Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Scottish Architecture. Essay

It wasn’t until 1822 that his family allowed him to study the arts. They let him work under Alexander Lenoir, an artist and architect, that introduced him to some of the classic sculptors and artists like Titian and Rubens. He was pushed in a healthy direction by Lenoir, and soon began formal study at the Academie Suisse.

In 1850 his family moved to London and lived there for the rest of his childhood. ("John William Waterhouse Biography." Artble) Waterhouse was accepted into the Royal Academy Schools in 1870 and sent his first painting Sleep and His Half Brother Death to the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1874. ("John William Waterhouse Biography." Artble)

Question 1. Choose an architect or practice whose work is covered by or relevant to this course and discuss critically one or more of their design projects or drawings or urban proposals as precedent case-studies. Selectively situate this work in relation to their body of work, and against the practices and concerns of the period. Focus on the architectural qualities of a specific key aspect of the design of the projects. Selectively consider how they might relate to the historical situation, cultural values, theoretical concerns and design practices of the time. This may involve a selective analysis of compositional design practices, material fabrication production and the experiential reception of built outcomes of the projects.

This essay will focus on how those works are informed by both regional and international course. In this context, Sydney Ancher and his strong Miesian simplicity as well as Peter Muller’s affinity with Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture principle.

At the age of twenty-one, Blake completed his seven-year apprenticeship and began to work on projects for book and print publishers. He also attended the Royal Academy of Art’s Schools of design, where he began unveiling his own personal works

In early september 1917 he was drafted into the army.when the united states entered WWI. He found army life far from pleasant but an opportunity for his writing and his painting he sought. He had found a way out by overacting eye trouble. Soon again he found himself right where he was. Working for the catholic hospital.

The Monadnock Building is a “skyscraper” located at 53 West Jackson Boulevard in the South Loop of Chicago. The Monadnock was constructed in two phases, but still functions as one cohesive structure. However, the facades of the two sections vary significantly from one another, the northern half of the building expresses a bolder tone, while the southern half is decorated in traditional ornamentation. Each signifies the culture along with the transition of the time period.

This deliberate counterbalance against locality reduces site imprint and accentuates the precarious topography. A mix of materials including metal framed glazed windows, local hand cut sandstone and slate flooring. A departure from ‘Sydney School Houses’ being constructed in the era who’s architects had a different approach dubbed rustic ‘Nuts and Berries’. Politically engaged and independently minded this brave new architecture was an “expression of modern life” inspired by the “architecture of Gropius, Corbusier and the Bauhaus.” Buhrich’s radical building embodies these opposing two worlds. From the terrifying rail free spiral stairs cantilevered above an uncertain drop, to the copper clad roof and of course that bathroom. Moulded in high gloss, lipstick red, seamless fibreglass- it is visually unforgettable. The details extend further with all furniture freestanding or fixed designed specifically to compliment the space as sculptures within

Leon Krier was criticised for publishing a costly monograph on Albert Speer’s architecture (1985)in which, while acknowledging the crimes of the Nazis and the man, Krier nonetheless claimed the book’s only subject and sole justification was “Classical architecture and the passion of building” (cited by Jaskot, ‘Architecture of Oppression’, 2000). Discuss this claim, the controversy and the issues (historical, philosophical and ethical and possibly others) they raise. Can architecture, Classical, Modern or otherwise, be autonomous from politics and valued independently of the circumstances of politics and history that adhere to it?

Architect James Stirling’s first commissioned project, the Flats at Ham common, is a project that contained a lot of direct influences from Le Corbusier’s Maisons Jaoul which was just completed one year ago. Stirling criticized after he visited the Maisons Jaoul and explains the architecture contained a mismatch with its conceptualizations. Greatly disappointed by Le

He studied during the 1960s at Liverpool College where he studied Sculpture and the Slade School of Fine Art studying Printmaking, he was inspired by the 1960s art scene.

Indeed, Robert Adam (1728-92) was the famous architect and designer of the Lansdowne house. He was one of the architects and designers who brought seriousness to the revival of classicism in England as he studied the Greek and Roman antiquities, traveled to Italy and worked to reproduce exactly the original models. He would go to specific temples and specific places in Italy and would draw detailed drawings of them to keep a record of what he saw and experienced. He is actually a Scottish architect who worked in partnership with his brother James Adam in their father’s firm. Unlike Kent, Burlington and Jones who had brought to England Palladio’s vision of classicism, Robert Adam brought to England “a virtuoso vocabulary of complex interior forms that had not been used since

At the time Charles was designing, there was a new movement: simplifying architecture, making it practical. This was the modernist movement. The modernist movement was used to create new technology. Charles liked this idea because it incorporated the past, present, and the future, instead of just focusing on history like other architects were doing. Mackintosh also inspired European architecture as a whole after his death. One article discusses Charles influence on Architecture, “Although Mackintosh's architectural output was fairly small he had a considerable influence on European design. Especially popular in Austria and Germany, Mackintosh's work was highly acclaimed when it was shown at the Vienna Secession Exhibition in 1900”(Spartacus Educational). Charles was alive during the Vienna Secession that also inspired Frank Lloyd Wright.

Born on September 8, 1914, Sir Denys Louis Lasdun is considered among the most distinguished British architects of the 20th century. He is credited with having contributed to London’s urban landscape. Among the works for which he is best known are the Royal National Theatre at London’s South Banks of the Thames, the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, the Royal College of Physicians in Regent 's Park and the University of East Anglia. The others of Lasdun’s buildings were a building at 32 Newton Road, Paddington, Hallfield Primary School, Usk Street Housing, Keeling House and the Sports Centre at the University of Liverpool. Considering how eminent these landmark buildings are in London’s landscape, it is apparent that Lasdun was a much-sough architect, especially by the British government as well as the local authorities. Lasdun’s architecture falls under the Brutalist architecture of the United Kingdom under which many prominent 20th century British and European architects worked. Among the architects that worked under Brutalism and had great influence on Lasdun’s architecture were Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Lasdun’s fame as a world class architect could be largely attributed to the fact that his architecture spanned the whole era of modernism in British art.

Mies van der Rohe is one of the most prominent figures in modernist architectural history, the man who popularised some of the most influential phrases of the era, e.g. “less is more”, and strove to push his ideas and philosophies, not just on what he thought a building should be, but of what he thought architecture itself was. He changed the cityscape of America, showing the world a style that was simple and elegant, with such a controlled palette of expressions that shone through in its geometric beauty.