MODERN ARCHITECTURE (Research Paper Sample)

MODERN ARCHITECTURE
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Architects' works span cultural contexts, generations, and hemispheres both locally and globally. Specifically, the architectural works in Australia have symbolic and physical aspects that are related in affinity due to their relationship between modernity and tradition. To understand nationalism and regionalism in modern architecture, some architects like Glenn Marcutt and Peter Muller decided to classify building designs to suit their professional style. They studied the strategies logically suited to the beauty of buildings to understand modern architecture. Their study of various architects' work made a significant trajectory in their profession. When examining the works of the two architects, Muller and Murcutt's designs stand out with strong affinities to the organic movement.[Kenneth Frampton, “Critical Regionalism: Modern Architecture and Cultural Identity,” In Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 3rd edition (London: Thames & Hudson, 1992), 316.] [Julie Willis and Goad Philip, “A Bigger Picture: Reframing Australian Architectural History,” Fabrications 18, 1 (June 2008): 9.]
First, Peter Muller designed the Sidney houses, which greatly influenced his architecture. During this period, architecture was dominated by international vogue, and architects like Muller’s organic group opposed the mainstream of modernism. International styles flattered economic efficiency with the precision of standardization. The organic architects aimed at harmony with the natural environment as opposed to international vogue styles, which allowed machine-like production incompatible with the natural environment. In organic architecture, architecture imitated the earth's lines in the horizontal planes and in its shapes and materials that were environmentally friendly. Muller's idea was used to design the weekend house. Muller was interested in vernacular culture and the symbolism of geometry in the building's organic relationship. The house was set on the edge of a cliff face seven meters below the road and fifteen meters above the water. The design followed a natural way to form an intimate connection with the natural environment with water, trees, and the road connecting to the house. The water levels were considered an essential part of the house design because the lawn owner wanted to use water transport to the factory and office. The direction of movement across the space and vertically from the waterbody to the roads provided a Muller design that allowed the use of environmentally friendly materials. So, the genre of architecture in the Richardson House characterizes the casual informality of indigenous Australia.[Jennifer Taylor, An Australian Identity: Houses for Sydney (Sydney: Department of Architecture, University of Sydney, 1972), 1956.] [Ann Stephen, Andrew McNamara and Goad Philip, eds, Modernism and Australia: Documents on Art, Design and Architecture (Carlton: Miegunyah Press & Powerhouse Publishing, 2006), 1926.] [Jacqueline Urford, “Holiday Accommodation - Resort Regionalism: The Architecture of Peter Muller,” Architecture Bulletin (December 1999): 16.] [Jacqueline Urford, “Holiday Accommodation - Resort Regionalism: The Architecture of Peter Muller,” Architecture Bulletin (December 1999): 17.Urford, “Holiday Accommodation - Resort Regionalism,” 18.] []
Muller's concepts heavily influenced the work of the Richardson House, which acted as a catalyst needed in regional architecture. The designs formulated by the home are responsible for being important in a particular habitat. This plan of Richardson House is of great significance to the local environment as it eradicates the core of living. The house design forms an organic architecture based on its repetitive circles in columns, a primary motive already existing in the site. The central support system for the house to be organic lies in the concrete blocks of natural green-grey colour. The design turned the grass into a beautiful lawn, which shaped the house with a deeper motive of a mystical symbol of God's creation. The Richardson House was conceived as a series of free-flowing connected spaces.[Donald Leslie Johnson, Australian Architecture: Sources of Modernism (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1980), 1906.] [Jennifer Taylor, An Australian Identity: Houses for Sydney (Sydney: Department of Architecture, University of Sydney, 1984), 1957.] [Jeff Turnbull, “The Architecture of Walter Burley Griffin: Archetypal Patterns,” Fabrications 15, 1 (July 2005): 20.]
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: A picture of Peter Muller's plan for Kumale house of Richardson.
A picture of Peter Muller's plan for Kumale house of Richardson[Robert Irving, John Kinstler, and Dupain Max, The Fine Houses of Sydney (Methuen Australia, 1982).]
The organic design for Richardson House shows a distinct view of external walls framed in bronze and sliding tracks so that they disappear into the hallway of cylindrical columns. The fluidity of the space and the level of transparency of the planes that surround it are the main features of the house. The design is uttered by formative men and creative artists who maintain the transparency of materials saturated within the house. The materials used in the Richardson House are non-standard, thus making them expensive. The materials stand to last a long time in bad weather, so the lustrous quality is impaired. These features make the house a highly esoteric organic building idiom. The derivative of transparency is a powerful, extraordinary setting in the habitat.[Harriet Edquist, “Genius Loci,” Transition, no. 26 (Spring 1988): 83.] [Daryl Jackson, “From the Edge to the Centre: Sense and Stylism in Current Australian Architecture,” UIA International Architect Issue, no. 4 (1984): 5.]
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2: A complete image of the Kumale house. Source: Google
 A complete image of Richardson House.[Robert Irving, John Kinstler, and Dupain Max, The Fine Houses of Sydney (Methuen Australia, 1982).]
Second, Murcutt’s architecture was interested in the physical and symbolic aspects that connect the tradition and modernity of the geographical region. Murcutt's career was influenced by a diverse array of architects, enabling him to come up with his own style that overcame the glass pavilion archetype. He expanded his international architecture knowledge by traveling throughout Europe. In his travels to various parts of Europe, like Greece, Italy, and France, he examined the relationship between architectural forms and the place conditions. As he noted different architectures across the locations he travelled to, for instance, his visit to Alvar Aalto's work made him to acknowledge the intrinsic relationship between landscape and architecture.[Jennifer Taylor, “Ken Woolley: Appropriate Architecture,” In Australian Architects: Ken Woolley (Red Hill, ACT: Royal Australian Institute of Architects, Education Division, 1985), 18.] [Edith MacArthur, “Three Houses, Glenn Murcutt,” Modulus 22 (1993): 115.]
Murcutt is another architect whose professional career is built upon the impact he gets when travelling to explore for architectural forms. He looked to get architecture that depicted the value of the region and vernacular agreeing with the modern movement. After seeing the work of Corderch, Marcutt realized that it was important to renounce modern architecture to work adjustably with the idiocracies of the region. He declared his intention to pursue a clear architecture in terms of technology, culture, place, and climate. This strategy will reflect ideas of modernity in architecture that will adhere to the region's geographical topography and cultural aspects. In his work, he ignored the shape of the abandoned glass pavilion and used vertical sun control devices to turn the outside spaces into places where people could live.[Peter Stutchbury, “Architecture and Place,” Architecture Australia 88, no. 1 (January-February 1999): 59.]
After the meetings with Coderch's work, Murcutt significantly impacted his architecture understanding. He designed two houses in the early 1970s, one immediately before the encounter with Corderch and another after the impact. The first Laurie Short House (Sidney) was completed in 1974 and the second Marie Short House (Kempsey) was completed in 1975. The latter house is the beginning of his work, which defines his architectural language. His work was characterized by traditional physical and symbolic features uniquely suited to Australia. The Laurie Short House embodied crystalline, abstract, transparent, and horizontal mesial structures with a flat roof that impressed the region's topography. In his designs, he takes into account the changing weather by putting openings in the roof slaps that are made of subdivided angle metals to provide shade in the summer.[Emma López-Bahut, "Travelling Abroad to Understand Australia: Glenn Murcutt’s Look at the Architecture of José Antonio Coderch," Fabrications 31, no. 1 (2021): 13.] [Philip Drew, “Inspiration from Below: Australian Vernacular in Contemporary Architecture,” Architectural Theory Review 11, no. 1 (2006): 35.]
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 3: A plan image of Marie's short house by Murcutt
A plan image of Marie's short house by Murcutt.[López-Bahut, "Travelling Abroad to Understand Australia,"16.]
Some international architects like John Entenza influenced his work in the Marie Short House because it employs a two-pavilion array arranged equally around an axis. Each space in the Marie house has a verandah that opens and expan...