Paradigm shift in architecture: Modern Architecture

Paradigm shift in architecture: Modern Architecture is the twelfth article of a series of articles investigating the paradigm shift in architecture. In the previous eleven articles, I have discussed several different papers for academics, researchers, and professionals who have different perspectives on the paradigm shift in architecture.

This article is the continuity of my investigation of the reality of the paradigm shift, its effect on the work environment, and its real characteristics. Here I will start as indicated in my previous articles from ancient history to modern-day’s architecture. The modern architecture period is the subject of my discussion here.

Vincent¹ illustrates that modern architecture is the product of western civilization. In the preindustrial city, a human being became an atom within the vast sea. The human being was dissolved in a society that cannot find anything comprehensible that belongs to an individual having a passion to express his individuality. Modern architecture has embodied the character of the age. It is the reflection of its society. Modern architecture revealed human beings’ conditions and played a role in changing and reforming these conditions.

Since the early stages of an architect career, he continuously read, and hear about modern architecture, modernism, and the modern movement in architecture. Architects, researchers, and academics have a consensus view and knowledge about modern architecture. Colin² and Kenneth³ introduce identical views that there are several reasons for the appearance of modernism. First, a great debate and questioning of the validity of Vitruvian classical cannons. Second, the technical changes that followed throughout the century. Third, the split between architecture and engineering dated to the establishment of the Ecole des Ponds et Chausses in 1747. Fourth, the appearance of modern building materials like steel, reinforced concrete, and glass.

Visual arts affect each other as I have presented in my previous articles. Modernism also has its roots in art. Edouard Manet was a French painter who is the first contributor to modernism. In his paintings, he protests and rejected the traditional techniques and methods of painting. See Figure 1.

So, what is modernism in architecture? Or what is modern architecture?

There is no specific definition for modern architecture. Modern architecture represents many ideologies, thoughts, ideas, inventions, and personal characters. Many can understand what modern architecture is when he reads about the American Architect Frank Lloyd Wright and organic architecture (I will discuss this later on) and the natural growth of function in architecture. It is evident that he published a book about modern architecture in 1930 at the Princeton university in the USA.

A reader might think the contradiction about a man initiating a type of architecture that include different characteristics than modern architecture. This applies to the architect Mies van De Rohe and others.

For that, I can give my definition of modern architecture as the type of architecture that rejects all the old types, styles, and techniques, takes benefit of the new building material and building technologies, and represent the personal character and ideology of the architect producing architecture. The period after the first world war witnessed various types, styles, and movements in architecture. These are and were operating under the umbrella of modern architecture. They include the international style, expressionism, brutalism, constructivism, rationalism, futurism, and romanticism.

After the first world war and the industrial revolution, there were manifestations or fashions of many individual innovative works. Most architects concentrated on showing individualism and using the technology and the material available and the advanced construction methods to show their innovation. But does this represent a paradigm shift in architecture?

To answer this question an identification is necessary for the terms I have provided in the previous paragraph, and they are Type, style, and movement. An architecture type is understood as the function of architecture like domestic, commercial, industrial, residential, aviation, and so on. An architecture style is the design characteristics of architecture like romanesque architecture. A movement in architecture is a general group of architects’ ideologies, ideas, and concepts that are linked to a specific timeline in history. Figure 2 represents expressionism and figure 3 represents organic architecture.

In the old times before modern architecture there were specific techniques and methods of construction. The materials used with the building techniques imposed on the architect to use specific forms. Most architecture in the old times were using arches, domes, columns, and vaults. The architecture since ancient times is a repetition of these forms and their combinations.

In the modern time after the first world war, the architects used the freedom that technology gave them specifically steel, cable, and reinforced concrete that can take any shape and form. These architects designed a variety of architectural forms and in the old times if this technology existed, they would have done the same.

An architect with Steel and reinforced concrete frame systems can provide long spaces and spans, cheap building to construct, and fast construction time because of repeated modules. In the old times and historical architecture like the renaissance the architect and the client or developer’s personal character, desires and requirements were dissolved in the architecture type form and function characteristics. In modern architecture, the architect liberated himself from this prison and can express himself in a variety of ways through his architecture. The client can add his requirements and desires by asking the architect to incorporate them within the design.

In terms of the paradigm shift, we need to go through these architectural types, styles, and movements, in the coming articles, to continue our investigation and to identify how it happened.

References

1. Scully, V. (1975) Modern Architecture: The Architecture of Democracy. New York: George Braziller.
2. Davies, C. (2017) A new history of modern architecture. London: Laurence King.
3. Frampton, K. (2007) Modern Architecture: A critical history. Thames & Hudson.
4. Crouch, C. (2005) Modernism in art, design and architecture. New York: Palgrave.