A contemporary identification of global trends is no easy matter because in our time competing trends exist in parallel. This is also valid for regions: there is no dominant single trend in any country. In spite of this there do exist certain characteristic features in individual regions and countries. Let us quote a typical statement: ‘The aesthetics of architectural design seem more and more often to be dictated not by predetermined stylistic conventions but by the factors that influence a given site or a given pro-gram’ (Jodidio, 1998). The picture is further blurred by the work of architects in foreign countries. Nev-ertheless, a comprehensive summing up of regional trends is attempted below.
France
Between the two world wars, Le Corbusier was the leading practitioner and theoretician, and it was he who introduced modernism into France. More than that, he also exercised considerable influence worldwide.
After the Second World War, France excelled in the innovation of industrialized building technologies
for housing, schools and offices, principally by such prefabricated large-panel systems as Camus, Coignet, Pascal, Costamagna, Balency-Schuhl, Fil-lod, etc. By now most of these have become out-dated but contemporary French architecture continues to be on the highest level. Moreover, the centralized state administration contributed to architectural renewal by initiating and often finan-cing many grands ensembles. The Institute of the Arab World (by Jean Nouvel), the Opera Bastille, the new National Library, La Grande Arche office building (by Von Spreckelsen, Figure 1.13) are just a few examples of this. Among others outside Paris, the Euralille complex designed by Rem Kool-haas and Jean Nouvel, Christian de Portzampac and Jean-Marie Duthilleul (1990–94), can be mentioned.
Whilst some of these may not be of outstanding architectural quality, they all had an impact on archi-tecture and planning beyond France, by demon-strating the possibilities of urban renewal through large cultural investments (Lesnikowski, 1990).
Among a number of notable realizations let us men-tion L’Avancée at Guyancourt, a Renault Research and Technical Centre, designed by Chaix and Morel (Philippe Chaix and Jean Paul Morel). This enormous centre, its construction inspired by similar centres of other automotive giants, covers 74 000 square metres. Other architects of a new generation are, among others, Marc Barani and Manuelle Gautrand.
Much has been also achieved in social housing (HLM – flats with controlled rent) and new residen-tial complexes.
United States of America
In the USA, economic and technical progress and increased prosperity permitted major improve-ments in housing conditions. A new phenomenon was the appearance of tall buildings at first in Chicago, then in New York and later in most major American towns. The skyscraper rising above the city has become the widely recognized symbol of America (Stern, 1991). The modernist period culmi-nated in the ‘International Style’. As previously dis-cussed, an early example of this was the Lever House and a later one, the much perfected Sea-gram Building, which provided a prototype for office buildings all over the world. Also belonging to this category were the tragically destroyed twin towers of the New York World Trade Center.
Since the 1960s, dissatisfaction with the often schematic appearance of office architecture and the plight of inner city areas spurred architects and their clients to search for a new style, which even-tually acquired the collective label of post-mod-ernism. Some leading proponents of the new style were Gehry, Meier, Stern, Venturi, Pei, Pelli, Port-land, Graves, Moss, who had, and are still having, a strong impact on new architecture. During the 1970s the group of ‘Whites’ was formed, which included Peter Eisenman, Richard Meier, Michael Graves and Charles Gwathmey. They adhered to the pure idioms of modernist aesthetics. The
‘Greys’ (in the persons of Venturi, Moore, Stern), however, rejected the ‘White’ style and reintro-duced some of the historical architectural ele-ments. In time several of those listed above became world famous.
Figure 1.13 La Grande Arche (The Big Arch), La Défense, Paris, France, architect: Von Spreckelsen.
One of the first major projects initiated by the then French President Mitterand, reflecting French ambitions for monumental architecture: a post-modern ‘arc de triomphe’.
Figure 1.14 Climatron, St.
Louis, Missouri, USA, designer Buckminster Fuller.
Buckminster Fuller was the inventor of the geodesic dome, realized in great numbers all around the world.
© Sebestyen:
Lightweight Building Construction, Akadémiai Kiadó.
Figure 1.15 Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 1992, structural design:
Mathys P. Levy, Weidlinger Associates. Wide-span roof, the longest span hypar-tensegrity structure made.
Figure 1.16 Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, USA, architect Frank O. Gehry.
Deconstructivist architecture, a typical F.O. Gehry design, thin titan sheet cladding (as also at the Bilbao museum, Spain), a technological innovation in construction and also with new aesthetic effect.
Following the end of the Second World War, exper-iments were launched to introduce industrialized methods to new housing. Steel- or aluminium-framed houses or systems based on structural plas-tics proved not to be as yet economical. On the other hand, timber-framed houses, including panel-lized and modular components and mobile home constructions, stood their ground well. From the architectural point of view, these usually did not introduce major aesthetic novelties.
In the 1980s architecture in the USA appeared to have become somewhat ossified. However, Amer-ican architecture has always had the capacity to renew and reinvigorate itself. For this reason, the developments in American architecture and con-struction techniques had always exerted a strong impact worldwide and, therefore, in this book we shall frequently revert to discussing its innovations.
Let us mention here just some of the new suc-cessful architectural practices: Asymptote, Wendell Burnett, Simon Ungers, Thompson and Rose Archi-tects.
Great Britain
After 1945, based on the earlier and successful examples of garden cities, the ‘New Towns’ move-ment was launched, with the aim of easing the country’s housing shortage. The architectural style of the new towns, as in Hemel Hempstead and Welwyn Garden City, was often traditional, rooted in the Edwardian legacy of Lutyens and Voysey.
However, urban local authorities were more inclined to experiment with the modernist style, fre-quently involving prefabricated system building on newly cleared sites with, it must be said, varying degrees of success and durability. Notable results, even though some remain controversial, were for example Ernö Goldfinger’s residential and office scheme at Elephant and Castle, London (1965), and almost a decade later the Byker Estate, Newcastle.
During this period, there was also much large-scale speculative office and commercial development in the war-damaged City of London, Bristol and other provincial cities, often with questionable results.
One of the most prolific architects of this genre was Richard Seifert, whose controversial London Cen-tre Point development has stood the test of time reasonably well. Another architect of the period, recognized for his high-quality modernist buildings, was Denys Lasdun whose early buildings were labelled as ‘New Brutalist’. He died in 2001. His National Theatre on the South Bank in London eventually gained universal acceptance but only after considerable public doubt and debate.
Most of the important new buildings were designed by British architects who had a leading share in post-modern architecture. The Canary Wharf high office building, completed in 1991, was designed by American architect Cesar Pelli, with a somewhat late-modernist concept. In spite of, or perhaps as the result of, a popular backlash against modernist architecture, which was led by the Prince of Wales, a generation of younger architects succeeded in establishing a characteristic and inno-Figure 1.17 Gordon Wu dining hall, Princeton, USA,
architects: Venturi, Rauch and Scott Brown. Façade designed with symmetry and simple geometric patterns and an anthropomorphic approach.
vative type of post-modernist ‘high-tech’ architec-ture, which has achieved worldwide acclaim. Nor-man Foster, Richard Rogers (Rogers, 1985), James Stirling (Stirling, 1975), Nicholas Grimshaw and Michael Hopkins could be cited as the leading archi-tects. In addition to the buildings designed by them, which were realized in Great Britain, they became the architects of spectacular buildings abroad, such as the Pompidou Centre (Rogers with Piano), the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in Hong Kong (1979–86), and the Commerzbank Headquarters Building in Frankfurt, Germany (1994–97), the last two designed by Foster.
Germany
Following the Second World War, much effort was expended on the reconstruction of destroyed cities and housing in which the art and craft of historical building restoration achieved considerable results.
In the Federal Republic of Germany (Western Ger-many before the reunification) modernist architec-ture quickly replaced the somewhat pompous neo-historic style of fascist Germany. A major step forward was taken with the construction of the Olympic Stadium in Munich, 1972 (design: Behrens and Partner with Gunther Grzimek). This reinforced the move in many countries towards new types of tensioned and membrane structures.
Gradually late-modernism became combined with high-tech trends with some examples following the
‘inside-out’ style of buildings such as the Pompidou Centre in Paris. A major example of this was the New Medical Faculty Building in Aachen, 1969–84 (architects: Weber, Brand and Partners) with its
‘boiler-suit approach’.
The impressive development of the German econ-omy also meant that clients were in the position to invite foreign architects to Germany. A controversial but finally well-accepted realization was the new building of the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, 1977-82 (architect: James Stirling) with a neo-classicist trend.
As a direct result of its fascist architectural past, his-torical trends did not readily find favour in Germany.
Another realization by a British architect is the Com-merzbank Building in Frankfurt am Main, 1994–97, designed by Norman Foster. At the time of its
exe-cution it was Europe’s tallest skyscraper (299 metres). Its central atrium serves as a natural ven-tilation system. Four-storey gardens spiral round the curved triangular plan. Several of the foreign architects also designed new buildings in Berlin when it became once again the capital of Germany.
Initially, East German architecture, burdened by the ideology of socialist realism, followed the style pre-vailing in the (then) Soviet Union. Notable new pub-lic buildings in the GDR were the Friedrichspalast and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in East Berlin and the Neue Gewandhaus in Leipzig, designed by R.
Skoda, 1975–81.
Meanwhile in West Germany the tradition of early modernism enjoyed a revival in combination with American influence, mostly with the neo-modernist approach of post-modernism. An important new building is Hall 26 in Hanover, 1994–96 (architect:
Thomas Herzog and Partner). This 220 by 115 metre building is covered by a light tensile steel suspen-sion roof whose pleasing wave-like form is emi-nently suitable for natural lighting and ventilation.
Following the reunification of the two parts, Berlin again became the capital of Germany and very intensive construction programmes were launched.
These also included important commissions to architects from abroad. In Germany, as well as in other countries, a new generation of architects is increasingly making important realizations, for instance, Schneider and Schumacher; Otto Steidle;
and Gerd Jäger (Klotz and Krase, 1985).
The Netherlands
After the war the strong traditions of Dutch mod-ernism continued. Possibly its most striking mani-festation was the rebuilding of war-destroyed Rotterdam, where the Lijnbaan, designed by J.H.
van den Broek and J.B. Bakema, became a model for modern inner city pedestrian shopping centres.
As part of the Lijnbaan complex, Marcel Breuer’s timeless Bijenkorf department store merits special attention.
N. Habraken, a Dutch professor of architecture, ini-tiated the ‘Open Architecture’ approach in which the primary load-bearing structure is separated
from the secondary structures (light partitions, equipment, etc.).
Architects of the next generation, typified by Rem Koolhaas, adopted the newest trends in American architecture, at first the International Style and then post-modernism and deconstructivism. Notable buildings by Koolhaas are the Euralille complex in Lille, France, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam and the Dance Theatre in The Hague. Other noted practi-tioners were or are Aldo van Eyck, Herman Hertzberger, Jo Coenen and Erick van Egeraat. Jo Coenen designed the Institute of Architecture in Rotterdam, and Hertzberger the Centraal Beheer office complex. The Netherlands has made a point of being open to offering architectural design con-tracts to foreign architects: Renzo Piano (Institute of Science and Technology, Amsterdam; KPN Telecom Building, Rotterdam), Richard Meier (Town Hall, The Hague) as well as to its own younger architects (Group Meccano, Jo Coenen, etc.).
Scandinavia and Finland
In these Nordic countries of Europe a limited number of buildings designed in one of the historical styles exist. In modern times, several eminent architects have worked in the region. Some of them emigrated, such as the Finnish Eliel Saarinen, to the USA. His son, Eero Saarinen (1910–61), established a practice in the USA. His New York Idlewild air terminal build-ing (1956–61), and the Dulles Airport Buildbuild-ing (1958–61), this latter designed in cooperation with engineers Amman and Whitney, with their imagina-tive undulating forms, became well known globally.
Hugo Alvar Aalto (1898–1976), also Finnish, must be counted as among the outstanding modernist architects. His Congress Building in Helsinki and others are rightly held to be no less than landmarks of modernist architecture.
Another Scandinavian master of the first half of the twentieth century was the Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund (1885-1940).
Timber structures are extensively constructed in these countries, as in Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish housing, and wide-span structures are also accorded prominence. At the same time the use of
concrete attained high technical and qualitative lev-els. The Swedish Skanska Cementgjuteriet, the Finnish Partek and the Danish Larsen-Nielsen com-panies developed various up-to-date concrete tech-nologies, which found widespread use by architects in the design of various buildings.
Post-modern trends certainly did not lack enthusi-astic practitioners. The Arken Museum of Modern Art, near Copenhagen in Denmark, 1988–96, archi-tect: Soren Robert Lund, is conceived in the spirit of deconstructivism (Jodidio, 1998). Other emer-ging architects that can be singled out in this region are: in Denmark, Entasis Arkitekter; in Sweden, Claesson Koivistu Rune, Thomas Sandell; in Fin-land, Artto Palo and Rossi Tikka.
Southern Europe
Through their designs, architects and structural engineers in the countries of this region (Nervi, Tor-roja, Piano, etc.) contributed to the progress of architecture. The Pirelli Tower in Milan, Italy, com-pleted in 1959 (design: Gio Ponti) can be counted as a notable European realization at the close of the modernist office construction period.
In contrast to traditional and historical architecture, rich with ornaments and decorative stylistic approaches, modern architecture in this region tends rather to be characterized by sober, geomet-ric approaches, as is the case with the Italian archi-tects Aldo Rossi (Rossi, 1987) and Giorgio Grassi and the Swiss architect Mario Botta. Their buildings frequently are designed with the use of bricks and stone on the external envelope. Among the newer names in architectural design the following readily spring to mind: from Spain, Bach and Mora Jesus Aparicio Guisado; RCR Aranda Pigem Vilalta; Estu-dio Cano Lasso; Sancho Madridejos Moneo;
Miralles; Pinon and Viaplan; Garcès and Soria; Lep-ena and Torres; and from Italy, the Studio Archea.
The (former) Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe
In Russia, the constructivist movement of the early post-1917 years was the first during the twentieth
century to break with ideas of classical balanced harmony and hierarchical design and to introduce a measure of randomness (see e.g. Tchernikov’s designs) (El Lissitzky, 1984). In the countries of the region various architectural trends prevailed, includ-ing modernist and neo-historic trends.
After the war, restoration of war damage preoccu-pied the building industry of the region. In new pro-jects there was a brief revival of the modernist style, mainly following the tradition of the Bauhaus and under the influence of Le Corbusier.
However, after the Communist takeover of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and later East Germany, architects there were expected to conform to the socialist realist style, which, as already mentioned, was characterized by a form of monumental and often banal classicism. Despite considerable restraint on experimentation and artistic develop-ment, some innovative and noteworthy architec-ture did emerge. During the years 1964–69 the tall buildings of Kalinin Avenue, Moscow, designed by M.V. Posohin, were constructed following late-modernist trends. In the meantime a traditionalist trend got the upper hand. The skyscrapers that were put up in Moscow bore some similarity to the beginning of the twentieth-century New York sky-scrapers (Kultermann, 1985).
The only skyscraper in Warsaw designed by a Rus-sian architect, who followed the style of the Moscow skyscrapers, is the Palace of Culture and Science. A notable example of the monumental his-toricizing architecture is also the Palace of the Republic in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, for which an entire downtown district was razed. Finally, modernist and post-modernist trends took over in Russia and other East European countries.
In Czechoslovakia modernism and cubism had strong traditions and architecture was on a high artistic level: examples are the Tugendhat House by Mies van der Rohe, at Brno, 1930 and the Müller House in Prague, designed by Adolf Loos, 1928–30.
After 1945 some modern designs found their way to realization, such as the buildings by the archi-tects’ group SIAL, those by K. Hubacek and (later) by J. Pleskot; S. Fiala; M. Kotlik and V. Králicek. In the GDR the 365 metres-high East Berlin Television Tower designed by F. Dieter, G. Franke and W.
Ahrendt, 1966–69, was a remarkable result of structural engineering.
In Bulgaria and Romania there were many places where architects succeeded in designing and real-izing excellent buildings and complexes for tourism at the Black Sea and the Adriatic Coast. One exam-ple is the Hotel International designed by the Bul-garian G. Stoilov. New hotels in Sophia are the Rila and the Vitosha, the first designed by Stoilov, the second by the Japanese Kurokawa.
For new housing, mass production of large panels was introduced. Factories each producing large-size reinforced concrete panels for 1000–10 000 flats annually were established. By means of such meth-ods it was possible to construct many new dwellings but the resulting overall quality and architectural levels generally left a lot to be desired. Cultural and political liberalization during recent years enabled architects gradually to join the mainstream of Western architec-ture, or in some cases even to develop their own indi-vidual style. In Hungary a number of modern hotels (the first one in 1964) and commercial buildings (West End) were designed in late-modern style by Josef Finta. As mentioned earlier, Imre Makovecz, using his individual organic-romantic style, designed and real-ized a number of restaurants, chapels, cultural build-ings (Heathcote, 1997). T. Jankovics, G. Farkas, S.
Dévényi, Gy. Csete, F. Lörincz are some of the Hun-garian followers of I. Makovecz.
In Bulgaria, during the first twenty post-war years, the socialist realist style still prevailed, for example, on the Headquarters Building of the Communist Party designed by I.P. Popov (1951–53); the build-ing of the Institute of Technical Sciences, Sofia (1971–74), already reflects modernist influences.
Yugoslavia, to some extent, constituted a special case in the region because of its different relations with the Soviet Union. In this country also, a great
Yugoslavia, to some extent, constituted a special case in the region because of its different relations with the Soviet Union. In this country also, a great