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Visionary Prefab in the Modern Age: Deconstructing Keaton’s Films
Get PDFThis essay analyses Buster Keaton’s masterpieces: One Week (1920); The Haunted House (1921) and The Electric House (1922). His filmic work reveals the montage of mass housing prefabrication in the Modern Age in the United States: repetition and mechanisation of the building production; generic layouts; and modular like–catalogue constructions. Rather than following a sequential building process, these cases are executed as mere accidents or flaws. Buster Keaton’s films however show ironically a non–standardized architecture. This study analyses and compares Keaton’s film production with Catalog Modern House, a prefab dwelling manufactured and shipped by Sears,Roebuck and Co in the 20th century
Eduardo Torroja: The Alloz Aqueduct
Get PDFEduardo Torroja Miret graduated as an engineer in 1923. That same year, after a bloodless coup d’état, General Primo de Rivera assumed the control of government in Spain and launched a modernizing economic program clearly based on infrastructure: development of the telephone network, modernization of ports, tramway system expansion, creation of 800 km of railroads, extension and paving of over 15,000 km of roads..
An Intriguing Work of Engineering and Architecture: The Collonnade Bridge in Piešt’any
Get PDFThe period around the year 1930 could be termed the culminating point with respect to the Modern architectural avant-garde in Slovakia. It was then that the concepts emerged from the most important works, the first Slovak architectural journals began to be published, the School of Applied Arts opened, as a Slovak variant of the German Bauhaus, and an entire range of other artistic and social initiatives indicated that Slovakia’s cultural environment could not only absorb avant-garde impulses, but develop them in a unique way. It was precisely at this moment that the history of one of the most famed bridges in Slovakia, the Colonnade Bridge in Piešt’any, began to be written
Mizen Head Footbridge or ‘Building a Bridge, to Build a Bridge’
Get PDFMizen Head Footbridge in County Cork is a reinforced concrete through-arch structure spanning 50 m. The original structure was demolished and rebuilt 2009-2011, 100 years after its completion. This article describes the construction challenges of safely reconstructing a bridge in a difficult site location. The bridge provides access to a lighthouse on the tiny island of Cloghán, at the tip of Mizen Head in Southwest Cork. It is the result of a design competition held in the early 1900’s. The winning entry was by Mr. Noel Ridley of Westminster, London. It had the form of a pair of parabolic arch ribs spanning 50 m supporting a pedestrian deck, suspended by vertical hangers from the ribs in the central section
An Aesthetically Sublime Second Nature
Get PDFThe search on Bridges and Infrastructures has to do with a matter of connecting. To launch bridges seems to be a kind of life requirement, as far as it is the way to connect sides, which means improving relations and energies, desire and intelligence. Bridges and Infrastructures have the function of connecting pieces of land and the role of creating a connected world. The matter is to make links and establish a network. In fact, it is a global network made of works of art, which have a physical and material presence balancing between values such as economy and elegance and providing a better life for every man. Seeking audaciously for innovation, research contributes to these large scale structures as it has been improving material capacities and technical creation. It is a huge field that lay infinite possibilities for art and science to perceive changes of social, aesthetic, technical standards and norms
Sustainability and Modernism: Design Research at Cornell NYC
Get PDFSustainability is now replacing Modernism as the main discourse for socio–economic, technological, architectural and urban development. However, the architectural legacy of Modernism remains an inherent part of our built environment. While some tenets of Modernism align with principles of sustainable design, many are in conflict, thus creating both a tension and an opportunity for creative reinvention of existing buildings and neighborhoods. Greening Manhattan’s Modernist Legacy was a seminar taught at Cornell University’s school of architecture that investigated these questions. The seminar explored an analytical approach to retrofitting Modernbuildings that prioritized environmental responsibility while critically reinterpreting the Modern aesthetic
Finding Modern Japanese Bridges: Stone, Wood and Steel
Get PDFIn Japan where many earthquakes occur there is a certain standpoint about long–life architecture and bridges The relation between material and form is important for this standpoint. The reason is not only that materials have their own character, for example, physical and chemical properties, but also that form has its own individual character as load–bearing system. Without the relation between material and form, long–life architecture and bridges can’t be realized
Cable Supported Bridges across Straits in Denmark
Get PDFThe Jylland (Jutland) peninsula and the approximately 278 islands that form Denmark have had bridge connections since the Middle Ages. The most notable bridges of the 20th century are the high level bridges such as the Lillebælt Bridge from 1935 and the Storstrøm Bridge from 1937. Cable supported bridges and cable-stayed bridges have been making up the most significant infrastructural aspects which cross the seaways of the Baltic Sea
The docomomo Japan, 150 selections – Future and Legacy
Get PDFDocomomo Japan became an official national chapter of docomomo International in 2000. In keeping with the other principal international chapter members, docomomo Japan registered the first list of 20 significant buildings and sites in Japan. Then, in 2003, the list expanded to 100, and subsequently in 2011, the list increased further to present the docomomo Japan 150 Selections
The Modern Movement and Sustainability: Yesterday, Today and in the Future
Get PDFConcern for the environment and a focus on the conservation of our natural resources have in general over the last couple of decades, entered into the dialogue around architecture and preservation. In the last decade this focused more specifically on the more recent architecture. In some instances, the discussion about sustainability has begun to overshadow the preservation issues. Many countries have developed elaborate rating systems for buildings, whether new or old, that take into account a large number of factors to gauge and assess their impact. While these systems are intended to assist in deciding what actions can and should be undertaken, the discussion has remained quite limited and largely focused on the operational aspects of buildings and on new construction