Architecture in the United States
The architecture in the United States has a relatively recent history since its first settlers, the Amerindians, did not leave buildings as spectacular as those made in Mexico or Peru. The United States is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values. Aside from the now small Native American and Hawaiian populations, nearly all Americans or their ancestors immigrated during the last five centuries and their common culture is a Western culture, largely stemming from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources.
Since the European colonization, the architecture carried out in an early colonial stage (16th-18th centuries) was marked by Hispanic influence in the South and English influence on the East coast. The architecture of the new nation (XIX century) remained attached to the artistic currents of the Old Continent, in a time of boom of the classicism followed by a moment marked by multiple academicisms, historicisms and eclecticisms, well received in a multiselective society. In the XIX century, some local stylistic varieties adapted to the country appear —federal style and Mission style— and finally others that were fully American such as the Chicago School or the Prairie School. In the last quarter of a century, with the invention of the elevator and the development of metallic structures, a fully American architectural type appears, the skyscraper, which will have a great development and will become a symbol of modernity and the strength of the nation in the XX century and that is spontaneously associated with the architecture of the country.
In 2006 and 2007, as part of its 150th anniversary commemorations, the American Institute of Architects sponsored research to identify the 150 most popular works of architecture in the United States, which it reported by publishing the list America's Favorite Architecture. This controversial list is a good reflection of the architecture made in the country in the last three centuries.
The architecture of the Amerindians in the current territory of the United States
The oldest examples of architecture in the United States are concentrated in two main nuclei. The first of these is in the eastern half of the country, where there are very old testimonies of the Mound Builders culture (builders of burial mounds, since they built earthen pyramids to bury their dead), such as the Adena culture and the mississippian The second nucleus is in the southwest, a region inhabited by civilizations that had already disappeared at the time of Christopher Columbus's arrival in America. The best-known archaeological settlements in this second nucleus belong to the Anasazi culture (Mesa Verde, Colorado) and the Pueblo Indians (Aztec Ruins National Monument, New Mexico).
Pre-Colonial Architecture.
It is considered as all those buildings built by explorers and immigrants (mostly from European countries) who came to North American lands, not thinking about colonization, but in search of new riches and lands. An example is the Viking raids. Explorers built medieval-style shelters, such as the Peak House in Massachusetts, whose main features are:
- Area: 37 square meters, including a loft on the second floor.
- Plant: a rectangular plane, an open living space with a large masonry fireplace to subdivide it, with an open loft above, connected by a staircase.
- Aesthetic of medieval origin: without aleros, tiny windows, minimal ornaments, the tilted ceilings were necessary for straw coverage in Europe. Made to two symmetrical waters with wooden tiles.
Colonial architecture (16th-18th centuries)
When Europeans settled in North America, they brought their architectural traditions and construction techniques with them. Colonial architecture is, therefore, closely linked to Western influences. The construction depends on the materials available there: wood and brick are ubiquitous elements of English New England buildings. It is also linked to the logic of colonization that gives rise to a political appropriation of space by the metropolis (governor's palaces, forts). The mark of European dominance is both economic (customs, plantations, warehouses) and religious (churches, Protestant temples, Franciscan and Jesuit missions).
Hispanic influence in the south
Spanish exploration of the American Southwest begins in the 1540s. Conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado travels this arid region in search of the mythical cities of gold of the Pueblos Indians. The latter build houses in adobe (mud mass dried in the sun). They are held in place by purpose-made wooden beams. The cubic shape of the buildings and their intricate organization give the towns this unique aspect, which will be taken up later by the American (town style).
You can imagine the disappointment of the conqueror before these modest constructions without ornamentation, but in the shelter of which the temperature remains constant and cool. The Spanish finally conquered these towns and made Santa Fe the administrative capital of the region in 1609. The Governors Palace was built between 1610 and 1614 mixing Indian (adobe) and Spanish (wrought iron grilles) influences. It is long and has a patio. The San Miguel de Santa Fe chapel dates from 1610 and uses the adobe technique that gives this religious building a surprising majesty and austerity.
In the 17th century and XVIII, the Spanish founded a series of forts (presidios) from present-day Los Angeles to present-day San Francisco. They create a network of missions in the southwestern region. The most famous is surely the one in San Antonio in Texas (Fort Alamo). It has an adobe church, with a rectangular nave, exterior buttresses, two symmetrical bell towers, and no ornamentation. Mission San Xavier del Bac in Arizona is a good example of the Churriguerense style in vogue in the rest of Latin America. The façade is framed by two massive vaults and the portico has stipites, worked columns that only serve as ornamentation.
Spanish sovereignty also concerned Florida intermittently from 1559 to 1821. Here, the conch style met with some success in Pensacola, for example. It is about decorating the houses with wrought iron balconies; You can find this trend in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. The Spanish also built forts such as those of Pensacola and Santa Agustina (Castillo de San Marcos, formerly Fort Marion National Monument), which are the rare architectural remains of the XVII who remain in the United States.
The English Influence on the East Coast
The colonial architecture of the 13 colonies is characterized by the English model. But climatic and religious differences introduce American elements. In Pasteur Capen's New England house in Topsfield (Massachusetts, 1683), the central position of the fireplace is provided for if heat is needed in winter. It is covered with boards and uses wood for the structure, two specifically American characteristics.. Puritanism imposes simple and sober places of worship, far from any ostentatious ornamentation: the meeting houses (meeting house) serve as an office for the temple and also as a place for socialization. In the Old Hingham's Ship Meeting House (Massachusetts, 1681), the pulpit is placed in the center and the structure is voluntarily left visible and bare.
In the 18th century the Georgian style and Palladianism developed from the city of Williamsburg in Virginia. The Governor's Palace, built in 1706-1720, is preceded by a long entrance wall and above a skylight placed on a platform with a railing. It respects the principle of symmetry. He associates materials found in New England: red brick, white painted wood, and blue slate for the gabled roof. It serves as a model for the residences of the growers and wealthy businessmen of the Atlantic coast (see below “American aristocratic houses”).
In religious architecture, common elements are the use of brick, sometimes stucco imitating stone, and a single spire that exceeds the height of the entrance: St. Michael's Church in Charleston (1761) or St. Paul's Chapel of Trinity in New York (1766) are a good illustration. The architects of this period are heavily influenced by the canons of the Old World. Peter Harrison (1716-1755) reports on his travels on European techniques applied in the State of Rhode Island: between 1748 and 1761, he built the Redwood Library and the Newport Market. Boston and Salem are the two main cities where the English style is manifested, but a purified style and adapted to the American way of life. The architect Charles Bulfinch endowed the Massachusetts State House in 1795 - 1798 with an original golden dome. He works on the construction of several houses in the Beacon Hill neighborhood and Louisburg Plaza in his hometown of Boston.
The public architecture of the new nation (19th century)
In 1776, members of Congress declared the independence of the 13 American colonies. The Treaty of Paris (1783) recognizes the existence of a new republican country, the United States of America. If there is a break with the United Kingdom on a political level, English influences continue to point to the buildings built in this part of the New World. Public, philanthropic and commercial orders develop in parallel with demographic growth and territorial extension. The buildings of the new federal and judicial institutions adopt the classical vocabulary (columns, dome and pediment), in reference to Greco-Roman Antiquity. Publications related to architecture multiplied: in 1797, Asher Benjamin published The Country Builders Assistant. universities and museums. It is at the end of the XIX century when this independence and dynamism are best expressed.
Thomas Jefferson's vision: architecture, republic and democracy
Thomas Jefferson, who was president of the United States from 1801 to 1809, expressed interest in various fields including architecture. Residing on successive occasions in Europe, he wanted to apply the formal syntax of Palladianism and Antiquity to public and private buildings, in cities and in the countryside. He contributed in this respect to the plan of the University of Virginia, built from 1817. The project, completed by Benjamin Latrobe, allows him to apply his architectural conceptions. The university library is located under a rotunda crowned by a dome that is inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. The whole presents a great homogeneity thanks to the use of brick and white painted wood. For the Richmond Capitol in Virginia (1785 - 1796), Jefferson took sides to imitate the Maison Carrée de Nimes, but choosing the Ionic order for its columns. A man of Enlightenment, Thomas Jefferson participated in the emancipation of architecture in the New World, imposing his vision of an art at the service of democracy. He contributed to developing the federal style in his country and adapting European neoclassical architecture to the born republican values. of the American Revolution.
The neoclassical style
The neoclassical style had a real appeal to architects working in the United States in the first half of the 19th century. The young nation, freed from British tutelage, believes it is the new Athens, that is, a focus of democracy. The constitution, drawn up in 1787, gives birth to new institutions that require buildings and impose the principles of national sovereignty and separation of powers. The official architecture and even civil or religious (which constitutes the originality of the United States), reflects this vision and takes the buildings of the Acropolis as a model. The Propylaea are reproduced on a different scale in front of the houses in the countryside on the eastern coast. Benjamin Latrobe (1764-1820) and his students William Strickland (1788-1854) and Robert Mills (1781-1855) obtain orders to build banks and churches in large cities (Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC). Above all, the Capitols of the Federated States adopt the neoclassical style as in North Carolina (Raleigh Capitol), rebuilt in 1833-1840 after a fire or in Indiana (Indianapolis Capitol). One of the latest examples of this trend is the Columbus Capitol in Ohio, designed by Henri Walters and completed in 1861. The sober façade, the continuous cornice and the absence of a dome give an impression of austerity and grandeur to the building. It presents a symmetrical plan and houses the supreme court and a library.
The official architecture in Washington D.C.
The federal capital of the United States is a beautiful example of homogeneous urbanism: the complex was imagined by the Frenchman Pierre Charles L'Enfant. This ideal of a monumental and neoclassical city is revived by the maintainers of the City Beautiful movement. Several cities wanted to apply this concept, which is part of the Fine Arts trend], but Washington D.C. They seem the most successful among all. The White House was built after the creation of Washington D.C., by an act of Congress of December 1790. After a competition to make it, the design of an American of Irish origin, James Hoban, was chosen and construction began in October from 1792. The conceived building was copied from the first and second floors of Leinster House, a ducal palace in Dublin in Ireland and which is now the seat of the Irish Parliament. But during the War of 1812, a large part of the city burned down, and the fire devastated the White House. Only the outer walls remained standing, but it was rebuilt. The walls were painted white to hide the smoke damage. At the beginning of the 20th century, two new wings were added to cope with the development of the Government. The Capitol of the United States of America was built in successive stages starting in 1792. Shortly after the end of construction, it was partially burned by the British during the War of 1812. Its reconstruction began in 1815 and was not finished until 1830. During In the 1850s, the building was significantly enlarged by Thomas U. Walter. In 1863, an imposing statue, Freedom, was placed on top of the dome. The Washington Monument is an obelisk-shaped monument created in honor of George Washington, the first American President. It was Robert Mills who made the original plans in 1838. A difference in color can be seen downwards, because its construction was stopped due to lack of money. With a height of around 170 meters, it was finished in 1884 and opened to the public in 1888.
The Lincoln Monument (1915 - 1922) is another monument in the same series: made of white marble and limestone, the building takes the shape of a Greek temple of the Doric order without a pediment. Its architect, Henri Bacon, trained in the ideas of the School of Fine Arts, he wanted the 36 columns of the monument to represent each of the 36 States of the Union at the death of Lincoln. Finally, Jefferson Monument is the last great monument built in the tradition of Fine Arts, in the forties. Its architect, John Russell Pope, wanted to highlight Jefferson's taste for Roman buildings. For this reason, he decided to imitate the Roman pantheon and provide the building with a spectacular dome, which rose 39 meters above the ground. He was severely criticized by supporters of the international style.
A return to medieval forms
The taste for the Gothic has never completely disappeared, both in Europe and America. There is nothing more than seeing the different churches that appear in the XVIII century and in the XIX due to population growth. From the 1840s, the neo-Gothic style tends to prevail in the United States, under the impulse of Andrew Jackson Downing (1815 - 1852). It spreads in a context of reaction to classicism and development of romanticism. It is characterized by a return to medieval decoration: (chimneys, gables, merlons, pointed windows, gargoyles, stained glass windows...) and the use of steep roofs. The buildings adopt a complex plan that moves away from symmetry and neoclassical rigor.
But the neo-Gothic was also used for the construction of universities (Harvard) and churches. Richard Upjohn (1802-1878) specializes in the rural churches of the Northeast but his main work remains Trinity Church in New York. His red-stone architecture refers to the European XIV century, but is today drowned in the midst of the immense Manhattan skyscrapers.
Always in New York, it is to James Renwick Jr. that we owe St. Patrick's Cathedral, an elegant synthesis of the cathedrals of Reims and Cologne. The project was entrusted to him in 1858 but it was not completely finished by the construction of the two spires on the façade until 1888. The use of materials that are lighter than stone means that external supports and buttresses are dispensed with.
Renwick also expressed his talents in Washington D.C. with the building of the Smithsonian Institution. But his detractors accuse him of having broken the architectural harmony of the capital by building a heterogeneous set (Byzantine, Romanesque, Lombard borrowings and personal additions) in red brick. The success of the neo-Gothic continued until the beginning of the XX century in numerous skyscrapers, notably in Chicago and New York.
Tendency to eclecticism and influence of the Academy of Fine Arts (1860-1914)
Eclecticism is a trend in architecture that manifested itself in the West between the 1860s and the First World War. It consists of mixing different elements borrowed from heterogeneous traditions. It differs from the neoclassical in that it built homogeneous buildings of unique inspiration (Greco-Roman antiquity). The Paris Academy of Fine Arts applies the precepts of eclecticism and influences various American architects. The churches also caught the attention of architects. Trained at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, the great American architects apply to the letter the principles they learned in France: symmetrical plans, grandiose and monumental buildings, rich decoration and large semicircular openings. The classic decoration is applied to completely new buildings such as stations.
Boston's Trinity Church is among the most notable buildings of that time. Adopting a centered plan, the architect Henry Hobson Richardson stacks several volumes to give the whole a pyramidal configuration. He uses different materials, such as stoneware and granite.The semicircular arches that frame the stained glass windows are typical of the Neo-Romanesque. New York City is, along with Washington DC, the main field of application of the Beaux-Arts style: it is embodied in the New York Public Library, the Columbia University campus, the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the Brooklyn Museum. Grand Central Terminal, the largest station in Manhattan, is guided by the same spirit and was completed in 1913. Its monumental façade is adorned with columns and large curved holes.
The Brooklyn Bridge is emblematic of eclecticism and New York City. It gives a positive image of progress and can be compared to the Eiffel Tower since it is the work of an engineer, John Augustus Roebling, and because it was criticized by some of his contemporaries. The pointed arches recall the historicist trend, but the steel cables as well as the technical result (480 meters in length, one of the tallest buildings in the city at the end of the century XIX) make it a modern building. From the twenties, the Beaux-Arts style competes with the Art Deco trend despite the works of Paul Philippe Cret (Detroit Institute of Arts, 1927]) and Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue (Rockefeller Monument Chapel, 1928; Capitol du Nebraska, 1919-1932). The neoclassical forms are maintained and continue to exist in the federal capital. The National Gallery of Art is still inspired by the Pantheon in Rome and was finished in 1940, on the plans of John Russell Pope.
Residential architecture
Rural aristocratic houses
They develop on the eastern coast where rich owners and growers have sumptuous and comfortable residences built from the XVIIth century, which are intended to imitate English residences.
In the 17th and 18th centuries
The spread of Treatises on architecture among the colonial aristocracy allowed the Georgian style to assert itself: in Mount Pleasant (Philadelphia), John McPherson had a residence built in 1761-1762 with an entrance with pediment, supported by Doric columns. It has a railed roof and a symmetrical resolution, characteristic of the neoclassical style then in vogue in Europe. In Salem, Samuel McIntire is the architect of the John Gardner-Pingree House (1805); he uses low pitched roof, balustrade and brick. He takes up Palladio's idea of connecting the buildings by a semicircular portico with columns. In the 1780s, the Federal style gradually moved away from the Georgian style and became a truly American style. At the time of the war of independence, the houses moved away from the strictly rectangular plan, adopting curved lines and adorned with decorative details such as garlands and urns. Some openings are ellipsoidal in shape; one or more parts are oval or circular.
Thomas Jefferson drew up plans for his own house at Monticello in Virginia, near Charlottesville. A fine example of the Palladian style, it recalls the Hotel de Salm located in Paris, which Jefferson was able to see when he was ambassador to France. He used ancient components such as Doric columns, tetrastyle porticoes, and a central dome. In Louisiana, colonial houses are sometimes commissioned with neoclassical pediments and columns, as is the case with Belle Meade Plantation in Tennessee: symmetrical in passage, the residence has a colonnaded porch and narrow windows. But the domestic architecture of the South knew how to emancipate itself from the classical model, adding a balcony halfway up the façade and forgetting the pediment over the entrance portico (Charleston, South Carolina; Oak Alley plantation in Louisiana). The houses are adapted to the climate of the region and are part of the plantation economy. They are decorated in stucco and cast iron like in the French Quarter.
In the 19th century
Later, the great families of the east coast had huge palaces and villas built in the neo-Gothic style, in the antipodes of neoclassicism. They took as a model the English house of Sir Horace Walpole on Strawberry Hill. Alexander Jackson Davis (1803 - 1892) worked on the Hudson Valley villa projects, furnishing them with whimsical details drawn from the medieval directory. For George Merritt's residence in Lyndhurst, he chooses to build a building with a complex plan and open several large windows that can make one think of church stained glass windows.
In the second half of the 19th century, architects Richard Morris Hunt, Henri Hobson Richardson and Frank Furness often received commissioned by wealthy families such as the Ames and Vanderbilts, and built residences in Neo-Romanesque or Neo-Renaissance styles. Industrial and transportation magnates wanted large mansions inspired by European palaces: Biltmore Palace, near Asheville in North Carolina, was the largest private residence in the country. Richard Morris Hunt copied the Louis XII and Francis I wings of the Château de Blois. It is the golden age of big agencies like McKim, Mead & White and the Beaux-Arts style, even for private buildings. The architecture expresses the prestige of notable Americans.
Modest habitat
Popular habitat: the architecture of the pioneers
At the beginning of the XX century, non-technical manuals, the pattern books, spread. The settlement of the western United States modifies the needs of architecture. Pioneers used the balloon frame technique in the years 1840 and 1850. The first use seems to date back to 1833 for the construction of St Marys Church in Chicago. Its success lies in the speed of construction (standardized boards and nails) that allowed each one to easily make the structure and skeleton of the house that was then covered with boards. The interior of the walls was covered with plaster or wood. It encouraged the rapid development of cities and gave great mobility. However, these houses did not offer good sanitary conditions and burned easily in the event of a fire.
Different architectural trends in the 19th century
The Stick style is an American method of house construction that uses retaining walls made of wooden beams. The constructions are closed with high ceilings, and steep roofs. The plan is asymmetrical and the interior space opens onto several galleries. The exterior is not devoid of decoration (large and refined consoles), although the main objective is comfort. Richard Morris Hunt built John N. Griswold's house in Newport in 1862. The Stick Style was gradually abandoned after the crash of 1873.
Then the Shingle style replaced the Stick style. It is characterized by simplicity and the search for convenience. Henri Hobson Richardson built the house of William Watts Sherman in 1874 - 1875, revealing the wooden structure. The house of Mrs. F. Stoughton in Cambridge (1882-1883) and the Newport casino (1879-1881) retain the plank covering. On the west coast, which attracts more and more Americans and architects, domestic architecture is also evolving towards more and more modernity.
The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco is representative of Italianate Victorian style houses (1860 - 1900). Built thanks to redwood wood, they resisted the city fire in 1906. They are highly decorated and colored. At the time, they offered all the modern comfort: central heating, electricity, running water... Its dimensions are standardized: 8 meters for the façade and 30 meters for the depth. They have several floors and windows.
The taste for the simplification of volumes and exterior decoration progresses thanks to the achievements of Irving Gill, to whom we owe several flat-roofed Californian houses in the year 1910 (Walter Luther Dodge house, Los Angeles, for example). Rudolf M. Schindler and Richard Neutra adapt European modernism to the Californian context in the twenties (Lovell Beach House, Newport Beach (California); Health House in Los Angeles).
Architecture and the Industrial Revolution (1865-1914)
The second half of the 19th century is the period of post-Civil War reconstruction and economic development of the USA. The industrial revolution is the birth of new construction materials (steel, concrete). Urbanization, demographic growth and capitalism provoke deep convulsions in American architecture (stations, offices,...), which are experiencing their golden age. The architects obtain official recognition and work both for the State and for a bourgeois clientele in search of comfort. The end of this period is characterized by the appearance of cinema that requires new constructions guaranteed, in particular, by Thomas W. Lamb, in New York.
The Cast-iron Buildings
In the middle of the XIX century new methods of direct steel manufacturing appear (Thomas-Gilchrist method, Bessemer and Siemens furnaces -Martin). These discoveries allow the mass production of “quality” steel. Industrialists assert the qualities of metal in architecture: standardized parts reduce the cost of construction. Fire risks are reduced thanks to the fireproofing method. James Bogardus (1800-1874) is one of these businessmen who advertises this construction method linked to the industrial revolution and called cast-iron building. Several factories and warehouses use this technique in New York, such as the Harper Building, built in 1854 and imitating the façade of a Renaissance palace. Daniel Badger (1806-1884) manufactures the metal elements that decorate the façade of the Haughwout Building. He is endowed with the first steam elevator that serves all five floors. The windows are framed by Corinthian columns and the whole is crowned by a meticulously decorated cornice. The decoration of the façade hides the internal metallic skeleton.
The metallic architecture is provided with stained glass windows that illuminate the interior space: in Cleveland, the arcades of 1890 were designed by John Eisenmann on the model of the Victor-Emmanuel gallery in Milan. They are made up of 1,800 glass panels and were financed by magnates John D. Rockefeller and Marcus Hanna.
Birth of Skyscrapers
Skyscraper constructions were possible thanks to the invention of the elevator and the progress of the steel industry. The table plan and the speculation of land ownership in American urban centers are not strangers to the success of this method of construction. Finally, the grouping of companies and capitalist competition encourage the vertical rise of buildings.
It is difficult to say which was the first skyscraper in history. New Yorkers claim it is the New York Tribune Building, designed by Richard Morris Hunt (1873, 78 meters). Others consider it to be the Home Insurance Building (1884 - 1885) in Chicago built by members of the Chicago School: Louis Sullivan, William LeBaron Jenney, Daniel Burnham, William Holabird and Martin Roche. They advocate a simple and utilitarian style; some consider them to prefigure the rationalist movement.
Neo-Gothic skyscrapers
The Woolworth Building in New York, a work of the architect Cass Gilbert (1913) is one of the most accomplished neo-Gothic skyscrapers. With its 60 floors, it was surpassed then by the Metropolitan LIFE Tower. The first three floors are of a beautiful limestone replaced in the following by terracotta. The neo-Gothic trend prompted the architect who had to add false buttresses and gargoyles. Given the gigantism of the building, the decorative elements were large in order to be visible from the street. In Chicago, the project for the headquarters of the Chicago Tribune newspaper is awarded to Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells. Opened in 1925, it is one of the emblematic buildings of the city and looks like a remarkable secular cathedral.
Reflections on Skyscrapers
Quickly, several American architects (including Louis Sullivan…) criticized this new vertical architecture. The vertiginous rise of the buildings prevents light from reaching the ground. The orthogonal plane implies an accumulation of circulation. There is a risk of standardizing the appearance of the center of the cities. Finally, new security problems arise, in particular, in terms of fire. Starting in 1916, to respond to these difficulties, a law on subdivision into zones ( Zoning Law ) was adopted in New York. The Regulation obliges architects to adapt the height of buildings based on the size of the plot. It continues to be in effect until 1961. This gives rise to the construction of pyramidal buildings (smaller top floors) such as the Empire State Building, or is even built on only part of the plot, such as the Seagram Building (Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, 1958) that provides a drop of 28 meters in relation to Park Avenida, and proposes an original means of integrating the skyscraper into the city. Even today, this right to heaven is highly regulated (Tiffany sold her right to Trump, allowing the Trump Building to go up).
In 1904 Frank Lloyd Wright was also interested in the problem of light, he designed the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, which he organized around a large central courtyard illuminated from above and to which the doors of each floor lead. The building opens inwards and has a large common room in the center. By using stone and brick and cutting horizontal planes, Wright rejects the normalization of the skyscraper.
The architecture of the 20th century (from 1914 to the present day)
The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright
The Prairie School inaugurates the period of organic architecture in the United States. Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright are considered as its main representatives. The first great house of the Prairie School is that of Highland Park in Illinois, completed in 1902 by Ward W. Willitts. Wright advocates a centered and asymmetric plan, organized around the fireplace. The house is representative of the idea of openness to nature and horizontality. The entrance is modest and the rooms are low-ceilinged: in his autobiography (1932), Wright acknowledges that he calibrates them by taking the height of a 1.74m man. The most successful example of the Prairie School is surely the Robie house located in Chicago (1906-1909), which recalls an elongated transatlantic ship.
After a stay in Japan, Frank Lloyd Wright returned to the United States and perfected the technique of textile blocks, that is, he used standardized concrete blocks. This results in houses with a simple and concise appearance, such as Alice Millard's house in Pasadena (1923, California). Thanks to the patronage of Edgar J. Kaufmann, Wright continued his research and built the famous Cascade House in 1936. He exploited the possibilities of the cantilever and corner windows.
Art Deco in American Architecture
At the end of the 1920s, the influence of Art Deco was felt in American architecture, blending with local planning requirements and pre-Columbian sources of inspiration. The party taken by geometric simplification, stylization and the use of luxurious materials is perfectly illustrated in the skyscrapers of New York (Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, Chanin Building, etc.). The other achievements are isolated (Board of Trade Building, Fisher Building, 1928 and Guardian Building, 1929, Detroit) or located on the West Coast (Los Angeles: Argyle Hotel, The Eastern Building, 1929, by Claude Beelman; San Francisco: Golden Gate Bridge, 1937).
Despite the Wall Street crisis of 1929, skyscrapers rise above the ground, sometimes with astonishing speed as in the case of the Empire State Building, hailed as a wonder of the modern world. The Rockefeller Center, a huge complex located in the heart of Manhattan, marks the ambitious idea of building a "city in the city in a rather bleak time. To sustain this start and lower unemployment in the construction sector, President Roosevelt invests in a series of large public works. Art Deco underwent a singular development in Florida: numerous hotels were built in Miami Beach after the 1926 hurricane. The decorative elements in stucco and marble represent the local fauna and flora (pink flamingos, palm trees...) for which there is talk of a Tropical Art Deco trend, which uses pastel colors. The Historic Sites Commission has classified more than 800 of these sometimes-exuberant buildings, which are concentrated at Lincoln Road Mall and Ocean Drive. Florida Art Deco will decline into four trends from the 1920s to the 1940s: Zig-zag modern, Mediterranean revival, Streamline moderne and Depression modern.
The International Style and the influence of the Bauhaus School
The expression International Style was used for the first time in 1932 in a work by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, written after an exhibition at the MoMA in New York entitled Modern Architecture . The rise of dictatorships in Europe left America the initiative for the dissemination of architectural modernism, welcoming European emigrated architects, particularly Germans and Austrians. In 1933, the Bauhaus school closed its doors in Germany under pressure from the Nazis, its harshly persecuted artists often fled to the United States, in particular to Chicago, while their works were systematically destroyed in Germany.
Three basic rules signal the break with traditional architecture: value volumes with smooth external surfaces; avoid all decorative elements but take care of the architectural details; finally follow the principle of regularity. The International Style is therefore presented as a resolutely modernist tendency.
The UN headquarters in New York is the most notable example of the International Style after 1945. It was built along the East River on land purchased through a gift from John Davison Rockefeller Junior. It was inaugurated on January 9, 1951 and became the symbol of internationalism and progress.
Applies the concept of separate buildings according to their function. The skyscraper that houses the United Nations Secretariat reaches 164 meters and appears on two sides as a wall covered with glass and aluminum, while the other sides are covered with marble slabs.
The post-war period is characterized by the works of the Finnish Eero Saarinen whose eclecticism is manifested in the Kresge Auditorium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT - 1956), the St. Louis Arch (1967) or also in his work on the terminals of the airports of New York and Washington DC. The German Walter Gropius teaches architecture at Harvard and builds the controversial Pan Am building in New York with Pietro Belluschi (1963). He trained the great architects of the next generation and founded the studio The Architects & # 39; Collaborative. Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe arrived in the United States in 1937 and applied his concepts of modernist classicism in New York (Seagram Building, 1958), Chicago (University on the South Side). He is the most fertile architect of all.
The modernist movement used concrete extensively, leaving it raw in several works from the 1960s and 1970s: the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts on the Harvard campus is the only building designed by Le Corbusier in the United States. The most famous representatives of the brutalism trend are Paul Rudolf, Marcel Breuer, Bertrand Goldberg and Louis Kahn.
After the Second World War, the years of economic growth saw the birth of Pop Art, which influenced architectural achievements. Robert Venturi and Charles Willard Moore are architects who dare to use a picturesque and varied decoration, in total contradiction with the austerity of the contemporary international style. The California Crazy fashion, used by James Wines, consists of in turning an ordinary and everyday object into an architectural form (a hamburger-shaped snack bar). Amusement parks use this leisure architecture, criticized as a façade, vulgar and transitory architecture. You find this colorful, loud and eccentric trend in Las Vegas.
Rethinking the International Style: Postmodernism
The 1970s marked a before and after in American architecture, due to the oil crisis and the consideration of heritage heritage. There is criticism of the international style and its minimalist and austere tendency. Many architects take up the Beaux-Arts and Art Deco styles.
The masterpieces of postmodernism are the Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera (New York, 1962-1966). The eclectic trend is expressed on university campuses such as Yale (Gordon Wu Hall, 1980, Robert Venturi). Philip Johnson's skyscrapers move away from banality and the trend towards uniformity (IDS Center in Minneapolis). This architect tries to establish codes, references to the past and totally modern elements. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company in New York features a monumental 8-story arched entrance and an unfinished pediment-shaped rooftop; has been heavily criticized.
Lastly, museums need an architectural renovation during this period. One thinks first of all of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is endowed with new wings commissioned to John Dinkeloo and Kevin Roche, which use large stained glass windows (the Sackler wing, for example). Edward Larrabee Barnes adopts a daring spiral plan for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (1968-1971). He also works for the Dallas Museum of Art (1984) and the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago. Finally, Ieoh Ming Pei and Richard Meier left their mark on various cultural sites in the 1980s. For the National Gallery of Art, Pei juxtaposed the volumes. Richard Meier renews the Le Corbusier genre (Getty Center in Los Angeles (1985-1997), High Museum of Art in Atlanta (1980-1983)).
The other great representatives of American postmodernism are Charles Willard Moore, Stanley Tigerman, Wallace K. Harrison and Robert Venturi. Some have an international career.
21st century: innovation and new challenges
The attacks of September 11, 2001 provoked the beginning of a reflection on skyscrapers, their symbology and their safety. New ecological requirements appear (green architecture) and the use of information technology transforms the way of understanding architecture. In the context of globalization, one would tend to think that all megacities are alike. However, it is rather an increase in diversity thanks to new materials (stressed steel, membrane structures) and the daring of architects. The architecture of the place takes into account the environmental conditions (earthquakes, cold...) and tries to use solar panels (California case). Today a new generation of "green" ("green buildings") in American metropolises: Chicago-based architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill has designed 7 World Trade Center in New York, which maximizes the use of natural light and the use of recycled materials..
Finally, American architects are invited to reflect, with their fellow urban planners, on the revitalization of business centers and deteriorated intermediate neighborhoods (creation of lofts, rehabilitation of the Harlem neighborhood by Roberta Wash).
Protection of architectural heritage
The United States is fortunate not to have been affected by the destruction caused by the two world wars. They have not known the bombing and destruction of cities like Europe or Japan. On the contrary, the territory presents important natural risks for heritage: earthquakes in California, cyclones around the Gulf of Mexico that are particularly devastating. To protect historic buildings from speculative and private appetites, the federal state has provided itself with various institutions: at the beginning of the XX century, the American national monuments are created to protect natural places and also architectural achievements (Amerindian towns, forts from the colonial era, Spanish missions...); Since 1935, the National Park Service (National Park Service in English) has been in charge of listing buildings, monuments or neighborhoods of historical interest in the United States.
But the movement to rehabilitate old buildings developed mainly from the 1970s. It protested against destructive urban renewal operations (Pennsylvania Station, demolished in 1965 and the Singer Building destroyed in 1968. In 1975, a Opinion campaign involving Jackie Kennedy saves New York's Grand Central Terminal station, built at the beginning of the 20th century, from destruction XX In 1998, interior restoration work made the star-shaped ceiling of the main hall reappear.
On the occasion of the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence (1976), the government decides to renew the urban and local heritage of the nation. Be aware of defending the most recent heritage: this is how Little Rock High School was registered as a protected historic site on November 6, 1988 for its importance in the civil rights movement of the late 1950s. With deindustrialization, the rehabilitation of old warehouses or factories became very active. There is a will to adapt an old structure to new uses while always preserving its historical interest. Finally, associations such as "Historic New England" are attentive to preserving and maintaining the local heritage.
American Architecture Schools
History
The teaching of architecture in the first half of the XIX century remains under the influence of English methods. On the other hand, there are still no specialized training places. Architecture agencies and their libraries double as schools. The sketching clubs give evening courses in the big cities. They federate in 1891 to form the Architectural League of America.
In 1865, the first architecture courses were given at MIT under the tutelage of William Robert Ware, then at Columbia University in 1881. The American Institute of Architecture (AIA) congress met for the first time in 1867. The Society of Fine Arts architects (Society of Fine Arts architects) was created in 1894. It is necessary to wait until 1903 for a department of architecture to open on the west coast, at the University of Berkeley. In 1905, the American Academy opens its doors to Rome. This teaching slowly opened up to minorities (the black William Taylor came out number one in his promotion to the MTI in 1892) and to women. Architect Julia Morgan is chosen by William Randolph Hearst to build his San Simeon residence. Architectural magazines help spread interest in this discipline: one of the first is the American Architect and Building News in Boston in 1876. In San Francisco, you can read the Californian Architect and Building News' from 1879. The influence of the School of Fine Arts in Paris continues to be predominant and American architects are trained there. The Fine Arts Institute of Design' It is created in 1916.
Cranbrook Academy, near Detroit, trained American architects in the 20th century. Created by George G. Booth, a newspaper magnate, the project was entrusted to Eliel Saarinen. A boys' school is built between 1926 and 1930; then comes a girls' school (1929-1931) [23]. With his son, he builds the Cranbrook Institute of Sciences (1936-1937) and the Academy Library (1938-1942), which is modeled on the Tokyo Palace in Paris.
Today
The most prestigious architecture schools in the United States are:
- Harvard Graduate School of Design;
- Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, College of Architecture and Environmental Design;
- University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning;
- Cornell University, College of Architecture, Art and Planning;
- Yale, School of Architecture;
- University of Texas at Austin, School of Architecture;
- Kansas State University, College of Architecture, Planning and Design;
- Universidad de Míchigan, TAUBMAN COLLEGE Architecture and Urban Planning;
- University of Pennsylvania, School of Design;
- Columbia University, New York, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
American architects
Alphabetical Sorting
- See Category: United States architects
Classification by style
Neoclasicism
Neogotic
| Eclecticism and Beaux-Arts
Chicago School
Prairie School
| International Style
Postmodernism
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