Twentieth-century Architecture Research Articles

The Historical Building and Room Acoustics of the Stockholm Public Library (1925–28, 1931–32)

The Stockholm Public Library was realized in two distinct phases of construction in the 1920s and early 1930s, and remains a well-known work in twentieth-century architecture, with a heritage status today. While previous studies have focused on the library’s architectural design, particularly its lighting, acoustics were also an important aspect of the building’s design and construction. This study marks the first detailed investigation of the library’s architectural acoustics, with a suite of standard measurements performed to assess and characterize the library’s historical room and building acoustics. Reverberation time measurements in the library’s reading rooms yielded results of about 1.5–2 s for frequencies associated with speech. A significantly longer reverberation time of 5–6 s was measured in the library’s central rotunda, confirming a prominent acoustic issue in the library, where appropriate heritage discussions are needed in the future as the library undergoes a major renovation in the coming years. A comparison of the measured airborne and impact sound insulation of the 1920s and 1930s reading room ceilings also yielded interesting results. While the materials in library’s two construction periods are notably different, the airborne sound insulation performance of the 1920s and 1930s floors or ceilings was comparable and in line with contemporary standards. Impact sound insulation results from the 1920s and 1930s floors, however, differed significantly, with the latter displaying a relatively poor performance. Flanking transmission effects related to historical construction details and deviations from archival plans were investigated and discussed. This work emphasizes the practical and academic importance of conducting on-site measurements, and the close mutual development of modern architecture, construction, and architectural acoustics.

Review of Aleksander Laslo’s Research on Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Architecture in Zagreb

Architect Aleksander Saša Laslo (Celje, 1950 – Zagreb, 2014) was one of the leading historians of Croatian twentieth-century architecture, with a research scope centered on the city of Zagreb. Its aim was to investigate the processes of modernisation, tracing the evolution from high historicism and eclecticism through Art Nouveau to proto-functionalism and New Building (Ger. Neues Bauen, Cro. novo građenje) – viewed through building spatial-organisation, construction, and then inevitably form. Laslo’s interest, of course, extended beyond the mere physical structure of the building to wider social, economic, and cultural context, and dynamic knowledge exchange with Central Europe during that time, within which Laslo positioned the architecture of Zagreb. Methodologically, since the very beginning in the early 1980s, Laslo relied on exhaustive research, cataloguing, and contemporary research of Central European architecture. To mark the tenth anniversary of the death of this prominent researcher of Zagreb’s architectural heritage, this paper provides the first review of Laslo’s work, highlighting its comprehensiveness, integrity, and scientific method.

Simultaneous Double Notions: Mannerist Elements in Contemporary Architecture

There is no complete description of either the term “mannerism” or its associated features. Contradiction, paradox, and ambiguity may have been the terms most referential for mannerism since the 1950s, but this article poses a unification of opposites as another important feature, specific to modern and contemporary architecture. We analyse three series of works by Andrea Palladio against another three pairs of opposing concepts—absence versus presence, frontality versus foreshortening, and grid versus assemblage. An analysis of each pair of concepts using commonly accepted examples from late twentieth-century architecture, following Venturi in the way of “both-and,” allows us to argue how this merging of opposites in the same element, blends into, and participates in both characterisations. The pairings of opposites maintain their features, becoming simultaneous complementary characters. These mannerist characterisations are less common in current architecture, but they can, we claim, be easily detected in various recent projects.

Archival plans, alterations, and 3D laser scanning of Erik Gunnar Asplund’s Stockholm Public Library

Erik Gunnar Asplund’s Stockholm Public Library is considered an important building in the history of twentieth-century architecture, yet relatively few archival plans have been saved from the library’s extended design process from 1919–25 and its subsequent construction until opening in 1928. This work presents the first systematic review of the available, digitised archival plans from Sweden’s National Centre for Architecture and Design (ArkDes), and explains Asplund’s gradual design and development of the project. Subsequent alterations in the library are briefly summarised, followed by the results from an extensive 3D laser scanning process throughout and around the building as it undergoes a significant period of renovation and maintenance. The results from 3D laser scanning create the first comprehensive and detailed record of the building for supporting future research, teaching, and renovation work. This study emphasises the mutual benefits of combining historical and technological approaches, and conducting academic research in parallel with contemporary renovation projects of historical architecture.

An Appraisal of Double Skin Facade in Building Design: Architectural Intervention and Sustainability

One of the key issues in twentieth-century architecture is the energy problem and daily rise in environmental pollution brought on by the creation of greenhouse gases, particularly in the construction industry. The purpose of the research that follows is to investigate how well buildings heat up while also updating double-skinned facades to ensure thermal comfort for the residents while using the least amount of energy possible. The thoughtful design of a building's exterior is one of the most crucial ways to conserve energy in that structure. The finest choice for controlling the interplay between the interior and exterior spaces is a ‘double-skin facade’. Double-skin facades have been used more frequently recently to increase transparency in both building renovations and new construction. Although glare issues may worsen, double-skin facades improve lighting levels and the outside view. When comparing a typical glass facade to one with an additional layer of glazing, it is possible to reduce heat loss and outside noise. A very critical concern appears to be the protection of external solar shading devices against wind and deterioration. This paper reviews and discusses the earlier research on double-skin building facade systems. The evaluation of a double-skin facade system for long-term building envelope or infrastructure development is the main theme of the paper.

Relevance and Role of Contemporary Architecture Preservation—Assessing and Evaluating Architectural Heritage as a Contemporary Landscape: A Study Case in Southern Italy

Since WWII to the 2000s, numerous masters of contemporary architecture have contributed to the construction of new landscapes with their works; therefore, these places have become part of a changing landscape and of the multifaceted process of landscape generation. Nevertheless, during this fifty-year period, capitalism has led to the destruction of many existing landscapes, and the policies of protection and preservation have often entailed a process of musealization. In 2000, the European Landscape Convention adopted a new common-grounded definition of landscape, integrating a wide set of cultural approaches and disciplinary topics. Starting from the assumption that contemporary architecture and urban projects can generate high-quality landscapes, this paper investigates the link between the architecture and the landscape, taking the opportunity to catalogue the second half of twentieth-century architecture and urban projects in Sicily as part of the national cataloguing activity “Ereditare il Presente” promoted by the Italian Ministry of Culture. Using the Ministry-proposed cataloguing procedure and adding a quality assessment methodology of buildings and urban projects, this study has produced a theoretical and applicative advancement on how architecture and urban projects of the second half of the twentieth century should be offered as a dynamic component of sustainable human settlement planning under SDG11 “sustainable cities and communities”.

Tucumán’s first “Garden Neighborhood”. The setting for the evolution of twentieth-century architecture and urbanism

This article addresses the study of the first neighborhood designed and financed by the Caja Popular de Ahorros, called Barrio Jardín and located in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán. Its recipients were the province's salespeople and industrial workers, who were given access to mortgages. This was the first response from the provincial entity for a low-income sector, to face the lack of housing. The housing development, inspired by the English garden city structure, transformed and applied to the garden suburb concept, had its architectural expression in the Californian chalet. The three extensions it underwent in subsequent decades followed the trends of the Modern Movement, both in terms of urban layout and its architecture. The research adopted a qualitative methodology, viewing the problem from a historical perspective. Although work began in the context of Juan Domingo Perón's first government (1946-1952), the extensions were made between 1962 and 1973, in other political and economic circumstances. The unit of analysis is limited to the first garden neighborhood of San Miguel de Tucumán, with its different stages of expansion, but the timeline covers the 1940s, 1960s, and 1970s. The goal of this article was to look through the urban–architectural lines applied in the different stages of the Garden Neighborhood's design, where urban land occupation and architecture were the product of the prevailing principles at their times.

The History of the Muscate Family’s Mansion at 5 Dominikswall Street in Gdańsk

The paper discusses the possibilities of interpreting the remains of twentieth-century architecture in the historical context based on the archaeological research results presented. Analysis of archaeological sources concerns a location in today’s Wały Jagiellońskie Street in Gdańsk. The discovered walls have been identified as the historical address 5 Dominikswall Street. The text presents the forty six years of history of the discovered property based on historical sources. The data collected constitutes a fragment of the common history of two wealthy Gdańsk families – Muscate and Rosenbaum.

Pauline Saliga (1953–2022)

Pauline Saliga (1953–2022)

Thinking Directions of Added Masses to Historic Buildings at the Twentieth Century Architecture

Buildings may last on civilisations, evolve and change, but their reuse emphasises continuity. The building can retain the mention of the previous function and value. It has a memory of its former purpose rooted in its very structure. As long as new additions were likely to design in the same styles as their historic neighbours, the word

Goetheanum II: Masterpiece of Organic Architecture by Rudolf Steiner

The Goetheanum is one of the masterpieces of Twentieth Century architecture. The present building is the second iteration of Dr Rudolf Steiner’s ideas of organic architecture for the site on a hill overlooking the Swiss village of Dornach. The Goetheanum was intended as a theatre and the global headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society. Goetheanum I was a quaint all timber structure, opened on 26 September 1920. In 1921, Rudolf Steiner considered that a rebuild would be quite different. On 31 December 1922, Goetheanum I was destroyed by fire. By July 1923, funds were guaranteed for a new build. Shortly after the Christmas Conference of 1923, Rudolf Steiner presented a 1:100 scale clay model of Goetheanum II. In June 1924, the building application was submitted, and in November approved. Site work began in Rudolf Steiner's lifetime, but he died on 30 March 1925. On 29 September 1928, Goetheanum II was officially opened with plays, lectures and Eurythmy performances. This was a building, unlike any other, a grand sculpture in reinforced concrete. The furbishing of the interior proceeded over the following decades. The present paper relates the story of Goetheanum II, citing contemporary sources and illustrated with historical and present-day images.

Tirana National Theatre: chronicle of an announced demolition

ABSTRACT Tirana National Theatre was demolished on 17 May 2020. For the previous eighty years and up to that moment, it had maintained its public and societal function, documenting the changes of twentieth-century Albanian history. The Theatre was inaugurated in 1938, during the Italian Protectorate, as part of the Italian-Albanian Circolo Scanderbeg, a multifunctional complex conceived for entertainment as well as for Fascist propaganda. The construction, by the Italian company PATER, used a prefabricated system that well-exemplified the new building technologies and material research developed under the Fascist autarchy restrictions. This paper deals with the construction history of this building approaching questions around fabrics which significance is neglected in favour of new developments. Even if time-specific, architecture is often characterized by a lifespan that is longer if compared to its original construction purpose. Hence, despite the denial of any possible conservation or reuse, the Theatre’s cultural resilience and architectural, historic, and societal significance will continue to reverberate in the void created by its demolition. Unpretentiously, this paper honours the memory of a disappeared twentieth-century architecture, which ambiguous protection history was overcome by a much more sincere guardianship by the civil society and conservation community.

Pietra Alberese: from Traditional Building Material of the Tuscan Countryside to the Present Use (Tuscany, Italy)

In Tuscany, the vernacular architecture of the countryside between Siena and Florence (Chianti territory), and the monumental architecture of towns such as Prato and Pistoia together with the surrounding villages, extensively used a local limestone, the Pietra Alberese. It is a grey marly limestone, very resistant to decay, which takes on a whitish colour upon exposure to atmospheric agents. In addition, the Pietra Alberese was used to produce lime, being the only limestone cropping out in this territory. In this work, the Pietra Alberese is characterized, from a geological, mineralogical and petrographic point of view, highlighting its problems of conservation. Furthermore, the use in the historical architecture (both vernacular and monumental) and in the twentieth century architecture is illustrated.

MANOR OF THE SOCIETY FOR EMERGENCY MEDICINE IN KYIV. HISTORY, ARCHITECTURE AND SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE CITY

Today, the issue of restoring and preserving culture is more relevant than ever for Ukraine. After all, awareness of its significance is the basis of self-awareness of the individual in the context of cultural diversity. Our country has a large number of architectural heritage sites from different periods, which illustrates our multinational culture. However, the problem of uncontrolled construction in the historical center, motivated solely by investment benefits, directly harms the monuments of architecture and urban planning. And the silence of this issue is fraught with their complete extermination and the loss of identity by the city. The objective of the article is also to highlight the value of architectural heritage objects for Ukraine. The article considers an outstanding monument of architecture and urban planning of Kyiv, the Estate of the Ambulance Society. Its history from the moment of construction to the problems of the present, the architecture of facades, elements of their decor and planning features of the building are studied. It emphasizes the importance of preserving a unique example of quality architecture of the early twentieth century. The methodological basis of the study is to systematize and analyze the data obtained from various information sources. The article can be useful for historians of architecture or medicine, as well as for architects who have a scientific interest or work directly with cultural heritage sites. During the study, it was found that the current emergency condition of the building has been present for more than twenty years. Inattention to the unique architectural monument in the Main Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage is explained by the lack of funds for restoration. Having a complicated history, more than a century-long, the estate is an example of successful planning of a medical institution of the early 20th century in the conditions of dense development in the central part of Kyiv.

‘A Striking Air of Modernity Tempered with Tradition’: Vernacular Modernism and the Design of the Public House in Cork and Dublin, 1934–1969

Abstract In design history discourse, modernity and tradition can be seen as intimately related rather than dichotomous. For example, Michelangelo Sabatino has noted the complex relationship between them in Italian twentieth-century architecture. What was the relationship between modernity and tradition in post-Independence Ireland? One way of investigating this is to consider the design of a quintessentially everyday space: the pub. From the 1930s, many pubs in Cork and Dublin were re-designed through a series of negotiated responses to modernisation. By 1960, this was complicated by the construction of what we would recognize as interiors designed to appeal to an imagined tourist vision of the pub in Ireland. This article argues that these changes were design responses to three interlinked historical forces: modernization, the retention or invention of vernacular design, and the influence of international trade and tourism. This considerably complicates our understanding of Irish modernism and illustrates that, for the public house in Ireland at least, British design was a dominant influence.

Thoreauvian Disappointment: Losing the Plot in The Maine Woods

Thoreauvian Disappointment:Losing the Plot in The Maine Woods Rachael Dewitt (bio) Henry David Thoreau's The Maine Woods (1864) is a muted drama of curtailed ambitions.1 The posthumously published compilation of his three Maine excursions (the first two of which previously appeared in periodicals) follows a distinctly unsatisfying structure. The biggest excitement (and literal climax) comes at the start when Thoreau climbs Mt. Katahdin, and then the book carries on for an additional two expeditions that are ostensibly driven by the hunting of moose—a task for which Thoreau repeatedly expresses his abhorrence. The narrative lurches and idles just as its narrator gets waylaid by dammed rivers and delayed stagecoaches. Disappointment suffuses this travel narrative, and within its unresolved, inconclusive, and misdirected logics, we can glimpse an ironic, self-deprecating addition to the normatively triumphalist travel genre. If The Maine Woods follows a downward trajectory, its critical tradition has done the opposite. The Maine Woods was a disappointment to early twentieth-century architects of the American Renaissance who revered Thoreau.2 But today it stands out as an early and thoughtful work of environmental nonfiction. As if in compensation for the many failures that it narrates, scholars have emphasized [End Page 487] its success on and off the page, focusing on Thoreau's enlightenment, improvement, and transcendence. The alpine sublimity that Thoreau experiences in the first essay ("Ktaadn") and his call for the preservation of wilderness at the end of the second essay ("Chesuncook") became iconic passages in early environmental humanities.3 This focus on novelty and excitement represents a critical tradition that persistently characterizes The Maine Woods as a series of isolated episodes in which Thoreau creatively overcomes his context to uncover new truths about wildness and wilderness.4 This article departs from that tradition by approaching The Maine Woods as an ironic travel narrative that accomplishes very little—beginning with initial success in "Ktaadn" followed by mild disappointment in "Chesuncook," and concluding with disillusionment in "The Allegash and East Branch." I read the traveler's devolution across the three essays as an exercise in non-transcendence in which Thoreau sketches the limits of his own epistemology and reveals his own perspective to be as small as the mosquito biting his arm. Here, I return to early scholars' sense of disappointment with The Maine Woods and suggest that disappointment is rather the point. By contextualizing The Maine Woods within the genre of travel literature, and then by tracking the devolution of language across its three essays, we can see Thoreau accept—rather than resolve—his limitations and failures. When Thoreau wrote "Ktaadn," he was already a seasoned botanist whose enthusiasm for nature was shaped by the ideology of manifest destiny and his writerly ambitions. When he wrote "Chesuncook" a decade later, he had yet more knowledge of science, and consequently diminished hopes for wilderness's ability to survive humans' accelerating consumption. He also had lower hopes for his own writing career, and a growing distain for all markets, literary included. By the time he wrote "The Allegash and East Branch," he had an even wider scientific foundation [End Page 488] (which he used when sprinkling the essay with binomial nomenclature) and a clearer sense of how what he was looking at was not wilderness at all but a landscape shaped by indigenous and settler cultures. He also possessed so little interest in publishing that he withheld the essay from publication until the end of his life. The Maine Woods gathers all these frustrations between two covers, offering its reader only mild humor in compensation. I argue that we can see this text in a new light when we consider disappointment itself as a kind of Thoreauvean insight. In his final decade—between traveling to Maine in 1856 and preparing his Maine book in 1862—Thoreau gazed clear-eyed upon his personal, professional, and intellectual frustrations. Through them, he penned a sarcastic guidebook that is loudly critical of Maine settlement and industry, and softly appreciative of Penobscot knowledge. In keeping with recent readings of The Maine Woods from scholars John J. Kucich and Laura Dassow Walls, I view Thoreau's shifting attitudes toward the Penobscot people as a...

Between Bureaucratic Tradition and Professional Discourse: Turkey and the Case of SİSAG, 1969–77

ABSTRACTThe history of twentieth-century architecture in Turkey can be presented as a conflict between a powerful state bureaucracy and an independent architectural community: the former producing most of the buildings and infrastructure but with little verbalisation; the latter producing most of the discourse but building relatively little. This article examines a case that challenges this dichotomy. It focuses on the architectural department of SİSAG (1969–77), a company associated with Hacettepe University in Ankara, and the organisational, institutional and occupational modes and practices that it employed. The article explores both the architectural production of SİSAG and its role as the setting for the first white-collar strike in Turkey, and it unearths the intellectual and institutional discourse on the organisation of architectural production that surfaced with this confrontation. The article shows how, in the relationship between bureaucratic tradition and professional discourse, SİSAG took an ‘in-between’ position, its architects seeking to replace conflict with cooperation, and to reconcile ideas of public service, public interest and social engagement on the one hand with disciplinary knowledge, planning and design and independent research on the other.

Female mascarons in the architecture of the Lviv secession

An important role in the formation of the architectural style of Lviv was played by the beginning of the twentieth century. As the capital of Galicia, which at that time belonged politically to the Austrian Empire, Lviv was strongly influenced by the Austrian Secession and the head of the Vienna School of Architecture O. Wagner. Nevertheless, Lviv architecture, to a certain extent, has preserved its originality and uniqueness. Secession is a phenomenon of the Lviv architecture of the early twentieth century. It determines the definition of sculptural decor as one of the main components of the “newest” artistic image of a building. Among the various types of plastic decoration, an important place is occupied by relief masks – mascarons, which are the most mysterious, attractive, and bizarre elements of the architecture of the Lviv Secession. The article notes the influence of various factors on the formation of new typological groups of mascarons not found in the architecture of previous eras. The artistic images of secession arise at the intersection of two key symbols and constant themes of art nouveau – eternal femininity and fabulous nature. In almost all cases, female mascarons are accompanied by plant motifs of the local flora.

Who Designed Villa Planchart? Gio Ponti’s Architecture in Caracas: Between Influences and Contamination

In 1953, Armando and Anala Planchart asked the Italian architect Gio Ponti to realize a new house for them in Caracas. They did not know at the time that it would become one of the most iconic works of twentieth century architecture: “Can I be your Michelangelo?”1 Nevertheless, the correspondence between the architect and several of the individuals involved in its construction testifies to the multiple influences that can be recognized in the house. This makes it one of the clearest examples of building with the involvement of multiple authors.

Дискурс орнамента в архитектуре ХХ века

The article provides an overview of the ornament in the architecture of the twentieth century, indicating the points that form the direction of the axial trajectories of the development of the ornamental form in the context of architecture. The research is based on the method of analytical description of ornament positions extracted from the the practice and textual corpus of architect’s statements. Utterances synthesize the discursive range of ornament in the field of architecture. The body of the ornament covers the subject aspects of human life and is present in the spatial form of the architectural environment. Traditionally, the location of the ornamental form is associated with the art of decoration, so the standard ornament is considered as an additive, additional in relation to the singularity of the form. The same principle applies to architecture. This study actualizes the problem of redefining the ornamental form, marking point inversions of the additivity of ornamen tal decoration as a formative aspect involved in creating the results of architectural activity. The formative principle of the article is a chronological sequence of twenty positions outlining the discourse of ornament in the context of twentieth-century architecture.