Architecture-Building & Construction

While the International Style continued to dominate the world of architecture through the 1960s, only in the 1970s did it become apparent that the International Style and modern architecture were not necessarily the same. Indeed, the work of such diverse architects as Aalto, Barragán, Tange, and many others reveals that modern architecture has never been limited to a single style. Among the architects who produced important variants are Pier Luigi Nervi and Aldo Rossi of Italy, and Louis Kahn of the United States. Nervi’s vast airplane hangars (1936-1941) and sports arenas (1932, Florence; 1960, Rome) demonstrate the pure poetry of modern forms in reinforced concrete. At the other end of the spectrum, the Torre Velasca in Milan, Italy (1958) by the Italian architectural firm Banfi, Belgiojoso, Peressutti and Rogers (BBPR) reveals the resilient appeal of medieval tower design transformed into a 20th-century skyscraper. Rossi and Kahn explored the architectural potential of elementary building blocks,... drawn from history as well as from the geometry of the cube, sphere, and cylinder. This approach is exemplified by Kahn’s highly original designs from the 1960s for government buildings in Dhaka, the capitol of Bangladesh. While clearly modern, Rossi’s and Kahn’s architecture was rooted in a respect for older traditions, which they transformed through new combinations into highly personal poetic statements. This is especially visible in Rossi’s Bonnefanten Museum (1990) in Maastricht, Netherlands, and in Kahn’s Salk Institute (1959) in La Jolla, California.

In the 1970s a new movement known as postmodernism began to challenge long-held modernist principles. The architects who led the movement asserted that the use of historical references in architecture was not only permissible but desirable. To the dictum of Mies van der Rohe, "Less is more," American architect and leading postmodernist Robert Venturi replied, "Less is a bore." Arguing that the modernist aesthetic was stifling to creativity, disliked by the masses, and uninteresting to design, postmodern architects celebrated diversity, color, and historical references in their designs. Venturi articulated many of these ideas in his 1966 book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. Other leading voices of postmodernism include Americans Charles Moore, Robert A. M. Stern, Michael Graves, and Frank Gehry. Moore's design for the Piazza d'Italia (1975-1978) in New Orleans, Louisiana, is a boldly colored, open-air plaza celebrating the city’s Italian community, for which Moore playfully arranged fragments of classical columns and other traditional forms, along with images drawn from a delicatessen.

Graves’s design for the Portland Public Services Building (1982) in Portland, Oregon, is a striking example of postmodernist architecture. Garlands over windows, a giant keystone, and a statue of a mythical figure adorn this 15-story celebration of color and ornament. Surrounded by modernist high-rise towers of steel and glass, Graves’s building is a startling insertion in the cityscape and a strong statement against the austere terms of modern architecture.

One of the most exuberant expressions of postmodern freedom came in the design of the Guggenheim Museum (1997) in Bilbao, Spain, by Frank Gehry. The originality of its undulating metal forms relate to the organic expressionism of Antoni Gaudí’s designs of a century earlier, also in the Catalan region of northern Spain.

But even as postmodernism thrived, modernism did not disappear. The dramatic and elegantly understated Vietnam Veterans Memorial (1982) by American architect Maya Lin dates from the same year as Graves’s Portland Building. Another premier example of modernism, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, by American architect Richard Meier, was completed the following year. Meier went on to design the Getty Center for the Arts and Humanities (1997, Los Angeles, California), a paragon of elegantly spare modernist design. Indeed, variety is the most consistent characteristic of the architecture built since the emergence of postmodernism in the 1970s.

In the 1980s a variation on postmodernism emerged, known as deconstruction, which sought to demonstrate the arbitrariness of all previous cultural assumptions. Deconstructivist architects applied these analytical, abstract ideas to the design of buildings. Leading practitioners included Zaha Hadid of England, Peter Eisenman of the United States, and Swiss-born architect Bernard Tschumi. In Eisenman’s design for the Wexner Center for the Arts (1989) in Columbus, Ohio, the architect used local conditions in generating a seemingly arbitrary mechanism to govern his design. One wall of the art center is aligned with an adjacent building, another wall with a nearby football gridiron, and a third with the flight path of planes that regularly pass overhead. After a brief flurry of interest in the late 1980s, interest in deconstruction faded, and only a handful of buildings were ever constructed to represent it.

Much more significant, in the United States and in the rest of the world, was a resurgence of interest in regional traditions and materials, and a greater willingness to meld features of rationalist modernism with elements from many other traditions, especially vernacular architecture. Emblematic of this is the work of Antoine Predock in the American Southwest. In his Nelson Fine Arts Center (1989) in Tempe, Arizona, Predock presents a modern vision inspired by the warm colors, stucco surfaces, and square cutout windows of local Spanish and Native American traditions. Others who approach architecture with a comparable openness to historical and local practices and produce designs of extraordinary sensitivity include Sam Mockbee in Alabama; Carlos Jiménez, a Costa Rican architect based in Texas; Enrique Norten in Mexico; Liangyong Wu in Beijing, China; and Ada Karmi-Melamede in Israel. Their work points toward an architecture that focuses less on debates among competing movements and more on buildings that are economical, environmentally responsible, and beautiful.


Contributed By:
Diane Ghirardo

Microsoft ® Encarta ® Encyclopedia

A desire to enhance national traditions while embracing the tenets of modernism characterizes the architecture of early Scandinavian modernism. The leaders were Erik Gunnar Asplund of Sweden, Eliel Saarinen and Alvar Aalto of Finland, and Arne Jacobsen of Denmark. Asplund, in his design for the Stockholm City Library (1928), set a rotunda (round building with a dome) within a rectangular cube. The design was neoclassical in inspiration, but the building’s plain surfaces were characteristic of rationalist modernism. Asplund went on to create decidedly modernist buildings for the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition, with slender piers and extensive use of glass and steel. But his most influential building may have been the small, unadorned Woodland Chapel at the Stockholm Cemetery (1920). With its shingled roof and temple-like columned entry porch, the chapel seemed to transcend both local and classical architectural traditions.

Jacobsen worked within Danish tradition throughout his career,... but was deeply influenced by the craft and rigor of Asplund's designs. In the Jespersen Office Building (1955) in Copenhagen, Jacobsen also incorporated the curtain wall and steel frame typical of high-rise buildings in the United States.

Eliel Saarinen was a member of a group of artists, musicians, and writers who celebrated Finnish nationalism, and with them he participated in a broad movement to revive Nordic vernacular traditions. His Helsinki Central Railway Station (1904-1914) utilized local masonry techniques to emphasize bold architectural forms and expressive sculptural decoration. But he allowed functional considerations to guide him in designing its sleek, streamlined appearance and rational organization of space. Saarinen moved to the United States in 1923, where he designed buildings for the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Eliel’s son, Eero Saarinen, secured his fame with two designs. The first was the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, for which he won a competition in 1948 (though it was not built until 1963). Its soaring line has since become a world-recognized symbol of St. Louis. The second design was for the TWA Terminal at the John F. Kennedy Airport (1962) in New York City, a building that expresses flight with its sweeping curves. Although visually pleasing, the terminal’s curving shape proved maddeningly resistant to expansion.

Alvar Aalto's early work reveals the influence of Asplund's designs, although Aalto was later influenced by Russian and Dutch constructivism, Finnish neoclassicism, and Frank Lloyd Wright's house designs. In collaboration with his first wife, Aino Marsio, Aalto designed houses, public buildings, and plywood furniture. After working with reinforced concrete, a standard material in modern European designs, he began to use more wood because of its association with native Finnish tradition and its greater warmth and expressiveness. For the Villa Mairea (1939) in Noormarkku, Finland, Aalto layered sensuous strips of teak and other woods, even using teak for the venetian blinds on the exterior of the windows. The natural materials he used—wood-paneled interiors, a rough granite base for the house, and an exterior wall of stone rubble—stand in sharp contrast to the clean white walls of International Style modernism, although they display a sympathy with the natural materials of Wright's architecture. Aalto was less interested in arguing for a specific style than in finding solutions that would dignify places of human habitation.

Located in the cradle of civilization, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen, Lebanon, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates are home to historic temples and mosques, exquisite mosaics, and innovative modern construction. It's unlikely that you will want to travel to Iraq during these times of war, and you may want to exercise caution when undertaking a journey to other Middle Eastern countries. However, you can begin to explore the great buildings and monuments of the Middle East today via these photos and resources.


The Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem is the
oldest surviving example of Islamic architecture

Built in the seventh century,... the Dome of the Rock Mosque is the oldest surviving example of Islamic architecture and today remains one of the most beautiful. The outside of the mosque is octagonal, with a door and 7 windows on each side, while the inside is circular. The building is made of marble and richly decorated with tile, mosaics, gilded wood, and painted stucco. The mosque's builders and artisans came from many different regions and incorporated their individual techniques and styles into the final design. The dome is made of gold and stretches 20 meters in diameter.

The Dome of the Rock Mosque gets its name from the massive rock located at its center, upon which, according to Islamic history, the prophet Muhammad stood before he ascended to heaven. This rock is equally important in the Judaic tradition, which considers it the symbolic foundation upon which the world was built and the place of the Binding of Isaac.

The Louvre Pyramid by Pritzker Prize Winning Architect I.M. Pei
Photo from the Pritzker Prize Page - Reprinted with permission

Traditionalists were shocked when Chinese-born American architect I. M. Pei designed this glass pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre. The Paris art museum was a Renaissance masterpiece, and Pei's design consisted of unusual arrangements of geometric shapes. Standing 71 feet high, the pyramid lets light into the museum's reception center. The Pritzker Prize winning architect, I.M. Pei is often praised for his creative use of space and materials.

What is Arcology? Can our buildings really make us sick? The resources on this page explore the relationship between architecture, the environment,... and health. You'll find information about eco-friendly "green" architecture, energy-efficient architecture, and healthy, toxin-free construction

Green Building is an adopted practice to help save the environment and nature. 2 main components of green architecture: Energy Savings and Construction Waste. The first is Energy Saving, selection of building with green materials creates better heating, water, and electrical efficiency. Furthermore, the material planning implemented by Green Building techniques can also help reduce construction material waste.

Through better Building design and material selection Green architecture practices have helped in reducing electric, water, and gas consumption which reduces cost, contributes environmental welfare and thus comply with the government promotions energy savings in the design of buildings. Many architects considers always green architecture in their design thus achieving the “Green Building title”. Green Building consultants are available to help implement the techniques and strategies needed.

Architecture (building), the practice of building design and its resulting products; customary usage refers only to those designs and structures that are culturally significant. Architecture is to building as literature is to the printed word. Vitruvius, a 1st-century bc Roman, wrote encyclopedically about architecture, and the English poet Sir Henry Wotton was quoting him in his charmingly phrased dictum: “Well building hath three conditions: Commoditie, Firmenes, and Delight.” More prosaically,... one would say today that architecture must satisfy its intended uses, must be technically sound, and must convey aesthetic meaning. But the best buildings are often so well constructed that they outlast their original use. They then survive not only as beautiful objects, but as documents of the history of cultures, achievements in architecture that testify to the nature of the society that produced them. These achievements are never wholly the work of individuals. Architecture is a social art.

Architectural form is inevitably influenced by the technologies applied, but building technology is conservative and knowledge about it is cumulative. Precast concrete, for instance, has not rendered brick obsolete. Although design and construction have become highly sophisticated and are often computer directed, this complex apparatus rests on preindustrial traditions inherited from millennia during which most structures were lived in by the people who erected them. The technical demands on building remain the elemental ones—to exclude enemies, to circumvent gravity, and to avoid discomforts caused by an excess of heat or cold or by the intrusion of rain, wind, or vermin. This is no trivial assignment even with the best modern technology.

When masonry materials are stacked vertically, they are very stable; every part is undergoing compression. The real problem of construction, however, is spanning.

Ways must be found to connect walls so as to provide a roof. The two basic approaches to spanning are post-and-lintel construction and arch, vault, and dome construction. In post-and-lintel construction, lintels, or beams, are laid horizontally across the tops of posts, or columns; additional horizontals span from beam to beam, forming decks that can become roofs or be occupied as floors. In arch, vault, and dome construction, the spanning element is curved rather than straight. In the flat plane of a wall, arches may be used in rows, supported by piers or columns to form an arcade; for roofs or ceilings, a sequence of arches, one behind the other, may be used to form a half-cylinder (or barrel) vault; to span large centralized spaces, an arch may be rotated from its peak to form a hemispherical dome.

Post-and-lintel solutions can be executed in various materials, but gravity subjects the horizontal members to bending stress, in which parts of the member are in compression while others are in tension. Wood, steel, and reinforced concrete are efficient as beams,... whereas masonry, because it lacks tensile components, requires much greater bulk and weight. Vaulting permits spanning without subjecting material to tension; thus, it can cover large areas with masonry or concrete. Its outward thrust, however, must be counteracted by abutment, or buttressing.

Trussing is an important structural device used to achieve spans with less weighty construction. Obviously, a frame composed of three end-connected members cannot change its shape, even if its joints could act as hinges. Fortunately, however, the principle of triangulation—attaching a horizontal tie beam to the bottom ends of two peaked rafters—can be extended indefinitely. Spanning systems of almost any shape can be subdivided into triangles, the sides of which can be made of any appropriate material—wood, rolled steel, or tubing—and assembled using suitable end connections. Each separate part is then subject only to either compressive or tensile stress. In the 18th century, mathematicians learned to apply their science to the behavior of structures, thus making it possible to determine the amounts of these stresses. This led to the development of space frames, which are simply trusses or other elements arrayed three-dimensionally.

Advances in the art of analyzing structural behavior resulted from the demand in the 19th century for great civil engineering structures: dams, bridges, and tunnels. It is now possible to enclose space with suspension structures—the obverse of vaulting, in that materials are in tension—or pneumatic structures, the skins of which are held in place by air pressure. Sophisticated analysis is particularly necessary in very tall structures, because wind loads and stresses that could be induced by earthquakes then become more important than gravity.

Architecture must also take into account the internal functional equipment of modern buildings. In recent decades, elaborate systems for vertical transportation, the control of temperature and humidity, forced ventilation, artificial lighting, sanitation, control of fire, and the distribution of electricity and other services have been developed. This has added to the cost of construction and has increased expectations of comfort and convenience.

In modern architectural terminology the word program denotes the purposes for which buildings are constructed. Certain broad purposes have always been discernible. The noblest works—temples, churches, mosques—celebrate the mysteries of religion and provide assembly places where gods can be propitiated or where the multitudes can be instructed in interpretations of belief and can participate in symbolic rituals. Another important purpose has been to provide physical security: Many of the world’s most permanent structures were built with defense in mind.

Related to defense is the desire to create buildings that serve as status symbols. Kings and emperors insisted on palaces proclaiming power and wealth. People of privilege have always been the best clients of designers, artists, and artisans, and in their projects the best work of a given period is often represented. Today large corporations, governments, and universities play the role of patron in a less personal way.

A proliferation of building types reflects the complexity of modern life. More people live in mass housing and go to work in large office buildings; they spend their incomes in large shopping centers, send their children to many different kinds of schools, and when sick go to specialized hospitals and clinics. They linger in airports on the way to distant hotels and resorts. Each class of facility has accumulated experiences that contribute to the expertise needed by its designers.

The attention of clients, architects, and users is more and more focused on the overall qualities manifested by aggregates of buildings and parts of cities as being more significant than individual structures. As the total building stock grows, conserving buildings and adapting them for changes in use becomes more important.

The availability of suitable materials fostered the crafts to exploit them and influenced the shapes of buildings. Large areas of the world were once forested, and their inhabitants developed carpentry. Although it has become relatively scarce, timber remains an important building material.

Many kinds of stone lend themselves to building. Stone and marble were chosen for important monuments because they are incombustible and can be expected to endure. Stone is also a sculptural material; stone architecture was often integral with stone sculpture. The use of stone has declined, however, because a number of other materials are more amenable to industrial use and assembly.

The aesthetic response to architecture is complex. It involves all the issues already discussed, as well as other, more abstract qualities. An experience of architectural space is personal and psychological; it differs from that of sculpture or painting because the observer is in it. It is affected by associations the observer may have with the materials used and the way they have been assembled, and by the lighting conditions.

Structural logic may or may not have been dramatized. Elements such as windows, and their scale and rhythm, affect the observer,... as do the interplay of geometrical form and the way space is articulated. Movement through a sequence of spaces has narrative force; no single point of view is adequately descriptive. The recurrence of thematic forms, appearing in varied guises and contexts, contributes to unity and creates feelings—relaxation and protection or stimulation and awe. Perhaps the key element is proportion—the relation of various dimensions to one another and their relation to human scale.

During the mid-19th century, architecture became institutionalized as a profession requiring formal preparation and subject to codes of performance. During this period connoisseurship—full academic training in the history of architecture and its aesthetics—was the designer’s most important qualification. In every Western country the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris was accepted as the model for architectural education. Architecture was easily separated from engineering, which had pragmatic rather than aesthetic goals. Yet today the profession delivers not only aesthetic guidance but also a bewildering array of technical services requiring many specialized contributors. The architect strives to maintain the position of generalist, one who can take the long view while orchestrating the resolution of complex interrelated issues.