The Modern Architecture - Literature review Example

Running Head: THE MODERN ARCHITECTURE The Modern Architecture [The Writer’s Name] [The Name of the Institution] The Modern Architecture An understanding of the architecture of classical Greece and Rome has provided the basis for European architecture for the last 2000 years. Over this time its qualities have sometimes been interpreted very flexibly; at others it has been copied in the minutest detail. The palazzo design of Hamilton Square, 1830 was a liberal reinterpretation of classical architecture, while the Bank of England at Bristol was more scholarly. At its most fundamental, classical architecture requires a building's exterior to be composed so that it looks as if it has a strong base, a well-defined middle and a roof. In this way the building appears to be well constructed and able to provide adequate shelter. The most fundamental element of classical composition is the portico, or the front of a classical temple, which combines the fundamental features of a base, middle and a top, as well as being composed symmetrically into a façade. It has become the most enduring image of a building that there ever has been in British architecture. Although the portico, with its base, columns and triangular pediment, has a powerful simplicity, there was a rich variety in the ways its details could be designed. These details were elaborate, and very seriously studied by architectural scholars. They centred around the use of columns and beams, whose size; spacing and exact design had been refined to perfection by the Greeks and Romans, who had grouped the designs into key variations that became known as the 'orders'. (Ferriday, 1957-57) Using the orders, an architect could choose between the plain Tuscan, the graceful Doric, the slender Ionic, with its 'volute' capital, or the decorative Corinthian, with its ornate capital of acanthus leaves. (Gloag, 1961, 256-62) When designing buildings with many floors, the classical architect would naturally choose a heavy, strong order like the Tuscan for the lowest storey, and a lighter order like the Ionic or Corinthian for the top. In the 19th century different orders were selected because of their appropriateness to the function of the building. A bank, which needed to appear secure and strong, would use a stout order like the Doric, as in the Bank of England branch at Bristol. But a theatre, or a gentlemen's club, would be more likely to use one of the more ornate orders, and the Ionic was thought to be particularly delicate. As we will see, attitudes towards the classical language of architecture varied throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. In the early 19th century there was a strong classical revival, during which many important public buildings like the British Museum, or St George's Hall, Liverpool, were designed as powerful and scholarly compositions of columns and pediments. But the century is more marked by its creative reinterpretation of the classical language, of which Cockerell's banks are just one example, and we should not forget the work of Alexander 'Greek' Thomson, whose Glasgow churches of the 1850s were highly original. This fascination with the re-use of Greek and Roman architecture had its most recent, rather humourless fling in the early 20th century (Selfridges, 1907), before architects became preoccupied with the temporary attraction of something altogether more Modern. By the 1930s the effects of the Modern movement and the International Style were being seen in urban Britain. This Modern revolution was not confined to architecture-it had already asserted itself in painting, literature, the theatre and even the cinema. But in architecture it became truly public, all-pervasive and enduring. 'Modern architecture' was both a philosophical programme and a style. (Collins, 1965, 118-23) To this day, architects calling themselves Modernists flit between philosophy and style so skilfully that it is difficult to see where one begins and the other ends. Philosophically, the Modern movement was revolutionary: it held that architecture should have nothing to do with the past, reflecting only the present day, with its new construction techniques and social aspirations. But any time is, in its own eyes, modern. Some of the late-19th-century architecture of the arts and crafts movement was thought at the time to be revolutionary, even if today's observers see it as being steeped in tradition. What was new in the 1920s and 30s was this rejection of the past. As the German Bruno Taut put it in 1920: 'Smash the shell-lime Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns, demolish the pin-heads. Down with the “respectability” of sandstone and plate-glass, in fragments with the rubbish of marble and precious wood. To the garbage heap with all that junk!' As well as being new, the Modern movement also wanted to be honest and to have nothing to do with the illusion of 'façadism'; it should use building materials frankly and be true to the building's function-a shed should be a shed, and should not be dressed up to look like anything else. This doctrine of honesty and rationality was not new. As early as 1753 the great French theoretician Abbé Laugier had claimed that 'the artist must be able to justify by reasons everything that he does', and in the following century the theoretician Viollet-le-Duc had called for all architecture to be true to its requirements and to its construction. Occasionally the early manifestations of the British Modern movement were inspired: look at the Burnham-on-Crouch Yacht Club (Joseph Emberton, 1931); the Boots Factory at Beeston, Nottingham (Owen Williams, also 1931-see Pioneer Health Centre, 1935); private houses by Amyas Connell (later Connell, Ward & Lucas) from 1930 onwards; and the work of Tecton, including London Zoo's Penguin Pool (1934) and Highpoint Flats (1935). But usually British Modernism had little to do with the honest expression of new materials, or of the exciting spatial relationships of pure forms. All too often it became exactly what it purported not to be: a style. It became a way of dressing a building up just as traditional decoration had done. And, when sophisticated techniques of system building and prefabrication were developed in the 1960s and 70s (Aylesbury Estate, 1977), the huge and impersonal forms that were built were justified as Modern architecture. Their lack of popularity did much to turn public opinion away from what had, in the 1930s, been such a heroic idea. (Battersea Power Station, 1934; Pioneer Health Centre, 1935; Alton West Estate, 1959; Alpha House, 1962) The scope for architectural modelling at Battersea was very limited. Scott's only opportunity for introducing detail lay in the vast brick walls and the chimneys that were to stand at each corner. These were designed skilfully: great care was taken in working out how the chimneys sat on their brick bases, and much detail was introduced at the top of the walls. The massive band of grooves at the top of the building was an inspired way of emphasizing its bulk, while at the same time making it appear a familiar to the popular eye through the use of a conventional motif. It is almost an entablature, straight out of classical architecture. The last of London's great brick power stations, at Bankside, was completed in 1960, with Scott once again acting as consultant architect. Fired by oil, it has just one central chimney, and is even grander in scale and detail than Battersea. Once they had ceased to generate electricity, both power stations suffered controversy over their future re-use. Battersea was to become a leisure park, but the initiative failed; Bankside is to become an art gallery. Yet even if these great buildings helped to turn the industrial shed into architecture, it needs more than this historical achievement to justify keeping them. (Gloag, 1962, 71-76) The engineer Owen Williams designed the new Pioneer Health Centre, which was opened in 1935. The site chosen in Peckham was fortunate because it allowed a lot of open space to be left in front of the building, where it was hoped that outdoor social activities could take place. The building was based on a reinforced-concrete frame, with concrete floors supported on square columns with mushroom-shaped tops. The façade that faces the road is almost entirely built in glass, in six gently curving bay windows, so that as much light as possible can penetrate the main social spaces inside. Beneath these windows on the ground floor, the glazing could be removed, providing an open space for children to play. At the core of the building's plan is an Olympic-sized swimming pool, which is entered at first-floor level. Daylight is everywhere, and the atmosphere inside the building is one of openness, which suited the founders' aims perfectly. The Health Centre was a very modern building for its time, and was quickly acclaimed for both its social and its structural innovations. In one respect, though, the Health Centre is not innovative-its symmetrical plan and façade belong to the classical tradition. But then, as we have seen at Wicklands Avenue, 1934, the British architectural establishment never fully accepted all the possibilities of Modern architecture that had been exploited on the Continent. Nor did the architectural establishment fully accept Williams, and it has been suggested that this was because he was not a qualified architect. Qualified or not, Williams produced a design for the vast Boots Factory at Beeston, Nottingham (completed in 1937), that has been widely acclaimed as a fine pioneering piece of Modern architecture. Like the building at Peckham, it supports its upper floors on a grid of mushroom-shaped columns. It is surrounded on all sides by full-height glazing, interrupted only on the façade by the intermediate floors. Sadly the Pioneer Health Centre had to close when war broke out, and the families that used it were evacuated. But the building still remains and it is still performing something close to its original function for the local education authority. When he designed the Peter Jones store in Sloane Square, Chelsea, William Crabtree was a very young man straight out of university. He had just completed his final student's design for a large store in Oxford Street, and it was through this that he was introduced to Spedan Lewis, the founder of the John Lewis Partnership, who was convinced that the old buildings at Sloane Square needed replacing. While researching for the new Peter Jones project, Crabtree visited Germany and studied the work of Erich Mendelsohn. In the late 1920s Mendelsohn had built a number of stores for the Schocken chain, whose modern exteriors were vigorous in design and acted as advertisements in their own right. But Crabtree was equally impressed by a Berlin office block of Mendelsohn's: the ten-storey Columbushaus of 1931 had a façade that gently curved along the edge of the street. The elegant modulation of the curved horizontal window bands could provide a simple and powerful architectural statement; entirely appropriate for the King's Road frontage of Peter Jones, which also curved gently. But the new design also had to contend with the London Building Acts, which, until they were eventually replaced by the national Building Regulations in 1985, very strictly governed the standards of construction in the capital. These Acts not only limited the height of a new building, but they also required its façade to be fireproof. Crabtree's first job was to interpret these Acts in such a way that complied with them as well as enabling the new store to approach the elegance of Mendelsohn's work. Lewis had insisted that the new store should have generous open areas inside, where fabrics could be displayed in natural light. To enable this, the structural frame was designed with long spans in between the columns, so that the internal walls could be planned freely, providing the flexibility that is essential for effective retailing. Only the thick fire-resistant walls and their shutters interrupt the spacious plan. In the centre of the store large light wells were provided, for which the supporting columns were set back a good distance, giving the impression of weightlessness. As far as the eventual acceptance of Modern architecture as the way of designing urban buildings was concerned, Peter Jones was also a very economical building indeed for its type, and money is more persuasive than any fashion. The Festival of Britain was held in 1951, exactly a century after the Great Exhibition, for which the magnificent Crystal Palace was built. The 1951 Festival, while not nearly so revolutionary as its predecessor, was described as a 'tonic to the nation' following the battering Britain had received during the Second World War. These were times of liberal optimism, when the post-war Labour government dreamed of creating a 'Socialist Commonwealth of Britain'-a dream that would sadly remain unfulfilled due to the crippling debts that the country faced in the aftermath of war. (Hitchcock, 1963, 133-40) Although the Festival was intended to be held throughout Britain, its principal site was on the south bank of the Thames, which for many years had lain derelict. The main architectural features of the Festival site were the 'Shot Tower'-a relic of the past which had been spruced up and given a dish aerial to receive radio signals from space; the 'Dome of Discovery'-a 111 m diameter, round exhibition hall with an aluminium-framed roof; the 'Skylon'-a 100 m Vertical feature', of which some wag once said 'like Britain, it has no visible means of support'; and the new Royal Festival Hall. This was badly needed, since the old Queen's Hall had been bombed in the war. It would be the only Festival building to be kept, and formed the nucleus for the South Bank arts complex of the 1960s. In the 1960s architects and builders were still struggling to find new techniques for the construction of the ever huger buildings they were being asked to build. Given the pressure on local authorities in such places as Coventry to build high-rise blocks, it was hoped at the time that Alpha House would become an acceptable architectural and technical alternative to conventional two-storey house construction. High Tech was a short-lived style that was vigorously promoted in the early 1980s. Its popularity had been dramatically established by the Pompidou Centre in Paris (1972-77), which was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers. This building of international importance used a massive, brightly coloured structural steel frame, which was completely exposed, and it made no attempt to conceal the ducts and pipes of its servicing system. It was the consummate modern building: functional, progressive and popular. The theme went on to be developed in a number of ways: some buildings delighted in exposing their structure and services, while others made confident use of new materials-both captured the imagination of many architects in the early 1980s. Critics could not agree whether High Tech was really 'expressing' the 'functions' of a building, or whether it was just a style, doing what it did for the sake of appearances. (Pevsner, 1968, 122-27) In truth it was both, and High Tech, with its 'high-energy' materials and celebration of energy consumption, became increasingly associated with an irresponsible attitude towards the world's resources. It can be seen as a late fling of Modern architecture, which was already being challenged at the time by the vernacular revival. The Hampshire schools and others like them occupy a very special place in British modern architecture: they are modern, because they are planned to serve a very well understood function, and because they do not follow the rules of classical composition. But they are also very sensitive to their surroundings and respectful of vernacular architectural values. In some respects, then, they represent a taming of the harshness of early Modern architecture, and they belong to an altogether wider tradition. (Turnor, 1950, 188-90)Thirty years is a long time in the life of a house, and a very long time in the lives of the people who live in it. The Ford Estate had, by the mid-1980s, become the most unpopular estate in the Wirral. Consisting of over 2000 homes, it had been built from the mid-1950s onwards using a non-traditional technique of construction that was not destined to last long. The 'cross-wall' technique used sturdy walls to separate each of the dwellings along the terrace from each other, but flimsy panelled walls for the front and back of each house. By the 1980s the cross-walls were still sound, but the front and back walls, which were only made of timber framing, were in very poor condition, badly insulated and needed replacing. References Collins, Peter. Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture, 1750-1950. London: Faber and Faber, 1965. 118-23 Ferriday, Peter, "The Revival: Stories Ancient and Modern." Architectural Review 121 (1957): 155-57. Gloag, John. Victorian Comfort. A Social History of Design from 1830-1900. New York: Macmillan, 1961. 256-62 Gloag, John. Victorian Taste. Some Social Aspects of Architecture and Industrial Design from 1820-1900. New York: Macmillan, 1962. 71-76 Hitchcock, Henry-Russell. Architecture: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Penguin, 1963: 133-40 Pevsner, Nikolaus. Studies in Art, Architecture and Design. 2 vols. New York: Walker and Co., 1968. 122-27 Turnor, Reginald. Nineteenth Century Architecture in Britain. London: B. T. Batsford, 1950. 188-90 Read More

This fascination with the re-use of Greek and Roman architecture had its most recent, rather humourless fling in the early 20th century (Selfridges, 1907), before architects became preoccupied with the temporary attraction of something altogether more Modern. By the 1930s the effects of the Modern movement and the International Style were being seen in urban Britain. This Modern revolution was not confined to architecture-it had already asserted itself in painting, literature, the theatre and even the cinema.

But in architecture it became truly public, all-pervasive and enduring. 'Modern architecture' was both a philosophical programme and a style. (Collins, 1965, 118-23) To this day, architects calling themselves Modernists flit between philosophy and style so skilfully that it is difficult to see where one begins and the other ends. Philosophically, the Modern movement was revolutionary: it held that architecture should have nothing to do with the past, reflecting only the present day, with its new construction techniques and social aspirations.

But any time is, in its own eyes, modern. Some of the late-19th-century architecture of the arts and crafts movement was thought at the time to be revolutionary, even if today's observers see it as being steeped in tradition. What was new in the 1920s and 30s was this rejection of the past. As the German Bruno Taut put it in 1920: 'Smash the shell-lime Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns, demolish the pin-heads. Down with the “respectability” of sandstone and plate-glass, in fragments with the rubbish of marble and precious wood.

To the garbage heap with all that junk!' As well as being new, the Modern movement also wanted to be honest and to have nothing to do with the illusion of 'façadism'; it should use building materials frankly and be true to the building's function-a shed should be a shed, and should not be dressed up to look like anything else. This doctrine of honesty and rationality was not new. As early as 1753 the great French theoretician Abbé Laugier had claimed that 'the artist must be able to justify by reasons everything that he does', and in the following century the theoretician Viollet-le-Duc had called for all architecture to be true to its requirements and to its construction.

Occasionally the early manifestations of the British Modern movement were inspired: look at the Burnham-on-Crouch Yacht Club (Joseph Emberton, 1931); the Boots Factory at Beeston, Nottingham (Owen Williams, also 1931-see Pioneer Health Centre, 1935); private houses by Amyas Connell (later Connell, Ward & Lucas) from 1930 onwards; and the work of Tecton, including London Zoo's Penguin Pool (1934) and Highpoint Flats (1935). But usually British Modernism had little to do with the honest expression of new materials, or of the exciting spatial relationships of pure forms.

All too often it became exactly what it purported not to be: a style. It became a way of dressing a building up just as traditional decoration had done. And, when sophisticated techniques of system building and prefabrication were developed in the 1960s and 70s (Aylesbury Estate, 1977), the huge and impersonal forms that were built were justified as Modern architecture. Their lack of popularity did much to turn public opinion away from what had, in the 1930s, been such a heroic idea. (Battersea Power Station, 1934; Pioneer Health Centre, 1935; Alton West Estate, 1959; Alpha House, 1962) The scope for architectural modelling at Battersea was very limited.

Scott's only opportunity for introducing detail lay in the vast brick walls and the chimneys that were to stand at each corner. These were designed skilfully: great care was taken in working out how the chimneys sat on their brick bases, and much detail was introduced at the top of the walls. The massive band of grooves at the top of the building was an inspired way of emphasizing its bulk, while at the same time making it appear a familiar to the popular eye through the use of a conventional motif.

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