Download - Arch416 class15modernhouses1
what is modern
architecture?
last time, we discussed this through manifestoes and written
statements
today, through residential architecture
Houses of Frank Lloyd Wright
Ladies Home Journal projects
Usonian Houses
Jacobs I (1936)
Jacobs II
Los Angeles
Rudolf Schindler
Richard Neutra
Walter Gropius
An organic architecture is "one that is integral to site; integral to
environment; integral to the life of the inhabitants. A house integral
with the nature of materials wherein glass is used as glass, stone as
stone, wood as wood and all the elements of environment go into
and throughout the house. Into this new integrity, once there, those
who live in it will take root and grow.”
—Frank Lloyd Wright, on organic architecture
Usonian housesDuring Depression, Frank Lloyd
Wright turned his interest to low cost
housing for the masses. He called
these houses "Usonian" (an
adjectival form of USA, like
"American" for America.)
Each design was unique but they
shared common elements.
Usonian House PlansWright evolved from the original
2’x’4’, truly modular design
to possible layouts.
POLLIWOG DESIGN
90 degree “tail” extending into garden
separating public and private areas Jacob’s
house (1936)
IN-LINE DESIGN
House designed for narrower lots, square layout
without tail.
Goetsch-Winkler house (1939)
Usonian Housing Plans
RAISED DESIGN
Two-story design made to accommodate sloped
property lots
Lloyd Lewis House (1940)
HEXAGONAL DESIGN
Above: Hanna House (1936)
SOLAR HEMI-CIRCLE
DESIGN
Jacobs House II (1940)
Herbert Jacobs House
Wright wanted to design houses that were affordable for
middle class families.
Jacobs only had a limited amount to spend on the home and
challenged Wright to build an artistic home for him at a
budgeted amount.
Wright, who always spoke of his desire for a democratic
architecture, available to even those with modest means,
accepted the challenge, and agreed that he would built
Jacobs a house for $5,500 – the only time in his career he
agreed to a fixed price contract.
Wright on Jacobs I in Autobiography
"What would be really sensible in this matter of the modest
dwelling for our time and place? Let’s see how far the
Herbert Jacobs house at Madison, Wisconsin, is a sensible
house. This house for a young journalist, his wife, and small
daughter, is now under roof. Cost: Fifty-five hundred dollars,
including architect’s fee of four hundred and fifty. Contract let
to P. B. Grove."
"To give the small Jacobs family the benefit of the
advantages of the era in which they live, many simplifications
must take place. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs must themselves see
life in somewhat simplified terms. What are essentials in their
case, a typical case? It is not only necessary to get rid of all
unnecessary complications in construction, necessary to use
work in the mill to good advantage, necessary to eliminate so
far as possible, field labor which is always expensive: it is
necessary to consolidate and simplify the three
appurtenance systems—heating, lighting, and sanitation. At
least this must be our economy if we are to achieve the
sense of spaciousness and vista we desire in order to
liberate the people living in the house."
And it would be ideal to complete the building in one
operation as it goes along. Inside and outside should be
complete in one operation. The house finished inside as it is
completed outside. There should be no complicated roofs.
Every time a hip or a valley or a dormer window is allowed to
ruffle a roof the life of the building is threatened.
"A MODEST house, this Usonian house, a dwelling place
that has no feeling at all for the 'grand' except as the house
extends itself in the flat parallel to the ground. It will be a
companion to the horizon. With floor-heating that kind of
extension on the ground can hardly go too far for comfort or
beauty of proportion, provided it does not cost too much in
upkeep. As a matter of course a home like this is an
architect’s creation. It is not a builder’s nor an amateur’s
effort. There is considerable risk in exposing the scheme to
imitation or emulation.
This is true because a house of this type could not be well
built and achieve its design except as an architect oversees
the building.
And the building would fail of proper effect unless the
furnishing and planting were all done by advice of the
architect."
features of Jacobs I
• small clerestory windows on the street side.
• on the private side, the walls are almost entirely large
windows and glass doors, opening the house to the
terrace and garden area.
• Masonry elements are arranged near the front door,
fireplace, kitchen and bathroom areas all contained within
the central masonry core, permitting just short runs of
pipe.
cost savings
flat roof
no attic
no foundation
carport (instead of garage), and
gravity heating (eliminated the need for ductwork)
Apocryphal? Wright's apprentices culled substandard
bricks from the Johnson Wax Building (under construction
at same time), and brought them to this site, helping to
bring the house in $5,500 budget.
Solar Hemicycle (Jacobs II)
1944
• Middleton, WI
• second home designed for Herbert and Katherine Jacobs
• In 1942 the Jacobs family moved from their previous
Wright home to a 52 acre farm in what is now the suburb
of Middleton. The area around their first Wright home had
begun to become very developed and they wanted to
move further out into the country.
siting
• half circle with the north (back) wall protected from the
cold winter wind by a berm rising nearly to the top of the
wall
• on the south, the entire façade was open to the winter
sun, with large windows and glass doors facing a sunken
garden.
• wide overhanging roof shields these windows from the
sun in the summer.
interior
First floor is one large limestone and glass room, 80 feet
long and 17 feet wide.
Kitchen downstairs and the bathroom upstairs segregated
in the masonry core.
Bedrooms are on an upper level; in order to keep the
entire lower level open, the second floor is hung from the
roof with metal rods.
construction
• Because of material shortages caused by the Second
World War, construction of the house was not begun until
1946.
• The Jacobs family built the bulk of the house themselves,
with some help from local workmen. The home was not
completed until 1949.
Broadacre City• 1935: Wright began thinking
about planning and the design of
the new American city.
• Each residence was located on
a one acre lot.
Above: Frank Lloyd Wright
Rendering of Broadacre City (1935)
• The lots were accessed by
arterial roads that connected to a
main highway, which had a
monorail for public transportation
and freight traffic.
• Public venues such as
government, entertainment, and
recreation were located in one
central location.
• Various townships were
designed and built based on his
ideas.
Frank LLoyd Wright
Broadacre City Plot Design (1935)
ONE-ACRE PLOT PER HOUSE
Not a suburb
The concept of garden cities is to produce relatively
economically independent cities with short commute times
and the preservation of the countryside. Garden suburbs
arguably do the opposite.
Garden suburbs are built on the outskirts of large cities with
no sections of industry. They are therefore dependent on
reliable transport allowing workers to commute into the city.
Lewis Mumford: "The Garden City, as Howard defined it, is
not a suburb but the antithesis of a suburb: not a rural
retreat, but a more integrated foundation for an effective
urban life."
suburban development
rail connecting city to suburbs, making the city commute
possible
car culture asserting itself, especially in the newest areas
of development such as Los Angeles
most concerted building of suburban infrastructure comes
after WWII
Los Angeles
1876: Southern Pacific rail line reached the city.
1892: oil discovered in the area
1910, Hollywood merged into Los Angeles; movie
production becomes a dominant industry.
1913: aqueduct needed to support additional growth
LA did well during the Great Depression because movies
were more than ever in demand. Population of one million
by 1930.
LA Modern Architects
both arrived before Hitler took power
Rudolf Schindler in 1914
Richard Neutra in 1929
Rudolf Schindler (1887-1953)
Vienna, Austria
studied at Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna
Loos and Otto Wagner were among his professors
saw FLW Wasmuth Portfolio
finished 1911
worked 1911-14
moved to Chicago, met Wright at end of 1914
Rudolf Schindler (1887-1953)
Wright hired him to run Chicago office while Wright
worked on Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.
1920 relocated him to LA to work on Barnsdall House.
Deteriorating relationship with Wright, finally a decisive
split in 1931.
Reconciled a year before Schindler's death in 1953.
Lovell Beach House (1927-9)
Newport Beach, CA
Philip Lovell, a "naturopathic physician" known for his love
of modern architecture.
Steel frame spray-coated with gunite.
Richard Neutra (1892-
1970)
Born Vienna in 1892; emigrated to US in 1929.
Unlike Schindler who was pretty experimental with
construction techniques, Neutra tended to use
conventional post and beam construction.
Neutra's Houses
• Lovell Health House, Los Feliz, LA (1927-9)
• Kaufmann Desert House (1946)
• Tremaine House (1948)
the "Health House"
Lovell wanted a home with ”air, light, outdoors sleeping, the
ability of the sun to penetrate, etc. . . .
"The city house for nearly two decades became a house of
comfort, happiness, and above all, radical drugless health."
initial immigration 1933-5
January 1933 there were some 523,000 Jews in Germany (less than 1 % of total population)
Most German Jews lived in cities and 1/3 of the total number lived in Berlin.
When Nazis took power, there was a large wave of emigration (37,000–38,000 people), mostly to neighboring European countries (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland). Many of these immigrants were later captured when the Nazis took over Western Europe.
Banning of Jews from the civil service and the Nazi-sponsored boycott of Jewish-owned stores spurred additional immigration.
April 7, 1933
Only 36 days after the Nazi government assumed power
in Germany, the Law for the Restoration of Professional
Civil Service expelled university professors with at least
one Jewish grandparent from public service.
who emigrated first?
White-collar, urban people:
20% university graduates
more than 50% had 13 years of schooling
National Refugee Service listed approximately:
900 lawyers
2,000 physicians
1,500 writers
1,500 musicians
3,000 academics
Manhattan Project
Jewish refugees Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von
Neumann, Edward Teller, Hans Bethe, Hans Staub, and
Victor Weisskopf formed the core of the Manhattan project
that achieved controlled nuclear reaction in Los Alamos
between 1942 and 1945.
“If some two-thirds of these people ultimately found
positions as teachers of one sort or another, it was hardly
at the level they remembered from Europe. In the hungry
1930s, anti- Semitism was a fact of life among American
university faculties as in other sectors of the economy.
Physicists and chemists had the best chance of securing
appointments...” (Sachar 1992, p. 498)
anti-Semitism in the USA
Many universities did not hire Jewish professors until the
late 1940s.
Cultural differences made the transition difficult.
Private industry also discriminated against Jews, e.g.,
Dupont didn't hire one of the fathers of organic chemistry
because they thought he was "too Jewish."
1935-7
Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and subsequent
related laws that deprived German Jews of civil rights
Jewish emigration remained more or less constant.
Strict enforcement of American immigration restrictions as
well as the increasing reluctance of European and British
Commonwealth countries to accept additional Jewish
refugees may have been a limiting factor.
1938: dramatic rise in visa
applications
Anschluß: German annexation of Austria in March 1938
Increase in violence against Jews during the spring and
summer
Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom in
November 1938
seizure of Jewish-owned property
Approx. 36,000 Jews left Germany and Austria in 1938
and 77,000 in 1939.
by September 1939
Approximately 282,000 Jews had left Germany and
117,000 from annexed Austria.
Where did they go?
95,000 emigrated to the United States;
60,000 to Palestine;
40,000 to Great Britain;
75,000 to Central and South America, with the largest
numbers entering Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia;
More than 18,000 Jews went to Shanghai, in Japanese-
occupied China.
end of 1939
202,000 Jews remained in Germany and 57,000 in
annexed Austria, many of them elderly.
By October 1941, when Jewish emigration was officially
forbidden, the number of Jews in Germany had declined
to 163,000.
The vast majority of Jews still in Germany were murdered
in Nazi camps and ghettos during the Holocaust.
Walter Gropius (1883-1969)
• born Berlin
• family of architects
• met Peter Behrens and worked for him
• appointed director of Bauhaus
Bauhaus "Building House"
(1919-1928)Gropius was appointed Director
of the Academy of Fine Arts in
Weimar.
He merged it with School of Arts
and Crafts—no distinction
between the arts, all are
governed by the same basic
principles.
Collaboration and context were
key principles.
In 1925, financial troubles
precipitated a move to Dessau.
Bauhaus curriculum
one fine art; one craft
emphasis on properties
of materials
technology and
techniques of mass
production
aesthetic principles:
• economy of form
• fidelity to materials
• appropriate to function
Oskar Schlemmer, Bauhaus Stairway, 1932
Gropius House (1937)
fled Germany in 1934 to England
was brought to Harvard Graduate School of Design in
1937
Marcel Breuer quickly followed to join Harvard faculty as
well
built house in nearby Lincoln, MA