THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE: PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS

Modernism

Modernism is a philosophical and artistic movement in the late 19 th and

early 20th centuries. It is a reflection of the new industrial world, new
technologies, and urbanism.

It puts emphasis on simplicity, rationality, technology and machines,

functions, and objective forms - universality.

I. Reactions to the Industrial Revolution

II. Modernism Movements

III. New Objectivity / Rationalism

IV. Bauhaus

V. De Stijl

VI. International Style

VII. Constructivism

VIII. Organic Architecture

IX. Art Deco

X. Streamline Moderne

XI. Brutalism

XII. Structuralism

XIII. Metabolism

Postmodernism

High-Tech / Structural Expressionism

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe 1886-1969

“Less is more”

Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) 1887-1965

“The house is a machine for living in”

International Style

1. Pilotis - grid or reinforced concrete columns

2. Open Plan - no supporting walls

ARCHITECT FLAVHE ANNE M. FLORES 1
THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE: PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS
3. Curtain walls - non-structural facade

4. Horizontal windows - to light all rooms equally

5. Roof Gardens

Villa Savoye

Organic Architecture

Origin of Organic Architecture

Romanticism

- western philosophical and artistic movement, late 18 th to mid 19th century

- rejection of industrialization and the rationalization of classical art

- emphasis on emotion and the beauty of nature

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1867-1959

Architecture as a natural element of a site and not an alien feature of the

natural landscape.

“A house must not be on a hill but of a hill”

Bruce Goff 1904-1982

Relativist Idea and spirit of place

Post-modernism

- reaction to Modernist Philosophy, late 20th century

- rejection of objective, scientific reality

- emphasis on relativism; reality, knowledge, and value are human

constructs and may depend on the individual or group.

Post-modernism in architecture

- architectural movement, 1960s

- reaction to Modernism and its uniformity, lack of ornamentation and

symbols, and rejection of history, memory, and meanings

ARCHITECT FLAVHE ANNE M. FLORES 2

THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE: PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS
- emphasis on a return to humanistic architectural expressions: symbols
and meanings of human values, memory, humor

Robert Venturi 1925-2018

“Less is a bore”

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, 1966

Architecture as an expression - the complexity of the human condition.

Charles Moore Californian Architect 1925-1993

Deconstructivism

Deconstruction

Jacques Derrida French Philosopher 1930-2004

- Philosophical analysis (deconstruction) in linguistics 1960s

- questioned hierarchies in conceptual meanings (up is better than down,

light is better than dark, etc)

- explored tensions and contradictions in these concepts

Deconstructivism

Postmodern architectural movement 1980s

- explored assumed hierarchies and related tensions in architectural values

and practice

- investigation of unconscious biases

Peter Eisenman 1936-present

Exploration of the dominance of the user

Bernard Tschumi 1944

Questioning hierarchies of form and function

ARCHITECT FLAVHE ANNE M. FLORES 3