Modern Architecture in the U.S.A. Immigration and Consolidation

1. Modern Architecture in the U.S.A.Immigration and Consolidation Mies van der Rohe • Technology is rooted in the past. It dominates the present and tends into the future. It is a real historical movement – one of the great movements which shape and represent their epoch. • Whenever technology reaches its real fulfillment, it transcends into architecture. • It is true that architecture depends on facts, but its real field of activity is in the ream of significance. • Architecture is the real battleground of the spirit. Architecture wrote the history of the epochs and gave them their names. • Architecture depends on its time. It is the crystallization of its inner structure, the slow unfolding of its form. That is the reason why technology and architecture are so closely related. Architecture as a true symbol of our time can only occur when architecture consumes technology as an expressive media.

2. Walter Gropius • The existing cities should be relieved of congestion and high blood pressure. Resettled around small industries in new townships people would regain their productive capacity and purchasing power. • The new townships should settle along super-highways and be connected by fast feeder roads with the old city center. • The size of the townships should be limited by the pedestrian range to keep them within a human scale. • The townships must be surrounded by their own farm belts. • The administrative setup of a township should take the form of a self-contained unit with its independent local government. This will strengthen community spirit. A concept intended to generate the suburbanization of corporate America

3. Less is MoreAn economical office design and the creation of company identity 1950 – Present Two basic variations on the office/commercial/institutional building: The urban high-rise (Citicorp Center, New York City) The low-rise set in a picturesque landscape (Pepsi Cola World Headquarters, Purchase NY)

4. Illinois Institute of Technology Campus, Chicago, Illinois, Mies van der Rohe, 1938 • The Armour Institute was transformed into a Bauhaus inspired curriculum based on the visual and tactile characteristics of materials as well as fundamental classes on drawings and construction techniques. • Mies was given the commission to create a master plan and design each building. • A suburban plan was created in theory representing the goals of modernism – a new form of the city with emphasis on light and air, universal forms, and contemporary building technology.

5. A universal architecture where form is the by-product of an attempt to articulate the classical elements of architecture • How the building meets the ground • How the structural system supports the roof (and floors inbetween) • How the roof/sky relationship is expressed • How the infill walls are formed relative to the structure and under the roof • How entry is expressed

6. Building in the City Equitable Savings and Loan Association Building, Portland Oregon by Pietro Belluschi, 1945-48 • Reinforced-concrete frame with glass and aluminum skin • The concrete, glass and aluminum are conceived as a flush surface without decoration or relief • The base is recessed to recognize the pedestrian level, floors above are repetitive and the skyline is marked by a safety fence.

7. Lever House, Gordon Bunshaft (SOM), New York City, New York; 1950-52

9. The tower-and-podium configuration and light curtain wall were emulated worldwide • Epitomized the refusal to make any but the most token concessions to local climate and culture. • Columns free the ground plane and podium garden follow Corbusian ideas • Columns located in floor plate of tower make possible the uninterrupted glass skin

10. Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Chicago by Mies van der Rohe, 1948-1951 An archetype typology adopted for all high-rise projects • Central elevator core and circulation spine • The columns and mullion dimensions determine window widths • Each floor is created to afford and unobstructed clear-span single-story unitary volume. • I beams intended to articulate the vertical character of the façade are not structural

12. Seagram Building, Mies van der Rohe, New York City, New York; 1954-58

14. Noted for: • It’s abstract expression of the contemporary office tower • It’s rigorous organization of the facade • It’s setbacks from the street that form semipublic fore courts.

15. General Motors Technical Center, Warren Michigan by Eero Saarinen, 1949-1956 • Five corporate departments housed around a lake • No building more than three stories high • Innovations included: • Large enameled metal panels for wall infill • Neoprene insulation strips between façade elements (glass and metal panels) • Luminously colored glazed brick

16. Crown Hall, Mies van der Rohe, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois; 1950-56

18. A clear structure with a column-free universal space • Demonstrated the classic issues faced by all architecture: • How does the building meet the ground? A podium • How are floors supported? Columns • How is the roof supported? Columns and Beams • How does the building meet the sky? Exposed Structural Elements • How is space enclosed? Infill Walls between the Structural Elements • Mies effectively demonstrates his thesis that “less is more”.

19. Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin by Mies van der Rohe, 1962-1967 The culmination of Mies van der Rohe’s career • A clear idealistic statement with regard to a modern interpretation of Greek and Roman classicism • The generosity of the spaces as well as the directness of the details fulfills one of Mies van der Rohe’s principles: the space is large and abstract enough to contain a vast range of functions

20. Farnsworth House, Mies van der Rohe, Plano, Illinois; 1945-51

24. The ultimate expression of both the open plan and Mies’ ideal of “almost nothing” utilizing the classic Greek elements of architecture A ground and roof plane A column and beam structure A raised processional entry

25. Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut by Philip Johnson, 1949 • The center piece of a 35 acre compound of buildings, pavilions and follies • A transparent living pavilion conceived together with it didactical other, an opaque brick guest house • A pavilion of extremely pure clarity • Set on a reddish brown herringbone pattern of brick the one-story box measures 32’ x 56’ and is divided into three equal bays around a 10’ diameter brick cylinder containing a fireplace and bathroom • Supported by six steel I-columns

28. Niemeyer House by Oscar Niemeyer in Canoas, Brazil, 1953

30. Insures views by almost total visual continuity through the interior to the exterior achieving integration with the site – house and garden are inseparable • Niemeyer rejected the formal consistency of orthodox Modern architecture by responding directly to the forms of nature, to the sinuous curve

31. Broadacre City, Frank Lloyd Right, first proposed in 1934 • The models proposed a new space concept in social usage for individual and community buildings. The master plan was laid out in accordance with the conditions of land ownership already in effect in the United States and clearly formed by Thomas Jefferson. Centers were created but the community was organized on an agrarian model with an emphasis on a self sustaining free market entrepreneurial economy. • The Guggenheim Museum, New York, built in 1943-59, illustrates the cultural typology intended for Broadacre City. • The Price Tower, 1952-56, built in Bartlesville, Oklahoma illustrates the “high rise” office/residence typology intended for Broadacre City

32. Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright, New York City, New Your; 1943-59

34. Built of concrete the building demonstrates the potential of concrete to express continuity and plasticity as well as creating sense of serenity through its interior volumetric configuration and top sourced diffused natural light.

35. Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 1952-56 • Inspired by the concept of a tree with its central trunk and cantilevered branches • Reinforced concrete structural system sheathed in glass and metal • Each side of the building uniquely responsive to its solar exposure • The vertical service core contained all the utilities.