Modernist Design Lec #11

Question 1

What ideals did mass production suburbs and garden city design have in common?

Answer 1

• technology can be used to reassert a more natural way of life
• bringing humans close to nature was a good, desirable goal

Question 2

What were some key components of modernist urban design?

Answer 2

embraced industrialism
used “dark satanic mills” as a model of city architecture
form follows function (a building shouldn’t hide its structure, value honesty)
Machines are judged by how well it does its job, not how beautiful it is
maximizing rationality, organization, minimizing chaos and disorder

Question 3

Who was Le Corbusier?

Answer 3

Swiss architect, influential modernist, prolific author, highly controversial ideas for urban design, punching bag for urban designers,
“a house is a machine for living in”
favoured extreme standardization and authoritarian regimes
- against any rennovations or changes

Question 4

What is the Radiant City?

Answer 4

book published in 1933
favoured high rises (conc of housing >dispersal)
Keep 95% of space open, the rest is dense high rises
Businesses were located on the ground floor so one could just take the elevator to get to whatever they needed
Freeways to get from city to city (elevated streets only for cars, not pedestrians)

Question 5

What was the Plan Voison for Paris by Corbusier?

Answer 5

Destroy all buildings on North bank and replace with modernist towers
Fascination with grand urban life and TOP DOWN approach –> this resembled city beautiful movement (ironically)
- This suggests he may have been more about aesthetics than he thinks

Question 6

How has modernist design had global influence?

Answer 6

In prague, the city centre is an older medieval design, but the outer areas are modernist, superblocks of pannel housing

Question 7

Why is modernist design good?

Answer 7

• forward-looking
  -inexpensive housing
  -authoritarian appeal/paternalistic
  -embrace of industrialism
  -people as products