There are many interesting ideas in all four readings. There are also a lot of similarities and differences between the way the four architects approached design.
The Wright article from the journal is essentially selling a packaged (but also a bit flexible) design for a family home. From my architectural history lessons, I learned that Wright frequently preached strong familial values. His personal life however did not confirm his seeming belief in these values.
Reading Wright’s article, I could not help but make connections to Wright’s Broadacre city. Broadacre city was an urban design idea which proposed a decentralized system with the family as the fundamental unit. According to Professor Han, this was Wright’s reaction to the dense urban centers created by rapid industrialization. In a way Wright’s approach was a bottom-up approach to urban design. The Le Corbusier reading is an extract from a book written by the architect, published in 1929. In contrast to Wright, Le Corbusier is more for a top-down approach to city planning. The start of the extract shows that Le Corbusier himself knew his ideas were indeed controversial. He argues for applying novel and extremely ideal ideas in not so novel contexts such as New York. From personal experiences, it seems city planning has and probably always will be a controversial issue. For one, well, a lot of things have already being built and they are static. Re-organizing buildings and spaces in urban centers requires significant upheaval. Additionally implementing too much regulation on how we build in our cities is bound to disincentivize building by private entities. This sort of ”organic” way in which most of our cities have developed is deemed by Le corbusier as being messy. Therefore, he proposes dis-regarding the site, the more complex demographics (he classifies citizens broadly, but in reality, other issues such as ethnicity, age etc might have a huge influence on city planning) and he goes for starting with a level site. This also sharply contrasts in a way with Wright’s approach to design. Where Le Corbusier uses pilotis to set a level plane for any building project, Wright seeks to merge the building with its site (as seen in fallingwater for instance). What I found most compelling about Le Corbusier’s ideas was that the Street is indeed a messy place. Much of a city’s infrastructure is buried below ground. This often causes huge problems for maintenance and expansion as gaining access to these systems often require navigating a pre-existing static and inertial built environment. Le Corbusier’s plans could probably only be executed in an authoritarian system where seemingly arbitrary specifications such as the amount of open spaces in city centers (”95 percent” for the skyscrapers zone) can only be enforced with draconian methods.
Despite the differences between Gropius’ ideas and Le Corbusier’s ideas, they both seem to support giving the architect more power in the overall design and execution process. I think this idea is very applicable today. From my Architectural history classes with Professor Thomas, it seems architects of the renaissance and baroque had significant political connections which sort of gave them absolute means of shaping their built environments. The case today is however different. Although Gropius was not advocating for giving architects increased political capital, he is for empowering design professionals with modern industrial means of mass production. Gropius is more concerned with diversity and he feels that mass production sort of strips design of idiosyncratic elements. I think this idea relates to the concept of the Master Builder- an architect who is also an engineer that has a comprehensive grasp of all aspects of building. I think there seems to be a sense of loss in the profession (just what I’ve garnered from watching a bunch of youtube videos) as most architects believe that they should greatly endow themselves with knowledge in other industries. Gropius’ ideas on diversity in design are dissimilar to Le Corbusier who calls for standardization within the profession on par with the standardization of the mechanic trade.
The Mies reading gave a unique insight into the interaction between a design institution and a political institution. Mies, from the start, highlights the differences in vision between the Bauhaus school and members of the Nazi party. He describes the taste of one of the senior members of the party, as ”sentimental” and ”aesthetic”. The clash between the Bauhaus and the Nazi party seems to have been a clash between modernity and antiquity. In line with Hitler’s confounded ideology of European purity, Nazi architecture was largely based on reviving, within Germany, grandiose forms of ancient Greek architecture. This was mainly a form of propaganda which sought to present Germans as the heirs of an ”eternal” and ”superior” European classical tradition. Largely, seen as one of the founders of Modernism, Mies from an early start recognized the aims of the Nazi party and concluded that the authenticity of the Bauhaus could not survive within Germany. His belief in the need for a new approach to design is reflected in this quote: ”You can only save wonderful towns by building new ones”- a quote which helps buttress the arguments put forth in Le Corbusier’s The City of To-morrow and Its Planning.