MODERN ARCHITECTURE

ABHIJIT NATU, LECTURE ON 13.7.2011

Frank Lloyd Wright (after 1914)

 Influences from Japan, Pre Columbian

America, Mexico.
 Inspiration from Nature and its permanence.
 Inspired by monumental weight of Mayan
Architecture and compacted mountain
shapes of pyramidal temple bases.
Taliesen West (FLW)

 Building forms abstract

the natural environment
in their forms.
 Space conceived as a
dry river that flows
through building in long
reflex diagonals
 Winter home and school
of FLW in desert from
1937 to 1958
 The structure's walls are made of local desert rocks,
stacked within wood forms, filled with concrete.
Next Phase of FLW

 Inspired by circular
forms of Art Nouveau.
 Example – Johnson
Wax Building
 Non-bearing, purely
enclosing walls, lily pad
columns (Cretan forms),
references to Roman
and Mediterranean
architecture.
Guggenheim Museum
Search for a new solution

 Reduction of all buildings to single pavilions

for all functions (neoclassic approach)- Meis’s
Architecture
 Question faced by most architects by 1960
was that “how they could use both function
and structure of a building to create its form
more directly and to give it more plastic
solidity than the International Style”.
Alvar Alto

 His work liberated it self from International

style.
 Form – direct response to human action they
intended to provide.
 Shapes seem to derive from action.
 Unlike Wright’s work it does not attempt to
smooth out individual actions into a single
rhythmic movement.
 It is picturesque
Church at Vuoksenniska

Plan – Section derive from preacher’s voice at altar … thus

radial form.
Church at Vuoksenniska
Helsinki University,
Auditorium
Seinajoki Library,Finland
Louis Kahn

 “What does the building want to be” – how

do the spaces that the functions require want
to be made.
 Definition of “major” and “service” spaces.
Richards Medical Center,
University of Pennyslyvania
(1957-61)
Kimbell Museum, Texas
National Assembly at Dacca

The interior of the Assembly Building is

divided into three zones. The Central zone is
the area of the Assembly. The middle zone
provides inner circulation, ties together the
galleries of the people and the press gives
access to Committee rooms and the Library.
The outer zone is the area of the offices, Party
Rooms, Lounges, Tea Rooms and Restaurant