Unit 5 (Great Masters of Modern Architecture)

Unit 5

Great Masters of Modern Architecture

Text A

Pier Luigi Nervi

Pier Luigi Nervi (1891 — 1979)

Pier Luigi Nervi, Italian engineer and architect, internationally renowned for his technical ingenuity and dramatic sense of design, especially as applied to large-span structures built of reinforced concrete. His important works include a prefabricated 309-foot-span arch for the Turin Exhibition (1949–50) and the first skyscraper in Italy, the Pirelli Building (1955) in Milan, a collaborative design.

Nervi graduated from the University of Bologna in 1913. During World War I he served as a lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers of the Italian army, and after the war he worked as an engineer in Bologna and Florence. In 1932 Nervi and his relative in Rome formed the contracting firm of Nervi and Bartoli, with which he would remain through the rest of his career. In 1935 the Italian air force held a competition for a series of hangars to be built throughout Italy. Nervi conceived them as concrete vaults, with huge spans that could be constructed at low cost, and he was commissioned for the project. All of these structures were destroyed during World War II.

Each of these early structures showed the growth of conceptual design that resulted from Nervi’s ceaseless search for new solutions to structural problems. His creativity was not confined to the design of buildings; during World War II, he attempted to construct vessels made of concrete for the Italian navy, but the project was not completed. After the war, he did succeed in building a 165-ton, motor-powered, concrete sailboat, then he built another one, with a hull only a half inch thick. For both of these vessels, he used ferrocemento*, a material of his own invention, composed of dense concrete, heavily reinforced with evenly distributed steel mesh that gives it both lightness and strength.

This material was vital in Nervi’s design for a complex he built for the Turin Exhibition in 1949–50 — a prefabricated structure in the form of a corrugated cylindrical arch, spanning 309 feet (93 m), based on modular components of glass and ferrocemento. Without the structural properties of this material, the entire conception would have been infeasible.

A close relationship between Nervi’s work and his austere life was evident. His solutions to building problems were always direct, transmitting to the ground by the shortest path the stresses developed within the structures. His works were relatively unaffected by the changes in taste that accompanied the advent of new forms in architecture. As a professor at the University of Rome from 1947, Nervi taught that a designer can develop truthful solutions in three ways: by understanding the pure harmony of the laws of the physical world that regulate the equilibrium of forces and the resistance of materials; by honestly interpreting the essential factors of each problem; and by rejecting the limitations of the solutions of the past.

In 1950, when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided to build its new headquarters in Paris, Nervi was one of the architects selected to design it. Marcel Breuer, one of his collaborators, described Nervi’s participation in the project as “a continuous search for a system: a system of geometric rhythm,” and later he said of him: “If there is a notion that arrogance and reckless irresponsibility are the very attributes of genius, a notion that to be a genius means not to be quite human, there is Nervi to disprove this notion.”

In 1955, in association with a group of architects, Nervi helped design the first skyscraper in Italy, the Pirelli Building; it was the first office building to use a long-span structure—80 feet (25 m). Although architects and engineers in the United States had long experience in the design and construction of skyscrapers, they had invariably designed them around frameworks consisting of series of smaller spans. For the Pirelli Building, Nervi used experimental models—as he often had—which he tested in the laboratory at Bergamo. His second skyscraper was built in Montreal, again in collaboration, and his third was Australia Square (1962–69; Sydney), a cylindrical tower of 50 stories. At the time, this was the tallest concrete structure in the world. In 1957 and 1958–59, for the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, Nervi designed two sport palaces. His first building in the United States was commissioned by the Port of New York Authority: the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal, in Manhattan, built in 1961–62.

After years of intense practice in Italy and abroad, Nervi reduced his activities as a builder in the late 1960s. Assisted by two of his sons, Antonio, a structural engineer, and Mario, an architect, he began to confine his activities largely to designs. An increasing number of his projects now were done in association with foreign architects.

Although Nervi’s primary concern was never aesthetic, many of his works, nonetheless, reached the realm of poetry. In 1961 Harvard University even appointed Nervi to the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry and in 1963 awarded him an honorary degree. His buildings achieved remarkable expressive force, as in the geometry of the slabs in the Gatti wool factory (1953), in Rome, and the mezzanine of the Palace of Labour, in Turin. Through his use of interpenetrating planes, and of warping surfaces, Nervi introduced a new three-dimensional vocabulary into architectural design. He reminded architects that “materials, statics, the technology of construction, economic efficiency and functional needs are the «vocabulary of the architectural speech». Nervi’s contribution has been compared to that of another builder whose work revolutionized architecture—Joseph Paxton*, who built the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. In both instances, highly rational and innovative structures resulted from a continuous process of devoted search and development, with an emphasis on modular construction, prefabrication, and extreme physical and visual lightness.

Notes:

*ferrocemento = железобетон (соответствует английскому термину «reinforced concrete»)

*Joseph Paxton : Sir Joseph Paxton (1803 – 1865) was an English gardener, architect and Member of Parliament, best known for designing The Crystal Palace.

Questions:

1. What was Pier Luigi Nervi famous for?

2. Did he serve the Italian army during the World War I?

3. What kind of company was established by Nervi and his relative in Rome?

4. Was Nervi engaged in its activities for a short period?

5. What kind of competition did the Italian air force hold in 1935?

6. Was it a good opportunity for Nervi to show his expertise in engineering?

7. Was his creativity in his early period confined to the design of buildings? What else did Pier Luigi Nervi design?

8. What material did Nervi invent? What properties did it have?

9. What structure did he design for the Turin Exhibition in 1949–50?

10. Were his works under influence of the advent of new forms in architecture?

11. In what ways, according to Nervi, should a designer develop truthful solutions?

12. What building was Nervi commissioned by the UNESCO to design in Paris in 1950?

13. What was the principle difference between the design of skyscrapers usually developed by American architects and engineers and the design worked out by Nervi?

14. By what means did Nervi introduce a new three-dimensional vocabulary into architectural design?

15. Why was he considered an architect, whose structures reached the realm of poetry?

16. What things are, according to Nervi, the «vocabulary of the architectural speech»?

17. What was Nervi`s contribution to architecture?

Exercise 1

Find the Russian translations from section B for the English words and word groups in section A:

A large-span structures; steel mesh; corrugated cylindrical arch; infeasible; the advent of new forms in architecture; modular construction; equilibrium of forces; collaborators; skyscraper; the realm of poetry; at low cost; framework; interpenetrating planes; warping surfaces; statics; contribution; prefabrication; ceaseless search; extreme physical and visual lightness; vaults; slab; vessels.

B пришествие новых форм в архитектуру; равновесие сил; сотрудники (единомышленники); в сотрудничестве (совместно); область поэзии; взаимопроникающие пластины; чрезвычайная физическая и визуальная легкость; невыполнимый (неосуществимый); своды; суда; искривленные поверхности; статика; вклад; стальная сетка; плита (блок, панель перекрытия); неустанные поиски; заводское изготовление; сборное строительство из объемных блоков (модулей); небоскреб; рифленая цилиндрическая арка; большепролетные конструкции; при низкой себестоимости; каркас.

Exercise 2

1. Can you substitute the word «renowned» with a synonym?

2. The author of the article says that Nervi has «technical ingenuity». What does it mean?

3. Can you provide a definition of the «modular construction»?

Exercise 3

Translate the sentences paying attention to the infinitive structures (Complex Infinitive Object and Complex Infinitive Subject):

1. Ferrocemento is known to have been invented and introduced into construction practice by Nervi.

2. Nervi wanted young architects to realize the importance of a complex knowledge of all engineering technique, materials, efficiency raising methods, etc. for creating highly rational and innovative structures.

3. High design standards are said to be linked to the realities of industrial production.

4. Design was regarded to be an exercise in rational thought applied to the making of form.

5. He intended his projects to be done in association with foreign architects.

6. Nervi was thought to be in search for a system of geometric rhythm in his constructions.

7. The Pirelli Building is considered to be the first office building to use a long-span structure—80 feet (25 m).

Exercise 4

Find all the adjectives in the text which are used as modifiers.

What makes you think that they are really adjectives and not nouns or any other parts of speech?

Exercise 5

What other parts of speech can be used as modifiers? Give examples from the text.

Exercise 6

Translate the following sentences paying attention at modifiers determining the part of speech they belong to.

1. It is vital for the success of the building project and the use of the constructed building that an integrated approach is adopted.

2. Framed construction also has a long practice starting with the framed construction of low rise buildings from timber and followed by early experiments with iron and reinforced concrete frames.

3. Site operations are concerned with the correct placement and connection of individual component parts in a safe manner.

4. Masonry loadbearing construction is well established in the building sector.

5. There are a number of fundamental principles that we must consider when we start to design and erect a building.

6. The performance of the building will be determined by a number of interrelated factors set by the client, legislation and society.

7. The materials to be used for making concrete are mixed with water.

8. The water added must be sufficient to allow the chemical reaction to take place and enable the concrete to be worked (poured or vibrated) into place.

9. The width of a concrete strip foundation depends on the bearing capacity of the subsoil and the load on the foundations.

10. There has to be a sufficient cover of concrete below the steel reinforcing rods to ensure a good bond between the concrete and steel and to protect the steel from corrosion.

11. The moderate compressive and tensile strength of timber members has long been used to construct a frame of walls, floors and roofs for houses.

12. A stair, or stairway, is the name given to a set of steps formed or constructed to make it possible to pass to another level on foot by putting one foot after the other on alternate steps to climb up or down the stair.

Exercise 7

What is the difference between Participles and Gerund?

Find gerunds in the 5^th paragraph of the text and comment on their function in the sentence.

Translate the following sentences paying attention at gerunds and determine their function in the sentence:

1. We develop early a way of understanding objects around us through empathy, of imagining ourselves inside the object and feeling how gravity works on it.

2. The latter code is designed to require planning and construction techniques.

3. This was done by the Romans, as well as in modern times, by placing iron (and now steel) rods in the formwork.

4. Traditionally, centering was semicircular in form, as this shape was the easiest to lay out on the job site.

5. Writing on architecture is almost as old as writing itself.

6. The holding up of the sequence of three basic aims — "convenience, strength and beauty" — has its own significance.

7. On completing the project we started the preliminary calculation works on the next one.

8. In case of using a solid barrel vault in construction, engineers should take into consideration that this may cause the walls to spread out at the top.

Exercise 8

Write a short annotation to the text. It should not be longer than 12 – 15 sentences.

Home Task

Find in the internet information about all the buildings created by Nervi with their images and prepare a report in chronological order about the life and creative activities of Pier Luigi Nervi, one of the greatest engineers and architects of the XX century.

Text B

Zaha Hadid 

One of the world's most celebrated architects in the world at present is Zaha Hadid, born 31 October 1950, an Iraqi-British architect renowned for her distinctly futuristic designs. She was born in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. She worked for her former professors, Koolhaas and Zenghelis, at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where she became a partner in 1977.

In 1980, she established her own London-based practice. During the 1980s, she also taught at the Architectural Association. Zaha Hadid has taught at prestigious universities around the world, including at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She is currently Professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Austria.

In 2004, Hadid became the first woman and first Muslim recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Her architectural design firm, Zaha Hadid Architects, employs about 400 people, and is headquartered in London.

Zaha Hadid is an architect who consistently pushes the boundaries of architecture and urban design. Her work experiments with spatial quality, extending and intensifying existing landscapes in the pursuit of a visionary aesthetic that encompasses all fields of design, ranging from urban scale through to products, interiors and furniture.

When the spheres of art, architecture and design collide as they do in the works of Zaha Hadid, the result is a tectonic shift in the notion of how form can be depicted. Albert Gleizes* and Marcel Duchamp* hinted at an idea of the fourth dimension in art in the early 20th century, but Hadid has gone further in representing such a concept; the result is Cubism* in space. As they say, with Zaha Hadid all previously held beliefs are suspended, blurred and ultimately overturned, but with mathematical precision.

Hadid is the author of numerous designs, such as Towers in Bratislava, Miami, Singapore and China; cultural and recreational buildings like the Design Park and Plaza in Dongdaemun and a new Dance and Music Center in the Hague; and a new flagship project in her home country, the headquarters of the Iraqi national bank. Her buildings are characterized by the powerful, curving forms of her elongated structures with multiple perspective points and fragmented geometry to evoke the chaos of modern life.

With a very large team of about 400 architects, Hadid's London office is one of the busiest in the world. Although only fragments of her initial work were realized, she experienced an incredible global interest the past decade both from public and private clients. Her new projects display extreme formal complexity and a renewed interest in ornamentation. They could be perceived as a continuous evolution of a digital baroque. 

Zaha Hadid is one of the leading architects of our time. True to her provocative architectural research, her recently built works realize challenging and innovative designs once thought unbuildable. Moreover, her pending projects promise even more dramatic shifts in our understanding and experiencing of architecture.

Notes:

*Albert Gleizes (1881 – 1953), was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. 

*Marcel Duchamp (1887 –1968; French pronunciation was a French-American painter, sculptor and writer whose work is associated with Dadaism  (an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century) and conceptual art.

*Cubism: Cubism is an early XX century avant-garde art movement pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. The term is broadly used in association with a wide variety of art produced in Paris during the 1910s and extending through the 1920s. Variants such as Futurism and Constructivism developed in other countries.

Exercise 1

Find the Russian translations from section B for the English words and word groups in section A:

A establish; currently; employ; in the pursuit; collide; notion; depict; dimension; previously; precision; flagship project; elongated; evoke; provocative; pending.

B удлиненный; изображать; вызывающий (дерзкий); в поисках; сталкиваться; предварительно (ранее); самый важный проект; в настоящее время; вызывать (воспоминание и т.п.); измерение; нанимать на работу (иметь в штате); понятие; незаконченный (ожидающий решения); учреждать (основывать); точность.

Exercise 2

Ask 10 questions to the text in written form.

Exercise 3

Write a synonym to the following words:

celebrated (p.p.); recipient (n); boundary (n); encompass (v); depict (v); flagship project (n); headquarters (n); display (v); ornamentation (n); unbuildable (adj).

Exercise 4

Write an annotation to the text. Your annotation should contain 10 - 12 sentences.

Home Task

Find more information on the life and creative activities of Zaha Hadid and get ready for a short presentation in PowerPoint program devoted to this outstanding architect.