Many commonalities exist between architectural designs with intended functions to serve subsistent demographics in growing cities on an international scale. Aesthetics, targeted demographics, and idealized function link together the designs and realizations of Ernst May’s Seidlung Bruchfeldestrasse in Frankfurt, Germany, the firm of Leinweber, Yamasaki, & Hellmuth’s Pruitt-Igoe high-rise design in St. Louis, and Moshe Safdie’s Habitat exhibition in Montreal. These three designs are in response to the industrial revolution and shift from country to city living in the first 20 years of the 20th century, the middle-class move to the suburbs in the St. Louis in the 40’s and a more post-modernist architectural attempt to respond to individuality, communal living in a postmodern manner, respectively. Similarities between these three designs can magnify tensions of empathy and humanism in architecture and all of the processes of design which push it from an abstract and experimental ideal into realized functional structures. In these examples we are able to explore different methods of design, production, intended use, and user interaction.

The post-war corollary brought much duress and devastation to German economy , political stability, and societal infrastructure. With the flood of families and migrant workers uprooting their country livelihood, rural inhabitants moved to the centres of capital. The industrial city centres were drawing people in from the country side. The housing crisis during the years of the Weimar Republic was a huge concern. Unprepared for the boom in bodies and demand for affordable housing, workers earning subsitent wages were often forced into poverty, placed into older unkempt homes; a system which is commonly referred to as the trickle-down theory (Mumford, Frampton 42).

In 1925, architect Ernst May was appointed city planner to Frankfurt in order to deal with the pressing issue of social housing for the masses. From 1925 – 1930, 15,000 houses were built under May's 'New Frankfurt' plan (Panerai et al. 90). The New Frankfurt experimented with de-centralization of neighbourhoods which would surround the urban city centres. Opposing many theories and practices at the time whilst embracing the pre-fabrication and manufacturing as a cheaper method of construction, May constructed neghbourhoods with a classic modern aesthetic, interactive and supportive infrastructure, and utilized researched methods of sustainable architecture and living. He opposed theories of urban planning destined towards high rises employed by artists and architects like Le Corbusier and fought for smaller houses and complexes. One of his most successful de-centralized urban complexes was the Siedlung Bruchfeldstrasse in 1926-1927.

The success of Bruchfeldstrasse was due to a myriad of methods employed by Ernst and his assembled team of architects, artistic directors, engineers and many more. The two other architects involved in the designing of the Seidlung Bruchffeldstrasse were Herbert Boehm and Carl Hermann Rudloff. May was against architects being the sole planners and facilitators lest they “foist [their] personal living and dwelling requirements upon the masses... of families with a living income only' (qtd. in Mumford, Frampton 42). Bruchfeldstrasse, also known as the 'Zickzackhausen' or the Zigzag development, consists of a block of 650 dwellings divided into smaller buildings located on a 45 degree angle on the street (Dippold-Theile). This shift from parallel co-ordinates allows for more light and a even distribution of light throughout all of the buildings. Natural systems either reflecting or complimenting nature were central to the organization of structures on the grid (see fig. 1). Importance was placed on green space and incorporated into all aspects of the design. He incorporated community gardens in the courtyards to provide the tenants with some aspects of sustainable living which was a lifestyle integral to Germany's rural countryside for decades prior to the industrial revolution. He attuned to this demand in order to help the overall feeling of alienation of the mechanized world. He also included a large building equipped for a community centre with space for day-care and nursery facilities. This aspect of planning holds a stance of empathy and humanism in it's decisions of planning for its intended users.

Ernst and his team employed Taylorism and used this method in production and the layout of space in the individual homes to create a more efficient liveable space.

New frankfurt was ' unification of maximum fulfilment of function with minimum form'

normative building, gardens, playgrounds, etc. Documentation of the architectural avant-garde in social development. Aesthetically simple, devoid of historic ornament, aside from simple colour patterns, Bruchfeldstrasse is modern. With theories of rationality and function, May ethically approached all designs and plans in order to produce the best possible living situation for the lowest income bracket in Frankfurt. The New Franfkurt housing developments experimented with prefabrication in a number of ways including the sandard kitchen in all complexes which was designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. Although stemming from form of architectural expressionism it employed classical modern styles including flat roofs and metal industrial railings and balconies. By attuning himself to the needs and demands of the expanding city of Frankfurt and the demographic, while advocating for at least minimal structures for all, even the living-wage earners, he empathetically and humanistically responded to these demands in a sustainable way.

In 1949 the United States Housing Act put money towards the development of public housing and the design of developments to be erected in the downtown core of St. Louis. The architectural firm of Lienweber, Yamasaki & Hellmuth was commissioned to design one of the funded developments and the Pruitt-Igoe development was created. The postwar era brought upon the relocation of large amounts of white middle-class population into the surrounding suburbs. As this transition took place slums populations were growing rapidly in the business centre of downtown St. Louis. The decision to relocate the population inhabiting the slums so as not to threaten the business district was made and Pruitt-Igoe was a development to remedy this threat. (Bristol 352-353)

Pruitt-Igoe was a development of 33, 11 storey, brick high-rise buildings whose construction was completed in 1954. They were modern style brick buldings with gridded windows. They employed ski-stop elevator technology which allowed the elevators to stop on every third floor. In the centre of every third floor there were glass galleries which were intended to inspire and create communities among the apartment dwellings. It was this aspect of its design which initially were praised in Architectural Forum and Architecural Record when the designs were first published and regarded as 'innovative compensations for the shortcomings of the high-rise housing form' (Bristol 355). Initially, Leinweber, Yamasak & Hellmuth's design incorporated a mixture of single, small story and high-rise buildings but were eventually pushed by the Public Housing Administration to rid the plan of any possible unnecessary expenditures and provide as many units as possible on their 57-acre site. (Bristol)

This failure to represent the primary individual needs of the people it was intended for, unsympathetic rationalization of form and expenditure in drastic ways ultimately contributed to the demolition of all 33 buildings in 1972. Shortly after tenants were moved in problems arouse with vandalism, violence, and deteriorating quality of building materials. In 1951 Architectural Forum denounced mostly all of the qualities they highlighted earlier on including critiques on the elevators, deterioration of material and stated that 'steam pipes remain[ed] exposed both in the galleries and the apartments, frequently inflicting severe burns' (qtd. In Bristol 357). Ultimately it was a mixture of architectural design, social planning, the failure to upkeep the quality of grounds by the city, and experiments in prefabrication and material quality, and lack integrated facilities that contributed to it's failure and provided ample avenues to be targeted and criticized as the ultimate failure of modern architectural design. (Bristol)

The Montreal Exposition in 1967 was an international exposition where architect Moshe Safdie built his site-specific Habitat development designed as a low-income housing development. Initially designed much larger it had to be down-sized to a 158 dwelling development. Experimentations in prefabrication and manufacturing were incorporated into this design in hopes to realize a cheaper yet modern and futuristic model homes which could be accessible to the lower-middle classes. In his book, Beyond Habitat, Safdie explained his reasons as a young architect to participate in Montreal's World's Fair; “I went to Expo 67 partly because I was very interested in working on a real plan on a large scale, but mostly because of the possibility of a housing exhibit. I felt I would have the opportunity to realize it in some way.”

Although under much different circumstances then May and Yamasaki and Hellmuth , Safdie's intentions to build a structure for public housing were similar in ideals. Learning from the successes and failures of the 20^th century architecture, Safdie combined a myriad of stylistic approaches to create individual module homes in hopes to secure a sense of individuality and separate space within a large ornamented block of concrete. He designed a modular housing system which comprised of individual concrete houses literally stacked on top of one another. Trading in the International Style aesthetic in respect to high-rises and 90 degree angular placement on a gridded block, he shifted each dwelling and created a fragmented pile of structures reminiscent abstract scene of houses in the hills of Italy.

Even though he intended it to be a space accessible to transit and the business district of the city centre, which it was in the months the Exposition was running, it was criticized later for it's displaced centrality after the Expo closed. Spectacular as spectacle the concrete stacks of complex structure proved a successful and cheaper substitution for individual homes and high rise buildings because it took on qualities of individual characteristics yet it's material was created in an easily per-fabricated manner. For the construction process, Safdie required a plant be set up next to the site in order to cater to the needs of the site and cut down transportation costs of having supplies and per-fabricated systems brought in independently.

Because of it's reputation as spectacle it was received well and there was a high demand in tenant applications which ultimately raised costs and became inhabited by tenants from the upper-middle class demographic. All of these designs experimented and took certain risks in manufacturing methods and the implementation of idealized spaces for interaction within the social housing domain. The successes were met the ability to attune oneself to the needs of the demographics they were realizing habitats for.

Work's Cited

Mullin, John Robert. City Planning in Frankfurt, Germany, 1925-1932: A Study in Practical Utopianism. Web. July 27 2010.

Mumford, Eric, The CIAM discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960 Massachusetts: M.I.T, 2000. Online. July 26, 2010.

Bristol, Katharine G., “The Pruitt-Igoe myth” American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader. ed. Eggener, Kieth L. New York: Routledge, 2004. 352-379. Print.

Safdie, Moshe. Beyond Habitat. Montreal: Tundra Books, 1973. Print.

Von Hoffman, Alexander. “Why They Built Pruitt-Igoe” From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth Century America. ed. Bauman, John F., Biles, Roger, Szylvain, Kristin M. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania University State Press, 2000. 180-205. Print.

Holgate, Alan. Aesthetics of Built Form. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Print.

Panerai, Phillipe, et al. Urban Forms: The Death and Life of the Urban Block. Oxford: Architectural Press, 2004. Print.

Frampton, Kenneth. Modern Architecture: A Critical History. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992. Print.

Thomas, Bruce. “Culture, Merchandise, or Just Enlightenment? New Architecture at the Millennium” Journal of Architectural Education. 1997. Online. July 26.2010.

Bloomfield, Julia, et al. Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-1893 Santa Monica: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994. Print.

Design & Culture

Friday, August 6, 2010

Martha Stewart goes all Organic

Friday, July 30, 2010

and photos..

Mumford, Eric, The CIAM discourse on Urbanism, 1928-1960 Massachusetts: M.I.T, 2000. Online. July 26, 2010.

Caitlin's project.

Liberation, LSD, and Style Liberte

Steve's Research Project.

Khuyen's Research Project