Iron and steel structures since Industrial Revolution

Beside the question of styles, the 19th century was an important period because of the
appearing of new structures and materials in the architecture. In this period a rapid
development began in the field of structures. Greenhouses, covered markets and halls,
exhibition pavilions, passages and utility buildings were built of iron and steel.
Iron has been defined as a linear two-dimensional fragile-looking material, in contrast to
the solid, three-dimensional sturdiness of masonry. Elegant linearity is iron.s most rational form.
These characteristics led away from the solid, block-like, closed type of building, towards an
open, linear, articulated frame.
As for new materials, iron and after 1860 steel, made it possible to achieve spans wider,
to build higher, and develop ground plans more flexible than ever before. Glass in conjunction
with iron and steel, enabled the engineer to make whole roofs and whole walls transparent.
The most perfect examples of early iron architecture, the suspension bridges are the
work of engineers, not of architects. Severn-bridge was the first cast-iron arched bridge
built inthe 18th century in 1777 over the river Severn in Coalbrookdale. Abraham Darby built it,
but Thomas Farnoll Pritchard and John Wilkinson were the architects. The form of the
bridgefollows structures of wooden shuttering supporting of arches, yet showing some
ornamentation.

The early culmination of the English iron-architecture was Joseph Paxton’s Crystal
Palace, the pavilion of the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.
In January 1850 it was decided to organize an international exhibition in London in the
next year. The Building Committee, comprising architects and engineers, launched an
international competition on 13 March. In April 245 projects were received, but the Committee
decided to form alone the final plan. Meanwhile Joseph Paxton, a new member of the
committee, put his basic idea down on paper. Joseph Paxton had made a name for himself as
a specialist in the construction of large greenhouses. He was a gardener and horticulturist used
to the iron- and glass-work of conservatories.

He planned a giant greenhouse with a flat roof, made of cast-iron and glass. The
simplicity of the architectural design shocked certain members of the committee. His project
was accepted only because time was running out. It was the only one, which satisfies the
essential condition of being capable of completion before the opening of the Exhibition planned
for 1 May 1851. With some modifications the design was finally approved and adopted on 26
July. The detail drawings were produced in seven weeks. And on 26 September the first
column was erected in Hyde Park. The building was completed, ready to receive the exhibits in
January 1851. The exhibition opened on 1 May, and by 6 October, when it closed six million
people had visited it.
The construction of the Crystal Palace was for Joseph Paxton the culmination of twenty
years’ experience in building greenhouses. This building was constructed of a reduced number
of standard parts: cast-iron columns attached by a collar to horizontal lattice beams and
covered by planes of glass. The rain water was guided towards the hollow columns providing a
runoff. All the dimensions of the building were multiples or submultiples of a single module of
24 feet. The elements could be fabricated industrially and rapidly erected on a light foundation.
The semicircular vault and the ceiling were glazed throughout. The modular system, the new
scale, the fantastic dimensions, the simplicity of the design, the repetition of simple forms and
the rapid erection had consequence for architecture.

The interior view of the palace shows that there was saved some trees in the park by
including them in the interior. The palace thus really served as a greenhouse. From the
technical point of view the Crystal Palace did not cause any revolutionary solution. Paxton
simply scaled up enormously the structural design with which he had experimented for the
greenhouse built at Chatsworth in 1845-50.
The Crystal Palace stayed in the Hyde Park before being taken down and transferred to
Sydenham in the south of London. It was disassembled and the elements reused for a new
construction on a more ambitious plan. From 1853 it was used as an exhibition hall for annual
fairs and exhibitions. It was destroyed by fire in 1936.

Following the July Revolution of 1830 in France, new ideas emerged among the
younger generation of French architects, ideas relating not just to choice of style, but also to a
rational, function-oriented design and use of materials. One of the most important
representatives of this approach was Henri Labrouste (1801-75), a student of Lebas. The
ground plan of his new Bibliothéque Sainte-Geneviéve (Sainte-Geneviéve library),
built between 1844 and 50 in Paris, was developed from pragmatic considerations.
The building is very simple in arrangement. It is a long rectangle, entered on the ground
floor, with stack rooms to the left, offices rare books on the right. A separate stair hall leads up
to the reading room, which occupies the whole of the upper level.
The novel feature of Labrouste.s building is the frankly exposed system of iron columns
and decorative iron arches of the vast reading room all along the first floor. The large, two-aisle
reading room, visible in the interior as a cast iron structure is noble and purified.
The exterior is even more noble and purified. The decoration of the façade in an Italian
Renaissance style is subordinated to the effect of the cubic structural mass. Above the ground
floor, the apertures of the large pillared arcading are partly filled with inscription panels,
corresponding to the bookshelves inside. They also help to articulate otherwise blank wall
surfaces and illuminate the function of the building. The façade would not make anybody
expect such a revolutionary interior.

Labrouste developed his design principles further in the reading room of the
Bibliothéque Nationale (National Library) in Paris. Three years after completion of the
Bibliothéque Sainte-Geneviéve in 1853 he was appointed as architect at the Bibliothéque
Nationale that was earlier the Bibliothéque du Roi. In 1859 he began work on the main reading
room, filling part of the court for which Boullée had prepared his designs. This was Labrouste.s
second masterpiece.
The reading room of 1859-68 again has exposed iron columns. They carry nine domes
of faience and glass. The impression is lighter and more elegant than that of the reading room
of the Sainte-Geneviéve library. The centrally laid out ground plan consists of nine units. The
16 slender columns are not only the parts of the structure but also the means of the decoration
of the room. The cast-iron columns supporting the vault in the main reading room have
Corinthian capitals, but these supports are so thin that this is only a reference to the classical
architecture.
In the early period of the iron architecture the steel pillars were decorated as if they
were made of stone. The architects didn.t use steal structures without decorations, ornaments.
Although these steel columns were thin, they had such capitals and pedestals as the stone
columns in the historical architecture.
The stack room beyond the main reading room of the Bibliothéque Nationale with its
tiered galleries of cast iron (1862-67) shows new effects. Here the decoration was not
necessary that is why Labrouste planned a pure iron structure without any ornaments. This, to
twentieth-century eyes, was the greatest creation. Even his contemporaries admired it, and for
much the same reasons. Labrouste aimed at a larger synthesis. He used his lifts, his heating
and lighting systems and his cast iron columns not for utilitarian reasons alone, but in order to
relate his building organically to a nineteenth-century industrialized society.

An interesting use of the steel skeleton can be noticed on the Statue of Liberty in New
York. This large statue was given to the United States by the French Republic in honour of the
centenary of independence. The actual dates are 1871-86. The structural skeleton was
constructed by the French Gustave Eiffel, the great bridge and hall constructor, the bronze
statue by Auguste Bartholdi, the base by Richard Morris Hunt. The statue is 157 feet (52
metres) high and has inside an iron framework. As a national monument it has a symbolical
meaning.

One of the most important buildings when the framework has also aesthetical role is the
Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was the first wonder of the world in the industrial epoch. This is
thefirst real example of the frame building technique, which makes no distinction between
interiorand exterior.
Gustave Eiffel planned the designs for this tower as a monumental entrance archway
to the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 in commemoration of the centenary of the French
Revolution. The designs were prepared in 1884-6; the erection began in 1887. It is 300 metres
(990 feet) high and looks like a triumphal arch at the entrance. The tower was believed at the
time to be impossible to build. Eiffel with his experience of building bridges in several European
countries proved that his design could be executed, although a contemporary mathematician
calculated that it would collapse once it reached a height of 250 metres (750 feet). The
individual parts of the tower are all produced in the factory (including 15,000 iron pieces). The
bare structure of this historicist tower was decorated in its details by iron ornaments according
to the trends of its era.
Public opinion was not nearly as enthusiastic about the building as its constructor, and
there was a violent controversy about the destruction of the Paris skyline. Several artists
protested against the tower, including the architect, Garnier, the composer Gounod, and the
writers Maupassant and Verlaine. Against this protest the tower was built and afterwards it
became the symbol of Paris. With the Eiffel Tower the extreme possibilities of the new material
were demonstrated, and new dimensions were opened up for building in the future.

ECLECTICISM
In the 1830s and 1840s new Neo-styles appeared in the architecture, Neo-Renaissance
and Neo-Baroque. From the appearance of Neo-Renaissance we consider the next period,
Eclecticism. From these times the approach to the classical tradition underwent a renewal.
Attitudes toward a monotonous Neo-Classicism began to cool. The grand style of the Italian
High Renaissance palazzi replaced the simplicity of the Neo-Greek. What helped to popularize
the Renaissance style must have been its high relief against the flatness of Neo-classical.
By 1830-1840 we find a new social and aesthetic situation in architecture. Architects’
clients came from the middle classes. The new manufacturers or merchants felt no longer
bound by one particular accepted taste. If they liked a style in architecture, then they had a
house or a factory or an office building built in that style. Architects believed that anything
created by the pre-industrial centuries must be better than anything made to express the
character of their own era. Architects’ clients wanted other than aesthetic qualities, and they
could understand and even check one other quality: the correctness of imitation or proper
imitation. That was due to a thorough historical knowledge, which characterized the 19th
century. Architectural scholarship concentrated on historical research. Architects were able to
draw from a well-assorted stock of historical details.
This period was called Eclecticism, which is sometimes claimed to be the style of the
19th century. The name originates from a Greek word, which means choosing according to
quality. The architects were choosing between the styles, and sometimes they also mixed
different elements. The façade became only a dress; the architects could change it without
changing the ground plan.

The beginning of the eclectic period was when the architects turned to the Renaissance
style, instead of the classical or the medieval forms. The Neo-Renaissance style was followed
by Neo-Baroque, then the architects began to select from all of the previous historical styles
again. So the fancy-dress ball of architecture was in full swing. By 1840 pattern-books for
builders and clients include more styles. That does not, however, mean that during the 19th
century all these styles were really used. Favourites changed with fashion. The architecture
became the coming and going of period styles. The circle of imitation had expanded to include
the whole domain of architectural history.

The term eclecticism encompasses two different phenomena. On the one hand
typological eclecticism might be called, when the architect turns to one model or another in the
past, which he adapts and modifies to meet his needs, depending on the specification, on the
character that he wishes to give to his design. On the other hand synthetic eclecticism is when
the architect has recourse to past architectural experience in order to combine in a novel
manner the principles, solutions and motifs of different periods. And this synthesis can take a
field of greater or lesser extent for its operation.

In accordance with the typological eclecticism there was a kind of distribution according
to types and styles. Neo-classical style was particularly well-suited to public buildings such as
museums, law courts, and Neo-Gothic style to religious buildings such as churches and
mausoleums. This idea constantly recurred throughout the 19th century. Greenhouses, covered
markets and halls, exhibition pavilions, passages and utility buildings were built in a modern
iron or steel style, churches and vicarages in a medieval, Byzantine, Roman or Gothic style,
public buildings and apartment blocks in a classical Italian or French style. This typological
eclecticism is based most often on the fascination exercised by an archetype . the 13th-century
cathedral, the small medieval parish church, the Italian palazzo, the Netherlands town hall and
so on. In suburban villas and apartment blocks the variety of the styles used is part of a
generalized picturesque variety, but the stylistic variety in buildings of a more elaborate type is
a conscious, significant variety. These different historical styles can serve to orchestrate the
different parts of composition.

Already before 1830, France rediscovered her native Early Renaissance. The
associational value of these buildings was of course national, but their aesthetic appeal lay in a
still livelier play of ornament on surfaces.
In the 1840s and 1850s the forms became more and more undisciplined until a Neo-
Baroque was reached. The Opera-house in Paris (1861-74) is the master work of
Jean Louis Charles Garnier (1825-1898). It is one of the earliest and best
examples of the Neo-Baroque. Garnier could achieve a splendidly unified character in most of
the essentials of architecture . in mass, rhythm, texture, and outline.

On the main façade the side projections are stressed and emphasized by segmental
pediments. The façade is proportioned by paired columns on its second floor. On the first floor
there is an opened arcade with semicircular openings. The details of this richly ornamented
façade originate from different periods. The façade is decorated by reliefs and sculptures as
well. Externally as well as internally the stylistic elements derive from the Italian Cinquecento
and from the France of Louis XIII and Louis XIV, from Renaissance and from Baroque.
Polychromy is widely used to heighten the impact yet further. The façade is massive and
heavily decorated and gilded, and really monumental.
Garnier.s plan is complex and well-managed. The entrance and the grand staircase owe
something to Bordeaux Theatre. The great stair hall is perhaps Garnier.s greatest triumph.
There is a tension in every form. The flights of the stairs fly easily and with perfect fluency
through the stair hall. With its related corridors and foyers the stair provides the best of all
possible ceremonial approaches to the auditorium. The main foyer and the auditorium are yet
more splendid. The auditorium is for over 2000 people. The shape is the traditional horseshoe
and there are four tiers of boxes. The lobbies and corridors were made larger than even before.
Although the structural frame is iron that is nowhere allowed showing.

The ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT in Great Britain

The most interesting developments were taking place in Great Britain. In consequence
of the early and strong industrialization a problem between the serial production and
individuality was developed here already in the mid 19th century. Then was founded a society of
the fine arts, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. They turned to the art of the Middle Ages. They
admitted that the art before the Raffaello Santi’s birth, before 1483 was natural and
deephearted.
John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a theorist, who aided the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
He preached in his book, in ’The Seven Lamps of Architecture. in 1849, that the building must
be truthful first of all. Even John Ruskin said in 1853: ’Ornamentation is the principal part of
architecture’.
The step from theory to practice was taken by William Morris (1834-96). First he had
undergone the influence of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites. Morris was the first to link up his
social activities and his aesthetic theory in the only way. He founded a firm for designing and
making furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, carpets, stained glass. His Pre-Raphaelite friends joined
him. ’Not until the artist becomes a craftsman again and the craftsman an artist, can art be
saved from annihilation by the machine’ - this was his belief. To build up a new style on design
was sound, to build up in opposition to the technical potentialities of the century. The forms
which Morris & Co. chose for their products were inspired by the late Middle Ages. But Morris
did not imitate, he recognized Historicism as the danger it was. He steeped himself in the
atmosphere and the aesthetic principles of the Middle Ages, and then created something new
with a similar flavour and on similar principles.
William Morris was important as a founder of modern architecture. He envisaged a new
type of popular architecture based on historical models. He influenced several different areas of
culture. He wanted to bring the home into line with the new realities of society. He believed that
houses should not be status symbols, but simply buildings fitted to the daily needs of the
people who lived in them. He refused, however, to come to terms with technology, the synthetic
materials, and industrial methods, which were being developed so rapidly at the time.

’Red House’, this brick house was built by the architect Philip Webb (1831-1915) for
(and with) William Morris, at Bexley Heath in Kent in 1859-60. Webb was Morris.s friend and
worked with Morris in his studio. He was keen, like Morris, on a new approach to building, and
indeed to the whole of culture, based on the craft ideal. Webb created here a simple brick
building, obviously Neo-Gothic in style, but with its loose arrangement of both plan and
structure, well adapted to its function. This principle subsequently became a central feature of
modern architecture.
The German architect Hermann Muthesius wrote at the end of the nineteenth century
about this building that this is ’the first house to be designed and built as a unified whole from
the inside to the outside’.
At first sight, the Red House looks small and unimpressive, but it has become one of the
basic buildings of modern architecture. It is nevertheless part of the Neo-Gothic movement,
whose proponents sought to revive, in the industrial age, the medieval craftsman.s reliability
and honesty in his use of materials.
The building is notable for the refinement of its red brick bonding and the freedom in the
treatment of the tiled roof. The modern simplicity of its architectural language, roofs varying
according to the part of the building they covered, staircase tower attached to the main
structure, projecting chimney stacks - these were all features of the style of the ’Red House’.
Whereas we are struck today by the modern simplicity of the vocabulary, Morris saw his house
in the thirteenth-century style and found .medieval. motifs in the forms of the openings. This
unadorned building has many echoes of traditional architecture. The sub-division of the white
framed windows or the sculptural organization of the brick building is reminiscent of
eighteenthcentury English styles.

The two wings join each other at right angles. At the point where they join, there is a
staircase giving access to the rooms in both wings. This irregularly L-shaped ground-plan is
rational and functional. The windows reveal the organization of the rooms inside the building,
without any concern for symmetry or pattern. Here it was not important to build representative
chambers. The rooms are next to each other as if the house was built with additions, such as in
the Middle Ages. (Between 1860 and 1865 this house was the focus of William Morris. circle,
but in 1865 Morris sold it.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) was an original Scottish architect working

atthe turn of the century. In 1897 he received his first major commission for the building of the
Art School in Glasgow, for which he won the competition. The first section of this building was
completed in 1899, and became the sensation of Europe, and had a tremendous influence on
continental architecture.
The Glasgow Art School is Mackintosh’s best building. It has a long-shaped ground
plan. On the street side are large drawing studios, excellently lit by the enormous front
windows. At the back of the building are the teachers’ rooms, offices, and other rooms. The left
wing contains an assembly hall, the right a library, added in 1907-09.
The front façade is regarded as most typical of Mackintosh’s work. The entrance is
emphasized by deliberate asymmetry. The big studio windows are on both sides, four to the
right, three to the left. Balance is restored by the tower and the windows just beside the
entrance. The stone wall and iron railings along the street unite the two parts of the building in a
symmetrical rhythm, producing the ’disturbed symmetry’ typical of Arts and Crafts Movement. A
balance is achieved between stone, glass and metal. The stone provides the volume, the glass
the rhythmical surfaces and the iron the linear connection between the two. The façade is
distinguished by a combination of the long drawn-out, nostalgic curves with a straight, erect and
resilient, angular framework.

The importance of Mackintosh’s building lies in the way he has solved a comparatively
new building problem with the techniques available at the time, nonetheless respecting local
Scottish tradition. A new universality can be seen in the equal emphasis of interior and exterior,
and in interiors, including furniture, carpets and crockery
The ART NOUVEAU MOVEMENT in Belgium

Art Nouveau was the first novel style on the Continent, a revolutionary European
movement, which drew its inspiration from English design. Its name Art Nouveau means simply
.new art. and this new style appeared in all of the areas of art. But it remained almost
exclusively a style of decoration its role was determinative in Europe. A number of intellectual
trends influenced this style such as French nature philosophy and the structural view, which
originated from medieval Historicism.
Art Nouveau architecture started in Brussels in Belgium in 1892, when Victor Horta
(1861-1947) built the Tassel House. This house was built for the engineer Tassel,
and isfamous as the first example of this style. For the first time all the architectural features of
ArtNouveau were combined in one building. The house in one of a row, and at first sight it is not
markedly different from the buildings on either side of it. On closer inspection, its quality is
clearly seen. Although the three main parts of the façade are reminiscent of historical tradition,
the openings are interesting, strange and are different from each other.

Each of its three storeys has a large glass window in the middle, where the main rooms
are. These windows are wider on the higher storeys. The rooms on either side have windows,
which get narrower toward the top of the building, becoming narrow slits on the third storey,
contrasting with the three broad central windows, and the balcony in front of them. The façade
is completely symmetrical and slightly curved and broken up into open areas by iron elements.
The central part of the façade projects forward, in the manner of the Neo-Baroque, which was
at its peak a few decades earlier. Horta put into practice the theories of Viollet-le-Duc, who had
earlier advocated the use of iron as a structural element in architecture. Ever since Horta used
it so brilliantly, iron has ceased to belong merely to the vocabulary of the engineer, and has
become a legitimate architectural means of expression. The motifs of these iron elements were
new, originated from nature and had no precedents in architecture.
The reserved exterior of the house hardly suggests the unusual arrangement of the
rooms inside. The design of the interior is based on combining space and surface
ornamentation into an overall linear composition. Everything is subordinated to the rhythm of
the sweeping, curved line, always turning in unexpected directions. This is well demonstrated in
the staircase, with its narrow iron column extended by its linear plant ornamentation into the
surrounding space. The column is both functional and ornamental. The original furniture, which
was matched to each room, is no longer preserved. In 1958, the building was partially altered,
and the entrance hall renovated.
Horta.s synthesis between space and linear elements of composition, colour and spatial
dynamics makes this house one of the key buildings of Art Nouveau architecture.

The Solvay House in Brussels is a much admired masterpiece of Art Nouveau

architecture. Like the earlier Tassel House this building illustrates the greatness of its architect,
Victor Horta. Unlike the Tassel House, it is still preserved in its original condition.
Ernest Solvay was a late nineteenth-century industrialist who became a patron of
architecture. This luxurious house is in the same category as other important rich single family
houses of the period. Horta was commissioned to design this building in 1893. The work began
in 1894, and was completed in 1900. It is situated in one of the great avenues of Brussels, in
which other important contemporary buildings can also be found.
The façade, as in the Tassel House, is strictly symmetrical. The entrance portal is on the
left side. The first and the second floors are visually combined by the forward swing of the
façade on both sides, and the metal columns extending across both floors and dividing the two
window-bays. The clearly proportioned stone façade with its large glass windows is enlivened
by the filigree-like iron ornamentation on the balconies beneath the windows and on the first
between the window-bays. The plant-like curves of the ornamentation of the window-bays on
the third floor and those of the balconies, and the projecting and receding forms of the façade
are reminiscent of Baroque or Rococo architecture.
The curvilinear forms of the exterior are repeated in the interior. The metal is openly
displayed, but ornamented, and is integral part of the curved spatiality of the total composition
of the house. The doors, furniture, lamps and other interior items all contribute to the rhythm of
the interior. The main rooms of this five-storey house are on the first floor. They include a music
salon, a billiard room and a dining room, which leads onto an open terrace. On the second floor
are the more private rooms, including the library, bedrooms and bathroom. The third floor is for
children, the completely separate roof floor for servants. The intelligent and economical use of
space, and the way that it is left open or closed according to functional requirements,
demonstrates the genius of Horta. Ornament and structure are inseparably combined. The
building, an organic whole reflects the social, economic, structural and aesthetic characteristics
of its time.

The ART NOUVEAU MOVEMENT in Spain

Art Nouveau and the other turn-of-the-century styles remained almost exclusively styles
of decoration. The only exception to this rule was Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona, working on the
periphery of European events. Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926) was probably the most
particularand the most important European architect of the period around 1900. His work marks
a transition from Historicism to a new style of architecture. Gaudí made this transition despite
continuing to use traditional building materials.
Gaudí.s style was individual and was full of fantasy, in spite of the certain connections
with Spanish Late Gothic and Spanish Baroque and also of the connections with the
architecture of Morocco. He mixed these historical traditions partly with the effects of the Arts
and Crafts movement and the Art Nouveau architecture. He had special sensitivity toward the
craftsmanship and had particular static sense.

Gaudí.s important apartment block is the Casa Milá (Milá House) in Barcelona
built between 1905-10. Like almost all Gaudí.s buildings, it is incomplete but even today it
makes a lively impact. It is called .La Pedrera. (.the stone quarry.) because its shape is
reminiscent of natural forms. The curved contours of the five horizontally ranged storeys are a
unique motif. The strange demonic chimney forms on the roof were originally intended to form a
religious bestiary.
The building is composed of an emphatic base, five upper storeys (all with different floor
plans) and a roof area. The apparent irregularity of the building turns out, on closer inspection,
to be an artistically organized, basically symmetrical system. Inside there are two main courts,
77
of different size, with unusually shaped wrought iron gates and stairs. The whole of the exterior
is roughened by hammer. This gives an even light-catching surface interrupted only by the iron
railings on the balconies. Overall, the stone looks like reinforced concrete.
Gaudí inherited the way of thinking of a craftsman from the Arts and Crafts movement

mixed with the nature in its centre from the Art Nouveau. Gaudí broke down the geometrical
order of the European architecture on a plastic stack of colours and forms. He rejected the
traditional classical architecture. His style was essentially original .indeed original in the
extreme.

The Chicago School

So far as Modern architecture is concerned, in Chicago the greatest number of

significant buildings represented a continuous and unbroken development in high-rise building
architecture. Chicago grew faster than any other city in the 19th century, and produced a large
number of important architects whose work during the 1880s and 1890s is usually known as
the Chicago School. Louis Sullivan was the most important of these, but William Le Baron
Jenney can be regarded as the father of the Chicago School. Others as Daniel Burnham, John
Wellborn Root, Martin Roche and William Holabird made up the next generation of Chicago
architects.

In 1871 the centre of Chicago was virtually burnt to the ground. The reconstruction of
this area gave several architects the opportunity to use new techniques in maximizing the
usage of the limited space in the central area of the city. Various developments, including the
invention of the lift by 1850 and piling in the foundation, or the need to concentrate ever larger
groups of workers in single functional units and also property speculation turned the cellular
buildings into skyscrapers.

James Bogardus (1800-74) was an inventor, who called himself an .architect in iron.. In
1848 he was the first in America, who supported the external walls of his New York cast-iron
factory with pre-fabricated cast iron columns and beams, and filled the space between them
with huge windows. It was a new technique, the skeleton building, which really characterized
the revolution in high-rise building in Chicago after 1871. The works of Jenney and Adler and
Sullivan set the pattern.
The precedents of this structure were the so-called .balloon frame. structures. These
were the American characteristic frame structures made of timber.
The development of iron and later steel construction made the rectangular relationship
possible between support and beam. The exterior walls were at first of masonry. The
comparatively soft earth of Chicago was basically unsuited to heavy buildings. Building the
foundation of the massive walls in such earth was a considerable achievement. This led to the
usage of piling in the foundation under the frame structures.
Later the external walls were built with pre-fabricated cast-iron columns and beams and
the space was filled between them with huge windows. The use of pre-fabricated parts made it
possible to erect buildings very quickly. Buildings with skeleton frames tended not to have
variations between different storeys. The most obvious feature of the skyscraper is the
repetitive pattern made by the floors on the exterior walls. It means that the whole building
makes .a unit from top to bottom without a single line out of place. (Sullivan 1896). Since the
first skyscraper was put up, the problems of this type of building have stimulated almost all
important architects to produce their own solutions.

The Auditorium Building was completed in 1889. It was the greatest building in
Chicago of the period and one of the most important building complexes of early American
architecture. It marked the beginning of the career of Louis Henri Sullivan (1856-
1924). He was still working here in successful partnership with his older partner,
Dankmar Adler (1844- 1900). Frank Lloyd Wright, who joined the firm of Adler and
Sullivan in 1887, also worked on the Auditorium Building. The building problem was important
and unusual. A large office building, a hotel, and a theatre combined were required. This was
therefore one of the first multi-functional cultural centres.

In the middle was the theatre with its enormous auditorium, from which the building
took its name, although it was not visible on the outside. It had 6000 seats, and was famous for
its acoustics. The hotel part is wrapped round two sides of the theatre.
The bottom part of the exterior of the building is made in the style of Richardson, of
rough-curved natural stone. Above this there are two further storeys in natural stone, and then
come four storeys linked by a row of arches and pillars. This arcade and the tower, where
Sullivan had his office for years, are the two characteristic features of the building. The
windows on the next two floors are similarly linked in pairs, but the windows on the top storey
are grouped in threes and are separated by a cornice.

The Wainwright Building is a 10-story, 41 m (135 ft) terra cotta office building at 709
Chestnut Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.The Wainwright Building is considered the first
expression of high rise as a tall building early skyscrapers.

Among the first skyscrapers built in the world, the Wainwright Building by Louis Sullivan and
partner Dankmar Adler is regarded as an influential prototype of a modern office
architecture.The building aesthetically exemplifies the theories of Sullivan's tall building, with the
tripartite composition of base, shaft and attic, which is based on the structure of the classical
column.

"The skyscraper must be tall, every inch of it tall. The force and power of altitude must be in it,
the glory and pride of exaltation must be in it. It must be every inch a proud and soaring thing,
rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line."

The building was named after a local financier, Ellis Wainwright, who needed office space to
manage the St Louis Brewers Association. With the intention of opening up the corner of the
building to the street, the first floor was dedicated to street-level shops and the second to be
easily accessible public offices.
The higher floors of the Wainwright Building were for offices, and the top houses water tanks
and building machinery. Retail openings required large glazed openings, which elegantly and
delicately sit under the massive building. The windows up the facades of the Wainwright
Building are all inset slightly behind their surrounding columns and piers, to withhold Sullivan's
vertical aesthetic.

Organic ornamentation and carvings are characteristic of Sullivan (as published in his System of
Architectural Ornament), the most prominent being the frieze that rests below the deep cornice,
the surface around the door of the main entrance, and the spandrels between the windows on
different floors.

The celery-leaf foliage varies in design and scale with each story, embellished in terra cotta
which gained popularity during the time of construction.

Sullivan described the symbolism of his architecture as one of simple geometric and structural
forms and organic ornamentation, a juxtaposition of objective tectonic and subjective organic
influences. It's construction system is based on a steel frame that is clad in masonry; this is
credited for being the first successful utilization of steel frame construction.

Brown sandstone is the facing for the first two floors, and the following seven stories are
continuous brick piers. Ornate foliage reliefs are carved in terra cotta panels, decorating each
floor. The tenth story is a frieze of winding leaf scrolls that frame circular inset windows.
WRIGHT - ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE
Frank Lloyd Wright first used the term ‘organic architecture’ in an article for Architectural Record
in August 1914. He wrote that “the ideal of an organic architecture… is a sentient, rational
building that would owe its ‘style’ to the integrity with which it was individually fashioned to serve
its particular purpose—a ‘thinking’ as well as ’feeling’ process.“1 In this article and many more up
to his death, Wright continued to try, not always with much success, to explain what organic
architecture was and was not to him. His buildings spoke far more succinctly than his writings.
He wanted organic architecture to be more than his own work, more than his own ‘style’. He
wanted to generate a philosophy of building that could inspire and guide architects and laymen
long into the future. While it is not easy to define organic architecture, there are principles at
work in Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings that transcend his personal expression. It is important to
note that Wright was not the first architect to use the term organic architecture, nor was he the
last. The concept of an organic style meant different things to different architects and
manifested itself in a variety of ways.

Below are some of the principles of Wright’s organic architecture.

Building and Site

The two have a very special relationship in organic architecture. The site should be enhanced
by the building, and the building derives its form partially from the nature of the site. Sometimes
this is done by similarity (prairie house and prairie landscape), sometimes by contrast
(Fallingwater and a forest glen). In natural settings, the buildings may open out (Usonian
houses), and in urban settings, turn inward (the Larkin and Johnson Wax Buildings). The
building grows out of the landscape as naturally as any plant; its relationship to the site is so
unique that it would be out of place elsewhere.
Materials
These are used simply in a way that enhances their innate character and optimizes their
individual color, texture, and strength. One material is not disguised as another. The way a
building comes together, how one material joins another; the very form of the building should be
an expression of the nature of the materials used. In organic architecture, only a few materials
are used, both inside and outside.
Shelter
A building should convey a sense of shelter, refuge, or protection against the elements. Its
inhabitants should never lack privacy or feel exposed and unprotected.
Space
“The reality of the building does not consist of the roof and the walls but the space within to be
lived in”, said Wright. The interior space determines exterior form (as in Unity Temple). Interior
space is not packed in boxes called rooms; rather, space should flow freely from interior area to
interior area. Rooms are never simple rectangles but are broken up vertically and horizontally
(alcoves, L-shapes, lowered ceilings, and decks) to give the eye and mind something delightful
and sometimes something mysterious to enjoy. An area is never fully comprehended when
viewed from one point but must be slowly experienced as one moves through the space. One
space can introduce another, heightening the effect, or function as part of a series, such as the
playroom hallway and the playroom in the home.
Proportion and Scale
The human body should be the measure of a building and its furnishings. Wright spoke of the
“integral harmony of proportion to the human figure—to have all details so designed as to make
the human relationship to architecture not only convenient but charming.”
Nature
Nature is an architect’s school. The creative possibilities of form, color, pattern, texture,
proportion, rhythm, and growth are all demonstrated in nature. Organic architecture does not
imitate nature but is concerned with natural materials, the site, and the people who will occupy
the buildings.
Repose
Quiet, serene, tranquil space is a fitting environment for human growth. It is achieved by simple
architectural masses that reflect the uncluttered spaces within and that are carefully related to
the site.
Grammar
Each building has its own grammar, its distinct vocabulary of pattern and form. All parts of the
building from the smallest detail to the overall form thus speak the same language. The
grammar may be completely different for two buildings, although both are organically designed
(the Johnson Wax Building versus Taliesin West).
Ornament
Not all organic architecture has ornament, but when used, it is developed as an integral part of
the material, not applied. Examples are patterns cast in concrete or carved in stone, leaded
glass panels, and tile or glass mosaics.
Human Values
“All values are human values or else not valuable”, said Wright. “Human use and comfort should
have intimate possession of every interior—should be felt in every exterior.” Simplicity
Organic architecture is simple because its scheme and design are clear. “The highest form of
simplicity is not simple in the sense that the infant intelligence is simple—nor, for that matter, the
side of a barn. Simplicity in art is a synthetic positive quality in which we may see evidence of
mind, breadth of scheme, wealth of detail and withal a sense of completeness found in a tree or
flower.”
Mechanical Systems and Furnishings
These are an integral part of the building: they are not added on, stuck in or unduly exposed.
Sculpture and painting have to become elements of the total design. Furniture should be built-in
as much as possible. Although these are not all of the principles of Wright’s organic
architecture, they outline his general philosophy. Organic design aims to include them, but not
even Frank Lloyd Wright achieved them totally in each of his buildings. As Wright himself wrote,
“The complete goal of the ideal of organic architecture is never reached. Nor need be. What
worthwhile ideal is ever reached?”

The Prairie Style

In 1893, Frank Lloyd Wright founded his architectural practice in Oak Park, a quiet, semi-rural
village on the Western edges of Chicago. It was at his Oak Park Studio during the first decade
of the twentieth century that Wright pioneered a bold new approach to domestic architecture,
the Prairie style. Inspired by the broad, flat landscape of America’s Midwest, the Prairie style
was the first uniquely American architectural style of what has been called “the American
Century.”

During his early years in Chicago, Wright did not operate in a vacuum. His work was supported
and often enhanced by a group of pioneering Midwestern architects at work in and around
Chicago. This group, which Wright would later refer to as “The New School of the Middle West,”
included George Elmslie, Myron Hunt, George Washington Maher,Dwight Perkins, William Gray
Purcell, Thomas Talmadge, and Vernon Watson, as well as Wright’s later associates Marion
Mahony, Walter Burley Griffin, William Drummond and Francis Byrne. These talented
individuals honed their skills while working under the leading architects of nineteenth-century
Chicago. Inspired by the teachings of Wright’s mentor, Louis Sullivan, the architects of the
Prairie School sought to create a new, democratic architecture, free from the shackles of
European styles, and suited to a modern American way of living.

At the time Wright founded his practice American domestic architecture remained mired in the
past. House styles were derived from the architecture of old Europe. Lavish buildings of Gothic
Revival, French Empire, and Italianate form lined the streets of America’s cities. For Wright, the
houses he witnessed around him, derived as they were from the styles of other countries and
other cultures, were unsuited to the American landscape. “What was the matter with the kind of
house I found on the prairie?” he asked, “Just for a beginning, let’s say that house lied about
everything. It had no sense of Unity … To take any one of those so-called ‘homes’ away would
have improved the landscape and cleared the atmosphere… My first feeling therefore had been
a yearning for simplicity.”A masterful architectural designer, Wright developed a unique
vocabulary of space, form, and pattern that represented a dramatic shift in design from the
traditional houses of the day. Characterized by dramatic horizontal lines and masses, the Prairie
buildings that emerged in the first decade of the twentieth century evoke the expansive
Midwestern landscape. The buildings reflect an all-encompassing philosophy that Wright termed
“Organic Architecture.” By this Wright meant that architecture should be suited to its
environment and be a product of its place, purpose and time. First developed in 1894, when
Wright was establishing his practice in Chicago, this philosophy of design would inform his
entire career.

In the fall of 1909, with construction underway on his Prairie style masterpiece, the Frederick C.
Robie House, Wright left America for Europe to work on the publication of a substantial
monograph of the buildings and projects designed during his Chicago years. The result was the
Wasmuth Portfolio of 1910, which introduced Wright’s work to Europe and influenced a
generation of international architects. On his return to America in 1910, Wright continued to
explore concepts of organic architecture defined during his Chicago years, but would seek new
influences beyond that of the Midwest prairie.

Robie House
Designed and built between 1908-1910, the Robie House for client Frederick C. Robie and his
family was one of Wright's earlier projects. Influenced by the flat, expanisve prairie landscape of
the American Midwest where he grew up, Wright's work redefined American housing with the
Prairie style home.
According to Wright, "The prairie has a beauty of its own and we should recognize and
accentuate this natural beauty, its quiet level. Hence, gently sloping roofs, low proportions, quiet
sky lines, supressed heavy-set chimneys and sheltering overhangs, low terraces and out-
reaching walls sequestering private gardens.

The Robie House creates a clever arrangement of public and private spaces, slowly distancing
itself from the street in a series of horizontal planes. By creating overlaps of the planes with this
gesture, it allowed for interior space expanded towards the outdoors while still giving the space
a level of enclosure.
This play on private spaces was requested by the client, where he insisted on the idea of
"seeing his neighbors without being seen." Wright specifically approached this request with an
enormous cantilever over the porch facing west that stretched outwards 10' feet from its nearest
structural member and 21' from the closest masonry pier.

As is seen in many of Wright's project, the entrance of the house is not clearly distinguishable at
first glance due to the fact that Wright believed the procession towards the house should involve
a journey. Wright also expressed the importance of the hearth in a home with a fireplace that
separated the living and dining room that is open to the ceiling above the mantelpiece for the
billiard room and playroom.

The program of the house includes a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a billiards room, four
bedrooms, and a servant's wing which are defined while still flowing into one another.

The rooms were determined through a modular grid system which was given order with the 4'
window mullions. Wright, however, did not use the standard window in his design, but instead
used "light screens" which were composed of pieces of clear and colored glass, usually with
representations of nature.

The purpose for these windows was to allow light into the house while still giving a sense of
privacy. Wright also stated about the light screens, "Now the outside may come inside, and the
inside may, and does, go outside." There are 174 art glass windows in the Robie House made
of polished plate glass, cathedral glass, and copper-plated zinc cames, which are metal joints
that hold the glass in place.

The protrusions of these windows on the East and West facade, along with low
ceilings, emphasized the long axis of the house and directed views towards the outside. These
windows were also stretched on French doors along the entire south wall on the main level,
opening up to a balcony. The sun angles were calculated so perfectly with this cantilever that a
midsummer noon's sun hits just the bottom of the entire facade while still allowing light to flood
in to warm the house during the spring and autumn months.

The entire house is sheathed in Roman brick with yellow mortar, and only the overhangs and
the floating brick balcony have steel beams for structural support. Using the horizontality of the
brick, Wright added the finishing touches to the Robie House to create the ideal modern Prairie
style home where he was able to build with the principles he believed in. The sweeping
horizontal lines, extensive overhangs, warm well-lit interiors with furniture designed by Wright
himself, and the balance of public and private spaces made the Robie House, in the words of
Frederick C. Robie, "...the most ideal place in the world."