Suez canal University

Department of Architecture
and urban planning

Building technologies

The impact of World

War II on architecture

Presented by / Seifeldin Elsaid

Presented to Dr / Nader Ibrahim
Post-war Modern Architecture

Following World War I, a long-running conflict erupted between architects

who favored the more traditional styles of neoclassicism and Beaux-Arts
architecture and modernists, led by Le Corbusier and Robert Mallet-
Stevens in France, Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in
Germany, and Konstantin Melnikov in the new Soviet Union, who desired
only pure forms and the elimination of all decoration. Louis Sullivan
popularized the axiom “form follows function” to emphasize the
importance of practical simplicity in modern architecture. Modernist forms
and stylized decoration were frequently combined by Art Deco architects
such as Auguste Perret and Henri Sauvage. The term “modern architecture”
or “modernist architecture” refers to a collection of architectural styles that
first appeared in the first part of the 20th century and gained popularity
following World War II. The old neoclassical architecture and Beaux-Arts
styles that were popular in the 19th century were rejected in favor of new
construction technology, including the use of glass, steel, and reinforced
concrete. Until the 1980s, when postmodernism effectively replaced
modern architecture as the dominant architectural style for corporate and
institutional structures, modern architecture remained the norm.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Walter
Gropius, Konstantin Melnikov, Erich Mendelsohn, Richard Neutra, Louis
Sullivan, Gerrit Rietveld, Bruno Taut, Gunnar Asplund, Arne Jacobsen, Oscar
Niemeyer, and Alvar Aalto are notable architects significant to the history
and development of the modernist movement.
International style

Charles-Édouard Jeanerette, a Swiss-French architect who adopted the moniker

Le Corbusier in 1920, was a pivotal figure in the rise of modernism in France. In
1920, he co-founded ‘L’Espirit Nouveau,’ a journal that vigorously promoted
architecture that was functional, pure, and devoid of any decoration or
historical associations. He was also a staunch supporter of new urbanism based
on planned cities. In 1922, he proposed a city for three million people, with
residents living in identical sixty-story skyscrapers surrounded by open
parkland. He created modular houses that would be mass-produced on the
same blueprint and assembled into apartment buildings, neighborhoods, and
cities. In 1923, he released “Toward an Architecture,” which included his
famous slogan, “a house is a machine for living in.” Through slogans, articles,
books, conferences, and participation in expositions, he tirelessly promoted his
ideas. In the 1920s, he constructed a number of houses and villas in and around
Paris. They were all built using a common system that relied on reinforced
concrete and reinforced concrete pylons in the interior to support the
structure, allowing for glass curtain walls on the façade and open floor plans
that were independent of the structure. They were always white, with no
decoration or ornamentation on the outside or inside. The Villa Savoye, built in
the Paris suburb of Poissy between 1928 and 1931, was the most well-known of
these houses. It became an icon of modernist architecture, an elegant white
box wrapped with a ribbon of glass windows around the façade, with a living
space that opened onto an interior garden and the countryside around it,
raised up by a row of white pylons in the center of a large lawn.
Expressionist Architecture
Expressionist architecture was a European
architectural movement that developed alongside
the expressionist visual and performing arts, which
flourished and dominated in Germany during the
first decades of the twentieth century. Brick
Expressionism is a subset of this movement that
thrives in western and northern Germany as well as
the Netherlands.

From 1910 to 1930, the term “Expressionist

architecture” referred to the activities of the
German, Dutch, Austrian, Czech, and Danish avant-
garde. Subsequent redefinitions pushed the term
back to 1905 while also broadening it to include the
rest of Europe. Today, the term refers to the
architecture of any date or location that exhibits
some of the original movement’s characteristics,
such as distortion, fragmentation, or the
communication of violent or overstressed emotions.

The Einstein
Tower by Eric
Mendelsohn (A
famous example
of Expressionist
architecture)
Aside from this artistic goal, Expressionist architecture addressed
social issues. The massive physical and human destruction caused
by the first large-scale mechanical warfare sparked an anti-
industrial sentiment immediately after World War I. The industry
had excelled at creating death machines that resulted in total
devastation. With such a common foe, thoughts of fraternization,
community, and democracy arose. The postwar reality was
especially difficult to bear in Germany. The shock of losing the war
brought with it the sense that an era had passed and that it was
time to plan for the rebirth of communal life and the arts. With its
promotion of precisely such goals, Expressionism provided a viable
solution to Europe’s early 1920s problems. The machine age was
rejected as the foundation of artistic creation by Expressionism.
This manifested itself in architecture as an opposition to design as a
function of utility, materials, construction, and economics. Instead,
by transforming the social uprising into artistic activity,
Expressionism argued that political and artistic revolutions were
synonymous.
Bauhaus Architecture
From mid-century modern to Scandinavian minimalism, modern
architecture frequently features bold, clean lines and simple
functionality. All of these design trends can be traced back to the
Bauhaus school of architecture, which began in early twentieth-
century Germany.

The Bauhaus architecture school was founded in 1919 in

Weimar, Germany, by architect Walter Gropius. The school was
established to bring together fine arts (such as painting and
sculpture) and applied arts (like the industrial design or building
design). While the Bauhaus school closed in 1933, the Bauhaus
movement continued, giving birth to a new type of architecture
with simple designs that are beautiful, functional, and can be
mass-produced. Functional shapes, abstract shapes used
sparingly for décor, simple color schemes, holistic design, and
basic industrial materials such as concrete, steel, and glass are all
hallmarks of Bauhaus architecture.

Dessau-Bauhaus (Bauhas School of Architecture)

Constructivist architecture
Constructivist architecture was a modern architectural style that
flourished in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and early 1930s. The
movement aimed to reflect modern industrial society and urban space
in an abstract and austere manner, rejecting decorative stylization in
favor of the industrial assemblage of materials. Designs combined
cutting-edge technology and engineering with an overtly communist
social goal. Despite being split into several competing factions, the
movement produced many groundbreaking projects and completed
buildings before falling out of favor around 1932. It had a significant
impact on subsequent architectural developments. Constructivist
architecture is defined by a combination of modern technology and
engineering methods, as well as the socio-political ethos of
Communism, and is inspired by the Bauhaus and the larger
constructivist art movement that emerged from Russian Futurism.
Despite the fact that there were few completed projects before the
movement became obsolete in the mid-1930s, it had a significant
influence on many subsequent architectural movements, such as
Brutalism.

Boris Iofan’s winning

proposal for Palace of
the Soviets
(Constructivist
architecture)
Art Deco
The same-named visual arts movement that first appeared in Europe
in the 1920s gave rise to the Art Deco architectural movement. This
movement also had an impact on fashion, interior design, graphic
design, sculpture, painting, and other forms of art, in addition to the
movie industry. The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative
and Industrial Arts, which was held in Paris in 1925, served as the
style’s turning point and gave it its name.

Art Deco architecture, like the several fields it has inspired, mixes
contemporary design with classic components, including fine
craftsmanship and opulent materials like ivory, jade, and lacquer. The
Art Deco movement, which followed the Arts and Crafts and Art
Nouveau movements, was also influenced by the exoticized crafts
and designs of nations like China, Japan, and Egypt. These influences
included the abstract and geometric forms of Cubism, the vivid
colors of Fauvism, and the bright hues of modern art. Through
symmetry, straight lines, a hierarchy in the floor plan distribution,
and facades divided into the base, shaft, and capital (classical
tripartite division), the decorative aspect and compositional
arrangements also borrow from Beaux-Arts architecture, though this
time with more logical volumes and the sporadic use of ornaments.
The affluent post-war bourgeoisie embraced this opulent fusion of
styles.

“Rockefeller
Center” by
Franco Folini (An
example of Art
Deco Movement)
Aside from the early 20th-century skyscrapers in New York, Rio de
Janeiro also had a number of noteworthy instances of similar design,
including the Carlos Gomes Theater and the Central do Brasil Station,
which had stairways, stained glass windows, and signs, among other
features. One of Rio de Janeiro’s most well-known attractions, the
sculpture of Christ the Redeemer, is a work of Art Deco and is thought
to be the largest sculpture in the genre to date.

Many experts viewed the delicate balance between the striving for
simplicity and the grandeur of its forms as paradoxical, especially
when compared to earlier movements. But Art Deco architecture
played a significant part in history by symbolizing the modernization
of the urban landscape and contrasting old and contemporary
geometric arrangements and ornamental references.

Advancement during World War II and subsequent reconstruction

The events of World War II (1939–1945) and its aftermath had a

significant impact on the development of building technology and,
consequently, architectural possibilities. Steel and other building
materials were in low supply due to the needs of the war effort,
which prompted the use of novel materials like aluminum.
Prefabricated buildings had significantly increased use during and
after the war, mostly for military and governmental purposes. The
Quonset hut was modeled on the metal Nissen huts of World War I.
Radical experimental homes were developed in the years
immediately following the war, such as Buckminster Fuller’s
experimental aluminum Dymaxion House and the enameled-steel
Lustron House (1947–1950).
The war’s immense devastation also contributed to the development of
modern architecture. All of France’s port cities, including Le Havre,
Brest, Marseille, and Cherbourg, as well as Berlin, Tokyo, Dresden,
Rotterdam, and east London, saw large portions of their urban areas
bombed. Housing was required for the millions of American soldiers
who were returning from the war. However, there had been little
civilian construction in the United States since the 1920s. Large
government-financed housing projects were designed and built as a
result of the postwar housing shortages in Europe and the United
States, typically in the decaying downtowns of American cities and in
the suburbs of Paris and other European cities where land was
available.

The center of Le Havre destroyed by bombing in 1944

The center of
Le Havre as
reconstructed
by Auguste
Perret (1946–
1964)