Art Nouveau

1. Art Nouveau was an innovative international style of modern art that became
fashionable from about 1890 to the First World War.
2. Arising as a reaction to 19th-century designs dominated by historicism in general and
neoclassicism in particular, it promulgated the idea of art and design as part of
everyday life. Henceforth artists should not overlook any everyday object, no
matter how functional it might be.
3. This aesthetic was considered to be quite revolutionary and new, hence its name -
New Art - or Art Nouveau. Hence also the fact that it was applied to a host of
different forms including architecture, fine art, applied art, and decorative art.
4. Rooted partly in the Industrial Revolution, and the Arts and Crafts Movement, but
also influenced by Japonism (especially Ukiyo-e prints by artists like Hokusai and his
younger contemporary Hiroshige) and Celtic designs, Art Nouveau was given a major
boost by the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris.
5. After this, it spread across Europe and as far as the United States and Australia,
under local names like Jugendstil (Germany), Stile
Liberty (Italy), Sezessionstil (Austria) and Tiffany style (America).
6. A highly decorative idiom, Art Nouveau typically employed intricate curvilinear
patterns of sinuous asymmetrical lines, often based on plant-forms (sometimes
derived from La Tene forms of Celtic art).
7. Floral and other plant-inspired motifs are popular Art Nouveau designs, as are
female silhouettes and forms. Employing a variety of materials, the style was used in
architecture, interior design, glassware, jewellery, poster art and illustration, as
well as painting and sculpture.
8. The movement was replaced in the 1920s by Art Deco.
9. Art Nouveau is usually deemed a matter of 'style' rather than a philosophy: but, in
fact, distinctive ideas and not only fanciful desires prompted its appearance.
10. Common to all the most consistently Art Nouveau creators was a determination to
push beyond the bounds of historicism - that exaggerated concern with the notions
of the past which characterises the greater part of 19th-century design: they sought,
in a fresh analysis of function and a close study of natural forms, a new aesthetic.
11. Characteristics:
a. Art Nouveau philosophy was in favour of applying artistic designs to
everyday objects, in order to make beautiful things available to everyone. No
object was too utilitarian to be "beautified".
b. Art Nouveau saw no separation in principle between fine art (painting and
sculpture) and applied or decorative arts (ceramics, furniture, and other
practical objects).
 c. In content, the style was a reaction to a world of art which was dominated
by the precise geometry of Neoclassical forms. It sought a new graphic
design language, as far away as possible from the historical and classical
models employed by the arts academies.
d. Art Nouveau remains something of an umbrella term which embraces a
variety of stylistic interpretations: some artists used new low-cost materials
and mass production methods while others used more expensive materials
and valued high craftsmanship.
12. Influence of Art Nouveau:
a. While Art Nouveau promoted a more widespread adoption of "beautiful"
design, it did not diminish the value of the machine or mass-production (as
the Arts and Crafts Movement did), but instead took advantage of many
technological innovations from the late 19th century.
b. 20th-century advocates of integrated design, such as the German Bauhaus
design school and the Dutch design movement De Stijl
c. Graphic art such as illustration and poster-design
13. Art Nouveau Architecture:
a. Art Nouveau architecture was one of the great ubiquitous cultural impulses,
appearing virtually throughout Europe and Scandinavia, and in America too.
b. A very vigorous strain developed in Belgium, where Henri van de
Velde (1863-1937) pared away the conventions of art and architecture in
favour of a rather rigid floral style (his house at Uccle, 1895), while Victor
Horta (1861-1947) seems to have passed the rule-book through a maze of
botanical fact (the Hotel Tassel, 1892-3, and the Maison du Peuple, 1896-9 in
Brussels).
c. Horta was widely admired for his readiness to reconsider basic design
problems and for the fluency of his adaptations of organic principle. For the
Tassel house he opened up the centre into a sort of conservatory space in
which the exposed cast iron supports are themselves stylised plants
d. And the Maison du Peuple he constructed around a sinuous iron frame,
every decorative element of which arose from the containment of stresses. It
was said that 'he follows the secret law obeyed by vegetation, which grows in
immutable and ever harmonious forms, but he compels himself never to
draw a motif, nor to describe a solitary curve which could be seen as a
pastiche of natural form'.
e. Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) conceived for Barcelona a series of architectural
extravaganzas, apparently pervaded by thoughts of nature in its less
attractive manifestations - the rabbit warren or termite hill, reptilian
anatomy, weeds on the rampage.
i. The Casa Mila (1905-07) is a riotous assembly of pitted stone and
twisting iron, with a ground plan which altogether ignores the right-
angle. And the Church of the Sagrada Familia (1884, uncompleted)
bemuses the visitor, with its four towers like monster decaying
cucumbers: it resembles, on the whole, a vegetable garden in the grip of
some ferocious virus and mutating freely.
Sagrada Familia:
1. Construction of the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família began in 1882, more than
a century ago. The temple is still under construction, with completion expected in
2026. It is perhaps the best-known structure of Catalan Modernisme, drawing over
three million visitors annually. Architect Antoni Gaudi worked on the project until his
death in 1926, in full anticipation he would not live to see it finished.
2. Gaudi was appointed architect in 1883 at 31 years of age, following disagreements
between the temple’s promoters and the original architect, Francisco de Paula del
Villar y Lozano. He maintained del Villar’s Latin cross plan, typical of Gothic
cathedrals, but departed from the Gothic in several significant ways. Most notably,
Gaudi developed a system of angled columns and hyperboloidal vaults to eliminate
the need for flying buttresses. Rather than relying on exterior elements, horizontal
loads are transferred through columns on the interior.
3. La Sagrada Familia utilizes three-dimensional forms comprised of ruled surfaces,
including hyperboloids, parabolas, helicoids, and conoids. These complex shapes
allow for a thinner, finer structure, and are intended to enhance the temple’s
acoustics and quality of light. Gaudi used plaster models to develop the design,
including a 1:10 scale model of the main nave measuring five meters in height and
width by two meters in depth. He also devised a system of strings and weights
suspended from a plan of the temple on the ceiling. From this inverted model he
derived the necessary angles of the columns, vaults, and arches. This is evident in the
slanted columns of the Passion facade, which recall tensile structures but act in
compression.
4.
5. Gaudi embedded religious symbolism in each aspect of La Sagrada Familia, creating a
visual representation of Christian beliefs. He designed three iconic facades for the
basilica, the Glory, Nativity, and Passion facades, facing south, east, and west,
respectively. The sculpting of the Nativity facade recalls smooth, intricate corbelling
and was overseen by Gaudi. The Passion Facade is characterized by the work of
Josep Maria Subirachs, whose angular sculptures extend the modernist character of
the temple. The sculptor Etsuro Sotoo is responsible for the window ornaments and
finials, which symbolize the Eucharist.
6. The central nave soars to a height of 45 meters, and is designed to resemble a forest
of multi-hued piers in Montjuïc and granite. The piers change in cross section from
base to terminus, increasing in number of vertices from polygonal to circular. The
slender, bifurcating columns draw the eye upward, where light filters through
circular apertures in the vaults. These are finished in Venetian glass tiles of green and
gold, articulating the lines of the hyperboloids.
7. Once completed, La Sagrada Familia will feature eighteen towers composed to
present a unique view of the temple from any single vantage point. Four bell towers
representing the Apostles crown each facade, reaching approximately 100 meters in
height. At the north end, a tower representing the Virgin Mary will stand over the
 apse. The central tower will reach 72 meters in height and symbolize Christ,
surrounded by four towers representing the Evangelists.
8. Even as construction continues, older portions are undergoing cleaning and
restoration. The temple has relied entirely on private donations since its inception,
and has seen many delays due to lack of funding. A particularly significant setback
occurred during the Spanish Civil War, when Gaudi’s workshop was destroyed,
including much of the documentation he left behind.
9. Subsequent generations of craftsman and architects have relied on the remaining
drawings and plaster models to advance the project, adhering to Gaudi’s vision as
closely as possible. As a result, the design of the temple is a collaboration spanning
centuries. Gaudi himself viewed the project as the collective work of generations. "I
will grow old but others will come after me. What must always be conserved is the
spirit of the work, but its life has to depend on the generations it is handed down to
and with whom it lives and is incarnated."
Eero Saarinen

Gateway Arch
MIT chapel
Evolution of skyscrapers
Frank Lloyd Wright
High – Tech Architecture
Le Corbusier

5 points of architecture – lifting the bulk of the structure off the ground supporting by pilotis, free façade, open floor plan,
long strips of ribbon windows providing maximum illumination, the roof garden

Carpenter center:
1. The first and only building in the United States designed by the 20th Century master architect Le
Corbusier sits among some of the oldest buildings that date back to before the United States was
organized.
2. Designed to be home to Harvard's visual arts, the Carpenter Centre houses large open studio spaces for
students to work and showcase their art.
3. In addition to being a place for art, the centre holds the largest collection of 35mm films in the New
England region often holding screenings of independent, international, and silent films. For Corbusier, the
Carpenter centre was meant to be the synthesis of the arts where architecture would join with painting,
sculpture, photography, and film.
4. Unlike the buildings of Harvard Yard and even those of Corbusier's earlier works, the Carpenter centre
takes on a less than traditional approach to the design and organization of the interior spaces. Rather the
Carpenter centre is a mix of Corbusier's earlier works with the typical beton-brut concrete, angled brise
soleils that were used in Chandigarh, and undulators found in La Tourette were implemented into the
centres facade system.
5. From first glance, the Carpenter Center appears to be an inverted version of Villa Savoye embodying the
Five Points of Architecture on the exterior of the building rather than within like Villa Savoye.
6. Similar to Villa Savoye, Corbusier highlights an architectural promenade that runs through the center of
the building that connects the interior studios, galleries, and screening rooms to the public spaces
within the building, as well as to the campus. Walking along the centralized ramp, there is a slow
ascent through the buildings levels that has a degree of reveal allowing the passer-by to peer into the
spaces through the separation between the floor plates and the ramp.
7. Within the Carpenter Center, Corbusier maintains large open floor plates supported by his iconic
pilotis, which allow for students to have open studio environments, in addition to allowing for more
flexible configurations when showcasing students work, or holding film screenings. However, as with
some of his earlier projects where Corbusier imposes curvilinear wall sections to define circulation or
the space itself, Corbusier uses the curvilinear wall system to define the interior volume's boundary as
a way in which to accentuate the architectural promenade throughout the building, as well as
seamlessly linking the interior spaces through a cyclical spatial organization.

8. Le Corbusier's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts is an intensification of his earlier projects that not
only incorporate architectural elements from previous projects, but - possibly with the encouragement
of Fuentes and Sert - seems to advance Corbusier's architectural language by testing its limits as to
what it could become, rather than just merely accepting its prior successes. The Carpenter Center
exemplifies that push and advancement in Corbusier's work that would influence the modernist
aesthetic and future styles.
Louis Kahn
Norman Foster
The Chicago School

What is the Chicago School of Architecture?

In the history of American art, the term "Chicago School" commonly refers to the
groundbreaking skyscraper architecture developed during the period 1879-1910 by the
designer-engineer William Le Baron Jenney (1832-1907), along with a number of other
innovative American architects including William Holabird (1854-1923), Martin Roche
(1853-1927), Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912), John Wellborn Root (1850-91),
Dankmar Adler (1844-1900), Louis Sullivan (1856-1924). These individuals went on to
form some of the most famous firms in 19th century architecture, such as Holabird &
Roche, Burnham and Root (later D.H.Burnham and Co), Adler and Sullivan. Frank Lloyd
Wright (1867-1959), who worked for Adler and Sullivan, was another important Chicago
building designer but left to focus on domestic design.

Although the phrase "Chicago School" properly identifies the midwest city as the locus of
the new developments in high-rise design - Root, Burnham, Adler and Sullivan actually
formed the Western Association of Architects in opposition to East Coast architects. - it
had no unified or coherent set of principles, and the landmark buildings created by the
members of the school used a wide variety of designs, construction techniques and
materials.

Later, during the 1940s, a new wave of building design - known today as the Second
Chicago School of architecture - appeared in the city. This centred around European
Modernism, the work of the ex-Bauhaus director Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), as well
as his teaching activities at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Closely associated with
the "International Style" and its idiom of modern minimalism, which derived in part from
the Bauhaus design school, whose founder Walter Gropius also emigrated to the US, the
Second Chicago School is famous for structures like the Lake Shore Drive Apartments
(1948-51), and the Seagram Building (1954-58). The principal firm of architects
associated with the Second Chicago School is Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, whose
breakthroughs in design and structural engineering during the 1960s, spearheaded
by Fazlur Khan (1929-82), confirmed America as the undisputed leader in high-
rise 20th-Century architecture and led to a new generation of supertall towers.

Why Did Skyscraper Design Develop So Fast in Chicago?

There were several reasons why Chicago produced such an outstanding group of
architects in the 1880s, whose work would have such a profound effect upon high-rise
building design. To begin with, the disastrous fire of 1871 coupled with a resurgence of
civic pride had (by 1880) led to a building boom. At the same, the city's population was
rapidly expanding: by 1890 it totalled more than a million people, surpassing
Philadelphia to become the second-biggest city (after New York) in the United States. All
this caused a surge in property prices, notably in the Loop area, where landlords were
desperately looking for ways to add value to their investment in real estate. Under these
conditions, the only feasible way forward was to build upwards. More floors meant more
office space to rent and thus more profits. Furthermore, the city of Chicago - already
home to inventions like the McCormick reaper, the Pullman sleeping car, and mail-order
retailing - was a location where new ideas thrived.

There were two other timely factors which had no connection with the city. First, in the
mid-1880s, came the introduction of the electric motor for Elisha Otis's safety elevator.
This increased the speed and height of ascent, and led to convenient bush-button
controls. Second, the price of steel tumbled - from $166/ton in 1867, to $32/ton in 1895
- which greatly facilitated the adoption of steel-frame designs, which in turn enabled the
erection of taller buildings.
The Deutscher Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen) is a German association of artists,
architects, designers, and industrialists, established in 1907. The Werkbund became an
important element in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in
the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design. Its initial purpose was to establish a
partnership of product manufacturers with design professionals to improve the competitiveness
of German companies in global markets. The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a
state-sponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass production techniques, to
put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States.
Margrete Steiff Teddy Bear Factory in Geingen