american+institute+of+architects

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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The name of Le Corbusier is synonymous with the International style of modern architecture and city planning, one utilizing functionalist designs carried out in twentieth-century materials with modern methods of construction. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, born in the watch-making town of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Jura mountain region, was the son of a watch engraver and dial painter. In the years before 1918 he travelled widely, studying building in many countries. He learned about the use of reinforced concrete in the studio of Auguste Perret and about industrial construction under Peter Behrens. In 1917 he went to live in Paris and spent the rest of his life in France; in 1920 he adopted the name of Le Corbusier, one derived from that of his ancestors (Le Corbesier), and ten years later became a French citizen.

Le Corbusier's long working life spanned a career divided into three distinct parts. Between 1905 and 1916 he designed a number of simple and increasingly modern houses; the years 1921 to 1940 were ones of research and debate; and the twenty years from 1945 saw the blossoming of his genius. After 1917 Le Corbusier gained a reputation in Paris as an architect of advanced originality. He was particularly interested in low-cost housing and in improving accommodation for the poor. In 1923 he published Vers une architecture, in which he planned estates of mass-produced houses where all extraneous and unnecessary features were stripped away and the houses had flat roofs and plain walls: his concept of "a machine for living in". These white boxes were lifted up on stilts, his pilotis, and double-height living space was provided internally, enclosed by large areas of factory glazing. In 1922 Le Corbusier exhibited a city plan, La Ville contemporaine, in which tall blocks made from steel and concrete were set amongst large areas of parkland, replacing the older concept of city slums with the light and air of modern living. In 1925 he published Urbanisme, further developing his socialist ideals. These constituted a major reform of the industrial-city pattern, but the ideas were not taken up at that time. The Depression years of the 1930s severely curtailed architectural activity in France. Le Corbusier designed houses for the wealthy there, but most of his work prior to 1945 was overseas: his Centrosoyus Administration Building in Moscow (1929–36) and the Ministry of Education Building in Rio de Janeiro (1943) are examples. Immediately after the end of the Second World War Le Corbusier won international fame for his Unité d'habitation theme, the first example of which was built in the boulevard Michelet in Marseille in 1947–52. His answer to the problem of accommodating large numbers of people in a small space at low cost was to construct an immense all-purpose block of pre-cast concrete slabs carried on a row of massive central supports. The Marseille Unité contains 350 apartments in eight double storeys, with a storey for shops half-way up and communal facilities on the roof. In 1950 he published Le Modular, which described a system of measurement based upon the human male figure. From this was derived a relationship of human and mathematical proportions; this concept, together with the extensive use of various forms of concrete, was fundamental to Le Corbusier's later work. In the world-famous and highly personal Pilgrimage Church of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp (1950–5), Le Corbusier's work was in Expressionist form, a plastic design in massive rough-cast concrete, its interior brilliantly designed and lit. His other equally famous, though less popular, ecclesiastical commission showed a contrasting theme, of "brutalist" concrete construction with uncompromisingly stark, rectangular forms. This is the Dominican Convent of Sainte Marie de la Tourette at Eveux-sur-l'Arbresle near Lyon, begun in 1956. The interior, in particular, is carefully worked out, and the lighting, from both natural and artificial sources, is indirect, angled in many directions to illuminate vistas and planes. All surfaces are carefully sloped, the angles meticulously calculated to give optimum visual effect. The crypt, below the raised choir, is painted in bright colours and lit from ceiling oculi.

One of Le Corbusier's late works, the Convent is a tour de force.

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1) Американизм: Academic Improvement And Achievement Act

2) Военный термин: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

3) Сокращение: American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Architect Member of the Incorporated Association of Architects and Surveyors

4) Вычислительная техника: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Space)

5) Космонавтика: Aerospace Industries Association of America, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (USA)

6) Транспорт: Aerospace Industries Association of America, Inc.

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Civil engineering

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Nervi early established a reputation in the use of reinforced concrete with his stadium in Florence (1930–2). This elegant concrete structure combines graceful curves with functional solidity and is capable of seating some 35,000 spectators. The stadium was followed by the aircraft hangars built for the Italian Air Force at Orvieto and Ortebello, in which he spanned the vast roofs of the hangars with thin-shelled vaults supported by precast concrete beams and steel-reinforced ribs. The structural strength and subtle curves of these ribbed roofs set the pattern for Nervi's techniques, which he subsequently varied and elaborated on to solve problems that arose in further commissions.

Immediately after the Second World War Italy was short of supplies of steel for structural purposes so, in contrast to the USA, Britain and Germany, did not for some years construct any quantity of steel-framed rectangular buildinngs used for offices, housing or industrial use. It was Nervi who led the way to a ferroconcrete approach, using a new type of structure based on these materials in the form of a fine steel mesh sprayed with cement mortar and used to roof all kinds of structures. It was a method that resulted in expressionist curves instead of rectangular blocks, and the first of his great exhibition halls at Turin (1949), with a vault span of 240 ft (73 m), was an early example of this technique. Nervi continued to create original and beautiful ferroconcrete structures of infinite variety: for example, the hall at the Lido di Roma, Ostia; the terme at Chianciano; and the three buildings that he designed for the Rome Olympics in 1960. The Palazzetto dello Sport is probably the most famous of these, for which he co-operated with the architect Annibale Vitellozzi to construct a small sports palace seating 5,000 spectators under a concrete "big top" of 194 ft (59 m) diameter, its enclosing walls supported by thirtysix guy ropes of concrete; inside, the elegant roof displays a floral quality. In 1960 Nervi returned to Turin to build his imaginative Palace of Labour for the centenary celebrations of Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel in the city. This vast hall, like the Crystal Palace in England a century earlier (see Paxton), had to be built quickly and be suitable for later adaptation. It was therefore constructed partly in steel, and the metal supporting columns rose to palm-leaf capitals reminiscent of those in ancient Nile palaces.

Nervi's aim was always to create functional buildings that simultaneously act by their aesthetic qualities as an effective educational influence. Functionalism for Nervi never became "brutalism". In consequence, his work is admired by the lay public as well as by architects. He collaborated with many of the outstanding architects of the day: with Gio Ponti on the Pirelli Building in Milan (1955–9); with Zehrfuss and Breuer on the Y-plan UNESCO Building in Paris (1953–7); and with Marcello Piacentini on the 16,000-seat Palazzo dello Sport in Rome. Nervi found time to write a number of books on building construction and design, lectured in the Universities of Rio de Janiero and Buenos Aires, and was for many years Professor of Technology and Technique of Construction in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Rome. He continued to design new structures until well into the 1970s.

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SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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Sullivan, a Bostonian, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Soon he joined his parents, who had moved to Chicago, and worked for a while in the office of William Le Baron Jenney, the pioneer of steel-frame construction. After spending some time studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, in 1875 Sullivan returned to Chicago, where he later met and worked for the Danish architect Dankmar Adler, who was practising there. In 1881 the two architects became partners, and during the succeeding fifteen years they produced their finest work and the buildings for which Sullivan is especially known.

During the early 1880s in Chicago, load-bearing, metal-framework structures that made lofty skyscrapers possible had been developed (see Jenney and Holabird). Louis H.Sullivan initiated building design to stress and complement the metal structure rather than hide it. Moving onwards from H.H.Richardson's treatment of his Marshall Field Wholesale Store in Chicago, Sullivan took the concept several stages further. His first outstanding work, built with Adler in 1886–9, was the Auditorium Building in Chicago. The exterior, in particular, was derived largely from Richardson's Field Store, and the building—now restored—is of bold but simple design, massively built in granite and stone, its form stressing the structure beneath. The architects' reputation was established with this building.

The firm of Sullivan \& Adler established itself during the early 1890s, when they built their most famous skyscrapers. Adler was largely responsible for the structure, the acoustics and function, while Sullivan was responsible for the architectural design, concerning himself particularly with the limitation and careful handling of ornament. In 1892 he published his ideas in Ornament in Architecture, where he preached restraint in its quality and disposition. He established himself as a master of design in the building itself, producing a rhythmic simplicity of form, closely related to the structural shape beneath. The two great examples of this successful approach were the Wainwright Building in St Louis, Missouri (1890–1) and the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York (1894–5). The Wainwright Building was a ten-storeyed structure built in stone and brick and decorated with terracotta. The vertical line was stressed throughout but especially at the corners, where pilasters were wider. These rose unbroken to an Art Nouveau type of decorative frieze and a deeply projecting cornice above. The thirteen-storeyed Guaranty Building is Sullivan's masterpiece, a simple, bold, finely proportioned and essentially modern structure. The pilaster verticals are even more boldly stressed and decoration is at a minimum. In the twentieth century the almost free-standing supporting pillars on the ground floor have come to be called pilotis. As late as the 1920s, particularly in New York, the architectural style and decoration of skyscrapers remained traditionally eclectic, based chiefly upon Gothic or classical forms; in view of this, Sullivan's Guaranty Building was far ahead of its time.

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SUBJECT AREA: Ports and shipping

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After graduating in 1935 from the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, New York, Henry served in different government agencies until 1938 when he joined the fast expanding US Maritime Commission. He assisted in the design and construction of troop-carrying vessels, Cl cargo ships, and he supervised the construction of two wartime attack transports. At the end of hostilities, he set up as a consultant naval architect and by 1951 had incorporated the business as J.J.Henry \& Company Inc. The opportunities that consultancy gave him were grasped eagerly; he became involved in the conversion of war-built tonnage to peaceful purposes (such as T2 tankers to ore carriers), the development of the new technologies of the carriage of liquefied gases at cryogenic temperatures and low pressures and, possibly the greatest step forward of all, the development of containerization. Containerization and the closely related field of barge transportation were to provide considerable business during the 1960s and the 1970s. The company designed the wonderful 33-knot container ships for Sea-Land and the auspicious Sea-bee barge carriers for the Lykes Brothers of New Orleans. James Henry's professional achievements were recognized internationally when he was elected President of the (United States) Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers in 1969. By then he had served on many boards and committees and was especially honoured to be Chairman of the Board of Trustees of his graduating college, the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture of New York.