Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis An investigation of the modern movement in architecture and planning, up to the challenges made to its assumptions and programs in the mid 1960s. The first part of the subject examines the convergence of several movements in European architecture before and after World War I. These include the expressionist architecture of Mendelsohn, Scharoun and their contemporaries in Germany and Holland, constructivist and other new architecture of the early Soviet Union, and developments from futurism in Italian architecture to c. 1938. The Bauhaus, and radical urban housing of Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, conclude the early phase of this study. At various points the powerful role of `traditional' architects (Lutyens, Goodhue, Asplund, Hood) will be considered. The second part considers the spread of modern architecture in Britain, Scandinavia and the Americas. This includes the use that European dictatorships made of new architecture, such as the classicising `alternatives' of the Nazi and Stalinist periods after 1932. The subject concludes with later work by Mies, Aalto, Saarinen, Rudolph and Kahn.
Assessment Written (4500 words): 75% + Visual test (1 hour): 25%