Paradigm shift in architecture: Modern Architecture styles-1

Paradigm shift in architecture: Modern Architecture styles-1 is the thirteenth article of a series of articles investigating the paradigm shift in architecture. In the previous twelfth 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 styles are the subject of my discussion here.

I have discussed in my previous article the emergence of a variety of styles that operate under the modern architecture umbrella. One of these styles is the international style started at the beginning of the 19^th century. In the architectural debate circle, there are several opinions and personal analyses about the initiating and characteristics of the international style.

Khan¹ declares that the international style (See figure 1) has roots in gothic architecture. The light and airing system, the thinness, and the freedom of the structure system support the emergence of a new style in the 19^th century. Architects in modern days by using steel, reinforced concrete with steel bars and glass can simulate the elegance, solidity, and open space of gothic architecture. Adding to that as I have analyzed that roman architecture and architects even before gothic architecture has attempted and applied the ideas of liberating space by using a different kind of structural system of piers and columns.

In other places, Khan¹ and Phillip² present an identical view of the international style principles. The first principle is Architecture as volume. The idea of clearing out internal wall mass in roman architecture is presented here by a glass box of curtain wall and steel columns of open space. The idea here is that the architect gives the client or the occupant the freedom of changing floor plans.

The second principle is the regularity rather than the axiality of the structural system of repeated bays of columns and beams of a building structure. After the industrial revolution, standardization became a principal not only in architectural material, and structural systems components but in industrial production. The Bauhaus school includes this principal in their school education program. (Refer to my article).

The third principle is mandating the avoidance of applied decoration. Rejecting old types of architecture and their characteristics presented in using false or built-in ornament like in the Art Nouveau.

It is obvious that these principles are applied in certain types of buildings but not all see figure 2.

The international style had many contributors that continued to work within its principles and others diverted to other styles. One of the main contributors is Mies Van de Rohe. His architecture as he believes is following and represents the principles of the platonic world. What is the platonic world?

Two characteristics represent the platonic world. Nonlocality and timelessness. Nonlocality is explained by the number 3 where the number three has no location. But 3 apples have a location. Timelessness is that the number three can exist at any time and even infinity whereas the three apples can have a timeline in terms of existence. The platonic world is presented in the abstract object. There is a contradiction between his philosophy and his real architectural work in practice. The focus on the social value of the healthy space of architecture produced the open plan system and the glass external walls to bring light and fresh air to the internal space.  The open plan system allows the occupant to change the floor plan whenever required see figure 1,2. There is no direct relationship between his philosophy and what he produced in architecture.

This style also had various opposition and presented violent criticism. One of these opponents is Lewis Mumford says:

          Mies used the facilities of steel and glass to create elegant monuments of nothingness. They had dry machine forms of no content. He created a hollow shell glass crystalline purity of form, but it existed in the platonic world of his imagination with no relation to the site, climate, insulation, function, or internal activity.

As per my assessment, the international style appeared in a timeline for various reasons. First, At the beginning of the 19^th-century land price in New York was very high (15/Sqft) which means a Sqm cost is 150$. If you compare a man’s wage per year is 3450$ when the style flourished in the USA to the cost of one meter a man can buy only 21 Sqm in a year if he spends all his wages. The plot cost was 5 million dollars. The need to go high rise to gain benefit for the owner was one of the reasons this building is a skyscraper. Second, 38 floors of this building could be achieved by reinforced concrete, but steel is faster and better in terms of loads on foundations, building will be occupied faster if it is constructed in steel which means more revenue. Third, the architecture type (offices) requires open space and more lighting. This helped him to create an open plan system that the occupant can change at any time. Fourth, most of the building structure components could be manufactured off-site like columns, beams, steel decks, curtain wall mullions, and transom. Internal partitions also could be manufactured off-site. This will reduce the construction time, avoiding creating structural components on-site like concrete. Speed in assembly on site because of a repeated module of construction. Fifth, the rise of new types of architecture that require a long span of space like factories, ships and airplane sheds, museums, and theatres. This style is not suitable for certain types of architecture like schools, university buildings, hospitals, residential buildings, malls, indoor sports facilities, and others. 

To sum up this style by the opponent’s views and my assessment it appears with clear evidence that this style is the architecture of no architecture. Several architectural design principles like functional relationships, internal space privacy, environmental effect on the building and its façade, and the high load on mechanical systems like the heating system because of the glass façade have been ignored by designers.  

Here there is no paradigm shift because the style neglected the architectural design principles and requirements. In this case, also the architects have not changed the way architecture is done or the way people think that architecture should be done. Another style within modern architecture is expressionism. In reading and assessing the initiation and birth of this style many views were presented by the art and architecture circle. To give an overview of what is expressionism Colin⁵ explains that expressionism as a term was coined to distinguish the work from impressionism. Impressionism represents a scene accurately and objectively as it.

enters the artist’s conscious mind. Expressionism serves to represent the artist’s reaction and emotions to a scene. One of the notable expressionist artists is Wassily Kandinsky see figure 3.

There are several views on how expressionism appeared in architecture. The Weimer republic and before the first world war witnessed the birth of this style. Wolfgang⁶  indicates a variety of factors caused the birth of this style. The deprivation after the first world war especially in Germany affected the construction market and made the least development. The government changed its approach to administrative housing, private investors lost interest in housing development, scarcity of raw materials, decrease in buildings prices, and high-interest rates on capital prevented investment in buildings, and in these conditions even established architects faced problems of making their living. As a reaction, the sketchbook and occasional architectural exhibitions replaced the declining amount of the architect’s commission.

Frisby⁷ presents other views including the population explosion in Germany, rapid urban expansion in the 19^th century, the resulting human degradation and illness, and mortality experienced by the overcrowded urban proletariat. One of the main contributors to this style is Max Burg and one of the earliest expressionist architectural works is Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland see figure 4.

The style characteristics differ from every critic’s view to another. Colin⁵ describes that the style common features are the expressionist building’s immediate impact. People like expressionist architecture without knowing anything about them. The other feature of this architecture is a spontaneous and improvised quality. This architecture is apparent in a group of building in the Netherlands rather than in Germany. See figure 5.

Bruno Taut one of the main contributors to expressionism in Germany built his style (expressionism) based on spiritual, philosophical, and religious beliefs. His glass pavilion (temple) in Germany is one of the first architectural works representing this style. Frisby⁷ gives a clear picture of his beliefs when he discusses Kant’s philosophy of the Sublime as the notion of sublime aesthetics that moves one to build or construct a nobler social, political, or moral order moves us closer to the glass temples of the expressionist sublime. The temple transparent envelope was intended to promote self-transcendence to allow thoughts to move from the level of the sense to the Universal through the medium of space.

Wolfgang⁶ indicates that expressionist architecture is an architecture that shifted the relationship of function to form strongly in favor of form subordinating all other considerations to expressive shapes and emotional appeals which emerged in many European countries.

Going through all these views I conclude that expressionist architecture aims to make an observer create an immediate reaction to what he sees. It’s the architecture that creates a clear contrast of unusual, designed shapes and forms, a contradictory series of colors or types of materials. The architecture does not have to be beautiful, it might be ugly, but the important thing is to create an immediate emotional reaction in the observer. Expressionists created a painting which is in this case the location or city, and the collection of colors, shapes, and forms presented in the building itself. Expressionists did not forget the main architectural design principles that architecture is meant to represent its human function. Expressionists wanted to liberate themselves from following certain visual rules, orders, shapes, and forms used by previous architects and architecture. Expressionist architecture provides a clear reasonable answer to the question of why should architects follow certain relationships of shapes, forms, and even color schemes.

A change in architectural design of external forms using nonrelated shapes or forms or color schemes does not represent a paradigm shift in architecture.

References

1. Khan, H.-U. (1998) International style: Modernist architecture from 1925 to 1965. Köln: Taschen.
2. Hitchcock, H.-R. and Johnson, P. (1997) The international style. WW Norton & Co.
3. Frampton, K. (2007) Modern Architecture: A critical history. Thames & Hudson.
4. Jencks, C. (1996) Modern movements in architecture. Penguin.
5. Davies, C. (2017) A new history of modern architecture. London: Laurence King.
6. Pehnt (1985) Expressionist architecture in drawings. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
7. Benson, T.O., and Frisby, D. (2001) Expressionist utopias: Paradise, metropolis, architectural fantasy.