Both the Villa Savoye and the Kaufmann Residence are representative of modern architecture and the International Style. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Kaufmann Residence, also known as Fallingwater, is situated within nature and is constructed in the United States while the Villa Savoye is situated in Poissy-sur-Seine, France and is designed by Swiss-born Le Corbusier whose real name is Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris. Both left indelible marks on architecture and design which still resonate today. The International Style can be recognized by use of rectilinear forms and modern building materials such as concrete and steel with little in decoration or ornamentation. The movement emerged during the nineteen twenties and thirties with the help …show more content…
Designed around Corbusier’s Five Points system and with his own beliefs in functionalism and purism, the house is supported by twenty-five slender pilotis around its outer walls. On top of these pillars sits a reinforced-concrete second story, square in shape, with long rectangular windows framing most of the main unit. The top portion of the house features a terrace with enclosed wind break around a small garden. The ground floor of the house offers no immediate discernible entrance which forces the occupant to walk around the building and eventually up the spiral staircase to the roof. In keeping with his “five points of a new architecture,” Le Corbusier wanted the building to be elevated above the ground to allow accessibility to nature and human traffic. The second point he wanted was the creation of the roof garden which would replace the greenery normally inhabited by the building and incorporate it into the house itself. The open plan of the house features his third point, which is the separation of load-bearing pillars. The fourth point, which includes the strip windows was a response to provide more uniform light inside. The last point, the creation of a thin facade instead of a load-bearing wall was for aesthetic effect to create an abstract effect on the
The Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous architect, was built around 1936 and 1939. The house was built over a waterfall, in Pittsburgh, PA. He built this house for his clients, the Kaufmann’s. This is his most famous architect because it appears to be floating over a 30’ waterfall, instead of standing on solid ground, like houses usually do. The Fallingwater is still available to be viewed to this day, standing strong and beautiful, much like most of Wright’s buildings (“What is Fallingwater” 1).
Many of Frank Gehry’s early works reflect a refined manipulation of shapes and structures, whereby many of his buildings present distorted shapes or apparent structures. From the Guggenheim museum to the Walt Disney concert hall, Frank Gehry’s architecture is close to none. He cleverly plays with shapes and geometries. In this essay, I shall start with a brief analysis of Gehry’s house and the influences in the design of the house. I shall then analyze the extent to which Frank Lloyd Wright has inspired and influenced Gehry in the design of his house through a comparison with Frank Lloyd Wright’s Jacob’s house.
William H. Pierson, Jr., American Buildings and Their Architects: Technology and the Picturesque, (Doubleday & Company, Inc.), 167.
Characteristics of Art Deco are not easily defined because the term Art Deco describes a lot of styles ranging from ancient arts and French’s decorative arts to the modern arts. It can be described as the artifacts’ body including inspired works by the past cultures and Avant-grade arts but not copied from high style traditions and history. All these started at the first appearance of Art Deco at World’s Fair Paris in 1925 and has greatly influenced and inspired Art Deco (Arwas, et al., 1996). This term Art Deco is derived from the French word “Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes”
Rowland, Kurt F. A History of the Modern Movement: Art Architecture Design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973. 142. Print.
Wright designed Fallingwater in 1935. The design of the house promotes a harmony between man and nature, so that the buildings, walls and structures within the house are extensions of the exterior world. Fallingwater was designed for the Edgar J. Kaufmann family of Pittsburgh; the founders of a prominent department store in the city called Kaufmann’s. Construction on the project began in 1936 and was completed in 1939. Wright concentrated in on the Bear Run location because he knew of a waterfall in the area that the family loved to go visit all the time. In designing the house, Wright mimicked the natural pattern of rock ledges over the waterfall and cantilevered the house over the falls in a series of concrete ledges, anchored to masonry walls made of the same sandstone as the rock ledges. This view just described, is perhaps the most famous of all. The house hovers right over the rushing mountain stream in perfect harmony. The house extends 30 feet in height above the ledges, although strong horizontal lines and low ceilings help maintain an overall sheltering feeling.
In conclusion, the debate between aesthetics and functionalism has been around for a long time. It becomes clear however, through research, that the first thing architects consider is function, and then aesthetics. It is because of this approach that aesthetics becomes somewhat of a by-product of the whole design process. By looking at examples of various buildings, it is apparent that aesthetics is important to structure and in many instances has been successfully coupled with function. But in no circumstance should aesthetics take precedence over the function and practicality of a building. It seems more likely that a happy medium between function and aesthetics can be reached, on a project by project basis, and then applied to the design process of creating the building.
People are made of complexities and contradictions. Venturi recognized that buildings should be complex and complicated, too. He theorized and built buildings inspired by this principle, and succeeded because of his emphasis on individual experience and the interaction between humanity and architectural forms. In pursuit of this goal, his pluralist and revolutionary style of architecture embraced difference and ambiguity and rejected the rigid rules of modernism. While undoubtedly influenced by Venturi’s ideas, later postmodern architects failed to live up to his principles by forming their own inflexible rules and not concentrating on the human experience with buildings.
The reason for this piece is to attempt a comparison between two architectural examples that employ classical design from different stylistic eras of architectural history. The two styles I've chosen to discuss are the Renaissance and Baroque periods. An understanding of classical architecture needs to be made, as it is the fundamental style of any period that developed architecturally
In developing this contemporary and iconic building, the design focuses on practical attributes and optimises energy efficiency. The design strategy encapsulates four key aspects:
of their buildings. One of the basic questions that this paper will be seeking to answer is whether architects and critics accepted ...
Abstract: Contemporary architects have a wide variety of sources to gain inspiration from, but this has not always been the case. How did modernism effect sources of inspiration? What did post-modernism do to liberate the choice of influences? Now that Contemporary architects have the freedom of choice, how are they using “traditional” styles and materials to inspire them? Even after modernism why are traditional styles still around?
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are two very prominent names in the field of architecture. Both architects had different ideas concerning the relationship between humans and the environment. Their architectural styles were a reflection of how each could facilitate the person and the physical environment. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, is considered one of the most important buildings in the history of American architecture and Le Corbusier s Villa Savoye helped define the progression that modern architecture was to take in the 20th Century. Both men are very fascinating and have strongly influenced my personal taste for modern architecture. Although Wright and Corbusier each had different views on how to design a house, they also had similar beliefs. This paper is a comparison of Frank Lloyd Wright‘s and Le Corbusier ‘s viewpoints exhibited through their two prominent houses, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye.
From 1907 to 1911, on his advice, Le Corbusier undertook a series of trips that played a decisive role in the education of this self-taught architect. During these years of travel through central Europe and the Mediterranean, he made three major architectural discoveries. The Charterhouse of Ema at Galluzzo, in Tu...
In this essay I will discuss how concrete regionalism was presented in the work of Le Corbusier who is the most classic example of this movement, Oscar Niemeyer, and Antoine Predock . With each architect having a highly individual vision that has created unique buildings for people and their environment. These architects each has combined vernacular buildi...