CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

2013
1. a. Who designed Bhubaneswar? Name a contemporary town in India
designed by Charles Corea?
Bhubaneswar city was designed by German architect Otto Knigsberger in 1946.
Planning of Navi Mumbai was designed by Charles Corea.
b. What was the unique architectural feature of the DeStijil Movement?
De Stijl for "The Style", also known as neoplasticism, was a Dutch artistic movement founded
in 1917 in Amsterdam. The De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a narrower sense, the
term De Stijl is used to refer to a body of work from 1917 to 1931 founded in the Netherlands.
De Stijl proposed ultimate simplicity and abstraction, both in architecture and painting, by using
only straight horizontal and vertical lines and rectangular forms. Furthermore, their formal
vocabulary was limited to the primary colours, red, yellow, and blue, and the three primary
values, black, white, and grey. The works avoided symmetry and attained aesthetic balance by
the use of opposition.
c. Name two early examples of buildings using concrete.
Famous concrete structures include the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal and the
Roman Pantheon. The earliest large-scale users of concrete technology were the ancient
Romans, and concrete was widely used in the Roman Empire. The Colosseum in Rome was
built largely of concrete, and the concrete dome of the Pantheon is the world's largest
unreinforced concrete dome.

d. Who said Form follows Function? Name two buildings designed by

him.
The American architect, Louis Sullivan coined the term. Carson Pirie Scott Department
Store in 18991904 and Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New York, 1894 are two famous buildings designed by
Louis Sullivan.

e. Name two early bridges using Iron and Steel as their major material for
construction.
i. Weichsel Bridge, Dirscham, East Prussia was the first large wrought iron girder railway bridge to be built in
Germany in 1857.
ii. Menangle Viaduct, New South Wales in 1863, Australia is the oldest existing railway bridge in Australia. It
has two wrought iron riveted box girders and originally had three equal spans of 49.4m. However, these
spans have now been halved by the addition of intermediate piers to allow the bridge to accommodate
heavier loading.

f. What was Arts and Crafts Movement? Name two designers involved in
this movement.

The Arts and Crafts movement was an international design movement that flourished between
1880 and 1910, especially in the second half of that period continuing its influence until the
1930s. It was led by the artist and writer William Morris(18341896) from the 1860s onwards.
William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones are the two designers who involved in the
movement.

g. What was the Deutcher Werk Bund Movement? Name two of its famous
buildings.
The Deutscher Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen) was a German association of
artists, architects, designers, and industrialists. The Werkbund was to become an important
event in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later
creation of the Bauhaus school of design. Its initial purpose was to establish a partnership of
product manufacturers with design professionals to improve the competitiveness of German
companies in global markets. The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a statesponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass-production techniques, to put
Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States.
The Werkbund commissioned van de Velde to design a theatre for its 1914 Cologne Exhibition in
Cologne and Salon d'Automne, Paris in 1910 are the two buildings.

h.What is Deconstructivism? Name an architect for this movement?

Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It
is influenced by the theory of "Deconstruction", which is a form of semiotic analysis. It is
characterized by fragmentation, an interest in manipulating a structure's surface, skin, nonrectilinear shapes which appear to distort and dislocate elements of architecture, such as
structure and envelope.
Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition in New York, organized by Philip Johnson and Mark
Wigley

i. Name two famous buildings of the Art Deco Period.

The Chrysler Building in New York City; designed by William Van Alen; (192830) and Terracotta sunburst design
above front doors of the Eastern Columbia Building in Los Angeles built in 1930.
j. What is architect Robert Venturi famous for? Name two books on Architecture written by him.

A controversial critic of the blithely functionalist and symbolically vacuous

architecture of corporate modernism during the 1950. He is also known for
coining the maxim "Less is a bore" as antidote to Mies van der Rohe's
famous modernist dictum "Less is more "Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture" in 1966 and "gentle manifesto," are his two books.

2012
1.i.Futurism : It was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th
century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the
future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the
aeroplane and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were

parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practised in every
medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design,
interior design, urban design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture
and even gastronomy.

ii. Glass House: The Glass House or Johnson house, built in 1949 in New Canaan,
Connecticut, was designed by Philip Johnson as his own residence, and "universally viewed as
having been derived from" the Farnsworth House design, according to Alice T. Friedman.
Johnson curated an exhibit of Mies van der Rohe work at the Museum of Modern Art in 1947,
featuring a model of the glass Farnsworth House.[3]
It was an important and influential project for Johnson and for modern architecture. The building
is an essay in minimal structure, geometry, proportion, and the effects of transparency and
reflection. The estate includes other buildings designed by Johnson that span his career.
The house is an example of early use of industrial materials such as glass and steel in home
design. Johnson lived at the weekend retreat for 58 years, and since 1960 [4] with his longtime
companion, David Whitney, an art critic and curator who helped design the landscaping and
largely collected the art displayed there.
v. Chicago School: Chicago's architecture is famous throughout the world and one style is
referred to as the Chicago School. The style is also known as Commercial style. In the history
of architecture, the Chicago School was a school of architects active in Chicago at the turn of
the 20th century. They were among the first to promote the new technologies of steel-frame
construction in commercial buildings, and developed a spatial aesthetic which co-evolved with,
and then came to influence, parallel developments in European Modernism.

vi. Purism: Purism, referring to the arts, was a movement that took place between 19181925
that influenced French painting and architecture. Purism was led by Amde
Ozenfant andCharles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier). Ozenfant and Le Corbusier created a
variation of Cubist movement and called it Purism.
vii.Brise-soleil: Brise soleil, sometimes brise-soleil is an architectural feature of a building which
reduces heat gain within that building by deflecting sunlight. Brise-soleils can comprise a variety
of permanent sun-shading structures, ranging from the simple patterned concrete walls
popularized by Le Corbusier in the Palace of Assembly to the elaborate wing-like mechanism
devised by Santiago Calatrava for the Milwaukee Art Museum or the mechanical, patterncreating devices of the Institut du Monde Arabe by Jean Nouvel.
viii.Modular System: When designing an object (such as an electronic machinery, a biological
enzyme or a building), the system could be designed by two broad ways. The first way would be
to design the complete system using the known theories, and use the system, as it is designed,
in the real conditions. An alternative way would be to design the different components of the
system separately, and test each component in separate conditions. Modular design, or
"modularity in design", is an approach that subdivides a system into smaller parts (modules

or skids) that can be independently created and then used in different systems to drive multiple
functionalities. A modular system can be characterized by the following:

(1) Functional partitioning into discrete scalable, reusable modules consisting of isolated,
self-contained functional elements.

(2) Rigorous use of well-defined modular interfaces, including object-oriented

descriptions of module functionality

(3) Ease of change to achieve technology transparency and, to the extent possible, make
use of industry standards for key interfaces.

ix.Post Modern Archtecture: Postmodern architecture began as an international style the first
examples of which are generally cited as being from the 1950s, but did not become a movement
until the late 1970s[1] and continues to influence present-day architecture. Postmodernity in
architecture is said to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture
in response to the formalism of the International Style of modernism. As with many cultural
movements, some of Postmodernism's most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in
architecture. The functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the modernist style are
replaced by diverse aesthetics: styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of
viewing familiar styles and space abound. Perhaps most obviously, architects rediscovered the
expressive and symbolic value of architectural elements and forms that had evolved through
centuries of building which had been abandoned by the modern style.
x.Rationalism: In architecture, rationalism is an architectural current which mostly developed
from Italy in the 1920s-1930s. Vitruvius had already established in his work De Architectura that
architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally.[citation needed] This formulation
was taken up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance.
Progressive art theory of the 18th-century opposed the Baroque use of illusionism with the
classic beauty of truth and reason.
Twentieth-century rationalism derived less from a special, unified theoretical work than from a
common belief that the most varied problems posed by the real world could be resolved by
reason. In that respect it represented a reaction to historicism and a contrast toArt
Nouveau and Expressionism.

2011
a. discussed above
b. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said God in the details. Barcelona Pavilion in 1929 is famous building
designed by him.

c. Metabolism: Metabolism ( metaborizumu?) was a post-war Japanese architectural

movement that fused ideas about architectural megastructures with those of organic biological
growth. It had its first international exposure during CIAM's 1959 meeting and its ideas were
tentatively tested by students from Kenzo Tange's MIT studio.

d.B.V. doshi designed Sangath in Ahmedabad. Husain-Doshi Gufa, Ahmedabad is his another famous
work.

e. Bullocks Wilshire, Los Angeles by John and Donald Parkinson in 1929 and The Chrysler Building in New York
City; designed by William Van Alen; built 192830.

f. Holabird & Roche. Are the designers of the Marquett building of the Chicago School and
Tacoma building was also designed by them.
g. Architecturally Casa Mila is considered an innovative work by having a structure of columns
and floors free of load bearing walls. Similarly, the front which is made of stone is also selfsupporting, i.e., not loads of floors. Another innovative element was the construction of the
underground garage. It was designed by Antoni Gaudi.
h. Gehry Residence in Santa Monica ,California and Frederick Weisman Museum of Art are two
buildings designed by Frank Gehry.
i. Discussed previous.
j. The work of Henry Labrouste was the subject of "Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light,"
the first solo exhibition in the U.S. of his work, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

2010
1.a. Blobitecture- Blobitecture from blob architecture, blobism or blobismus are terms for
a movement in architecture in which buildings have an organic,amoeba-shaped, building form.
Though the term 'blob architecture' was in vogue already in the mid-1990s, the
word blobitecture first appeared in print in 2002, in William Safire's "On Language" column in
the New York Times Magazine in an article entitled Defenestration. Though intended in the article
to have a derogatory meaning, the word stuck and is often used to describe buildings with curved
and rounded shapes.
b. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier,Walter Gropius, are well known architects of
modern movement.
c. Balloon frame construction : Balloon framing is a method of wood construction also known
as "Chicago construction" in the 19th century used primarily in Scandinavia, Canada and
the United States (up until the mid-1950s). It utilizes long continuous framing members (studs)
that run from the sill plate to the top plate, with intermediate floor structures let into and nailed to
them. Here the heights of window sills, headers and next floor height would be marked out on the
studs with a storey pole. Once popular when long lumber was plentiful, balloon framing has been
largely replaced by platform framing.
d.High-tech architecture: It also known as Late Modernism or Structural Expressionism, is an
architectural style that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high-tech industry and
technology into building design. High-tech architecture appeared as a revamped modernism, an
extension of those previous ideas helped by even more technological advances. This category

serves as a bridge between modernism and post-modernism; however, there remain gray areas
as to where one category ends and the other begins. In the 1980s, high-tech architecture
became more difficult to distinguish from post-modern architecture. Some of its themes and
ideas were later absorbed into the style of Neo-Futurism art and architectural movement.
e.Minimalism: In the visual arts and music, minimalism is a style that uses pared-down design
elements.
Minimalism in the arts began in postWorld War II Western Art, most strongly with American
visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s.

f.Meaning of style in Architecture: An architectural style is characterized by the features that

make a building or other structure notable and historically identifiable. A style may include such
elements as form, method of construction, building materials, and regional character.
Most architecture can be classified as a chronology of styles which changes over time reflecting
changing fashions, beliefs and religions, or the emergence of new ideas, technology, or materials
which make new styles possible.
Styles therefore emerge from the history of a society and are documented in the subject
of architectural history. At any time several styles may be fashionable, and when a style changes
it usually does so gradually, as architects learn and adapt to new ideas. The new style is
sometimes only a rebellion against an existing style, such as post-modernism(means "after
modernism") which has in recent years found its own language and split into a number of styles
with other names.

h. Structuralism: Structuralism as a movement in architecture and urban planning evolved

around the middle of the 20th century. It was a reaction to CIAMFunctionalism (Rationalism) [1] which had led to a lifeless expression of urban planning that
ignored the identity of the inhabitants and urban forms.
Structuralism in a general sense is a mode of thought of the 20th century, which came about in
different places, at different times and in different fields. It can also be found in linguistics,
anthropology, philosophy and art. At the beginning of the general article Structuralism the
following explanations are noted:

i. Discussed above
J. ndia Habitat Centre (IHC), Lodhi Road, New Delhi, in typical Stein architecture, constructed in the late 1980
and Triveni Kala Sangam and Shridharani Art Gallery facade on the left, New Delhi, 1963 are two important
buildings of Stein in India.

2009
1.a. discussed above

b. discussed above

c . Cubism: Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement pioneered by Georges

Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le
Fauconnier, Fernand Lger and Juan Gris that revolutionized European paintingand sculpture,
and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been
considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century.The term is broadly used in
association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris (Montmartre,Montparnasse and Puteaux)
during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s. Variants such
as Futurism and Constructivism developed in other countries.
A primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of three-dimensional form in the
late works of Paul Czanne, which were displayed in a retrospective at the 1907 Salon
d'Automne. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassembled in an abstracted
forminstead of depicting objects from one viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a
multitude of viewpoints to represent the subject in a greater context.
d. discussed above

i. Pop Art: Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and in the late
1950s in the United States. Pop art presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including
imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc. In pop art, material is sometimes
visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material. The
concept of pop art refers not as much to the art itself as to the attitudes that led to it.
Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane
cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract
expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them. And due to its utilization of found objects and
images it is similar to Dada. Pop art is aimed to employ images of popular as opposed to elitist
culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any given culture, most often through
the use of irony. It is also associated with the artists' use of mechanical means of reproduction or
rendering techniques.
i. Temporal Art: Art that intentionally ceases to exist. Ex: ice or fruit sculpture, certain conceptual
art, performance art.

2008
d. Biomorphic plasticity: It is an art movement that began in the 20th century. It models
artistic design elements on naturally occurring patterns or shapes reminiscent of nature and living
organisms. Taken to its extreme it attempts to force naturally occurring shapes onto functional
devices.

2007
E. A.P.Kanvinde : Padma Shri Achyut P. Kanvinde (191628 December 2002) is considered
as one of forefathers of modern Indian architecture.
PK Kelkar Library, IIT Kanpur, designed by Achyut Kanvinde, The University of Agricultural Sciences,
Bangalore campus designed by Kanvinde .