In the Modern movement of architecture there was an impulse to break from the classical styles and regulations that had been governing design. Through this break many new designers emerged. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe became widely regarded as a Modern architect with his simplistic designs and attention to details. Alvar Aalto of Finland was known as a Romantic Modernist as he paid homage to nature through his undulating surfaces and allusions to the landscape. Both men embraced the new movement and desired to connect their work with nature. Aalto was known for using organic shapes to influence the plans, flow of spaces, and overall form of his buildings; however, Mies relied on simplistic forms striving for less and utilizing new construction technics to create simple often overlapping angular plans. In comparing the two modern architects, their unique forms and the influence of nature on both, we are able to understand the two drastically different strategies for design and their common roots.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was the modern architect of simplicity. Through simple overlapping geometric forms Mies was able to create very fluid spaces. Mies was trained in a crafts school; his early work was made of primarily neo-classical homes (Tegethoff, 1985). One such home was the Riehl house (Tegethoff, 1985). Mies moved away from the classically inspired facades of traditional architecture and began to focus in on materials and structure. In what is possibly his most well-known work, the Barcelona Pavilion, Mies’ emphasis on the materials used and simplicity is easily seen. The floor plan emphasizes a fluidity of movement through a sequence of parallel and perpendicular lines (Schulze, 1985). There is fluidity in the plan...
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...sentials of angularity. The other man looked to biological inspirations for his form replicating the variety and organic quality of nature in his curvilinear designs. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe stripped his buildings down and achieved art through his seemingly basic forms by allowing the structure and craft of both materials and design to become the ornament. He opened his linear buildings to nature; embracing steel construction to reduce heavy walls to transparent glass. Alvar Aalto wished to create spaces with the same vibrant and rich beauty as is found in nature using curved walls, ceilings or screens and using local materials such as brick, wood, and stone. Aalto veered away from machinism in favor of a more natural organization. Mies and Aalto took architectural style into the modern era each taking a vastly different paths built on the same foundation.
I wander down the Hall of Mirrors in the French Palace of Versailles. Soon after I am thinking of the converse style, and recall that German Architect Mies van der Rohe has created the most simplistic a...
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.
It is the new decade after the end of world war two and modernism is a well-established practice. Its pioneers and spearheads are prevalent figures looming over the new architects and designers who are trying to make their mark in the shadows of such historically influential people. With new technologies and materials emerging from the world wars the next era of modernism had started to evolved, bringing with it philosophies and ideas which seemed far removed from those of the pioneers of modernism “What emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s was an expanding synthesis of questions utterly removed from the confident statements of the pioneers.”(Spade 1971,10) Two significant buildings were designed in the 50's, both of them for educational institutes and to house students of architecture, there were both designed in completely different styles and methods. The first is Ludwig Mies van der Rohes' Crown Hall, finished in 1956 and designed as a part of a campus master plan for the Illinois Institute of technology in Chicago. Mies' design for Crown Hall is one of his most realised expressio...
“Form follows function.” Every great Modern architect thought, designed by and breathed these very words. Or at least, their design principles evolved from them. Modern architects Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pierre Chareau, and Rudolf Schindler to name a few believed that the function determined the space whether the space was solely for a particular purpose or they overlapped to allow for multiple uses. Form didn’t just follow function, function defined the space. By focusing on the relationship between the architecture and the interior elements, Chareau’s Maison de Verre expanded the idea of functionalism to include not only the architecture but also the space it creates and how people function within that space.
The success of the Van Nelle Factory as an icon of modern architecture was due to its functional design concepts fused with the principles of progressivism and idealistic concepts. The flexible interior, the large amounts of penetrating light, the elegance of clean and healthy functionalism, and the weightless mass were the strongest attributes for the complex. With Brinkman’s, Van der Vlugt’s, and Van der Leeuw’s combined education of modern architecture they were able to employ their design ideologies to create one of the most renowned factories in Europe. Paul Bromberg wrote that the Dutch architects soon “… realize[d] that even the most utilitarian buildings can and should be beautiful. Building should always be architecture, even when it is ‘only’ a factory.”
Rowland, Kurt F. A History of the Modern Movement: Art Architecture Design. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973. 142. Print.
Such like the House at Regensburg; aestheticism played a part but here it is interpreted in a different sense. Eames created an aesthetic effect that arose from the ‘careful juxtapositions of ready-made structural elements’. This can be seen from the webbed trusses, which are formed from reflections and transparencies. Where selected objects are a part of the architecture itself, as much as the building. The eucalyptus trees filter the light entering the house, only selecting judicious objects, which creates a unique effect for the interior of the house. The design of the house achieved a ‘poetry of form’, that were in a state of difference with the ‘absolution of Mies’.
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.
Art Deco and Bauhaus are two of the most influential art styles that influenced modern America today. From the avant-garde decorations and design that is still present in Los Angeles, to the flat roof design and simplicity of houses and shops that can be seen almost anywhere, these two designs are still present in our communities. The two movements do have some comparative similarities, but are also very different in design and concept. One should now be able to distinguish the similarities and differences between Art Deco and
The essence of modern architecture lays in a remarkable strives to reconcile the core principles of architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society. However, it took “the form of numerous movements, schools of design, and architectural styles, some in tension with one another, and often equally defying such classification, to establish modernism as a distinctive architectural movement” (Robinson and Foell). Although, the narrower concept of modernism in architecture is broadly characterized by simplification of form and subtraction of ornament from the structure and theme of the building, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose; the visual expression of the structure, particularly the visual importance of the horizontal and vertical lines typical for the International Style modernism, the use of industrially-produced materials and adaptation of the machine aesthetic, as well as the truth to materials concept, meaning that the true nat...
Jencks believes “the glass-and-steel box has become the single most used form in Modern Architecture and it signifies throughout the world ‘office building’” (27). Thus, modern architecture is univalent in terms of form, in other words it is designed around one out of a few basic values using a limited number of materials and right angles. In...
Mies created established characteristics that became essential for modern architecture. “Less is more”. These three words really jump started the modernist movement in architecture and embodies the philosophy of minimalism. Stripping away the ornament and décor to get to the essence of a building. Mies van der Rohe changed architecture through these radical ideas. Many of these concepts we still see today in modern and minimalist styles. The simple and open plan has been replicated
Frank Lloyd Wright has been called “one of the greatest American architect as well as an Art dealer that produced a numerous buildings, including houses, resorts, gardens, office buildings, churches, banks and museums. Wright was the first architect that pursues a philosophy of truly organic architecture that responds to the symphonies and harmonies in human habitats to their natural world. He was the apprentice of “father of Modernism” Louis Sullivan, and he was also one of the most influential architects on 20th century in America, Wright is idealist with the use of elemental theme and nature materials (stone, wood, and water), the use of sky and prairie, as well as the use of geometrical lines in his buildings planning. He also defined a building as ‘being appropriate to place’ if it is in harmony with its natural environment, with the landscape (Larkin and Brooks, 1993).
Architecture is the concept of bringing structure, materiality, form and space together as a whole, provide people with enclosed atmosphere to experience. Considering this, it is important to identify that materiality and the purpose of details has been a key methodology to bringing architectural intentions into the design in an affective manner, more over producing an architectural expression. However, this position is rather declining in architecture, reducing tectonics and materiality to being secondary to form and space. With the start of modernism, the attempt to achieve minimalistic style has caused detailing to increasingly develop into a decorative aspect of a building, neglecting its individual contribution to architecture.
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?