HOUSING, URBANISM AND GLOBALISATION // CASE STUDY: Parkhill and Donnybrook Quarter

HOUSING, URBANISM AND GLOBALISATION PARKHILL

PELAYO -1-

AND

DONNYBROOK

GARCIA

QUARTER

MARTINEZ

CRITICAL STUDY / CULTURAL CONTEXT N. 18149143 BIRMINGHAM CITY UNIVERSITY

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INDEX

Pag. 4

Introduction / Typology and design

Pag. 6

History and context

Pag. 8

Evolution and culture: Globalisation

Pag. 10 Pag. 12

Social life Public opinion

Pag. 14

Community and life

Pag. 16

Design and funcion: Density

Pag. 18

Design and funcion: Structure

Pag. 20

Design and funcion: Conection to the city

Pag. 22

Conclusions

Pag. 24

References

Pag. 26

Parkhill and Donnybrook presentation

Pag. 32

Book Review: Modern Architecture after 1900

Pag. 34

Walsall Study trip presentation

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Population

POPULATION LOCATION

City centre

City centre

Distance

BREAKING WITH THE PAST Fig. 1

Parkhill, Sheffield. 1962

Bank Road, Woodside, Sheffield. 1965

Donnybrook Quarter, London. 2006

Canary Wharf, London. 2012 Fig. 2

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TYPOLOGY AND DESIGN INTRODUCTION

The way people live has evolved over the years, as a result of the migration from the countryside to the city, new patterns of life have been created that did not exist before. Considerable technological advances have made possible that architecture allows this important change. The architectural tradition of each country has been displaced by globalization, which has promoted a common style that extends all over the world.

The population has been concentrated in the cities and currently the demand for housing is more than the supply of this, so urban centres are being established with buildings that follow a pattern of organization of vertically stacked housing. Residences with a horizontal urban organization that are connected by streets with shops are being relegated to the suburbs and not central areas of cities. Housing with vertical patterns is the new way of life since the last century due to the demographic increase in cities, but it is not appropriate to refer to them without mentioning the Chicago School and Le Corbusier, whose ideas were the first principles of this type of housing.

TYPOLOGY AND DESIGN

High-rise buildings that are based on the stacking of independent spaces have evolved throughout the 20th century and have become a common element in all major cities. These are mainly public office buildings or commercial areas, although there are also other uses such as hotels or residential buildings. It is on the last-mentioned that this document will be focused, considering the basic principles that have generated two very different housing models: the housing in horizontal groups and the housing that follows a stacking pattern in height. In order to analyse them, two buildings very characteristic of the United Kingdom will be used: Donnybrook Quarter (London, 2006), which is a clear example of the horizontal extension of traditional urbanism in a suburban district of London; and Parkhill (Sheffield, 1960), which, responding to the demographic increase, has been developed close to the city centre of Sheffield following a vertical housing stacking style.

The design of both residential buildings is considered very innovative for the time, while Parkhill is disconnected from the English architectural tradition and legacy, Donnybrook is disconnected from the current homogeneous trend of creating vertically organized communities generated by the global stream of projects of the second half of the XX century and the beginning of the XXI century. Both break with the past looking for a better way and an efficient solution to build houses given the conditions of each time and place. In this case, Donnybrook Quarter, built by Peter Barber Architects, breaks with a globalization and a loss of the style of the city that is common during the XXI century, is carried out in a suburban residential district of London where the model of stacking houses in residential blocks is widely extended.

The Sheffield building, on the other hand, reacts to a post-war period in which the intention is to build cheap and efficient social housing in an area close to the centre.

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HISTORY AND CONTEXT HISTORY AND CONTEXT

It has been demonstrated throughout history that England is a country with a tradition of housing in an urbanism with horizontal grid, with single-family houses, far from creating large communities that cohabit a common vertical space. Therefore, the model applied in Parkhill was a risky bet based on movements of its time started by architects such as Le Corbusier in France. This tradition of individual and differentiated single-family dwellings is what Peter Barber Architects wants to recuperate for London, creating a group of horizontal houses separated by an interior street that constitutes the nucleus of relations between the residents. The architects seek to demonstrate that the model of stacking houses is not a better model and that it can accommodate the same number of people with a more traditional design in which all houses have direct access from the street.

Parkhill was carried out in the English city of Sheffield in 1960 by different architects without previous experience in construction called Jack Lynn and Ivor Smith. Stunned by the advances in architecture and construction present in projects such as Le Corbusier’s “Unité d’HabitatiIon de Marseille”, they wanted to recreate a building with a similar style. Their main conditioning factors were the low budget and the use of social housing. In a certain way, the cultural tradition of English housing was ignored, and this received a considerable amount of criticism at the time.

The large community created is located in a central area of the city, close to the main services of the city and well communicated thanks to the proximity of the train.

Although Le Corbusier is the main influence of this project, it would not have been possible without the technical advances at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century in Chicago with a group of architects known as the Chicago School.

After the great fire of the city (1871), a great demand of housing emerged for those people who had lost their homes, they reconsidered new construction methods and began to explore new ways away from the traditional local construction with the aim of building faster and more efficiently. Reinforced concrete began to be used in the construction, as well as structural steel frameworks. This last system consisted in the creation of prefabricated pieces that would be joined on site creating a great structure and from this point onwards the slabs, walls and other architectural elements would be placed, the structure of the façade was built independently. This made it possible to reduce construction times and lower the price. At the same time, much higher buildings were constructed.

A fundamental invention for the triumph of this new way of designing architecture was the elevator, without which buildings could not have been made with direct access to all the houses from the ground floor at street level. In this way, a communications core is created that supplies all floors equally. Reducing the difficulty of reaching the higher floors.

Not only the technical advances in the construction have a fundamental role in the model followed for Parkhill, also the theories that complement the “Unité d’Habitation de Marseille” that are proposed around the social life and the distribution of it in the cities assumes a fundamental role. According to the ideal city of le Corbusier, the main services of cities such as water supply and entertainment should be separat-

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ed from residential buildings. This is possible thanks to the emergence and expansion of the motor car in the middle class, without which it would be impossible to apply such theories. In spite of the social isolation that Le Corbusier proposes, he establishes a community within his residential buildings that serves the dwellings that compose it. These services are generally included in the upper floors of housing projects, and we find shops, nurseries, entertainment areas, even sports clubs.

Unité d’Habitation

Fig. 3

Chicago school structure

Fig. 4

Parkhill’s project resembles these proposals by le Corbusier, also including shops and common entertainment areas for the use and delight of the community’s neighbours. Despite the attempts of the young architects, it was not successful in the United Kingdom community, being a model widely criticised by the media and by the neighbours at the time.

Donnybrook Quarter

Fig. 5

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Park Hill

Fig. 6

EVOLUTION AND CULTURE:

GLOBALISATION EVOLUTION AND CULTURE: GLOBALISATION

Throughout history, different civilizations with different life-styles have developed their own architectural styles, which also depended on the geographic component of the place. These architectural currents are, in our days, a cultural element that is considered to be the legacy of these places. We can find different architectural traditions linked to countries such as China, Greece, Holland or England.

Despite this legacy, the current architect adopts values from the modern movement of rupture with the past in order to achieve a more contemporary style, with a new architectural language. This is what the concept of globalization refers to, the new trend of building under a style that occurs simultaneously all over the world.

This globalization has a direct influence of Parkhill, since it has generated a tendency to develop stacked residential buildings. This comes as a response to the high demand for housing that appears during the XX century in the cities, where most of the work is concentrated. Due to this migration to the cities, urbanism began to generate different and new patterns for the time. This would be the case of Parkhill, completely detached from the tradition of single-family houses in England, in this case, its influence on contemporary architecture has been relevant.

The Parkhill model is a new architectural style that, although clearly inspired

by Le Corbusier, brings numerous innovations that are still maintained today. The creation of interior spaces in their communities that enclose gardens for the use and delight of residents is undoubtedly a positive aspect of the design that the architects added.

Even so, their knowledge of the urban organisation in streets that give access to the houses, makes them decide to move those streets vertically connected by a communication core, therefore, they seek to adapt an existing model to their new proposal.

Being this gesture a way of respecting the way people want to live, Peter Barber Architects decide to rescue the architectural tradition and take the component of life in the streets to the extreme. In Donnybrook quarter they make an approximation to the cultural currents of England and a bet for the organization of the houses without stacking, breaking with the present in the district of London. They want to demonstrate that the same number of people can be accommodated following a more traditional way of architecture without completely renouncing to the new way of building and designing.

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Park Hill common space

Fig.7

Park Hill design

Donnybrook common space

Fig.9

Donnybrook design

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Fig.8

Fig.10

Park Hill common space

Fig.11

Donnybrook common space

Fig.12

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SOCIAL LIFE SOCIAL LIFE

Parkhill’s project attempted to solve the problem of the high demand for housing in the 1960s, becoming a model criticized and qualified as inappropriate for the time. A large production of housing was achieved, but according to later studies, it was not carried out in the right direction. To solve a problem well, first you have to ask the right questions and identify those problems properly. This was Parkhill’s main mistake in the 1960s; English society did not want to live in a housing model that was so different from the conventional housing model. At the same time, there was a lack of connection between the building and the environment that made the building inappropriate for the place over time. This rejection of the Sheffield residential building is produced by the rupture with an English tradition that, being not much studied and researched, was a secondary element in the design. The main elements that define this English tradition are the organisation of a single-family dwelling of no more than three heights, direct access from the street to a principal door and the existence of private gardens or courtyards.

Social life is a very characteristic aspect of both buildings, in the case of Donnybrook the aim is to emulate and generate a traditional English social life, with a central street to which the doors of the houses converge. This generates a sense of enclosure and makes it easier for the people who live there to go out and interact with the city and access its services. On the other side of the spectrum is Parkhill, which despite having a privileged position near the centre of Sheffield, remains far from promoting social life and the enjoyment of the city’s services. It is also concerned with generating a set of services within the building that provide some residents’ needs. This concept is inspired by the above-mentioned Le Corbusier. The architect proposed the creation of independent communities far away from each other and from the city’s services, in order to compensate it, he would place the necessary services for daily life in the same building, so that residents would not need to leave.

Parkhill’s original design included different services that attempted to give social life to the Parkhill building and its surroundings, however, the building intended to use in the traditional way the existing city services. The city centre (with markets, schools, and other services) is located close to the building, but in spite of this, they are not connected in a comfortable way for the use of Parkhill residents, the building is on top of a hill, a railroad track interrupts the direct passage to the city, and the fact that it is a long way to leave the building causes it to become isolated from the city and difficult to use its facilities.

For these reasons, the new architects who renovated Parkhill, decided to renew only the block closest to the city, next to a bridge that crosses the railroad tracks. At the same time they placed elevators with panoramic views of the city to give an interest to the route of the building and to obtain the enjoyment of the experience with the spectacular views of the city from the height.

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PUBLIC OPINION

“Park Hill refutes the widespread perception that housing with public access corridors is fatally deficient and dangerous.”

Dan Cruickshank, Park Hill it´s future, Park Hill: What’s next, AA Documents 1, 1996 “The unbreakable continuity of horizontal circulation makes it possible to walk to any spot on the same level without ever descending to the ground and free from the danger of vehicular traffic.”

Reyner Banham, Park Hill Housing, Sheffield, p. 409 “Park Hill is one of those strange cases in which the intention of creating a certain type of architecture causes the convergence of program and place that can hardly be achieved in any other way and the result makes aesthetics and functionality merge instantaneously”.

Reyner Banham, Park Hill Housing, Sheffield, p. 395 “Park Hill represents a valuable resource in a regenerated city. Its location and accessibility suggest the possibility of capitalising its development as a cultural and sports centre”.

Roger Harper y Philip Both, Park Hill and the Unité, Park Hill: What’s next, AA Documents 1, 1996 “The architects used the idea of the Smithsons’ platform to create a lively urban elevated street (though not as much as it should be, because of the absence of shops, pubs, etc.)”.

Charles Jencks, Movimientos modernos en arquitectura, Hermann Blume Ediciones, Madrid 1983, p. 257 “Donnybrook is one of the most innovative housing projects to be undertaken in the UK for decades… it is not impossible to imagine that in 10 years’ time, donnybrook might be remembered as a significant turning point in the culture of British housing provision” Ellis woodman, building design magazine, February 2006 “Donnybrook is a complex, socially challenging architectural arrangement. The rationalism used in bow is about inclusion, physical agreement and the startling realities of progressive urban change.”

Jay Merrick, The independent, January 2006 “Top dogs for 2006, best buildings in class. Housing: donnybrook.” “Peter Barber architects is....best placed to make a really significant impact on a sector that for many years has fought shy of innovative design.”

Ellis woodman, Building design, January 2006 “This inspiring scheme... Strives to repair some of the rips that have been made in London’s fabric since the second world war. If you can achieve all that with this level of elegance, you could well be on to something.”

Steve rose, The guardian, February 2006

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Park Hill flat organisation

Fig.13

Donnybrook flat organisation

Fig.14

Fig.15

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COMMUNITY AND LIFE COMMUNITY AND LIFE

The Parkhill community has varied over the years in a parallel way to public opinion about this building. It began as a social housing building for working classes, after that, over the years it became unoccupied because of its various lacks. People did not want to live there because life was very different and could become a dangerous place. After that, in 2011, Hawnkins Brown & Mickail Riches, understanding the great architectural potential of the Sheffield’s building, redesigned one of the blocks of apartments and was constructed, correcting the errors and adapting it to contemporary architecture. More than a social housing, it is conceived as middle-class apartments.

The design of the plans preserves the structure, but the interior organisation varies.

They aim to improve some aspects of the previous design, such as the personalisation of the different houses in order to be able to distinguish them, something that did not happen before. They trust that this would resolve the lack of individualization that was presented in the previous building, they sought to design a building where all the houses looked different from the outside. In order to do this, they use the personalisation of the access space to each house and the façade with different patterns and colours. They begin to give more importance to the community of neighbours carrying out common events including contests of personalization of the door’s windows of the houses, this generates a greater interest for the neighbours in differentiating their houses and inhabit the long external corridors

After two years of complete occupation, different varied patterns of usage were established which defined the structure of the neighbourhood society. Mrs Joan Demers, the building’s first resident, carried out an extensive research on the lifestyle and functionality of the building. Associations were formed to discuss the problems of moving to the innovative Parkhill building, one of the biggest complaints was based on garbage collection, as it did not work properly, and large groups of garbage were being produced in various parts of the building. This was solved by improving the collection with an electric trolley that would take the garbage to a train. The problems of the rapid construction of the building were manifested by the lack of sound insulation between the different floors.

The neighbours complained about the excessive noise of the steps in the superior corridors to the houses, being crossed by multitude of people to enter their flats. This was improved with a different treatment of the floor of the common areas to avoid making sound and disturbing the lower floors. Floors near public and commercial areas also reported excessive noise due to their thin walls.

The organizations were not only to denounce building problems, they also organized dances, trips and other leisure activities. In fact, it was one of the most popular Sheffield societies of the 1960s, being an exemplar by giving donations to charity and carefully maintaining common areas.

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Park Hill composition

Fig.16

Park Hill From single unit to residencial complex

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Fig.17

Donnybrook situation

Fig.18

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DESIGN AND FUNCTION: DENSITY

DESIGN AND FUNCTION

Density

The main problem to be solved in today’s cities is to provide accommodation to a large number of people who work in them, for this purpose it is intended to resort to designs based on both compositional theories of buildings, both housing organized in vertical stacking and more restricted dwellings on the floor that are developed in parallel horizontally. Parkhill represents the first model, while Donnybrook is a clear example of the second one. The dwellings in Parkhill, situated on an old terrain where 800 single-family houses were located, generated a total of 2000 apartments, increasing the number of dwellings by 250%. At the same time, more community garden and park spaces were created, but private gardens were lost. This solution, therefore, is applied for extreme cases of necessity to host many people, in this case, it emerges due to the massive migration from the countryside to the cities.

In the opposite case in terms of design is Donnybrook quarter, where, on a smaller scale, it optimizes the design with horizontal organization so that it takes advantage of the space with a total of 40 houses where 130 people live. At the same time this design respects more the English tradition and provides courtyards to each individual apartment.

This model, posterior to the Parkhill building, shows that it is not necessary to build high buildings to accommodate a large number of people per square metre. Without renouncing to the space of free transit in the ground floor and to the terraces and private courtyards.

Park Hill situation

Fig.19

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DESIGN AND FUNCTION: STRUCTURE

Structure

The low budget is an initial precondition of both projects, both are resolved without exceeding their established budget, adjusting to it in the most efficient way possible. In the case of the Sheffield building, which is the most interesting and characteristic in terms of structure, a mega reinforced concrete structure is made that admits sufficient variations to avoid problems and variations on the construction site. The structure is delimited by a series of walls and slabs that determine the interior spaces, giving shape to apartments of one to five people. Special care is taken in the corners of the intersection of two blocks, being one of the most delicate parts of the design of the building. The use of cheap materials in the construction means that the building receives a multitude of criticisms for different reasons, such as the lack of privacy due to the thinness of the walls, the noise of the upper floors or the weakness of the material that caused damage that had to be repaired.

The solutions given to these problems were not entirely correct in some cases, in the case of the corridors, to avoid noise was placed asbestos to isolate the noise when people walked through the upper corridor. Recently it has been demonstrated that this material is very dangerous to people’ health. Other problems were more difficult to improve, such as, for example, in the case of general breakdowns in the installations, being services that were supplied to the entire community, generated problems difficult to identify and repair without affecting the residents. The subsequent reform of the building in 2011, solved structural problems, restoring the structure, and facilities, proposing new systems for supplying the building.

In this case, it is important to define the degree to which the systematic repetition of a structure, and therefore of inhabitable spaces, is practical and achievable or, in its absence, it is a continuous source of problems. In the case of Donnybrook, this repetition also occurs on a much smaller scale, but solving problems that existed in Parkhill. The installations of each house are independent, each house has its own private courtyard with privacy, all have direct access to the street and the houses have no noise problem. However, the use of low-quality materials that require a lot of maintenance in the Donnybrook quarter is a visible error ten years after opening, as there is not much money to be invested in keeping it in good condition.

It also has a relevant value to determine the maximum extent of a repetitive pattern the factor of recognizing your home from the outside. In Donnybrook this is more than achieved due to its different forms and location on the street, while in Parkhill it is more complicated because the large mass of houses that form a vertical pattern are very similar to each other. In order to make this recognition and the consequent feeling of ownership easier, a colour pattern is used on the façade which distinguishes them by horizontal coloured bands. This gives a higher degree of recognition, although it is still complex to identify it from the outside, being very homogeneous patterns.

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Park Hill old and new patterns

Fig.20

Donnybrook bad conditions

Park Hill bad conditions

Fig.21

Fig.22

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DESIGN AND FUNCTION: CONECTION TO THE CITY

Connection to the city

The relationship of people with the services offered by a city, from work to entertainment, are regulated by urbanism. Both projects we are discussing here provide radical opposed solutions that therefore propose two completely different ways of life for the people who inhabit them.

The city of Sheffield is a small city located in the centre of England, determined by its railway connections and a working middle class society. In the 1960s, when the Parkhill project was implemented, the demand for social housing shaped the design and construction of the model to be developed. As it is a high-rise building, they took advantage of the model of accessing dwellings from a street that gives direct access to the different houses. These streets were converted into corridors disposed in a stacking mode that provided access to the apartments on the same floor, the upper floor and the lower floor.

This generated a long route to reach the city, which was not far away, no more than 15 minutes for the principal services without considering the minutes it takes to leave the building itself, from one to eight, and if the house was at the bottom of the parcel would have to add about 10 minutes to cross it. This model, despite its proximity to the centre, became very distant from it. At the same time, a train track and an existing road were obstructing the way to the city. The new reform carried out by the architects Hawnkins Brown & Mickail Riches in 2011, solves this problem by carrying out only the renovation of the closest block to the city. They include high-speed elevators with panoramic views of the city, assuming the architects that, if you can’t shorten the road to get out, at least make the most of it.

In the case of the city of London, this is a different urban context, where the city is much larger, and it requires nearby basic services in the neighbourhoods and other services on a city-wide scale. The closest transport service is the underground rail, conceiving the nearest underground station as another neighbourhood service that gives access to other and varied London services. The model implemented in this case allows total freedom for the people who live in the building to freely go out into the city, being on the other side of the door of their home, without going through long common spaces. This model is more traditional, inspired in the construction culture and the creation of cities that has defined their evolution, without proposing a great change since it has been demonstrated that this model works.

Both models, very complex and with different trends and influences, can function in an appropriate context. The Parkhill model breaks with the previous tradition of English construction, while Donnybrook aims and manages to recover it as faithfully as possible in terms of its design principles and the relationship of people with the building and the city.

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Park Hill site plan

Fig.23

Donnybrook site plan

Fig.24

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Park Hill conection to the city

Fig.25

ARCHITECTURE IN THE 21st CENTURY

Fig.26

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CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

The analysis of the buildings arises as an answer to several questions that were formulated in the beginning of the text, after solving those questions with a deep exploration, new questions arise that join all those concepts that we have been introducing. In my personal case, the questions I am asking are: “What is “evolution” in architecture? Has it always been in the same direction?

To solve this question, it is convenient to go back to the beginning of architecture and appreciate what human beings have understood by architectural evolution throughout history. The main objective has been to make a space habitable, adapting it to the conditions required by man. After that, new factors would be introduced, such as the creation of their own architectural cultural identities, the way of life of the different communities or meteorological and topographical factors. Up to this point, evolution has been based on gradual differentiation by creating their own architectural styles, but despite this, there have always been influences from one culture to another. This is what in our days we call globalization, a general movement that, distancing itself from the traditions of each place, establishes a common standard and design throughout the world.

This new turn in the evolution of architecture is due to new technologies in construction, design and in communication. As a consequence, new models of architecture appear that propose radical changes in the way people live, but once we have reached this point of evolution, the right question to ask ourselves would be: How do people want to live? And to leave the question “How far are we capable of doing in architecture?

Education itself and tradition could be an incentive that generates all people to respond in the same way at the time of considering their way of life, we feel more protected in places that we know, that we know how they work. Therefore, despite the fact that evolution in architecture is increasingly determined by technique, we must not lose the human part of it and always have a contact with reality when we build. If this contact with reality is not maintained, we would fall into the current trend of the “architecture of utopia”, where projects are conceived more as a spatial and scientific exploration of how far the imagination of the architect can go, than as a project that can be built for people. In other words, it would be to rethink architecture based on the way people live, and therefore on tradition.

In a world where the tradition in question becomes a single global tradition, it would be necessary to continue respecting the lifestyle of that society, proposing improvements instead of radical changes. It does not consist in a rejection of new technologies and utopia, but in a new path to follow in which technology, utopia and tradition make possible a buildable project that includes everything necessary for life. The identity of cultures and the people who constitute them, in the case of a completely globalized world, would become much more homogeneous, being similar identities without borders between them. Before reaching this point, different cultures should be protected, since they are one of the world’s greatest heritages and we must take care of them.

The future of housing depends on many factors, as it always adapts to circumstances, transforming and creating different ways of life. It is always necessary to consider the topographic and meteorological factor, the variation of the population, the new techniques in construction and design, the economic factor... At the same time, and no less important, it is necessary to respect each person’s own identities and the social relations between the different societies, following and respecting the local tradition and the way in which people want to live.

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REFERENCES REFERENCES. Saint, Andrew (1996). «Park Hill, What next?». AA London: 7 - 61.

CruickShank, Dan (October 1995). «Park Hill, Sheffield, 1960-1995». Riba Journal London: 52 - 69.

Lynn, Jack (December 1962). «The Development of the Design described by Jack Lynn». Riba Journal London: 447 - 469.

Dan Cruickshank, Park Hill it´s future, Park Hill: What’s next, AA Documents 1, 1996 Reyner Banham, Park Hill Housing, Sheffield Roger Harper y Philip Both, Park Hill and the Unité, Park Hill: What’s next, AA Documents 1, 1996 Charles Jencks, Movimientos modernos en arquitectura, Hermann Blume Ediciones, Madrid 1983 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture, A Critical History, 1980 William Curtis, Modern Architecture since 1900, 1985

The Independent. (2019). Sheffield’s Park Hill: Estate expectations. [online] Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/sheffields-park-hill-estate-expectations-2297385.html.

Yorkshirefilmarchive.com. (2019). PARK HILL HOUSING PROJECT | Yorkshire Film Archive. [online] Available at: http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/park-hill-housing-project OpenLearn. (2019). Park Hill Estate. [online] Available at: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/heritage/park-hill-estate Peter Barber Architects. (2019). Donnybrook Quarter — Peter Barber Architects. [online] Available at: http://www.peterbarberarchitects.com/donnybrook-quarter Rose, S. (2019). Steve Rose on the Donnybrook housing estate in London. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/feb/06/architecture.communities

News.bbc.co.uk. (2019). BBC NEWS | Magazine | An island of white. [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5103556.stm

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Fig. 1 Self made drawing

Fig. 13 Self made drawing

Fig. 2 Self made photograph

Fig. 14 Self made drawing

Fig. 3 Commons.wikimedia.org. (2019). File:’Traditional Style’ Terraced Houses. Pye Bank Road, Woodside, Sheffield - geograph.org.uk - 1756449.jpg

Fig. 15 Self made photograph Fig. 16 Self made drawing

Fig. 4 Chipublib.org. (2019). Technology that Changed Chicago: Skeleton Construction. [online] Available at: https://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/technology-that-changed-chicago-skeleton-construction/

Fig. 17 Self made photograph Fig. 18 Self made drawing

Fig. 5 Self made photograph Fig. 19 Self made drawing Fig. 6 Self made photograph Fig. 20 Self made drawing Fig.7 Self made photograph Fig. 21 Self made photograph Fig. 8 Self made photograph Fig.22 Self made photograph Fig. 9 Self made photograph Fig. 23 Self made drawing Fig. 10 Self made drawing Fig. 24 Self made drawing Fig. 11 Self made photograph Fig.25 Self made photograph Fig. 12 Self made photograph Fig. 26 Self made drawing

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PRESENTATION

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PRESENTATION

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PRESENTATION

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BOOK REVIEW Book Review: Modern Architecture after 1900

By William J. R. Curtis

A solid knowledge of the architecture of the 20th century is an essential aspect in the planning of a project in these days. It is very important to know what happened in order to learn from it and evolve without making the same mistakes. Therefore, after several recommendations, I proceeded to read Modern Architecture since 1900 by William Jr Curtis, which in addition to “Modern Architecture: A Critical History” written by Kenneth Frampton, have been one of the most recommended books to go deeper into the architecture of the last century. I found that there is a preference of both authors for architects such as Le Corbusier, who is a landmark on the history of housing.

Modern Architecture since 1900, written by William J. R. Curtis in 1982, is a book with an historical character with great accuracy that explains the script followed by architecture from the late nineteenth century until contemporary architecture. It starts with a rcomplex research in the roots of modern architecture focusing on the last decades of the previous century in order to understand the bases that lead the development of modern architecture. The book has a profound analysis of architectural movements and trends, supported by notes and illustrations that make evident the topics dealt with in the book. Curtis aims to archieve knowledge of architecture by asking questions such as “what happened?” and “why it happened?”. With this method he reaches clear and well-reasoned arguments that are used to guide us properly, relating architecture with the place and the moment.

The book consists of four parts: the first one dedicated to the constitution of the modern movement, the second one focusing on its development, the third one expains its diffusion around the world and finally it deals with the architecture until the moment of the writing of the book. It consists of 35 chapters in which architecture is analyzed chronologically.

To delimit the precedents, the author studies the early beginnings of modern movement and a fundamental component for its development: concrete. The use of this new material allows us to conceive high-rise buildings, skyscrapers. It is also explained the influence of previous movements such as “Arts and Crafts” on architects such as F. J. Wright, or other movements such as Art Nouveau with its different movements, characteristics and important architects. All this time frame leads to the creation of movements of the avant-garde such as futurism, cubism and “De Stijl”.After these events , the book is focused on the modern architecture that emerges in the period between wars, highlighting Le Corbusier and Mies Van der Rohe. It is also made a deep and detailed analysis of the Bauhaus in Germany and of other relevant architects in this period such as Alvar Aalto or Saarinen.

At this point, it continues with a third part in which the author deals with the diffusion of the modern movement in later architecture from the 1940s onwards. The arrival of the Modern Movement in Latin America, Australia and Japan represented a great change in the way of conceiving architecture, generating a great change in architecture in a significant part of the world. Architects like Le Corbusier, Alvar Aalto and Louis Kahn are placed in an essential role in the wold expansion.Le Corbusier perceives the bourgeois houses of the time as an inhuman form of housing and completely unrelated to human beings. That is why he proposes a new way of conceiving housing in which there is no

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improper use of space. He proposes a plan for both housing and city. Tue architect presents a new model of thinking about housing, studying the human cell, housing from the perspective of man and for the man, responding to his physiological and social needs.

“The house is a machine to be inhabited”, where there is a conflict between the machine and its manner of acting serving people. The new scale of housing is based on human measures.

Le Corbusier searches for the same functional scheme for all residences that can be used under any context and can be equally inhabited by any familiar unit. In this way of conceiving the architecture, the architect starts to solve the basic housing modules to create to repeatitive pattern of construction and production of housing.He introduced the five basic points with which the form would respond to the needs of the inhabitants: the pilotis, the empty floor plan, the façade, the window and roofs gardens. Taking this to a large scale, Le Corbusier had the intention of solving the housing complex’s needs through grouping community facilities, equipment and open areas, as a way of achieving an improvement in the quality of residential life.

Mies Van der Rohe is also one of the architects Curtis develops. He defines the morphological trend of the Modern Movement, based on geometric rigor with a direct and non-ornamental aesthetic idea. With the phrase “Less is more” the architect looked for a reduction of forms to the elemental in architecture. So that he could move through the minimum expression. Through it, Mies sought to balance the relationship between the artwork and the people, architecture being an instrument for people.Mies’ architecture is based on the use of rational plants through minimalist formal purity, perfect proportions, precision in the details of his buildings and the simplicity of structural elements in order to visualize materials and their forms. “Any form that does not fit the structure must be repudiated”.On the other hand, he seeks to introduce nature into his buildings by using pure and diverse materials with clean plans. In this way he creates fluid spaces that open up and spread out towards the outside of the dwelling, in this way facing nature.

While Le Corbusier distinguishes the residence as two separate blocks, the building as a community and a more individualistic one. By proposing a way of living in community and another focused on the experimentation of architectural space, far from the traditional family unit. Mies approaches it from a point of view more influenced by tradition, seeking material virtue and new concepts of flowing space and structural minimalism. Renouncing some aspects of housing such as privacy.After these three fundamental parts that gather all the phases making a journey through the most important architects of the 20th century, there is a deepening in the contemporary architects to the work, with spatial mentions to Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Calatrava, Moneo, Bofil...

Through the study of the modern movement, I have been able to observe interesting reflexions, such as, for example, that although the modern movement tries to distance itself from tradition in order to do something new, it is unconsciously generating a new architectural tradition that is still dragging on today. Modern architects repudiated the easy and superficial use of traditional architectural elements, but they took concepts from their previous heritage and adapted them to their new way of seeing and conceiving architecture.This book has helped me to go deeper into the evolution and history of housing in architecture. Many times we fall into the error of considering that the most important advances are found in public buildings, but as with history with respect to microhistory, the evolution of the way of living and evolving is found in small-scale housing.

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WALSALL STUDY TRIP

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WALSALL STUDY TRIP

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