Illinois Institute of Technology (1950)
Mies van der Rohe saw his design for the new campus of the Illinois Institute
of Technology, in Chicago, as a prototype. The project stretched out over a
19-year period beginning in 1939. He abstracted industrial forms, creating
symmetrical and asymmetrical relationships between the buildings on a
narrow site which was 2 x 4 city blocks that covered approximately 45 hectares.
By placing the buildings on platforms and creating a regulated system of open
and enclosed spaces, he seemed to be recalling the Acropolis with Crown Hall
(1950-6), which housed the School of Architecture and City Planning, as the
Parthenon.
The buildings were steel-frame construction, expressed on the outside as
decorative elements since the structural columns had to be encased in
concrete. Mies joked that you had to lie to tell the truth, since fire codes did not
allow for structural steel columns to be exposed. He contrasted glazed panels
with brick panels to create open and closed boxes, with open plans that could
be adapted to a wide variety of functions. The module was based on the size of
one classroom, approximately 7,4 x 7,4 x 3,7 meters in volume, with
intermediate supports for glazing.
span/universal-space building, Peter Carter noted. Mies achieved this
monumental feat by using 4 structural steel girders, from which he suspended
the vast hall. He was able to avoid encasing his steel columns in concrete so
as to fully reveal the structural clarity of his design. The building is entirely
glazed so as to reveal the functions inside. He kept the enclosed functions to a
central core. This building, like the campus, represented a radical departure
from the traditional college campus, based on medieval cloistered
arrangements.
Walter Gropius had transplanted the Bauhaus curriculum to the Harvard
Graduate School of Design. In 1948, he designed the new Graduate Center
complex, which was a series of low-rise buildings comprising living spaces
and general purpose spaces built in a “factory aesthetic.” This contrasted
sharply to the sedate neo-Georgian buildings of the venerable campus.
Gropius stressed teamwork, in which the logic of the program and the structure
of a building was implicit in its design. He, like Mies, had brought the “new
objectivity” of Germany to America.
By contrast, Alvar Aalto created a free-flowing building in the Baker House
(1948) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, across the Charles River
from Harvard. The meandering form roughly corresponded to that of the river,
giving it both a sculptural vitality and a wider variety of views up and down the
river. The red brick walls were typical in Boston, giving the student dormitory a
sense of belonging. The communal functions were located in a rectilinear
block that opened onto an interior courtyard, with earth embankments to
diminish its size. It seemed that Aalto made every effort to adapt modern
functional planning into a traditional urban setting.
Aalto was able to carry these ideas further in his design for the Helsinki
University of Technology between 1949-66. This vast complex resembled a
small city set into the contoured landscape. He apparently was inspired by the
amphitheatre at Delphi, Greece. The auditorium is given heroic proportions,
rising up from the landscape to become the main focal point of the sprawling
campus. The functions of the university are enclosed in a set of interconnected
wings with smaller auditoriums anchoring several of the corners. These wings
could be added unto without compromising the integrity of the design. Light
takes on a symbolical as well as practical role in illuminating the buildings. He
used a number of ingenious devices to refract light into the lecture halls.
Open Schools
The 1950’s also served as a period in which the plan for primary and secondary
schools was re-examined. Attitudes toward teaching were changing, and an
open plan was encouraged which led to many innovative designs. Jacob
Bakema, who was a member of Team X, seemed to recall de Stijl themes in
his design for the Montessori School (1955-60) in Rotterdam. It seemed to be
the Rietveld’s Schröder house writ large with interpenetrating structural
members, floating elements and a fluid space which was intended to heighten
visual and sensory perception, Curtis noted.
Aldo van Eyck drew on anthropological themes in his design for an Orphanage
(1957-62) in Amsterdam, which was a clustered arrangement of activities
similar to that of a North African village, which he had studied. He wanted to
avoid the oppressive institutional image by providing a more humane
environment for displaced children. Here too one sees echoes of de Stijl, but in
the softer images of Mondrian. The arrangement of the rooms allowed him to
create indoor and outdoor spaces, both open and closed, depending on the
function. These spaces flow into one another, creating a greater intimacy.
One of the more intriguing designs to emerge from this period is the design by
Alejandro la Sota for the Maravillas School Gymnasium (1961-2) in Madrid.
The classrooms are suspended over the gymnasium by means of gigantic
curved trusses, allowing for a free space below, and a roof playground above.
Light filters in through a glazed mansard roof. The historic allusions are
wonderfully subdued. One can see the convex beams as a stretched canvas
awning over an ancient theatre. Like Mies, la Sota had the remarkable ability of
transforming classical precedents into unique modern forms. La Sota is an
important link between generations of Spanish architects.
Bibliography
Carter, Peter, Mies van der Rohe at Work, Illinois Institute of Technology,
Phaidon, London, paperback edition 1974
Curtis, William J.R., Le Corbusier: Ideas and Forms, The Modulor, Marseilles
and the Mediterranean Myth, Phaidon, London, paperback edition 1986
Curtis, William J.R., Modern Architecture since 1900, Modern Architecture in
the U.S.A.: Immigration and Consolidation, The Unité d’Habitation at Marseilles
as a Collective Housing Prototype, Alvar Aalto and Scandinavian Developments,
Disjunction and Continuities in the Europe of the 1950’s, The Process of
Absorption: Latin America, Australia, Japan, Extension and Critique in the 1960’
s, Phaidon, London, paperback edition 1996
Frampton, Kenneth, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, The Vicissitudes
of Ideology: CIAM and Team X, Critique and Counter-Critique 1928-68, Thames
and Hudson, London, paperback edition 1992
Weston, Richard, Alvar Aalto, The Town Centre and the Academic Campus,
Phaidon, London, paperback edition, 1997
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