Page plan · 13 pages

Written for: Architecture students and reading clubs

1. 1

   Modern buildings that changed the city

   • This long-read follows landmark early twentieth-century buildings, one modernist work per spread.
   • Each building is a case study in how architecture reshaped the modern city.
   • The works are linked on a single timeline so you can see ideas pass from one to the next.
   • It is written for architecture students and reading clubs who want to discuss, not just look.
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   The eight works placed on one timeline

   • Eight works sit on one timeline, each tied to a single architect.
   • The architects are Wright, Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies, Aalto, Gaudí, Sullivan and Rietveld.
   • Placing them in sequence shows overlaps and influences across countries.
   • Not every work is strictly modernist in style; some, like Gaudí's, point toward it from outside.
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   Reading order: one modernist work per spread

   • Each spread pairs one building with one idea worth discussing.
   • Read in the order given, or jump along the timeline by date.
   • Use each spread as a prompt for a club session or a studio critique.
   • The closing spreads draw the eight works together.
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   Wright: a house over a waterfall

   • Fallingwater is Frank Lloyd Wright's house cantilevered over a waterfall in Pennsylvania.
   • Stacked concrete terraces extend outward, echoing the rock ledges below.
   • The house is set into the landscape instead of looking at it from a distance.
   • It shows how organic architecture joins structure, site and nature.
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   Gropius: a school in glass

   • Walter Gropius designed the Bauhaus building in Dessau as a school for design.
   • Its glass curtain wall lets daylight into the workshops and exposes the structure.
   • Workshops, studios and classrooms are arranged as separate wings by function.
   • The building expresses the Bauhaus aim of uniting art, craft and industry.
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   Le Corbusier: a villa on columns

   • Villa Savoye, near Paris, is Le Corbusier's house lifted on slender columns (pilotis).
   • It illustrates his five points: pilotis, free plan, free facade, ribbon windows, roof garden.
   • A ramp leads the visitor up through the house as a planned walk.
   • The villa treats the house as a machine for living, in his famous phrase.
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   Mies: a pavilion of planes

   • Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion was built for the 1929 International Exposition.
   • Thin roof and wall planes slide past one another, defining space without enclosing it.
   • Polished stone, glass and chrome-clad columns carry the effect instead of ornament.
   • Its motto, less is more, sums up the pavilion's calm restraint.
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   Aalto: a sanatorium in the forest

   • Alvar Aalto's Paimio Sanatorium in Finland was designed as a healing instrument for patients.
   • Rooms face the sun and the surrounding pine forest for light and air.
   • Aalto designed details himself, including furniture such as the Paimio chair.
   • It shows a warmer, human-centered strand of modernism.
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   Gaudí: a church still rising

   • Antoni Gaudí's Sagrada Família in Barcelona is a church still under construction.
   • Its forms draw on nature, with columns that branch like trees.
   • Gaudí used hanging-chain models to work out catenary arches and vaults.
   • It reminds us that a landmark can take generations to build.
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    Sullivan: the tall office building

    • Louis Sullivan helped define the tall office building in American cities of the late nineteenth century.
    • His essay phrase form ever follows function became a modern slogan.
    • He treated the skyscraper like a column, with a base, a shaft and a capital.
    • Steel framing allowed height, and he sought a fitting expression for it.
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    Rietveld: a house of coloured planes

    • The Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht was designed by Gerrit Rietveld with Truus Schröder.
    • It is built from flat planes and slender lines in primary colours with black and white.
    • Sliding partitions let the upper floor change between open and divided space.
    • It is a three-dimensional example of the De Stijl movement.
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    Threads that run through all eight works

    • Many of these works dissolve the boundary between inside and outside.
    • Free plans and open space replace rooms bounded by heavy walls.
    • New materials such as steel, concrete and glass shape the forms.
    • Each architect tied the building to a site, a use or a social idea.
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    Further looking: public-domain drawings and photographs

    • Suggest starting with public-domain drawings, plans and historic photographs.
    • Look for archive collections from libraries and museums that publish open-access images.
    • Compare plans with photographs to see how each idea was built.
    • Check each image's rights statement before you reuse it in a club handout.