UNIT 4

Architectural Schools of thought

Expressionism

Expressionist architecture refers to an architectural style that developed in

Europe in the first part of the 20th Century.
Expressionism in architecture manifested through the Bauhaus Movement, that
originated in Germany and spread to Denmark through Functionalism, and to The
Netherlands through the artistic movement "De Stijl".
emphasizing subjective feelings and emotions

Architects associated
Three major German architects of the period associated with the expressionist movement
were Bruno Taut, Hans Scharoun and Erich Mendelsohn, the latter chiefly for his early
drawings and the iconic Einstein Tower.

Characteristics

Artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the
subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse in him.
He accomplishes his aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and
fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal
elements.
Conception of architecture as a work of art
Distortion of form for an emotional effect
An underlying effort at achieving the new, original visionary.
Profusion of works on paper, and models, with discovery and representations of
concepts more important than pragmatic finished products.
Often hybrid solutions, irreducible to a single concept
Themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning,
crystal and rock formations.
Utilizes creative potential of artisan craftsmanship.
Tendency more towards the gothic than the classical. Expressionist architecture
also tends more towards the Romanesque and the rococo than the classical.
Though a movement in Europe, expressionism is as eastern as western. It draws
as much from Moorish, Islamic, Egyptian, and Indian art and architecture as from
Roman or Greek

Elastic Forms

Form played a defining role in setting apart expressionist architecture from its
immediate predecessor, art nouveau

While art nouveau had an organic freedom with ornament, expressionist

architecture strove to free the form of the whole building instead of just its parts

Einstein tower an example of Expressionism

An example of a built expressionist project that is inventive formally is Erich

Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower.
This sculpted building shows a relativistic and shifting view of geometry.
Devoid of applied ornament,
Form and space are shaped in fluid concrete to express concepts of the architect
and the building's namesake.

Materials in Expressionism

A recurring concern of expressionist architects is materials.

There was often an intention to unify the materials in a building so as to make it
monolithic.
Bruno Taut and Paul Scheerbart's doctrine of glass architecture
Mendelson was familiar for concrete architecture

Futurism

Futurist architecture (or Futurism) began as an early-20th century

Form of architecture characterized by anti-historicism and long horizontal lines
suggesting speed, motion and urgency.
This artistic movement started in Italy and lasted from 1909 to 1944.
Futurist forms suggest speed, dynamism and strong expressivity, in an effort to
make architecture belonging to modern times.

Characteristics of Futurism
Futurism is not a style but an open approach to architecture, so it has been
reinterpreted by different generations of architects across several decades, but is

usually marked by striking shapes, dynamic lines, strong contrasts and use of
advanced materials.

Architects influential in futurist architecture

Virgilio Marchi
Louis Armet
Welton Becket
Arthur Erickson
Wayne McAllister
Oscar Niemeyer
William Pereira
Zaha Hadid
Frank Gehry
Manifestos of futurism for future city

Manifesto of Futurist Architecture published in Lacerba 11 July 1914

Architecture must be impermanent we must invent and remake the Futurist city
to be like a huge tumultuous shipyard, agile, mobile, dynamic in all its parts; and
the Futurist house to be like a gigantic machine in the manifesto.
Elevators would be on the outside of the buildings, buildings would be
proportioned in accordance with their needs, and
Streets would be on street levels joined by escalators. Built of concrete, glass, and
steel they would proudly display their structure and mechanical functions

Santa Elias concept of New City

Antonio Sant Elia, in a way, already had anti establishment tendencies in

architecture, he had been part of the group New Tendencies which like Futurism
criticised Italys architects for adopting the styles of the past. Sant Elias visions
were not materialised and we only have his sketches to refer to.
The city would resemble a complex that linked domestic and industrial habitats at the centre would be the power station (the new cathedral).
Santa Elia New City represents multi levels, built from new materials and
technology; reinforced concrete, glass, and steel. There would be no decorative
elements.
Emphasis was given to the vertical line. Spherical shapes were also an element. It
resembles in part the new cities that are depicted in science fiction films

Drawings of Santa elia showing the proposal for the future city

Proclaim of Futurist architecture

That Futurist architecture is the architecture of calculation, of simplicity; the

architecture of reinforced concrete, of steel, glass, cardboard, textile fiber,
and of all those substitutes for wood, stone and brick that enable us to obtain
maximum elasticity and lightness;
That Futurist architecture is not because of this an arid combination of
practicality and usefulness, but remains art, i.e. synthesis and expression;
That oblique and elliptic lines are dynamic, and by their very nature possess
an emotive power a thousand times stronger than perpendiculars and
horizontals,
That decoration as an element superimposed on architecture is absurd, and
that the decorative value of Futurist architecture depends solely on the use
and original arrangement of raw or bare or violently colored materials
Monolithic skyscraper buildings with terraces, bridges and aerial walkways
that embodied the sheer excitement of modern architecture and technology
That by the term architecture is meant the endeavor to harmonize the
environment with Man with freedom and great audacity, that is to transform
the world of things into a direct projection of the world of the spirit;
From architecture conceived in this way no formal or linear habit can grow,
since the fundamental characteristics of Futurist architecture will be its
impermanence and transience.
Things will endure less than us. Every generation must build its own city.
This constant renewal of the architectonic environment will contribute to the
victory of Futurism which has already been affirmed by words-in-freedom,
plastic dynamism.

Cubism

Cubism was an early 20th century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized
European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and
literature.
In cubist artworks, objects are broken up, analyzed, and re-assembled in an
abstracted form
The Cubists had technology on their side. Reinforced concrete was making its
way into construction, and enabled them to design open floor plans without
needing pillars
revolt against the excessively decorative style
Cubism can be divided into two phases Analytical cubism, the earlier phase,
continued until 1912. It was followed by synthetic cubism, which lasted
through 1915.
Analytical cubism fragments the physical world into intersecting geometric planes
and interpenetrating volumes.
Synthetic cubism, by contrast, synthesizes (combines) abstract shapes to represent
objects in a new way.

Cubist house in Prague, Czech Republic

Architect: Josef Chochol

Constructivist architecture

Constructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in

the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s.
It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist
social purpose
a form that is technically efficient in engineering terms, a space organized by
means of an open structure, rather than enclosed volumes, a combination of frame
and glazing rather than solid walls, all these devices being aimed at preserving the
visual impression of undivided space.
Constructivist (Constructivism) is a term used to define a type of totally abstract
(non-representational) relief construction
The principles of constructivism theory are derived from three main movements
that evolved in the early part of the 20th century: Suprematism in Russia, De Stijl
(Neo Plasticism) in Holland and the Bauhaus in Germany.
The first Constructivist architectural project was the 1919 proposal for the
headquarters of the Communist International in St Petersburg by the Futurist
Vladimir Tatlin, often called Tatlin's Tower.

Tatlins Tower by Vladimir Tatlin

Example of Constructivism
The Rusakov Workers' Club in Moscow is a notable example of constructivist
architecture. Designed by Konstantin Melnikov, it was constructed from 1927 to
1928.
In plan, the club resembles a fan; in elevation, it is divided into a base and three
cantilevered concrete seating areas. Each of these can be used as a separate
auditorium, while if combined, the building seats over 1,000 people. At the rear of
the building are more conventional offices. The only visible materials used in its
construction are concrete, brick and glass.
The function of the building is to some extent expressed in the exterior, which
Melnikov described as a "tensed muscle".

De stijl

Dutch nonfigurative art movement, also called neoplasticism. In 1917 a group of

artists, architects, and poets was organized under the name de Stijl, and a journal
of the same name was initiated.
The leaders of the movement were the artists Theo van Doesburg and Piet
Mondrian.
They advocated a purification of art, eliminating subject matter in favor of
vertical and horizontal elements, and the use of primary colors and noncolors.
Their austerity of expression influenced architects, principally J.J.P.Oud and
Gerrit Rietveld. The movement lasted until 1931; in architecture a few de Stijl
principles are still applied.

Principles of Destijl

In general, De Stijl proposed ultimate simplicity and abstraction, both in

architecture and painting, by using only straight (horizontal and vertical) lines and
rectangular forms.
The colour palette was reduced to the primary colours red, yellow and blue.
Black, white and grey were used as well.

The works avoided symmetry and attained aesthetic balance by the use of
opposition.

In many of the group's three-dimensional works, vertical and horizontal lines are
positioned in layers or planes that do not intersect, thereby allowing each element
to exist independently and unobstructed by other elements.

This feature can be found in the Rietveld Schrder House and the Red and blue
chair.

The Rietveld Schrder House

The Rietveld Schrder House was built in 1924 by Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld for
Mrs. Schrder and her children. She commissioned the house to be designed preferably
without walls. The house is one of the best known examples of De Stijl-architecture and
arguably the only true De Stijl building.

Rietveld Schrder House

Characteristics of the house

The Rietveld Schrder House constitutes both inside and outside a radical break
with all architecture before it.

The two-story house is built onto the end of a terrace, but it makes no attempt to
relate to its neighbouring buildings.

Inside there is no static accumulation of rooms, but a dynamic, changeable open

zone.

The ground floor can still be termed traditional; ranged around a central staircase
are kitchen and three sit/bedrooms.

The living area upstairs, given as an attic to satisfy the planning authorities, in fact
forms a large open zone except for a separate toilet and a bathroom.

Rietveld wanted to leave the upper level as was. Mrs Schrder, however, felt that
as living space it should be usable in either form, open or subdivided. This was
achieved with a system of sliding and revolving panels.

When entirely partitioned in, the living level comprises three bedrooms,
bathroom and living room.

In-between this and the open state is and endless series of permutations, each
providing its own spatial experience.

The facades are a collage of planes and lines whose components are purposely
detached from, and seem to glide past, one another.

This enabled the provision of several balconies. Like Rietveld's Red and Blue
Chair, each component has its own form, position and color.

Colors where chosen as to strengthen the plasticity of the facades; surfaces in

white and shades of grey, black window and doorframes, and a number of linear
elements in primary colors.

Piet Mondriaan
Piet Mondriaan was born in the Netherlands in 1872. His painting style evolved as he
discovered the new styles of painting of Europe in the early twentieth century. He and his
painting became more European and international and he changed the spelling of his
name from the more Dutch-sounding Mondriaan to the less Dutch (even perhaps
Armenian) Mondrian. He was influenced by Cubism to the point of taking art studies in
Paris at the late age of about forty. He had previously been acquainted with artists
influenced by Fauvism and Pointillism. But these schools of thought in art were left
behind at he developed his own doctrine of art, called Neoplasticism. This aesthetic
philosophy was rooted in his interest in Theosophy. Under the guidance of theosophy
painting became a devotional experience for Mondrian.

Using his doctrine of Neoplasticism as a guide Mondrian and other artists created works
of art which were collectively known as De Stijl (The Style). This started at the time of
the First World War.
De Stijl was not limited just to painting; it also included architecture, stage sets and
furniture design. Mondrian was joined in creating De Stijl by the artists Theo van
Doesburg, Bart van der Leck, Georges Vantongerloo and Gerrit Rietveld. Van Doesburg
edited a periodical entitled De Stijl which gave coherence to the movement and in which
Mondrian published his formulation of the movements aesthetic principles.
Jacobus Johannes Pieter Oud (February 9, 1890 - April 5, 1963) was a Dutch architect.
His fame began as a follower of the De Stijl movement.
Oud was born in Purmerend, the son of a tobacco and wine merchant. As a young
architect, he was influenced by Berlage, and studied under Theodor Fischer in Munich
for a time. He worked together with W.M. Dudok in Leiden, which is where he also met
Theo van Doesburg and became involved with the movement De Stijl.
Between 1918 and 1933, Oud became Municipal Housing Architect for Rotterdam.
During this period when many laborers were coming to the city, he mostly worked on
socially progressive residential projects. This included projects in the areas Spangen,
Kiefhoek and the Witte Dorp. Oud was one of a number of Dutch architects who
attempted to reconcile strict, rational, 'scientific' cost-effective construction technique
against the psychological needs and aesthetic expectations of the users. His own answer
was to practice 'poetic functionalism'.