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Early Modernism Architecture

Early modernism in architecture emerged in the late 19th/early 20th century due to revolutions in construction materials and technologies like cast iron, plate glass, and reinforced concrete. This allowed for stronger, lighter, and taller buildings. Notable early examples include the Crystal Palace (1851) and Auguste Perret's Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1912) which used reinforced concrete. In the U.S., Frank Lloyd Wright designed Prairie Houses like the Winslow House (1893-94) that rejected historical styles in favor of simple geometric forms inspired by the American landscape. Early skyscrapers also appeared, like the Home Insurance Building (1883), responding to urban growth.

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421 views5 pages

Early Modernism Architecture

Early modernism in architecture emerged in the late 19th/early 20th century due to revolutions in construction materials and technologies like cast iron, plate glass, and reinforced concrete. This allowed for stronger, lighter, and taller buildings. Notable early examples include the Crystal Palace (1851) and Auguste Perret's Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (1912) which used reinforced concrete. In the U.S., Frank Lloyd Wright designed Prairie Houses like the Winslow House (1893-94) that rejected historical styles in favor of simple geometric forms inspired by the American landscape. Early skyscrapers also appeared, like the Home Insurance Building (1883), responding to urban growth.

Uploaded by

Shraddha Kaushik
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EARLY MODERNISM ARCHITECTURE

ORIGIN

Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural style based upon new


and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced
concrete; the idea that form should follow function (functionalism); an embrace of minimalism;
and a rejection of ornament.

It emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II until
the 1980s, when it was gradually replaced as the principal style for institutional
and corporate buildings by postmodern architecture.

Modern architecture emerged at the end of the 19th century from revolutions in technology,
engineering and building materials, and from a desire to break away from historical architectural
styles and to invent something that was purely functional and new.

The revolution in materials came first, with the use of cast iron, drywall plate glass,
and reinforced concrete, to build structures that were stronger, lighter and taller. 

 The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 was an early


example of iron and plate glass construction.

The Crystal Palace


The Crystal Palace (1851) was one of the first buildings to have cast plate glass windows supported
by a cast-iron frame.

Early modernism in Europe (1900–1914)


At the end of the 19th century, a few architects began to challenge the traditional Beaux
Arts and Neoclassical styles that dominated architecture in Europe and the United States.
Architects also began to experiment with new materials and techniques, which gave them greater
freedom to create new forms. In 1903–1904 in Paris Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage began to
use reinforced concrete, previously only used for industrial structures, to build apartment
buildings.

Reinforced concrete, which could be molded into any shape, and which could create enormous
spaces without the need of supporting pillars, replaced stone and brick as the primary material
for modernist architects.

1. Auguste Perret built the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, a masterpiece of reinforced concrete


construction, with Art Deco sculptural bas-reliefs on the facade by Antoine Bourdelle. 

Théâtre des Champs-Élysées

[Link] Viennese architect Adolf Loos also began removing any ornament from his buildings.
His Steiner House, in Vienna (1910), was an example of what he called rationalist architecture; it
had a simple stucco rectangular facade with square windows and no ornament. 

Early American modernism (1890s–1914)


Wright set out to break all the traditional rules. He was particularly famous for his Prairie Houses,
including the Winslow House in River Forest, Illinois (1893–94); Arthur Heurtley House (1902)
and Robie House (1909); sprawling, geometric residences without decoration, with strong
horizontal lines which seemed to grow out of the earth, and which echoed the wide flat spaces of
the American prairie. His Larkin Building (1904–1906) in Buffalo, New York, Unity Temple (1905)
in Oak Park, Illinois and Unity Temple had highly original forms and no connection with historical
precedents.

The Arthur Heurtley House in Oak Park, Illinois (1902)


Winslow House in River Forest, Illinois (1893–94)

Robie House (1909)

Early skyscrapers

At the end of the 19th century, the first skyscrapers began to appear in the United States.

They were a response to the shortage of land and high cost of real estate in the center of the
fast-growing American cities, and the availability of new technologies, including fireproof steel
frames and improvements in the safety elevator invented by Elisha Otis in 1852. 

The first steel-framed "skyscraper", The Home Insurance Building in Chicago, was ten stories
high. It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney in 1883, and was briefly the tallest building in
the world. Louis Sullivan built another monumental new structure, the Carson, Pirie, Scott and
Company Building, in the heart of Chicago in 1904–06.

Home Insurance Building 


the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Building

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