ARCH162

The Miller House Midcentury Modern   Richard Neutra highly influenced the customization of the house owners when designing their houses, so much so that it limits the market of future owners because it might not fit their style of life. The owner of this particular house was Mrs. Grace Lewis Miller, between August 1936 and February 1937 Richard Neutra and Grace Miller exchanged over fifty letters which discussed every step of her daily schedule. All her routines and habits are reflected in the house because Neutra listened to all her requirements and suggestions and followed them religiously. The house was tailor made for Grace Miller and her life. The home was made up of two pieces as it was to fit the roles of a winter home and an exercise studio. The budget for the house was merely five thousand dollars, but her requirements were basic so it wasn't a difficult endeavour. Grace Miller requested for the home to match her style as “Miller was a teacher of the Mensendieck Syste...

TWA Terminal The TWA Terminal, designed by Eero Saarinen was more than just a terminal, it was a testament to aviation at the time. The building itself was designed and built of concrete after the Second World War. In his attempt of the terminal, “Eero Saarinen sought to capture the sensation of flight in all aspects of the building, from a fluid open interior, to the wing-like concrete shell of the roof” (Archdaily). It was after the Second World War that commercial air travel had become available to more than just the higher class people. The design of the terminal came from the Port of New York Authority’s request for a terminal city. This terminal city would require each major airline to operate an individual terminal. Through Port Authority’s request, TWA approached Eero Saarinen as the architect for this project. TWA wanted a terminal that would “provide TWA with advertising, publicity, and attention”, and Saarinen took the public attention very seriously considering the site w...

Unite D’Habitation by Le Corbusier was located on Boulevard Michelet, Marseille, France. It was the first large scale project he had ever taken part of as the housing became a necessity after World War II. Due to the bombings on France during the second World War, hundreds of families were left homeless. Le Corbusier was tasked with designing a multi-family residential building, and it would be the first of a series that focused on the ideas of community that would come together in a “vertical garden city”. When completed in 1952, the project would house nearly 1,600 residents. At the time, if one was to design for so many people they would stretch the building out but the site was located on a mixed use, modernist, residential high rise neighborhood. Le Corbusier places the communal areas of the project on the roof, these included places to shop and play. The finished roof was a large garden terrace that included a running track, a club, a kindergarten, a gym, and a shallow pool. The...

The Raiffeisen Bank or the Looshaus building was the result of an architectural competition arranged by Leopold Goldman and Emanuel Aufricht. The building would sit directly across from the Imperial Palace home to Franz Josef who was the Emperor of Austria at the time. The imperial house, also known as the Hofburg was a building of baroque style which has highly ornamental. The Looshaus building completely ignored the history of the surrounding area. It was an early modern building that rejected the ornamental style of the Hofburg across the city square. The building was split into two distinctive halves in which one housed the public, while the other housed the private. The bottom half housed the public program and this half would amplify ornament. The upper half of the building would house the private program but this half was plain, there was no ornament in the residential half. Instead the top half of the building focuses on juxtaposing solid and void. This distinct separation ...

Falling water was designed in 1935 by Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was designed as a weekend home for the family of Edgar J Kaufmann Sr. The house was built in the mountains of Mill Run, Pennsylvania. The design of Falling water was designed to be elevated over the waterfall on the site. It was constructed out of sandstone from the surrounding area as well as other materials quarried from the site. The family originally wanted the house to overlook the waterfall on site but Wright wanted the waterfall to be more than just a view, instead he proposed the building would sit on top of the waterfall. By doing so the waterfall would become part of the Kaufmann’s daily lives. The flowing of the water would be heard twenty four seven in the house allowing the presence of nature to be heard at any point of time in the house. The house’s design is a series of strong vertical and horizontal lines creating terraces that appear to be floating by cantilevering over one another. One way in whic...

The Emperor of Austria, Franz Josef, was merely the age of twenty seven at the time when he decided to expand the city of Vienna, and in order to do so he held an international contest that was announced on the 30th of January in order to decide who would expand the inner city. Two architects came in first place and worked together in order to complete the Vienna Opera House, the first of the two was August Sicard von Sicardsburg, he designed the structure of the opera house. The second architect was Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior of the building. The construction began in 1861 and finished in 1869. This would be the first opera built in Vienna and although there were two architects working on the project, neither of the two architects survived to see the opening of the opera house. Eduard van der Null committed suicide and August Sicard von Sicardsburg died of a stroke soon after. The original structure of the building has been preserved since 1869. This original facad...

The New St. Peter’s Basilica The New St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City was designed as a three aisles Latin cross containing a dome at the intersection which is located over the high alter that shelters the shrine to St.Peter the apostle. The original idea of the church came from Pope Nicholas V when the walls of the old St. Peter's basilica were found covered in dust. Upon the discovery in 1492, the Pope ordered Bernardo Rossellino to construct a new apse. The construction came to a halt when the Pope died. The responsibility later fell to Paul II. Paul II entrusted the project to Giuliano da Sangallo in 1470. It wasn't until 1506 that the first stone of the new basilica was laid. The new basilica was designed to form a Greek Cross, but under the switches in control, the Greek cross evolved into a Latin cross with three aisles separated by pillars. "After the sack of Rome in 1527, Paul III (1534–49) entrusted the undertaking to Antonio da Sangallo the Younger,...

February 2018 ARCH 162-M12 Palace of Versailles (Versailles, France); NeoClassicism and Classicism The Palace of Versailles was the epitome of the rise of Neoclassicism in France. The Palace was originally a hunting lodge for Louis XIII because of the wildlife roaming in the uncultivated lands. This hunting lodge was used for the king and a few of his friends to stay during hunting trips. Louis XIV, the successor on the other hand begun to made the palace what it is known as today. As he ruled France for seventy two years, his mission was to centralize the government of France and he did so around the Louis XIII hunting lodge. For the lodge to become the center of France’s government, it was forced to go under huge renovations in order to make it bigger and better. He surrounded the lodge with a palace containing north and south wings, while at the same time surrounding his new palace with buildings for his ministries. To the west of his palace, Louis XIV had gardens and fo...

Washington Monument Robert Mills originally designed the Washington Monument which was later completed by Thomas Casey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The project was designed during the Greek Revival period as a memorial in order to honor George Washington in the center of our nation's capital. Robert Mills began the first phase of construction in 1848 and finished in 1854. The first phase of construction by Robert Mills was under private funding, where they had difficulties raising funds. The cornerstone was laid on July 4th 1984. “ Builders commenced work on the blue gneiss foundation, an 80-foot square step pyramid. With the substructure completed, the builders then proceeded to the above-ground marble structure, 55 feet, 1.5 inches square at the base, using a system of pulleys, block and tackle systems, and a mounted derrick to hoist and place the stones, inching the structure skyward. By 1854, the monument had reached a height of 156 feet above ground”. The Archite...

The Futuro House The Futuro House was designed by the Finnish Architect Matti Suuronen in 1968 as a Ski Chalet. Although the project was originally designed as a Ski Chalet, it was advertised to the public as a prefabricated home that could be both assembled and installed in any area on any topography. The project that resulted in the futuro house needed to be a small chalet that could be moved from its initial site if needed. So it was constructed from plastic with the main loads on the house being supported by a metal ring and four legs that could be changed to up to a twenty degree angle. Making this building easily interchangeable from site to site. The plastic material that the building is constructed of is a fiberglass-reinforced plastic. By using this material, Matti Suuronen significantly reduced the weight of the house and simultaneously acted as a strong insulator. By using this fiberglass-reinforced plastic, Suuronen was easily able to mold the shape into the curved form...

The Penguin Pool The Penguin Zoo designed by Berthold Lubetkin and the Tecton Group is located in the London Zoo at Regents Park  in London, England. The project begun in 1933 and finished in 1934. This architectural structure is an important piece of the British modernist architecture movement. The penguin pool was one of the first structures to begin to explore and demonstrate the structural potential of reinforced concrete and how it can become expressive. The project consisted of a stretched elliptical pool, a deep diving tank enclosed by glass, and nesting areas around the perimeter. This design was based on a concept of behaviourism. This concept was a popular philosophy of psychology in the 1930s as it claimed that the behavior of animals is a result of their external environments. To incorporate this into the design process, Berthold Lubetkin and the Tecton Group wanted to mimic the natural habitat of the penguins to provide an acceptable environment while creating a s...