| Soon after the establishment of the ‘Art
Nouveau’, still left with some of the richness of the fore-last
century’s ornamentation, the New Art changed into the ‘Modern
Style’. Now any sculptural detail, that extended the flat wall, was
stripped off. Generally held by art historians as the building marking
this beginning, is the shop by architect Adolph Loos at the Michaëlerplatz
in Vienna. It was his first commission, which he had won in a competition
in 1909. This was very shocking for empyreal Vienna, as it happened to be
situated opposite the empyreal Hofburg. |
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| Detail of Loos House in Vienna |
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Beach House by Schindler |
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Vienna became very influential for the
development of the Modern style and the Viennese architects Schindler and
Neutra contributed a great deal to the development of the ‘California
Style’ houses. Rudolf Schindler lived in Hollywood and worked for some
time with Frank Lloyd Wright. They worked with natural materials such as
adobe and wood-logs and were generally interested in healthy living.
They were modern architects, but with an interest in traditional styles. |
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was very much in contrast with the European developments of the ‘Modern
Movement’, being more puritanical, that became the leading influence on
"modern life" as it spreads from the Western world. Frank Lloyd
Wright remained unique in his designs and developed a new technique of
concrete block building. Schindler was similar innovative with the wall
slabs of his Kings Road house and the exposed concrete structure of the
Beach House both poured on site and
then raised in place. The blocks of the Wright houses were often very
sculptural.
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| Hollywood Hills,
F.L. Wright |
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Museum of Modern
Art in Tokyo, L.C. |
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The
Modern Style became the International language of cross-cultural
exchange. Both Le Corbusier and Wright worked in Japan with a natural
affinity to modernism in as much as it is also firmly rooted in its
traditions.
Le Corbusier was most influential for the Modern look of architecture
as his architectural philosophy was preparing for a more industrial
approach of building. Well known is his “Le Modulor” in which he
developed a modular system to aid with the application of standardization in the building trade.
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| A unique development took place in the
Netherlands referred to as structuralism. With the influence of The
Stijl and Rietveld Aldo van Eijck developed as the first architect a
structural approach to building finding inspiration by the Dogon people of
Africa. This repeat of modular elements affects both the process of
industrial development and standardization in building as well as the
development of architecture as a language. Herman Hertzberger was the one
to apply this structural approach most effectively in his work as a
building method through prefabricated elements that build up to larger
elements. |
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| Model of Office
Building by Hertzberger |
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| This is how Modernism came to us in an attempt to
define a new architectural language that broke away from its past. This
was necessary at the time as the architectural forms were muddled with
ornaments of which the meaning was lost. |
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