Modern Architecture and Its

Variations
 Industrial Revolution

1760 to 1840
Agrarian and Handicraft Industry and Machine
Economy Manufacturing

28th July 1914 - 11th

World War 1 Nov’ 1918

World War 11 1939 - 1945

Modernism isn't just another architectural style.

It is an evolution in design that first appeared around 1850

— some say it began earlier than that — and continues to this day

The Architects have drawn on several design philosophies to create

buildings that are startling and unique.

The styles include—

Expressionism ( Beginning Brutalism ( 1950s United
of 20th Century) Kingdom)
Constructivism (Nearly 15 Deconstructivism, (Post
Years, 1910 s to 1930 s ) Modern Architectural Style ,
1980s Onwards)
Bauhaus Germany (1919- Minimalism, (1920s_ Ludwig
1933) Mies Van Der Rohe)
Functionalism (After World De Stijl (Netherland 1917-
War 1) 1931)
International style Metabolism (Japan 1950s-
1960s-1970s)
The styles include—
Desert Mid-century Modernism
(Mid Twentieth Century)
Structuralism (Mid 20th Century,
Reaction to Rationalism)
Formalism (United States, mid
1950s to 1960s)
High-tech or Structural
Expressionism : late modernist
Architecture 1970s onwards
Organic (Frank Lloyd Wright
1867-1959)
Postmodernism : 1960s , Reaction
to restrictive ideals and simplistic,
minimalistic forms of modernism
Parametricism (Computer
Technology and Algorithms, mid
1990s to early 21st Century)
 Post Modernism
as defined by Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)

Postmodernism is an eclectic, colourful

style of architecture and the decorative
arts that appeared from the late 1970s
and continues in some form today. It
emerged as a reaction to Modernism and
the Modern movement, and the dogmas
associated with it.
• The 'modern look' means simplicity in form
and design. Modern architecture is based on
abstraction, which is created by clean lines,
basic shapes, and forms. Thus, simple, plain,
geometric forms, rectangular shapes, and
linear elements make the characteristics of
modern architecture.
Beinecke Rare Book Library, Yale University, Gordon Bunshaft, 1963.
The 1963 Beinecke Library at Yale University is a good example of
modern architecture.

No windows in this library.

The panels on the outer walls where the windows might be are, in fact,
windows for a modern rare books library.

The facade is built with thin pieces of Vermont marble framed within
granite and concrete clad steel trusses, allowing a filtered natural light
through the stone and into the interior spaces — a remarkable technical
achievement with natural materials by design architect Gordon
Bunshaft and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill .

A rare books library does everything one would expect of modern

architecture.

Besides being functional, the building's aesthetic rejects its Classical and
Gothic surroundings. It is new.
1920s: Expressionism and Neo-expressionism

Einstein Tower Observatory, Potsdam, Germany, 1920,

Erich Mendelsohn. Marcus Winter
Built in 1920, the Einstein Tower or Einsteinturm in Potsdam,

Germany is an Expressionist work by architect Erich Mendelsohn .

Expressionism evolved from the work of avant garde artists (1850s onwards) and
designers in Germany and other European countries during the first decades of the
20th century.

Many fanciful works were rendered on paper but never built.

Key features of Expressionism include:

i. the use of distorted shapes,
ii. fragmented lines,
iii. organic or biomorphic forms,
iv. massive sculpted shapes,
v. extensive use of concrete and brick,
vi. and lack of symmetry
Neo-expressionism built upon expressionist ideas.

Architects in the 1950s and 1960s designed buildings that expressed their
feelings about the surrounding landscape.

Sculptural forms suggested rocks and mountains

.
Organic and Brutalist architecture is sometimes described as Neo-
expressionist

Expressionist and Neo-expressionist architects include:

Gunther Domenig Erich Mendelsohn

Hans Scharoun the early works of Walter
Gropius
Rudolf Steiner, Eero Saarinen.

Bruno Taut
 1920s: Constructivism

Constructivist Model of
Tatlin's Tower Sketch of Skyscraper
by Vladimir Tatlin on Strastnoy Boulevard
in Moscow
• During the 1920s and early 1930s, a group of avant-
garde architects in Russia launched a movement to design
buildings for the new socialist regime. Calling
themselves constructivists.

They believed that design began with construction.

Their buildings emphasized abstract geometric shapes

and functional machine parts
Constructivist architecture combined engineering and technology
with political ideology.

Constructivist architects attempted to suggest the idea of humanity's

collectivism through the harmonious arrangement of diverse
structural elements.

Constructivist buildings are characterized

i. by a sense of movement and abstract geometric shapes;

ii. technological details such as antennae, signs, and projection

screens;

iii. and machine-made building parts primarily of glass and

steel
The most famous (and perhaps the first) work of
constructivist architecture was never actually built.

In 1920, Russian architect Vladimir Tatlin proposed a

futuristic monument to the Third International (the
Communist International) in the city of St. Petersburg.

The unbuilt project, called Tatlin's Tower, used spiral forms to

symbolize revolution and human interaction.

Inside the spirals, three glass-walled building units — a cube,

a pyramid, and a cylinder — would rotate at different speeds.
Soaring 400 meters (about 1,300 feet), Tatlin's Tower would have been
taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

The cost to erect such a building would have been enormous.

But, even though the design was not built, the plan helped launch the
Constructivist movement.

By the late 1920s, Constructivism had spread outside the USSR.

Many European architects called themselves constructivists, including

Vladimir Tatlin, Konstantin Melnikov, Nikolai Milyutin, Aleksandr
Vesnin, Leonid Vesnin, Viktor Vesnin, El Lissitzky, Vladimir Krinsky,
and Iakov Chernikhov.

Within a few years, Constructivism faded from popularity and was

eclipsed by the Bauhaus movement in Germany.
 Constructivism
Salient Features
• Originated in Russia after world war-I (1914-1918)

• Founded by Alexander Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin and 25 other artists

• The seed of Constructivism was a desire to express the experience of modern life-

its dynamism, its new and disorientating qualities of space and time.

• Constructivists were to be constructors of a new society- cultural workers on a par

with scientists in their search for solutions to modern problems.

“Art for everyone, Art for the People!”

Art was created to serve all people and be practical in its nature.
• The artists did not believe in abstract ideas, rather they tried to link art with
concrete and tangible ideas.
• It acted as a lightning rod for the hopes and ideas of many of the most advanced
Russian artists who supported the revolution’s goals.
• It borrowed ideas form Cubism. Suprematism and Futurism, but at its heart was
entirely new approach to making objects. One which sought to abolish the
traditional artistic concern with composition and replace it with
‘construction’.

COMPOSITION

CONSTRUCTION
 Art Movements

Cubism :
It was a revolutionary new approach to representing reality, invented in around 1907-
08 by artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. They brought different views of
subjects (usually objects or figures) together in the same picture, resulting in
paintings that appear fragmented and abstracted.

Suprematism (1915 onwards)

It is an early twentieth Century art movement focused on the fundamentals of
geometry, painted in a limited range of colors. The term suprematism refers to an
abstract art based upon “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling” rather than a visual
depiction of objects.

Futurism (Italy, Early 20th Century)

It is an artistic movement that emphasized the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of
the machine and the vitality, change and restlessness of modern life.
TATLIN’S TOWER

• The Tower which was never fully realized was

intended to act as fully functional conference space

and propaganda Centre for the Communist Third

International.

“We had vision of a new world industry technology and science. We

simultaneously invented and changed the world around us. We
authored new notions of beauty and redefined art itself.”
ALEXANDER RODCHENKO

• Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer

• Used Photomontage
• His photography was socially engaged formally innovative, and opposed to a
painterly aesthetic.
• His life’s work was a ceaseless experiment with an extraordinary array of media
• For him design was not a manner of AESTHETICS. It was a catalyst for social
Change.
 1920s: Bauhaus

The Gropius House, 1938, Lincoln,

Massachusetts, Modern Bauhaus.
Bauhaus is a German expression meaning house for building, or,
literally, Construction House.

In 1919, the economy in Germany was collapsing after a crushing war.

Architect Walter Gropius was appointed to head a new institution that
would help rebuild the country and form a new social order.

Called the Bauhaus, the Institution called for a new "rational" social
housing for the workers.

Bauhaus architects rejected "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves,

and decorative details.

They wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure

form: functional, without ornamentation of any kind.
Generally, Bauhaus buildings have flat roofs, smooth façades, and
cubic shapes.

Colors are white, grey, beige, or black.

Floor plans are open and furniture is functional.

Popular construction methods of the time — steel-frame with glass

curtain walls — were used for both residential and commercial
architecture.

More than any architectural style, however, the Bauhaus

Manifesto promoted principles of creative collaboration — planning,
designing, drafting, and construction are tasks equal within the
building collective.

Art and craft should have no difference.

The Bauhaus school originated in Weimar, Germany (1919),
moved to Dessau, Germany (1925), and disbanded when the
Nazis rose to power.

Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe,

and other Bauhaus leaders migrated to the United States.

At times the term International Modernism was applied to the

American form of Bauhaus architecture
• Architect Walter Gropius used Bauhaus ideas when he
built his own monochrome home in 1938 near where he
taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

• The historic Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts is

open for the public to experience genuine Bauhaus
architecture
 1920s: De Stijl

Rietveld Schröder House, Utrecht, Netherlands, 1924,

De Stijl Style.
 The Rietveld Schröder House in The Netherlands is a prime
example of architecture from the De Stijl movement.

Architects like Gerrit Thomas Rietveld made bold, minimalist

geometric statements in 20th century Europe.

In 1924 Rietveld built this house in Utrecht for Mrs. Truus

Schröder-Schräder, who embraced a flexible home designed
with no interior walls
• Taking the name from the art publication The Style, the De Stijl
movement was not exclusive to architecture.
• Abstract artists like Dutch painter Piet Mondrian were also influential
in minimalizing realities to simple geometric shapes and limited
colors (e.g., red, blue, yellow, white, and black).
• The art and architecture movement was also known as neo-plasticism,
influencing designers around the world well into the 21st century
 Minimilism
1950s - 60s

One important trend in Modernist architecture is the movement

toward minimalist or reductivist design.

Hallmarks of Minimalism include :

i. open floor plans with few if any interior walls;
ii. emphasis on the outline or frame of the structure;
iii. incorporating negative spaces around the structure as
part of the overall design;
iv. using lighting to dramatize geometric lines and planes;
v. and stripping the building of all but the most essential
elements — after the anti-ornamentation beliefs of Adolf
Loos.
The Mexico city home of the Pritzker Prize –
winning architect Luis Barragan’s is Minimalist in its
emphasis on lines, planes, and open spaces.

Other architects known for Minimalist designs

include:

i. Tadao Ando, (Japan)

ii. Shigeru Ban
iii. shio Taniguchi,
iv. Richard Gluckman
 Barragan House, Mexico City, Mexico, 1948,
Luis Barragán. Barragan Foundation, Birsfelden, Switzerland
• Pulitzer Arts Foundation , St Louis
• Design Sight Museum
• Steel roof
Modernist architect Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe
paved the way for Minimalism when he said, "Less is more."

Minimalist architects drew much of their inspiration from the

elegant simplicity of traditional Japanese architecture.

Minimalists were also inspired by an early 20th century Dutch

movement known as De Stijl.

Valuing simplicity and abstraction, De Stijl artists used only

straight lines and rectangular shapes
United Nations Secretariat Building, 1952,
International Style
Victor Fraile/Corbis
International Style is a term often used to describe Bauhaus-like
architecture in the United States.

One of the most famous examples of the International Style is the

United Nations Secretariat building, originally designed by an
international team of architects including
Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer and Wallace Harrison.

It was completed in 1952 and meticulously renovated in 2012.

The smooth glass-sided slab, one of the first uses of curtain-

wall glass cladding on a tall building, dominates New York
City's skyline along the East River.
 • Skyscraper office buildings near the U.N. also are
International in design. These include the

i. 1958 Seagram Building by Mies Van Der Rohe

ii. the MetLife Building, built as the PanAm building in 1963

and designed by Emery Roth, Walter Gropius, and Pietro
Belluschi.
 1958 MetLife Building,
1963
Seagram Building designed by Emery Roth, Walter
by Mies Van Der Rohe Gropius, and Pietro Belluschi.
 American International style buildings tend to be

1. geometric,
2.monolithic skyscrapers with these typical features:

i. a rectangular solid with six sides (including ground floor)

ii.and a flat roof;
iii.a curtain wall (exterior siding) completely of glass;
iv.no ornamentation;
v. and stone, steel, glass construction materials .
• The name came from the book The International
Style by historian and critic Henry-Russell
Hitchcock and architect Philip Johnson .

• The book was published in 1932 in conjunction

with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York.

• The term is again used in a later

book, International Architecture by Walter
Gropius, founder of Bauhaus
Functionalism is designing according to
function of the building
The Tower of the Helsinki Olympic
Standium (Y.Lindegren and
T.Jantti, Built in 1934-38)
Functionalism in Architecture
• Toward the end of the 20th century, the
term Functionalism was used to describe any utilitarian
structure that was quickly constructed for purely practical
purposes without an eye for artistry.

For Bauhaus and other early Functionalists, the concept

was a liberating philosophy that freed architecture from
frilly excesses of the past
When American architect Louis Sullivan coined the phrase
"form follows function" in 1896, he described what later
became a dominant trend in Modernist architecture.

Louis Sullivan and other architects were striving for "honest"

approaches to building design that focused on functional
efficiency.

Functionalist architects believed that the ways buildings are

used and the types of materials available should determine the
design
 Though Louis Sullivan sometimes lavished his buildings with ornamental
details that did not serve any functional purpose.

The philosophy of functionalism was followed more closely by Bauhaus

and International Style architects

• Architect Louis I. Kahn sought honest approaches to design when he designed the
Functionalist Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven , Connecticut, which
looks much different than the functional Norwegian Radhuset in Oslo.

• The 1950 City Hall in Oslo has been cited as an example of Functionalism in
architecture. If form follows function, functionalist architecture will take many
forms.
Functionalist Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven ,
Connecticut,United States, Louis Kahn, 1966
Functionalist Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven ,
Connecticut,United States, Louis Kahn, 1966
Functionalist Yale Centre for British Art in New Haven ,
Connecticut,United States, Louis Kahn, 1966
 Oslo City Hall (Radhuset)
• Arnstein Arneberg and Magnus Pousson, 1950
 Features of Functionalism
• Designed by
William Pereira,
1970
• Also referred as
Brutalist
Architecture

• Strong and Bold Geometric Shapes

Features of Functionalism

• Use of
Reinforced
Concrete
 Features of Functionalism

• Denys Lasdun, Peter Softley , 1976

• Using purest form of brick, concrete, glass etc
 Features of Functionalism

• Le Corbusier, 1954
• Diagonal Sloping and Strongly Curved Elements with
massive horizontal and vertical members
1950s: Desert Modernism or Mid century Modern

The Kaufmann Desert House, Palm Springs, California,

1946, Richard Neutra. Francis G. Mayer
Desert Modernism was a mid-20th century approach to
modernism that capitalized on the sunny skies and warm climate
of Southern California and the American Southwest.

With expansive glass and streamlined styling, Desert

Modernism was a regional approach to International Style
architecture.

Rocks, trees, and other landscape features were often

incorporated into the design
Architects adapted ideas from the European Bauhaus movement to the warm
climate and arid terrain.

Characteristics of Desert Modernism include

• expansive glass walls and windows;

• dramatic roof lines with wide overhangs;

• open floor plans with outdoor living spaces incorporated into the overall design;
•
• and a combination of modern (steel and plastic) and traditional (wood and stone)
building materials.

• Architects associated with Desert Modernism include William F. Cody, Albert

Frey, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, E. Stewart Williams, and Donald
Wexler.

• This style of architecture evolved throughout the U.S. to become the more
affordable Mid-century Modern
• Examples of Desert Modernism may be found throughout
Southern California and parts of the American Southwest, but
the largest and best-preserved examples of the style are
concentrated in Palm Spring , California.

• It was an architecture of the very rich — the Kaufmann's

1946 home designed by Richard Neutra in Palm Springs was
built after Frank Lyoyd Wright built the Kaufmann's
Pennsylvania home known as Falling water.

• Neither home was Kaufmann's primary residence

1960s: Structuralism

Berlin Holocaust Memorial,

Peter Eisenman, 2005.
Structuralism is based on the idea that all things are built
from a system of signs and these signs are made up of
opposites:
male/female, hot/cold, old/young, etc.

For Structuralists, design is a process of searching for the

relationship between elements.

Structuralists are also interested in the social structures and

mental processes that contributed to the design
Structuralist architecture will have a great deal of complexity within a highly
structured framework.

For example, a Structuralist design may consist of cell-like honeycomb

shapes, intersecting planes, cubed grids, or densely clustered spaces with
connecting courtyards.

• Architect Peter Eisenman is said to have brought a Structuralist

approach to his works.

• Officially called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the 2005
Berlin Holocaust Memorial in Germany is one of Eisenman's controversial
works, with an order within disorder that some find too intellectual.
1960s: Metabolism

Nakagin Capsule Tower, Tokyo, Japan, 1972,

Kisho Kurokawa
With cell-like apartments, Kisho Kurokawa's 1972 Nakagin
Capsule Tower in Tokyo, Japan is a lasting impression of the
1960s Metabolism Movement.

• Metabolism is a type of organic architecture characterized by

recycling and prefabrication; expansion and contraction based
on need; modular, replaceable units (cells or pods) attached
to a core infrastructure; and sustainability.

• It is a philosophy of organic urban design, that structures must

act like living creatures within an environment that naturally
changes and evolves.
• The 1972 Nakagin Capsule Tower is a residential building
built as a series of pods or capsules.
•
• The design was to "install the capsule units into a concrete
core with only 4 high-tension bolts, as well as making the
units detachable and replaceable," according to Kisho
Kurokawa Architect & Associates.

• The idea was to have individual or connected units, with

prefabricated interiors lifted into the units and attached to
the core.

• "The Nakagin Capsule Tower realizes the ideas of

metabolism, exchangeability, recycleablity as the prototype
of sustainable architecture,“as described by the firm.
 1970s: High-Tech

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France,

1977. Patrick Durand
• High-tech architecture, also known as structural expressionism, is a type of late
modernist architecture that emerged in the 1970s,

• It incorporated elements of hi-tech industry and technology into building design.

• High-tech architecture grew from the modernist style, utilizing new advances in
technology and building materials.

• It emphasizes transparency in design and construction, seeking to communicate the

underlying structure and function of a building throughout its interior and exterior.

• High-tech architecture makes extensive use of aluminium, steel, glass and to a lesser
extent concrete. (the technology for which had developed earlier), as these materials were
becoming more advanced and available in a wider variety of forms at the time the style was
developing– generally, advancements in a trend towards lightness of weight.
The 1977 Centre Pompidou in Paris, France is a High-tech
building by Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Gianfranco
Franchini.

It appears to be turned inside out, revealing its inner

workings on the exterior facade.

Norman Robert Foster and I.M.Pei are other well-known

architects who have designed this way.
• High-tech buildings are often called machine-like.
• Steel, aluminum, and glass combine with brightly colored braces,
girders, and beams.
• Many of the building parts are prefabricated in a factory and
assembled on site.
• The support beams, duct work, and other functional elements are
placed on the exterior of the building, where they become the
focus of attention.
• The interior spaces are open and adaptable for many uses.
• High-tech architecture experimented with Rectangular Hollow
Section (RHS).
 Lloyd building in
London by Richard
Rogers
• Common elements
include hanging or
overhanging floors, a
lack of internal load
bearing walls and
reconfigurable spaces.

• High-tech utilizes a
focus on factory
aesthetics.
 HSBC Building
1980s

• Norman Foster, the architect of

high-tech highlights for five
decades including Reliance
Controls in the 1960s, the
Sainsbury Centre in the 1970s,
HSBC in the 1980s, Stansted
Airport in the 1990s and the
Gherkin in the 2000s.
1970s: Brutalism

Hubert H. Humphrey Building,

Washington, D.C.,
Marcel Breuer, 1977
Rugged reinforced concrete construction lead to an approach popularly known
as Brutalism.

Brutalism grew out of the Bauhaus Movement and the béton brut buildings
by Le Corbusier and his followers.

The Bauhaus architect Le Corbusier used the French phrase béton brut,
or crude concrete, to describe the construction of his own rough, concrete
buildings.

When concrete is cast, the surface will take on imperfections and designs of
the form itself, like the wood grain of wooden forms.

The form's roughness can make the concrete (béton) look "unfinished" or raw.
This aesthetic is often a characteristic of what became known
as brutalist architecture.
 These heavy, angular, Brutalist style buildings can be constructed quickly and
economically, and, therefore, they are often seen on a campus of government office
buildings.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C. is a good example. Designed
by architect Marcel Breuer, this 1977 building is headquarters of the Department of
Health & Human Services.

Common features include precast concrete slabs, rough, unfinished surfaces, exposed steel
beams, and massive, sculptural shapes.

The Pritzker Prize winning architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha is often called a "Brazilian
Brutalist" because his buildings are constructed of prefabricated and mass-produced concrete
components.

The Bauhaus architect Marcel Breuer also turned to Brutalism when he designed the original
1966 Whitney Museum in New York City and the Central Library in Atlanta, Georgia.
 Atlanta – Fulton Central Public
Whitney Museum
Library
New York, 1930
1977-80
Marcel Breuer, Renzo Piano
Marcel Breuer
1970s: Organic

The Sydney Opera House,

Australia,
1973, Jørn Utzon
 Designed by Jorn Utzon and Peter Hall, the 1973 Sydney Opera House in
Australia is an example of modern Organic architecture.

Borrowing shell-like forms, the architecture seems to soar from the

harbor as if it had always been there.

• Frank Llyod Wright said that all architecture is organic, and the Art
Noveau architects of the early 20th century incorporated curving,
plant-like shapes into their designs.

• But in the later 20th century, Modernist architects took the concept
of organic architecture to new heights.

• By using new forms of concrete and cantilever trusses, architects

could create swooping arches without visible beams or pillars.
• Organic buildings are never linear or rigidly geometric.

• Instead, wavy lines and curved shapes suggest natural forms.

•
• Before using computers to design, Frank Lloyd Wright
used shell-like spiral forms when he designed the Solomon
R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

• The Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) is

known for designing grand bird-like buildings such as the
TWA terminal at New York's Kennedy Airport and the Dulles
Airport terminal near Washington D.C. — two organic forms in
Saarinen’s portfolio of works designed before desktop
computers made things so much easier
Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York
1956-59
Frank Lloyd Wright

• The structure's
main feature was
a main gallery
with a helical
ramp,
surrounding a
lightwell with a
skylight
1970s: Postmodernism

AT&T Headquarters (SONY Building),

New York City, Philip Johnson, 1984.
Combining new ideas with traditional forms,
postmodernist buildings may startle, surprise, and even amuse

• Postmodern architecture evolved from the modernist

movement, yet contradicts many of the modernist
ideas.

• Familiar shapes and details are used in

unexpected ways.

• Buildings may incorporate symbols to make a

statement or simply to delight the viewer.
 Postmodern architects include Robert Venturi and Denise Scott
Brown, Michael Graves, Robert a m Stern, and Philip Johnson.
All are playful in their own ways.
.the top of Johnson's AT&T Building —a skyscraper that looks
like a giant Chippendale-like piece of furniture

• The key ideas of Postmodernism are set forth

in two important books by Venturi and
Brown: Complexity and Contradiction in
Architecture (1966) and Learning from Las
Vegas (1972).
1980s: Deconstructivism

Seattle Public Library, 2004,

Washington State,
Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus
Deconstructivism, or Deconstruction, is an approach to building
design that attempts to view architecture in bits and pieces.

The basic elements of architecture are dismantled.

Deconstructivist buildings may seem to have no visual logic.

Structures may appear to be made up of unrelated, disharmonious

abstract forms, like a cubist of art— and then the architect
violates the cube.
• Deconstructive ideas are borrowed from the French
philosopher Jacques Derrida.

• The Seattle Public Library by Dutch architect Rem

Koolhaas and his team including Joshua Prince-Ramus is an
example of Deconstructivist architecture.

• Another example in Seattle, Washington is the Museum of

Pop Culture, which architect Frank Gehry has said is
designed as a smashed guitar.

• Other architects known for this architectural style include the

early works of Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind and Zaha
Hadid.

• Although some of their architecture is classified as

Postmodern, deconstructivist architects reject Postmodernist
ways for an approach more akin to Russian Constructivism.
In the summer of 1988, architect Philip Johnson was instrumental
in organizing a Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibit called
"Deconstructivist Architecture."

Johnson gathered works from seven architects (Eisenman, Gehry,

Hadid, Koolhaas, Libeskind, Bernard Tschumi, and Coop
Himmelblau) who "intentionally violate the cubes and right
angles of modernism."
 The announcement of the exhibit explained:

“ The hallmark of deconstructivist architecture is its apparent

instability.

Though structurally sound, the projects seem to be in states of

explosion or collapse....

Deconstructivist architecture, however, is not an architecture of

decay or demolition.

On the contrary, it gains all of its force by challenging the very

values of harmony, unity, and stability, proposing instead that
flaws are intrinsic to the structure."
 De Rotterdam , Wilhelminapier in Rotterdam
1998
Rem Koolhas, Reinier De Graaf and Ellen Van Loon
Rem Koolhaas' radical, deconstructivist design for the 2004
Seattle Public Library in Washington State has been praised...and
questioned.

Early critics said that Seattle was "bracing for a wild ride with a
man famous for straying outside the bounds of convention."

The library has a unique,

striking appearance,
consisting of several
discrete "floating platforms"
seemingly wrapped in a
large steel net around glass
skin
• It is constructed of concrete (enough to fill 10 football fields 1-
foot deep), steel (enough to make 20 Statues of Liberty), and
glass (enough to cover 5 1/2 football fields).

• The exterior "skin" is insulated, earthquake-resistant glass on

a steel structure.

• Diamond-shaped (4 by 7 foot) glass units allow natural

lighting.

• In addition to coated clear glass, half of the glass diamonds

contain aluminum sheet metal between glass layers.

• This triple-layered, "metal mesh glass" reduces heat and glare

— the first U.S. building to install this type of glass.
• Pritzker Prize Laureate Koolhaas told reporters that he
wanted "the building to signal that something special is
going on here.“

• Some have said the design looks like a glass book opening
up and ushering in a new age of library use.

• The traditional notion of a library as a place devoted solely

to printed publications has changed in the information age.

• Although the design includes book stacks, emphasis is

placed on spacious community spaces and areas
for media such as technology, photography, and
video.

• Four hundred computers connect the library to the rest of

the world, beyond the views of Mount Rainier and Puget
Sound.
1990s and 21st Century Parametricism

Heydar Aliyev Centre,

Baku, Azerbaijan, 2012,
Zaha Hadid.
The Heydar Aliyev Centre, a cultural center built in 2012 in Baku, the capital
of the Republic of Azerbaijan is a design by ZHA — Zaha Hadid and Patrik
Schumacher with Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu.

The design concept was to create a fluid, continuous skin that would appear to
fold onto its surrounding plaza, and the interior would be column-free to create
a continuously open and fluid space.

"Advanced computing allowed for the continuous control and communication

of these complexities among the numerous project participants," describes the
firm.

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) moves to Computer-Driven Design in the 21st

Century.

When architects began using high-powered software created for the aerospace
industry, some buildings started to look like they could fly away.

Others looked like big, immobile blobs of architecture.

In the design phase, computer programs can organize and manipulate
the relationships of a building's many interrelated parts.

In the building phase, algorithms and laser beams define the necessary
construction materials and how to assemble them.

Commercial architecture in particular has transcended the blueprint.

Algorithms have become the design tool of the modern architect.

Some say that today's software is designing tomorrow's buildings.

Others say that the software allows exploration and the real possibility
of new, organic forms.

Patrik Schumacher, a partner at Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), is

credited with using the word parametricism to describe these
algorithmic designs.
 Getting to Modern

• When did the modern era of architecture begin? Many people

believe the roots of 20th century Modernity are with
the Industrial Revolution (1820-1870).
• The manufacturing of new building materials, the invention of
new construction methods, and the growth of cities inspired an
architecture that became known as Modern.
• Chicago architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) is often named
as the first modern architect, yet his early skyscrapers are
nothing like what we think of as "modern" today.
Other names that come up are Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright, all born in the 1800s. These
architects presented a new way of thinking about architecture, both
structurally and aesthetically.
• In 1896, the same year Louis Sullivan gave us
his form follows function essay, the Viennese
architect Otto Wagner wrote Moderne
Architektur — an instruction manual of sorts, A
Guidebook for His Students to This Field of
Art. Wagner writes:
• " All modern creations must correspond to the new
materials and demands of the present if they are to suit
modern man; they must illustrate our own better,
democratic, self-confident, ideal nature and take into
account man's colossal technical and scientific
achievements, as well as his thoroughly practical
tendency — that is surely self-evident!"
• Yet the word comes from the Latin modo, meaning
"just now," which makes us wonder if every generation
has a modern movement. British architect and
historian Kenneth Frampton has attempted to
"establish the beginning of the period." Frampton
writes:
• " The more rigorously one searches for the origin of
modernity...the further back it seems to lie. One tends to
project it back, if not to the Renaissance, then to that
movement in the mid-18th century when a new view of
history brought architects to question the Classical canons
of Vitruvius and to document the remains of the antique
world in order to establish a more objective basis on which
to work."