relationship between technology and the arts in the coming of modernism

• technology replaced some of the traditional functions of art (eg. photography)
• sense of living in a new age, throw out tradition and find new ways of designing objects
  
• how to make something functional and beautiful at the same time (not decoration)
  
• new technology made new things possible, such as skyscrapers, but it is not just that
• educated urban people are excited about throwing out traditions and living in new ways
  

Design:
Design--what visual approach do you take to solving the problem of function (definition used in design field)
(in engineering design is more how do you put the pieces together to solve the problem, considering a wide range of who is affected)
functionality
Eames chair

Charles and Ray Eames built new simpler furniture--you may not like modern art but our world is full of that kind of furniture, not old-fashioned furniture.  Think of the shock it must have been--that isn't what a chair is supposed to look like but it does the job well.  It was a startling new way of seeing the world.  1956 video, Ted talk (3:40)

They designed the 1977 film Powers of Ten (there is also a 1968 version)--explicitly about seeing the world in a new way as a result of science.



Architecture example: the Guggenheim Museum in New York:



Architecture was transformed by new technology but also by architects who gave up all traditional notions of what a building was supposed to look like and started fresh with the question of what would do the job well

Another example: bridges

History:

American architecture initially used wood, which was in very short supply in Europe but very plentiful in most of North America

• Before the modern era: In the 1830s a new design was created: balloon frame construction, which made it possible to build houses quickly and cheaply
  
  
• the houses are light and sturdy, almost like a basket
• Habitat for Humanity houses usually use balloon frame construction
• to this day many other countries don't build homes this way: Germany
  
• cities grew quickly
  
• the trouble was cities made of wooden buildings (and wooden sidewalks over the dirt streets) were a fire hazard
• before the beginning of modern, most American cities (particularly away from the east coast, were built of wood
  

when a great fire burned central Chicago in 1871, people realized the city would need to be rebuilt in a more fire-proof way

this led Chicago to

• laws about using fireproof materials
• more use of iron instead of wood
• what would happen if you built a balloon frame out of steel instead of wood?
• this makes taller buildings possible and more efficient
  
• the first city to start to build taller and taller

Several technologies were needed to make this possible:
Steel Frame:

• the earliest taller buildings had load-bearing stone walls, but the taller the building the thicker the stone wall needs to be at the bottom
• the Eiffel Tower shows the pure steel frame--picture to right
  
• Steel frame construction developed about 1890 for the skyscrapers of Chicago. First steel frame was 1885 for a 9 story building, then 1892 for 21 stories
• the workers who built these frames in New York were in many cases Mohawk Indians because they had little fear of heights
  

Foundation:

• concrete pillars that extended down to bedrock
• or steel piles (vertical beams) are forced into the ground by a pile driver
  

Elevator

• people won't accept tall buildings without a safe way to get up and down
  
• the hydraulic elevator was the first practical technology, later replaced by electric elevators

• Early elevators had a car connected by a rope or cable to a weight, but what if the cable broke?--elevators were considered too dangerous for passengers.  Otis Tufts invented an elevator that rode on a metal shaft like a screw, which was the first to catch on for passengers but very slow
  
• Elisha Graves Otis invented a reliable elevator safety brake for cable elevators in 1853, but in the first 7 months after he started his company he only received one order.  His device triggered if the cable was not taught and grabbed hold of the guide rails on either side of the elevator car
  
• Otis demonstrated his invention in 1854 at the New York Crystal Palace Exposition (a world's fair), cutting the rope supporting the platform he was standing on, and his invention began to catch on (more of the story), though still at first only for freight elevators.  Elevators began to be installed in hotels and stores in the 1860s
  
• escalators are a later technology--invented in 1892 and they didn't catch on until the 1930s, but think of what it meant to people to have a moving stairway--we no longer had to do the work ourselves

tall buildings weren't necessarily cost efficient but they became a sign of pride

•  Leiter Building (right)--early steel frame construction (1885). A steel frame makes it cheaper to build a traditional building
  

• Reliance Building in Chicago, 1891-1895
• many of the early skyscrapers still had traditional decorations on the outside:

13-story Bayard-Condict Building in New York, designed by Louis Sullivan
and built in 1898--use new technology to do traditional things

Sullivan and the other architects working in Chicago paid more attention to decoration than the architects in New York.  Sullivan invented his own new
style of ornamentation

when a 26 story building was build in Manhattan many said that the maximum height had been attained, but 1912 a 55 story building was built and in 1932 the Empire State Building was 86 stories. It was the tallest building in the world from 1931 until 1973.

• skyscraper history and economics in New York:
• have more offices in a smaller footprint--buy less land, have more people working together
• skyscrapers are visible--good advertising
  
• space to lease to others
• economics aren't always favorable, there are other things going on like showing off
• New York zoning law in 1916 to make sure you could still see the sky, that streets were not too canyon-like
• required setbacks
• this resulted in skyscrapers with plazas around them

Modernist architects started to simplify the building

• is a building with no decorations going to be boring to look at
• is a functional building beautiful? Or does it get boring and lose individuality
  
• first they focused on what was functional--instead of decoration, simple functional forms would be a new standard of beauty
• then they started exploring what they could do if they threw out old assumptions

masterworks of modern (and postmodern) architecture stamps
Guggenheim Museum
Chrysler Building
Vanna Venturi House
TWA Terminal at JFK Airport, New York

Walt Disney Concert Hall
860-880 Lake Shore Drive
East wing of the National Gallery
The Glass House

Yale Art and Architecture Building
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Exeter Academy Library
Hancock Center, Chicago






this has become even more elaborate in postmodern buildings (post-modern involves more elaboration and decoration, less strictly functional)

• turning torso apartment building in Sweden
• the current tallest building in the world is in Dubai
• Vanna Venturi house, video

What are the themes here?

• throw out tradition
• what can we do with new technology
  
• design for function, maybe
• buildings as a way to show off
  

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