Modern architecture emerged in the early 20th century in response to industrialization and new technologies. Architects rejected historical styles and ornamentation in favor of simple, clean designs using new materials like steel, glass, and concrete. Some key developments included the Arts and Crafts movement emphasizing craftsmanship, Art Nouveau's organic forms, and early modernist buildings using steel frames and large windows. Pioneers like Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Mies van der Rohe further developed the International Style characterized by geometric forms, lack of ornament, and expressing the structure.

1. 20th century MODERN
Submitted by:
-Mitali Gondaliya 1301
-Rahul Asodariya 1303
-Darshan Bavadiya 1304
-Urmila Dhameliya 1309
-Nikhilesh Dhaduk 1310
-Vatsal Gadhiya 1311
-Darshan Savsaiya 1334
-Ridham Vekariya 1339
ARCHITECTURE

2. What is MODERNITY ?
•it means present, or current, implying as its opposite the notion of earlier, of what
is past.
•A second meaning of the word is the new, as opposed to the old.
•New materials, technology & needs were
drastically changing the profession of
architecture.
•Breaking free from ancient Greek & Roman
Prototypes (rejection of the traditional neoclassical architecture)
•The changing face of the growing cityscape.
•The rise of skyscrapers.
•America comes into focus as a budding center
of modern design (Empire State Building 1931)
Birth of Modern Architecture

3. MODERN ARCHITECTURE
Geometry to live in:
- Victorian homes were bulky &
complicated & Modernist architects
changed all that.
- Gone were the historical ornament
designs. The goal was now ‘simple’ &
clean designs.
- Science & industry was the new
‘religion’. The house became a ‘machine
for living’.
- Rise of an International Style.
- The common characteristics of the
Style includes:
i) a radical simplification of form
ii) a rejection of ornament
iii) adoption of glass, steel & concrete.

4. • Population increase
• Industrialization led Urbanization and massive building exercise
• New materials for building
• World War I (1914-18) & World War II (1939-45)
• World War II and End of Colonialism
• New Typologies – Railway Station, Department Store, Office, Apartment
towers, Factories, Dams and Airports…
• New Clients – Municipalities, cooperatives, institutions, social groups…
What led to MODERNISM ?

5. START OF A MOTOR AGE

6. NEW MATERIAL AND TECHNOLOGY

7. NEW MATERIAL AND TECHNOLOGY

8. ORIGINS
•The revolution in materials came first, with the use of
cast iron
plate glass
reinforced concrete, to build structures that were stronger, lighter and taller.
• The cast plate glass process was invented in 1848, allowing the manufacture of
very large windows.
The Crystal Palace, 1851 (iron and plate glass construction & metal curtain wall)
•These developments together led to
the first steel-framed skyscraper, the
ten-story Home Insurance
Building in Chicago, built in 1884.
•The iron frame construction of
the Eiffel Tower, then the tallest
structure in the world

9. EARLY MODERNISM IN EUROPE
•At the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the
traditional Neoclassical styles that dominated architecture in Europe and the
United States.
Glasgow School of Art
(1896-99)
• by Charles Rennie Macintosh, had a
facade dominated by large vertical
bays of windows.
Art Nouveau (1890)
• by Victor Horta in Belgium; it
introduced new styles of
decoration, based on vegetal and
floral forms.
Antonio Gaudi
• conceived architecture as a form of
sculpture; had no straight lines; it
was encrusted with colorful
mosaics of stone and ceramic tiles.
Paris Auguste Perret and Henri
Sauvage
• began to use reinforced concrete,
previously only used for industrial
structures, to build apartment
buildings.

10. The Glasgow School of Art by Charles
Rennie MacIntosh (1896–99)
RCC building by Auguste
Perret, Paris (1903)
The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris
by Auguste Perret (1911-1913)
Stepped RCC building
in Paris (1912-1914)
Austrian Postal Savings
Bank in Vienna by Otto
Wagner (1904-1906)
The Steiner House in
Vienna by Adolf
Loos (1910)

11. ART AND CRAFT MOVEMENT
• The arts and crafts movement was made up of
English designers and writers who wanted a return
to handcrafted goods instead of mass-produced.
• Artists tried to re-establish the ties between work
and the worker.
• The Arts and Crafts Movement initially developed in
Britain around 1880 and quickly spread across
America and Europe before emerging finally as the
Mingei (Folk Crafts) movement in Japan.
• It established a new set of principles for living and
working.
• It turned the home into a work of art.

12. • “to re-establish a harmony between architect, designer and craftsman
and to bring handcraftsmanship to the production of well-designer,
affordable, everyday objects.”
• Inspired by socialist principles and led by William Morris, the members
of the movement used the medieval system of trades and guilds to set
up their own companies to sell their goods. Unfortunately, it had the
reverse effect and, apart from the wealthy middle classes, hardly anyone
could afford their designs.
• Visually, the style has much in common with its contemporary art
played a role in the founding of Bauhaus and
ARTIST AND
ARCHITECTS
• William Morris
• John Ruskin
• Philip web
• C r Ashbee
• Change in Working
condition
• Belief in restorative power
of craftsmanship
• Simple life
• Art as a way of life
nouveau and it
modernism.
o Principle of art
craft movement
• Honesty
• Design unity
• Joy in labour
• Individualism
• Regionalism (use
of local material
and crafts men)
o Social reforms intended o Characteristics
with movement
• handmade
• simple forms with little ornamentation
• beauty of natural materials
• copper and pewter - often with a
hammered finish
• stylised flowers, allegories from the
Bible and literature, upside down
hearts, Celtic motifs

13. RED HOUSE - PHILIP WEB

14. •The Red House was merely the first
of a series of houses in which he
endeavoured to engender an
authentic historical style, through
the direct expression of local
materials and craftsmanship.
•Webb adopted the Gothic Revival,
that is, clay tiling, corbelled brick
work, rubbed brick arches and
circular openings, as a way of
articulating an open-ended form of
vernacular expression.“
RED HOUSE - PHILIP WEB

15. • The house was built of deep red brick
laid in the English bond.
• It had two storeys and was L shaped.
The roof was steep with tall chimney
stacks.
• In the halls were cupboards painted by
Burne- Jones with stained glass by
Morris and Burne-Jones.
• Dark red tiles covered the floor.
• The walls of the principal bedroom were
hung with embroidered serge, a craft
Morris taught his wife.
RED HOUSE - PHILIP WEB

21. • Art Nouveau is French and means New Art. It is
characterized by its highly decorative style and by
the dedication to natural forms.
• Art Nouveau was popular from about 1880 to
1910 and was an International art movement.
• Siegfried Bing (later called Samuel Bing) was the
founder in 1895 of " La Maison de l'Art Nouveau
" in Paris :
• It was his art gallery and exhibition hall that gave
its name to the famous artistic Style Art
Nouveau.
• The movement was committed to abolishing the
traditional hierarchy of the arts, which viewed so-
called liberal arts, such as painting and sculpture,
as superior to craft-based decorative arts.
• The practitioners of Art Nouveau sought to revive
good workmanship, raise the status of craft, and
produce genuinely modern design.
ART NAUVEAU (1860-1910)

22. ART NAUVEAU
• It was characterized by an elaborate ornamental
style based on asymmetrical lines, frequently
depicting flowers, leaves, or in the flowing hair
of a female.
• It can be seen most effectively in the decorative
arts, for example interior design, glasswork and
jewelry.
• However, it was also seen in posters and
paintings andillustration as well as certain
sculptures of the period.
• Art Nouveau did not survive
maybe because of the high
World War I,
prices for Art
Nouveau objects.
• With the philosophical roots in high quality
handicraft, Art Nouveau was nothing for mass
production.
Inspirations
Arts and Crafts
Movement
Japanese Art

23. o PRINCIPALS OF
ART NOUVEAU STYLE
• flat, decorative patterns;
• intertwined organic forms such as stems or flowers;
• an emphasis on handcrafting as opposed to
machine manufacturing;
• the use of new materials;
• and the rejection of traditional styles
o CHARACTERISTICS:
• Asymmetrical shapes
• Extensive use of arches and curved forms
• Curved glass
• Curving, plant-like embellishments
• Mosaics
• Stained glass
• Japanese motifs
ART NAUVEAU

24. Mackintosh school Glasglow,
Scotland 1897-1909
-dependent on the straight line
Pierre Francastel divides Art Nouveau into two main tendencies that could
broadly termed the organic and the rationalist.
Rationalist: Organic:
Gaudi, Barcelona, Spain1903
-gives precedence to the curved line and floral
shapes
CLASSIFICATION:

25. CLASSIFICATION:
2. A floral approach focuding on
organic plant forms
(Galle, Majorelle, Vallin, gaudi)
1. An abstract, structural style with a strong
symbolic and dynamic tendency (France
& Belgium)
(Horta, Guimard, Van de Velde)
Aquarium PavillionHenry Van de Velde’s house

26. 4. A structured, geometric style (Austria &
Germany,usa)
(Wagner, olbrich, hoffmann, loos ,sullivan)
3. The linear, flat approach, with a heavy
symbolic element
(Glasglow group, Mackintosh)
Majolikahaus in Vienna
by Otto Wagner
Glasgow School of Art
by Charles Rennie Mackintosh
CLASSIFICATION:

27. VICTOR HORTA (1861 –1947 )

28. VICTOR HORTA (1861 –
1947 )

29. ANTONI GAUDÍ (1852 –
1926 )

30. ANTONI GAUDÍ (1852 –
1926 )

31. CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH (1868 –1928 )

32. EARLY MODERNISM IN EUROPE
Peter Behrens
(industrial designer)
• the AEG turbine factory (1909), a
functional monument of steel and
concrete in Berlin.
Adolf Meyer and Walter
Gropius (who had both worked for
Behrens)
• built another revolutionary
industrial plant, the Fagus factory, a
building without ornament where
every construction element was on
display.

33. PLAN SECTION
AEG Turbine Factory (Peter Behrens)

34. EARLY MODERNISM IN AMERICA
Frank Llyod Wright
(1887)
• Was an independent American architect
who refused to be categorized in any one
architectural movement.
• Like Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van
der Rohe, he had no formal architectural
training.
• In 1887-93 he worked in the Chicago
office of Louis Sullivan.
• famous for his Prairie Houses.
1 2
3
4
5 6
1 – Verandah
2 – Reception Hall
3 – Dining Hall
4 – Living Room
5 – Kitchen
6 – Rear Verandah
Larkin Administration
Building, New York (1904-1906)
The Robie House, Chicago (1909)

35. INFLUENCE ON USA- ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE
“The idea that every country should have an architecture that reflects its own
particular history, geography and climate was central to the Arts and Crafts
movement”
“It is building the way nature builds.”
• The term ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE was invented by great Architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-
1959).
• Although the word “Organic” usually refers plants or animals or anything related to nature
but his interpretation was an idea which was to promote harmony between man made
structure and nature around through design approach as a unified composition.
• He believed that building should complement its environment , building should work as a
cohesive organism.
How he defined Organic Architecture changed often, as he refined it, and also as the situation
demanded.
• Integral to Site - houses designed to rise up out of the site as it belonging.
• Integral to environment - built appropriately to climate.
• Integral to Individual - Each building built to accommodate the lifestyle of the inhabitants
way of life and needs.
• Integral to Materials - details of the building were the materials themselves

37. MILLARD HOUSE - F.L.W.

38. MILLARD HOUSE - F.L.W.

39. MILLARD HOUSE - F.L.W.

40. EARLY MODERNISM IN AMERICA
The Birth of Skyscraper
• At the end of the 19th century, the
first skyscrapers began to appear in the
United States.
• They were a response to the shortage
of land and high cost of real estate in
the center of the fast-growing
American cities, and the availability of
new technologies, including fireproof
steel frames and improvements in the
safety elevator invented by Elisha
Otis in 1852.
Louis Sullivan
• He was known as the father of
skyscraper.
• His buildings were revolutionary in
their steel frames and height, the
designs of their facades were in the
more traditional neo-renaissance, Neo-
Gothic.
• The Woolworth Building, designed
by Cass Gilbert, 1912, complete with
decorative buttresses, arches and
spires, which caused it be nicknamed
the "Cathedral of Commerce."

41. The Woolworth Building and the New York skyline in 1913. It was
modern on the inside but neo-Gothic on the outside.

42. CHICAGO SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE late 19th century
• Also Known as Commercial style, the Chicago
school was a school of architects active in Chicago
at the turn of the 20th century.
To promote the new technologies of steel- frame
construction in commercial buildings.
• Architects were encouraged to build higher
structures because of the escalating land prices.
• Isolated footing supported a skeleton of iron
encased in masonry
• There were:
fireproof floors,
numerous fast elevators and
gas light
• The traditional masonry wall became curtains, full
of glass, supported by the metal skeleton
• The first skyscrapers were born.

43. Adler Sullivan Le Baron Jenney Burham
INFLUENTIAL ARCHITECTS

44. • Bold geometric facades pierced with either arched or lintel-type openings.
• The wall surface highlighted with extensive low-relief sculptural ornamentation in
terra cotta.
• Buildings often topped with deep projecting eaves and flat roofs.
• The multi-story office complex highly regimented into specific zones or ground story,
intermediate floors, and the attic or roof.
• Large arched window or Vertical strips of windows
• Decorative band
• Pilaster-like mullions
• Projecting eaves (the under part of a sloping roof overhanging a wall)
• Highly decorated frieze
• Decorated terra cotta spandrels
• Capital of pilaster strips
• Foliated and linear enrichments along jambs or entry .
CHARACTERISTICS

45. • much larger windows used - daylight reaching
interior spaces.
• Interior walls became thinner - which created
more usable floor space.
• Sullivan changes that came with the steel frame,
creating a grammar of form for the high rise
(base, shaft, and pediment)
•The mass production of
steel
• This new way of
constructing
buildings, so-called
"column-frame”
construction

46. Chicago’s Auditorium

47. Carsons Pirie Scott & Co

48. THE RISE OF MODERNISM (1919-1930)
After World War I
Le Corbusier
Walter Gropius
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Konstantin Melnikov
who wanted only pure forms
and the elimination of any
decoration
Art Deco Architects
Auguste Perret
Henri Sauvage
made a compromise between
the two, combining modernist
forms and stylized decoration.
•By the late 1920s, modernism had become an important movement in Europe.
Architecture, which previously had been predominantly national, began to become
international.
•The architects traveled, met each other, and shared ideas. Several modernists,
including Le Corbusier, had participated in the competitions.

49. GERRIT RIETVELD Rietveld Schröder House, Nederlands (1924)

50. PURISM 1918 -1925
• Purism & Le Corbusier In collaboration with the
artist Amédée Ozenfant, he developed a new
theory called Purism where architecture would
be as efficient as a factory assembly line.
• The code of purist rules would be to refine and
simplify design, dispensing with ornamentation.
• Many of his ideas were documented in his book
"Towards a New Architecture", He called his
private homes “machines to be lived in” and
their importance was based on a balance of
aesthetics, the mental and social well being of
humans, light, air and harmony.
• Designed furniture that was lines are clean,
straight and precise. The golden ratio was the
ideal shape, and that is reflected in their work.
Le Corbusier Amédée Ozenfant

51. Corbusier was the pioneer of modernism in architecture and laid foundation to
what is known as Bauhaus Movement or International style.
He formed the five points of architecture which were the guiding principles for
many architects.
PURISM 1918 -1925
Greek Pantheon Villa Savoye

52. STUTTGART HOUSE , LE CORBUSIER

53. BAUHAUS 1919-1933
• The Bauhaus, an innovative German school of
art and design was founded in 1919 by Walter
Gropius.
• The name Bauhaus stems from the German
words for "to build" and "house.”
• Bauhaus is a school in Germany that combined
crafts and the fine arts.
• Ironically, despite its name and the fact its
founder was an architect, the Bauhaus did not
have an architecture department for the first
several years of its existence.
• The school uses a foundations course and
workshop experiences to train students in
theory and form, materials, and methods of
fabrication.

54. WALTER GROPIUS LUDWIG MIES
VAN DER ROHE
HANNES MEYER
FOUNDERS

55. • The goal was to unify art and technology.
• Building Types: schools, offices, and government buildings.
• The most important construction materials include steel, glass, and reinforced
concrete, sometimes a brick masonry applied on the face of the concrete.
CHARACTERISTIC
•Bauhaus Is Enclosed By Glass Curtains
•The Whole Cube Seems Like To Immense Horizontal Plains Floating On The
Ground. Bauhaus Is Enclosed By Glass Curtains.
•The High Glass Walls Revealing The Light Steel Structure…. Delineated In All Its
Transparency By The Iron Grid Of Its Exterior Structure.

56. Smooth surfaces
Grid forms
Horizontal planes
Simple facades without any
ornamentation
Primary colors, black, gray, beige,
white

57. Language of German buildings
The new Bauhaus building in Dessau (1926)

58. WALTER GROPIUS BAUHAUS

59. WALTER GROPIUS BAUHAUS

60. “You must walk around the building to understand its materiality
and function of its various elements.”
Gropius

61. Bauhaus Door Knob
Arguably the most famous piece
designed by Walter Gropius, the
Bauhaus doorknobs geometric forms
and industrial flourishes, such as
exposed screws, set the tone for what
the Bauhaus aesthetic was about
Bauhaus Lamp
Probably the most iconic piece
of lighting to come out of the
Bauhaus, William Wagenfeld's
lamp, constructed of precisely
cut glass and metal, is among
the first objects to emerge
under the Bauhaus'
technology-focused regime.
PRODUCT DESIGNING:

62. Bauhaus Tea Infuser
Designed in 1924 by Marianne Brandt, the
Bauhaus tea infuser has a built-in strainer, non-
drip spout, and heat-resistant handle made of
ebony, embracing the school's principals of
combining functionality and aesthetic.
Barcelona Chair
Designed in 1929 by future Bauhaus head
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and partner Lily
Reich, the gentle, swooping lines Barcelona
chair served as a precursor of what was to
come with the mid-century modern furniture
movement

63. GROPIUS CHAIR
Bauhaus Wasilly Chair
Of all the chairs to come out of the Bauhaus, this is
the one that commonly comes to mind. Designed
my Marcel Breuer, the Wasilly chair is a mix of steel
and leather, using no more material than is
absolutely needed, while providing maximum
comfort. It's a design you'll still find in homes
today.
Marcel Breuer chair, one
of the very first tubular
steel chairs, designed in
1925.

64. Bauhaus Chess Set
Designed in 1922 by Josef Hartwig,
the best part about the chess
pieces is that the design of each
also indicates the type of
movement it is capable of
Bauhaus Nesting Tables
Nothing quite says "smart" like
five separate tables that fit into
the footprint of one. And the use
of colors with each table is
something that would be
revisited by Ray and Charles
Eames decades later

65. Desklamp
Mies Van de Rohe’s Cantilevered Chair
Bauhaus Cradle
The Bauhaus Cradle emerged in the early days of the
German design school, but the simplicity of this
magazine holder, both with regard to the form and
colors used, doesn't undermine the inherent
playfulness of the design.

66. ART DECO
• Art Deco, is an eclectic artistic and design
style that began in Paris in the 1920s and
flourished internationally throughout the
1930s and into the World War II era.
• The style influenced all areas of design,
including architecture and interior design,
industrial design, fashion and jewellery, as
well as the visual arts such as painting,
graphic arts and film.
• Art Deco is characterized by use of materials
such as aluminium, stainless steel, lacquer,
Bakelite, Chrome and inlaid wood.
• The use of stepped forms and geometric
curves (unlike the sinuous, natural curves of
Art Nouveau), chevron patterns, ziggurat-
shapes, fountains, and the sunburst motif
are typical of Art Deco.

67. La Samaritaine Department store
facade
The Mossehaus

68. THE CHRYSLER BUILDING , William Van Alen; built 1928–30

69. WORLD WAR II – Wartime innovation & Postwar Reconstruction (1939-45)
Destroyed by Bombing due to war (Le
Havre) -1943-44
The center of Le Havre as reconstructed
by August Perret (1946-1964)

70. WORLD WAR II – Wartime innovation & Postwar Reconstruction (1939-45)
•This war was a major factor in driving innovation in building technology, and in
turn, architectural possibilities.
•The wartime industrial demands resulted in shortages of steel and other building
materials, leading to the adoption of new materials, such as aluminum.
•The war and postwar period brought greatly expanded use of prefabricated
building; largely for the military and government.
•The postwar housing shortages in Europe and the United States led to the design
and construction of enormous government-financed housing projects, usually in
run-down center of American cities, and in the suburbs of Paris and other
European cities, where land was available.

71. INTERNATIONAL STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE
Illinois Institute of Technology campus. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der

72. INTERNATIONAL STYLE OF ARCHITECTURE
• INTERNATIONAL STYLE that developed in Europe and the United States in the
1920s and ’30s and became the dominant tendency in Western architecture
during the middle decades of the 20th century International Style.
• The most common characteristics of International Style buildings are rectilinear
forms; light, taut plane surfaces .
• The term International Style was first used in 1932 Architecture Since
1922, which
served as a catalogue for an architectural exhibition held at the Museum of
Modern Art.
• HENRY RUSSEL HITCHCOCK AND PHILIP JOHNSON INTRODUCED THIS AND
ENTITELD THIS STYLE.
• Moma (museum of modern art)modern architecture international style
exhibition in
1932 is known as the most influential event in the history of architecture.

73. CHARACTERISTIC
• The typical characteristics of International
Style buildings include rectilinear forms;
plane surfaces that are completely devoid
of applied ornamentation; and open, even
fluid, interior spaces.
• This early form of minimalism had a
distinctively "modern look", reinforced by
its use of modern materials, including glass
for the facade, steel for exterior support,
and concrete for interior supports and
floors.
• A style which is a elegant mixer of various
USA and Europe architecture styles
Seagram Building, New York,

74. Farnsworth House, Illinois

75. LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE SEAGRAM BUILDING New York , 1958

76. IDEOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE :
“LESS IS MORE.”
“GOD IS IN THE DETAILS.”
• Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) adopted the motto "Less is
more" to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging the necessary
components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity—he
enlisted every element and detail to serve multiple visual and functional
purposes .
• He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought an objective
approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design.
• Mies's second famous dictum is that 'God is in the details.' expressing the
idea that whatever one does should be done thoroughly.

77. LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE BARCELONA PAVILION

78. LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE BARCELONA PAVILION

79. LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE BARCELONA PAVILION

80. FURNITURE

81. Brutalism is a style with an emphasis on materials, textures and construction,
producing highly expressive forms.
BRUTALISM

82. BRUTALISM
• Brutalist architecture is a movement in architecture that flourished from the 1950s to the
mid-1970s, descending from the modernist architectural movement of the early 20th century.
• Consider Brutalism as architecture in the raw, with an emphasis on materials, textures and
construction, producing highly expressive forms.
• Also called New Brutalism, it encouraged the use of beton brut (raw concrete), in which
patterns created by wooden shuttering are replicated through board marking.
• Scale was important and the style is characterised by massive concrete shapes colliding
abruptly, while service ducts and ventilation towers are overtly displayed.

83. CHARACTERISTIC
• Rough unfinished surfaces
• Unusual shapes
• Heavy-looking materials
• Massive forms
• Small windows in relation
to the other parts
Trellick Tower,London, 1966–1972,
Ernő Goldfinger,

84. Cité radieuse, Marseille

85. habitat 67

86. Lack of ornament: Decorative mouldings and elaborate trim are eliminated or greatly
simplified, giving way to a clean aesthetic where materials meet in simple, well-executed
joints.
Emphasis of rectangular forms and horizontal and vertical lines: Shapes of houses are based
boxes, or linked boxes. Materials are often used in well-defined planes and vertical forms
juxtaposed against horizontal elements for dramatic effect.
Low, horizontal massing, flat roofs, emphasis on horizontal planes and broad roof
overhangs: Modern homes tend to be on generous sites, and thus many, but not all, have to
have meandering one-story plans. Many examples hug the ground and appear of the site,
not in contrast to it.
Use of modern materials and systems: Steel columns are used in exposed applications,
concrete block is used as a finished material, concrete floors are stained and exposed, long-
span steel trusses permit open column-free spaces, and radiant heating systems enhance
human comfort.
Use of traditional materials in new ways: Materials such as wood, brick and stone are used
in simplified ways reflecting a modern aesthetic. Traditional clapboard siding are replaced
with simple vertical board cladding used in large, smooth planes. Brick and stonework are
simple, unornamented, and used in rectilinear masses and planes.
CONTEXT AND CHARACTERISTIC OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE

87. Emphasis on honesty of materials: Wood is often stained rather than painted to express its
natural character. In many cases exterior wood is also stained so that the texture and
character of the wood can be expressed.
Relationship between interior spaces and sites: Use of large expanses of glass in effect
brings the building’s site into the building, taking advantage of dramatic views and natural
landscaping.
Emphasis on open, flowing interior spaces: Living spaces are no longer defined by walls,
doors and hallways. Living, dining and kitchen spaces tend to flow together as part of one
contiguous interior space, reflecting a more casual and relaxed way of life.
Generous use of glass and natural light: Windows are no longer portholes to the outside,
but large expanses of floor to ceiling glass providing dramatic views and introducing natural
light deep into the interior of homes.
Use of sun and shading to enhance human comfort: The best modern homes are efficient.
They are oriented to take advantage of nature’s forces to provide passive solar heating in
the winter, while long overhangs and recessed openings provide shading to keep homes
cool in the summer.
CONTEXT AND CHARACTERISTIC OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE

88. Pyramid of the Louvre Museum in Paris by
I.M. Pei (1983–89)

89. Auditorium of the University of Technology, Helsinki,
by Alvar Aalto (1964)
Sainte Marie de La Tourette in France by Le
Corbusier (1956–60)
Interior of the Luis Barragán House and Studio in
Mexico City, by Luis Barragan (1948)
East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in
Washington, D.C., by I M. Pei (1978)