Architecture: A Very Short Introduction

Steel-reinforced concrete devised in 1892 by the Belgian engineer François Hennebique (1842–1921)

Art Nouveau: Métro entrance surrounds, Paris, France (1899–1905), using prefabricated cast-iron panels; architect: Hector Guimard (1867–1942) (Figure 21)

Machine-drawn cylinder glass first produced in USA (1903)

First real skyscraper: Woolworth Building, New York (1910–13); architect: Cass Gilbert (1850–1934). This was the tallest building in the world until 1930.

Chicago Tribune Tower, Chicago, Illinois (1923–5); architects: John Mead Howells (1868–1959) and Raymond Hood (1881–1934) (Figure 20)

Schröder house, Utrecht, Netherlands (1924); architect: Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964) (Figure 9)

Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau, Paris, France (1925); architect: Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, 1887–1965)

Villa Savoye, Poissy, France (1928–30); architect: Le Corbusier (1887–1965)

Empire State Building, New York (1929–31); architect: Shreve, Lamb and Harmon

Falling Water, Bear Run, Pennsylvania (1936–9); architect: Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) (Figure 10)

Seagram Building, Manhattan, New York City (1954–8); architect: Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) and Philip Johnson (born 1906) (Figure 18)

Chandigarh, Punjab, India (1950–65); architect: Le Corbusier (1887–1965) (Figure 6)

Opera House, Sydney, Australia (1957–73); architect: Jorn Utson (born 1918) (Figure 19)

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (1977); architects: Renzo Piano (born 1937) and Richard Rogers (born 1933) (Figure 25)

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (1997); architect: Frank Gehry (born 1929) (Figure 24)

Glossary

Baroque: This is a stylistic development of classical architecture, where the building is overlaid with ornamental work, often including statuary and illusionistic painted murals and ceilings. It developed in 16th-century Italy, and was widespread throughout Europe in the 17th. The most floridly grand style of architecture. See Rococo.

broken pediment: a pediment with a gap in the middle.

cella: the enclosed room in a classical temple.

CIAM: Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne (international congresses of modern architecture), a series of meetings held between 1928 and 1956, dominated by Le Corbusier, at which resounding declarations were made in an attempt to determine what the agenda for modern architecture should be.

classical: 1. pertaining to ancient Greece and Rome: classical architecture is in a style derived (ultimately) from the architecture of ancient Greece and Rome; 2. specifically of Greek architecture: pertaining to the 5th century BC.

clerestory: A clerestory (pronounced ‘clear-story’) window is a highlevel window, especially in a church.

Constructivism: a revolutionary movement in Russian art and architecture in which abstract geometric shapes predominated, as did the colours black, white and red.

Deconstructivism: This was a term fashionably applied to architecture in the 1990s, deriving from Constructivism on one hand, and Deconstructionist philosophy on the other. It was the name for the style of philosophy was coined by Jacques Derrida, who was little understood. There were two ways to pass as a Deconstructivist; either by designing buildings that looked as if they might be falling apart, or by designing buildings that were accompanied by texts that sounded like high-powered philosophy. In popular usage now ‘to deconstruct’ means ‘to analyse’.

Doric: This was the most severe of the Greek orders, and the first to develop. The other ‘canonic’ orders were to be called Ionic and Corinthian, but in addition there were idiosyncratic local variants. The Romans extended the range, and they were codified by Vitruvius and then in pattern books from the Renaissance.

eclectic: in more than one style; from the Latin word for ‘to select’, suggesting a range of interchangeable stylistic choices.

entablature: the beam-like part of a classical temple that runs horizontally across above the columns.

frieze: This is part of the entablature. In more ornamented buildings it is distinguished by having sculpted panels (in a Doric frieze) or a run of continuous sculpted decoration. It is also a horizontal run of decoration applied to a wall.

Gothic: This style of architecture, particularly church architecture, used in the later medieval period, originally developed in the 12th century. It replaced Romanesque. It is characterized by pointed arches and large expanses of stained glass.

keystone: This is the topmost block of stone in an arch, often picked out for decorative and symbolic purposes. It is sometimes taken to be the most important stone in the arch, but actually it would collapse if any one of them were to be removed.