From Bauhaus to Our House - Part Two

The twentieth century, which came to be called the American century, was the period of time when America became the richest and wealthiest nation in the world. The architecture reigning at this time, worker housing, was not as the concept may intend made for workers – on the contrary – this was a style that served the purpose in the richer families because this type of furniture etcetera was seen as a symbol of wealth and privilege. This International Style was also extremely uncomfortable, and became known simply as modern architecture’ (p68). With time this style developed into what we today call minimalism, and Philip Johnson was the biggest inspiration to this movement with his guide lines ‘less is more’ and ‘my architecture is almost nothing’ – minimalism (p75).

Another early architect in America who executed this type of architecture was Edward Durell Stone. He later developed his style to a more luxurious kind of design. Morris Lapidus and John Portman worked hard to capture this American wealthy era that followed the Second World War, and their work became very big and important for the nation.

In 1966 a new way was approached within architecture by Robert Venturi. Instead of the earlier famous expression ‘less is more’, Venturi said ‘less is bore’ and he wanted to replace the minimalistic traces and replaced these ideas with ‘messiness’ and ‘hybrid’ elements, he preferred ‘complexity and contradiction in architecture’ (p107). He also praised the pop artists of his time, as he saw them bringing back some kind of a connection between art and popular culture.

After the massive recession in the 1970s, the business structure of America got broken down, and the building boom that swept over the country during the 1960s met a hard time as architects and similar employees lost their jobs and projects.

Following this period the Rationalists were born, led by Aldo Rossi, Ricardo Bofill, Leon and Robert Krier. They believed that the true and pure way of modernism was to go back to first principles (p127). Towards the end of the 1970s a new type of architecture was developed, where the two different types of modern architecture were combined to a single entity.

Like I mentioned in my previous post about the same book, I found it complicated, but also stuffed with lots of information that is very meaty to take in when you, like me, have no previous knowledge about the subject. Reading this book gave me a bit more insight in architecture and how it has come to form, especially, America. My interest in architecture has not really grown, but I would like to think that it is always a good thing to know a little about a lot when you are a journalist so that you have got an overall picture of what is going on around you. Hopefully this topic will get clearer to me once we are having lectures and seminars concerning architecture, Tom Wolfe and his literature.