Chapter 15 – The Twentieth Century and Modernism

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Buildings across Time, 4th Edition
Chapter Fifteen: The Twentieth Century

and Modernism
Introduction

While all architecture has obviously been “modern” at the time of its construction, the
term “Modernism” or “European Modernism” has been used throughout the twentieth
century to describe the radical attitude toward building that developed in Europe after
World War I. Modernism was exported to the United States and elsewhere and so became
known as the International Style.

Advocates of this architecture, which was characterized by sleek, unornamented surfaces,
interpenetrating spatial volumes, and a generally machine-made aesthetic, have seen it as
expressive of the “spirit of the age.” Detractors have seen it as boringly reductivist and
short on meaning.

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Adolf Loos
Steiner House

Loos: Steiner House, Vienna, Austria,
1910. Orthogonal massing, punched-out
windows, a pipe-rail balustrade, and an
absolute lack of ornament announce the
nature of Loos’s radical architectural
proposals. At the front elevation, he
made concessions to the surrounding
residential context that he would not
make again.

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Adolf Loos
Steiner House

Longitudinal section through the Steiner
House. Neither Loos’s plan nor section
yet suggests the investigations of spatial
interpretations that will appear in his
mature houses.

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Adolf Loos
Moller House

Loos: Moller House, Vienna,
1930. Gone is the symmetry of
the Steiner House. Even more
dramatically used are the
simple window frames and the
linear railings. The space on
the inside has become the
dominant element of the
composition.

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Adolf Loos
Moller House

Loos: Second-floor (below) and third-
floor (above) plans of the Moller House,
Vienna. Above the ground floor Loos
inserted few full-height walls. However,
his plans never had the horizontal
spatial interactions of Frank Lloyd
Wright’s residential designs of the turn
of the century.

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Adolf Loos
Moller House

Loos: Longitudinal section through the
Moller Hose, Vienna. In this section,
Loos has begun to manipulate the floor
heights and to cantilever floor plates.
Rather than being stacked, the floors are
spatial units displaced horizontally
across one another.

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Adolf Loos
Lido Villa

Loos: Section through the villa
on the Lido, Venice, 1923.
Here is the full development
of Loos’s spatial ideas in
section. Ceiling heights vary,
and the two adjacent shafts of
space have been slid vertically
across one another.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Winslow House

Wright: Winslow
House, River Forest, IL
1893. This is a case
where Wright looked
to Sullivan for
inspiration. The
ornamental
frontispiece looked to
such compositions as
Sullivan’s Getty Tomb.

Photo by Michael Fazio.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Winslow House

Plan of the Winslow House. Wright
often spoke of “breaking the box.” That
process had begun here, where the
front rooms are self-contained and
axially connected, while the side and
rear rooms project as a porte cochere
and as semi-circular and semi-polygonal
bays, and the terraces are defined by
platforms and projecting walls.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Willits House

Wright: Plans and perspective of the Willits House, Highland Park, 1901. Ten years
after the Charnley House, Wright had devised a new kind of residence. In it, the
center is solidly anchored by a great hearth, and the rooms project out aggressively
into space, covered by long, low, hovering roofs. His distinctive perspective drawing
technique was influenced by an interest in Japanese prints.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Robie House

Wright: Robie House, Chicago,
1909. This is the most
celebrated house from the first
phase of Wright’s career. It is a
“Prairie house” that
acknowledges the horizontality
of the Midwestern landscape.

Plans of the Robie House. The
client owned a small lot on a
busy street and had young
children. Wright responded
with a very compact plan. The
front section for the family is
very open, while the rear
service section consists more
conventional, self-contained
rooms.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Larkin Building

Wright: Plan and perspective view of the
Larkin Building, Buffalo, 1904.
Unfortunately, the Larkin Building has
long since been destroyed. Its
innovations were many, including air-
conditioning and built-in filing cabinets.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Larkin Building

Wright: Interior atrium of the Larkin
Building. A comparison of this interior
perspective shows the continuity
between interior and exterior forms.
Notice as well the Wright-designed
furniture and light fixtures in this top-lit
space surrounded by galleries.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Unity Temple

Wright: Unity Temple, Oak
Park, 1906. It is remarkable
to consider that this
landmark work is almost
100 years old. Built for a
congregation of modest
means, its early use of
poured-in-place concrete
was an economy issue.

Plan of Unity Temple, Oak
Park. To the left is the
sanctuary. To the right is the
Sunday School wing. Entry
occurs between the two.
Notice the way that Wright
breaks away the corners
from each volume.

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Frank Lloyd Wright
Imperial Hotel

Wright: Plan of the Imperial Hotel,
Tokyo, 1916-22. Wright’s tartan pattern
of organization is as apparent at this
large scale as in his smaller, fully
developed residences. However, this
building’s symmetry and dominant
central space give it a kinship to Ecole
des Beaux-Arts designs.

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Peter Behrens and the Deutscher Werkbund
Behrens

Behrens: Poster design for AEG, 1908.
AEG is the German equivalent of
General Electric in the United States.
The company hired Peter Behrens to
improve the quality of its design work
from buildings to graphics to
manufactured products.

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Dutch and German Expressionism
Goetheanum II

Steiner: Goetheanum II,
Dornach, Germany,
1928. Rudolph Steiner
developed a curriculum
for what he called a
“spiritual high school.”
While not a trained
architect, he designed a
building in which he
could put his
educational philosophy
into practice.
Unfortunately, the first
wooden Goetheanum
was destroyed by fire.
Steiner then produced
this second concrete
version as a fireproof
replacement.

Photo by Michael Fazio.

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Dutch and German Expressionism
Einstein Tower

Mendehlson: Einstein Tower, Potsdam, 1920-21.

Actually quite modest in size, the Einstein Tower possesses a monumentality
befitting its function as a laboratory named for one of the twentieth century’s
foremost scientists. Intended to be made of concrete, it was constructed of stucco
over brick for reasons of economy.

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Futurism and Constructivism
Power Station

Sant’Elia: Project for a Milan train station, 1913. Antonio Sant’Elia died young as a
result of trauma suffered in World War I. His extraordinary perspective drawings
made him the most visible exponent of Futurism.

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Futurism and Constructivism
Citta Nuova

Sant’Elia: Detail from La Citta
Nuova, 1914. Sant’Elia explored the
possibilities of a dynamic city
dominated by multiple means of
transportation. Particularly dramatic
here are the tall elevator towers
connected to building flanks by
leaping bridges.

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Futurism and Constructivism
Workers’ Club

Melnikov: Russian Workers’ Club, Moscow, 1927-28.

Melnikov’s club not only demonstrates the kind of dramatic use of structure
typical of the Constructivists; it also housed the kind of collective function made
necessary by the Russian Revolution. However, within a few years, the progressive
Constructivist mentality was replaced by the crushing control of Stalin.

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The Exploitation of Concrete
Rue Franklin

Perret: 25 bis Rue Franklin, Paris, 1902.
Perret’s clever design move was to
replace the conventional Parisian
interior light well with a U-shaped plan
that increased the percentage of day-lit
walls. He cast ornament into the
building’s concrete skin.

Photo by Michael Fazio

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Le Corbusier
Dom-ino System

Le Corbusier: Dom-ino
House, 1914. With this
system, Le Corbusier
separated structure from
enclosure. THz results were
the free plan, with its flexible
distribution of walls, and the
free façade, which could
take on any desired
configuration.

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Le Corbusier
Citrohan House

Le Corbusier: Citrohan House, 1922. This house’s name was a play on words taken
from the Citroen automobile and connecting it to Le Corbusier’s conception of a
“machine for living.” The largely blank lateral bearing walls show that it was really
envisioned as one unit within a multi-unit block.

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Le Corbusier
Villa Stein

Le Corbusier: Plan of the Villa Stein (Lower Stories), Garches, 1927. Here are the
planning results of the dom-ino system in a suburban villa. The walls do not
necessarily align with the column bays, and the perimeter wall can be penetrated at
any point.

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Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe
Villa Stein

Le Corbusier: Plan of the
Villa Stein (Upper
Stories), Garches, 1927.
Here are the planning
results of the dom-ino
system in a suburban
villa. The walls do not
necessarily align with
the column bays, and
the perimeter wall can
be penetrated at any
point.

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Le Corbusier
Villa Savoye

Le Corbusier: Plan of and section through the Villa Savoye, Poissy, 1929-31. The three,
free-plan floor layouts have almost no correspondence to one another. Continuity is
provided by the columnar structural system and by the ramp, which the section shows
to unify the spatial composition extension of the accomplishments of Adolf Loos.

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Le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe
German Pavilion

Mies van der Rohe: Plan of the Barcelona Pavilion. Compare this pan to the early
work of Frank Lloyd Wright or the dom-ino houses of Le Corbusier. All sought a new
means of spatial expression, which was the most significant area of study among
twentieth-century modernists.

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Gropius
Fagus Factory

Gropius and Meyer: Fagus
Shoe-Last Factory, Alfeld-an-
der-Leine, 1911. Gropius and
Meyer did not intend to
create a style with their
rigorously functional
esthetic. However, the strips
of steel-frame windows and
related spandrels and flat
roofs created a type used in
the United States not only
for factories but also for
schools and even gas
stations.Photo by Marian Moffett.

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Mies van der Rohe
Tugendhat

Mies van der Rohe: Plan
of the Tugendhat House,
Brno, Czechoslovakia,
1930. Mies’s spatial
experiments could be
applied to day-to-day
living conditions. The
family space lies to the
right in the plan and is
only minimally
subdivided. Much more
enclosed service spaces
are to the left.

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Art Deco and de Stigl
Hook of Holland

Oud: Hook of Holland
Housing, Rotterdam,
1924. The contrast
between Oud’s
housing and that of the
Dutch Wendigen
designers is almost
shocking. Oud had
made contact with
members of the Dutch
DeStijl movement and
at the Hook of Holland
Housing displayed their
desire to emphasize
space and de-
emphasize applied
ornament.

Photo by Marian Moffett.

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Art Deco and de Stigl
Red/Blue Chair

Rietveld: Red-Blue Chair, 1917-18. This
chair is still produced. Its construction
from discrete elements explains
Rietveld’s description of his work as
“Elementarism.”

Photo by Michael Fazio.

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Art Deco and de Stigl
Schroeder House

Rietveld: Schroeder
House, Utrecht, Holland,
1923-1924. It is not hard
to imagine the shock
displayed by neighbors in
their traditional brick
houses when this
unfamiliar composition
appeared. It had been
some 20 years since Adolf
Loos first stripped a house
of its applied
ornamentation.

Photo by Marian Moffett.

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Weissenhof Seidlung & International Style
Weissenhof Mies

Mies van der Rohe:
Blocks of flats at the
Weissenhof Siedlung,
Stuttgart, Germany,
1927. Mies developed
the site plan for this
housing exposition and
built this apartment
block on the highest
ground. Notice the
mass-produced windows
and pipe-rail balconies
like those used 20 years
earlier by Adolf Loos.

Photo by Michael Fazio.

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Weissenhof Seidlung & International Style
Weissenhof Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier:
Housing unit at the
Weissenhof
Siedlung, Stuttgart.
Le Corbusier
composed his
housing unit using
by-now-familiar
elements:
supporting columns
or pilotis, an
unornamented
façade, horizontal
strip windows, and a
roof garden.

Photo by Marian Moffett.

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Art Deco and de Stigl
Daily News

Hood: New York Daily News Building, New York City, 1929-30.

Contemporary with the Chrysler and Empire State buildings, the New York Daily
News Building approaches International Style minimalism but displays incised
decorative panels of Art Deco inspiration.

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Art Deco and de Stigl
Empire State

Shreve, Lamb, and Harmon: Empire State Building, New York City, 1931.

This building would be famous even if the only popular image of it were King Kong
batting at airplanes from its summit. Its Art Deco ornament includes the vast
number of sand-blasted aluminum spandrel panels with their zigzag
ornamentation.

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Later Works of Wright
Johnson Wax

Wright: Plan of the Johnson Wax
Company, Racine. The mushroom-
shaped columns visible in the
previous figure appear at the entry,
located toward the bottom in this
plan. These columns become taller
as they are collected in the grid to
the right of the plan and create the
roof of the main office area.

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Later Works of Wright
Johnson Wax

Wright: Plan and section through the
research tower, Johnson Wax Company,
Racine, WI, 1946-49. The word organic
has long been applied to Wright’s
architecture and its meaning debated.
This tower’s similarity to a tree, with
roots, trunk, and branches, is obvious.
The enclosure system not shown in the
section consists of pyrex tubing.

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Later Works of Wright
Morris Gift Shop

Wright: Plan of the V. C. Morris Gift
Shop, San Francisco. The circles in plan
become spiraling ramps in three
dimensions that enable customers to
experience the space as a volume.
Wright had developed other projects
using spirals and would conclude his
study of this form with his design for the
Guggenheim Museum in New York City
that follows.

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Later Works Le Corbusier
Marseilles Unite

Le Corbusier: Plans and section
through the Unite d’Habitation,
Marseilles. The apartments are
obviously very narrow,
particularly when they are
divided into hall-like bedrooms.
The section shows that each
unit has a two-story living space
with an overlooking balcony.

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Later Works Le Corbusier
Ronchamp

Le Corbusier: Axonometric view of
Notre-Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, 1951-
55. Built as a pilgrimage site for
worshipers, Ronchamp (near Belfort,
France) has become as much a
pilgrimage site for architects and
architectural students. The tower lights
an altar below. Services can be held
inside or held outside on the concrete
apron to the left.

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Later Works of Le Corbusier
Ronchamp

Le Corbusier: Notre-
Dame du Haut,
Ronchamp. The chapel is
built of brick covered
with stucco. The random
window openings contain
glass decorated with Le
Corbusier’s painted
images. The principal
entry lies between this
wall and the tower, with
a secondary entry in the
rear between the two,
smaller towers.

Photo by Marian Moffett.

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Later Works of Le Corbusier
La Tourette

Le Corbusier: Plan of
Ste-Marie-de-La
Tourette, Eveux-sur-
l’Arbresle, 1956-60. Le
Corbusier transformed
the traditional monastic
plan. Ramps and a small
chapel inhabit the
traditional interior
cloister, with its
functions moved to the
roof. This arrangement
was never found
acceptable by the monks
who chose to meditated
in the wooded areas
nearby.

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Later Works of Le Corbusier
Chandigarh

Le Corbusier: Plan of
Chandigarh, Punjab, India,
1951-59. This master plan
illustrates Le Corbusier’s
preference for large
buildings set wide apart
within a garden-like
landscape. From left to
right, the buildings are the
Secretariat, the Legislative
Assembly Building, the
unbuilt Palace of the
Governor, and the High
Court.

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Later Works of Mies
Farnsworth House

Mies van der Rohe:
Farnsworth House,
Plano, Illinois, 1950-52.
Whatever the
complaints about Mies’s
reductivism, the formal
results are elegant,
almost timeless. In fact,
the Farnsworth House
can be interpreted as a
classical temple, its
stylobate or base slid
forward to create an
arrival sequence.Photo by Lawrence Wodehouse.

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Later Works of Mies
Seagram Building

Mies van der Rohe: Seagram Building, New York City, 1956-58.

There is no more celebrated Miesian skyscraper than this one. Unlike Crown Hall and
the Farnsworth House, this high-rise structure was required by building codes to
have all of its steel structure covered with fireproofing. The steel frame expressed on
the outside is redundant structurally.