Unit 2: Modern Architecture upto World War I

Overview: Characteristic styles of modern architecture upto First World War. Steel structures, Arts &
Crafts movement, Art Nouveau, Vienna School, Chicago School, Monumentalism, Expressionism and
the beginning of RCC. Theories of John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry Van de Velde, Otto Wagner,
Peter Behrens and Louis Sullivan.

1.0 ARCHITECTURE TILL WORLD WAR I EVOLUTION FROM TRADITIONAL MASONRY TO STEEL
STRUCTURES

Between the late 18th century and World War I, the development of building materials and
technologies progressed at an unprecedented pace. Cast iron was adopted on a growing scale for
structural purposes. In the 1790s, William Strutt erected several cotton mills at Derbyshire, partly
supported internally by cast iron columns. The first known building with a consistent internal cast
iron column and beam system is the Marshall flax mill at Shrewsbury (1796-97). The advantages of
such a system were considerable:

i. The structure required little floor area

ii. Greater flexibility in design through the bay system
iii. Permitted a larger number of storeys than was practicable with masonry alone
iv. Could be made more fire resistant by constructing the floors on shallow brick arches (jack
arches), spanning between the floor beams.

Cast iron columns and timber beams, Typical form of

Strutt Cotton Mills, Derbyshire
cotton mills (William Strutt, Derbyshire)

Cast iron beam and columns in the Marshall flax mill, Shrewsbury

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Through the early years of the 19th century, iron became quite widely used for columns, roof
supports and staircases, and occasionally for entire buildings such as the conservatory at Carlton
House, London (1811-12). The combination of glass and iron, successfully employed in Fontaines
Galerie dOrleans in Paris (1829-31), was an attractive one where plenty of natural light was
required. This became the usual choice for some of the most new types of buildings: shopping
arcades, conservatories, markets, exhibition halls and railway stations. The use of large panels of
sheet glass thinner and cheaper than plate glass was an important advance.

Gothic Conservatory, Carlton House, London (Architect: Thomas Hopper) Structure of cast iron

Galerie dOrleans, Paris by Fontaine

The availability of relatively cheap wrought iron after about 1820 was significant because of its
tensile properties were ideal for ties, bolts, trusses, etc. where cast iron was too brittle. The new
materials were sometimes deftly combined with the more monumental effects of conventional
masonry, as the Library of S. Genevieve, Paris (1839-50), or the University Museum, Oxford (1854-
60). But the new structural possibilities were unequivocally displayed in buildings such as the Crystal
Palace, London (1850-51), or the Halles Centrales, Paris (1853). Iron and glass structures could be
erected much faster as compared to the traditional structures. They were also quite appropriate for
public structures such as railway stations or the many international exhibitions which were held in
various parts of Europe.

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 The Bibliothque Sainte-Genevive (Library of St. Genevieve),Paris, Henri Labrouste

Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Irish architects Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin
Woodward

Halles Centrales (the Central Market), Paris, by Victor Baltard. Ttwelve houses covered with glazed glass walls
and cast iron columns.

The 1880s mark the next phase in the development of structural iron. In the 1889 international
exhibition in Paris, Gustave Eiffel created the famous 300m high tower which bears his name and
was the tallest structure in the world, while the Galerie des Machines spanned an unprecedented
114 m with ease. Rolled steel beams superseded wrought iron in construction of wide span
buildings, leading ultimately to fully steel-framed structures. Alongside, the more fluent
characteristics of iron and glass were being expressively exploited in the Art Noveau works such as
the Maison du People, Brussels (1896-98) or the Paris Metro station (1900). The profound advances
which occurred in building materials and technologies during the 19th century was summed up in the
Post Office Savings Bank, Vienna (1904-06) by Otto Wagner. Here steel stanchions, floor slabs,
central heating, etc. contribute to an air of confident modernity.

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Galerie des machines- pavilion built for the Exposition Universelle (1889) in Paris. Architects: Ferdinand Dutert,
Blavette, Deglane and Eugne Hnard.

2.0 ARCHITECTURAL MOVEMENTS IN LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURIES

The late 19th and early 20th century was a period of transition architecturally, marking the entrance
into a new era of building. This was the beginning of forward looking architectural design with styles
not based on previous building forms. Changes in construction techniques, especially the
development of sky scraper technology, and a desire to create houses that fit visually into the
natural environment influenced the developing styles of this era. Such styles and movements
imbibed various forms and characteristics based on the region and the prevailing socio-economic
and cultural conditions. These movements have been described in the following sections.

3.0 ARTS & CRAFTS MOVEMENT

The Arts and Crafts Movement was an international design movement that flourished between 1860
and 1910, especially in the second half of that period, continuing its influence until the 1930s. The
movement developed first and most fully in the British Isles, but spread across the British Empire
and to the rest of Europe and North America.

3.1 OBJECTIVE:
The objective of the Arts & Crafts movement was to revitalize handicrafts and applied arts during an
era when mass production of goods was in vogue. It was largely a reaction against the perceived
impoverished state of the decorative arts at the time and the conditions in which they were
produced. It stood for traditional craftsmanship using simple forms and often applied medieval,
romantic or folk styles of decoration. It advocated economic and social reform and has been said to
be essentially anti-industrial.

3.2 MEMBERSHIP:
The aesthetic and social vision of the Arts and Crafts Movement was inspired by the writings of John
Ruskin and was first developed in the 1850s by William Morris, Philip Webb, CFA Voysey, William de
Morgan, Walter Crane, CR Ashbee, etc. Morris's ideas spread during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries resulting in the establishment of many associations and craft communities/ organizations
were formed in Britain, most between 1895 and 1905. In 1887 the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society
was formed with Walter Crane as president, holding its first exhibition in the New Gallery, London, in
November 1888. he movement had an "extraordinary flowering" in Scotland where it was
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represented by the development of the 'Glasgow Style' which was based on the talent of the
Glasgow School of Art. Celtic revival took hold here, and motifs such as the Glasgow rose became
popularized. Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow School of Art were to influence others
worldwide.

3.3 DESIGN PRINCIPLES

The Arts and Crafts style started as a search for aesthetic design and decoration and a reaction
against the styles that were developed by machine-production.
Arts and Crafts objects were simple in form, without superfluous or excessive decoration, and how
they were constructed was often still visible. They tended to emphasize the qualities of the materials
used ("truth to material"). They often had patterns inspired by British flora and fauna and used the
vernacular, or domestic, traditions of the British countryside. Several designer-makers established
workshops in rural areas and revived old techniques. By the end of the nineteenth century, Arts and
Crafts ideals had influenced architecture, painting, sculpture, graphics, illustration, book making and
photography, domestic design and the decorative arts, including furniture and woodwork, stained
glass, leatherwork, lacemaking, embroidery, rug making and weaving, jewelry and metalwork,
enameling and ceramics.

William Morris design for "Trellis" wallpaper Charles Rennie Mackintosh Cabinet

4.0 ART NOUVEAU (French: meaning New Art)

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied artespecially
the decorative artsthat was most popular during 18901910. The name Art Nouveau is common
in England, but the style has many different names in other countries.

4.1 PHILOSOPHY
A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, not
only in flowers and plants, but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural
environment. Art Nouveau is considered a "total" art style, embracing architecture, graphic art,
interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewellery, furniture, textiles, household
silver and other utensils and lighting, as well as the fine arts. According to the philosophy of the
style, art should be a way of life.

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4.2 CHARACTERISTICS
Hallmarks of art nouveau are:
Decorative and ornamental patterns
Intertwined organic forms such as stems or flowers
Emphasis on handcrafting as opposed to machine manufacturing
Use of new materials
Rejection of earlier styles
In general, sinuous curving lines (whiplash lines) also characterize art nouveau.

4.3 ART NOUVEAU AS A HOLISTIC MOVEMENT

Art nouveau embraced all forms of art and design: architecture, furniture, glassware, graphic design,
jewelry, painting, pottery, metalwork, and textiles. This was a sharp contrast to the traditional
separation of art into the distinct categories of fine art (painting and sculpture) and applied arts
(ceramics, furniture, and other practical objects).

4.4 IMPORTANT ART NOUVEAU ARCHITECTS

Belgium: Victor Horta(1861-1947) - Abandoned neoclassical style of his schooling in favour of an
innovative art nouveau approach that emphasized irregular shapes and lush curved lines.
France: Hector Guimard(1867-1942) - Influenced by Horta
Scotland: Charles Rennie Macintosh(1868-1928) - Functional approach, rejection of Victorian
styles in favour of a spare simplicity featuring geometric shapes and unadorned surfaces

4.4.1 Victor Horta

Victor, Baron Horta was a Belgian architect and designer and one of the most important names in
Art Nouveau architecture. His most renowned architectural works are Htel Tassel (1893) and Hotel
Solvay (1894), in Brussels. Both the structures had a Centralized floor plan in place of the traditional
corridor arrangement. Exposed cast iron was used as a structural material. Horta paid close
attention to ornamentation. He supervised the interior decorationeven the furniture designof
all his buildings, and his characteristic flowing whiplash lines, inspired by vegetation motifs, were
prominent in his wall decorations, doors, and staircases.

4.4.2 Hector Guimard

Hector Guimard was an architect, who is now the best-known representative of the French Art
Nouveau style of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was deeply influenced by Horta and
further spread the "whiplash" style in France and abroad. He is best known for his subway entrances
for the Paris Mtro (circa 1900), fanciful kiosks imaginatively detailed in wrought iron, bronze, and
glass. Castel Branger in Paris (1898), an apartment house in which he was responsible for every
detail of the interior and exterior.

Using varied materialsincluding metal, faience, and glass brickGuimard created a design
outstanding for the sinuous curves of its decoration, most notably evident in the floral and
vegetative motifs of the wrought-iron gates.

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 Victor Hortas House, Brussels Parisian Metro, Hector Guimard (1902)

4.4.3 Charles Rennie Macintosh

Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect and designer. He was a designer in the post
impressionist movement and also the main representative of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom.
Trained at the Glasgow School of Art, Mackintosh rejected over decorated Victorian styles in favor of
a spare simplicity that featured geometric shapes and unadorned surfaces. His important works
include:

1899-1910 Houses near Glasgow

1897-99 Glasgow School of Art helped make his international reputation
1897-1912 Design Prototypes for the Cranston chain of tearooms in Glasgow. His furniture,
usually painted white with delicately coloured stencils of stylized flower patterns and occasional
insets of amethyst glass, combines attenuated straight lines with subtle curves. The designs,
although unmistakably Art Nouveau, avoided the excesses found in the work of some European
practitioners of the style.

Mackintoshs Contribution and characteristic features of his works:

Mackintosh developed a rectilinear version of art nouveau, which he employed in numerous

buildings and their furnishings. His work exerted an important influence on the growing 20th-
century trend toward simplification and functionalism.

Simple rectangular framework

Long, simple curves and unornamented facade.
Use of contemporary materials in an elegant, angular style
The simple shapes of the brick and stone exterior clearly indicate the division of space within the
building
Large expanses of glass provide a strong visual connection between the interior spaces and the
outside world
Window mullions, doors, and fences use ironwork in an elegant linear or geometric manner.

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 Glasgow School of Art

Antoni Gaud
Antoni Gaud or Antonio Gaudi was a Spanish architect, who was the figurehead of Catalan
Modernism. Gaud's works reflect his highly individual and distinctive style and are largely
concentrated in Barcelona, notably his magnum opus, the Sagrada Famlia. His works exhibited a
blend of Neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau with overtones of surrealism and cubism. He was highly skilled
in ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He introduced new techniques in
the treatment of materials, such as trencads, made of waste ceramic pieces.

Important works:
Casa Vicens (1878-80), a private home in Barcelona
Palacio Gell (1885-89), distinguished by parabolic arches and rich ironwork
Park Gell (1900-14), with its stone trees, reptilian fountains, and mosaics of broken ceramic
pieces set in concrete.
1883 Gaud was appointed official architect of the huge Church of the Sagrada Familia which,
although still unfinished at his death, is acknowledged as his masterpiece. Its lofty semi cubist
towers, with mosaic-covered finials, dominate the Barcelona skyline, and its imaginative forms,
colors, and textures are unmatched in European architecture.
Among Gaud's other celebrated works are two apartment buildings, the Casa Batll (1907) and
the Casa Mil (1905-07). These large stone and iron structures minimize traditional straight lines
and flat surfaces by the use of rounded, irregularly spaced openings and a roof and balconies
that have a wavelike appearance.

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 Casa Battlo

Casa Mila

Church of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

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5.0 GERMAN CRAFT ALLIANCE THE DEUTSCHER WERKBUND (1907)

5.1 OBJECTIVE
To promote high standards of design within the manufacturing industry

5.2 MEMBERSHIP
A wide spectrum of people involved in design in different capacities, among them a number of key
architect-designers such as Peter Behrens and Henry van de Velde

5.3 PHILOSOPHY
The group emphasized the need for a rational, standardized, democratic, modern design movement
that could align itself with industrial production. It provided a model that was emulated in many
other countries.

5.4 IMPORTANT ARCHITECTS

5.4.1 Henry van de Velde
Henry van de Velde was a Belgian painter, architect and interior designer. Together with Victor Horta
and Paul Hankar he could be considered as one of the main founders and representatives of Art
Nouveau in Belgium. Van de Velde spent the most important part of his career in Germany and had a
decisive influence on German architecture and design at the beginning of the 20th century. He was
one of the most successful and important practitioners of the art nouveau style. Inspired by the
English Arts and Crafts movement led by William Morris, he rebelled against the moribund styles of
Victorian Revival architecture and industrial design.
His own house at Ukkel (1895, near Brussels) was his first attempt at architecture and an early art
nouveau landmark. His difficulty in finding suitable furnishings for it led him to design his own
furniture, his intent being to raise the applied arts to the status of the fine arts.

Van de Veldes success led to commissions for other houses, mainly in Germany, in which the
architecture and furnishingsall incorporating sweeping art nouveau curveswere closely
integrated. The fullest expressions of his style were found in a Paris shop, Maison de l'Art Nouveau
(1896), and in the Folkwang Museum (1902) in Hagen, Germany. As a founder of art schools in
Germany and Belgiumhis Weimar School of Arts and Crafts (1907) later became the celebrated
Bauhaus under Walter Gropius.

Werkbund Factory Werkbund Exposition Theatre

5.4.2 Peter Behrens

German architect and designer, initially a graphic artist in the florid art nouveau style, he turned to
architecture about 1900. Behrens soon developed an austerely geometric, functional style that in
time became the standard for modern industrial buildings.
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Behrens pioneered in the use of such new building techniques and materials as poured concrete,
exposed exterior steel supports, and a lavish use of glass. Behrens employed three men who became
leaders in modern architecture: Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. He
was one of the leaders of architectural reform at the turn of the century and was a major designer of
factories and office buildings in brick, steel and glass.
Behrens' work for AEG(a company) was the first large-scale demonstration of the viability and vitality
of the Werkbund's initiatives and objectives. He designed the entire corporate identity (logotype,
product design, publicity, etc.) and for that he is considered the first industrial designer in history. In
1910, Behrens designed the AEG Turbine Factory.

AEG Turbine Factory, Berlin, 1908-10: Combined elements of the classical Greek temple with
modern industrial materials and building technology. A series of steel arches span the vast main hall,
descending to form a row of steel wall piers (pillars) reminiscent of the columns in a church or Greek
temple. Between these steel supports, the side walls were mostly of glass. Massive-looking concrete
piers anchored each corner of the building and supported a temple-like pediment at each end.From
the pediments a thin grid of steel and glass was hung like a curtain. This glass and steel wall was a
forerunner of glass curtain walls common in later skyscrapers.

AEG Turbine Factory

6.0 VIENNA SCHOOL/ VIENNA SECESSION

The overflowing richness of ornamentation and increasing formal excess of Art Nouveau were
leading to a countermovement, whose epicenter was found in Vienna. Here Otto Wagner and others
such as Joseph Maria Olbrich and Josef Hoffmann, attempted to create a moderate Art Nouveau.
Wagner returned to simple cubic forms whose ornamentation was clearly rooted in Art Nouveau,
but in combination with abstract exteriors that evaded the contemporary forms.

6.1 OTTO WAGNER

Austrian architect, leader of the Viennese architectural revival of the late 19th century. His early
designs, such as the Majolika House apartments (1898) in Vienna, include art nouveau details such
as ironwork balconies and decorative ceramic work. Otto Wagner's Majolika Haus in Vienna (c. 1898)
is a significant example of the Austrian use of line. Other significant works of Otto Wagner include

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The Karlsplatz Stadtbahn Station in Vienna (1900), and The Austrian Postal Savings Bank or
sterreichische Postsparkasse in Vienna (19041906).His later designs, however, show a radical
simplification in which all superfluous ornamentation is eschewed. His style culminated in the rigid
geometry of Saint Leopolds Church (1907) and the delicate steel-and-glass linearity of the Post
Office Savings Bank (1906), both in Vienna. Through his pupils the Austrian architects Josef
Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich, Wagner became one of the fathers of the 20th-century
International Style.

Majolika House Post Office Savings Bank

6.2 ADOLF LOOS

The Vienna Secession provided the foundation for the extremely radical ideas and concepts of the
Architect Adolf Loos, chiefly active in Austria. Looss designs can best be understood as marking the
true end of the Art Nouveau Tradition and providing a transition into the classic modern age.

Influenced by the rationalist architecture of the Chicago School in the United States, Loos rejected
the then-current art nouveau style. His opposition to ornamentation was set forth in his famous
essay Ornament and Crime (1908). His Steiner House (1910, Vienna), rigidly cubic and blocky in
construction, was one of the first private residences constructed of reinforced concrete. Looss
radical style influenced the next generation of architects in Germany and Austria.

Steiner House, 1910 Rufer House, 1922

7.0 CHICAGO SCHOOL

The Chicago School was a style of architecture prevalent in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century.
This school was 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. It was made up of a group of American

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architects based in Chicago, Illinois, in the late 19th-century, who produced the skyscraper, the first
manifestation of modern architecture.

Some of the distinguishing features of the Chicago

School are the use of steel-frame buildings with
masonry cladding (usually terra cotta), allowing large
plate-glass window areas and limiting the amount of
exterior ornamentation. Sometimes elements of
neoclassical architecture are used in Chicago School
skyscrapers. Many Chicago School skyscrapers contain
the three parts of a classical column. The first floor
functions as the base, the middle stories, usually with
little ornamental detail, act as the shaft of the column,
and the last floor or so represent the capital, with more
ornamental detail and capped with a cornice.

The Chicago Building by Holabird & Roche (1904-1905) is a

prime example of the Chicago School, displaying both
variations of the Chicago window

7.1 WILLIAM LE BARON JENNEY, 1832-1907

American architect and engineer, whose innovative construction methods earned him the title
father of the skyscraper. After completing his architectural and engineering education in Paris,
Jenney returned to the U.S. and served as an engineer in the Union army during the American Civil
War. After the war Jenney settled in Chicago, where he opened his own architectural office. In later
years many members of the Chicago School served their architectural apprenticeships on his staff,
including Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham.

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The Birth of a sky scraper
Jenneys great contribution to architecture
was his pioneering use of metal-frame
construction for large buildings, first used in
his Home Insurance Company Building (1885,
demolished 1931) in Chicago. The 10 storied
Home Insurance Building employed for the
first time an all-metal skeleton of cast-iron
columns and steel beams to support the
masonry shell of floors and walls. Jenney thus
created the prototype of all skyscraper design.

Characteristics of the Typical Skyscraper

Cast-iron columns, encased in masonry, were used to support the steel beams bearing floor weights.
The outside walls, freed from their load-bearing function, were filled with windows. Jennys
revolutionary method of building, termed curtain-wall construction remains basic for the design of
tall buildings, now known as skyscrapers.

7.2 MASTERS OF THE CHICAGO SCHOOL

Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham, William Holabird, and Martin Rochewho worked in Jenneys
Chicago office became leaders of the Chicago School. The chief characteristics of the architecture
they created are

The use of a steel structural frame

Large windows to admit maximum light and
Minimal exterior ornament.

7.2.1 Louis Sullivan, 1856-1924

American architect, whose brilliant early designs for steel-frame skyscraper construction led to the
emergence of the skyscraper as the distinctive American building type. Through his own work, and
as the founder of the Chicago School of architects, he exerted an enormous influence on 20th-
century American architecture. His most famous pupil was the architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who
acknowledged Sullivan as his master.

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Louis Sullivan A Profile
Studied architecture at MIT
Spent a year in Paris at the cole des Beaux-Arts and in the office of a French architect.
Settling in Chicago in 1875, he was employed as a draftsman.
In 1881 formed a partnership with Dankmar Adler. Together they produced more than 100
buildings. Adler secured the clients and handled the engineering and acoustical problems, while
Sullivan concerned himself with the architectural designs.

Adler & Sullivan

Auditorium Building (1886-89), Chicago - This famous showplace incorporated a hotel, an office
building, and a theater renowned for its superb acoustics in a 10-storied structure
The Wainwright Building, 1891, St. Louis - 10-storied tall with a metal frame epitomized
Sullivans style in its combination of cleanly functional structure and graceful terra-cotta and
metal embellishment.
1895 - Sullivan-Adler partnership was dissolved,
1904 - Completion of The Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, Chicago.

Sullivans Individual Practice

Last buildings are a series of small banks in the Midwest. All are admired for their superb fusion of
bold architectural forms with Sullivans characteristic sumptuous ornament. Outstanding are the
Security Bank (1908) in Owatonna, Minnesota, and the Peoples Savings Bank (1911) in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa. Concerned with aesthetics as well as being a working architect, he expressed his ideas in
lectures and writings, including the classic Autobiography of an Idea (1924, reprinted 1956).

Sullivans Philosophy of Architecture Autobiography of an Idea, 1924

His famous axiom, Form follows function, became the touchstone for many in his profession.
Sullivan, however, did not apply it literally. He meant that an architect should consider the purpose
of the building as a starting point, not as a rigidly limiting stricture. He himself employed a rich
vocabulary of ornament, even on his skyscrapers.

Auditorium Building, Chicago, Adler & Sullivan Guaranty Building, Buffalo, 1895

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 Security Bank, 1908

Wainwright Building, St. Louis, 1891- Strongly emphasized

vertical piers on the outside enclose the internal steel frame

7.3 IMPORTANT BUILDINGS

The Home Insurance Building, which some regarded as the first skyscraper in the world, was built in
Chicago in 1885. Some of the more famous Chicago School buildings include:

Auditorium Building
Sullivan Center
Heyworth Building
Tacoma Building (1889), Holabird & Roche
Monadnock Building (1891) , Burnham and Root
Rookery Building (1886) , Burnham and Root
Reliance Building (1895), Burnham and Root
The Flatiron Building (1902), New York a triangular skyscraper
Buildings outside Chicago include:
Blount Building, 1907, Pensacola, Florida
Union Bank Building, 1904, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Wainwright Building, 1891, St. Louis, Missouri

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The Flatiron Building
The Reliance Building
The Rookery Building
Monadnock Building-Brick Skyscraper
The Monadnock did not take advantage of the latest structural
technology.Instead of steel structural supports, which enabled
builders to use thinner exterior walls for ever higher buildings,
the brick walls of the Monadnock bear the entire weight of the
building, and the walls are over 6 ft (2 m) thick at their base.

8.0 EXPRESSIONISM

Expressionist architecture was an architectural movement that developed in Europe during the first
decades of the 20th century in parallel with the expressionist visual and performing arts that
especially developed and dominated in Germany. The style was characterized by an early-modernist
adoption of novel materials, formal innovation, and very unusual massing, sometimes inspired by
natural biomorphic forms, sometimes by the new technical possibilities offered by the mass
production of brick, steel and especially glass.

8.1 CHARACTERISTICS

Expressionist architecture was individualistic and in many ways eschewed aesthetic dogma, but it is
still useful to develop some criteria which defines it. Though containing a great variety and

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differentiation, many points can be found as recurring in works of Expressionist architecture, and are
evident in some degree in each of its works.
Conception of architecture as a work of art.
Distortion of form for an emotional effect.
Subordination of realism to symbolic or stylistic expression of inner experience.
An underlying effort at achieving the new, original, and visionary.
Profusion of works on paper, and models, with discovery and representations of concepts more
important than pragmatic finished products.
Themes of natural romantic phenomena, such as caves, mountains, lightning, crystal and rock
formations. As such it is more mineral and elemental than florid and organic which characterized
its close contemporary art nouveau.
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.

8.2 MATERIALS USED

A recurring concern of expressionist architects was the use of materials and how they might be
poetically expressed. Often, the intention was to unify the materials in a building so as to make it
monolithic. The collaboration of Bruno Taut and the utopian poet Paul Scheerbart attempted to
address this through a doctrine of glass architecture.

Another example of expressionist use of monolithic materials was by Erich Mendelsohn at the
Einstein Tower. The structure exhibits an attempt to make the building out of one stone (Ein stein).
Though not cast in one pour of concrete (due to technical difficulties, brick and stucco were used
partially) the effect of the building is an expression of the fluidity of concrete before it is cast.

8.3 IMPORTANT ARCHITECTS

The leading architects of Expressionism included names such as Bruno Taut, Erich Mendelsohn, Hans
Poelzig, etc.

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8.4 IMPORTANT BUILDINGS

8.4.1 The Crystal Motif

The Glass Pavilion, built in 1914 and

designed by Bruno Taut, was a prismatic
glass dome structure at the Cologne
Deutscher Werkbund Exhibition. The
structure was a brightly colored landmark of
the exhibition, and was constructed using
concrete and glass. The concrete structure
had inlaid colored glass plates on the facade
that acted as mirrors.

Glass Pavilion, Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne,

1914 by Bruno Taut built on The Crystal
concept.

8.4.2 The Cave MotifTheatre, Berlin, Hans Poelzig, 1919

The Groes Schauspielhaus (Great Theater) was a theatre in Berlin, Germany, often described as an
example of expressionist architecture, designed by Hans Poelzig for theatre impresario Max
Reinhardt. The theatre has a circular entrance foyer with palm tree shaped central column. The ribs
of palm tree extended along ceiling and down walls and were painted green. Auditorium interior was
adorned with thick tiers of stalactite shaped objects hung from ceiling which were painted red.
Illumination by coloured lights hidden in the tiers suggestive of minerals found in natural caves.

Palm tree shaped central column in the Thick tiers of stalactite shaped objects in the auditorium interiors
theatre foyer

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8.4.3 The Creature motif, Einstein Observatory, Potsdam, Erich Mendelsohn, 1920-24

The Einstein Tower (German: Einsteinturm) is an astrophysical observatory in the Albert Einstein
Science Park in Potsdam, Germany built by Erich Mendelsohn. The exterior was originally conceived
in concrete, but due to construction difficulties with the complex design and shortages from the war,
much of the building was actually realized in brick, covered with stucco.

The Einstein Observatory, Potsdam

9.0 MONUMENTALISM

Large-scale architecture that serves an ideological or symbolic function as well as a practical one.
Monumentalistic architecture may be built to express religious or political beliefs and convey a sense
of the innate power of the builder. With the passage of time, in the time between the two world
wars, countries grew in power due to the growth in industries and trade. This rise of regional powers
had a direct impact on the architecture which witnessed the upcoming of structures higher and
larger in size the advent of monumentalism. The two regions which exhibited the advent of
monumentalist architecture are Germany and Russia.

9.1 MONUMENTALISM IN GERMANY

In Germany, Adolf Hitler had plans to make his country the centre of power for the new world, with
Berlin as the capital of the Utopian Nazi Empire. This was possible through the use of
Monumentalism in architecture. Albert Speer was in charge of transforming Berlin and other primary
German cities into some of the grandest cities in the world. Today, only a few surviving Nazi era
buildings offer a hint of what Berlin might have looked like if history had taken a different turn. Some
of these buildings are:

- The Olympiastadion, Berlin by Walter and Werner March

- Reich Aviation Ministry (now the Federal Ministry of Finance) by Ernst Sagebiel
- Tempelhof airport by Ernst Sagebiel
- Reichsbank by Heinrich Wolff, etc.

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 The Olympiastadion Reich Aviation Ministry

Tempelhof airport Reichsbank

9.2 MONUMENTALISM IN EAST GERMANY & ERSTWHILE USSR (RUSSIA)

After World War II, Germany was divided into East & West
Germany. East Germans looked to Moscow, where Stalin
held power. As Stalins power grew, the scale of Soviet
architecture increased. After the World war, the rebuilding
of worlds major cities, destroyed by the Germans, was
planned on monumental lines to symbolize the extent and
nature of the Soviets victory. Seven massive towers were
built in Moscow, the largest of which Moscow University
is 240 m high and 480m long. Monumentalist architecture
came to typify the Soviet life. The most prominent
architect was Hermann Henselmann, the mastermind
behind Karl-Marx-Allee. Built between 1952 and 1965, it
was Berlins epitome of Stalinist pomposity. The avenue,
which is 89 m wide and nearly 2 km long, is lined with
monumental eight-storey buildings.
Aerial view of Karl-Marx-Allee with the twin towers of
Frankfurter Tor visible in the back

Some of the other prominent buildings are as follows:

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 The main entrance to All-Union Agricultural A sanatorium in Saratovcommon provincial
Exhibition,Moscow application of Stalinist style

The Red Army Theatre in Moscow, designed in a

House of the Electrical Industry (left building), 1972
shape of the soviet red star

10.0 BRUTALISM

Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the mid-1970s,
spawned from the modernist architectural movement. Brutalism rapidly became popular with
governments and institutions around the world, with numerous high style examples located in
Britain, France, Germany, Japan, United States, and Brazil. Examples are typically large buildings,
massive in character, fortress-like, with a predominance of exposed concrete construction.

The English architects Alison and Peter Smithson coined the term in 1953, from the French bton
brut, (beton for concrete, brut for rough, unrefined, raw), a phrase used by Le Corbusier to describe
the exposed concrete walls with which he constructed many of his post-World War II buildings.

10.1 CHARACTERISTICS

Brutalist buildings usually are formed with repeated modular elements forming masses representing
specific functional zones, distinctly articulated and grouped together into a unified whole. Concrete
is used for its raw and unpretentious honesty, contrasting dramatically with the highly refined and
ornamented buildings. Surfaces of cast concrete are made to reveal the basic nature of its
construction, revealing the texture of the wooden planks used for the in-situ casting forms. Brutalist
building materials also include brick, glass, steel, rough-hewn stone, and gabions. Conversely, not all
buildings exhibiting an exposed concrete exterior can be considered Brutalist. Another common
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theme in Brutalist designs is the exposure of the building's functionsranging from their structure
and services to their human usein the exterior of the building. In the Boston City Hall, designed in
1962, the strikingly different and projected portions of the building indicate the special nature of the
rooms behind those walls, such as the mayor's office or the city council chambers.

Boston City Hall

Czech (originally Czechoslovak) Embassy in Berlin. J. Edgar Hoover Building (FBI Headquarters) in
(architects: Vra Machoninov and Vladimr Washington, D.C.
Machonin, 1974)

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