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MODERNISMS

Monumentalism took hold among the German pioneers of

MODERNISMS
The chief characteristics of 20th century architecture is its’
plurality. Some critics have erroneously suggested that
there has been a single evolutionary Modern Movement in
modern architecture as such. Indeed there have been
many modern movements. The main revolution in
architecture began with the new master problems that
emerged as long as the 1780's when a vast amount, of
monumental symbolistic building began and when new
problems of a specifically public architectural character
were met by the architects of the period.
It was not until the 1880's that a desire for a truly modern
style emerged and even then it was by no means articulate,
although in some ways it prefaced the whole of the work
of the early 20th century. By the .turn of the century,
architects sensible to the changes that were going in
society, science, technology & psychology, were struggling
with the problems of identification, of architectural ideals
and the increasingly important notion of providing an
architecture appropriate to its time. The Art Nouveau did
not successfully produce the necessary transition from the
stylistic Revivalism of the 19th century into the new world
of the 20th. It did, however, provide a bridge - via
Expressionism — between the individualism of the Art
Nouveau designers & the collective work of the architects
who were associated with the International Modernism
movement of the late l920s.
1. MANNERISM- manipulation of styles or forms achieved
by the learned juxtaposition of elements for the exclusive
aim of achieving originality or effect.
2. ECLECTICISM . d) Holland & Scandinavia- Viollet le Duc
It is usually applied to any building that incorporates a
mixture of the historical styles.
Personalities: of the 19th century & early 20th century
a) United States: Henry Richardson
Louis H. Sullivan
b) Britain : Auguste Pugin
Richard Shaw
Sir George Scott
Alfred Waterhouse
c) France : Eugene Viollet-le-duc
d) Germany : Gottfried Semper
modern architecture, notable among them
a) Karl Friedrich Schinkel
b) Peter Behrens - Turbine Shop, AEG Factory, Berlin
c) Hans Poelzig - Posen Tower; Breslare Centennial
Exhibition
d) Mies van der Rohe
e) Le Corbusier
f) France : Tony Garnier
g) Auguste Perret
5. NATIONAL ROMANTICISM (from 1860 -20th century)
Bolstered by ideas of national aggrandizement, this self—
emulating style fed on particular local historical motifs and
devices as well as the associative aspects of the great
historical periods in architecture so beloved by the
eclectics. In some cases it parallels the work of those
architects normally referred to as Art nouveau designers,
but its aspirations were much wider than those of the
international "proto modernists".
a) In Glasgow — Charles Rennie Mackintosh
b) Finland — Eliel Saarinen, Lars Sonck, Gallen-Kallela
c) Britain –Richard Norman Shaw; Charles Voysey
d) Spain — Antoni Gaudi
e) Germany — Paul Bonatz, Albert Speer
6. FIN DE SIECLlSM (Art Nouveau) - see previous lecture.
Dynamic Forms, whiplash lines, curving design.
a) Belgium - Victor Horta
b) Glasgow - Charles Rennie Mackintosh
c) France and Paris – Paul Gaugin, Guimard, Henri de
Lautrec
e) Spain – Antonio Gaudi
f) U.S.A. – Louis Sullivan
g.) Vienna - Joseph Ma. Olbrich
Josef Hoffmann
7. RADICALISM - It was largely the individualists who
demanded a radical shift in emphasis from the buildings of
the past to the design of those which met the demands of
modern life.
a.) Henry van de Velde
b) Walter Gropius - model factory at Werkbund Exhibition

3. STRUCTURALISM 8. CONSTRUCTIVISM
Iron construction, initiated by Joseph Paxton’s Crystal It was a passionate pleading for ideas on form and space in
Palace, brought about a trend in architecture. Numerous architecture (anthropometric and ergonometric)as well as
exhibition halls, locomotive sheds & other large-scale in the other arts.
"engineering" types of structure followed. Exponents: Vladimir Tallin, Naum Gabo
Antoine Pevsner, Kasimir Malevitch,
4. MONUMENTALISM EL Lissitzky, Marcel Breuer,
In architecture, one aspect of individualism stand- out: the Mart Stam, James Stirling
idea of building monuments. This was based on a general
notion that (f r. Adolf Loos) "the form of an object should 9. EXPRESSIONISM
last" & that implicitly there are some forms which have This term is used to describe the work of those architects
eternal validity. who prefigured the International and Functionalist Period
Loos contribution to this is his entry for the Chicago Tribune of the Modern Movement. It is the outward manifestation
Tower competition in 1922 which was in the form of a huge of a design through an individual expression.
Doric column. Personalities: Germans Hans Foelzig Bruno Taut,

UST Architecture | College of Architecture | TOA2 | Handout 7| Updated S.Y. 2020-21 Page 1
Finsterlin, Erich Mendelsohn
Hans Scharoun, Walter Gropius (for a short time)
Mies van der Rohe - though some of his works showed an
Expressionist idiom like a skyscraper project sheathed in
glass with reinforced concrete canti-levered floors & a
concrete parking .lot.
10. FUTURISM
Filippo Marinetti (a poet) co-opted with the architect
Antonio Sant ‘Elia who, unfortunately was killed in action.
However the former published the Futurist Architecture
Manifesto which proclaimed that Futurist architecture "is
the architecture of" calculation, of audacity & simplicity;
the architecture of reinforced concrete, of iron, of glass
....... & all those substitutes for wood, stone and brick
which make possible maximum elasticity & lightness & in a
rhetorical manner, it stated : "let us throw away
monuments, sidewalks, arcades, steps. Let us sink squares
into the ground, raise the level of the city."
The manifesto had a limited influence at the time but it was
rediscovered & reactivated in the 1950s by architect-
planners.
11. NEOPLASTICISM
In its precise meaning this term relates to the theory pure
plastic art which had a pronounced influence on Dutch
architects, it consisted in the exclusive use of the right
angle in a horizontal position, and the use of the 3 primary
colors contrasted with or incorporating in various
canvasses the 3 non-colors: white, black and gray. The first
fully integrated neoplastic house which still is existing can
be found in Utrecht and designed by Gerrit Rietneld.
Other designers using this style were: Theo van Doesburg
(founder of De Stijl group) & Cor van Esteren
12. DE STYL
Founded by Van Doesburg, a painter. Jacobus J. P. Oud, one
of the principal aims of the movement is to “construct
without any illusion, without any decoration”. It broke
away from naturalism and historicism and by appealing to
abstraction as the means of expressing a universal
synthesis of modern times. Compared to Gropius,
Doesbury was a radicalist.
13. L’Ecole de Beaux Arts (Paris)
The style turned to Gothic revival due to its brevity,
idealism, heroism, and picturesque ness. Verticality was
the trend. Example: Eiffel Tower
14. BAUHAUS STYLE - The Bauhaus was the creative center
of artistic experiment during the 1920s & it became
internationally known through its publications & ex-
hibitions & also, most importantly, through the work of its
architect heads who were in the front line of the European
avant-garde. The influence of the Bauhaus design methods
can be seen in numerous consumer products from bent
metal furniture & hanging globe lamps to the black, block,
lowercase lettering to be found on exhibition posters the
world over.
Bauhaus - School of art & design; founded in 1919 by
Walter Gropius; in 1927, the second head was Hannes
Meyer And later, Mies van der Rohe took the reins from
the latter.
UST Architecture | College of Architecture | TOA2 | Handout 7| Updated S.Y. 2020-21
15. The INTERNATIONAL STYLE
“Ready-made style” imported from the U. S.
16. CIAM & International Modernism (Congres
Internationaux d'Arcnitec-ture Moderne) set up by Le
Corbusier & Siegfried Giedion
This was the major organization through which the ideas of
modern architecture & urbanism became known to the
world. The ClAM style of architecture was characterized by
cubic, white surfaced, flat roofed architecture, usually set
in an arid landscape.
17. TEAM X
Formed by a rebellious group of young Turks who
contested the principles of modern architecture for the
same reasons CIAM had attacked the past.
Joan Joseph Bakerna (Holland)- unite the personal
freedom with the total environment Shadrach Wood
(U.S.)- from cell house to mass housing which results in
desolation.
Aldo van Eyck (Holland)- architects left no cracks or
crevices; made a flat surface of everything
18. ORGAN1CISM (or organic architecture)
It is used as a description of architecture that sympathizes
with its environment which is shown in the early work of
Frank Lloyd Wright & the Prairie School. It is the very
antithesis of the geometrical organized facadism of those
architects who believe that architecture should intrude on
the environment in the Classic, Neo-Classic & Gothic sense.
Other followers of organicism are:
Claude Bragdon (U.S.)
Henry Russell Hitchcock (U.S.)
Hugo Haring (Germany)
Hans Scharoun (Germany)
Bruce Goff
Paolo Soleri
Herb Greene
19. UTILITARIANISM
Seeking for economic solution for low value sites-as well as
alternative/cheap forms of construction in timber, brick &
metal, low-cost housing was referred to as utilitarian
architecture. ln Britain the utilitarian house par excellence
was known as the "PREFAB". The idea was to fabricate
these units in factories & brought to the sites ready-built
for immediate assembly. The effect of this eventually was
to create an atmosphere in which "system building" could
take over the role of individually designed dwellings.
20. THE NEW BRUTALISM
Originally it vas meant to indicate a certain type of
architecture of the 1950s. It was introduced by the British
Architects Peter A. Allison Smithson, although the Swede
Erik Asplund lays claim to an earlier version, "Neo-
Brutalism".
Brutalism was first referred to the works of Mies van der
Rohe whose structures shoved a display of his precise
technology of glass and steel. All the servicing systems of a
building (like pipes) were openly on display and not
concealed in ducts or by covers. Later it was applied to
buildings which imitated the exposed concrete finishes in
Le Corbusier's work. Engineers renamed it the "bunker"
style.
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21. metabolism
The term metabolism was first applied to architecture at
the World Design Conference, Tokyo, 1960.This concerns
with the problems of cities. Among its advocates are:
Kiyonori Kikutake
Fumihoko Maki
Masato Otaka
Kisho Kurokawa
Its early & important convert was KenzoTange. Metabolist
cause regarded "human society as a vital process, a
continuous; development from atom to nebula". The group
concentrated on the new order of relationships between
man and the environment.
The early metabolist terminology was based on organic and
cybernetic analogies. However, as their ideas developed
they soon came to resemble earlier historical visionary
projects & by the time they came to be built the visionary
element was- lost in. the face of the need to built realistic
earthquake-proof concrete buildings. Example: Tange’s
radio & press center at Kofiu, Kurokawa’s Nagakis Capsule
Tower, Tokyo.
22. POST-METABOLISM
Its use implies an attempt summarize some very divergent
currents that characterized the Japanese architectural
scene at the moment. It was a reaction to the "meta-
architecture" of the earlier: Metabolists. Post-motabolism
interests in explaining such things, as the nature of the
house in the city & are concerned with intricate design on
small site and polemical schemes.
23. ISOLATIONISM
It is conceived independently from its immediate or
historical context. It stands on its own.
24. CONTEXTUALISM
Architecture should be apprehended in its total setting.
The knowledge of history, the world, or science makes the
total experience far richer.
25. POST-MODERNISM
This is an alternative to Modern Movement ideas like
revivals of pattern book principles of the 19th century, a
new interest in vernacular forms adapted to modern
needs, a much more strict interpretation of the theatrical
element in Modern Movement architecture proper, a
distinctly confused revival of F. L. Wright’s organic views
and a return to low rise high density developments of the
interwar period.
Example of this new phase:
A city on the mesa at Acrosanti by Paolo Soleri
Medical Faculty at Wolume near Brussels, Belgium by
Luiren Kroll
26. DECONSTRUCTIVISM
It is the abstraction of Modernism to the extreme and
mainly worked on the principle of exaggeration of familiar
motifs. It is also known as the new modernism.
UST Architecture | College of Architecture | TOA2 | Handout 7| Updated S.Y. 2020-21
Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Richard Meier, Rem
Koolhaas
27. ECOISM
- any form of design that minimizes destructive impacts by
integrating itself with living processes.
-is not limited to one material but instead encourages the
use of materials that are most appropriate for a particular
place, climate and program.
- it merges the interests of sustainability, environmental
consciousness, green, natural, and organic approaches to
evolve a design solution from these requirements and from
the characteristics of the site, its neighborhood context,
and the local micro-climate and topography.
-'respect' this is the keyword in practicing green /
ecological architecture because our current system of
building lacks respect for the natural environment as well
as for individual people and society as a whole.
Personalities; Ken Yeang, Renzo Piano, Sir Norman Foster,
Toyo Ito
28. METARATIONALISM
Metarationalism is what happens to architecture when the
logic of economist James Galgraith’s view that in the
affluent society there is no meaningful distinction between
luxury and necessity meets that of complexity science with
its ability to overturn conventional structural logic. The
result is a feast of consumerist experiences presented
within phenomenally complex forms.
Personalties; Daniel Libeskind, Steven Holl
Sources:
• Kruttt, Hanno-Walter. (1994) A History of
Architectural Theory: Princeton Architectural
Press.
• Mallgrave, H. F. Malden. (2011). An introduction
to architectural theory: 1968 to the present. MA:
Wiley-Blackwell.
• Melvin, Jeremy. (2006) ISM- Understanding
Architecture. London A&C Black Visual Arts.
Bloomsbury.
• Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2003.
• Lifted and updated from Ar. Norma Alarcon ’s TOA
2 lecture materials
• The A-Z of modern architecture Köln; Los
Angeles: Taschen, c 2007.
Copyright 2021 by University of Santo Tomas College of
Architecture TOA 2 Sub-cluster
This lecture was produced by the Theory of Architecture 2
(TOA2) Sub-cluster in preparation for S.Y. 2020-21. These
pages and any portion thereof may not be reproduced or
used without the written consent of the University of
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