Storia dell’architettura

The evolution of architectural thought in a comic book

Daniele Devoti

Architecture, before being a building is a thought, If only because it is extremely cheaper than a skyscraper

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Modernism, Minimalism. He was, together with Le Corbusier, one of the fathers of modern architecture and a revolutionary cigar lover who replaced the prevailing architectural styles thanks to a steady abolition of all ornament.
He created a tabula rasa on which volumes and pure concepts such as the glass used in its buildings could soar. But modernism, over time, lost its imagination, transforming into a straitjacket to which you could not rebel.

Robert Venturi. Postmodernism was the natural reaction to modernism. He considered the contemporary city as outside the framework of modern architecture and reintroduced symbolism, contradiction and complexity ignoring the previous values ​​such as simplicity and consistency. Postmodernism produced a forest of uninteresting skyscrapers.

Philip Cortelyou Johnson. Opportunism and eclecticism. As a curator he was able to identify and absorb architectural styles and had the ability to capture the spirit of his times. Later he was able to iinnovate materials. forms and even vocabulary into his works. His Glass House is a compendium of the history of the twentieth century.

Rem Koolhaas. Cynical realism . He was nicknamed the Le Corbusierof our times and an attentive observer. With his essays he investigated phenomena as The Berlin Wall, the Generic City, the problem of Large Size, China, Globalization, Shopping, etc..
By saying “More is better” recognizes the fact that accumulation and bundling have replaced higher forms of organization such as the hierarchy of space and composition. Understanding precedes action.

Barack Hussein Obama. Unity and optimism. Proposes a change through unity . There’s no reason to choose between Democrats and Republicans, when you can choose the United States of America.

Bjarke Ingles. Utopic pragmatism. The history of architecture has always been dominated by two different trends: the avant-garde with crazy ideas, often far from reality, and the strict organization of associated firms that build predictable and boring blocks of excellent quality. Ingles is among these two opposed schools of thought with the aim to create the perfect places from a social, economic and environmental point of view.

Taken from: Yes is more, Taschen 2011

Catalan Modernism: Palau de la Música

Daniele Devoti

This Palau is located in Barcelona, Spain, I have been to that city several times but I didn’t managed to see it yet.

It was designed byLluís Domènech i Montaner an exponent of the Spanish modernist movement.

It’s a beautiful space with a great skylight of stained glass that representing the sun, while all decorations on the walls recall an artificial garden.
An incredible space made ​​only by private donations. According to legend, someone built nearby the Palau a church whose bell tower projected its shadow on the glass roof. The protests were immediate and they put very little to demolish the church. Between them, the roof of the Palau was considered the most valuable cultural heritage.

Frank lloyd Wright’s Kenneth Laurent house up for auction

Frank lloyd Wright’s Kenneth Laurent house up for auction

Daniele Devoti

We recently discovered that the “Kenneth Laurent ‘house’ of Frank Lloyd Wright is for sale, auction to be precise.

The house is located in Rocford, Illinois and was designed between 1949 and 1952 toa veteran in a wheelchair.

Three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an original furnishings can be purchased for only$ 700,000.00

A Tower of Babel in Milan

A Tower of Babel in Milan

Daniele Devoti

The Tower of Babel symbolizes the pride of men who defied God by creating a building that can touch the sky, unacceptable to God who punished them by preventing them from speaking the same language.

For me, the myth of the Tower of Babel has always been the same as “The Three Musketeers” that can be summed up in a very effective “All for one and one for all”.

If we are united we can even defeat God, that’s, in my opinion, the meaning of the Tower of Babel, and it was exciting to find it in the center of Milan along the boulevard Don Luigi Sturzo.

This building designed by César Pelli Argentinian by birth, but American by vocational tranning, recalled me the “The Chapel of Thanksgiving” by Philip Johnson

Its architecture is directly inspired by the Tower of Samarra, the Malwiyya .

We can find other representations of the myth also in Rome, in Borromini’s “St. Ivo alla Sapienza Church”

And we can go on and on, up to the hugely popular “Tower of Babel” by Pieter Bruegel

All of them are small symbols of God’s defeat.

Fallingwater – A house over the waterfall by Frank Lloyd Wright

Fallingwater – A house over the waterfall by Frank Lloyd Wright

Daniele Devoti

We all know it as a masterpiece of contemporary architecture, an almost perfect integration between nature and man’s work.
The house was built between 1936 and 1939, for Mr Kaufmann, a wealthy and successful businessman from Pennsylvania. The owners lived there up to 1963 and then they donated the building to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, that opened it to the public as a museum.
The main feature of this house is the waterfall: Bear Run (a small stream) runs under the house built using only local materials, so it can be considered 0 KM work ahead of its time.
The huge balconies above the stream were made by reinforced concrete, and they were so large that the builder refused to remove the formwork and props fearing a collapse. Wright, to convince him, stayed under the balconies during the disarmament. Luckily, they didn’t collapsed..
And it was a miracle..
During those years there were no knowledges about reinforced concrete, but now a days we know, in fact, that there were made some serious errors. The building wasn’t provided with a slight upward incline in the formwork for the cantilever to compensate for the settling and deflection of the cantilever. Once the concrete formwork was removed, the cantilever developed a noticeable sag. (the balcony decreased 18 cm) and they didn’t know the behavior of reinforced concrete would have over time (fluage). Concrete was wrongly considered a solid material (actually, it’s a viscous material and, as such, it suffers deformations).
Even mold had proven a problem and the owner of the house himself nicknamed it “a seven-bucket building” for its leaks.
Today the house has been restored and reinforced in a workmanlike manner (they even kept the 18 cm deflection of the large balcony as a sign of the story), the seven buckets were thrown away and people can visit the museum even during rainy days.

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