Neoclassicism has played an under-recognized role in the twentieth-century development of modern British colonial cities. Disseminated throughout Europe and the U.S. from the late nineteenth century according to a curriculum codified at the Ecole de Beaux Arts, Neoclassical architectural principles later arrived in China through architects who studied abroad. Since the late 1920s, according to the historian Wang Haoyu, Neoclassical architectural tradition had been “accepted as the dominant architectural philosophy in twentieth-century China.” Chinese architects who emigrated to Hong Kong during and after the Second World War, as Wang pointed out, led Hong Kong's transformation into the globalised metropolis that it is today. Meanwhile, many …show more content…
How Neoclassical architectural principles had informed Hong Kong’s architectural and urban design has consistently been overlooked. A visible gap has since then emerged in the study of the contemporary relevance of the Classical Roman architectural tradition: scholarship on the Beaux-arts’ legacy focus mainly on nationalist buildings in the People’s Republic of China. Research into the adaptation and translation of Neoclassical architectural principles found in British colonial Hong Kong architecture is sorely absent. There has also been an outsized emphasis on research into the emergence of Modernist architecture in Hong Kong as part of the dissemination of Bauhaus’ teachings, through Walter Gropius’ disciples Richard Paulick and Huang Zhou Shen in Shanghai. Why has the influence of Classical Roman architectural tradition been so thoroughly left out of the historiography of Modernist architecture in Hong Kong? What is at stake as a result of this …show more content…
First, Hong Kong architects’ influence on British architectural cultural will be examined. A case study may be the 1927 pavilion design competition won by Cumine at the Architectural Association in London with a plan that drew on Palladian principles. A second component will be to look at Modern Italian architecture’s influence on Hong Kong’s twentieth-century architectural legacy. This inquiry builds upon the research by historian Gu Daqing who observed that the 1935 International Congress of Architects, held in Rome, offered Chinese architects “an opportunity to see the changes in Europe under the influence of modern architecture.” Finally, I will look at how the lessons from Modernist construction in Hong Kong travelled internationally, through the architects, colonial governmental exchanges, and the architectural
In his opinionated book, From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe describes his views on the way architecture has framed our modern world. He frames his book long essay with an excerpt from America the Beautiful, "O Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, has there ever been another place on earth where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested as within thy blessed borders today? . . . Every child goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse . . . Every new $900,000 summer house in the north woods of Michigan or on the shore of Long Island has so many pipe railings, ramps, hob-tread metal spiral stairways, sheets of industrial plate glass, banks of tungsten-halogen lamps, and white cylindrical shapes, it looks like an insecticide refinery." (Wolfe 1) This quote, in short, is the premise of his critique. He does not like the way modern architecture
In this essay I will discuss what I’ve learned about Australian architecture, a brief history, and most of all, a major influence to the Australian style, Harry Seidler. Australia is a country that has only been around almost 100 years, a short time compared to other countries like America that has been around for almost 200 years. With Australia being a young country, it’s easy to see that it is still discovering the Australian style. In 1890 the architect James Izett and Howard Joseland raised the question, ‘What, in the first place, must guide us in the development of an Australian type (Johnson 1980, p. 2)?’ Both seemed to believe that climate was the answer. Another man named James Green thought that public and urban buildings should be seen as one style and domestic architecture as another. A popular view was that the old, ‘conservative’ Bri...
It is the new decade after the end of world war two and modernism is a well-established practice. Its pioneers and spearheads are prevalent figures looming over the new architects and designers who are trying to make their mark in the shadows of such historically influential people. With new technologies and materials emerging from the world wars the next era of modernism had started to evolved, bringing with it philosophies and ideas which seemed far removed from those of the pioneers of modernism “What emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s was an expanding synthesis of questions utterly removed from the confident statements of the pioneers.”(Spade 1971,10) Two significant buildings were designed in the 50's, both of them for educational institutes and to house students of architecture, there were both designed in completely different styles and methods. The first is Ludwig Mies van der Rohes' Crown Hall, finished in 1956 and designed as a part of a campus master plan for the Illinois Institute of technology in Chicago. Mies' design for Crown Hall is one of his most realised expressio...
M. Fazio, M. Moffett, L. Wodehouse, A World History of Architecture, (London, 2008), p. 434-435
In the early twentieth century the Modern movement of architecture and industrial design came about. This movement was a reaction to the change within society and the introduction of new technologies. The ever changing world and technology meant artists to evolve alongside the changing world and this kind of ‘industrial revolution’ that was happening. Modernists ideas have seeped into every form of design especially architecture and design. Although most modernists insisted they were not following any style in particular, their work is instantly
Throughout history, architecture has been employed in the service of politics, as symbols of the state. Architecture is therefore shaped by the national traditions in the pursuit of projects of identity, modernity, power, and prestige. A building is not merely a walled structure, but a metaphor for national ideology as it embodies the civic life of the citizens that it houses, as well as the ideals of the nation within which it resides. This paper will explore three varying architectural periods and examine the interaction between nationalism and the building styles that developed either as a means to express it.
Hong Kong has always remained a very unique city, one which is said to have ‘a Western past, an Eastern future’. Since its colonisation by the British in the 1860s, it has maintained to a very large extent its Chinese identity and its connection to its Motherland, while at the same time, has frequent contact with the Western world, politically, economically, and culturally. Hong Kong’s unique position has made the city a vibrant international metropolis that acts as a bridge between East and West. Yet after it was returned to China in 1997, this former British colony has been constantly reassessing its British past, struggling to find its new position and redefining its identity.
Post modern architecture: A revival of architectural elements of the past or a version of aestheticism?
The essence of modern architecture lays in a remarkable strives to reconcile the core principles of architectural design with rapid technological advancement and the modernization of society. However, it took “the form of numerous movements, schools of design, and architectural styles, some in tension with one another, and often equally defying such classification, to establish modernism as a distinctive architectural movement” (Robinson and Foell). Although, the narrower concept of modernism in architecture is broadly characterized by simplification of form and subtraction of ornament from the structure and theme of the building, meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose; the visual expression of the structure, particularly the visual importance of the horizontal and vertical lines typical for the International Style modernism, the use of industrially-produced materials and adaptation of the machine aesthetic, as well as the truth to materials concept, meaning that the true nat...
The reason for this piece is to attempt a comparison between two architectural examples that employ classical design from different stylistic eras of architectural history. The two styles I've chosen to discuss are the Renaissance and Baroque periods. An understanding of classical architecture needs to be made, as it is the fundamental style of any period that developed architecturally
In China, urbanization is at dramatic pace but in static patterns. This leads to the Chinese cities losing their own styles, and being built in the static architecture modes which are introduced from developed countries. Moreover, the traditional architecture cultures are being eroded by the static modern architecture patterns. Some of them are even on the boundary of extinction. Recently, architects in China have shown an increasing interest in the issue of traditional architecture in the modern era. This paper studies on the causes and effects of the erosion of the modernity to the traditional architecture and the possible solutions. It will be divided into three parts: the first part focuses on the causes and effects; the second part presents the combination of modern architecture and traditional culture; the third part concerns the cultivation enhancement of Chinese architects.
A manifesto by definition is “a declaration of policy and aims” so taken from this description, an architectural manifesto would be the ideas of the architect. The new project for history is to come up with our own Manifesto, before one can do this, research needs to be done and examples must be looked at. So this essay will look at the process of creating a manifesto and the essay will also discuss other architectural manifestos which were used as inspiration for me to create my own manifesto.
Jencks briefly explains post-modern aesthetics from their modernist predecessors’ and pinpoints the instant of modernism’s death, writing “Happily, we can date the death of Modern Architecture to a precise moment in time… Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 15, 1972 at 3:32 p.m. (or thereabouts)...” (23). Unlike Jencks, literary scholars talk about the first, most original or famous representatives of modernism, but they completely avoid pinpointing an ultimate end to the movement. Due to architecture’s visual character and Jencks’ early, authoritative, and internationally read scholarship, the differences between modern and post-modern aesthetics are often clearer in architecture than in literature. Architecture provides a helpful visual counterpoint for modern and post-modern aesthetics in literature. According to him, architectural post-modernism favours pluralism, complexity, double coding, and historical contextualism.
In chapter one of Frampton’s writing, “Cultural Transformations,” he describes how changes in society create new architectural styles due to new cultural needs. Frampton starts by explaining the relationship between man and nature in different architectural styles. Man and nature were distinct entities; however, for the sake or ornamentation in architecture, the two were constantly combined. This idea soon changes with Baroque architecture where man and nature started to be distinctly separate, and this later leads to the Neoclassical style which shows an increased desire for man to have control over nature (Frampton 1). Neoclassicism essentially stems from a new cultural formation that grew from the life styles of declining aristocracy and the rising bourgeoisie, and this transition leads
Every person with a job, no matter what occupation, makes an impact on society in some way, shape, or form. Some people leave their legacy by defending people in court, some saving lives in a hospital, and others planning and building works of construction. These planners have a large-scale effect on everybody in society and have an eye for detail, as well as enjoy using mathematics to ensure proper construction. That is why I have chosen architecture to be my career. An architect is a person who designs buildings and supervises their construction. A broader view of an architect is a person who is responsible for inventing or realizing a particular idea or project. Architecture varies from the pillars of the Greek Parthenon, to peoples’ homes. I often find myself marveling over the design of large-scale building projects such as the skyscrapers of New York City. Most of these buildings belong to a myriad of well-known companies such as Chase and Toshiba. That is why I have particularly chosen to become a commercial architect.