1. PIONEERS OF MODERN
ARCHITECTURE
LECTURE 2
Simegn Z. / WSU, 2015

2. Content
1. Frank Lloyd Wright
(1867-1957)
2. Le Corbusier
(1887-1965)
3. Mies van der Rohe
(1886-1969)

3. Frank Lloyd Wright
 Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), American architect, considered
one of the greatest figures of 20th-century architecture.
Principle:
 Through all his designs, he was guided by principles that he termed
organic architecture.
 Every building should relate harmoniously to its natural
surroundings and that a building should not be a static, boxlike
enclosure but a dynamic structure, with open, flowing interior
spaces.
 To achieve this organic design, he used geometric units, or modules,
that generated a grid. The first modules were squares, but Wright later
used diamonds, hexagons, and other geometric shapes, upon which
he laid a free-flowing floor plan.
 Another device Wright favored was the cantilever, a long projection
(often a balcony) that was supported at only one end. The grid and the
cantilever freed Wright’s designs from being merely boxes with
openings cut into them.

4. Works
Prairie Houses
 Experimenting in many styles during the 1890s, Wright proved his
mastery of the architectural ideas of the time.
 He chose to use his principles of organic architecture to develop
the prairie house—a long, low structure that hugged the Midwest
prairie.
 A shallow roof emphasized its horizontal lines.
 Wright disliked basements, his earliest independent commission, his
buildings were set firmly on the earth, rather than in it.

5.  At the approach to the house, Wright reduced space by using an
overhanging roof, side walls, and stairs that bring the person
entering closer to the roof.
 All this compression sets the stage for a dramatic explosion of space
as one finally turns into the living room.
 Wright’s living rooms typically have a height of one-and-a-half or two
stories, but they seem much larger because of the compression
experienced before entering them.
 Wright also designed the furnishings of many of his houses, or he
had other designers create them to his detailed specifications.

6. Robie house
(1906-1909) on Chicago’s South Side.
 This long, three-story structure stands no taller than the surrounding
two-story houses.
 A roof cantilever extends 6.4 m (21 ft) from the western wall of
the house over a west-facing veranda.
 On the south facade, 14 glass doors open onto a main-floor
balcony, which shades the 10 windows and 4 doors on the
ground floor below.
 The house spreads in to landscape
by means of low parapet walls
which integrated the building
with nature.

7.  At every point the horizontal line is stretched and
emphasized, internally as well as externally.
 The main living level is one long space, divided into living
room and dining room by a freestanding fireplace.

8.  A shallow roof overhang enables sunlight to enter through
the main floor doors in winter but keeps sunlight out in the
hot summer months.
 Wright used steel beams to have large span living room.
 Cantilevered steel beams create long, uninterrupted spaces
that extend through windows onto porches and balconies,
making walls disappear.
 The bold ground hugging lines are the characteristics of this
building.

9.  The house is an elongated rectangle that follows the line of
street.
 In this building Masses and voids are in equilibrium.
 Wright makes the corners to disappear.
 Wright also integrated the lighting and heating into the ceiling
and floor, and designed nearly all the furniture.

10.  In the Robbie House, the living room flows into the dining
room
 The rich wood molding, ceiling beams, bookshelves, and
niches found throughout the house unify the interior.
 Fireplace breaks horizontality of building with Un-plastered
brick .
 A wide chimney cluster rises from the center of the building,
providing a sole vertical element .

11. Falling water
(1936 Pennsylvania)
 Falling water is considered Wright's masterwork.
 Ironically, the work for which Wright is best known is one of his
largest and least democratic works.
 Cantilevered dramatically over a waterfall in southwest
Pennsylvania.
 Falling water is notable for its
relationship with the environment,
it appears to emerge from the
rocks above the waterfall.
 Brings the outdoors inside.

12.  Not only does the waterfall become part of the house a staircase in
the living room leads down to it.
 The wooded glen that surrounds the house is visible from every
room.
 Concrete balconies cantilever at right angles from the house’s
vertical stone core, and a balcony off the main living space extends
over the waterfall.
 Corner window without frame at the corner considered invention of
Wright.

13.  Vertical elements such as stairs and
chimneys faced in rough stone and
from a nearby quarry.
 Horizontal windows and projecting
terraces embrace the surrounding
natural scene.
 The layout of the building is broken
down in a series of rooms that intersect
around the central nucleus of the living
room.

14. Johnson Wax Company
(1930s Racine, Wisconsin)
 It included the company’s Administration Building (1936), an
elegant house for Johnson that has four wings arranged in a
pinwheel pattern around a central core.
 The main office building, an early example of open planning,
occupies the right wing of the building.
 The roof of the Administration Building’s main workroom appears
to float above a forest of tall, tapered columns with broad, flat tops.
 These narrow concrete columns seem to hung down from the
circular ceiling slabs that they in fact support the roof.
 Immediately under the tower is a recreational area and car park.
 Light enters through skylights and long bands of glass tubing.

16. Guggenheim Museum
(1957-1959) in New York City
 Its spiraling ramp provides a dramatic setting for art, although
critics have questioned the ramp’s suitability as an exhibition
space.
 Wright’s innovative designs and use of materials often drew
controversy.
 Builders doubted whether his cantilevers—especially at
Fallingwater—would support their weight. Others questioned the
practicality of his designs, such as that for the Guggenheim.

17.  Wright’s legacy consists of more than 1,000 designs, nearly half of
which were built. He continued working until his death, two months
before his 92nd birthday.
 Architects worldwide now employ grid systems as well as the open
type of floor plan he pioneered.
 The originality of Wright’s designs, his sensitivity to a building’s
surroundings, and his creative use of materials especially concrete
and cement blocks have been widely recognized.
 A number of his buildings are considered national landmarks.

18. Le Corbusier
 Le Corbusier, professional name of Charles Édouard
Jeanneret (1887-1965), Swiss-French architect, painter, and
writer, who had a major effect on the development of modern
architecture.
 In 1922 he went into partnership in Paris as an architect with
his cousin, the engineer Pierre Jeanneret, and adopted his
mother's maiden name, Le Corbusier.
 While practicing as an architect, Le Corbusier was also active
as a painter and writer. Mostly associated with Amédée
Ozenfant in the school of purism
 In 1920 he founded with Ozenfant the review L'Esprit
Nouveau (The New Spirit), for which he wrote numerous
articles to support his theories on architecture; these theories
were developed from 1920 to 1925 and culminated in his
concept of the ideal house as “a machine for living.”

19. Le Corbusier (Charles
Édouard Jeanneret)
(1887-1965)
 “modular theory” a
system of fundamental
dimensions, based on the
measurements of the
human body, designed by
Le Corbusier to create
harmonious proportions.
 “The House is a machine
for living in”

20. Le Corbusier
 Essentially a functionalist, he broke with the forms and design of
historic styles, and sought a new 20th-century style to be based
on engineering achievements in bridge building and steamship
construction; on modern materials such as
 ferroconcrete,
 sheet glass, and synthetics; and
 on contemporary needs such as town planning and
housing projects.
 His work did much to bring about general acceptance of the now-
common international style of low-lying, unadorned buildings that
depend for aesthetic effect on simplicity of forms and relation
to function.

21. United Habitation
(1947 -1952, Marseilles)
 This was the project which embodied the modular co-ordination
ideas of Le Corbusier in their most concentrated form.
 This united Habitation was designed with living and social facilities
for two thousand people.
 A revolutionary event, sun space and ground to raise a family
privacy, in silence and in natural surroundings.
 It was designed as one unit of a new type city and contains a street
of shops and social and service accommodation of various kinds,
as well as two-level apartments to house 1,6oo people.

23. The villa Savoie
(1921 & 1931)
 The villa Savoie at Poissy, is one of Le Corbusier's most classic
and influential buildings, embodying the principle set out by the
architect’s manifesto
 Five points in a new architecture
I. Raised on Pilotis,
II. It is designed on free plan, with a free facad, almost
continuous ribbon windows,
III. Roof garden with a solarium,
IV. On the first floor, the glass walled living area,
V. Wraps in L shape around a terrace,
VI. From ground to roof level winds an entrance ramp.

25. The Secretariat
(1951-1958, Chandigarh, India)
 The Secretariat and the High Court Buildings in Chandīgarh, India,
are a part of his plan for the entire city.
 The secretariat building is a part of the complex of public buildings,
including an assembly and Law Courts, designed by Le Corbusier
for the new capital he laid out for the state of Punjab
 The 800 ft long raw concrete slab of the secretariat is patterned by
its grid of sun breakers, one of Le Corbusier’s favorite architectural
devices.

26. Ronchamp church, France
(Notre-Dame du Haut, 1950-1955)
 It is the most personal of Le Corbusier’s works; wholly original,
since every form and spatial effect is related to the architect’s
concentrated attempt to achieve a sense of religious dignity and
purpose.
 This unusual building is a synthesis of architecture and sculpture.
The frame of the structure is steel and metal mesh, over which
concrete was sprayed.
 It is lit by irregular, wedge shaped windows of varying size filled
with colored glass which allow diffused
light to reflect on their sides.

27.  The roof is slightly raised on metal
supports, creating a thin band of
daylight between it and the top of the
wall.
 Light filters through the rounded half
domed towers and falls on the altars
of the chapel below.
 The design solves the setting
problem of pilgrimage churches, by
grouping an altar and pulpit outside
and providing an outdoor nave for
about 12,000 pilgrims at a time.

29. During the 1920s Le Corbusier, defined five features of
modern architecture:
1. Interior walls arranged freely, without regard to the
traditional demands of structural support;
2. Pilotis, or slender columns that lift the building above the
ground;
3. A flat roof to be used as a garden-terrace;
4. External curtain walls that bear no weight, with a free
arrangement of windows or other openings;
5. Ribbon windows, or narrow horizontal bands of glass
across the length of a façade.

30. Interested In;
 Extreme clarity and
simplicity and a new
architectural language
 Architecture should
communicate the meaning
and significance of the
culture in which it exists
 High level of abstraction
Mies van der Rohe
1.Introduction
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–
1969))a German-American
architect , along with Walter
Gropius and Le Corbusier, is widely
regarded as one of the pioneering
masters of modern architecture.
Despite having no architectural
training, his influence can be seen
in cities all over the world. He
created an influential 20th century
architectural style, stated with
extreme clarity and simplicity and a
new architectural language that
could be used to represent the new
era of technology and production.
He adopted the idea that
architecture should communicated
the meaning and significance of the
culture in which it exists .Mies'
architecture was created at a high
level of abstraction.

31.  to create free and open spaces, enclosed
within a structural order with minimal
presence.
 In search for rational solutions
 His ideas were from the basic principle of
construction
1.Introduction
Mies sought to create free
and open spaces, enclosed
within a structural order with
minimal presence. His
famous phrase “less is more”
perfectly captured his
steadfast devotion to pure
Modernist design, and
encapsulated the Modernists’
search for rational solutions
to the complicated problems
of urban existence.
Meis has evolved his ideas
from the basic principle of
construction: hence the form
of his building is the
expression of their structure.

32. Mies van der Rohe offered in his buildings
open, flexible space
The final form is a neutral-looking box that
expresses nothing of the particular
function
Mies van der Rohe’s designs appear to be
a good illustration of for the idea of
honesty in the building.
1.Introduction
In his search for the perfect form, Mies
van der Rohe offered in his buildings
open, flexible space suitable for different
uses. Although each was for a particular
purpose, often the final form is a neutral-
looking box that expresses nothing of the
particular function. So there was nothing
to differentiate commercial office blocks
from residential apartments other than the
curtains in the latter. So keen was Mies to
preserve the pristine rhythms of his
façades that at Lake Shore Drive
apartments, Chicago, 1950, he tried to
prevent residents from putting up curtains!
Mies van der Rohe’s designs appear to
be a good illustration of for the idea of
honesty in the building ,
but owing to fire regulations, the structural
frames of his buildings were usually clad
and not quite as openly expressed. At the
Lake Shore Drive apartments non-
structural I beams are attached to the
façade at regular intervals almost like
decoration to give a bold vertical rhythm.

33. Famous phrase of
Mies
“Less is more”
and “God is in
the details.”

34. “Architecture is the
will of the age
conceived in spatial
terms“
“Create form out of
the nature of the
task with the means
of our time."

35. German Pavilion
(1929)
German Pavilion
German Pavilion, 1929 designed
by Mies van der Rohe, was the
German Pavilion for the 1929
International Exposition in
Barcelona, Spain. The design was
predicated on an absolute
distinction between structure and
enclosure—a regular grid of
cruciform steel columns
interspersed by freely spaced
planes .The structure was more of
a hybrid style, some of these
planes also acted as supports.
Mies wanted this building to
become "an ideal zone of
tranquility" for the weary visitor,
who should be invited into the
pavilion on the way to the next
attraction. He chose the place
where these optical effects would
have the strongest impact; the
building offers multiple views of
 Structure was more of a hybrid style
 Planes also acted as supports
 An ideal zone of tranquility for the weary
visitor
 Characterized by Free flow of spaces.
 The building offers multiple views

36. German Pavilion

37. German Pavilion

38.  The wall was designed to be part of
space rather than enclose it.
 The walls of glass direct the flow of
visitors through the building.
 The roof defines the space below it.
 There are no rooms in the ordinary
sense rather a series of planes
arranged in space, defining a group of
interrelated areas.
 There is no one obvious path and it is
dominated by non-directional spaces

40. German Chair

41.  The most perfect statements of his
architectural approach
 Simple square box is a powerful
expression of Meis’s ideas about flexible
interior space
 Interior space defined by transparent walls
New National Gallery
(1965-1968, Berlin)
New National Gallery
New National Galerie,
Berlin, 1965-68 is
Considered as one of the
most perfect statements of
his architectural approach,
the upper pavilion is a
precise composition of
monumental steel
columns and a
cantilevered (overhanging)
roof plane with a glass
enclosure. The simple
square box is a powerful
expression of his ideas
about flexible interior
space, defined by
transparent walls and

42. New National Gallery

43.  characterized by an aesthetic of industrial
simplicity,
 free flowing interior of the upper level.
 The aesthetic is achieved by strong contrast
of Glass and steel.
Crown Hall, illinois Institute of Technology
(1956, Chicago)
Crown Hall
This building characterized
by an aesthetic of industrial
simplicity, with clearly
articulated exposed steel
frame construction. The steel
frame is in filled with large
sheets of glass of varying
qualities of transparency,
resulting in a light and
delicate steel and glass
facade wrapping the open
plan, free flowing interior of
the upper level.
The aesthetic is achieved by
strong contrast of Glass and
steel.

44. Crown Hall

45.  Creation of plaza paved in granite and
furnished
 The buildings of skin and bones.
Seagram Building
(1958)
Seagram Building
The space between the
avenue serves as the pretext
for the creation of plaza paved
in granite and furnished with
plants and pools of water. It
took a lot of effort to make
skyscrapers like the Seagram
building look uncomplicated,
and the forest of inferior
imitations which sprang up
across the globe in the 1960s
and 1970s did much to
undermine Modernism’s
reputation. He called the
building “The buildings of
skin and bones” .

46. Seagram Building