Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Mies Van der Rohe

Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto, and Mies Van der Rohe are perhaps the most influential architects on modern architecture. All were pioneers of ideas that were way ahead of their time. So much so that their ideas are still studied and used in architecture today. With a closer look at how they implemented their architectural ideas into some of their residential works, we can better understand how their work is still influencing modern architecture today.

            Le Corbusier developed his theory of five points of architecture. These five points are

-       pilotis

-       toit-jardin (roof garden)

-       plan libre (free plan)

-       fenetre de longerue (long window of the façade)

-       façade libre (free façade)

Taking a look at the Maison La Roche house designed by Le Corbusier we can see how he uses his five points of architecture into a residential building.

http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/buildings&CISOPTR=13903

            In the above picture the piloti is clearly visible. It is the circular column and it supports the studio above. Besides supporting the room above it, the piloti is used to elevate the building creating an open space beneath which was meant to be an area to park cars. Le Corbusier saw the automobile as an object to design a building around and wanted all cities to eventually build as elevated buildings leaving open areas beneath for cars to pass under.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2725/4121937254_08a6568cd4.jpg

            The next point was a roof garden. The purpose was of this was to replace to area of garden that was taken up by the house being placed there. This idea is still a forward thinking idea in both green and modern architecture and buildings and houses are being retro-fitted to accommodate a roof garden. Not only does it support the environment but roof gardens add extra living space and green area especially in an urban setting.

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            The third point of his architecture was a free plan. Le Corbusier used a framing that was inset of the façade allowing a multitude of floor plans to be developed within the framing and façade of the house because the plan didn’t depend on structural walls. In the above picture of the interior of the Maison La Roche you can see you how the framing structure allowed a three story space with a procession of interjecting spaces up to the top floor.

            The final two points of his architecture were long spanning windows and a free façade. The two points are closely related. Like the free floor plan, these two points are a possible because of the framing system that is pulled in from the façade of the house. With the framing pulled in, the façade is not structural allowing basically a free canvas of space to place windows. This is how Le Corbusier is capable of placing strips of windows that span from one end a house to the other. His reason for putting the strips of windows was to give the illusion of weightlessness. The free façade in the Maison La Roche is implemented in the studio where Le Corbusier has created a curved wall that is clearly not structural. It is offset from the structure of the house and again as stated before is elevated by the piloti.

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            The next architect who has had a continued influence on modern architecture is Alvar Aalto. Aalto began as a neo-classicist but evolved into what can be called a Romantic Modernist. His transition consisted of sensitivity to the human experience moving through space by the use of materials and complex metaphors. Aalto wrote that “Architecture cannot disengage itself from natural and human factors; on the contrary it must never do so…Its function rather is to bring nature ever closer to us.”

            These ideas are represented in a house he completed for Maire and Harry Gullichsen, a wealthy couple. The house was called the Villa Mairea.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2200/3538448310_3d6b98697b.jpg

            The house was L-shaped and loosely reflected the vernacular of Finnish farms with a courtyard protecting the inhabitants from winter winds. Inside of the ‘courtyard’ of the L is the pool and lawn flowing into the edge of the forest. On the outside of the L is the more public side of the house and is more formal. The interiors of the house are connected in flowing sequences with rooms differentiated by small level changes or screens. The materials of the interior are a detailed combination of wood, stone and brick thoughtfully integrated with artificial materials. Wood was the prominent material used in this house and was used in such a way that creates the appearance of the forest continuing into the house and becoming almost a structural aspect of the villa. Villa Mairea thus becomes an abstraction of the forest that surrounds it.

http://www.mabeslor.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Villa-Mairea-by-Alvar-Aalto-6.jpg

            The final architect in this discussion of modern architectural influence is Mies Van der Rohe. Van der Rohe advanced the ideas of modern architecture in a way that buildings became more than just functional but rather a piece of art. “In its simplest form architecture is rooted in entirely functional considerations, but it can reach up through all degrees of value to the highest sphere of spiritual existence into the realm of pure art.” This idea is evident in perhaps his most famous work, the Farnsworth house.  The Farnsworth house is located in Plano, Illinois and is set in a pastoral landscape. The idea of a house is simplified to the complete fullest in this project. There is no decoration to the house so that rather than having a piece of art in the house, the house becomes a piece of art to the landscape and the landscape become art when you are inside the house. The house is simplified so that visually there is only a terrace, floor, and roof. This pure form is intentionally unnatural so that it sticks out against the surrounding landscape. This is further continued by the use of white paint on the structure of the house. With the house elevated, the idea of the of the man made object against the natural landscape is further emphasized and the elevated position reinforces the idea that the house is a piece of art.

http://cdn.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/1273899757-farnsworth1-528x351.jpg

            Looking back at the many works by these three great architects it is easy to see how much they have influenced the architecture that came after them. So many buildings are reminiscent of their work that their ideas have become almost commonplace in today’s world. That is not meant to sound as if I’m saying their ideas or normal but is rather more of allude to the saying ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.’ With their ideas and theory’s implemented in countless buildings, it can be easy to overlook the greatness of their ideas because we are surrounded by them constantly however that should only further indicate how wide spanning their influence on modern architecture still is.

Blog 3 Adolf Loos and Richard Docker

            This blog is going to be a comparison of two architects who were influential in the modernist movement. One of them is Adolf Loos and the other is Richard Docker. While both were working towards developing a modern architecture, their views and ideas towards what should be the outcome were different.

            In designing his modern houses, Adolf Loos used a system of planning that he called Raumplan. Raumplan was characterized by the organization of varying volumes of space, eliminating a central hall way and replacing it with a staircase, placing windows to allow in necessary light and frame views, and having a minimal exterior enclosure that was meant to reflect a difference from the public and the intimate interior. These ideas are reflected in one of Loos’s house Villa Muller. Loos considered this house to be his best execution of Raumplan.

            In Villa Muller the procession of rooms goes from low ceilings to gradually higher ceilings and eventually up a staircase into a double height sitting room. As you move through the house, the journey allows views into different rooms due to the varying volumes of spaces. Once you reach the top of the house there is a roof terrace with a large opening in a wall framing the Prague cathedral in the distance.

 The staircase that replaces the main hallway and the procession up volumes.

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Framed view of Prague cathedral

Image from Adolf Loos PowerPoint presentation

            The vast variation of interior spaces is contrasted by the exterior of the house. The outside is essentially a cube with large areas of plain white walls. This gives the appearance of being cold and uninviting which was the intention of Loos. He purposely made the exterior to function only as enclosure because he wanted to create as separation between the public outside on the private inside.

 Villa Muller's boxy. white exterior

http://liangzeng-arch1201.blogspot.com/2010/03/villa-muller.html

            Another modern architect of the time was Richard Docker. He was one of nineteen architects to design a house for the Werkbund Exhibition of 1927. The houses that were built were located in Weissenhof Estate which is a housing development in Stuttgart, Germany built for the exhibition. While some of the houses of the exhibition still exist, others were destroyed in World War II. One interesting fact is that Adolf Loos was supposed to be one of the architects to design a house in Weissenhof Estate but was removed from the list of architects because of disagreements with the Werkbund.

            In House 22, one of the houses designed by Richard Docker in the Werkbund Exposition, the design intent was to create a piece that was part of the whole Weissenhoff Estate. The goal was to present the estate as a whole rather than a collection of different styles. Docker once said, “Just as the individual space, the room, the piece of furniture, the aperture, the material, the construction system, etc., are interdependent members of a specific whole, the building itself is only one stone in the manifold structure of an urban organism.”

            In the layout of the house, the rooms are created by an intersection of the same geometric rectangular shape. While this is similar to Loos because of the intersection of spaces, it is different in that it is only an intersection in plan view. There is not a change in volumes like Loos. Also, because of the intersections of  rectangles, a main passage route is created. From this hallway you can access multiple rooms. This is another difference between Docker and Loos because Loos would design his houses to be moved through in a progression.

Floor Plan of House 22

Overlay showing the intersecting rectangle creating the passage way 

 

            A third difference between the two architects is that Docker seems to make more of a connection between the public and private. In House 22 there is a path from the garage to the terraced garden. The path continues up the garden onto a covered terreace that leads into the living room. The whole movement up to the covered terrace and into the living is visible to the public. This is in disagreement to how Loos believes the public and private should be separate. However, the procession up the small terraces to the covered terrace is reminiscent of the way one would move through the interior of one of Loos’s houses.

Pathway up terraced garden and into the living room. The red is the garage.

            As I stated before, both architects implemented ideas that moved architecture towards a more modern design but they differed in the ways that each moved forward.

Blog 2 Guimard, Horta, Van der Velde

Around the turn of the century, new advances in the technology of materials such as iron and glass allowed for the increased use of these materials in architecture. Because of the malleability of the material, specifically iron, combined with its strength and light weight, structure became an expressive part of architecture. From the theories of exposed structure, use of new technology, and ornamentation of a building rose the style of Art Nouveau. Art Nouveau was the integration of ornamentation and structure as a reflection of nature rather than seeing them as two separate aspects of architecture. This new style of architecture was significantly developed because of the work of three architects: Hector Guimard, Victor Horta, and Henry Van der Velde.

            In decribing the theory behind this movement, Henry Van der Valde states, “Ornament completes form…and we recognize the meaning of justification of ornament in its function.” To me this sounds like a furthur evolved theory of Viollet-le-Duc. Viollet-le-Duc called for the rationalism of structure and that structure should be exposed in order to understand the building. Van der Valde’s theory coincides with Viollet-le-Duc’s but furthers it but saying structure can be more than structure. It can also be the ornamentation off the building. This theory relied on the technology of the time and again goes back to the ability of iron to be molded into forms reflective of nature while still being structurally strong in order to have rationality in its form.

            Victor Horta was originally trained in the Beaux-Arts style of architecture. Although his first ten years spent working was comprised of neoclassical buildings he eventually began to design highly inventive houses. His houses provided multiple solutions to narrow building sites. In his Tassel House, the floor plan was no longer organized as a series of rooms but rather overlapping spaces. It was an originator to the open floor plan. The use of steel and iron as the structure allowed for large spans of space that further enhanced the openness of the house as well as letting in a significant amount of light. The open floor plan no longer had rooms that designated activities but rather zones that suggested areas. The floor plan allowed for multiple arrangements of the space which is how virtual transparency is achieved.

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            The final architect was Hector Guimard. He integrated decorations into a rational architecture that was guided heavily by Viollet-le-Duc. Guimard was also influenced by Victor Horta and after seeing the houses he designed, Guimard revised plans he had made for an apartment building in Paris. Guimard is particularly known for expanding on the idea of a reflection of nature through ornamentation through the structure. This can be seen in the large loops in the structure of his designs such as the Paris Metro entrances.

http://mic-ro.com/metro/images/paris/paris-abbesses.jpg