Berlin. Gropius left the Bauhaus in 1928 and moved to Berlin. Hannes Meyer took over the role of Bauhaus director. His work was also part of the architecture event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics . The rise of Hitler in the 1930s would soon drive Gropius out of Germany. Before that, however, he did accept an invitation in early 1933 to compete for
5538-520: The New York Crystal Palace exposition in 1854, which made tall office and apartment buildings practical. 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. 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
5680-694: 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 . 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
5822-577: The Royal Air Force in World War II . The research was to discover the most efficient way of setting fire to houses with incendiary bombs during bombing raids. The findings were used in planning raids such as the bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 . In 1945, Gropius was asked by the young founding members of The Architects Collaborative (TAC) to join as their senior partner. TAC represented
Unité d'habitation - Misplaced Pages Continue
5964-590: The Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian avant-garde artists and architects began searching for a new Soviet style which could replace traditional neoclassicism. The new architectural movements were closely tied with the literary and artistic movements of the period, the futurism of poet Vladimir Mayakovskiy , the Suprematism of painter Kasimir Malevich , and the colorful Rayonism of painter Mikhail Larionov . The most startling design that emerged
6106-803: The Thyssen Foundation . The late papers, relating to Gropius's career after 1937, and the photos of the early ones, then went to the Houghton Library at Harvard University; the early papers and photos of the late papers went to the Bauhaus Archiv, then in Darmstadt , since reestablished in Berlin. Mrs. Gropius also deeded the Gropius House in Lincoln to Historic New England in 1980, now a house museum. The Gropius House
6248-634: The Unité include Chamberlin, Powell and Bon 's Barbican Estate (completed 1982), Gordon Tait 's Samuda Estate , Isle of Dogs (1965), Ernő Goldfinger 's Balfron Tower (1967), and Trellick Tower (1972), all in London. The triple-level roof garden of Great Arthur House (1957) inspired by Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation is a fine vantage point towards St Paul's Cathedral and the Barbican Estate and has panoramic views across London. Roof terrace for
6390-620: The Unité d'Habitation buildings is in Marseille , France, and was built between 1947 and 1952. One of Le Corbusier's most famous works, it proved enormously influential and is often cited as the initial inspiration for the Brutalist architectural style and philosophy. The Marseille building, developed with Le Corbusier's designers Shadrach Woods and George Candilis , comprises 337 apartments of 23 different layouts across 12 storeys, and all supported by large pilotis . The building also incorporates shops including an architectural bookshop,
6532-586: The 1920s and 1930s it became a highly popular style in the United States, South America, India, China, Australia, and Japan. In Europe, Art Deco was particularly popular for department stores and movie theaters. The style reached its peak in Europe at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in 1925, which featured art deco pavilions and decoration from twenty countries. Only two pavilions were purely modernist;
6674-573: The 1940s as high-rise concrete structures. During the construction of the Marseille building, a few model apartments were built and furnished for visitors as an exhibition. In the 1980s, a team from ETH Zurich surveyed several apartments in Marseille and built several full-scale models for exhibitions in Paris, Karlsruhe, Tokyo and New York. In 1986, a full-scale model was constructed at the Badischer Kunstverein by Gernot Bayne based on
6816-526: The 1950s and 1960s. The group met once more in Paris in 1937 to discuss public housing and was scheduled to meet in the United States in 1939, but the meeting was cancelled because of the war. The legacy of the CIAM was a roughly common style and doctrine which helped define modern architecture in Europe and the United States after World War II. The Art Deco architectural style (called Style Moderne in France),
6958-603: The Bauhaus philosophy in mind, every aspect of the homes and their surrounding landscapes was planned for maximum efficiency and simplicity. Gropius's house received a huge response and was declared a National Landmark in 2000. Gropius and his Bauhaus protégé Marcel Breuer both moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts , to teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1937–1952) and collaborate on projects including The Alan I W Frank House in Pittsburgh and
7100-623: The Chicago office of Louis Sullivan , who pioneered the first tall steel-frame office buildings in Chicago, and who famously stated " form follows function ". Wright set out to break all the traditional rules. He was particularly famous for his Prairie Houses , including the Winslow House in River Forest, Illinois (1893–94); Arthur Heurtley House (1902) and Robie House (1909); sprawling, geometric residences without decoration, with strong horizontal lines which seemed to grow out of
7242-781: The Esprit Nouveau pavilion of Le Corbusier, which represented his idea for a mass-produced housing unit, and the pavilion of the USSR, by Konstantin Melnikov in a flamboyantly futurist style. 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
SECTION 50
#17327722197327384-650: 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
7526-480: The German projects gave that particular style a name, Brick Expressionism . The Austrian philosopher, architect, and social critic Rudolf Steiner also departed as far as possible from traditional architectural forms. His Second Goetheanum , built from 1926 near Basel , Switzerland and Mendelsohn 's Einsteinturm in Potsdam, Germany, were based on no traditional models and had entirely original shapes. After
7668-653: The Harvard campus that were built in the 1950s. In 1944, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Gropius was one of several refugee German architects who provided information to confirm the typical construction of German houses to the RE8 research department set up by the British Air Ministry . This was used to improve the effectiveness of air raids on German cities by the Bomber Command of
7810-434: The Master Houses (Meisterhäuser) (1925-1926) in Dessau, along with the Törten Housing Estate (Siedlung Dessau-Törten) which was built from 1926 to 1928. In 1927 he designed the Dessau City Employment office (Arbeitsamt), but left the Bauhaus and Dessau before construction began. The City Employment office was completed in 1929. He also designed large-scale housing projects in Berlin , Karlsruhe that were major contributions to
7952-444: The Netherlands, and Adolf Loos from Czechoslovakia. A delegation of Soviet architects was invited to attend, but they were unable to obtain visas. Later members included Josep Lluís Sert of Spain and Alvar Aalto of Finland. No one attended from the United States. A second meeting was organized in 1930 in Brussels by Victor Bourgeois on the topic "Rational methods for groups of habitations". A third meeting, on "The functional city",
8094-549: The Prussian politician Georg Scharnweber [ de ] (1816–1894). Walter's great-uncle Martin Gropius (1824–1880) was the architect of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin and a follower of Karl Friedrich Schinkel , with whom Walter's great-grandfather Carl Gropius, who fought under Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo, had shared a flat as a bachelor. In 1915, Gropius married Alma Mahler (1879–1964), widow of Gustav Mahler . Walter and Alma's daughter, named Manon after Walter's mother,
8236-446: The Schindler house. Schindler also contributed to American modernism with his design for the Lovell Beach House in Newport Beach . The Austrian architect Richard Neutra moved to the United States in 1923, worked for a short time with Frank Lloyd Wright, also quickly became a force in American architecture through his modernist design for the same client, the Lovell Health House in Los Angeles. Neutra's most notable architectural work
8378-462: The Soviet Pavilion for the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925; it was a highly geometric vertical construction of glass and steel crossed by a diagonal stairway, and crowned with a hammer and sickle. The leading group of constructivist architects, led by Vesnin brothers and Moisei Ginzburg , was publishing the 'Contemporary Architecture' journal. This group created several major constructivist projects in
8520-581: The Spanish architect, whose pavilion of the Second Spanish Republic was pure modernist glass and steel box. Inside it displayed the most modernist work of the Exposition, the painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso . The original building was destroyed after the Exposition, but it was recreated in 1992 in Barcelona. 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 ,
8662-428: The United States entered the Second World War. 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
SECTION 60
#17327722197328804-401: 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
8946-419: The United States. The Glasgow School of Art (1896–99) designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh , had a façade dominated by large vertical bays of windows. The Art Nouveau style was launched in the 1890s by Victor Horta in Belgium and Hector Guimard in France; it introduced new styles of decoration, based on vegetal and floral forms. In Barcelona, Antonio Gaudi conceived architecture as a form of sculpture;
9088-509: The approach developed at the Bauhaus. The Gropiuses believed their house could embody architectural qualities similar to those practiced today, such as simplicity, economy, and aesthetic beauty. Helen Storrow, a banker's wife and philanthropist, became Gropius's benefactor when she invested a portion of her land and wealth for the architect's home. She was so satisfied with the result that she gave more land and financial support to four other professors, two of whom Gropius designed homes for. With
9230-703: The architecture was "about establishing moving relationships with raw materials". Le Corbusier's design was criticised by US architect Peter Blake for having small children's rooms, some without windows. Unlike many of the blocks it inspired, which lack the original's generous proportions, communal facilities and parkland setting, the Unité is popular with its residents and is now mainly occupied by upper middle-class professionals. The apartments were equipped with built-in furniture, and specially designed storage walls with various cupboards with sliding doors, which were designed by Charlotte Perriand in collaboration with Atelier Le Corbusier. Additionally Perriand collaborated on
9372-436: The best-known landmarks of modernist architecture. A reconstructed version now stands on the original site in Barcelona. 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
9514-403: The building. Each apartment lies on two levels, such that the room on one side of a corridor belongs to the apartment that is mostly below the corridor floor, while that on the opposite side belongs to the apartment above. On those floors without corridors, the apartments stretch from one side of the building to the other, and each has a balcony on the western side. The flat roof is designed as
9656-540: The buildings designed between 1945 and the 1960s. The late modernist style is characterized by bold shapes and sharp corners, slightly more defined than Brutalist architecture . The International Style of architecture had appeared in Europe, particularly in the Bauhaus movement, in the late 1920s. In 1932 it was recognized and given a name at an Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City organized by architect Philip Johnson and architectural critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock , Between 1937 and 1941, following
9798-462: The center of the fast-growing American cities, and the availability of new technologies, including fireproof steel frames and improvements in the safety elevator invented by Elisha Otis in 1852. The first steel-framed "skyscraper", The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, was ten stories high. It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1883, and was briefly the tallest building in the world. Louis Sullivan built another monumental new structure,
9940-409: 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
10082-419: The company-town Aluminum City Terrace project in New Kensington , Pennsylvania, before their professional split. In 1938 he was appointed Chair of the Department of Architecture, a post he held until his retirement in 1952. Gropius also sat on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Visiting Committee at the end of his career. The well-known architect designed the Richards and Child residence halls on
10224-535: The competition for the headquarters of the League of Nations in 1927. In the same year, the German Werkbund organized an architectural exposition at the Weissenhof Estate Stuttgart . Seventeen leading modernist architects in Europe were invited to design twenty-one houses; Le Corbusier, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe played a major part. In 1927 Le Corbusier, Pierre Chareau, and others proposed
10366-547: 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. The beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 brought an end to lavishly decorated Art Deco architecture and
10508-519: 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
10650-505: The design of the apartment kitchens, 321 of the 337 units were equipped with the Cuisine Atelier Le Corbusier, type 1 kitchens, many of which are still in place due to their efficient use of space. The steel stairs and the aluminium kitchen counters were designed by Jean Prouvé . Unité d'habitation model apartments have been renovated in the individual historic Unité buildings as well as rebuilt in exhibitions around
10792-514: The design of the new Reichsbank building and submitted a detailed plan. He also designed furniture, cars, high-rise housing developments Siedlung and an unrealized Palace of the Soviets in Moscow . Gropius was able to leave Nazi Germany in 1934 with the help of Maxwell Fry on the pretext of making a temporary visit to Italy for a film propaganda festival; he then fled to Britain to avoid
10934-459: The designer Marcel Breuer . 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
11076-587: 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
11218-663: The earth, and which echoed the wide flat spaces of the American prairie. His Larkin Building (1904–1906) in Buffalo, New York , Unity Temple (1905) in Oak Park, Illinois and Unity Temple had highly original forms and no connection with historical precedents. At the end of the 19th century, the first skyscrapers began to appear in the United States. They were a response to the shortage of land and high cost of real estate in
11360-436: 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 cast iron , drywall , plate glass , and reinforced concrete, to build structures that were stronger, lighter, and taller. The cast plate glass process
11502-635: The fascist powers of Europe. Although not Jewish, his association with "degenerate" modern art despised by the Nazis meant he was obliged to emigrate when commissions dried up. He lived and worked in the artists' community associated with Herbert Read in Hampstead , London, as part of the Isokon group. Gropius arrived in the United States in February 1937, while their twelve-year-old daughter, Ati, finished
11644-683: The façade of the Casa Batlló in Barcelona (1904–1907) had no straight lines; it was encrusted with colorful mosaics of stone and ceramic tiles. 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. Reinforced concrete, which could be molded into any shape, and which could create enormous spaces without
11786-747: The foundation of an international conference to establish the basis for a common style. The first meeting of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne or International Congresses of Modern Architects (CIAM), was held in a chateau on Lake Leman in Switzerland 26–28 June 1928. Those attending included Le Corbusier, Robert Mallet-Stevens , Auguste Perret , Pierre Chareau and Tony Garnier from France; Victor Bourgeois from Belgium; Walter Gropius , Erich Mendelsohn , Ernst May and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from Germany; Josef Frank from Austria; Mart Stam and Gerrit Rietveld from
11928-412: The glands, and was admitted to hospital on 7 June. After an operation was performed successfully on 15 June, there was hope of a full recovery. Gropius described himself as a "tough old bird", and continued to make progress for about a week. However, his lungs became congested and could not supply proper amounts of oxygen to the blood and brain. He lost consciousness, and died in his sleep. Today, Gropius
12070-739: The headquarters of a shipping company, and was modeled after a giant steamship, a triangular building with a sharply pointed bow. It was constructed of dark brick, and used external piers to express its vertical structure. Its external decoration borrowed from Gothic cathedrals, as did its internal arcades. Hans Poelzig was another notable expressionist architect. In 1919 he built the Großes Schauspielhaus , an immense theater in Berlin, seating five thousand spectators for theater impresario Max Reinhardt . It featured elongated shapes like stalagmites hanging down from its gigantic dome, and lights on massive columns in its foyer. He also constructed
12212-400: 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
12354-470: The late 19th century, most notably eclecticism , Victorian and Edwardian architecture , and the Beaux-Arts architectural style . 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
12496-454: The military and government. The semi-circular metal Nissen hut of World War I was revived as the Quonset hut . The years immediately after the war saw the development of radical experimental houses, including the enameled-steel Lustron house (1947–1950), and Buckminster Fuller's experimental aluminum Dymaxion House . The unprecedented destruction caused by the war was another factor in
12638-451: The modernist Fagus turbine factory. The Bauhaus was a fusion of the prewar Academy of Arts and the school of technology. In 1926 it was transferred from Weimar to Dessau; Gropius designed the new school and student dormitories in the new, purely functional modernist style he was encouraging. The school brought together modernists in all fields; the faculty included the modernist painters Vasily Kandinsky , Joseph Albers and Paul Klee , and
12780-531: The modernists, led by Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-Stevens in France, Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Germany, and Konstantin Melnikov in the new Soviet Union , who wanted only pure forms and the elimination of any decoration. Louis Sullivan popularized the axiom Form follows function to emphasize the importance of utilitarian simplicity in modern architecture. Art Deco architects such as Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage often made
12922-707: 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 . The New Objectivity (in German Neue Sachlichkeit, sometimes also translated as New Sobriety)
13064-481: The most influential designs to emerge from Bauhaus. Facing political and financial difficulties in Weimar, Gropius and the Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 following an offer from the city. Gropius designed the new Bauhaus Dessau school building in 1925–26 on commission from the city of Dessau. He collaborated with Carl Fieger , Ernst Neufert and others within his private architectural practice. Gropius also designed
13206-434: The most innovative expressionist projects, including Bruno Taut 's Alpine Architecture and Hermann Finsterlin 's Formspiels , remained on paper. Scenography for theatre and films provided another outlet for the expressionist imagination, and provided supplemental incomes for designers attempting to challenge conventions in a harsh economic climate. A particular type, using bricks to create its forms (rather than concrete)
13348-552: The name of the Cité Radieuse (and later "Cité du Fada" "City of the crazy one" in Marseille French), after his book about futuristic urban planning. Following his doctrines of design, the building had a concrete frame raised up above the street on pylons. It contained 337 duplex apartment units, fit into the framework like pieces of a puzzle. Each unit had two levels and a small terrace. Interior "streets" had shops,
13490-504: 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);
13632-455: The office of the renowned architect and industrial designer Peter Behrens , one of the first members of the utilitarian school. His fellow employees at this time included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe , Le Corbusier , and Dietrich Marcks. Gropius left the firm of Behrens in 1910 and established a practice in Berlin with fellow employee Adolf Meyer . Together they share credit for one of the pioneering modernist buildings created during this period:
13774-544: The orphaned daughter of Ise's sister Hertha. Ise Gropius died on 9 June 1983 in Lexington, Massachusetts. Walter's sister Manon Burchard (1880–1975) is the great-grandmother of the German film and theater actresses Marie Burchard and Bettina Burchard [ de ] , and of the curator and art historian Wolf Burchard . In 1908, after studying architecture in Munich and Berlin for four semesters, Gropius joined
13916-577: The pavilion of the Soviet Union, topped by enormous statues of a worker and a peasant carrying a hammer and sickle. As to the modernists, Le Corbusier was practically, but not quite invisible at the Exposition; he participated in the Pavilion des temps nouveaux, but focused mainly on his painting. The one modernist who did attract attention was a collaborator of Le Corbusier, Josep Lluis Sert ,
14058-498: The postwar period. Henry van de Velde , the master of the Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts in Weimar was asked to step down in 1915 due to his Belgian nationality. His recommendation for Gropius to succeed him led eventually to Gropius's appointment as master of the school in 1919. It was this academy which Gropius transformed into the world-famous Bauhaus (a.k.a. Gropius School of Arts), attracting
14200-536: 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
14342-421: 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:
14484-463: 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
14626-580: The rest of his life teaching at the Harvard Graduate School of Design . In the United States he worked on several projects with Marcel Breuer and with the firm The Architects Collaborative , of which he was a founding partner. In 1959, he won the AIA Gold Medal , one of the most prestigious awards in architecture. Born in Berlin , Walter Gropius was the third child of Walter Adolph Gropius and Manon Auguste Pauline Scharnweber (1855–1933), daughter of
14768-473: The rise Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, most of the leaders of the German Bauhaus movement found a new home in the United States, and played an important part in the development of American modern architecture. 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
14910-444: 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
15052-549: The rooftops of these college buildings with gymnasia . Both buildings are now Grade II listed, with the Building and Printing College (now known as the 'Met Tower') is as of 2023 undergoing restoration and conversion into office space Other examples of buildings that drew inspiration from Le Corbusier's Unité d'Habitation in Marseille are: 43°15′41″N 5°23′47″E / 43.2613°N 5.3963°E / 43.2613; 5.3963 Modern architecture Modern architecture , also called modernist architecture ,
15194-442: The roots of the movement were to be found in the works of Eugène Viollet le duc , while Mies van der Rohe was heavily inspired by Karl Friedrich Schinkel . 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 . Modern architecture emerged at
15336-698: The school year in England. The house the Gropiuses built for themselves in 1938 in Lincoln, Massachusetts (now known as Gropius House ) was influential in bringing International Modernism to the US, but Gropius disliked the term: "I made it a point to absorb into my own conception those features of the New England architectural tradition that I found still alive and adequate." In designing his house, Gropius used
15478-765: The southern part of Marseille , France. It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2016 because of its importance to the development of modernist architecture, along with 16 other works by Le Corbusier. It is also designated a historic monument by the French Ministry of Culture . It was damaged by fire on 9 February 2012. In 1920, Le Corbusier started to develop the Unité d'Habitation type, which became influential in 20th century modernism and contemporary residential design in Europe. The first realizations were built in Paris and Marseille in
15620-450: 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,
15762-437: The stage. 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". 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
15904-535: 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
16046-467: 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. In the United States, the Great Depression led to
16188-645: The survey of Ruggero Tropeano. The same model was then on display at Centre Pompidou . A full scale original kitchen, stairs, and other parts of the apartments are stored and displayed in several museum collections around the world. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York acquired a complete kitchen in 2013. In 2007, students built a structurally correct full-scale model inside the museum "Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine" in Paris. Unité d'habitation model apartments have been rebuilt in exhibitions or renovated in their historic style. The first and most famous of
16330-490: 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. Expressionism , which appeared in Germany between 1910 and 1925, was a counter-movement against the strictly functional architecture of the Bauhaus and Werkbund. Its advocates, including Bruno Taut , Hans Poelzig , Fritz Hoger and Erich Mendelsohn , wanted to create architecture that
16472-547: The tenants was furnished with a decorative pool, seats and plant boxes. The crowning glory is a distinctive concrete canopy and pergola. The estate was popular with professionals such as doctors and is still a self-sufficient 'urban village'. It is seen as the most successful of England's housing developments from the early 1950s. Designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon. The apartment building Polska Akademia Nauk ( Polish Academy of Sciences ) in 20 Wiejska Street in Warsaw , Poland
16614-668: The units face east and west. The replacement of steel by rough-cast concrete ( béton brut ) was a key element that seeded the Brutalist Movement. The Unité d'Habitation inspired many brutalist housing complexes. In England such buildings include the Alton West estate in Roehampton , London, and Park Hill in Sheffield , both of which have attracted much negative criticism. More successful English incarnations of
16756-604: The wake of the First Five Year Plan – including colossal Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (1932) – and made an attempt to start the standardization of living blocks with Ginzburg's Narkomfin building . A number of architects from the pre-Soviet period also took up the constructivist style. The most famous example was Lenin's Mausoleum in Moscow (1924), by Alexey Shchusev (1924) The main centers of constructivist architecture were Moscow and Leningrad; however, during
16898-436: The works of Viollet le Duc. 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. In 1853 Coignet built the first iron reinforced concrete structure, a four-storey house in the suburbs of Paris. A further important step forward was the invention of the safety elevator by Elisha Otis , first demonstrated at
17040-502: The world. In the block's planning, the architect drew on his study of a Soviet communal housing project, the Narkomfin Building in Moscow, designed by the architect Moisei Ginzburg and completed in 1932. Le Corbusier's design for utopian high density housing for cities was repeated in four more buildings with the same name and a very similar design: All were oriented with the building's long axis running north–south, so
17182-551: Was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School , who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture . He was a founder of Bauhaus in Weimar and taught there for several years, becoming known as a leading proponent of the International Style . Gropius emigrated from Germany to England in 1934 and from England to the United States in 1937, where he spent much of
17324-462: Was a prototype for the modernist office buildings that followed. (It was torn down in 1957, because it stood in the zone between East and West Berlin, where the Berlin Wall was constructed.) Following the rise of the Nazis to power, he moved to England (1933), then to the United States (1941). Fritz Höger was another notable Expressionist architect of the period. His Chilehaus was built as
17466-851: Was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and is now available to the public for tours. Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv in the White City recognizes the greatest concentration of Bauhaus buildings in the world. In 1959, he received the AIA Gold Medal . On May 17, 2008, Google Doodle commemorated Walter Gropius' 125th birthday. In 1996, the Bauhaus Building and the Master Houses were added to list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites . NB: The building in Niederkirchnerstraße , Berlin known as
17608-454: 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
17750-700: Was also inspired by the Polish pavilion from the 1937 World Expo in Paris , especially the sandstone wall relief and the entrance roof with round holes. Other Polish buildings inspired by the Unité d'Habitation include the Za Żelazną Bramą Housing Estate (Behind the Iron Gate) in Warsaw , and Superjednostka in Katowice , built in the 1970s. In Scotland , the Glasgow College of Building and Printing (1964), and
17892-457: Was an architectural movement and style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco and later postmodern movements. Modern architecture was based upon new and innovative technologies of construction (particularly the use of glass , steel , and concrete ); the principle functionalism (i.e. that form should follow function ); an embrace of minimalism ; and a rejection of ornament . According to Le Corbusier ,
18034-630: Was an example of what he called rationalist architecture ; it had a simple stucco rectangular façade with square windows and no ornament. The fame of the new movement, which became known as the Vienna Secession spread beyond Austria. Josef Hoffmann , a student of Wagner, constructed a landmark of early modernist architecture, the Stoclet Palace , in Brussels, in 1906–1911. This residence, built of brick covered with Norwegian marble,
18176-476: Was an influence on him at that time. In 1920, the Bauhaus was given its first major commission that would utilize almost all of the workshops in the school. This commission was for a house for Adolf Sommerfeld made from wood. The architectural designs for the house came from Gropius and Adolf Meyer. The Sommerfeld House was completed in 1921. In 1923, Gropius designed his famous door handles, now considered an icon of 20th-century design and often listed as one of
18318-525: Was born in 1916. When Manon died of polio at age 18, in 1935, composer Alban Berg wrote his Violin Concerto in memory of her (it is inscribed "to the memory of an angel"). Gropius and Mahler divorced in 1920 (She had by that time established a relationship with Franz Werfel , whom she later married). Gropius married Ilse Frank, known as Ise, on 16 October 1923; they remained together until his death in 1969. The couple adopted Beate Frank known as Ati ,
18460-696: Was commissioned in 1913 to design a car for the Prussian Railroad Locomotive Works in Königsberg . This locomotive was unique and the first of its kind in Germany and perhaps in Europe. Other works of this early period include the office and factory building for the Werkbund Exhibition (1914) in Cologne . Gropius published an article about "The Development of Industrial Buildings" in 1913, which included about
18602-485: Was composed of geometric blocks, wings, and a tower. A large pool in front of the house reflected its cubic forms. The interior was decorated with paintings by Gustav Klimt and other artists, and the architect even designed clothing for the family to match the architecture. In Germany, a modernist industrial movement, Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) had been created in Munich in 1907 by Hermann Muthesius ,
18744-403: Was inspired by Le Corbusier's principles. The architect was Jerzy Gieysztor and the building was completed in 1964. Among Central European countries, it is unique for its period. It is an abstract sculptural building that floats over anthropomorphic concrete pillars ( pilotis ). All its apartments are spacious, there is an indoor shopping mall, and the roof terrace has a swimming pool. This building
18886-441: 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. Mussolini's government was not as hostile to modernism as The Nazis;
19028-509: Was invented in 1848, allowing the manufacture of very large windows. The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 was an early example of iron and plate glass construction, followed in 1864 by the first glass and metal curtain wall . These developments together led to the first steel-framed skyscraper, the ten-story Home Insurance Building in Chicago, built in 1884 by William Le Baron Jenney and based on
19170-513: Was modern, but it was not modernist; it had many features of modernism, including the use of reinforced concrete, glass, steel, chrome, and it rejected traditional historical models, such as the Beaux-Arts style and Neo-classicism ; but, unlike the modernist styles of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, it made lavish use of decoration and color. It reveled in the symbols of modernity; lightning flashes, sunrises, and zig-zags. Art Deco had begun in France before World War I and spread through Europe; in
19312-530: Was poetic, expressive, and optimistic. Many expressionist architects had fought in World War I and their experiences, combined with the political turmoil and social upheaval that followed the German Revolution of 1919, resulted in a utopian outlook and a romantic socialist agenda. Economic conditions severely limited the number of built commissions between 1914 and the mid-1920s, As result, many of
19454-424: Was scheduled for Moscow in 1932, but was cancelled at the last minute. Instead, the delegates held their meeting on a cruise ship traveling between Marseille and Athens. On board, they together drafted a text on how modern cities should be organized. The text, called The Athens Charter , after considerable editing by Corbusier and others, was finally published in 1957 and became an influential text for city planners in
19596-536: Was supposed to be built of reinforced concrete, but because of technical problems it was finally built of traditional materials covered with plaster. His sculptural form, very different from the austere rectangular forms of the Bauhaus, first won him commissions to build movie theaters and retail stores in Stuttgart, Nuremberg, and Berlin. His Mossehaus in Berlin was an early model for the streamline moderne style. His Columbushaus on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin (1931)
19738-521: Was the Kaufmann Desert House in 1946, and he designed hundreds of further projects. The 1937 Paris International Exposition in Paris effectively marked the end of the Art Deco, and of pre-war architectural styles. Most of the pavilions were in a neoclassical Deco style, with colonnades and sculptural decoration. The pavilions of Nazi Germany, designed by Albert Speer , in a German neoclassical style topped by eagle and swastika, faced
19880-614: Was the armchair F 51, designed for the Bauhaus's directors room in 1920 – nowadays a re-edition in the market, manufactured by the German company TECTA/Lauenfoerde. In 1919, Gropius was involved in the Glass Chain utopian expressionist correspondence under the pseudonym "Mass." Usually more notable for his functionalist approach, the Monument to the March Dead , designed in 1919 and executed in 1920, indicates that expressionism
20022-512: Was the tower proposed by painter and sculptor Vladimir Tatlin for the Moscow meeting of the Third Communist International in 1920: he proposed two interlaced towers of metal four hundred meters high, with four geometric volumes suspended from cables. The movement of Russian Constructivist architecture was launched in 1921 by a group of artists led by Aleksandr Rodchenko . Their manifesto proclaimed that their goal
20164-504: Was to find the "communist expression of material structures". Soviet architects began to construct workers' clubs, communal apartment houses, and communal kitchens for feeding whole neighborhoods. One of the first prominent constructivist architects to emerge in Moscow was Konstantin Melnikov , the number of working clubs – including Rusakov Workers' Club (1928) – and his own living house, Melnikov House (1929) near Arbat Street in Moscow. Melnikov traveled to Paris in 1925 where he built
#731268