Functionalist Architecture Research Articles

Raza, funcionalismo y educación

In 1935, Antonio Ruiz painted El maquetista (The Model Maker), a rare depiction of a brown-skinned person as a producer of the most avant-garde architecture of the time. As a portrait of a model maker, a profession seldom portrayed in art history, this painting also offers testimony of Ruiz’s role as a teacher in the Escuela Superior de Ingeniería y Arquitectura (ESIA), where he was head of the model-making workshop since the school was founded in 1932. The current article highlights the importance of the ESIA in professionalizing the lower and racialized classes of postrevolutionary Mexico, as well as the use of functionalist architecture as an instrument to spread socialist ideas. El maquetista helps us understand Ruiz’s political views and the close relationship he held with functionalist architects of the 1930s, fellow professors whose projects students used to create models to scale.

Baťovany – (re)visions of a modern town: Searching for identity

Abstract The town of Partizánske in Slovakia, formerly known as Baťovany and built according to the design of the urban development plan of architect Jiří Voženílek (1909 - 1986) from 1938, represents a unique urban-architectural achievement in the context of not only Czechoslovak functionalist architecture, but also the emergence of modern European cities in the first half of the 20th century. Its original Baťa image, the remarkable idea of a linear industrial town with numerous structural and building innovations in the field of architecture have co-created the town’s identity over the years and its original urban, architectural and historical value remains clearly observable. If we do not protect these values, the town will gradually lose its identity. From this perspective, the key aspect is the re-identification or (re)vision of the historical, architectural-urban, industrial and cultural values of the original industrial town concept and the subsequent confrontation of this model with the current demands of the town residents as a way to rediscover the disappearing identity with an emphasis on preserving and maintaining the exceptional values of Baťa architecture and urbanism. To this day, Partizánske has not adopted any concept of functioning territory or object-focused monument protection of Baťa heritage. Possible solutions regarding monument protection and rescue, restoration or reconstruction of the original Baťa architecture are hindered by lack of open communication between monument protection institutions, experts - historians, architects and urban planners with practical experience, town councils, civic associations and town residents. Therefore, our research also focuses on cooperation with the inhabitants of the town and introduces them to possible intervention solutions for the preservation of the unique architectural, urban and cultural heritage. This paper attempts to search for possible ways (participatory design, research by design, etc.) of ensuring the sustainability of the identity of the town, while preserving the unique values of Baťa heritage in Partizánske for future generations.

"Biohaus": The Bauhaus and the Biopolitics of Global Space

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, art historians and urban studies scholars have been pleading for a more nuanced analysis of the Bauhaus in order to divorce from the one-sided affirmative reading of the iconic German art school. Yet, within the prevailing heroic narrative that still dominates contemporary public discourse after the 100-year anniversary of the school, the Bauhaus is praised for its affordable as well as working class-oriented design and it is thus depicted as intrinsically antithetical to today’s neoliberal housing market and bourgeois planning practices. To complicate this somewhat lopsided account, this paper draws on Henri Lefebvre’s critique of functionalist architecture and Michel Foucault’s notion of biopower to examine the late Bauhaus through a biopolitical lens. It first presents the Törten working-class housing estate in Dessau, Germany to scrutinize how biopolitical socio-spatial practices crystalize in Bauhaus urban planning and architecture. The second part of the paper turns to the film screen to discuss how the Weimar-era narrative of bio-functional modernism materializes in Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy’s late 20s, early 30s filmic works on urban life, the so-called “city symphonies.” Considering the postwar afterlives of the Bauhäusler, the Conclusion places these findings in a broader historical perspective and reflects on the contemporary implications of a Foucauldo-Lefebvrian rereading of the Bauhaus. It is within this final contextualization that the paper inquires into the possibilities of people-centered urban dwelling in the age of biopower.

“Uma Terceira Coisa”

Assumindo que a arquitetura e o pensamento filosófico a seu respeito são elementoes essenciais para a auto-compreensão do humano, este artigo defende três pontos acerca do papel do espaço e do tempo na arquitetura funcionalista e na sua crítica. (1) Dois exemplos significativos na História da Filosofia, nomeadamente, o conceito platónico de espaço (chōra) e o conceito kantiano de esquema (Schema) mostram que o espaço e o tempo como elementos básicos da experiência humana estão intimamente relacionados com a sensibilidade e a imaginação e não podem ser reconduzidos a uma funcionalização exclusivamente objetiva. (2) Defendo, em segundo lugar, que o funcionalismo arquitetónico não tomou deliberadamente em consideração os aspectos do espaço e do tempo que os ligam à sensibilidade e à imaginação. (3) Como resultado dos pontos precedentes, complementados por referências à posição do funcionalismo em relação ao tempo histórico e à relação de meios e fins, e considerando alguns autores importantes do séc. XX (Heidegger, Bachelard, J. Pallasmaa, G. Böhme), um terceiro ponto é defendido, a saber que as insuficiências atribuídas ao funcionalismo derivam do facto de que este ignorou o espaço e o tempo na sua relação com a sensibilidade e a imaginação. Estas teses mostrarão, finalmente, que a arquitetura pode ser entendida como um esquema sensível da auto-compreensão humana.

Saving the steamship: Brussels’ Maison de la Radio and the urban emotions of a broadcasting institution

ABSTRACT In the late 1990s, a sustained outreach campaign saved the former headquarters of Belgium’s national public broadcaster from demolition. This article analyses the heritage designation for the Maison de la Radio in the context of the emotional value attributed to it at different moments of its existence. In the 1950s and 1960s, Brussels became synonymous with widespread urban renewal practices, and the radio building’s preservation has come to symbolise a turn to more conservationist urban planning policies. Only by accounting for the often unspoken and hidden memories of the radio-listening public’s emotional connection to the building can we understand how this iconic Art Deco structure withstood the tide of demolitions in a politically fragmented country where little value was accorded to modern and functionalist architecture. Drawing on sound studies, emotions history, and recent work questioning ‘authorised heritage discourse,’ this article analyses both the campaign itself and the way public memory of the building developed through its broadcasting past. It argues that preservation efforts in the present are implicated in sensorial and emotional understandings of urban space that are constructed through deeper historical time, exemplifying the extent to which materiality and emotion are imbricated in conceptions of heritage.

Comment habiter le monde ? Michel Houellebecq architecte

ABSTRACTIn Michel Houellebecq’s criticism and novels, a scathing critique of functionalist architecture is at work. For him, this architecture seems to have become the tool by which the « market society » structures contemporary space according to it’s own demands. How, then, is it possible to inhabit the world? The architectural imagination of Houellebecq’s work is at odds with functionalism, rather deriving from impossible (such as nature) or anachronistic models (cathedrals). It is, however, possible to pinpoint a number of architectural techniques that resonate with the construction and style of Houellebecq’s novels, suggesting that—in an uninhabitable world—literature presents itself as the sole possible refuge for the author and his readers.

La memoria en la ciudad de Juvenal Baracco. Los estudios sobre la ciudad de Lima como herramienta para el proyecto de arquitectura

In the middle of the 20th century, Lima grew rapidly due to migrations from rural areas to the unoccupied peripheries of the city. The new neighbourhoods, self-built and self-managed, quickly became the landscape of poverty, incorporating into their urban structure forms of traditional architecture that adapt to the context of the capital. On the other hand, the modern functionalist architecture acts on the consolidated city, destroying the traditional colonial architecture without respecting its scale or urban layout. Both cities come together from the seventies, converting Lima into a superposition of historical, urban and social layers and, drawing the attention of sociologists, architects and anthropologists who study how the unplanned growth of the city is spontaneously building the Peruvian identity. The article presents the critical point of view of one of the most important contemporary Peruvian architects, Juvenal Baracco, who proposes a methodology for the study of the developing city and translates it into a particular building, the School of the Air Force of Peru, located in the Peruvian capital. The study of Lima that makes in the workshop of the Ricardo Palma University, as well as his architectural proposals act on the idea of a growing city from which the final form is not yet know.

Architectural Theory and Analytic Philosophy in the Interwar Period

Abstract The basis of the connection between analytic philosophy and architecture theory was developed in the interwar period. The results of analytic philosophy – especially the neo-positivism of Vienna Circle – and modern, functionalist architecture theory were utilized in an interdisciplinary approach. The comparison was based on language puzzles, science-based building processes, the method of justification and verification, and designing an artificial language in order to express the theoretical (philosophical) and the practical (architectural) approach as well. The functionality was based on the modern way of architectural thinking that relied on the results of Carnapian neo-positivism. Interpreting modern architecture is possible by referring to the keywords of logical positivism: empiricism, logic, verification, unity of language, and science. In my paper, I first list the bases of the comparison between the philosophy of the Vienna Circle and the architecture theory of the interwar period – the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. In the 2nd and 3rd sections, I show the dialectical succession between form and function. After that, I discuss the aesthetic verification of the turn of the century and the scientific justification of the interwar period. I focus on the interwar period with the positivist approach and the theory of the ‘new architecture’. I emphasize the importance of the language of science and the machine paradigm – in contrast to historicism.

Invisible Avant-Garde and Absent Revolution: Walter Benjamin’s New Optics for Moscow Urban Space of the 1920s

Walter Benjamin spent the fall and winter of 1926-1927 in Moscow. His experience and observations were recorded in “Moscow Diary” and essay “Moscow” (1927). In the present paper, the author refers to the latter text, in which Benjamin reflected on the space of Soviet capital that was undergoing severe transition. Without even mentioning Avant-garde architecture that was being constructed in his presence and that was transforming the living space of the new state on all levels, Benjamin left deep analyses of Moscow’s post-revolutionary urban constitution, revealed its nature, and predicted its future.Walter Benjamin spent the fall and winter of 1926-1927 in Moscow. His experience and observations were recorded in “Moscow Diary” and essay “Moscow” (1927). In the present paper, the author refers to the latter text, in which Benjamin reflected on the space of Soviet capital that was undergoing severe transition. Without even mentioning Avant-garde architecture that was being constructed in his presence and that was transforming the living space of the new state on all levels, Benjamin left deep analyses of Moscow’s post-revolutionary urban constitution, revealed its nature, and predicted its future.Benjamin came to Moscow to observe the Revolution in action, but could not find it. Instead, he saw Constructivism as already dismissed. While recording those huge transformations that he witnessed during his stay, Benjamin had not described them either in terms of new functionalist architecture, or through the reflection on demolition of Empire’s architectural symbols. He turned to other features and spatial dimensions that were not directly related to any particular architecture, such as mobility, rhythm, aura and through which he fully revealed reformation of Moscow space that was initiated by functionalists and supported by the new regime.

Transnational mobilities: Western European architects and planners in the Soviet industrial cities, 1928–1933

ABSTRACTDuring the first Five-Year Plan, the Soviet state relied on the expert knowledge of groups of German and other foreign workers (architects, planners, skilled labourers) to design and build the standardized housing projects for industrial cities. This paper outlines the complicated transfer of Western planning ideas and designs into actual built spaces, focusing on the gap between initial plans and the makeshift and provisional types of housing that were constructed in the Soviet industrial city of the early 1930s, amidst escalating attacks on functionalist architecture and constantly fluctuating attitudes toward foreign specialists.

Signalling to young knowledge workers through architecture? A conjoint analysis

In this article, we examine corporate architecture as an effective signal to knowledge workers in the recruiting process. Two types of corporate architecture that are common in the knowledge economy are distinguished: traditional functionalist and new functionalist architecture. New functionalist architecture combines a flat, transparent facade with semi-open office layouts including areas for social interaction. Holistically these functional elements signal and symbolize a non-bureaucratic, non-hierarchical organization. A conjoint analysis provides a first attempt to quantify how much students care for new functionalist architecture. Students’ stated preferences imply that they would forgo on average 10% of their starting salary in order to work in the new functionalist rather than the traditional functionalist workplace. The magnitude of this effect supports the view that architecture matters for job choice. Limitations of our study and directions for future research are discussed.

Las firmas de las primeras casas funcionalistas de Juan O’Gorman

<p>Este artículo parte de nuevos descubrimientos que ponen en crisis la historia de la casa O’Gorman y la Casa-Estudio Diego Rivera de Juan O’Gorman: una firma en la fachada de la primera y, gracias al análisis minucioso de fotografías recién descubiertas, la prueba de la existencia de una firma en la segunda. Por medio de estas firmas, la historia tradicional de la arquitectura funcionalista en Mexico, sus inicios, y su relación con las distintas concepciones del arte pueden ser reevaluadas y corregidas. A través de la relectura contextualizada de los textos del arquitecto, con esta nueva información, se definen de manera más compleja los distintos matices de los debates del arte y arquitectura, fundamentales para entender su producción en los años treinta del siglo xx.</p>

International style interior in the historical steam power plant in Žilina

The article deals with one of the examples of good interior design in Slovak functionalist architecture uncovered during recent restorational research (2016). It points out that even provincial, small but growing town, which Žilina in the northern Slovakia region was at that time, can be a place of high-quality implementation of aesthetically valuable and structurally developed architectural design. The high level of composition, choice of color scheme, quality of materials and attention to detail prove the fact, that the architect Frantisek Bednarik mastered to apply international style ideas also to a small extent reconstruction of the original steam power plant in Žilina.

Oteiza, escultor y arquitecto. Análisis de unos croquis inéditos para la universidad infantil piloto e ikastola experimental en Elorrio. 1964

<p>En el archivo de la Fundación Jorge Oteiza se encuentran digitalizados, entre miles de documentos, los croquis que el escultor realizó para sus todavía inéditos proyectos de Universidad Vasca de los años sesenta. Muestro aquí los que, según mi investigación, corresponden al proyecto de Universidad Infantil Piloto que Jorge Oteiza proyectó para Elorrio en 1964. Constituyen en sí mismos el desarrollo experimental de este proyecto no construido. Son dibujos impregnados de primitivismo vasco, muy próximos a las piezas de su laboratorio de tizas pero que asumen los avances de la arquitectura funcionalista de la primera mitad del siglo veinte.</p>

Marketing function and form: How functionalist and experiential architectures affect corporate brand personality

How are the designs of corporate buildings used to create meaning and project a corporate image and personality? We distinguish functionalist architecture (“form follows function”), which focuses on the primary, utilitarian function of a building, from experiential architecture (“from function to form”), which uses the form of a building to communicate symbolically about the organization. A large-scale quantitative study including 150 buildings shows that four architectural design types (“solid,” “balanced,” “expressive,” and “disruptive” designs, emerging from a mix of functionalist and experiential architectures, lead to distinct corporate brand personalities (e.g., competence for functionalist architecture and excitement for experiential architecture). We validate these findings in a qualitative study and discuss how this research contributes toward the development of a consumer-oriented design theory.

The Preservation of Historic Architecture and the Beliefs of the Modern Movement in Mexico: 1914-1963

Mexican modernist architects were deeply involved in the preservation of the country's cultural heritage at least a generation before the Mexican state formally promulgated legislation defending the country's patrimony. As early as the 1910s, in conjunction with the Mexican revolution, a critical reassessment of the country's architectural past began, focusing especially on the viceregal period, the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries. Architects in Mexico City, particularly those associated with the national school of architecture, remained leading promoters of the new European functionalist architecture, but also advocates of inscribing it within the entire continuum of Mexican building history—including pre-Columbian works—as part of the same tradition. Part of the reason modernism was accepted as the new lingua franca of Mexican architecture in the postwar era was because it was by then understood as a variation of a long architectural and vernacular tradition that could be understood within the far broader rubric of Mexicanness.

The Sex of the Situationist International

In June 1958, Guy Debord, Gil Wolman, Michele Bernstein, and other founding members of the Situationist International (SI) published the first issue of internationale situationniste (IS). There, interspersed among essays on police brutality, functionalist architecture, and industrialization essays all invested with a clear sense of import and urgency are found photographs of sexy, flirtatious women. One stands underneath a shower, smiling as water trickles down her neck, while another wears nothing but a man's trench coat, an erotic accouterment through which she exposes a thigh and a tantalizing glimpse of decolletage. What are sexually charged images such as these doing in a periodical whose twelve issues published some of the most incisive critiques of alienation, capitalism, and spectacle along with astute analyses of current events like the Franco-Algerian War and the Watts Riots to appear after World War II? Readymade photographs of nude and semi-nude women are one of the leitmotifs of Situationist visual production. They embellish everything, from its collages and artist books to its films and publications. Nevertheless, these images have received only cursory attention from historians, and in the opinion of those who have addressed them, they constitute little more than a gratuitous sidebar to the group's more lofty, less compromised pursuits. Susan Suleiman's view, expressed in a footnote to her 1990 book Subversive Intent, typifies the scholarly response to date. The Situationists appear to have been more of a 'men's club' than the Surrealists, Suleiman writes. When they weren't ignoring women, they were treating them as sex objects in the most banal