Building Techoclogy » International style

Structural Expressionism

blogtopia — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:57:09 +0000

Structural Expressionism also known as Late Modernism or High-tech architecture, is an architectural style that emerged in the 1970s, incorporating elements of high-tech industry and technology into building design. High-tech architecture appeared as a revamped modernism, an extension of those previous ideas aided by even more advances in technological achievements.

This serves as a bridge between modernism and post-modernism, however there remain gray areas as to where one category ends and the other begins. In the 1980s, high-tech architecture became more difficult to distinguish from post-modern architecture. Many of its themes and ideas were absorbed into the language of the post-modern architectural schools.

Like Brutalism, Structural Expressionist buildings reveal their structure on the outside as well as the inside, but with visual emphasis placed on the internal steel and/or concrete skeletal structure as opposed to exterior concrete walls.

The style’s premier practitioners include the British architect Norman Foster, whose work has since earned him knighthood, and Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, known for his organic, skeleton-like designs.

Buildings designed in this style usually consist of a clear glass facade, with the building’s network of support beams exposed behind it. Perhaps the most famous and easily recognized building built in this style is I.M. Pei’s Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong. The World Trade Center in New York City, although generally considered to be an International Style building, was technically a Structural Expressionist design due to its load-bearing steel exoskeleton.

Postmodern architecture

blogtopia — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:09:33 +0000

Postmodern architecture was an international style whose first examples are generally cited as being from the 1950s, and which continues to influence present-day architecture. Postmodernity in architecture is generally thought to be heralded by the return of "wit, ornament and reference" to architecture in response to the formalism of the International Style of modernism. As with many cultural movements, some of postmodernism’s most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in architecture. The functional and formalized shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics: styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound.

Classic examples of modern architecture are SOM’s Lever House or Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, as well as the architecture of Le Corbusier or the Bauhaus movement. Transitional examples of postmodern architecture are Michael Graves’ Portland Building in Portland, Oregon and Philip Johnson’s Sony Building (originally AT&T Building) in New York City, which borrows elements and references from the past and reintroduces color and symbolism to architecture. A prime example of inspiration for postmodern architecture lies along the Las Vegas Strip, which was studied by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown in their 1972 book Learning from Las Vegas celebrating the strip’s ordinary and common architecture.

Postmodern architecture has also been described as "neo-eclectic", where reference and ornament have returned to the facade, replacing the aggressively unornamented modern styles. This eclecticism is often combined with the use of non-orthogonal angles and unusual surfaces, most famously in the State Gallery of Stuttgart (New wing of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and the Piazza d’Italia by Charles Willard Moore. The Scottish Parliament buildings in Edinburgh have also been cited as being of postmodern vogue.

Modernist architects regard post-modern buildings as vulgar and cluttered with "gew-gaws". Postmodern architects often regard modern spaces as soulless and bland. The divergence in opinions comes down to a difference in goals: modernism is rooted in minimal and true use of material as well as absence of ornament, while postmodernism is a rejection of strict rules set by the early modernists and seeks exuberance in the use of building techniques, angles, and stylistic references.

International style (architecture)

blogtopia — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:48:02 +0000

The International style was a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modernist architecture. The term had its origin from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson written to record the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1932 which identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism across the world.

As a result, the focus was more on the stylistic aspects of Modernism. Hitchcock’s and Johnson’s aims were to define a style of the time, which would encapsulate this modern architecture. They identified three different principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, balance rather than preconceived symmetry and the expulsion of applied ornament.

All the works which were displayed as part of the exhibition were carefully selected, as only works which strictly followed the set of rules were displayed. Previous uses of the term in the same context can be attributed to Walter Gropius in Internationale Architektur, and Ludwig Hilberseimer in Internationale neue Baukunst.

Although it was conceived as a movement that transcended style, the International Style was largely superseded in the era of Postmodern architecture that started in the 1960s. In 2006, Hugh Pearlman, the architectural critic of The Times, observed that those using the style today are simply "another species of revivalist," noting the irony.

Architects

Alvar Aalto
Welton Becket
Le Corbusier
Eileen Gray
Walter Gropius
Arne Jacobsen
Philip Johnson
Louis Kahn
William Lescaze
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Richard Neutra
Oscar Niemeyer
Carlos Raul Villanueva
Frits Peutz
Ralph Rapson
Gerrit Rietveld
Arseniusz Romanowicz
The Architects’ Collaborative
Richard Kauffman
Arieh Sharon
Jerzy Sołtan
Raphael Soriano
Joseph Klarwein
Eric Mendelsohn
Joseph Emberton

Building Techoclogy » International style

Structural Expressionism

Links

Incoming search terms:

Postmodern architecture

Links

Incoming search terms:

International style (architecture)

Architects

Links

Incoming search terms: