POST WAR DECADES

INTERNATIONAL STYLE

Walter Gropius

LECTURE

Mies Van Der Rohe

Le Corbusier

LECTURE

- Represented elegance, glamour, functionality

and modernity.
- Its linear symmetry was a distinct departure
from the flowing asymmetrical organic curves of
its predecessor style art nouveau; it embraced
influences from many different styles of the early
twentieth century, including neoclassical,
constructivism, cubism, modernism and
futurism and drew inspiration from
ancient Egyptian and Aztec forms.
-Purely decorative.
- Most significant of its features was
its dependence upon ornaments
and motifs.
-Influenced partly by styles such as
Cubism, Russian Constructivism
and Italian Futurism.
- Uses Symmetry And Repetition.

The art deco spire of

the Chrysler Building
in New York, built
19281930
City Hall in Buffalo,
New York; John Wade
with George Dietel,
built 19291931

- Materials : aluminium, stainless steel ,

lacquer, Bakelite, Chrome and inlaid wood.
- The use of stepped forms and geometric
curves (natural curves of Art Nouveau),
chevron patterns, ziggurat-shapes,
fountains, and the sunburst motif are typical
of Art Deco.

LECTURE

Art deco bevel

sunburst using
natural curves

Terracotta sunburst
design above the front
doors of the Eastern
Columbia Building,in
Los Angeles; Claud
Beelman , 1930

Art Moderne or Streamline Moderne was a late type of the Art

Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s.
Its architectural style emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines,
and sometimes nautical elements ,embraced transportation
metaphors for decoration,

LECTURE

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS
Horizontal orientation
Rounded edges, corner windows,
and glass brick walls
Glass block
Porthole windows
Smooth exterior wall
surfaces, usually stucco (smooth
plaster finish)
Flat roof with coping
Horizontal grooves or lines in walls

Greyhound bus terminal, Cleveland, Ohio

Hamilton ontario

Corner windows with sash , and as well

as making an unusual and interesting
exterior look,
Horizontal lines of the building are
emphasized by the banding
The exterior finish is smooth, clean and
really wonderfully streamlined.
No extraneous detailing to detract from
the clean lines of the faade.

Subdued colors: base colors were typically light earth tones, offwhites, or beiges; and trim colors were typically dark colors (or bright
metals) to contrast from the light base.
Examples:
-The Normandie Hotel
- Although Streamline Moderne houses are less common
than streamline commercial buildings.The Lydecker House in Los
Angeles, built by Howard Lydecker,
- elements of the style were frequently used as a variation in
post-war row housing in San Francisco.

LECTURE

Row housing

Normandie Hotel, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was

inspired by SS Normandie, the ship, and includes
the ship's original sign

Lydecker
House in Los
Angeles, built
by Howard
Lydecker,

Nazis rejected the modern architecture forcing an entire generation

of architects out of Europe.
Mies fled to the USA in 1936 extending his influence and
promoting Bauhaus which later became the primary source of
architectural modernism.

The International Style became the dominant approach for

decades.

LECTURE

International quality
Developed by European architects
Walter Gropius, Ludwig Meis Van Der Rohe, Marcel Breuer,
and Le Corbusier, among others used this style in their early
careers. The Bauhaus School was particularly influential.
Purposeful critique of and break from the past
Modular, uniform architecture for the masses
Architecture for industry, business, and institutions

 The International Style was striving towards:

-

Simplification

- Honesty
- Clarification
The ideals of the style can be summed up in four slogans:

ornament is a crime
truth to materials

LECTURE

form follows function

machines for living

(Le Corbusier)

CHARACTERISTICS :

Simple ,undecorated , uniform

Concrete , Glass , Steel
Occasionally reveals skeleton frame construction
Exposing its structure
Ribbon windows , Corner windows , Bands of glass
Balance and regularity
Emphasis on horizontality
Flat roof, without ledge
Often with thin, metal mullions and smooth spandrel panels
separating large, single-pane windows
Cantilevered balconies

LECTURE

The typical International Style high-rise usually consists of the

following:

Square and rectangular foot prints

Simple cubic extruded rectangle form
Windows running in broken horizontal rows forming a grid
All faade angles are 90 degree

LECTURE

Major architectural style in Europe & USA

Began in the 1920s 19302 (1980s)
Term coined by Henry Russell Hitchcock and Phillip Johnson

Henry-Russell Hitchcock
(1903-1987)

Philip Cortelyou Johnson

(1906-2005)

PHILIP JOHNSON

Philip Johnson born in 1906,in Cleveland ,

Ohio
After graduating from high school he attended
Harward college , where he studied classics.
At the age of 26 he became the director of
museum of modern arts new architecture
department
Founder of influential department of
architecture and design at Moma. As co-author
with Henry Russell Hitchcock of Moma
exhibition catalog the international style
:architecture since 1922
PHILOSOPHIES :
According to Philip Johnson crutches by which architects evade their
real responsibilities areLECTURE

History i.e. Justifying elements which are earlier used.

Utility- i.e. If utility of a building overcomes artistic inventions ,then it

is merely an assemblage of useful parts.

GLASS HOUSE ,NEW CANAAN (1949)

One of the world's most beautiful yet least functional houses

Transparent open-plan frame structure which was his own residence.
Is heavily influenced by mies' farnsworth house
LECTURE

Bath in brick cylinder.

Includes outdoor sculpture and a separate blank-walled brick guest

house

LECTURE

Spatial divisions in the

glass building are
achieved by a brick
cylinder containing a
bathroom, and by low
walnut cabinets one of
them containing kitchen
equipment.

It was a building really

expressing many concerns of
classic design, from the elevated
placement of an object in a
space, to its serene proportion,
general overall symmetry, and
combining of a balance of
elements .

MASTER ARCHITECTS :

LECTURE

Walter Gropius
(Germany)

Ludwig Mies van Rohe

(Germany)

Le Corbusier (France)

WALTER GROPIUS

The German-American architect, educator, and

designer Walter Gropius (1883-1969) was
director of Bauhaus in Germany from 1919 to
1928 and occupied the chair of architecture at
the Harvard University Graduate School of
Design from 1938 to 1952.

LECTURE

PHILOSOPHIES

Use of machine and modern prefabrication.

Unitation of the various arts of painting, architecture, theatre,
photography, weaving, typography, etc., into the design.
Various functional techniques should be used:
Simpicity , Symmetry , Angularity , Abstraction , Consistency , Unity
,Organization ,Economy ,Subtlety ,Continuity ,Regularity ,Sharpness
,Monochomaticity.
His goal was to raise the level of product design by combining art
and industry.

LECTURE

Bauhaus is a German
expression meaning "house for
building."
Bauhaus architects rejected
"bourgeois" details such as
cornices, eaves and decorative
details.
Use principles of Classical
architecture in their most pure
form: without ornamentation of
any kind.

It shuns ornamentation and favours functionality .

Flat roofs, smooth facades and cubic shapes.
Floor plans are open and furniture is functional.
The Bauhaus school disbanded when the Nazis rose to power.
Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and other Bauhaus leaders
migrated to the United States. The term International Style was
applied to the American form of Bauhaus architecture.
The name came from the book The International Style by historian
and critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Architect Philip Johnson.

GROPIUS HOUSE

LECTURE

In 1925 Walter Gropius designed his

house at Dessau , according to his
needs, and areas were selected
according to function. In his own house
he used steel frames and glass.
maximum openings for maximum
advantage of daylighting , natures
beauty and flow of space.
Its detailing keeps strongly to the
principles of the Bauhaus architecture

Brick and
cement for
external treatment
but for internal
treatment
Gropius used all
new materials
which give it an
extraordinary
beauty inside as
well as outside.

FAGUS FACTORY

LECTURE

The plan of the Cologne building was axially designed in the Beaux-Arts
tradition, but the major influence was predominantly that of Frank Lloyd
Wright.
Gropius and Meyer were
influenced by Wright's style
especially in the horizontality
and the wide overhanging eaves,
but also in the symmetry, the
corner pavilions, and the whole
spirit of Wright's concept.

It used elements that later characterized the International Style.

Glass curtain walls between expressed steel supports, corners left
free of solid masonry, and simple rectangular massing with a flat roof.
The front facade was windowless and clad with limestone resembling
brick .
Most important was architecture of the administration block with its
transparent staircase, the glass walled offices with continuous round
the corners, and the roof terraces.

MIES VAN DER ROHE

PHILOSOPHIES

Fransworth house

Beauty is splendour of truth

Fransworth house

LECTURE

Structure & Bauknst

Crown hall

Skin and bone concept

Entrance of Seagram
Building

Material and technology

CURTAIN
TRACK
DETAILS

God is in the detail

Barcelona pavilion

Less is more

LECTURE

Universality

Barcelona pavilion

The classical
serenity of building
in its surroundings

FRANSWORTH HOUSE

Construction System : Steel frame with glass

LECTURE

In the late 1940s, Mies Vander Rohe continued to develop

his steel-and-glass vocabulary.
Its interior, a single room, is subdivided by partitions
and completely enclosed in glass.
The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to
the Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies.

FRANSWORTH HOUSE

LECTURE

No partitions touch the

surrounding all-glass
enclosure. Without solid
exterior walls, full-height
draperies on a perimeter track
allow freedom to provide full
or partial privacy when and
where desired

A wood-panelled fireplace is positioned within the open space to

suggest living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls.

BARCELONA PAVILION

LECTURE

Concept: The Commissioner,

Georg von Schnitzler said it
should give "voice to the
spirit of a new era". This
concept was carried out with
the realization of the "free
plan" and the "floating
room
Planning : This lack of
accommodation enabled
Mies to treat the Pavilion as
a continuous space; blurring
inside and outside

Construction System :

Steel Frame With

Glass And Polished
Stone

LECTURE

Another unique feature of this

building is the exotic materials
Mies chooses to use.
Plates of high-grade stone
materials like veneers of Tinos
verde antico marble and
golden onyx as well as tinted
glass of grey, green, white, as
well as translucent glass,
perform exclusively as spatial
dividers.

The floor slabs of the pavilion

project out and over the pool
once again connecting inside
and out.

SEAGRAM BUILDING
Style's characteristic traits was
to express or articulate the
structure of buildings
externally .

LECTURE

Style that argued that the

functional utility of the buildings
structural elements when made
visible, could supplant a formal
decorative articulation; and
more honestly converse with
the public, than any system of
applied ornamentation.

Seagram Building
New York, NY, 1956-58, L. Mies
van der Rohe & P. Johnson

 Built of a steel frame, from which

non-structural glass walls were
hung.
Used non-structural bronze-toned
I-beams to suggest structure visible
from the outside of the building, and
run vertically, like mullions,
surrounding the large glass windows .

LECTURE

Method of construction using an interior reinforced concrete

shell to support a larger non-structural edifice has since
become commonplace
The interior was designed to assure cohesion with the external
features, repeated in the glass and bronze

WINDOW BLINDS: To reduce this disproportionate

appearance, Mies specified window blinds which only operated
in three positions fully open, halfway open/closed, or fully
closed.

AS A FURNITURE DESIGNER

LECTURE

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe worked

under Bruno Paul, architect and
furniture designer in Berlin.
Mies Van Der Rohe furniture is
influenced by a design approach
based on advanced structural
techniques and Prussian
Classicism.
The Barcelona Chairs create
ambience of sophistication and
sport clean lines and smooth
finishes.
A perfect mix of metal and soft
leather, Mies Van Der Rohe
furniture includes smart pieces like
Mies van der Rohe Cantilever Chair
with no arms, Barcelona Ottoman,
Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Day
Bed and Barcelona Chair etc.

LE CORBUSIER

Le Corbusier is one of the most

imaginative architect of the last century
to whom we owe the revolutionary,
structural change of modern
architecture.

LECTURE

Le Corbusier dominated twentiethcentury architecture in much the

same way that Picasso dominated
painting.

Le Corbusier is the most influential, most admired, and most

maligned architect of the twentieth century.
Through his writing and his buildings, he is the main player in the
Modernist story, his visions of homes and cities as innovative as
they are influential.
Many of his ideas on urban living became the blueprint for Postwar reconstruction, and the many failures of his would-be
imitators led to Le Corbusier being blamed for the problems of
western cities in the 1960s and 1970s.

AS A PURIST
Le Corbusier was deeply involved in the
purist movement which focused on seeing
objects in the world and rendering them
exactly as they appear in their purest forms.

LECTURE

This was the

architects way of
rationalizing his
unique style of
housing. Much of his
radical design was
centered on the
basic shape and
form of the cube.

Postmodernism was the return to

classical architecture which at the time
was very unpopular with many critics
and underwent severe persecution.

5 points towards architecture

A New Architecture finally
formulated in 1926 included..

LECTURE

1) Supports The replacement of

supporting walls by a grid of
reinforced concrete columns
that bears the load of the
structure is the basis of the
new aesthetic.
2)

The free designing of the

ground plan The absence of
supporting walls means that
the house is unrestrained in its
internal usage.

3)

The free design of facade By

separating the exterior of the
building form its structural
function the faade becomes
free.

4) The long horizontal sliding window

The horizontal window The faade can be cut along its entire length to
allow rooms to be lit equally.

LECTURE

5) Roof gardens
The flat roof can be utilization for a domestic purpose while also
providing essential protection the concrete roof.

VILLA SAVOYE (1920-30)

LECTURE

One of the most famous houses of

the modern movement in
architecture, the Villa Savoye is a
masterpiece of Le Corbusier's purist
design.
It is perhaps the best example of
LeCorbusier's goal to create a
house which would be a "machine
a habitat," a machine for living
(in).
Located in a suburb near Paris,
the house is as beautiful and
functional as a machine.

3d view

Glass facade

Pilotis
(supporting
column)

Spiral staicase

LECTURE

"Pilotis" -- the house is raised on stilts .

No historical ornament .
A very open interior plan .
Built-in furniture .
Horizontal window
Abstract sculptural design .
Roof garden.
Pure color -- white on the outside, a color
with associations of newness, purity,
simplicity, and health and planes of subtle
color in the interior living areas
Dynamic , non-traditional transitions
Roof garden
between floors -- spiral staircases and
ramps.
Ribbon windows (echoing industrial
architecture, but also providing openness
and light) .

Free plan

NOTRE DAME DU HAUT

The church is simplean oblong nave,
two side entrances, an axial main altar,
and three chapels beneath towersas
is its structure, with rough masonry
walls faced with whitewashed Gummite
(sprayed concrete) and a roof of
contrasting baton brut.

LECTURE

Buttress-shaped south wall - and the

vast shell of the concrete roof give the
building a massive, sculptural form.
Small, brightly painted and apparently
irregular windows punched in these
thick walls give a dim but exciting light
within the cool building .

Vertical triangular
frames

LE CORBUSIER ..THE FURNITURE DESIGNER

In his creative work ...aesthetic is one

of the focal points.
Most of Le Corbusier's furniture
designs were developed with the aim of
exploring this concept in creative
collaboration with Pierre Jeanneret and
Charlotte Perriand, designers who
shared his interest in the research for
distinctive looks related to a concept of
new functionalism.

LECTURE

In 1928 the team introduced a series of

innovative metal furniture which
immediately became classic.

During his lifetime, Le Corbusier

licensed Heidi Weber with two contracts
in 1959 and 1963 for the production and
sales of four different chairs designs,
which he officially declared as his own.

Resting chair

QUOTATIONS.
"You employ stone, wood, and concrete, and with
these materials you build houses and palaces: that
is construction, Ingenuity is at work.
"Space and light and order. Those are the things
that men need just as much as they need bread or
a place to sleep."
"The house is a machine for living in."
"Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new
kind of plan, both for the house and the city."
"The 'Styles' are a lie."
Architecture or revolution.
Revolution can be avoided."

Modular

LECTURE

CORBUSIER AS.. Lamp designer

Painter

Women in window

LECTURE

REFERENCES

Internet
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Walter_Gropius.aspx
www.answers.com ... Britannica Concise
http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/biographies/mainbiograp
hies/g/gropiuswalter/1.html
www.walter-gropius.com
www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Bauhaus.html
www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/gropius.html
Wikipedia.com
Greatbuildings.com
Designcenter.com
Architectbiography.com
Archinomy.com
Simplycharly.com
Designdictionary.com