Neoclassicism, the Gothic Revival and the Civic Realm, Paris in Nineteenth Century, and Inventing the Avant-garde

Length –          TOTAL 5 Pages.

Question 1 – 1 Page

Question 2 – 1 Page

Question 3 – 2 Pages

Bibliography – 1 Page

If you want to include any images, use separate pages. SUBMIT YOUR ANSWERS IN ONE DOC.

Font – Times New Roman, 11 point font, 1.5 Spacing

File Format – Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx),

Reference and Bibliography – Use bibliography and reference at the end of your compiled document

 

See more instructions at the end of this document.

 

Question 1: Chapter 16 Neoclassicism, the Gothic Revival and the Civic Realm

 

 

Context – In the design of University of Virginia, the architect and founder Thomas Jefferson used a neoclassical style. Jefferson believed that neoclassicism, which strives to revive the classical tradition, especially the Greek order, simple trabeated structural systems, and a hierarchy of articulated space and composition of pure volume, is the most appropriate style for expressing the spirit of a democratic republic, civic monumentality, public virtue and sublime emotion. Answer any one from the following questions.

1. Explain what similarities you find between the layout of Jefferson’s university complex and the spatial organization of Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Altes Museum in Berlin. In your analysis focus only on the plan of the two buildings.

OR

1. In regards to form and decoration, what similarities do you find between the Rotunda of Jefferson’s university and Barrier de la Villetee, Paris designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux?

* Your reading material does not have a plan of University of Virginia. However the plan and detailed drawing of the rotunda is available in Wikimedia and many other online repositories.

 

Question 2: Paris in Nineteenth Century

 

Context – One of the important aspects of modern architecture is that it was conceived as a site for display and voyeurism – commodity, products, physical beauty, wealth, social status, self and pride. Architecture was increasingly considered as a means of displaying personal possession and commercial goods. In other words, architecture was considered a spatial instrument to communicate with the masses. In this regard, 19^th century Paris is perhaps the most remarkable example. The city authorities and various business organizations of 19^th century Paris exercised this trend in multiple ways, such as replacing old urban fabric with wide boulevards and gardens, which eventually created novel public behaviors like strolling and leisurely walks.  Establishment of luxury department stores for displaying new industrial products gave birth to a new female consumer class and led to a another new public behavior: shopping as a leisure activity. Finally, operas and theaters grew as the ultimate space to perform public spectacles where people gathered to see and be seen. All of these trends were followed by new architectural spaces, such as atriums, monumental interior spaces, elaborate vestibules, and foyers. A new generation of Beaux Art trained architects worked to disseminate and popularize these new spaces.

 

Question –  Against the above historical context, explain how the design of the atrium and interior stair of Paris Opera by Charles Garnier and the Bon Marche department store by L.A. Boileau and Gustav Eiffel facilitated the discussed trends.

 

Question 3: Chapter 22: Inventing the Avant-garde

 

Context – The central agenda of the avant-garde architects was to strike a balance between the novel industrial aesthetic, the cosmopolitan and progressive lifestyle, and the traditional way of using decoration. However, one group of avant-garde architects, such as Adolf Loos, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, strongly advocated for a complete rejection of decoration or any form of ornaments. They argued that the spirit and strength of modern architecture lay in the economy of materials, prudent use of resources, abstraction, structural clarity, optimization of space, and experiential value of place.  This group of architects also considered residential architecture and collective housing as the central object of their work, as they argued that intimate residential architecture could nurture and shape the mind and lifestyle of a modern individual. House and domestic architecture, in their interpretation, forms the basis of any radical social change.

 

Question –  Explain how this argument of the avant-garde architects is expressed architecturally in the following three examples:

1) Villa Müller by Adolf Loos

2) Scroeder House by Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schroeder

3) Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier.

In your answer focus on:

1. a) Spatial organization (mainly discuss the plan)
2. b) Articulation of form (use of decoration, elevation, volumetric representation)

 

* Your reading material does not have any information on Villa Müller by Adolf Loos. However, the plan and detailed drawing of the project is available in Wikipedia and other online resources.

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WRITING TIPS

 

Your answer should be in the form of a short essay. Do not use bullet points or short and disconnected sentences. I suggest that your short essay consist of three or four paragraphs; the first paragraph should be a brief introduction to your essay having no more than three to four sentences, the second paragraph is the actual body of your essay in which you will describe your observations and make the comparative analysis. If you need, you can break this paragraph into two shorter paragraphs. Finally, the last paragraph should be the conclusion paragraph in which you summarize your essay in three to four sentences.

 

To write these short essays you will draw information mainly from the text book. You may also like to use the recommended text Modern architecture (see Recommended text in Home). You are not required to do any further research. However, if you want to consult materials from the web, you can do that.  But be very selective, and only use reputed online sources, such as Great Building online and Arch Daily

 

markers that should look like the one at the end of this sentence.[1] Once you have

Do not write randomly.  Before starting to write your answers, layout your idea and argument, and then flesh it out.  The questions will assess your skill in comparative analysis. In all 3 questions you are asked to do comparison between two or more projects from a specific historical perspective. So in your essay, instead of simply describing the facts of the building, focus on the aspects that are most suitable for showing similarities and differences between the buildings. Please read the introduction of your text book Architecture Since 1400 by Katheleen James-Chakraborty in which the author compares two very different buildings: a thirteenth century Madrasa from Central Asia and a twentieth century residence from Latin America. The author systemically shows the similarities and differences between the two projects from different cultural and historical contexts. In the comparative analysis, the author only highlights the aspects

that best compare and contrast the two projects.

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Good Writing and Proper Citation:

 

All good historical writing uses evidence culled from primary and secondary sources to build some sort of argument or to support a thesis. Your short essays, therefore, should include whatever evidence you think appropriate from the assigned readings and/or from any other sources I instruct you to use and should use that evidence in a logical way to develop an argument.

 

With respect to citation, your papers and your final examination all need to have foot or endnotes as well as a bibliography. You should use a foot or endnote whenever you are 1. Quoting directly from another source, 2. Paraphrasing another source, or 3. Borrowing an idea from another source. When in doubt, it’s always better to use a foot or endnote than not.

 

How to do Footnotes: To create a foot or end note in a Word document, place the cursor at the location of the note (the end of a sentence or paragraph), then go to “Insert” and click on “Footnote” in the dropdown menu. You will be asked a few questions, like whether you want foot or endnotes and what kind of footnote marker you want. You should use numerical footnote done this, you need to add information about the source next to the number that appears either at the bottom of the page or at the end of the document. Please use the form that appears in the footnote at the bottom of this page, or, if you are already familiar with the more formal Chicago style, you may use that instead. Either way, you need to include ALL of the information that is identified in the model footnote below. If you footnote a source more than once, you may use an abbreviated form for the second (and subsequent) reference to that source, see footnote 2 below.[2]

 

How to do a Bibliography: A bibliography is different from a works cited page in that it includes ALL of the sources that you have consulted to write the paper, whether or not you have actually cited them in your footnotes. For this course, I want you to use bibliographies and not works cited pages. Bibliographies list all of the sources you have consulted in alphabetical order by author’s last name. For the purposes of this course, your bibliographies may look identical to your footnotes with two exceptions. First, the name of the author (or the first author) should appear with the last name first.  Second, you do not include page numbers in a bibliography unless you are citing a journal article, and none of your readings for this class are journal articles. So, an entry in a bibliography should look like this: Author’s last name, Author’s first name(s), title, place of publication: name of press, date of publication. Entries are not numbered, they are organized in an alphabetical list by author’s last name.

[1] Author’s name in normal order, title, place of publication: name of press, date of publication, p. ###.

[2] Author’s last name, p.xxx. (OR, if you have more than one source by the same author, Author’s last name, year of publication, p.###.)