bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Dennis Sharp
Authors: VV.AA. VV.AA.
Published: April 2021

Dennis died on the 6th May after a serious illness that bothered him for several years. He leaves behind his wife Yasmin, his daughter Melani, his son Deen and many friends all over the world. He was a universal man: architect, scholar, critic, writer, teacher, bookseller, cook and walking encyclopedia. He collaborated with architects like Santiago de Calatrava. His books Modern Architecture and Expression (1966) and 20th century architecture - a visual history (1972) became classics. He made exhibitions, was the editor of the magazine World Architecture, he was professor at the Open University and for the development of docomomo he was of vital importance.
Roberto Burle Marx: Painting, Architecture and Landscaping in the Creation of a New Language for Gardens
Authors: Cavalcanti Lauro
Published: April 2021

Painting, architecture and landscaping have never been so well incorporated in one person as in Roberto Burle Marx. His painter skills enabled Roberto Burle Marx to apply deep thorough pictorial principles to the landscape, thus avoiding other approaches made by pioneers who literally transposed cubist or abstract art, which almost resulted in caricatures. His botanical knowledge allowed him to discover new species in regard to their individual beauty and to their proper integration in ecological environments, which provided adequate choices of harmonious systems in terms of their aesthetics and their good survival in the new garden habitat.
Vesterport — Metal and Structure
Authors: Wedebrunn Ola
Published: April 2021

The British metallurgist Cyril Stanley Smith emphasized the interdependence of science and art. His research and reflections on the sense of materiality is a lifelong experience where A Search for Structure is the noteworthy title of a book of essays published in 1992. Smith emphasizes the value of practical experience and the experience of sense as an engagement with matter. He certainly makes an impact when it comes to the concern for matter and material, referring to structure as aesthetics as well as technology and to objects of art as well as to science. No doubt this point of view is valid also when it comes to studying architecture and practical, social and philosophical possibilities of matter.
Art and Architecture, a Synthesis
Authors: Tostões Ana
Published: April 2021

The late CIAM discussions, namely the ones that took part in the scope of the Bergamo Conference in 1947, brought social and intensive public aspirations. Between North and South, the new world retook the European avant-garde issues implementing the most collective values for a better future to come. Giedion’s Architecture You and Me or the struggle for a New Monumentality, were the placed questions that received an extraordinary eco from American Architecture which emerged with a creative energy. Therefore, in our days, the aim is to deepen understand the process and to find the paths for the future. A future that we may create with such awareness that may, generously, give us the tools for increase nowadays architecture and city planning.
The Dwellers: The Integration of Art and the Architecture in the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas
Authors: Gómez Hannia
Published: April 2021

When Villanueva worked in the Integration of the Arts project for the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, he moved from the idea of ‘synthesis of the arts’ (where arts “preserved their traditional features in order to qualify something whose existence was prior to them and of which architecture was the previous framework”) to the idea of ‘integration of the arts’, which “created a new architectural–sculptural–pictorial organism which did not express hierarchy but the formal combination of the functional and the spatial as equal categories,” he took a transcendental step to open his architecture to experimentation in the field of modern art.
The Total Artist. Max Bill according to Tomás Maldonado
Authors: Crispiani Alejandro Gabriel
Published: April 2021

Max Bill was an important reference in the field of art and architecture in Latin America. Unlike the synthesis of the arts, Max Bill was proposing a program based on “concrete art” and the idea of gute form, which sought to provide a common principle to the built environment that would guarantee its formal quality and harmony. This point was central to the reception of his ideas in Argentina. It was largely Tomás Maldonado who introduced these ideas. He presented Max Bill as a “total artist”, a sort of premonition of the “man of the future”, endowed with a capacity of coherence that would allow the synthesis not of the arts, but that of the artistic product with mass production.
Parallel Lives: Transparent Sculptures, Porous Architectures
Authors: Comas Carlos Eduardo
Published: April 2021

The text registers and discusses the affinities between the transparency of a branch of modern sculpture and the characteristic porosity of Brazilian modern architecture, placed in the broader context of the exchange between architecture, painting, sculpture and construction in the twentieth century.
The Synthesis of the Arts and MoMa
Authors: Bergdoll Barry
Published: April 2021

1948-49 were key years for the reaction of the Museum of Modern Art’s newly amalgamated Department of Architecture and Design to respond to the rising discourse on the “Synthesis of the Arts.” The response was indirect and took the form of MoMA assessing the progress of modern architecture that it had been describing and forecasting for fifteen years. The exhibition “From Le Corbusier to Niemeyer, 1929–1949” was part of a larger assessment of the fate of the international style and of the interaction between abstraction in painting and sculpture and in architectural design, a theme laid out by Alfred Barr and Hitchcock in the 1948 book Painting Toward Architecture. Niemeyer’s unbuilt Treamine House, designed with Roberto Burle Marx, was upheld as a synthesis not only of the arts but of the movements coalescing towards a postwar abstract consensus.
Modern and Traditional: Brasilia’s Paradigms
Authors: Ficher Sylvia , Palazzo Pedro Paulo
Published: April 2021

By the 1950s, a shared culture spreading internationally through teaching and specialized literature became common currency in professional circles and gave rise to a repertoire of urban theories and practices. An examination of Lúcio Costa’s winning entry for the pilot plan of Brasilia attest to the existence of these paradigmatic formulae. Further more, not only was Brasilia a product of this culture, it grew to become itself archetypal. Yet, this high tide would be short-lived. In late 50s and early 60s, this veritable urban designer’s toolbox began to lose its legitimacy to become target of critical scrutiny.
Lúcio Costa and the Question of Monumentality in his Pilot Plan for Brasilia
Authors: Pessôa José
Published: April 2021

The urban design for Brasilia emphasizes the role of the city as a capital, that is to say, as an expression of State identity and power. Lúcio Costa considered monumentality as a characteristic inherent in urbanism, but this should not be achieved by any ostentatious grandiosity in terms of the volumes and sizes designed, and rather by providing a more singular external expression in the building concept used incorporating nature, capable of both pleasing and moving their occupants. The dimension of monumentality is a fundamental question in understanding the urban solution adopted in Brasilia.
Molotov Sotsgorod
Authors: Buson Oscar
Published: April 2021

The sky is low above Motovilikha. Making our way along a muddy street, in the timid light of this part of the Urals we see emerging before us a silhouette of carbonated concrete, an iron structure rusting in the cold, whose plaster panels between pilasters suggest a construction site of dubious standards. It is difficult to believe that eighty years before this old workers’ club designed by constructivist architect P. Golosov (Gladyshev, 2008) provided the early Soviet society with up to three hundred thousand meals a day (Semyannikov, 2002). An emblem of the new socialist urbanisation, not only was the workers’ canteen meant to rescue the woman from her kitchen slavery, it was also supposed to be a place capable of generating the new social structure by becoming a venue for festivals and shows in the evenings.
Listing and Protecting the MoMo. Brazil/Brasilia
Authors: Schlee Andrey Rosenthal , Ficher Sylvia
Published: April 2021

Also in the field of preservation, Brazil has made an unparalleled contribution to the MoMo. After all, when in 1988 docomomo was founded, the country already had a number of modernist works legally protected. And Brasilia had joined the select World Heritage of UNESCO, the first modernist urban complex to be conferred that honor. The precedent was established, and since then other MoMo works - all prior to Brasilia - received the distinction: the Bauhaus in 1996, the Schröder House and the University of Caracas in 2000, the Tugendhat House in 2001, the White City of Tel Aviv in 2003.
The Dislocation of Brazil’s Capital: a Long-Standing Project
Authors: El-Dahdah Farès
Published: April 2021

Dislocating the capital to Brazil’s interior highlands is a long standing project in the country’s history. The project was first linked to the transfer of the royal court from Lisbon to the Portuguese America, where a metropolis would be established in what until then had been a colonial purveyor of goods. Until 1953, the quest for a worthy capital involved many factors such as the establishment of a Portuguese empire in the Americas, Portugal’s repudiation of an Ancien Régime monarchy in the South Atlantic, the formation of a counter hegemony in a former colony, or the construction of a unified, republican, and modern Brazilian nation. As Lúcio Costa - the architect of the final iteration of Brazil’s new capital - once put it: “it was a century-old purpose, always postponed.”
Brasilia 1960-2010: Modern Movement Universal Ideal
Authors: Tostões Ana
Published: April 2021

Since Brasilia’s World Heritage inscription in 1987, the city has developed public awareness regarding the value of a major accomplishment in the history of urbanism. The singularity of Brasilia lies in its ability of being simultaneously rooted in the past while looking ahead to the future, envisioning an approach that should affirm Brazil’s industrialization effort and the need to provide access to life quality incorporating a specific genuine cultural tradition; an approach where the new capital should be the image of the homeland. Lúcio Costa, the architect who sensed and perceived the need to rescue architectural heritage, formulated unprecedented theoretical principles, articulating both realities. He was aware of the fact that modern architecture was a powerful means to foster a national identity because, according to modern principles argued in Brazil, a bond should exist between an erudite avant-garde and traditional popular features. Costa revealed the structural resemblance between raw architecture from the 18th Century - the plain Portuguese style - and the new constructions, discovering the same logic, rationality, rigor and strictness.
The Restoration of the Alvorada Palace
Authors: Hartman Hattie
Published: April 2021

This article describes the highly successful restoration of Alvorada Palace completed in 2005 by Sergio Valle Brasileiro. After situating the importance of the Alvorada within Niemeyer’s overall oeuvre and describing the original design, the dilapidated state of the building at the turn of the 21st century is described. The details of the restoration, including meetings with Oscar Niemeyer about specific design decisions and consultation with IPHAN, and the challenge of sourcing new materials to match the original, such as jacaranda - now protected by IBAMA - are also studied. The Alvorada serves as an example for the restoration of other Modernist buildings in Brazil.
Civic and Social Infrastructure Conservation through Modern Architecture intervention. Embassy of Chile in Argentina 1966-2009
Authors: Serrano Elisa Gil , López Hugo Mondragón
Published: April 2021

Modern heritage is not protected in Chile. Most of Chilean modern architectural heritage stands without an official decree protecting it from being modified or even demolished. This is a consequence of having state-controlled organisms in charge of the protection and defense of architectural heritage that use almost exclusively the building’s age as main criteria for its appraisement. From this point of view it seems difficult that constructions that are only between 40 and 90 years old may catch the attention of heritage preservation government officials. However negative the situation which, in the majority of cases has led to the systematic violation of constructions that constitute valuable records of the status of disciplinary and cultural discussion of Modern Architecture, the following case, paradoxically, couldn’t have crystallized the way it did, if the building had been officially protected, and neither could the docomomo–Chile group could have played a protagonic role in its management
The Competition for Brasilia’s Pilot Plan: Territory and Infrastructure
Authors: Tavares Jeferson
Published: April 2021

The Competition for Brasilia’s Pilot Plan, 1957, brought together 26 projects for the Federal Capital. These projects, expressing the planning culture of the first half of the twentieth century, contribute to a diverse knowledge of planning solutions. But what element unites these projects? The common factor to them is the urban structure based on two urban axes. The reason for this is the flat territory and the introduction of such infrastructure. A model of planning cities based on their minimum elements that not only organize, but also qualify the place.
Athos Bulcão and the Architecture of Brasilia
Authors: Bonazzi Rafael Miura
Published: April 2021

This essay aims to show Athos Bulcão’s artworks integrated into architecture in Brasilia, his career and partnership and the significance of his work as a precious legacy for the city. The artwork of Athos Bulcão not only reveals beauty and colors but an architectural identity that reflects a successful partnership between modern architecture and fine arts in Brazil. Brasilia is the high mark of modern movement where Athos Bulcão became a unique artist with the skill to amalgamate his art into architecture.
Design with Climate in Africa. The World of Galleries, Brise–Soleil and Beta Windows
Authors: Caldas João Vieira
Published: April 2021

In the twenty–five years after World War II, Angola and Mozambique were fertile territories for the inception of new urban and architectural projects, in keeping with the principles of the Modern Movement. In the earliest works designed by the architects who moved there in the late 1940s, one can already witness a serious concern with the adjustment to the particularities of the hot and humid climate of the tropics. The Modern architectural idiom was particularly well suited to the local climate building requirements such as solar control and provision of adequate ventilation. Moreover, these architectural solutions were underpinned by sustainable procedures that ought to be re–established in the restoration of Modern buildings of the type presented here.
Building Physics and its Performance in Modern Movement Architecture
Authors: Tomlow Jos
Published: April 2021

The science of Building Physics was developed in Germany from 1880–1940 but its performance in Modern Movement architecture is considered immature and in aspects problematic. Still, some international pioneers found theoretical and practical ways to catch the theme.
The Tugendhat House: Between Craftmanship and Technological Innovation. Preservation as Sustainable Building Policy
Authors: Hammer Ivo
Published: April 2021

The architecture of the Modern Movement is today often seen as synonymous with technical innovation and experimental techniques. This view is supported by the Dessau Bauhaus itself and its programmatic “break” with tradition. Technical inadequacies and shortcomings, particularly from the perspective of today’s energy standards, serve as an argument to formulate criteria specific for preserving the architecture of the Modern Movement, different from “normal” and more generally accepted preservation principles. Are the materials and techniques of modern architecture really as innovative as they are alleged? The Tugendhat House in Brno, listed as an UNESCO World Heritage since 2001, and other structures of classical modernism, as for example, the Bauhaus in Dessau (1925–26) and the pavilions of the Brno fair grounds (1926–28), may serve as evidence that not everything was technical innovation, but that rather the traditional craft techniques in the Modern Movement have played a major role. Modern preservation is not limited to the presentation of the artistic idea, but sees the monument as a comprehensive resource of cultural activities and their material expression. Generally, the preservation of monuments can be seen as a paradigmatic form of a sustainable building policy.
Greening Modernism
Authors: Stein Carl
Published: April 2021

The Modern Movement is predicated on attitudes that lead directly to the efficient use of resources for building construction and operation, attitudes that are fundamental to sustainability. Also intrinsic to Modern architecture is a systematic methodology that provides the armature for a design process that focuses on a sustainable future. Understanding these issues provides valuable guidelines and tools for contemporary planning and architecture. Additionally, a wider recognition of this aspect of Modernism will reduce general hostility toward Modernism, thereby facilitating the preservation and conservation of Modern architecture built examples.
Inherited Toxicity: An Expanded Concept of Sustainability for Preservation
Authors: Swift Amy
Published: April 2021

Sustainability is a concept that has been accepted as a foundation for professional practice, and toxicity of materials is gaining concern. While the topic of material toxicity is generally addressed with regard to new materials, the built environment represents a history of embedded toxins. However, this aspect of ‘inherited toxicity’ is scarcely addressed. Considering the toxic potential associated with 20th century building materials, this will grow more critical for the preservation field to address in coming years. In response to the increasing regulation of copper in both Europe and the US, the case study at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower (1956) is an exploration of whether or not an acute environmental impact from the building’s exterior copper elements exists, the results of which are assessed based on an expanded toxicology of copper.
Visionary Prefab in the Modern Age: Deconstructing Keaton’s Films
Authors: Suau Cristian
Published: April 2021

This essay analyses Buster Keaton’s masterpieces: One Week (1920); The Haunted House (1921) and The Electric House (1922). His filmic work reveals the montage of mass housing prefabrication in the Modern Age in the United States: repetition and mechanisation of the building production; generic layouts; and modular like–catalogue constructions. Rather than following a sequential building process, these cases are executed as mere accidents or flaws. Buster Keaton’s films however show ironically a non–standardized architecture. This study analyses and compares Keaton’s film production with Catalog Modern House, a prefab dwelling manufactured and shipped by Sears,Roebuck and Co in the 20th century.
Modern and Green: Heritage, Energy, Economy
Authors: Graf Franz , Marino Giulia
Published: April 2021

Built between 1963 and 1971, the Lignon satellite precinct in Geneva (Georges Addor, Dominique Julliard, Louis Payot, Jacques Bolliger) is regarded as the most spectacular housing development in post–war Switzerland. For some, it is an energy–guzzling black hole; for others, an historical monument. Either way, the Lignon has been in the spotlight. Faced with new imperatives to reduce energy consumption, a pilot project in the area of “conservation and thermal improvement” of the Lignon façades has been carried out by the Laboratory for Techniques and Preservation of Modern Architecture at the École Polytechnique Fédérale of Lausanne. The aim of this study is to introduce measures that will allow us to conserve the outer skin of the existing façades, while respecting energy standards, thereby guaranteeing the consistent level of intervention, across all 100,000 square meters of curtain walling, that the site deserves.
Lincoln Park Passerelle: Rainbow Bridge
Authors: Samuelson Tim
Published: April 2021

As seen by approaching motorists on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive, the “Rainbow Bridge” appears as if it’s crossing the 6–lane roadway with a graceful leap worthy of a ballet dancer. To people crossing the bridge, its gentle rise provides comfortable access to a popular beach and recreational parkland at edge of Lake Michigan.
Cable Supported Bridges across Straits in Denmark
Authors: Gimsing Niels Jørgen
Published: April 2021

The Jylland (Jutland) peninsula and the approximately 278 islands that form Denmark have had bridge connections since the Middle Ages. The most notable bridges of the 20th century are the high level bridges such as the Lillebælt Bridge from 1935 and the Storstrøm Bridge from 1937. Cable supported bridges and cable-stayed bridges have been making up the most significant infrastructural aspects which cross the seaways of the Baltic Sea.
The Bridge Over the Lake: Spanning Across Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela
Authors: Gómez Hannia , Montiel Rino
Published: April 2021

The General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge spanning over Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela (1958–1962), designed by Ing. Professor Riccardo Morandi, a masterpiece of Modern engineering, is now a Modern Landmark at Risk. The remarkable and little known story of the construction of this structure “could not be accomplished by a handful of men. From planning to financing, from design to construction, a great number of Venezuelan and European engineers worked jointly in Wiesbaden, Caracas, Rome, Maracaibo, Zürich, Paris, and Lisbon. In this way, one of the most outstanding structures of our time was erected within the stipulated - and brief construction time.”
Finding Modern Japanese Bridges: Stone, Wood and Steel
Authors: Imagawa Norihide , Suematsu Shinsuke
Published: April 2021

In Japan where many earthquakes occur there is a certain standpoint about long–life architecture and bridges The relation between material and form is important for this standpoint. The reason is not only that materials have their own character, for example, physical and chemical properties, but also that form has its own individual character as load–bearing system. Without the relation between material and form, long–life architecture and bridges can’t be realized.
Cable-Stayed Bridges: The Düsseldorf Bridge Family
Authors: Bögle Annette
Published: April 2021

The heart of the famous Düsseldorf Bridge Family are the three cable-stayed bridges built between the late 50s and early 70s of the last century. They mark the beginning of the development of Modern cable-stayed bridges, but not only from a technological point of view. Instead they develop the aesthetical potential once the new structural type has become favorable all over the world.
Eduardo Torroja: The Alloz Aqueduct
Authors: Vázquez Carlos García
Published: April 2021

Eduardo Torroja Miret graduated as an engineer in 1923. That same year, after a bloodless coup d’état, General Primo de Rivera assumed the control of government in Spain and launched a modernizing economic program clearly based on infrastructure: development of the telephone network, modernization of ports, tramway system expansion, creation of 800 km of railroads, extension and paving of over 15,000 km of roads...
Concrete’s Furthest North. Early 20th Century Heritage of Modern Civil Engineering in Iceland
Authors: Ármannsson Pétur H.
Published: April 2021

In 1935–36, the English writer and design critic Philip Morton Shand (1888-1960), proponent of Modernism, translator of Walter Gropius and founder of MARS group (Modern Architectural Research Group) published two articles in the magazine “The Concrete Way”. The first one was entitled “Concrete´s furthest north”, highlighting the advanced and wide–ranging use of concrete construction in Iceland. With the second article were photographs of newly built public buildings by architect Sigurdur Gudmundsson (1885-1958) as well as bridges designed in the 1920s and 1930s by the engineers of the Icelandic State Highways Department. Shand was impressed by the work of the “gifted and thoroughly modern minded architect such as any country might be proud of” as well as the work of “first rate–engineers” of this “geographically remote island which at that time had only 100,000 inhabitants and 2,000 motorcars. He also points at the photos "as evidence of the wonderful clearness of the air which is characteristic of Iceland´s brief Arctic summers."
Structure and Form: The Theory of ‘Minimal Surfaces’ and the Bridge over the Basento River by Sergio Musmeci
Authors: Capomolla Rinaldo
Published: April 2021

Sergio Musmeci occupies a very important position in the history of late 20th century Italian engineering. Born in Rome in 1926, he initially graduated in civil engineering and later in aeronautical engineering. Following an apprenticeship with Pier Luigi Nervi, in whose office he worked from 1949 to 1951, and with Riccardo Morandi, he later opened his own engineering and architecture office together with his wife, the architect Zenaide Zanini. He taught at the University of Rome, initially as an assistant to the course in Rational Mechanics and Graphic Statics, and later as professor of Bridges and Large Structures.
Sir Ove Arup: The Design of Bridges
Authors: Nissen Jørgen
Published: April 2021

Over Arup (1895-1988) once said in a BBC interview that the two structures that had given him most satisfaction were the Highpoint flats in North London (1935) and the Kingsgate footbridge, Durham, Yorkshire (1963), as “both are rather perfect examples of the complete integration of architecture, structure and method of construction”.
Bridges of Modernity
Authors: Conzett Jürg
Published: April 2021

The engineer is an inseparable part of the Modern Movement. He has fulfilled its request of working unprejudiced. But he was driven to his most magnificent works by a mental concentration on technique excluding many other influences. Therefore, John Ruskin called the engineer a human beaver. Rarely the ambition of synthetic Modernism to suspend the difference between culture and civilization was converted. In the writer’s opinion, this is no reason to abandon this ambition and engineers should keep up the Modern tradition and continue to work on it.
The docomomo Japan, 150 selections – Future and Legacy
Authors: Kanematsu Koichiro
Published: April 2021

Docomomo Japan became an official national chapter of docomomo International in 2000. In keeping with the other principal international chapter members, docomomo Japan registered the first list of 20 significant buildings and sites in Japan. Then, in 2003, the list expanded to 100, and subsequently in 2011, the list increased further to present the docomomo Japan 150 Selections.
The Work of Eugène Freyssinet: The Most Significant Bridges of his Career
Authors: Jartoux Pierre
Published: April 2021

From 1904, when his career began, until 1962, when he died, Eugène Freyssinet did not stop building or advising on all aspects related with his work. To give an idea of his interest in the field of bridges, we selected the following: the Veurdre and Plougastel bridges as reinforced concrete examples and the Luzancy, the Marne and the Caracas La Guaira highway bridges as prestressed concrete works. In these brief descriptions, rather than the technical nature of the design, we have focused on intuition and innovation which made these works models and which inspired many engineers to continue working respecting quality.
An Aesthetically Sublime Second Nature
Authors: Tostões Ana
Published: April 2021

The search on Bridges and Infrastructures has to do with a matter of connecting. To launch bridges seems to be a kind of life requirement, as far as it is the way to connect sides, which means improving relations and energies, desire and intelligence. Bridges and Infrastructures have the function of connecting pieces of land and the role of creating a connected world. The matter is to make links and establish a network. In fact, it is a global network made of works of art, which have a physical and material presence balancing between values such as economy and elegance and providing a better life for every man. Seeking audaciously for innovation, research contributes to these large scale structures as it has been improving material capacities and technical creation. It is a huge field that lay infinite possibilities for art and science to perceive changes of social, aesthetic, technical standards and norms.
Ricardo Legorreta. An Architect in Search of Modernity within Tradition
Authors: Noelle Louise
Published: April 2021

Ricardo Legorreta is one of the Mexican contemporary architects who have garnered the most recognition; only in 2011 he was distinguished as Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM, and the Praemium Imperiale in Japan. One year before, on August 27 at the docomomo Conference held in Mexico City, he gave a memorable Keynote Speech on the main figures of the Modern Movement in Mexico, José Villagrán and Luis Barragán, that the attendants treasured in their memories.
Artek and Alvar Aalto
Authors: Hipeli Mia
Published: April 2021

Artek was founded in November 1935. The name of the company, Art + Technology, reflects its objectives and methods of operation. The intention was to offer to its wide range of customers, practical, economical, hygienic and above all Modern furniture that reflected its own time. The furniture was to represent the values of an urban and efficient lifestyle. In the company’s founding meeting on 26.11.1935, Maire Gullichsen and Alvar Aalto became the main shareholders. Other shareholders were: Nils–Gustaf Hahl, Artek’s first managing director; P.W. Puhakka, the managing director of Huonekalu- ja Rakennustyötehdas, the company that produced the furniture designed by Aalto; Aino Marsio–Aalto; architect Aili–Salli Ahde; professor Carl Hahl; and architect Arne Ervi.
Sandoz Headquarters - Office Complex Novartis, Rueil-Malmaison, 1962-1968, by Martin Burckhardt and Bernard-Henri Zehrfuss
Authors: Blasi Ivan
Published: April 2021

Agnès Cailliau, Chair of docomomo France alerted docomomo International that the original Headquarters and Laboratories of Sandoz were going to be completely demolished. After writing letters to the Mayor of Rueil-Malmaison and to Novarti’s President, the pharmaceutical company answered that their previous Basel intervention was an example of their care for heritage, that the structure of the building in Rueil-Malmaison had not aged well and did not live up to the company’s standards and that the project of architect Patrick Berger was in line with their heritage policy.
Visions on Furniture
Authors: Creman Jurjen
Published: April 2021

The growing interest in Modern furniture, which by now can also be of a respectable age, has lent a new dimension to the profession of furniture conservation. New materials and techniques demand new conservation solutions.
Dieter Rams: Ethics and Modern Philosophy. What Legacy Today?
Authors: Klemp Klaus
Published: April 2021

German industrial designer Dieter Rams has turned eighty this year. His attitude towards product and industrial design, which he has been developing since the 1950s, once again arouses keen interest today. On the occasion of his birthday, a major German daily news paper saw in him the representative of a "present–day Modernism that is not as megalomanic as that of the 20s, 30s and 50s" and also not "the adolescent unleashing that we erroneously call Postmodernism." A revision of Postmodernism or, more correctly, a new "revision of Modernism", certainly seems to have come to stay. Konstantin Grcic, undoubtedly the most prominent German designer active today, wrote in the same newspaper one day before: "the product lines that Rams developed for the Braun and Vitsoe corporations have founded our notion of representational form and function. The once - from the pre–Grcic generation - so-called cool technocrat Dieter Rams, has now been rediscovered by virtue of his "almost romantic look at the manufacture of products.""
Mies van der Rohe’s Tugendhat House – Weightless Living
Authors: Wagner Monika
Published: April 2021

In his review of Franz Hessel’s "Spazieren in Berlin", Walter Benjamin noted that the author celebrated the "last monuments of an old culture […] for which cosiness came first", but whose time had come. The new architecture transferred "the domicile of men […] into a transit passage of all imaginable forces and waves in light and air. The future stands under the signature of transparency". Two years earlier, Siegfried Kracauer wrote about the exhibition of the Werkbund entitled "Die neue Wohnung" (The New Home) in 1927. Here, the attempt "to undermine the former isolation of the individual by dismantling the external partition walls" became evident. But perhaps "only the anonymous existence of the mass bound to capitalistic economy is granted a voice".
Charles and Ray Eames: Modern Living in a Postwar Era
Authors: Normandin Kyle
Published: April 2021

Anything seemed possible within the spirit of the postwar era. It is often noted that Charles and Ray Eames advocated the principles of Modernism through the adaptation of innovation from wartime technology. Undoubtedly, Charles and Ray Eames were pioneers who gave shape to America’s 20th century through the pursuit of industrialization, including their influence in the process of prefabricated mass production and residential construction. Their lives and work are significant not only due to their innovative furniture but also because of the internationalization and global expansion of American culture through their contributions to architecture, film, and industrial and graphic design.
Svetlovodsk: Realized Urban Utopia of the USSR. A Revitalization Strategy for the Small Post-Soviet Monocity
Authors: Tyminski Vladislav , Kamyshan Anna
Published: April 2021

The article is devoted to one of the most pressing problems for the former Soviet Union - the problem of survival and development of the small mono–industry towns. The aim of this work is the actualization of the problem of survival and development of the small post–Soviet towns - the unique urban artifacts of the Soviet industrial utopia. Svetlovodsk that was created in the 60’s of the twentieth century during ‘Khrushchev’s Thaw’ gave the example for the analysis of the specificity of small towns in Ukraine. The strategy of the development of this type of towns has been described in the article.
Dinamo Stadium, Moscow, 1927-1936, by Aleksandr Langman and Leonid Cherikover
Authors: Blasi Ivan , Bronovitskaya Anna
Published: April 2021

In February 10, 2012 the demolition of the façade walls of the cultural heritage building of regional significance Dinamo Stadium got underway (Leningrandsky Prospect, 36). There is no need to prove the value of the building which was constructed in two stages in 1927-1936 upon the project of L. Cherikover and A. Langman. In 1987 the Stadium was placed under special protection of the state.
Kyoto Kaikan, Kyoto, 1960, by Kunio Mayekawa
Authors: Blasi Ivan , Matsukuma Hiroshi
Published: April 2021

In the historic city of Kyoto, located inside Okazaki Park across from the Heian Jingu Shinto shrines, sits a representative Modern architectural heritage, Kyoto Kaikan. However, today, it faces an imminent threat of destructive alteration, thus calling attention for the Heritage Alert at the ICOMOS ISC20C.
Cinémas Choisis
Authors: Alves Joana Gouveia
Published: April 2021

his essay analyzes the cinemas that were featured in L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui from 1930 until 1939. This being one of the most influential magazines for the spread of Modern Movement ideas, its editorial line focused on the adaptation of building to function and on the distinction between European and American cinemas. Theoretical texts separated classic live theatre from cinema design since programme and features were completely different. Far from American euphoria and classic theatre sobriety, how was architecture for cinema envisaged?
Duikers’ Open Air School: Re-Use or Contin-Use?
Authors: Nelissen Sander , Polman Mariël
Published: April 2021

Even more than eighty years after its inauguration in 1930, Jan Duiker’s ‘First Open Air School for the Healthy Child’ in Amsterdam remains in use as an elementary school for the education of children between 6 and 12 years old. The building has recently undergone substantial restoration works, including some changes that were necessary to keep up with current regulations. Some 1950s interventions have been retained which posed particular challenges regarding the colors and finishes. The clear cut appearance of the building seems to ignore the complexity of the design decisions that had to be made to grant this building a second lease of life. Restoration architect Sander Nelissen (Wessel de Jonge architects, Rotterdam) and architectural paint researcher Mariël Polman (Cultural Heritage Agency) worked closely together on the restoration of the building and its interior.
Global Design and its Re-Use
Authors: Tostões Ana
Published: April 2021

Thanks to Finland, the motto “Survival of Modern” justifies going deeper in the relation that connects form and function, aesthetics and ethics. That’s also why the argument is Global Design. The aim of this collective and interdisciplinary reflexion is to contribute for the discussion that relates Modern heritage and interior space, common daily life and musealization of Modern Interior Spaces, gathered underneath a global strategy to better understand and preserve these delicate monuments. In fact, the interior space with all devices and furniture pieces is frequently neglected as an essential matter in safeguard interventions.
Bauhaus and Ulm School of Design Pedagogy towards the Creation of a Global Design
Authors: Markgraf Monika
Published: April 2021

The relevance of the Bauhaus and the Ulm School of Design to the development of a global design is widely acknowledged. With the inclusion of the Bauhaus on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites, this received worldwide recognition, and thereby acknowledged not only the architecture, but also the pedagogical concept. Since a comprehensive analysis of the pertinent issues far exceeds the parameters of this contribution, I would like to focus on two aspects: a brief exposition of the Bauhaus building and the Ulm School of Design as built manifestoes of their pedagogical concepts and the dissemination of these concepts by the institutions’ students and educators.
Chandigarh Heritage Furniture
Authors: Garreta Ariadna Álvarez
Published: April 2021

Although Chandigarh is linked to Le Corbusier due to the urban planning and the buildings of the Capitol complex, the footprint of the tandem between Jeanneret and the Fry–Drew team goes far beyond as reflected for example in different housing typologies and the design of interesting furniture collections. These have been seldom described and evaluated, perhaps partly due to the lack of attention that the authorities have towards Chandigarh’s heritage.
The Vision of Utopia
Authors: Casanova Rossend
Published: April 2021

Designed in late 1932 by Josep Lluís Sert and Josep Torres Clavé, Casa Bloc is one of the paradigmatic works of these architects who represented the most active core of the Modern Movement in Catalonia, known as GATCPAC (Group of Catalan Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture), founded in 1930 echoing the Spanish GATEPAC. I use the word “paradigm” in the sense of a theoretical framework or set of theories. In fact, Casa Bloc was not only the first major social housing building in Barcelona conceived in functional terms but it also exemplifies the reception in this city of the notions of the Modern Movement and how the guidelines recently approved in the 4th CIRPAC Congress were applied.
Global Design. Schools in Portugal
Authors: Martins João Paulo
Published: April 2021

Since its very beginning, the design of educational spaces is strongly connected with issues on pedagogy, hygiene, order and discipline, collective identity (hence with history, traditions, modernity and innovation). To materialize the concept of global design, seeking formal coherence and a close functional and ideological articulation between all components, furniture design is fundamental as is the role of fine arts. Addressing the relationship with the context implies considering the links established with all other objects which form the school system in its several degrees (nursery, primary, secondary, superior) and scales (the neighbourhood, the city, the country).
Learning to Love Brutalism
Authors: Vidler Anthony
Published: April 2021

The following keynote lecture was presented at the 12th International docomomo Conference that took place in Espoo, Finland, this past August 2012. The author began his lecture thanking the Chair of docomomo International, Ana Tostões, and all docomomo members and friends who have done so much to ensure that the now historical heritage of Modernism might be saved for the future. Following the stimulating talks of John Allan and Mark Pasnik, he entered what for many in this field was a territory that was at least ambiguous if not impossible to accept: that the so–called Brutalist buildings of the period 1960 to the late 70s would one day be the urgent object of attention for those interested in preservation and conservation.
The “Bauhaus Experiment” 1998-2006: Paint Research and Conservation Strategies Critically Revisited
Authors: Danzl Thomas
Published: April 2021

Nearly fifteen years after the beginning of the first systematic documentation works in the so-called “Masterhouses” in Dessau and actually with a distance of six years time since the inauguration of the restored “Bauhaus” school-building it seems to be useful to draw a critical résumé for further leading discussions. This is especially desirable because the guidelines, the methods and the strategies developed and finally realized during the conservation works were at the time without doubt at an experimental state.
Nadir Afonso: the Painter (who graduated) Architect
Authors: Cepeda João
Published: April 2021

Nadir Afonso, one of the most well known (and recognized) Portuguese painters, has dedicated a great deal of his life to practicing the profession from which he graduated as an architect a facet that is still commonly unknown by the great public, as it was just slightly studied by the history of contemporary Portuguese Architecture. Regarding his career, it is to particularly note the periods he spent abroad, working with Le Corbusier and Niemeyer. These influential authors of the Modern Movement gave him the opportunity to participate in various projects that marked the history of architecture. This singular international phase manifestly resulted in Modern influences that are visible in the work he later built in Chaves. Nadir Afonso ended up abandoning the profession, since when he has dedicated himself to Painting on a full-time basis.
Le Corbusier and GATCPAC: Functionalism and Latin Identity
Authors: Vidal Mercè
Published: April 2021

This study presents a brief history of design in the context of historic avant-gardes. It shows that, in parallel to the more classical historiographical interpretation which followed Pevsner’s ideas to “internationalize” the production of the 20s and 30s, other models with vernacular Latin roots were obviated.
Alexander von Vegesack
Authors: Coutinho Bárbara
Published: April 2021

In July 2012, Bárbara Coutinho, Director of MUDE–Design and Fashion Museum, Francisco Capelo’s Collection since 2006, interviewed Alexander Von Vegesack, founding Director of the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein and the person who set up Thonet Museum in Boppard am Rhein. The subject of this interview is the importance of Collect—Curate—Exhibit—Publish to the Preservation and Communication of Modern Architecture/Design.
The Intertwinement of Modernism and Colonialism: a Theoretical Perspective
Authors: Heynen Hilde
Published: April 2021

Post–colonial theory, following the lead of Edward Said’s Orientalism, holds that the discourse that justified colonialism was not marginal to European culture, but that it formed a core ingredient of European thinking about Modernity and Modernism. This thought–provoking argument has not yet been thoroughly processed in architectural history and theory. This article explores these issues by introducing some of Said’s thoughts and by discussing how they might be relevant for an interpretation of Modernism in architecture. It looks at primitivism in architecture as encountered in the work of Loos, Le Corbusier and Rudofsky, arguing that its colonialist bias is undeniable. The conclusion stresses how much Said’s analyses still give rise to difficult questions about our ideas and attitudes.
Oscar Niemeyer, 1907-2012
Authors: Macedo Danilo Matoso
Published: April 2021

Modern master Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012) was the most important Brazilian architect. Graduated in the Escola Nacional de Belas–Artes in 1934, he soon became world–known for his role, together with Lúcio Costa (1902–1998), with the design of the Brazilian Ministry of Education (1937) in Rio de Janeiro; or for their Brazilian Pavillion in New York World Fair in 1939. His solo work in the Pampulha buildings was immediately published in the catalogue of the “Brazil Builds” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943.
De-Tropicalizing Africa: Architecture, Planning and Climate in the 1950s and 1960s
Authors: Phokaides Petros
Published: April 2021

In the mid–1950s, British architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew were among the leading figures behind the institutionalization of the Tropical Architecture field, contributing to the proliferation of publications, international conferences and establishment of academic centers. During the same time, the global shortage of housing and United Nations’ development agendas for the “third world” brought a shift in planning priorities. Focusing in that particular moment, the paper traces the efforts for the de–tropicalization of Africa and planning practice alike, through the research activities of the Athens–based firm Doxiadis Associates and the writings and visions of Greek architect Constantinos Doxiadis.
Otto Koenigsberger and the Course on Tropical Architecture at the Architectural Association, London. Some Notes on the Portuguese Context
Authors: Figueira Jorge , Gil Bruno
Published: April 2021

Otto Koenigsberger is considered a pioneer in researching specific models and technical solutions for architecture and planning in the tropics. Educated within the core of the European Modern Movement, under the mentorship of Hans Poelzig, Bruno Taut and Ernst May, Koenigsberger moves away from the ideal and expressionist realm to the real and specific context whilst working in India. This non–western experience triggers an interest in developing countries, mainly tropical ones. In 1954, Koenigsberger conceives a new course on Tropical Architecture at the Architectural Association in London, followed by a great number of architects, such as the Portuguese Luís Possolo, António Seabra and Schiappa de Campos, who would apply their learning in the countries of “Portuguese Africa”, as it was formerly known.
Early Modern African Architecture. The House of Wonders Revisited
Authors: Folkers Antoni
Published: April 2021

This essay explores the various strands of the advent of Modernity in African architecture. It starts from the assumption that the history of Modernity in African architecture is a complex and rich subject that merits increased scientific attention.