According to Bemis (1936) “A new conception of the structure of our modern houses is needed, better adapted not only to the social conditions of our day but also to the modern means of production: factories, machinery, technology and research”. Albert Bemis, US housing manufacturer in the early twentieth century has a vested interest in using technology to advance new concepts in the design of houses. Nevertheless he points to the important relationship of the use of technology in the structural design of housing. However, it is difficult to estimate how far changes in technology were responsible for changes in the design of housing as much of the evidence that has been sourced argues that the social, political and economic environments played a significant role in contributing to these design changes. These environments impacted on the urban form and fabric to unify with technology to create change in the design of housing.
The aim of this essay is to show that between Ancient Times and Modern Times the form of housing, as in a structure providing shelter, has not changed but the design and features aspect of housing has been changed by technology. The examples of Athens from 500BCE – 400BCE, Paris from 1850-1900 and Chicago from 1900-1930 have been chosen and a time period allocated to each geographical area which will give clarity to the argument and supporting evidence as there are a number of important technologies to be considered which impacted on the social, political and economic environments. In Athens I will pay particular attention to the study of houses within the polis, in Paris attention to tenement housing and in Chicago I will be looking at pre-fabricated houses. Using sources predominately from course...
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...nent sewerage system and elegant inner city apartments.
The progress of transport technology alone has been responsible for many spin offs such as sanitation, electricity, automobilization and highways. Shipping of limited speed and capacity initially brought migrants into Athens but in the nineteenth century with technological advances in transport it meant that very many more migrants could reach Paris and Chicago at a time of their major redevelopment. These technologies had a major effect on the design of housing. The underlying influence in the urban development of these cities was order and simplicity and the need for each of them to display their wealth and civic pride through buildings and open spaces and Paris and Chicago harped back to the Rome who in turn had aesthetically improved on the Athenian Greek form and fabric of architecture and polis.
Dell Upton is a historian and renowned professor of architecture and Urbanism at the University of California. He has published several books on architecture; one of them is “Architecture in the United States”, published in 1998. In this book, Upton analyzes the architecture of the United States in different aspects, such as nature, money and art, thus depicting the great variety in architectural forms, and how throughout the decades, different interests have lead communities to different ways of building, different purposes and materials, thus reflecting their way of thinking and their relationship with the environment. By exploring so many different architectural styles, Upton reveals the great diversity and richness that has always, and continues to characterize American architecture.
Usonian Utopian Houses was the invention by Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect (1867-1959). Based around the principals of having a small and simple yet stylish house that was affordable and designed for the middle-class people of American. Wright also believed that Usonian houses were a type of architecture more than a style of house, he was quoted to have said, “Style is important, a style is not”. The last 20 years of Wright’s life was when he was focused of the designs of Usonian houses, starting with “Jacob’s House” (shown on photo on Left) located in Madison, Wisconsin in 1937. Less than 20 years later in the 1950’s Wright had designed a few hundred of the Usonian houses and had given them the nickname “Usonian Automatics”.
During the last half of the 1800’s and the early part of the 1900’s urban population in western Europe made enormous increases. During this period France’s overall population living in cities increased twenty percent, and in Germany the increase was almost thirty percent. This great flow of people into cities created many problems in resource demands and patterns of urban life. These demands created a revolution in sanitation and medicine. Part of this revolution was the redesigning of cities. G.E. Baron Von Haussmann was the genius behind the new plans for the city of Paris.
With the influx of people to urban centers came the increasingly obvious problem of city layouts. The crowded streets which were, in some cases, the same paths as had been "naturally selected" by wandering cows in the past were barely passing for the streets of a quarter million commuters. In 1853, Napoleon III named Georges Haussmann "prefect of the Seine," and put him in charge of redeveloping Paris' woefully inadequate infrastructure (Kagan, The Western Heritage Vol. II, pp. 564-565). This was the first and biggest example of city planning to fulfill industrial needs that existed in Western Europe. Paris' narrow alleys and apparently random placement of intersections were transformed into wide streets and curving turnabouts that freed up congestion and aided in public transportation for the scientists and workers of the time. Man was no longer dependent on the natural layout of cities; form was beginning to follow function. Suburbs, for example, were springing up around major cities. This housing arrangem...
However, the success of the building schemes relied on the construction methods and innovations that are now attributed as bei...
During this era, there were also new technologies that were used. One of the new improvements was the assembly line. This helped make the workers more efficient, therefore allowing them to make the company more money. Due to the increase of wealth coming to many industries, the country witnessed an increased flow of immigrants who came into the country in search of better jobs and better ways of living. This caused rapid changes in cities which lead to enhanced architectural and transportation features.
It will discuss the different types of dwellings throughout recorded human history from the perspective of how art and culture influences building design. This will fulfill my own curiosity to understand the different influences on homebuilding and design over the years and how people have dealt with these changes.
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...
In conclusion, although the development of modern architecture and the intervention of computer technology to advocate this development, the contemporary architectural outcomes have became more complex and complicated with potential formulation problems. As a result, the new architecture theories came to put boundary lines between being in the range of these problems and producing elegant modern built environment. The seduction of computer-produced form also enhances architects to involve in seeking for new theories to develop the discipline and work to combine formulization with materialization. Finally, some of these theories are accepted and some other still a controversial aspect in architecture.
Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier are two very prominent names in the field of architecture. Both architects had different ideas concerning the relationship between humans and the environment. Their architectural styles were a reflection of how each could facilitate the person and the physical environment. Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, is considered one of the most important buildings in the history of American architecture and Le Corbusier s Villa Savoye helped define the progression that modern architecture was to take in the 20th Century. Both men are very fascinating and have strongly influenced my personal taste for modern architecture. Although Wright and Corbusier each had different views on how to design a house, they also had similar beliefs. This paper is a comparison of Frank Lloyd Wright‘s and Le Corbusier ‘s viewpoints exhibited through their two prominent houses, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House and Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye.
Buildings reflect the values and ideas of society within periods. The role of architecture in shaping society and vice versa largely depends on the period in question and who or what affects first. The Enlightenment, and the subsequent period the Post-Enlightenment, reflect the biggest change for current ideas regarding architecture and society and current theories. At the same time, individual identities and understanding of society, progress and truth all follow a similar evolving path. It is during this dramatic shift in thinking that the role of architecture to society and the idea of progress and truth becomes a more complex relationship. How this relationship works and its implications is based on the theory that there is a direct link between the two. One cannot develop without the other. Who leads whom and to what extent they influence each other is evident in architectural trends and pioneering works by architects such as Robert Venturi, Frank Gehry amongst others.
Jencks believes “the glass-and-steel box has become the single most used form in Modern Architecture and it signifies throughout the world ‘office building’” (27). Thus, modern architecture is univalent in terms of form, in other words it is designed around one out of a few basic values using a limited number of materials and right angles. In...
Human beings are susceptible to the force of nature. They had to make shelter for themselves. Material was one of the most basic tools to create shelter. By development of building construction, selection and use of materials also developed. The relationship between the architecture and the materials before invention of modern materials was simple and generally naturally [1]; in the past, architects always use tradition materials according their experimental skills. For choosing structural materials, they had attention to important factors such as availability (local materials) and harmony with climate and culture [2], although this way was forward with feedback. But this relationship was not continuing simply.
Constantly judged and evolving, the practice of architecture is forever plagued by the future. The future of people, of culture, technology and its resulting implications on the built environment that more often than not, outlives their creators. Much of the conversation surrounding this future architecture currently hinges itself on the creation of new experiences, forms and spatial relationships brought about by technological innovation.
Transportation systems and the routes they use have greatly influenced both how and where people live. Reliable transportation allows a population to expand throughout a country's territory and to live comfortably in remote areas far from factories and farms. The growth and expansion of the United States were directly related to the means of transportation available at the time. The more compact cities of the U.S. eastern seaboard are the result of early human- and animal-based transportation systems that allowed only short trips. The more sprawling cities of the western United States are the result of an automobile-based transportation system that permits much longer travel distances.