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Prior to World War II, the Prairie style, the
International style, and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright had gained only
limited acceptance in an America dominated by traditional architectural
styles. It was into this America, whose architectural tastes were
generally historically oriented, that European architects and landscape
architects introduced European Modernism at the beginning of World War
II. Most notable of these immigrants were the Germans, Walter Gropius
and Mies van der Rohe, and the Swiss architect, Le Corbusier. The ideas
of the European Modernists and those of American architects already
working in a Modernist vocabulary developed in tandem, with the
Europeans exercising the most influence over this new architecture.
Gropius, van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, and others not only practiced
Modernist and International style architecture in the United States,
they also taught it. Their greatest impact was made in the late 1940s,
with the accumulated needs of building in the postwar years and the rush
of veteran enrollments in schools of architecture infiltrated by
European Modernism....With one accord the educational establishment gave
way to expatriate leadership, and in one school after another curricula
based on Beaux-Arts theory and practice were dealt the coup de grace.
This new Modernism spread to architecture schools across
the country and, though Colonial Revival remained the dominant style,
particularly for residential designs, Modernism entered American
architecture.
The basic tenets of Modernism emphasized function and
utility; abstract beauty, sculptural form, and symbolism; honesty in
materials and honesty; and the use of modern materials and technology as
well as an emphasis on the use of natural materials. Some of the most
prominent and outspoken proponents of various aspects of Modernism in
America were Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier,
Frank Lloyd Wright, Eric Mendelsohn, Rudolph Schindler, and Richard
Neutra.
Wright's Usonian houses, the term he coined in reference
to his simple and affordable, yet comfortable and technologically
advanced homes, were the predecessors of most of the post-war, Modernist
homes found in Charlotte. Hand-in-hand with his Usonian homes was his
concept of Broadacre City, a decentralized suburb which fused the
agrarian myth with the public's growing desire to leave the city. Wright
was also influential, along with architects such as Eero Saarinen, in
promoting an architecture that was more than functional purism.
Buildings such as Wright's Guggenheim Museum suggested "mystical and
psychological symbolism" in its sculptural form.
Walter Gropius was another architect influential in the
development of post-war Modernism in the United States. Gropius was the
director of the Bauhaus from 1919 to 1928. He arrived in America in 1937
to become the chairman of the Department of Architecture at Harvard. He
introduced the Bauhaus curriculum which, in a relatively short period of
time, transformed architecture schools across the nation, bringing the
International Style into the mainstream of architectural education, if
not completely into the mainstream of popular American culture.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe also came to the United States
from Germany in 1937. In 1938, he was named the director of the
Architecture Department at the Illinois Institute of Technology in
Chicago. Here, he began designing a new campus for the school where he
exercised his ideas about technology, universal functionality, and
anonymity of architecture. Of this campus design, Leland Roth wrote,
"From the comprehensive plan down to the smallest detail, a pervasive
abstract technological ideal governs all." In Chicago, Mies's Lakeshore
Drive Apartments (1948-1951) are composed of twenty-one foot bays which
create two towers that are each three by five bays. Veneer I-beams are
applied to the exterior to create a symbolic structure, brace the skin,
and add a third dimension to the building. "The Lake Shore apartments
became the paradigm of aloof, anonymous glass boxes that began to appear
in every American city, beginning with Bunshaft's Lever House." Mies
"viewed architecture as an expression of the order and reason that are
embodied in structure, which in turn, is dependent on science and the
technology of the time. . . He admonished his contemporaries: 'All forms
not dictated by structure should be suppressed.'"
Such Modernism was introduced to North Carolina chiefly
through the experimental Black Mountain College near Asheville and the
School of Design at North Carolina State College (now University). Black
Mountain was established in 1933 by John Andrew Rice and other former
professors from Rollins College in Winter Park Florida. That same year,
artist Josef Albers came to the new school to develop art and
architecture programs similar to those at the Bauhaus. He was followed
by many former Bauhaus artists, professors, and students.
In 1937, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer were
commissioned to produce plans for a group of buildings at Black Mountain
College. However, these buildings were not constructed due to
fund-raising difficulties. Instead, a simplified version of Gropius and
Breuer's concept was carried out between 1940 and 1944 under A. Lawrence
Kocher. Kocher was a former managing editor of the Architectural
Record and joined the Black Mountain faculty in 1938. Gropius and
Breuer visited on several other occasions, and in 1948, Buckminster
Fuller taught in the school's Summer Art Institute. The school closed in
1956.
As stated in the section examining the context of
architecture, Modernism holds several principles, of which some or all
were advocated by various architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter
Gropius, and Mies van der Rohe. These tenets include an emphasis on
function and utility, a concern with structure, the use of modern
materials and technology, and interests in abstract beauty, sculptural
form, and symbolism.
Through the use of these principles, the Modernist
style draws heavily from the International style, Miesian concepts, and
Wrightian ideas. As with any style, Modernism is applied in a broad
range of strengths, from minimal touches such as the use of deep eaves
or ribbon windows, to high-style in which the building exhibits most of
the style's characteristics. The style is also commonly applied in a
streamlined form resembling Art Moderne, or in a futuristic, Jetson-like
style, often incorporating space motifs. This variation is most commonly
applied to roadside commercial architecture, like gas stations or
drive-in restaurants.
Occurrence
Modernism concepts applied to residential
architecture occur most often in exclusive subdivisions and as in-fill
construction in older, established, high-end neighborhoods. It can also
be found on suburban homes outside of subdivisions. Modernism in its
less high-style application is to be found on homes in suburban
locations, usually in lower-end subdivisions, but rarely, or never, as
in-fill in older in-town neighborhoods.
Modernism, with high levels of Miesian influence, may
be used on commercial buildings in the traditional setting of downtown
and mid-town commercial zones. These buildings usually house offices,
and those located downtown conform to traditional set-backs and street
orientation. In addition to these traditional locales, during the
post-war years, commercial and industrial architecture spread out along
the newly constructed, large, four-lane highways radiating out from
cities, or encircling cities. These buildings will not only exhibit
Modernist style, but they will also have a modern, car-accommodating
form, and will rarely be more than two-stories high.
Identifying Features
Unlike
Italianate or
Queen Anne, Modernism is not a well-defined, commonly understood
style. The following is a list of features to facilitate the
identification of Modernist architecture. This list draws on previous
attempts at defining the style, tenets of post-war Modernist architects,
and the surveyors' observations as they have documented Charlotte's
Modernism.
Roof: flat or low pitch hip; churches have large, sweeping forms
Walls: contrasting materials and textures, or
smooth, blank walls; office buildings generally have an emphasis on the
grid
Windows: "special" windows, such as ribbon,
picture, or corner windows; usually a marked use of large expanses of
glass on one section of the building, most often the rear, with small
windows, if any, on other sections of the building
Landscape Integration: sliding glass doors,
patios and outdoor living spaces, large expanses of glass, courtyards,
horizontal orientation and integration of natural landscape features
into design, use of natural materials
Form: horizontal with simple, clean lines, form
following function, exposed structure, asymmetry, de-emphasis or lack of
articulation at main entrance, and lack of ornamentation.
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