2. The Theme of the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition was
ship-type influence, functionalist aesthetic w/o radical agenda.
3. The building designed by Aalto that best represents his interpretation of Corbu's five points is the
4. What was the inspiration for Aalto's design of the interior of the Finnish pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair?
5. What did Aalto say the reason was for his incorporating a courtyard in many his projects?
giving the client something for nothing
6. List two design decisions Aalto made in consideration of the comfort of the patients at the Paimio Sanitarium
oriented bedrooms to the south, and slightly rotated porch to receive afternoon sun
13. Why did Asplund incorporate spaces with skewed (non-parallel) walls in his early houses?
psychological perception changes, forced perspective
14. The name of the firm founded by Maire and Hary Gullichsen to market Aalto-designed home furnishings is
15. Describe the two design criteria used by Aalto to determine the longitudinal section of the meeting hall in the library in Viipuri
acoustics and separating stacks
17. Describe Aalto's use of colors on the exterior of the Paimio Sanitarium
anything that was cut back from the original volume was a different color
18. Which space is used by Aalto as the high point or visual anchor of the massing composition in Villa Mairea
1. Two reasons that explain why Mies cantilievered his roofs/floors beyond the corner columns
emphasis of plane, continuity of space
2. List three differences between Mies design of the Farnsworth House, and Johnson;s design of his Glass House
Johnson's was on the ground, black corners, no cantilevers
3. List two reasons why the Farnsworth House was an environmental disaster
it wasn't high enough to avoid the flood, didn't provide much resistance to outside temperature
4. List two details Mies used in his American buildings to divorce them from the existing urban fabric
lifted building off of the ground plane, set the building back from the sidewalk
5. What advantage is there in offsetting the location of the core in the plan of a highrise office building?
has a better space for planning
6. What detail in the Lever House allows the pedestrian to reconnect with tower after leaving the sidewalk?
courtyard in front of the podium
7. What was the new architectural material whose price had dropped significantly after the end of WWII, that it quickly was adopted as the exterior material of choice for the next twenty years?
8. Describe the lateral (wind) load structure of the Sears Building/World Trade Center
square as a bundled tube
9. Describe the problem that "rationalist" International Style designers tried to avoid in the design of a skyscraper and what was the typical solution?
cannot express each column the same, would cantilever the ends
10. What was the last and tallest of the International Style glass box skyscrapers?
Chase Manhattan bank
11. Why were the Lever House and the Seagram's Building much more expensive than the face value of their construction
chose not to use most of the space in the building envelope
12. What kept the International Style glass box skyscraper from going no taller than the Chase Manhattan Bank?
wind structure cost was too high
17. What two major projects were responsible for the large size of SOM by the end of WWII?
Manhattan projects, VA hospitals
18. What skyscraper marked the ultimate retreat from the street and the start of "Plaza-mania?"
22. Describe the difference in how Mies designed spaces in his pre-WW II European buildings and those in his post-WW II American buildings
pre- flow of space and simplicity. Post- rational and symmetrical.
23. List the three locations for a glass skin in a skyscraper and list a building from class that is an example of each type
structural frame glass infill (equitable savings bank), in front of the structure (UN headquarters), behind the structure (inland steel building).
24. The difference between SOM's typical corner detail as represented in the Inland Steel Building and Mies' typical corner detail as represented in the Seagram's Building is
mies would cantilever the floor half a bay past the last column while SOM placed a column in the corner to create a full bay
6. New research indicates that WWII had two influences on the subsequent designs of Le Corbusier?
gun bunkers are very rough, lots of texture. Soft curvilinear shapes
8. A relatively new interpretation of Le Corbusier's use of concrete following WWII states that he was influenced by
the atomic war
10. Where did the term Brutalism initially come from?
le corbusier's use of exposed concrete in Unite d'Habitation
12. The French term for the type of concrete construction used by Le Corbusier in his later projects is
2. Who was given the responsibility for the design of all of the buildings at the Cranbrook School of Design?
4. Crow Island School, which set the model for the design of the post WWII elementary school in the US was designed by
Saarinen with Perkins, Wheeler, and Will
6. The formal pivot point of the composition in the Otaniemi Technical Institute is the
9. List three points of human contact in buildings that Aalto exploited with a change of materials
floor materials, handrails, door handles
10. The building usually credited as the inspiration for the design of the interview floor in Aalto's National Pension Institute is
14. Which building by Aalto was the first to use wood in any significant way, marking his move away from pure Functionalism?
15. Discuss the reasons for the final configuration of the floor plan of the Vuoksenniska Church
can't afford a school and sanctuary, creates concrete panels on tracks to open and close spaces
16. Describe the ideas behind the massing of the Baker House
building interacts w/ geometry of campus and flowing of river
18. What did Aalto do in the National Pensions Institute to articulate the massing of the building so that it reads as interpenetrating masses rather than a continuous volume?
19. Which building designed by Alvar Aalto marked his attempt to transcend the International Style? What is the reason for your answer?
Baker house, b/c it was red brick
2. What technology did Eero Saarinen adopt from the automobile industry in the detailing of the GM Tech Center?
3. What one major reservation about the design of Dulles did Larson express
the column that looks as if it's supporting the span of the ceiling
4. What two major reservations about the design of Kresge auditorium did Larson express
structure not expressed inside, corners show no support for heavy roof
7. List three technological innovations in construction developed by Eero Saarinen that would become standard techniques during the late 1960s
neoprene gasket, luminescent ceiling, color coded buildings
1. Name two American Industrial Designers that were very influential in the 1950s:
Charles and Ray Eames
3. Why must tensile surfaces be given an anticlastic curvature?
because sinclastic surface has no resistance to uplift
3. How did Fuller account for the solar gain in the 1967 U.S. Pavilion?
building tracks the sun as sun shades open and close
5. What did Tange consciously change from Saarinen's Yale Hockey Rink in his Tokyo Olympic Gymnasium?
uses tension for the spine, makes it lighter
7. What did Tange say was the difference between his 1960 Plan for Tokyo Bay and Haussmann's Plan of Paris?
orthogonal, response to traffic pattern
14. Describe the term "Structuralism" as used by Herman Hertzberger
architect who doesn't want to provide a complete solution, wants user participation.
17. Describe Peter Cook's "Instant City"
flexible, floating. Dirigible inspiration. The happening occurs as the zeppelin drops the structure of the city down to hang.
1. Describe how the form of the Fuji Group Pavilion at Expo 70 was generated
double membrane pneumatic structure. Took a series of cylindrical tubes and put them on a circular base, as the circle gets wider the profile shortens.
3. Describe the structural system of the US Pavilion at Expo 70
single membrane pneumatic structure, membrane placed over a structural environment and pressurized in order to lift up.
4. What was the major failure in the Montreal Olympic Stadium that prevented its completion prior to the start of the Games?
tower was rotating away from its foundation, and had to stop construction of the tower because it would have broken.
6. Larson compared the exposed structure of the Pompidou Centre as the architects' attempt to evoke what other great Parisian building?
8. The first significant building in which mullionless glazing was first employed was
willis faber and dumas insurance building
1. What two deviations from the International Style in the Yale Art Gallery represent Kahn's initial break with this style?
use of concrete for structure, brings horizontality back
6. In describing the atrium of the Yale Museum of British Art, Larson pointed out a problem that has always plagued architects. This was
column disappears on the interior corner
12. What did Louis Kahn mean by "discovering the 'form' of a problem?"
the cosmic essence, what a thing wants to be
13. Kahn's concept of "served and servant spaces" which developed out of his early use of hollow structures is thought by some historians to have been derived from what Beaux-Arts principle?
15. "Each space must be defined by its structure and the character of its natural light" is a quote by
16. Name the consensus choice by American architects as the best design in the US and its architect in each category, as expressed in this course-
best building in America
best urban space
best site planning in a collection of buildings, employing portal, path, and place
- Salk Institute, Kahn
- Rockefeller center, Hood
- Cranbrook, Eliel Saarinen
3. List three important design ideas Mies employed in the Barcelona Pavilion
asymmetry, reflection, planes that order space
4. Sketch the entry sequence for the German State Pavilion at the 1929 Barcelona Fair
spiral right hand turn
6. Upon his arrival in the US, Gropius assumed the directorship of the architecture school at:
while Mies eventually was named head of the school at:
7. List two requirements that had to be met by a building in order to qualify to be included in MOMA's 1932 "International Style" exhibition
1. Architecture has volume not mass. 2. No arbitrary decoration
9. The only totalitarian regime in PreWWII Europe that did not adopt a literal Neo-classicism as the official style of the state was in what country?
12. How did the elevation of the McGraw-Hill Building differ from other skyscrapers designed by Hood?
Building is functionalist. Entry is art modern.
13. List two architects who immigrated to the US before Hitler rose to power who were early practitioners of the International Style in the US
14. List two architects who immigrated to the US after Hitler rose to power who were early practitioners of the International Style in the US
15. The two Austrian architects who came to the U.S. and worked with Wright were
Neutra and Schindler
19. Name two skyscrapers built before WWII that exhibited the International Style in some of their parts, list the architect of each
PSFS Building, Howe & Lescaze. McGraw-Hill Building, Hood.
21. The first skyscraper in the U.S. to exhibit the massing and the exterior language of the European "International Style" was the