For details check http://hisarch2013.wordpress.com/

1. MEANDERINGS OF MODERNISM
Futurism & Formalism
LECTURE 8
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Casa_Sant%27Elia.jpg [Online]
History of Architecture-II (AP-313)
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism
Nipesh P Narayanan

2. PROJECT VS THE PRACTICE!
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

3. POLITICALLY CHARGED AND AGGRESSIVE MODERNISM
• Machines
– New creation of the human race
• Revolution
– Man’s destiny is in Man’s hand
• Movement and Speed
– New Revelations
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

4. “It is in Italy that we are issuing this manifesto of ruinous and incendiary
violence, by which we today are founding Futurism, because we want to deliver
Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and
antiquaries…….. For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It
is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment
when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the
YOUNG, STRONG and LIVING Futurists!”
Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, 1909
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manifesto_of_Futurism.jpg [Online]
F T MARINETTI AND THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

5. THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Umberto_Boccioni_-_Elastic.jpg [Online]
rashness
Elasticity, 1912, by Umberto Boccioni
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

6. 2. The essential
elements of our poetry
will be
courage, audacity and
revolt.
Mountains + Valleys + Streets
(1915), F. T. Marinetti
Image Source: http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/lecture05/Futurism/ch15-9.gif [Online]
THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

7. THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish
sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the
blow with the fist.
Vehement god from a race of steel,
Automobile drunk with space,
Trampling with anguish, bit between your strident teeth!
O formidable Japanese monster with forge,
Nourished with flame and mineral oils,
Hungry for horizons and sidereal prey,
I unleash your heart to the diabolical vroom-vroom
And your giant radials, for the dance
You lead on the white roads of the world.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manifesto_of_Futurism.jpg [Online]
3. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy
~ To a Racing Car, F T Marinetti
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

8. 4. We declare that the splendour of the world has been enriched by
a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its
bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath
... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is
more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism
Image Source: http://www.michaelarnoldart.com/the_unique_forms_of_continuity_in_space.jpg [Online]
Image Source: http://thatlou.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/black-background-winged_victory_of_samothracewikipedia-org.jpg [Online]
THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO

9. 5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which
crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
The Street Enters the House, 1911, Umberto Boccioni
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Umberto_Boccioni_-_A_strada_entra_nella_casa.jpg [Online]
THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

10. 6. The poet must spend
himself with warmth, glamour
and prodigality to increase
the enthusiastic fervour of
the primordial elements.
Umberto Boccioni, 1913, Synthesis of
Human Dynamism
Image Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Umberto_Boccioni,_1913,_Synth%C3%A8se_du_dynamisme_humain_(Synthesis_of_Human_Dynamis
m),_location_unknown,_destroyed.jpg [Online]
THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

11. 7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has
not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the
forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.
The City Rises, 1910, Umberto Boccioni
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_City_Rises_by_Umberto_Boccioni_1910.jpg [Online]
THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

12. THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the
mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died
yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have
already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
Giacomo Balla,
Abstract Speed + Sound, 1913–1914
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manifesto_of_Futurism.jpg [Online]
8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

13. THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
— the only cure for the
world —
militarism, patriotism, the
destructive gesture of the
anarchists, the beautiful
ideas which kill, and
contempt for woman.
Benito Mussolini
Image Source: http://www.rtvmodeler.com/WWII/Biografias/mussolini.jpg [Online]
9. We want to glorify war
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

14. THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight
“Museums, cemeteries! Truly identical in their sinister juxtaposition of
bodies that do not know each other. Public dormitories where you sleep
side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know. Reciprocal
ferocity of the painters and sculptors who murder each other in the
same museum with blows of line and colour.
To make a visit once a year, as one goes to see the graves of our dead
once a year, that we could allow! We can even imagine placing flowers
once a year at the feet of the Gioconda! But to take our sadness, our
fragile courage and our anxiety to the museum every day, that we
cannot admit! Do you want to poison yourselves? Do you want to rot?”
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manifesto_of_Futurism.jpg [Online]
morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

15. THE FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
revolt; the multi-coloured and polyphonic surf of revolutions in
modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the
workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous
railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended
from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap
of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers:
adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted
locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with
long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose
propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of
enthusiastic crowds.
1909
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Manifesto_of_Futurism.jpg [Online]
11. We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

16. Art
Painting
Sculpture
Literature
Architecture
Music
Food
Image Source: http://www.csun.edu/~pjd77408/DrD/Art461/LecturesAll/Lectures/lecture05/Futurism/ch15-20.jpg [Online]
THE REPERCUSSIONS OF FIRST FUTURIST MANIFESTO
Dinamo Azari (1927), Fortunato Depero
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

17. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
“ No architecture has existed since
1700. A moronic mixture of the
most various stylistic elements used
to mask the skeletons of modern
houses is called modern
architecture. The new beauty of
cement and iron are profaned by the
superimposition of motley
decorative incrustations that cannot
be justified either by constructive
necessity or by our (modern)
taste, and whose origins are in
Egyptian, Indian or Byzantine
antiquity and in that idiotic
flowering of stupidity and impotence
that took the name of neoclassicism.
1914
“
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antonio_Sant%27Elia.jpg [Online]
~ Antonio Sant'Elia (1888 – 1916)
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

18. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
~ Antonio Sant'Elia (1888 – 1916)
COMBAT AND DESPISE
1.
All the pseudo-architecture of the avantgarde, Austrian, Hungarian, German and American;
2.
All classical
architecture, solemn, hieratic, scenographic, decorative, monumental, p
retty and pleasing;
3.
The embalming, reconstruction and reproduction of ancient
monuments and palaces;
4.
Perpendicular and horizontal lines, cubical and pyramidal forms that are
static, solemn and absolutely excluded from our utterly new sensibility;
5.
The use of massive, voluminous, durable, antiquated and costly
materials.
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

19. 1. That Futurist
Antonio Sant'Elia (1914), Drawing
architecture is the
architecture of
calculation, of audacious
temerity and of
simplicity; the
architecture of reinforced
concrete, of
steel, glass, cardboard, tex
tile fiber, and of all those
substitutes for
wood, stone and brick that
enable us to obtain
maximum elasticity and
lightness
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Casa_a_gradinata_con_ascensori_dai_quattro_piani_stradali_1914_Sant%27Elia.jpg [Online]
THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

20. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
because of this an arid
combination of practicality and
usefulness, but remains art, i.e.
synthesis and expression
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Centrale_elettrica_Sant%27Elia.jpg [Online]
2. That Futurist architecture is not
Antonio Sant'Elia (1914), Power Station
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

21. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
lines are dynamic, and by their
very nature possess an emotive
power a thousand times
stronger than perpendiculars
and horizontals, and that no
integral, dynamic architecture
can exist that does not include
these
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Casa_Sant%27Elia.jpg [Online]
3. That oblique and elliptic
Antonio Sant'Elia (1914), House with external elevators
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

22. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
4. That decoration as an element superimposed
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santelia02.jpg [Online]
on architecture is absurd, and that the decorative
value of Futurist architecture depends solely on
the use and original arrangement of raw or bare
or violently coloured materials
Antonio Sant'Elia (1914), Drawing
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

23. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
5. That, just as the ancients drew inspiration for their art from the elements of
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santelia03.jpg [Online]
nature, we—who are materially and spiritually artificial—must find that
inspiration in the elements of the utterly new mechanical world we have
created, and of which architecture must be the most beautiful expression, the
most complete synthesis, the most efficacious integration
Antonio Sant'Elia (1914), Drawing
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

24. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
6. That architecture as the art of arranging forms according to pre-established
criteria is finished
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

25. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
7. That by the term architecture is meant the endeavour to harmonize the
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Santelia03.jpg [Online]
environment with Man with freedom and great audacity, that is to transform the
world of things into a direct projection of the world of the spirit
Antonio Sant'Elia (1914), Drawing
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

26. THE MANIFESTO OF FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
grow, since the fundamental characteristics of Futurist architecture will be its
impermanence and transience. Things will endure less than us. Every generation
must build its own city. This constant renewal of the architectonic environment
will contribute to the victory of Futurism which has already been affirmed by
Words-in-freedom, plastic Dynamism, Music without quadrature and the Art of
noises, and for which we fight without respite against traditionalist cowardice
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antonio_Sant%27Elia.jpg [Online]
8. From an architecture conceived in this way no formal or linear habit can
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

27. AFTERMATH OF THE FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)[Online]
New City
Tower of Babel, modelled after Brueghel's 1563 painting
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

28. Image Source: http://llnw.wbez.org/blog/insert-image/2011-August/2011-0825/FrankLloydWrightSpeaksNearIllinoisBuilding%202.jpg)[Online]
AFTERMATH OF THE FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
New City
FLW, Mile High City
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

29. New City
Image Source: http://karldiskin.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/corbusier__plan_voisin_for_paris_1925_model.jpg)[Online]
AFTERMATH OF THE FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
Le Corbusier, The Metropolis of Tomorrow
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

30. AFTERMATH OF THE FUTURIST ARCHITECTURE
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johnnie%27s_Coffee_Shop_for_Wiki_1.jpg [Online]
Googie Architecture: Cars, Jets and Space Age
Johnie's Coffee Shop on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles designed by Armet & Davis
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

31. WHAT IS THE PROJECT OF MODERNISM?
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

32. •Pilotis
•Roof gardens
•The free designing of the ground plan
•The free design of façade
•The horizontal window
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Toward_an_architecture.jpg [ONLINE]
ADVENT OF FORMALISM IN LATE MODERNISM
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

33. CONTENT VS THE FORM!
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

34. ADVENT OF FORMALISM IN
Bank of China Tower
Hong Kong,
I M Pei
Image Source: http://0.tqn.com/d/architecture/1/0/B/8/pei-bankhongkong-pritzker.jpg [ONLINE]
LATE MODERNISM
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

35. Image Source: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/3290478.jpg [ONLINE]
ADVENT OF FORMALISM IN LATE MODERNISM
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism

36. PROJECT VS THE PRACTICE!
History of Architecture - II (AP-313) – Meanderings of Modernism