TEACHING ASSISTANTS Hermann Gonzalez (TWITTER ASSIGNMENTS, ATTENDANCE, QUIZZES, ETC.)

Transcription

1 ARC 5744 / ARC 4783 HISTORY OF DESIGN FROM THE NINETEENTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT Summer 2011, 11:00 1:30, PG Market Station 153 PROFESSOR John Stuart stuartj@fiu.edu, Department of Architecture, PCA 271B Offfice Hours: 2 4PM T/R, or by appt TEACHING ASSISTANTS Hermann Gonzalez ENSQRD@gmail.com (TWITTER ASSIGNMENTS, ATTENDANCE, QUIZZES, ETC.) Cory Garcell cgarc042@fiu.edu (VIDEO REPORTS ONLY) URL TO COURSE CONTENT UPLOAD WEBSITE (CLICK ON COURSE NAME OR NUMBER) The course website will be used to upload materials required for the class, including pdfs of all images shown in class and tested on the quizzes. Images will be uploaded to the site at least one day before class and taken off the site after each quiz. CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION Survey of architecture, interior, and landscape design from the XIX century to the present, including western and non-western traditions. Explorations of related and causal ideologies will be covered in lecture. COURSE STATEMENT This survey traces architectural and design history from it roots in the late 18 th Century with the rise of industrialization and Enlightenment thought, through the 19 th Century and up to the present time. Although the course follows more than two centuries of design production, it is weighted toward global architectural achievements of the post-world war II period. The focus will be on examples of architecture, landscape architecture, interior design, industrial design, and graphic design, created in Western and non-western contexts. Critical explorations in the survey also include the design and architecture history of environmental sustainability, historic preservation, and regionalism over the past two centuries. The survey approaches the material through two complementary strategies: 1) It introduces detailed descriptions of projects through images exhibited and discussed in class. Students may be called upon in a quiz or exam to identify any image shown in class and provide specific details of the project (project name, author, date, and location, if appropriate). Students are also expected to be able to compare projects in formal, structural, material, and historical terms. 2) It encourages students to consider the multiplicity of forces (political, social, environmental, and technological) that provide designs of any period and place with their own specific contexts. Students will be responsible for expressing themselves in these terms throughout the semester. INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS AND OBJECTIVES The primary goal of the course is to engage students in the history of design from the 19C to the present by creating a learning environment in which each student has the opportunity to gain a visual understanding of the relevant design projects and their projects. The objectives are to have students achieve this goal through regular and punctual class attendance, contact and discussions with the TA, thorough study of the required texts and visual materials, and successful completion of all quizzes, tests, and other coursework. DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN ARC 4783 AND ARC 5744 Students taking ARC 5744 and ARC 4783 follow the same schedule of lectures, and will have the same quiz and exam schedules. On the quizzes and exams, however, graduate students in ARC 5744 will be required to exhibit a greater level of understanding of the material through additional, graduate-level questions on readings. Students taking the course for graduate credit will be required to write four video reports (explained below), which undergraduates may complete for extra credit. 1

2 QUIZZES AND TESTS There will be five (5) short quizzes (15 minutes each) on image identification, comparisons, and on the readings. Quizzes will be held during the first 15 minutes of class. There will be no make up quizzes or exams for those who are late or are without a valid written medical excuse. There will be a take home midterm and an in class final exam. These examinations are to be done completely individually without the help of anyone else. Any evidence of plagiarism or collaboration will result in a failing grade for the examination. The take home midterm will be uploaded to TURNITIN.COM, a plagiarism detection service. Examinations submitted will reside in the Turnitin.com database. Late exams will not be accepted. GRADUATE VIDEO REPORTS Each student taking ARC 5744 is required to write papers of 750 words (maximum) about each of the four videos assigned during the class. Special instructions for each paper are provided on Turnitin.com. There are absolutely no substitutions for or additions to the videos on this list. Undergraduate students may write these reports for extra credit. Reports must be submitted by the due dates through TURNITIN.COM. Late papers will not be accepted. Turnitin.com compares each paper to web sources and to the work of other student in the class. Any evidence of plagiarism will result in disciplinary action according to university guidelines. This may include a failing grade on the paper, and could lead to expulsion from the course and suspension from the university. For details, please see the FIU Academic Misconduct policies. ATTENDANCE Attendance is mandatory and all students are expected to arrive on time and stay for the duration of the lecture. Each student is allowed two unexcused absences. At the third unexcused absence, the grade for the semester drops by one whole letter grade. At the fourth absence, the student receives a failing grade in the course. A note from an authority accepted by university policy (eg. medical doctor, judge, police officer, etc.) must accompany excused absences. Tardiness to class is unacceptable and late arrivals or early departures will be noted and may be counted as absences. Students will select a seat to be his/her assigned seat for the entire course. Students not in their assigned seats will be considered absent. GRADING The final grade will be calculated as follows: ARC 5744 (Graduate) 50% Quizzes 25% Final Exam 15% Midterm 10% Reports on Videos Additional papers will be graded out of 100 points each and averaged to create this part of the grade. See Turnitin.com for instructions. EC Graduate students may earn extra credit points that will be added to lowest quiz grade for the successful completion of special assignments announced on Twitter. ARC 4783 (Undergraduate) 50% Quizzes 30% Final Exam 20% Midterm EC Extra Credit for reports on videos. Undergraduate students may receive up to 20 points of extra credit added to lowest quiz grade for their performance on papers on Video Reports. EC Undergraduate students may earn extra credit points added to their lowest quiz grade for special assignments announced on Twitter. 2

3 GRADING SYSTEM A A B B B C C C D D D F < 60 READINGS There are no textbooks for this class. All readings for the course are listed on the syllabus. Readings are available online through the FIU Library and are accessible to registered FIU students from any computer with internet capacities and at any time. Questions about accessing the readings should be directed to librarians at the FIU Libraries. EXTRA CREDIT Students taking ARC 4783 may write the graduate video reports for extra credit. This scale will serve for small extra credit writing assignments for both graduate and undergraduate students. Grad Video Report Grade Points added to lowest quiz grade TWITTER EXTRA CREDIT Twitter Account: jstuartfiuarch Over the course of the semester, there will be tweets on topics related to architecture (notices about articles to read, exhibitions to see, television shows to watch, buildings to visit, etc.). Some of these tweets will announce short writing or research assignments that will be extra credit points on the lowest quiz score of the semester. Papers/assignments must be submitted to turnitin.com. The quality of the response will determine whether full credit is given for any given assignment. Additional extra credit assignment instructions will be given on Turnitin.com. This extra credit will be available to both graduate and undergraduate students. FIU SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE WRITING STANDARDS All writing assignments for the course must conform to the School of Architecture Writing Standards, which is found on the FIU Architecture website and the website for this class. Any writing that does not conform to the FIU Writing Standards will earn a failing grade. STUDENT RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES Florida International University is a community dedicated to generating and imparting knowledge through excellent teaching and research, the rigorous and respectful exchange of ideas, and community service. All students should respect the right of others to have an equitable opportunity to learn and honestly to demonstrate the quality of their learning. Therefore, all students are expected to adhere to a standard of academic conduct, which demonstrates respect for themselves, their fellow students, and the educational mission of the University. All students are deemed by the University to understand that if they are found responsible for academic misconduct, they will be subject to the Academic Misconduct procedures and sanctions, as outlined in the Student Handbook." 3

4 It is the studentʼs responsibility to obtain, become familiar with, and abide by all departmental, college and university requirements and regulations. These include but are not limited to: The Florida International University Catalog Division of Student Affairs Handbook of Rights and Responsibilities Departmental Curriculum and Program Sheets Departmental Policies and Regulations STUDENT WORK The School of Architecture and the Department of Architecture reserve the right to retain any and all student work for the purpose of record, exhibition and instruction. All students are encouraged to photograph and/or copy all work for personal records prior to submittal to instructor. STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS Students who may need auxiliary aids or services to ensure access to academic programs should register with the Office of Disability Services for Students. TURNITIN INFORMATION: Website: Class ID Graduate Section Hermann Gonzalez: Enrollment Password Grad Section Hermann Gonzalez: HGGH3G (CASE SENSITIVE!) Class ID Graduate Section Cory Garcell: Enrollment Password Grad Section Hermann Gonzalez: CGGH3G (CASE SENSITIVE!) Class ID Undergraduate Section Hermann Gonzalez: Enrollment Password Undergrad Section Hermann Gonzalez: HGGH3 (CASE SENSITIVE!) Class ID Undergraduate Section Cory Garcell: Enrollment Password Undergrad Section Hermann Gonzalez: CGGH3 (CASE SENSITIVE!) Please remember that all Video Reports are to be uploaded to Cory Garcellʼs Turnitin.com sections. All other materials are to be turned in to Hermann Gonzalez. 4

5 COURSE SCHEDULE Tuesday, June 28 Revolution, Industrialization, and Architectural Transformations: From Laugierʼs Primitive Hut to the Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain In this class period we look broadly at the ways that ideas, politics, history, and architecture were transformed by the lens of Enlightenment ideals of truth through knowledge and science. We examine the new political systems including our own in the United States that were based upon new ideas of truth, new political processes, and recently conceived notions of human equality. We explore how scientific investigations and archaeological discoveries of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in conjunction with new theories of the origins of architecture by Laugier and his followers challenged accepted conceptions of architecture and led to the architecture of neohumanism and neoclassicism. A wide range of buildings that included the White House, Ste. Genevieve, Boulleeʼs Cenotaph for Newton, and Piranesiʼs Prisons represented these movements. These early examples sought an architecture and design of simplicity, rationality, humanity, and truth through clarity of structure, materials, and through new relationships with nature, science, and monumentality. In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, industrialization developed and flourished. The steam engine was used to farm larger areas of land, enabling food to travel greater distances and quantities large enough to support expanding urban populations where new urban factories offered work to thousands of laborers who were leaving the farms. Industrial progress demanded a rethinking of housing types for factory workers. It also forced city plans to be reconceived, and led to new building types for shopping (the department store), entertainment (large theaters), and other group activities. These new building types were made possible through the invention of plate glass, steel, and steel reinforced concrete. Each of these materials offered architects opportunities to experiment with new relationships between inside and outside, man and nature, and materiality and monumentality. Industrialization, however, was not accepted without question. William Morris and other Arts and Crafts architects working in Great Brittan rejected industrialization as an acceptable idea of human "progress." Morris and others felt firmly that preindustrial ideals of craft particularly those related to the handmade buildings and objects of the Middle Ages were essential to modern life. Instead of the specialization found in industrial culture (where factory workers make only the heads of pins, for example) they sought a human connection to labor and an integration of all the arts. They also believed that every architect needs to consider design from all scales from textiles, hardware, and objects to buildings, housing, and cities with equal levels of intensity. Required Reading: Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): (on Paxtonʼs Crystal Palace). [netlibrary] Antonio Hernandez, J. N. L. Durandʼs Architectural Theory: A Study in the 5

6 History of Rational Building Design, Perspecta, v. 12 (1969), pp [JSTOR] Alan Crawford, Ideas and Objects: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain, Design Issues, vol. 13, no. 1 Designing the Modern Experience (Spring 1997), pp [JSTOR] Emil Kaufmann, Three Revolutionary Architects: Boullée, Ledoux, and Lequeu, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, vol. 42, no. 3 (1952), pp [JSTOR] See sections on Boullée and Ledoux. George R. Collins, Linear Planning throughout the World, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, v. 18, n. 3 (Oct., 1959), pp [JSTOR] Thursday, June 30 Chicago and the Rise of Frank Lloyd Wright: Adler and Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright Grad Video Report 1 Frank Lloyd Wright: CBS Documentary, 1962 (DUE midnight, June 30) In this class, we study the specific American example of Chicago, a city that was built anew after the great fire of The lecture covers the development of the skyscraper as a type and Louis Sullivan's invention of the term "Form Follows Function" in the context of his idea of the complete and truthful or honest integration of each element of a skyscraper. This led to Sullivanʼs notion, for example, that every tile in a high-rise building should somehow express its function as part of that high-rise. This also led to his conception of "Organic Architecture" in which he argued that each element of a building could appear to be different from other elements just as a treeʼs leaf looks different than its roots. But, as in Organic Architecture, the leaf and root are part of an organic system in which each part is essential to the life and health of the tree. Toward this end, for example, he integrated lighting, cooling, and ornament in the Auditorium Building and other buildings into one single, integrated systems. Frank Lloyd Wright was Sullivan's great student and protégée. In this class we follow Wright's work, starting with the Prairie Style houses outside of Chicago, where Wright developed a means to relate the houses to the horizontality of the prairie. In these projects, Wright followed the ideals of the Enlightenment and sought clarity of space by breaking down established ideas of walls and interior spaces, inside and outside as he engaged with sculptors and glass artists to create a new conception of the organic that was akin to, but distinct from, the ideals Arts and Crafts. Wright's notion of the organic developed into the structural idea of the cantilever, which became, like the branches of a tree, flexible and indeterminate spaces that integrated man and nature. Unlike Morris, Webb, and other Arts and Crafts architects, Wright turned to machines and industry as sources of inspiration. His Broadacre City project and others, including the Guggenheim, were paeans to the automobile, one of Wrightʼs central interests throughout his career. Required Reading: Robert C. Twombly, Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life and His Architecture, (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1979), pp (Wright and Sullivan); pp (Praire Syle), (Falling Water and Johnson Wax). [netlibrary] Mies van der Rohe, A Tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright, College Art Journal, vol. 6, no. 1 (Autumn, 1946), pp [JSTOR] 6

7 Frank Lloyd Wright, The Art and Craft of the Machine (1901) In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] Tuesday, July 5 Structural Rationalism and Structural Visionaries From Violet le Duc, Tony Garnier, and August Perret to The Futurists and Russian Constructivism Quiz #1 On lectures 6/28 and 6/30. On this day, we explore the impact of architect and educator Violet-Le-Duc on the idea of designing buildings with clear and rational structures. Like his contemporary Ruskin, Le-Duc believed in looking back to Gothic architecture as a way to understand the future of modern architecture. Le-Duc was captured by the clarity of the structure of Gothic buildings and his teachings led to the development of the Art Nouveau architecture of Victor Horta, Guimard, Van de Velde, and others. These architects explored the potential of exposed plant-like organic forms to express patterns (painted on walls, woven into dresses, and created in structural and non-structural ironwork, for example) that formed seamless connections between architecture and the arts. Here, we also look at the work of Antonio Sant'Elia and others associated with Italian Futurism. This group embraced industrialization and found what they considered to be the key to a modern architecture in engineering feats and automobiles designed for speed. The Futurists argued that the automobile introduced a new future for architecture based upon the machine and man's integration of life with the machine. The groupʼs architectural visionary, Antonio Sant 'Elia integrated into his projects all forms of transportation (air, bus, and car) and utilized monumental walls of concrete. This interest transportation would become a life-long passion of Le Corbusier and later architects. With similar intensity to Sant ʻElia, but with different motivations, Tony Garnier explored a thorough vision of life in an industrialized world through his drawings for his Cite Industrielle. Here Garnier designs and details a centralized city that is set apart from the core of the imagined historic core of the medieval city. Garnier's ideas are based upon the structural potential of reinforced concrete in domestic and civic buildings alike. And as Garnier drew an imaginary city of concrete, his classmate, August Perret conducted very important building experiments that engaged steel reinforced concrete. Finally, in this class we examine the works of the Russian Constructivists. Although constructivism, and particularly Malevich's Supremetism, started before the Russian Revolution of 1917, constructivists were engaged in the creation of new images and structural possibilities for the new communist government of the Soviet Union. While many of the vital forces of Russian Constructivism was stopped by Stalin in the late 1920s, the new forms Constructivism produced, including the abstractions of Malevich, the composition of PROUNs by El Lissitsky, the housing of the OSA group, and the visionary light structures and other projects (like linear cities) of the Vesnins, Melinkov, and Leonidov, had an enormous impact on Le Corbusier, Mies, and later architects like Hadid and Koolhaas, to name just a few. Required Reading: Dora Wiebenson, Utopian Aspects of Tony Garnierʼs Cité Industrielle, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 19, no. 1 (Mar., 1960), pp [JSTOR] 7

8 Tim Benton, Dreams of Machines: Futurism and lʼesprit Nouveau, Journal of Design History, vol. 3, no. 1 (1990), pp [JSTOR] Martin Eidelberg and Suzanne Henrion-Giele, Horta and Bing: An Unwritten Episode of LʼArt Nouveau, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 119, no. 896 (Nov. 1977), pp [JSTOR] Alan C. Birnholz, The Russian Avant-Garde and the Russian Tradition, Art Journal vol. 32, no. 2 (Winter, ), pp [JSTOR] Antonio Santʼ Elia, Manifesto of Futurist Architecture (1914), In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] Thursday, July 7 Toward a New Objectivity: The Northern European Experience Adolf Loos, The Deutsche Werkbund, German Expressionism, The Bauhaus, and De Stijl In this class we examine the northern European shift toward the idea of New Objectivity, which was a culmination of Enlightenment rationalism characterized by the search for an architecture based upon functionality evaluated through ease of use, cost and energy efficiency, and attention to basic human needs. While this definition of New Objectivity sounds simple and straightforward (for example, designing a kitchen around the minimum number of steps involved in cooking), it was never uncontested and had many complex layers of meaning. Another strand of thinking, however, was taking place in Vienna with the architectural production of Otto Wagner, Josef Hoffmann, and the Wienerwerkstaette (The Vienna Workshops). These workshops took up the idea of training architects in an area of craft and attached shops to sell objects made in the school. It might be argued that this model enhanced the functionality of design by increasing its presence in the marketplace. It was a model utilized by the Bauhaus. At the same time, Adolf Loos who felt that the desire for any ornament arose from a lack of sophistication critiqued the work of the Wienerwerkstaete, and particularly the work of Henry Van de Velde, as being too much about design for designʼs sake. The educated modern person, Loos argued, should reject ornament and utilize simple, mass-produced types and clothes should be kept simple to accentuate the human being. Most forms of ornament, he argued, were equated with a lack of education and even formed a crime against humanity and against design. In the years prior to WWI, Peter Behrens led the design department at the German electric concern, AEG in the search for just such consistently designed objects for mass production. Behrens took up the Arts and Crafts objective of designing at every scale from the fan to the factory and instilled in his young and precocious, who included Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and Walter Gropius, the ideas that architects may design all things associated with industry. For Behrens the detailed design of every aspect of industry was the true form of design for their times. Nowhere was the discussion of which design was most appropriate to modern times more acute than among the members of the German Werkbund (Work Collective), which was a group of industrialists, department store owners, and designers intent upon raising the character of German design from cheap and 8

9 nasty to an international level of excellence. The debates at the Werkbund centered around whether designers should establish standard Types (Muthesius) in other words find a good example of an object and make it an industry standard (somewhat following Loos) or whether they should foster creative expression through individual designs that address the new questions raised by industrial societies. Ultimately Henry Van de Velde, Walter Gropius and others who favored creative expression came out on top in the debate. One of those who greatly supported creativity was Bruno Taut. With the poet and writer Paul Scheerbart, Taut built the Glass House for the 1914 German Werkbund Exhibition. The building was constructed almost entirely of glass materials donated from companies in the glass industry and was one of the first and greatest works to make connections between industrial production, the new material glass, and the physical and spiritual experience within a building. This experience or the search for expression in architecture became known as German Expressionism and was very important to Hans Scharoun, Mies van der Rohe, and others. Finally, Expressionism was very influential on the early work of Gropius at the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus opened in 1919 as a place dedicated the study of design and architecture as a spiritual pursuit that united all the arts around the study of design. As the Bauhaus developed as a school, Van Doesburg, Moholy-Nagy, Hannes Meyer and others moved the educational intentions of the school away from the spiritual and toward teaching design to be in the service of industry and as a locus of the study of New Objectivity. Finally, we examine the Dutch architect Berlage, who followed the structural rationalism of Violet-Le-Duc as he sought truth in steel and brick details. Mies later mentions how important this aspect of Berlageʼs work was to his development as an architect. Berlage was also instrumental in introducing Frank Lloyd Wrightʼs work to European audiences. Wrightʼs work then had a great impact on the early work of Johannes (Jan) Duiker, who later built the functionalist Open Air School and the Zonnestraal Sanatorium. The Netherlands was also home to Van Doesburg, Mondrian, and the architect Rietveld, who explored a worldview called De Stijl (The Style). This was a movement that looked to abstraction, the grid, and the important place of color in the service of painting and architecture. Following the Arts and Crafts ideals, De Stijl artists and architects considered painting, architecture, furniture, lighting, graphics, and other aspects of design as equally important. Those involved with De Stijl were interested in the ways in which design could play an important part in the development of new industrial processes and new spatial implications. As noted above, De Stijl and Van Doesburg had an enormous impact on the future direction of the Bauhaus. Required Reading: David Leatherbarrow, Interpretation and Abstraction in the Architecture of Adolf Loos, Journal of Architectural Education (1984 ), vol. 40, no. 4 (Summer, 1987), pp [JSTOR] Hilde Heynen, Architecture and Modernity: A Critique, (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1999), pp ( Adolf Loos: The Broken Continuation of Tradition ) [netlibrary] Kathleen James, Expressionism, Relativity, and the Einstein Tower, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 53, no. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp [JSTOR] Walter Gropius, The Bauhaus Contribution, Journal of Architectural Education ( ), vol. 18, no. 1 (Jun., 1963), pp [JSTOR] 9

10 Mark Jarzombek, The ʻKunstgewerbeʼ, the ʻWerkbundʼ, and the Aesthetics of Culture in the Wilhelmine Period, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 53, no. 1 (Mar., 1994), pp [JSTOR] Tuesday, July 12 Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe before World War II Quiz #2 On lectures 7/5 and 7/7. In this class we follow the development of Miesʼs work from his early neoclassical houses in Berlin finished before he started working for Behrens to his development of the courtyard houses. After working for Behrens between 1907 and 1909, Mies became interested in architectural monumentality, universal space, and details that reveal a truth about construction, structure, and materiality. Mies sought an architecture that was intellectually and formally rigorous. He was heavily influenced by expressionism and incorporated colored stone assembled in book matched widths resembling crystals in his early work. His explorations of universal space and the free flow of elements was also influenced by Russian constructivists and de Stijl. Le Corbusier also began his career by designing houses that reflected his education in the Arts and Crafts methods of his native Switzerland. After he worke for Behrens and met Auguste Perret and Tony Garnier, however, Le Corbusier developed universal rules for the creation of houses and cities. These included his Five Points of Architecture for domestic buildings and his city plans for millions of inhabitants. Almost as soon has these rules had been articulated, however, they were rejected for a more organic architecture based upon raw concrete, glass walls, and local materials. Likewise, Le Corbusier shifted from promoting centralized cities to exploring urban plans with linear components that allowed people and automotive traffic to exist in distinct spatial configurations. Required Reading: Le Corbusier, Engineerʼs Aesthetic and Architecture (1923), In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] Pauline Saliga and Robert V. Sharp, From the Hand of Mies: Architectural Sketches from the collection of A. James Speyer, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, vol. 21, no. 1 (1995), pp , [JSTOR] Charlotte Benton, Le Corbusier: Furniture and the Interior, Journal of Design History, vol. 3, no. 2/3 (1990), pp [JSTOR] William J. R. Curtis, Ideas of Structure and the Structure of Ideas: Le Corbusierʼs Pavilion Suisse, , The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 40, no. 4 (Dec. 1981), pp [JSTOR] Le Corbusier, Architecture: The Expression the Material Methods of our Times (1929), In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Technology and Architecture (1950), In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] 10

11 Thursday, July 14 Midterm (Question 1) Quiz in class on lecture 7/12 Take Home MIDTERM On lectures 6/28 7/12 Available on line after class. Due Mon., July 18 at 12 midnight. Postwar Challenges: Architecture between the Atom and the Universe From late Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier to Eero Saarinen, Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, and beyond. In this lecture, we look at architecture in a world after the explosion of the atomic bomb, which, in many ways, marked an important moment in the relationship between science the exploration of both the very small (the atom) and the very large (the universe) and humanity itself. The postwar period was also marked by the development of global air travel, space travel, the creation of new nations and political systems (India, Japan, etc.), the rise of the corporation, and the use of architecture as a means of branding businesses and cities (TWA, Seagram, Sydney Opera House). Here we follow the postwar careers of Mies and Corb. We explore the intensification of Miesʼs continued search for monumentality, which was something we had seen in his early projects, and in his exploration of clear, open, universal space. We also follow Le Corbusierʼs ostensible rejection of the five points per se (although various points can be seen in almost any project) and look at his investigation of monumentality through a reliance on beton brut (rough concrete), and the increase in size and scale of the sculptural aspects of his projects. We also witness an intensification of Le Corbusierʼs use of glass, light, and systems of human proportions in his search for an architecture defined by light, color, and movement through space. Le Corbusierʼs experiments with the sculptural qualities of monumental concrete structures were particularly influential on architects like Eero Saarinen and Jorn Utzon, and even on the rough modeling of Kiesler. Buckminster Fuller was interested in a buildingʼs weight and research special efficiencies through the possibilities of the geodesic dome. In many ways, Fullerʼs domes comment upon Miesʼs and Corbʼs searches for monumentality within the functional and technological language of New Objectivity from the 1920s. Fuller and those influenced by him offered the possibility of technology to change the future of architecture. This search was taken up by Constant, who after working with Rietveld, turned to the prospect of creating a city called New Babylon that would continuously shift and modify according to the needs of human beings at play (homo ludens). Constantʼs call to look beyond the head and the heart to the joy of human life and play was taken up by the members of Archigram and Superstudio, who explored monumental utopian projects that walked, floated, and were completely transformable. Archigram members sought to update the discussions of functionalism and New Objectivity found in the Bauhaus and through the 1940s to include the new world of television, space travel, and computer technology and networks. The best contemporary built example of these ideals might be the Piano and Rogers Pompidou Center in Paris. This building was designed to offer flexible exhibition spaces, and 11

12 celebrates building technologies through the placement and coloration of circulation for air, water, and people on the outside of the building. Required Reading: Mark Jarzombek, Mies van der Roheʼs New National Gallery and the Problem of Context, Assemblage, no. 2 (Feb., 1987), pp [JSTOR] Peter Serenyi, Timeless but of Its Time: Le Corbusierʼs Architecture in India, Perspecta, vol. 20 (1983), pp [JSTOR] Eero Saarinen, Eero Saarinen, Perspecta, vol. 7 (1961), pp [JSTOR] Philip B. Welch, ed. Goff on Goff: Conversations and Lectures, (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), pp (Chapter 5: The Idea in Architecture. ) [netlibrary] Simon Sadler, Archigram: Architecture without Architecture, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005), pp (Chapter 1. A New Generation: Archigramʼs Formation and Its Context) [netlibrary] Superstudio, Perspecta, vol. 13 (1971), pp [JSTOR] Richard Buckminster Fuller, 4D Time Lock (1929), In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] Frederick J. Kiesler, On Correalism and Biotechnique: A Definition and Test of a New Approach to Building Design (1939), In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] Tuesday, July 19 Global Forces and Regional Contexts: Modernism, Vernacular Traditions, and the Rise of Idea of Sustainability From Alvar Aalto, Louis Kahn, and Paul Rudolph to Alfred Browning Parker, Morris Lapidus, Jorge Arango, Arquitectonica, and the new architecture of South Florida. Grad Video Report 2 Le Corbusier Lecture in English (DUE midnight July 19) In this class we look at the responses to the work of Mies, Le Corbusier, Buckminster Fuller, and Frank Lloyd Wright by architects who admired their teachers but sought to address local environmental issues and vernacular building traditions. The universality of the older generation was critiqued for providing one-size-fits-all solutions and was occasionally likened to earlier examples of neo-classicism, which could be found with subtle variations everywhere from New Delhi to London, Buenos Aires, and Washington D.C. What we are looking at in this lecture might be considered mid-twentieth century correctives to highly regarded post war modern masters. We start with the work of Alvar Aalto, who looked for the human experience in his architecture. In each of Aaltoʼs projects, there is a tension between the desire to reference the white walls and horizontal windows of the International Style (a term coined by Philip Johnson as the name of an exhibition at MoMa 12

13 in 1931 already several years after Le Corbusier had rejected his own five points of architecture and moved on) and the wish to reflect a local and purely Finnish culture. Next, we look at Louis Kahn, who desired a kind of truth in his buildings by thinking of them as monumental ancient ruins to be built in and upon. In doing this, Kahn sought both the sculptural play of light across heavy concrete structures made famous by Le Corbusier and the open universal spaces that extend within and without the building elegantly laid out by Mies. Kahn thought of his buildings as having served spaces (spaces of human interaction and program) and service spaces (stairs, elevators, storage) each of which was articulated with equal attention to its monumental importance. Stairs, for example, were not simply stairs in Kahnʼs work, but became service towers in Richards Laboratories or a pure cylinder in the Yale Art Museum, sculptural forms on their own right. The lecture concludes with a look at two local south Florida architects: Alfred Browning Parker and Jorge Arango. Each sought to negotiate modern architecture with the local environment. Parker had met Frank Lloyd Wright at Florida Southern College and admired the elder architectʼs work. Parkerʼs projects featured entire walls of doors that opened to the outside. They incorporated multiple stories for air to flow through. His projects focused on natural air circulation throughout, and his drawings looked back to those of the New Objectivity (Hannes Meyer, etc) as they detailed how air and light worked in his buildings. Arango, on the other hand looked to combine the work of Mies and Corb into an architecture that would, much of the time, be enclosed and air conditioned. He followed Mies in his use of horizontality and glazing, particularly the enclosed glazing of the inner courtyard, which looks back to Miesʼs winter garden off the living room in the Tugendhat house. On the water and garden sides of his houses there are continuous glass walls. Yet, other walls of his houses are thick, with deep set sculptural windows and doors that reference Le Corbusierʼs Ronchamp or even the windows in the nursery atop the Unité. Required Reading: Henry-Russell Hitchcock and G. E. Kidder Smith, Aalto versus Aalto: The Other Finland, Perspecta, vol. 9 (1965), pp [JSTOR] Paul Rudolph, Regionalism in Architecture, Perspecta, vol. 4 (1957), pp [JSTOR] Harry Francis Mallgrave, Modern Architectural Theory: A Historical Survey, , (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp ( 3. Louis Kahn ) [netlibrary] Kathleen James, Louis Kahnʼs Indian Institute of Managementʼs Courtyard: Form versus Function, Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 49, no. 1 (Sep., 1995), pp [JSTOR] Kenneth Frampton, Prospects for a Critical Regionalism, Perspecta, vol. 20 (1983), pp [JSTOR] 13

14 Thursday, July 21 Iberian Influences and Post-War Architecture: North, South, East, and West From Gaudí and Roberto Burle Marx to Moneo, Siza, and Santiago Calatrava. LAST DAY TO DROP WITH DR GRADE Quiz #3 On lectures 7/14 and 7/19. During this lecture, we look at the development of what might be considered an Iberian strain of architecture that begins in the Twentieth Century with the work of Antoni Gaudí. We discuss the ways in which Gaudíʼs work grew out of his interest in medieval Spanish and French architecture particularly of the Gothic period and explore his close following of the writings of Viollet-Le-Duc on structural rationalism. Gaudí was also very familiar with the theories of Ruskin on the importance of medieval craft. By being outside of France and Great Britain, where the works of Le-Duc and Ruskin were most prominent, Gaudí was able to create more readily his own interpretations and directions based upon both leading theorists. Gaudíʼs success, however, was also dependent upon clients, including the industrialist Eusebi Güell, who was a liberal, far-sighted, and wealthy merchant seeking new regional identities for Cataluña. Gaudíʼs work is characterized by the study of structure, his experiments with complex facades and surfaces, and his formal and spatial ideas based upon interpretations of the Catalonian landscape and medieval architecture culture. Jose Lluis Sert was one of the first Spanish architects of international fame (Gropius chose him as his replacement as the head the Graduate School of Design at Harvard) to study and promote Gaudíʼs work. Although Sert was strongly influenced by the modern architecture of Le Corbusier and by the work produced at the Bauhaus, he continued throughout his career to investigate the emotional qualities of structure and surfaces. In this lecture we explore the ways in which Gaudíʼs ideas were translated through Sert to Cuba and the work of Nicolas Quintana, and more directly through Le Corbusier to Oscar Niemeyer and Roberto Burle Marx in Brazil along one branch and through Rafael Moneo and Alvaro Siza along another. Likewise, we explore how Gaudíʼs interest in structure and natural forms extended directly to the work of Santiago Calatrava, who, while interested in the great engineering feats of Nervi and Buckminster Fuller, carries Gaudíʼs legacy forward in many ways to the present day. Required Reading: Thomas G. Beddall, Gaudí and the Catalan Gothic, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historian, vol. 34, no. 1 (Mar., 1975), pp [JSTOR] Valerie Fraser, Cannibalizing Le Corbusier: The MES Gardens of Roberto Burle Marx, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historian, vol. 59, no. 2 (Jun., 2000), pp [JSTOR] George R. Collins, Spain: A Case Study of Action and Reaction, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historian, vol. 24, no. 1 (Mar., 1965), pp [JSTOR] Peter Testa, Tradition and Actuality in the Antonio Carlos Siza House, Journal of Architectural Education, vol. 40, no. 4 (Summer, 1987), pp [JSTOR] Rafael Moneo, Museum for Roman Artifacts, Merida, Spain, Assemblage, no. 1 (Oct., 1986), pp [JSTOR] Keith Eggener, Postwar Modernism in Mexico: Louis Barragánʼs Jardines del 14

15 Pedregal and the International Discourse on Architecture and Place, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historian, vol. 58, no. 2 (Jun., 1999), pp [JSTOR] Tuesday, July 26 Non-western Architects and Western Traditions From Kenzo Tange and Hassan Fathy to Shiguro Ban and Fasil Georghis Grad Video Report 3 CNN Talk Asia Interview with Tadao Ando Video (DUE midnight July 26) In this lecture, we explore how ideas about formal innovation and prefabrication in the context of regional identity played a major role in the development of architecture in post-wwii Japan. Nowhere was this clearer than in the work of Kenso Tange, who sought, like Gaudí, Aalto, Niemeyer, and many others around the world to formulate an architecture that was responsive both to international initiatives coming from Corb, Mies and later from Constant, Superstudio, and Archigram and to local traditions of the given country and the region. During the great economic boom of Japan in first two decades following the end of WWII, architects like Tange, and later Isozaki and Kurokawa, worked on fusing industrial mass production and modularity with natural systems of biomorphic growth into one synthetic whole under the umbrella term Metabolism. In Europe and America similar attempts were being made to create modular architecture, most notably by Moshe Safdie in Canada. Later Ando attempted to redirect the work of Le Corbusier with concrete toward a more Japanese understanding of the sensuousness and soft qualities of the surface of a carefully crafted concrete wall. Others, like Taniguchi and Ito, sought to bring into their work the lightness of traditional Japanese architecture characterized by paper walls and wood construction as they followed more closely the work of Le Corbusier and their western contemporaries. This lightness is explored in the work of Shigeru Ban through the use of recycled paper tubular paper structures and in the work of SANAA through their construction of seamless glass enclosures that challenge understandings of inside and outside. SANAA also explores industrial production through investigations of pattern making, the introduction of pure geometric forms, and challenges to traditional ordering systems (New Museum). Many similar points of departure may be found in the earlier work of the Chinese-American architect, I. M. Pei, who was considered to be one of the best students of Walter Gropius at Harvard in the years immediately following WWII. Peiʼs work, however, is also characterized by an interest in large span space frames and the innovative use of glass, both of which may be traced back to Buckminster Fuller, Louis Kahn, and, in the case of the glass and the pyramid, even Bruno Tautʼs glass pavilion, and the Chrystal Palace. Likewise the influence of Kahnʼs Trenton Community Center and Le Corbusierʼs Unité are clearly seen in the work of Indian architect, Charles Correa, who seeks, like many architects studied this week, to reconcile regional and international traditions. Hassan Fathy, the famed Egyptian architect rejected modern materials and methods of construction while he adopted the scientific environmental investigations of architecture, which was perhaps most notable in the New Objectivity of Bauhaus director, Hannes Meyer and his followers, (sun/wind studies, circulation and usage diagrams, etc.). The last practice we look at here is that of the young Ethiopian architect, Fasil Georghis, who has developed a hybrid practice that incorporates buildings of traditional methods and materials (Ankobar Lodge) and buildings that explore regional variations on international architectural designs. 15

16 Required Reading: Tadao Ando, Wall: The Timeʼs Building, 1984: On the Takasegawa River, Kyoto Japan, Perspecta, vol. 25, (1989), pp [JSTOR] William H. Coaldrake, Architecture and Authority in Japan (London: Routledge, 1996), pp (Tange Kenzô and the Tokyo Olympics Building) [netlibrary] Suzannah Lessard, Taniguchi came in with a model for the new Museum of Modern Art so deft that some people wondered what had changed. But his was not a conservative design; even at its most daring, his work can seem inevitable, The New York Times, (4/12/1998): SM30. [Proquest] Paul Goldberger, Pei Pyramid and New Louvre Open Today, The New York Times, (3/29/89): A1. [Proquest] Herbert Muschamp, At the Center of Modern Architecture, The New York Times, (3/2/97): H36. [Proquest] Shigeru Ban and Kartikeya Shodhan, Disaster Relief: Ahmadabad, Perspecta, vol. 34 (2003), pp , , [JSTOR] Kisho Kurokawa, The Philosophy of Metabolism (1977), In William W. Braham and Jonathan A. Hale, Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), pp [netlibrary] Hana Taragan, Architecture in Fact and Fiction: The Case of the New Gourna Village in Upper Egypt, Mugarnas, vol. 16 (1999), pp [JSTOR] Thursday, July 28 Complexity and Contradiction: New Views on the Past, the Present, Preservation, and Adaptation From Venturi / Scott Brown and Aldo Rossi to the Tate Modern and Koolhaas Quiz #4 On lectures 7/21 and 7/26. During this lecture we look at events in the United States that become characterized as complex and contradictory when thought of in contrast to the presumed straightforward modern formula of Le Corbusierʼs Five Points of Architecture, or Miesʼs clear spatial diagrams of glass and steel. At the heart of this complexity, it is argued, are conflicting drives that evolve from the 1930s through the 1960s. One involves the preservation of the past as reflected in the desire on the part of Rockefeller, Dupont, Ford, and other captains of industry to save Americaʼs historic architectural fabric by assembling buildings into museum towns like Colonial Williamsburg, Greenfield Village and Old Sturbridge Village. Another explores the ways that industrial progress becomes a national passion. Atomic technologies are developed, travel to the moon becomes a national quest, and even the early developments of computer technologies point to national achievements. Spurred on by the destruction of Pennsylvania Station in New York City, and by the passions of Jacqueline Kennedy, the historic preservation movement is born in the US in the mid 1960s. A third drive was stimulated by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and other artists who reconsidered art in terms of popular culture. They propose that art could be found in objects of daily life, particularly in those massproduced by industrial processes. At this time, the architect Robert Venturi sensed this confluence of events and circumstances. He was interested in the messiness of daily life. He and his wife Denise Scott-Brown studied street 16

17 signs, advertisements, and developed a theory of architecture that celebrated architecture as a collage of old and new, hand-made and ready-made. Venturi and Scott Brown studied cities like Las Vegas that did not have strong, harmonious plans, but were rather built from necessity and cluttered with buildings that served as signs and signs that were constructed on an architectural scale. Venturi and Scott-Brown rejected the modern clarity of Mies, Corb, and Gropius, and looked toward a postmodern literary tradition that celebrated multiple and often contradictory interpretations of the same text and applied it, in some ways, to architecture. One of the most important thinkers along these lines was the Italian Aldo Rossi, whose work and writings looked at architecture and cities as being simply typological frameworks onto which the complexity of human existence attaches itself and creates space and meaning. The exploration of building types in Rossiʼs case these are mostly historic in nature becomes the cornerstone of future postmodern architects including Robert A. M. Stern and Duany Plater-Zyberk. But Rossi also taught the young Herzog and de Meuron, who came to think about historic buildings as being frameworks for their own form of interventions and explorations of materiality. Likewise, other architects, including Renzo Piano and Norman Foster explored their interest in historic buildings by creating projects that were contextual with historic building fabric while not attempting to recreate historic structures, details, systems, or ornaments. In fact, many of the projects looked at in this class engage the environmental sensitivities of New Objectivity to the reuse of existing buildings to create what are some of the most environmentally sustainable projects being developed today. The rise of postmodernism in architecture also brought about a resurgence of interest in architectural history and its complex relationship to architecture today. Required Reading: Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture: Selections from a Forthcoming Book, Perspecta, vol. 9, (1965), pp [JSTOR] Aldo Rossi, Cemetery of San Cataldo, Modena (1971), In K. Michael Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp [netlibrary] Adolf Max Vogt and Radka Donnell, Review [of the work of Aldo Rossi], The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historian, vol. 42, no. 1 (Mar., 1983), pp [JSTOR] Robert A. M. Stern, Gray Architecture as Post-Modernism, or, Up and Down from Orthodoxy (1976), In K. Michael Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp [netlibrary] Kathleen LaFrank, Seaside, Florida: ʻThe New Town: The Old Ways,ʼ Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, vol. 6 Shaping Communities (1997), pp [JSTOR] Herbert Muschamp, Itʼs History Now, So Shouldnʼt Modernism Be Preserved, Too? The New York Times, (12/17/2000): AR1 [Proquest] Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter, From Collage City, manuscript in circulation from 1973, In K. Michael Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp [netlibrary] Denise Scott Brown, Learning from Pop (1971) In K. Michael Hays, Architecture Theory Since 1968, (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1998), pp [netlibrary] 17