Page 230 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

architecture 115

Architecture is the art of how to waste space. • Philip Johnson (b. 1906)

their own context. Balloon-frame construction (precut mented in brick, stone, or terra-cotta. Louis Sullivan’s
timber studs connected by machine-made nails), which Guaranty Building (1894–1895) in Buffalo, New York,
was sheathed with wooden shingles, allowed more infor- exemplified early attempts to devise a visually coherent
mal, open interior layouts that were easy to heat with solution to a new building type. Ludwig Mies van der
American central heating systems and easy to cool dur- Rohe, the master of the steel and glass skyscraper, pared
ing the hot American summers.The epitome of the Amer- away visual clutter to express the purity and careful pro-
ican Shingle Style was the Mrs. M. F. Stoughton House portions of the steel skeletons, as exhibited in his Sea-
(1882–1883) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by Henry gram Building (1954–1958) in New York City. Other
H. Richardson. Americans continued to take the lead in building types were similarly transformed by metal con-
residential design with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, struction, for example Kenzo Tange’s steel tensile sus-
whose inspiration came from nature, simple geometries, pension design for the National Gymnasium (1961–
and exotic cultures.Wright’s F. C. Robie House (1908– 1964) in Tokyo, Japan.
1910) in Chicago climaxed his search for the “Prairie The rediscovery of concrete as a primary building mate-
House.” The building’s strong horizontality and locally rial and the innovative addition of metal bars to create
inspired ornament harmonized with the Midwestern reinforced concrete structures expanded the scope of
prairie.Abstracting Japanese and other prototypes, he cre- modern architecture.Le Corbusier (born Charles-Edouard
ated transitional zones that wove together exterior and Jeanneret) established his international reputation with
interior space and effortlessly connected interior spaces machine-age designs like the pristine concrete box of the
around the central hearth. Villa Savoye (1928–1929),near Paris; and later he led the
expressionistic Brutalist movement with the aggressive,
Modernism roughly finished concrete forms of the Capitol Complex
Seeking to express contemporary life and technology, (1950–1965) in Chandigarh, India. The contours and
modern architects increasingly relied on modern materi- textures of subsequent reinforced concrete buildings
als, exposed structure, and undecorated compositions ranged from the soaring openness of Jørn Utzon’s Opera
that were open and asymmetrical. Many designers House (1956–1973) in Sydney, Australia, to the con-
searched for schemes that would be universally valid in templative enclosure of Tadao Ando’s Koshino House
a world made more homogeneous by technology. The (1979–1981) in Hyogo, Japan.
results spanned from a machine-like precision to an or- Over time architects increased their use of glass from
ganic expression of use and/or place. the exterior “curtain” (non-load-bearing) walls of Walter
Iron and steel structural frames increasingly trans- Gropius’s Bauhaus Building (1925-1926) in Dessau,
formed architecture beginning in the late nineteenthcen- Germany, to the strut- and mullion-free glazed exterior of
tury. European Art Nouveau designers copied natural Norman Foster’s Willis Faber Dumas Office Building
forms and exposed the sinuous iron structure in their (1975) in Ipswich, United Kingdom.
glass-filled buildings, such asVictor Horta’sTassel House Some highly successful twentieth-century architects
(1892–1893) in Brussels, Belgium. In American cities gained respect by adapting modern, universal themes to
the demand for space, the need to cluster offices, the local conditions and cultures in their work. Among the
development of business tools, and the desire to create most noteworthy were Alvar Aalto’s Civic Center (1949–
bold symbols of business set the stage for modern sky- 1952) in Säynätsalo, Finland; Louis Kahn’s National
scraper construction. Tall buildings depended on the Assembly Building (1962–1974) in Dacca, Bangladesh;
passenger elevator and the development of metallic cage and Renzo Piano’s Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Center
construction that was fireproofed, insulated, and orna- (1991–1998) in Nouméa, New Caledonia.