Architecture of the 20th century: architectural modernism

Each epoch in history is represented by grandiose buildings, however, it is architecture of the 20th century that is characterized by having reached absolutely new heights - from soaring skyscrapers to innovative design constructions. The beginning of it was laid at the turn of the 20th century as one of the first trends, known as modernity, combining functionalism with aesthetic ideals, but rejecting classical commandments. He tried to unite the principles underlying the architectural design, with the trends of rapid technological progress and modernization of society as a whole.

In general, the architecture of the 20th century is a comprehensive movement that took the form of numerous design schools, directions and a variety of styles. Among the important names of people who became reformers in architectural art and paved the way for original designs and cutting-edge innovations, Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Oscar Niemeyer and Alvar Aalto are to be named.

So, first of all the architecture of the 20th century is represented by a movement known as architectural modernism and covering the period from the 1900s to the 1970s-1980s (in European countries and Russia). It includes several areas (functionalism and constructivism, brutalism and rationalism, organic architecture, Bauhaus and Art Deco, international style), but they all share common characteristics.

Architectural modernism sought to create a design of houses that followed out of classical ideas and was inspired by the location, functions of future structures, their environment. "The form follows the function" (the words of Louis Sullivan, meaning that the design idea should be based directly on the functional purpose of the building object). For example, Frank Lloyd Wright was known for the fact that when designing houses he first of all focused on the place where they were going to build the building. He said that it should be "together with the earth," that is, to form one whole.

The architecture of the beginning of the 20th century also includes the following unifying characteristics for the above-mentioned areas: use in the construction of newest in technological terms building materials (for example, reinforced concrete), lack of decorative details, in other words, no historical reminiscences in the external appearance of houses that must have simple clear Forms.

The architecture of the 20th century in Russia is popularized in the form of constructivism, especially flourishing in the 1920s-1930s. Constructivism combined advanced technology and a new aesthetics with communist philosophy and the social goals of the state under construction. One of the founders of the movement is Konstantin Melnikov, who designed the famous Melnikov House in Moscow, which is a symbol of constructivism and the Soviet avant-garde in general. Although the movement was divided into several competing schools, during its existence, many remarkable buildings were built, until it fell out of favor with the leaders of the USSR around 1932. But constructivist effects can also be found in later Soviet architecture.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, the architecture of the 20th century is experiencing certain difficulties in terms of structural systems (services, energy, technology), becoming a multidisciplinary discipline with specializations for each individual project type. In addition, there was a division in the architect's profession into an architect and designer who guaranteed that the future building site would meet all the necessary technological standards. But, of course, its main and dominant problem, deeply reflected in modern architecture, is its environmental sustainability.