"SIMPLE, GOOD, UNDECORATED THINGS"

• Mies Van der Rohe
• Alvar Aalto
• Louis Kahn
• Eero Saarinen

MIES VAN DER ROHE (1886-1969)

            "Born in Aachen, Germany, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) initially worked as a draftsman specializing in furniture design and rendering. After working with progressive German architect Peter Behrens, Mies opened his own office in 1914. He soon achieved international recognition as one of the leading figures of modern architecture, through such works as the German Pavilion at the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain, and the Tugendhat House in Brno, Czechoslovakia. He also established a reputation in the field of architectural education, having been affiliated with the famed Bauhaus school of design in Germany. He served as its director from 1930 to 1933, when the political pressures of Nazi Germany forced its closing."  (Chicago Landmarks | Mies van der Rohe"  http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/Architects/VanDerRohe.ht ml)

Weissenhofsiedlung (Stuttgart, 1927)

860-880 Lake Shore Drive (Chicago, 1950)

         Glass Skyscraper, project, Elevation study. 1922. Charcoal, Conté crayon, & pencil on paper   

    Apartment interior, Lake Shore Drive

Crown College, main entrance (Chicago, 1950-56)

   Crown Hall: "designed to house Illinois Institute of Technology's departments of architecture, planning, and design, the building's dramatic, structurally-expressive form resulted from the need to create an open interior space that could be flexibly adapted for changing needs and uses. Instead of interior columns."  ( Chicago Landmarks | Crown Hall" http://www.ci.chi.il.us/Landmarks/C/CrownHall.html)

Compare/Contrast Aesthetic of Corbu & Mies

Alvar Aalto (1898-1976)

"Alvar Aalto is the most celebrated Finnish architect and designer working in furniture, lighting, glass, and textiles. His work is characterized by the use of organic forms and natural materials allied to the emphatically contemporary aesthetic tenets of Modernism. Alvar Aalto trained as an architect at the Helsinki University of Technology, completing his studies in 1921. From 1923 to 1927 he established an office in Jvaslaka, in Turku from 1927 to 1933, and then in Helsinki until his death. In 1924 he married architect-designer Aino Marsio, who collaborated with him on many designs until her early death in 1949. Amongst Aalto's best-known buildings were the Paimio Sanatorium (1929-33) and the Municipal Library at Viipuri. His use of organic forms and natural materials blended with the Modernist aesthetic, which was evident at Viipuri, was also embraced in his design for the Finnish Pavilion at the New York World's Fair of 1939-40, which did much to establish his reputation in the United States. After the war he was appointed Professor of Architecture at the Massachussets Institute of Technology (1946-8) and in 1949 won a competition for design of the village centre of Säynätsälo, one of his most significant projects." (Modern Design Dictionary, qtd in "Alvar Aalto: Biography and Much More from Answers.com" http://www.answers.com/topic/alvar-aalto?cat=entertainment)

Tuberculosis Sanatorium (Paimio, Finland, 1929)

    Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium "is remotely situated in thick forest about 29km east of Turku. It is the building that first put Finland on the modern architectural map. Aalto's starting point for the design of the sanatorium was to make the building itself a contributor to the healing process. This winning competition design was made in 1929 and the sanatorium was built in 1929-33. The building served exclusively as a tuberculosis sanatorium until the early 1960s, when it was converted into a general hospital. Today the building is part of the University of Turku Central Hospital. The reinforced concrete frame construction is fully exposed and fully exploited aesthetically: taut and muscular yet gracefully modulated. Aalto and his wife Aino designed all of the sanatorium's furniture and interiors. Some of the furniture, most notably the Paimio chair, is still in production by Artek. Paimio sanatorium is nominated to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site."  ("Paimio Sanatorium" http://www.mimoa.eu/projects/Finland/Paimio/Paimio%20Sa natorium)

Paimio Sanatorium: "perhaps the most humanitarian design of the 20th century ... The building is carefully sited among pine trees. The patients' rooms have full morning sunlight; artificial light is from behind the patient's head. Rooms are painted in soft tones with darker ceilings to create a restful effect. Sound is absorbed by carefully positioned insulation, cupboards are hung for ease of floor cleaning, windows are designed to be draftproof, faucets of washbasins are tilted to prevent splashing, and doorknobs are shaped to fit the hand. Aalto designed the furniture specifically for hospital use. The whole scheme is an essay in consideration by the designer for the user."  ("Alvar Aalto: Biography and Much More from Answers.com" http://www.answers.com/topic/alvar-aalto?cat=entertainment )

  Paimio Sanatorium, balconies

"The basic layout of the building is of three bars, splayed out at angles to one another and connected at the center. Aalto had seen the same scheme at work in another tuberculosis sanatorium at Zonnestraal, and he adapted it for his design. The first bar contained patient housing and nursing facilities, the second a cafeteria, and the third services. At the time the sanatorium was built, tuberculosis was an incurable disease that was treatable only through sunshine and fresh air. Aalto’s design, therefore, needed to include easy access for all patients to the outdoors. Rather than forcing all the patients to go to the ground floor and go outside to get sun and fresh air, Aalto placed a tower of 'suntraps' at the end of the patients wing. This tower is tangentially attached at the corner of the patients’ wing, but angled to face due south, giving the patients as much sun as possible. "The design of the tower is impressive. Aalto wanted the suntrap to have very clean lines and to be reserved for a single purpose, sunning. Accordingly, the space needed to be extremely wide and not very deep, because the sun would not penetrate very far into the space. This creates a massive problem — a suntrap six stories tall is also a giant windtrap. The tower would have to withstand a huge amount of lateral load pushing against a broad wall without much depth to brace it. To counter this, Aalto made the wall extremely massive by making it one giant poured-concrete structure. With each floor the massive pillars get smaller and smaller, giving the building a low center of gravity. This did not provide the needed lateral strength, however, so Aalto designed a massive pyrimidal foundation for the tower that anchors it securely into the ground. Even with all these structural considerations, though, the suntrap tower still appears clean, light, and linear." ("Paimio Tuberculosis Sanatorium - Michael Tyznik" http://www.tyznik.com/analysis/paimio)

  Paimio Sanatorium, interior

Viipuri Municipal Library (early 1930s)

  Auditorium of Viipuri Municipal Library in the early 1930s showing wave ceiling; picture was taken before round skylights were installed.

Villa Mairea (Noormarkku, Finland, 1939)

Baker House, MIT campus (1948)

  Riverside facade

    Campus facade

Saynatsalo Town Hall (Saynatsalo, Finland, 1952)

  "The building itself is an elevated courtyard plan with two main entrances up to the interior: a formal series of steps made of granite to the east, and another set of grass terraces on the western end (roped off in 2005). The site, sloping upward to the north, allows for a series of inhabitable levels. On the ground floors are parts of the library and other various municipalities for use by the townspeople. Ascending further upward, one finds a grass courtyard punctuated by various brick or clay tube patios, as well as a sunken pool of water, ready to cool off your feet. Most of the circulation for the above-ground offices is done behind the glass areas around the courtyard, avoiding the need for dark corridors. By going up even further via a set of stairs to the east, you can reach the council chamber and view the spider-like wooden roof trusses in the ceiling."  ("Saynatsalo Town Hall Finland by Alvar Aalto" http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/saynatsalo.index.htm)

Opera House. (Essen, Germany. Competition 1959, completed by Harald Deilmann with Elissa Aalto, 1981-88)

    Theater

Mount Angel Abbey Library reading room  (St. Benedict, Oregon, 1964-70)

Louis Kahn

  Louis Kahn  (1901-1974)

  Weiss House (East Norristown, PA, 1947)

  Roche House (Whitemarsh, PA, 1948)

Salk Insitute (La Jolla, 1959)

Salk Insitute (La Jolla, 1959)

National Assembly, Capital Complex (Dacca, 1962)

'The architectural image of the assembly building grows out of the conception to hold a strong essential form to give particular shape to the varying interior needs, expressing them on the exterior. The image is that of a many-faceted precious stone, constructed in concrete and marble.'" Louis Kahn, qtd in "National Assembly in Dacca - Louis I. Kahn - Great Buildings Online" http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/National_Assembly_in_Dacc.html

Yale University Art Gallery (1969)

Eero Saarinen (1910-1961)

   "Eero Saarinen was one of the 20th century`s great visionaries, both in the fields of furniture design (he created the ubiquitous Knoll Tulip chairs and tables, for example) and in architecture. Among his greatest accomplishments are monuments that shaped architecture in postwar America and became icons in themselves: Washington D.C.'s Dulles International Airport, the very sculptural and fluid TWA terminal at JFK Airport in New York, and the 630-foot high "Gateway to the West," the Arch of St. Louis."  ("TASCHEN Books: Saarinen" http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/architecture/new /00167/facts.saarinen.htm

Jefferson National (Western) Expansion Memorial: "Gateway Arch" (1946-66)

"This catenary arch, with a sheathing of stainless steel, commemorates the Lousiana Purchase and the western movement. It is on an axis with the St. Louis Courthouse. This curved form, like Saarinen's Ingalls' Hockey Rink at Yale and his TWA terminal, was Saarinen's last achievement." ("Images of Jefferson National (Western) Expansion Memorial: 'Gateway Arch' by Eero Saarinen, St. Louis, 1946-66" http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/stlsaar/stlsaar.html)

"This is a scan from a Kodachrome 25 slide taken in 1975 [by Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D., Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Bluffton College].  Dr. Edmiston has generously contributed it for viewing at this site [bluffton.edu]. He owns the copyright and should be contacted directly if you are interested in the use of his photograph: Dr. Michael D. Edmiston ."  ("Images of Jefferson National (Western) Expansion Memorial: 'Gateway Arch' by Eero Saarinen, St. Louis, 1946-66" http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/stlsaar/stlsaar.html)

General Motors Technical Center

"Eero Saarinen demonstrated a deep understanding of architecture’s value in creating a company’s image, often using new building technologies to help brand forward thinking corporations. For his business clients, Saarinen and his office made the earliest architectural use of self-rusting Cor-ten steel and designed the first mirror glass curtain wall and the world’s thinnest exterior wall panel. Saarinen also pioneered, and ultimately mastered, the development of a new office typology: the corporate campus. Occupying pristine rural settings, these business complexes reinvented the traditional country estate and the American college campus in terms of modern corporate programs, similarly evoking power and authority. The 25-building, $100-million General Motors Technical Center in suburban Detroit, completed in 1956, was Saarinen’s first realized example of this new type. It earned him tremendous publicity, including the cover of Time magazine, and established the design and public relations strategies for future corporate commissions, from IBM to Bell Laboratories and John Deere and Company." ("Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future" http://www.eerosaarinen.net/creating.shtml)

    "[S]till in his thirties, he [Eero Saarinen] was commissioned by General Motors to design what was reputedly the largest architectural project in America at the time. His design was clearly influenced by his father's ideas but it was also radically different from the first plans that they had developed together. Designed in close collaboration with the management, scientists and material researchers at General Motors, it consisted of a new campus on a 350-acre site. More than 25 buildings were planned around a vast new 22-acre lake. They were long, low and glassy and, together with this large plane of water, emphasized the horizontal of the landscape and reflected the sky. Eero Saarinen encouraged his client to use the designs to explore the potential of new materials. Together they invented new types of glass and brightly colored glazed bricks and adopting the neoprene glazing systems used for car windshields and incorporated them in the construction of the curtain walls of the buildings. They also made extensive use of metal and capitalized on the skills that existed at General Motors. Framed curtain walls were designed to underline the sharp-edged precision of metal and the machine, a water tower was clad in shiny stainless steel, and the Styling Dome, a large column-free space where new models of cars would be exhibited, was planned under an aluminum saucer." ("Between Earth and Sky I Scandinavian Review" http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3760/is_200210/ai_n91 30134/pg_2)

Styling Dome

"To pull the spread-out buildings together he created a 22-acre artificial lake, placed in it two fountains that pump more water than did Versailles'. To give each building its own identity, he developed glazed bricks in eleven colors ranging from deep crimson and tangerine-orange to chartreuse and royal blue. For the strong vertical accent, almost a signature of Saarinen's work, he erected a gleaming, stainless-steel water tower rising 132 ft. from the lake, matched it with a 188-ft.-span dome of aluminum-covered steel for displaying new models under high-powered lights." ("The Maturing Modern - TIME" http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,891296-6, 00.html)

"The initial construction of the Technical Center took place from 1949 to 1956, a period during which contemporary commentary on this state of the art facility was laudatory. Fortune magazine called the Technical Center 'one of the century’s notable contributions to an integrated industrial architecture,' Architectural Forum praised Saarinen’s work as 'an architectural feat which may be unique in our lifetime,' and Art in America dubbed the Technical Center a 'masterpiece' of 1950s industrial architecture, and a successor to earlier work by modern architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Gropius. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) also recognized the achievement, awarding Saarinen an Honor Award in 1955 for the design of the Technical Center’s Central Restaurant, an elegant one-story structure with large glass curtain walls and decorative screen designed by the sculptor Harry Bertoia."  ("General Motors Technical Center History" http://www.mkthink.com/gm_tech_center_history.htm)

Research & Development Lounge

  "Peter Blake credited Saarinen with being the 'first to translate [Mies van der Rohe’s] austere purity to a sleeker, more American package,' and Vincent Scully wrote that at the Technical Center the 'Miesian forms became at once thinner, slicker, and more geometrically classicizing than they were ever to be anywhere else.' He considered it 'supremely American.' Others, such as Richard Weston, have seen the Technical Center as a pioneer of the now common American 'suburban [corporate] campus of low-rise, curtain-walled pavilions in a park-like setting....' R. Craig Miller wrote that the Technical Center 'remains one of the finest post-World War II corporate complexes. Its international recognition made Eero Saarinen and Associates one of the most important corporate architectural firms in America....'"  ("General Motors Technical Center History" http://www.mkthink.com/gm_tech_center_history.htm)

Dynamometer Building

   “'General Motors is a metal-working industry; it is a precision industry; it is a mass-production industry. All these things should, in a sense, be expressed in the architecture of its Technical Center. Thus the design is based on steel—the metal of the automobile. Like the automobile itself, the buildings are essentially put together, as on an assembly line, out of mass-produced units. And, down to the smallest detail, we tried to give the architecture the precise, well-made look which is a proud characteristic of industrial America.'”(Eero Saarinen, qtd in "GM Tech Center Exhibit | TAUBMAN COLLEGE of Architecture and Urban Planning" http://www.tcaup.umich.edu/newsevents/2002/gmtech.html)

Office of the CEO

"Back in May, 1956, when GM's greatest modern leader moved into his state-of-the-art office, there wasn't anything like it in the world."  ("Eero Saarinen designed this one-of-a-kind office" http://www.carofthecentury.com/eero_saarinen_designed_this _one-of-a-kind_office.htm)

"This state-of-the-art-office was 'dominated by the large rounded bulks of his desk and the two build-in sofas. In the solid, hand-crafted cherry desk are a wealth of gorgeous gadgets, like the light and temperature control panels, built-in waste basket, TV control, and a desk light that rises from its flush prone position at the push of a button.'" ("Eero Saarinen designed this one-of-a-kind office" http://www.carofthecentury.com/eero_saarinen_designed_this _one-of-a-kind_office.htm)

"The bulky rounds of the solid cherry sofas and desk in Earl's office were designed as commemoration of the wood molds once used to form the car bodies. The built-in sofas are set on recessed perforated metal bases. Eero Saarinen designed this one-of-a-kind office."  ("Eero Saarinen designed this one-of-a-kind office" http://www.carofthecentury.com/eero_saarinen_designed_this _one-of-a-kind_office.htm)

"The view [from the CEO's office] overlooked Pevsner's 20' tall bronze structure."  ("Eero Saarinen designed this one-of-a-kind office" http://www.carofthecentury.com/eero_saarinen_designed_this _one-of-a-kind_office.htm)

Kresge Auditorium (MIT campus, 1954)

"The dome-like roof, a concrete shell, is supported only on three points. Saarinen said it was 'one-eighth of an orange.' The three 'walls' are of glass." ("Images of Kresge Auditorium, MIT, Eero Saarinen, 1954, Boston Massachusetts" http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/kresgea/kresgea.html )

TWA Terminal (New York, 1959)

Dulles International Airport (Chantilly, VA,  1962)

    "Architect Eero Saarinen, wanted to create something more than just another airport — he wanted to find the soul of the airport. He designed the terminal building and the control tower in that spirit and called it the best thing I have ever done.  The terminal building was selected for a First Honor Award by the American Institute of Architects in 1966."  ("History" http://www.mwaa.com/dulles/about_dulles_international_2/hi story_2)

Dulles International Airport

    "[M]obile lounges ...
[a] fleet of these huge trucks support lounges which travellers enter at concourse level in the terminal, after security."  ("Completetosh.com, by Neil McIntosh Blog Archive Interesting Dulles"  http://www.completetosh.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/d ulles.jpg)

The CBS Building,"The Black Rock" (New York, 1961)

       Eero Saarinen worked on the sketches for the 38-storey CBS Building from 1960 until his death in 1961; it was the only skyscraper he ever designed.