Severance, John, B. (2000). Skyscrapers: How America Grew Up. New York, NY, Holiday House. Skyscrapers are in the heart of Chicago and New York City.…
Art Deco is an influential design style originating in Paris after World War I spanning from 1910 – 1935. It emerged from the interwar period when rapid industrialisation was transforming culture. One of its major attributes is an embrace of technology. Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance and faith in social and technological progress. It is an eclectic style, which rejected traditional classical influences in favour of bold geometric shapes, streamlined forms, rich colours and lavish ornamentation.…
He explores instances of heroic, complex, and transformative architecture and how other scholars have failed in their analysis. He does a fairly good job defining the terms he uses for each section, but does little to connect the three, making it difficult to decipher a cohesive aim of the…
The North Carolina Museum of Art currently has two works of art that stand out because of their uniqueness and the stories they tell. “Tippy Toes,” created by Alison Saar, is a dark wooden woman suspended in a tall barbed wire dress. She has bobbed hair reminiscent to the artist’s. Alison Saar is a sculptor who is known for sculpting pieces that depict African American culture and the highly personal struggles they face. Often, her works are of women as is “Tippy Toes,” so these specifically tell a more feminist story.…
The Changes of Architecture Architecture is not only a form of shelter but of culture. It is also a practice of expression and art. During the 1880s United States architecture was customary to be built of the current style and theme. Today’s architecture is more constructed of what is individual and authentic. Architecture today unlike 1880s is to be more unique and professional.…
As the International Style took hold, others architects reacted to or strayed from its purely functionalist forms, while at the same time retaining highly modernist characteristics in the mid-century of modernism. Eero Saarinen, Alvar Aalto and Oscar Niemeyer were three of the most iconic architects and designers in this movement, which has influenced contemporary modernism. Architects such as Louis Kahn, Paul Rudolph, Marcel Breuer, I.M. Pei and others responded to the "light" glass curtain walls advocated by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, by creating architecture with an emphasis on more substantial materials, such as concrete and brick, and creating works with a "monumental" quality. " Brutalism" is a term derived from the use of raw concreate,…
Dupain’s, Concrete support beams (Sydney Opera House), 1962 perfectly utilises the drama of shadow and light in unique modernist composition. ‘Concrete support beams (Sydney Opera House)’ is a severely formal image emphasising the power of material and the soaring structure of the building. The lines of the concrete darken towards the viewer and the light is caught head-on streaming in at a distance. The only disturbances are the variable marks on the concrete and the small form of a worker in the distance silhouetted against the light. The workman further emphasises the monumentality of the structure and is an important counterpoint – the Opera House was made by workers such as this man.…
Modern Architecture in Los Angeles In Los Angeles, the captivating buildings of different sizes and structures are an important element to the city’s identity. Common bystanders might only see buildings as structures that are useful as work, commercial, and living places. Even though architecture is an essential component to provide the best use of space, there is more than meets the eye. The architecture of buildings exposes to us a time, a style, and a story that speak an abundant amount of the downtown Los Angeles community. Los Angeles played a key role in modernism’s development and influences.…
Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the most prominent architects in the twentieth century, was very influential in the field of stained glass windows. He designed over 160 buildings containing many stained glass windows, of which almost 100 were built, which amounts to around 4,000 windows in total. Many of Wright’s houses had many windows, including the Dana and Martin houses with around 200, and the Little house with around 300. Wright also developed new styles of stained glass windows, including his Prairie windows and Playhouse windows.…
The 1920s could arguably be the era that brought America into the modern world since it was responsible for establishing the beginning of women’s rights, African American rights, mass production through assembly lines, and challenging the orthodox ways of living. However, not every citizen in America embraced the new modern way of living, especially in the south. The 1920s was a historical time period in which the orthodox south and the modern north in America clashed as they confronted the new issues of modernism. One major issue that came into light during the 1920s was the predicament of religion V.S. science in American classrooms.…
Through his modernists theory, he helped to establish photography as an art form during the twentieth century. He is recognized as one of American greatest photographers along with Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz. The article reflects his views on photography. Strand believes that it is a fine art with the potential of its own, independent from other artistic forms of expression. He worked toward redefining and realigning photography with a new, straight approach.…
One of the first accounts of Brutalism was given by architectural critic Reyner Banham in his seminal essay titled New Brutalism published in the Architectural Review in 1955, Banham’s conception of New Brutalism was both a movement in the sense of futurism and a style. Banham’s etymology of the term New Brutalism is clarified through his complex and contradictory explanation of Brutalism as both a movement and style. Banham did articulate clearly three underlying rules which are its core components: “1, Memorability as an Image; 2, Clear exhibition of Structure; and 3, Valuation of Materials ‘as found.’” “Remembering that an Image is what affects the emotions, that structure, in its fullest sense, is the relationship of parts, and that materials…
Frank Lloyd Wright During his life, Frank Lloyd Wright designed and produced as many as six hundred buildings (“Frank Lloyd Wright”). Among these, some of his most influential works were made during the 1920s. These works included new, innovative buildings and styles that would mark the turning point between old and modern architecture. Frank Lloyd Wright’s works in the 1920s greatly influenced architecture to come.…
Victor Vasarely should be taught to students of Art History 1 because he fused elements of design and the Abstract Expressionist movement to achieve and nurture the Op Art movement in the 1960s. Considered one of the originators of Op Art for his visually intricate and illusionistic portraits, Victor Vasarely spent the course of a lengthy, critically acclaimed profession seeking, and contending for, a method of art making that was profoundly social. He placed major significance on the development of an appealing, available optical language that could be collectively comprehended—this language, for Vasarely, was geometric abstraction, frequently referred to as Op Art. Through detailed arrangements of lines, geometric shapes, colors, and shading, he crafted eye-popping paintings, bursting with complexity, movement, and three-dimensionality. More than attractive ruses for the eye, Vasarely contended, “pure form and pure color can signify the world.”…
I never intended to study architecture. When I was applying to colleges, I intended to study kinesiology and psychology. Studying dance and photography when I was younger gave me a desire to be expressive, and even though I felt a connection to the physicality of dance through kinesiology, I knew I wanted to do something that fulfilled that same sense of expression. It wasn’t until I studied architecture that I noticed some of its similarities with dance. Dance is expressive of the body, but it is also an observation of people’s interaction with each other and with their surroundings, a study of people’s movement through space.…