Modernism Word of the Day; 21 -30

VOYEURISM

From NY to LA to Miami Beach. Armed with concrete, steel and lots and lots of glass modernist architects are sucking at the golden teats of the nouveau riche who are on the scene. Nothing like their stuffy predecessors with their "privacy issues"; they've got it, they're flaunting it, they're letting us all know how the young emperors live it up. 

EXHIBITIONISM

As a follow up on the previous post of architectural voyeurism, the new "Standard" in swank, swinger, modernist hotels is a curtain wall of ultra-transparent, low glare glass.

The question has to be asked though: Should neighbors and their children be forced to watch maids make up the beds as at lower left, all in the name of progress? 


NEW URBANISM

The suburban and urban infill 2.0: mixed-use, hikable, bikable, occasionally even likable.

However, admittedly agnostic to style, atheistic to craft the "New" Urbanism is a 20th century theoretical ideology of imposing an highly engineered, eutopic master plan from a centralized authority. The rapid developments of New Urbanism bear scant resemblance to traditional town planning developed generationally by members of a local community.  

 

POSTMODERNISM

With the destruction of the Pruitt-Igoe project in 1972 Modernism was pronounced dead. The citizenry had risen up and rejected it for sure; however, if they thought any of their local architectural traditions would be revived they were in for a nasty surprise. The next generation of architects would replace Modernism with a caricature of culture. Irony, Parody and the Bold Statement were the buzzwords and the public became the butt of the joke.

Like that Chippendale piece? We’ll make a skyscraper out of it. Ha, ha, ha!

So you dig Classical architecture? We’ll distort every element and make it out of anodized aluminum…in mauve!
Oh God…I can’t breathe…you dumb bastards…Ha, ha, ha!

BRUTALISM

The triumph of raw concrete, the celebration of ugliness. Brutalism reigned supreme in the 60’s and 70’s as the harsh standard of civic architecture among government buildings, institutions of higher learning and medical facilities such as this Scottish Mental Hospital where I’m certain customer retention is high.

PURISM

Modernize the man by modernizing his environment. The pure "machine for living" would be set free by employing the Five Points of Modern Architecture:

PILOTIS - Supporting walls replaced by a grid of reinforced concrete posts

Free Plan - No supporting walls allow for the open floor plan

Free Façade - With no structural role the façade likewise is set free

Horizontal Window - Cut across the entire length of the elevations, equality of light for all of the interior

Roof Garden - The fulcrum of balance between mechanization and nature

BLOBISM

Oh yeah, its a thing.
Selfridges' Birmingham department store is unique in that the building is able to 'consume' the consumers via the car park entry feeder tube. I’m not sure but I really think the building is still growing.

Just one more item of passing related interest, the architect claimed his design was meant to ‘evoke the female silhouette’.

MINIMALISM

Austerity and rays of light in space. The 'Less is More' maxim leads architecture to its logical conclusion, its purest from, namely the elimination of anything that may appeal to the senses: ornament, color, texture, nature, human beings.  

DECONSTRUCTIVISM

Fragmentation, chaos, dislocation, disorder...the physical manifestation of the impossibility of intrinsic meaning. The highest expressions are over-sized and placed in the midst of traditional town planning settings for greatest disruptive impact that extends far beyond the building itself.  

Contributed by Patrick Webb

Architectural Word of the Day; 121 - 130

BELVEDERE

Coming directly from the Italian 'bel' meaning 'beautiful' and 'vedere' meaning 'to see', the belvedere is typically a rooftop pavilion offering a lovely vista. This church has two...the view must be twice as nice.  

ACROTER

The Greeks utilized the word "akros" (ἄκρος), meaning "highest or at the extremity" to refer to the small pedestal upon which sculpted figures of ornament were placed upon the apex and corners of the roof.

Since that time the meaning has been extended to included the ornament itself even without the pedestal as in this example.

REFLECTION POOL

Of ancient Persian origin, they were adopted by the Greeks, Romans and have since been a regular feature of Western garden design.

Effective designs are constructed in a way to suppress wave movement and of course have something lovely to reflect.

DORMER, CHEEK

A small window or louver projecting from a sloping roof surmounted by its own gable. The vertical sides of the dormer are called 'cheeks'.

The etymology comes directly from the French 'dormir', to sleep. So it was thought of as the window of a sleeping room, since the attic spaces of houses were typically bedrooms.

PORTICO, STOA

A colonnaded, sheltered porch that is detached from the main façade.

The portico often provides the first gesture of hospitality as well as transition from the public life of the street to the most intimate spaces of the home.

GABLE

The vertical, enclosed area at the end of a sloping roof, defined by raking cornices running up from the eaves to the ridge. It is often triangular resembling the formal, classical pediment. 

ACORN

The plain Jane, country cousin of the pineapple or pinecone. The poor dear lacks sophistication and enrichment and as a result doesn't often get invited to the party...always stuck sitting on the gate post.  

ROMAN ARCH

The semi-circular masonry arch, not a Roman invention but one they made widespread use of. Each of the stones or "voussoirs" are wedge shaped to distribute the load, transferring it to the ground via the impost, the top course of the masonry water table serving that function in this example.

Contributed by Patrick Webb

 

Federal and Beaux Arts

Plaster eagle, Monticello

The founding fathers of the United States lived and were educated during an era later known as the Age of Enlightenment. It was a period espousing values such as reason, individual merit and greater liberty in philosophical inquiry as legitimate bases for authority. A measure of that inquiry harkened back to the days of Classical Greece, an age of prosperity and high culture. The democratic city-state of Athens harbored schools of philosophy led by the great minds of men such as Plato and Aristotle. Another significant influence was the ancient Republic of Rome. Its representative form of government was to largely serve as a referential blueprint for the political structure of the emerging nation.

A Federal Style

Perhaps no other single figure embodied the ideals and values of the new American Republic as that of Thomas Jefferson. A gentleman architect himself, Jefferson would lead the way in establishing a national style of civic architecture for the now federated states of the former British colonies. Jefferson held the works of Palladio in particular high esteem, seeing them as of direct lineage from the Roman Republic. Political connotations were thus to be embedded in Federal architecture. Likewise symbolic meaning was an important component in conveying values and plaster was an excelling medium of expression in architecture. For example, in 1782 the bald eagle was chosen as the preeminent emblem of the new republic. The eagle symbolized qualities such as long life and majesty; however, its ability to soar above conveyed the most treasured value of liberty. Jefferson's own commission of a modeled plaster eagle at Monticello in 1812 featured 18 plaster stars, coinciding with Louisiana's admission as the 18th state.

"Justice", Old Supreme Court chamber

Close colleagues of Jefferson were the "Father of American Architecture", Benjamin Latrobe and Charles Bulfinch, widely considered the first native born American born to practice architecture professionally. Latrobe initially designed the Supreme Court chamber of the Capitol with its domical, ribbed plaster vaulting whereas Bulfinch led its restoration and elaboration after damage suffered to the Capitol building during the War of 1812.  Commissioned to Carlos Franzoni in 1817 was the plaster relief sculpture "Justice". Rich in iconographical meaning, Justice, the most important of the four cardinal virtues, is personified in the figure of a classical maiden. Her scales represent impartiality, her sword signifies her authority. The owl at her side represents the very embodiment of Minerva, Roman goddess of wisdom whilst to the right the eagle as symbol of the republic surmounts the books of law. Finally, to the left a winged "genius" presides over the Constitution under a sunburst halo symbolic of truth.

One of the greatest civic spaces ever conceived and a national treasure is the Capitol Rotunda. The cupola was designed by architect Thomas U. Walker and completed in 1863. The crowning feature filling the oculus is the "Apotheosis of Washington" added in 1865. This enormous work, 65 feet in diameter, was realized in plaster, painted al fresco by Constantino Brumidi over the course of 11 months. The fresco quite literally represents the deification of George Washington. Ascending with him at either side are the Roman goddesses Victory and Liberty. In turn, he is surrounded by the Roman gods Minerva, Neptune, Mercury, Vulcan and Ceres symbolizing Science, Maritime Power, Commerce, Industry and Agriculture respectively. Of particular interest is the American goddess Columbia, the personification of both Freedom and War.

Vulcan depicted as a symbol of Industry

L'École des Beaux-Arts

The Breakers, Newport RI

In the 1840's a young American living in Paris, aspiring architect Richard Morris Hunt, was the first American to be admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts. The École was the most prestigious school of art, sculpture and architecture in the world offering a rigorous study extending from Classical Greece, Imperial Rome through the Italian Renaissance and the French Baroque. After the Civil War, Hunt began designing one mansion after another for wealthy industrialists of the burgeoning Gilded Age. His most opulent commissions came from his primary patron, the Vanderbilt family. Hunt was to inspire and soon be followed by scores of architects practicing in the US: the firms of Carrère and Hastings as well as McKim, Mead and White provide prominent examples. Lavish ornamentation was characteristic of Beaux Arts architecture and plaster was routinely specified.

Foreign architects were also active in the US. Beaux Arts trained French architect Ernest Sanson was engaged for two prominent American commissions: the Perry Belmont Mansion in DC and notably the Carolands Chateau south of San Fransisco. The Carolands is immense with an inner volume of over 1 million cubic feet. Both properties introduced to the US the French plaster tradition of Stuc Pierre, an integrated colored and aggregated gypsum lime plaster in emulation of limestone.

Carolands Chateau

Well this concludes my series on Plaster History. Personally, it has been both educational and enjoyable to explore the richness of the trade and all of the beautiful works folks just like us have created. I look forward to writing upcoming articles concerning what is happening in the trade today in both education and practice.

Contributed by Patrick Webb

Modernism Word of the Day; 11 -20

MODERNISM

As we commence our march through the "isms", I thought you all might benefit from an explanation. The etymological root of 'modern' comes from a Latin root meaning 'just now' whereas '-ism' comes directly from Greek and originally was only used as a suffix for words of Greek origin. In the 20th century the use of -ism expanded to form names of ideologies expressing belief in the superiority of their class or pattern of behavior by said group members.

Modernism at its essence is the cult of the 'just now', ever changing fashion as an ideological system of belief that condescends anything that comes before.

CUBISM

The early 20th century art movement analyzed, disassembled then reassembled objects is an abstracted form in an effort to provide multiple simultaneous viewpoints. Supposedly, Le Corbusier's Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp attempts to do this as a Cubist representation of the Parthenon and Acropolis, the church as a Cubist ruin. Oddly, his interpretation results, in the opinion of many, to an unmistakably vaginal form. 

FUNCTIONALISM

The credo "form must ever follow function" quoted from Louis Sullivan was taken as divine inspiration for a movement that held up function as the leading principle of design; initially as an exploration of its meaning. It quickly focused on the elimination of ornament, ostensibly to remove any distraction from the practical purpose of the building, leading the movement into function as an aesthetic ideal. 

Essentially, bald is beautiful.

FUTURISM

Rising to prominence in the years following World War I, the futurist aesthetic was all about dynamism as expressed through long, unbroken lines conveying motion and speed as well as the glorification of technology. 

FORMALISM

Modernism's return to the Classical...sort of. The theory goes that the underlying forms of the Classical had been lost in all the enrichment and decoration, essentially making the work transparent. Stripping the structure bare, the architectonic essence would be freed and we could relish in the opacity of pure geometry. 

CONSTRUCTIVISM

An early Soviet architectural movement which focused on a hard geometric aspect by means of factory, industrialized production utilizing the properties of modern materials, particularly glass and steel.

The Narkomfin housing project was one of the first to feature the now all pervasive layer cake effect of the long horizontal emphasis with continuous windows. This beauty is number one on UNESCO's list of modernist buildings to save worldwide. 

EXPRESSIONISM
Although generally characterized by distortion, fragmentation and violent emotion, as the name implies these ideals are subservient to personal expression. For example, the National Museum of the American Indian is all about the singular, individual statement of the architect, Douglas Cardinal.

RATIONALISM

A ratio is quite simply the relationship to two numbers. Early modernist attempts to rationalize architecture stuck with the simplest ratio, the relationship of a number to itself, 1:1. The one to one ratio generates the square, the grid, the cube, the orthogonal spatial matrix, the epitome of monotony, the metaphorical techno music of architecture: boom, boom, boom, boom... 

STRUCTURALISM

I have a layman's familiarity with structuralism as a tool of literary analysis and linguistic interpretation. However, I am totally lost in the explanations I've read relating to architecture (although I have a good sense of what type of buildings are produced). I'll let you divine some sort of meaning for yourself:..

METABOLISM

A mid-century Japanese movement in architecture that although drawing inspiration from biological processes, employed them in an admittedly artificial, unnatural manner. Concepts included a "sustainable" architecture of factory produced concrete, glass and steel cells or capsules for human containment that could serve as a catalyst for an every expanding megastructure. 

Contributed by Patrick Webb

A New Resolve

It has been two years since my previous end of year post, "A New Beginning".  The resolution then was: Share, Teach, Diffuse traditional plaster trade knowledge. Since that time I've been teaming up with craftsmen to organise and conduct ongoing professional workshops. Tadelakt with Ryan Chivers, Sgrafitto and Fresco with Franco Saladino, Scagliola with Jim Gloria to name a few. I've joined education committees to study and implement further integration of craft studies into traditional architecture programs such as the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, University of Colorado and Notre Dame's respective schools of architecture. Most impactfully, I accepted a full time position as Professor of Plaster Working at the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, SC. Words can scarcely convey the rewarding experience to work with motivated young men and women over a period of 4 years in the development of craft skills.

Nevertheless, I'm hardly content. In fact, I would say I'm burning with a desire to push myself harder and further. Our modern use of 'resolve' has the sense of 'complete' or as used in new year's resolutions: a determination to complete an objective. By contrast, the original Latin 'resolvere' meant to 'loosen' (solvere), 'again' (re+), to 'melt, dissolve, reduce to liquid'. That's the meaning I'm after. The next few years are about turning up the heat. Below is my kettle on the boil:

Bachelor of Applied Science in the Building Arts

What I haven't hitherto made widespread public knowledge is that I not only teach at the American College of the Building Arts but likewise have enrolled as a student. I'm now in the midst of my Junior year, on track to graduate the summer of 2016. My trade specialization is architectural stone carving. Plaster is largely an additive process. You start with nothing and with successive layers create form. Stone is the opposite. Completely subtractive, you begin with everything and reduce to the same place. Plaster is fast. Stone is slow. In many respects, a complete reversal of the approach to mass and void in architectural form. How I wish this program existed when I began my journey as a craftsman! I certainly consider myself fortunate to now have this opportunity so many years later.

Space, Time, Interconnection

My previous college experience was three years of engineering school in the University of Texas system. I was working, paying my way through, going to class mostly at nite. An unanticipated advantage of that was that my professors of math, physics and engineering were all adjuncts. Professionals working mostly in the aerospace industry, teaching for the mere joy of it. I loved the practical application of the study of math and science as well as the fundamental theories of statics, dynamics and mechanics of materials. But by my Junior year I understood the daily life of the engineer. Cubicle life, shackled to computers was not for me.

However, my passion for math has never waned. If anything it has grown exponentially. I'm only a few credits away from a bachelor degree in math and soon as I've completed my studies in the building arts, I'm going for it. Likely a Masters subsequently focused on the following:

Geometry: From the ancient Egyptians and Greeks to the medieval masons, I'm deeply enthralled by the physical manifestation of number. Not just how to manipulate the 'rules' but delving into the philosophical derivations, the fundamental understanding of space itself.

Harmony: Music theory, proportion, emanation, syncopation, composition and oscillation. Light, sound, heat, all of our senses are responses to wave energy. I'm looking to increase my metaphysical awareness to my visceral, sensory understanding of the world.

Symmetry: Translation, rotation,  reflection. Classical, Islamic, the regular division of the plane by MC Escher in the 20th century are just a few examples of thousands of years of accumulated pattern design.

Putting It All Together

Why share all this personal information? Because I have an objective with all of this, namely: the widespread reintroduction and invigoration of ornamentation into architecture.

Why work in a vacuum or single-handed when I can put it out there and establish colleagues? Why wait to get started upon completion of some studies? Let's incorporate real projects that will inform those studies!

If you are a craftsman, designer, architect, educator or student in one of those fields and would like to collaborate please feel free to contact me: patrick@realfinishes.com

Interested in more content on a Philosophy of Craft?

Please visit my YouTube channel: A Craftsman's Philosophy

Contributed by Patrick Webb

Modernism Word of the Day; 1 -10

PASTICHE

From the Latin 'pasticium', something made of paste such as pasta, pastry, pâté etc. In modern
architecture it is a philosophy of attributed plagiarism. If a design is not completely unique, unrelated to anything that came before it is at risk of receiving the negative label of pastiche.

For example, Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA resembles his previous design at the Guggenheim Bilbao leading fellow starchitect Zaha Hadid to accuse him of plagiarizing himself. How pastiche!

CONTRAST & JUXTAPOSITION

'Juxta' from the Latin root meaning to 'approach, join together', in the sense of violent conflict, "jousting" or rape, "jostle". So the prevailing theory goes that by placing aggressive contrasts together of Modern and traditional architecture it helps the traditional to 'pop' visually so we can appreciate it more. 

ZEITGEIST

From the Geman 'zeit', time and 'geist', ghost. Translated the 'spirit of the times', a prevailing theory that architecture can not possibly be a leading factor of human culture rather it should only strive to reflect the times. Anxiety, aggression and collision anyone?  




CLEAN

The specific use of this otherwise common word seems to have been appropriated from the field of fluid dynamics where unbroken lines and untextured planes are critical engineering concepts to minimize turbulence.

Ironically, much of the architecture designed according to these precepts is challenging to keep clean in the conventional sense.  

CURTAIN WALL

The basic definition is a thin, non-structural exterior wall that acts as a rain screen. Most curtain walls are proprietary, high embodied energy extruded aluminum systems with glass panel infill. They have a working R-value of around 3 and let a ton of solar gain into the building. Windows are typically inoperable resulting in a hermetically sealed building wholly dependent on mechanical systems and caulk which must be replaced every 10 years. 



TECHNOLOGY

= God

ANACHRONISTIC

From the Greek ἀνά, ana meaning "against" and χρόνος, khronos meaning "time". Time is a very, very important tenet of Modernism. Much more so than place or culture.

Built in 2006, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center would be considered in denial or fighting time, thrice wise in fact. It revives Renaissance forms, which in turn revived Roman forms, which in turn revived Greek forms. I suppose it is considered a kind of zombie architecture.  

MODERN

Anti-traditional.
Commonly held amongst our various architectural traditions, man had always been held as the subject of architectural design, the building was to be the objective reality, an outward expression reflecting his inner, spiritual nature. In stark contrast, Modern architecture enforces the complete extinguishment of any lingering artifacts of human culture, employing a complete reversal of the traditional thought process of design. The new doctrine dictates that "Form" was to follow only practical "Functions". The building and the attendant practical efficiencies of construction usurp the position of subject, placing people as just one amongst many objects such as chairs, toilets, stairs etc. populating the structure.

 
PUNCHED OPENING

A fixed window, door or portal penetrating the building skin and surrounded by cladding. Maintenance free (or unmaintainable), the thermal multiple-paned units are replaced as the seals begin to fail, a 15 to 20 year life cycle for the higher end commercial models. 


USONIAN

The maturation of Frank Lloyd Wright's earlier work as part of the Prairie Style movement; middle class homes situated in a natural landscape characterized by flat, cantilevered roofs, 90 degree angles and clerestory windows.

Many Usonian homes retained a significant amount of craft, utilized local materials while significant design effort was made to utilize natural cooling and light as well as passive solar gain combined with radiant floors for heating. This almost makes up for the fact that they all leak like a sieve.  

Contributed by Patrick Webb