History of Architecture (AP313) |Essay| 2013-14Role of engineers and materials in transformation of architecture in 19th centuryAashish Gupta

Roll Number: 06216901611Studio 3b,Sushant School of Art and Architecture

19th-centuryarchitecturewas greatly influenced by earlier architectural movements and foreign, exotic styles, which were adapted to the new technologies of the early modern age. The revivals of Greek, Gothic, and Renaissance designs were fused with contemporary engineering methods and materials. The main types of nineteenth century architectural styles included:Greek revival (1800-1900);Gothic Revival(1810-1900);Neo-Renaissance; Industrial Architecture(1850-1900); and Skyscraper Architecture(1885-1900). Gothic Revivalists and Neo-Classicists were happy to use the new materials and industrial techniques to achieve the effects they wanted. Ideas and techniques included classical cast iron for example in the 1820s John Nash, specified cast-iron Doric columns for Carlton House terrace, London, for ease of construction and prefabrication, iron-and-glass structures were a marvel of the age. Curving roofs and delicate iron tracery, linked by great expanses of imported plate glass, created translucent space. J. C. Loudon and J. M. Crook had forecast that the coming age of iron would mean an end to all established architectural systems: all habitual notions of... proportion must, of course, be discarded. Instead of adapting the new material to their designs, architects would have to adapt their designs to the new materials.

Impact of industrial revolution on architectureThe industrial revolution which began in England about 1760, led to radial changes at every level of civilization throughout the world. The Industrial Revolution made fundamental changes in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and housing. Architecture changed in response to the new industrial landscape. The economy shifted from one based on manual labour to one dominated by machine manufacture. In the second half of the 19th century dislocations brought about by the Industrial Revolution became overwhelming. For the new modes of transportation, canals, tunnels, bridges, and railroad stations, architects were employed only to provide a cultural veneer. The possibility of travel brought about the migration of population from the countryside. Thereby, larger towns and cities began to dwell resulting in more buildings which further led to Urbanization. New buildings like factories, mills, godowns, housing, etc. were pacing. Increased vehicular transportations as distances increased, and economy improved. Banks and insurance companies came up raising the requirement of new buildings. Commercial scene of buildings also changed. Now work was no longer done by hand, it was mechanized. This also led to creation of new managing posts like managers, labourers, technicians- office buildings to give space to these posts. Hospitals, jails, law courts came up, these, along with banks and insurance companies are largely due to British society. Law courts became an entity of their own. Now, the emperors declined in their power, proper administration systems were established for punishment. Cities had central business districts (CBD) or were themselves CBDs.Impact of industrial revolution in IndiaAfter the revolt British felt that they had to know India to rule it better. James Fergusson felt that they had to understand India deeper. Also, with the advent and works of the ASI (Archaeological survey of India) by Sir Edward Cunningham, Indians were able to know their past and take pride in their achievements. ASI works- Cataloguing of Indian measurements, aided considerably with photography. Many companies were established, Railway Lines, Bus Routes, and Sea Routes were constructed. New rail lines from Thane to Bombay. Textiles were also the first to use modern production methods. First cotton mills came into establishment. The Bombay spinning and weaving company established. Beginning of 20th century First steel mills were being put up. Education was promoted by the British. New schools and colleges were built. Mayo College in Ajmer, Raj Kumar College in Rajkot- to learn sports, philanthropy and etiquette- ideas promoted by the British. New housing was made. Libraries, conservatories, town halls, public gardens became part of any reputed town. Museums also came about. Recreation facilities like clubs and gymkhanas were developed. Mistris and stahpathis became proper workers instead of being court artisans-shows how the construction of building evolved. These artists were either bazaar trained or any of the British school students- Madras school of industrial art, Sir JJ College of art, Govt. College of art, Calcutta.

New Materials

Mass production became possible in glass, iron and later steel. The machine tool industry introduced a precision in manufacture which, when applied to building, enabled the erection of large and safe structures built from uniform components. The railways needed stations, great bridges and viaducts. The architects were hardly by training equipped to supply the design demand - except perhaps to suggest a style - and the engineer-builder appeared to answer the need. Telford's Katherine Dock warehouses in London, and the Marshall Field Warehouse in Chicago, by Richardson are early and late examples of storage design whilst the London rail termini provide a range of solutions from the Doric portico of Euston (1838) designed by the architect Philip Hardwick to the plain brick arch frontage of Kings Cross station by Thomas Cubit.

Cast and wrought iron have different characteristics. Wrought iron has ten times thestrength of wood under compression and one hundred times that of stone. Cast iron is twice as strong as wrought iron under compression, but is less strong under tension. This explains why wrought iron has always been used for suspension bridges and cast iron for arched bridges. Iron has been defined as a linear two-dimensional fragile-looking material, in contrast to the solid, three-dimensional sturdiness of masonry. Linearity is irons most rational form. These characteristics led away from the solid, block-like, closed type of building, towards an open, linear, articulated frame. The frame principle can be seen in its earliest form in the tent and in its most ingenious form in the Gothic cathedral. New about the iron frame was simply the range of possibilities it opened up.

Iron and after 1860 steel, made it possible to achieve spans wider, to build higher, anddevelop ground plans more flexible than ever before. Glass in conjunction with iron and steel, enabled the engineer to make whole roofs and whole walls transparent. Reinforced concrete, introduced at the end of the century, combines the tensile strength of steel with the crushing strength of stone.

Architects knew little about these things, they left them to the engineers. By about 1800architecture and engineering had become separate professions for which a separate trainingwas provided. Architects studied in the offices of older architects and in schools of architecture, until they set up themselves in practice. Engineers were trained at special university faculties or special technical universities.

The most perfect examples of early iron architecture, the suspension bridges are thework of engineers, not of architects. The early culmination of the iron-architecture wasperceptible in the constructions of large greenhouses. The gardeners and horticulturists used to the iron- and glass-work of conservatories. These giant greenhouses were made of cast-iron and glass. The elements could be fabricated industrially and rapidly erected on a light foundation. The semi-circular vault and the ceiling were glazed throughout. The modularsystem, the new scale, the fantastic dimensions, the simplicity of the architectural design, the repetition of simple forms and the rapid erection had consequence for architecture.

Crystal Palace, London,

was completed in 1851 to house the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. This was a great 564m long, prefabricated structure of glass, iron and timber. It was the masterpiece of Joseph Paxton, who had experimented with the design and construction of lightweight palm and lily houses in the gardens of Chatsworth House, Derbyshire. Paxton made maximum use of plate glass, employing 300,000 sheets rolled for the purpose in France. The Crystal Palace was the worlds first large-scale prefabricated building, foreshadowing a new generation of factories. Paxtons innovative designs were inspired by the structure of the giant water lily leaf. Architects had been looking for strength, durability, simplicity of construction and speed, this they got from Paxtons ideas. These included his previous adventures in The Great Stove, 1837-40 which was the first massive structure to consist entirely of cast iron and glass which Queen Victoria said was the most stupendous and extraordinary creation imaginable. Also The Palm House completed in 1848 by Paxton, shocked the public as it was unimaginable to be able to see through a piece of architecture completely, creating a soft atmosphere from the massive greenhouse. The influential design of the Palm Houses curved glass made spectacular use of both cast and wrought iron. The glass follows the smooth curve of the structure with assurance and was repeated in the Crystal Palace. This iconic piece of cast iron and glass architecture was most well-known for its ease and speed of construction but perhaps this ease of construction made a new style and model for future architectural generations to learn and develop from. Perhaps the idea of construction itself has become ease for form and function.

Contrasting with the Crystal Palace, the University Museum, completed in 1859, in Oxford uses the versatility of iron to create new opportunities and designs. In 1855, it had been labelled as an experiment...of the greatest importance to architecture; an attempt to try how Gothic art could deal with those railway materials, iron and glass. Approaching the museum, one first encounters a characteristically Victorian attempt to use old forms for a new purpose, contrasting with this iron architecture. This commercial building makes the visitors encounter a gothic revival stone wall and discover an iron and glass roof inside, which may have a direct link with the glasshouse effect of the Crystal Palace in 1851. The barrel vault construction reminiscent of a Gothic cathedral was recreated in iron and glass to create a spectacular roof. The main hall boasts remarkable and forward-looking cast-iron Gothic columns supporting a daring glazed roof. The Gothic cathedral effect emphasises the importance of the purpose of the building and perhaps the significance that the Victorians had.

The Garabit Viaduct is a railway arch bridge

spanning the Guyere River near Ruynes-en-Margeride, Cantal, France in the mountainous Massif Central region. Constructed, with structural engineering by Maurice Koechlin between 1880 and 1884 and designed by Gustave Eiffel and opened in 1885. adopting the same two-hinged crescent-arch form but employing an arch visually separated from the thin horizontal girder. The Garabit Viaducts arches were engineered to have support hinges, allowing the crescent shape to widen. This method both simplified calculations and improved resistance to wind loads. Wrought iron was used and he adopted the concept of trusses or a series of open triangles to assuage wind force that would blow right through them. Truss work also provides stability when loads are applied through the theory of tension and compression forces. This states that the forces are exerted on the diagonal and vertical segments causing them to resist one another. The compositional factors of the design complement the surroundings well, here the arch reflects the natural form of the river below and therefore creates and balances the structure, perhaps even linking it with natureFor the same exhibition in Paris for which Eiffel built his tower, in 1889, two engineers designed the Galeries des Machines, the largest free span then attempted, and rested it on rocker pads which gives the appearance of lightness to the large and heavy structure - a purely engineering solution. Near Milan Cathedral, the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele was built to rival in height the Cathedral's nave in glass and cast iron. At the end of the century the Amsterdam Bourse (Stock Exchange) was built by Berlage in brick, steel and glass in an undecorated bare functional style which heralds the new architecture of the 20th century.

Skyscraper ArchitectureDuring the second half of the 19th century in the United States, it was the possibilities of cast iron and steel in the building of multi-storey unit constructions that were most effectively exploited. After the installation of the first safety elevator by Otis, it became possible to use as well as build tall buildings.Skyscraper architecturewas first seen in New York, but the genre was mastered by theChicago School of architectureduring the late 1880s and 1890s, thanks to pioneer architects such asWilliam Le Baron Jenney(1832-1907), Daniel Hudson Burnham (1846-1912), Dankmar Adler (1844-1900), Louis Sullivan (1856-1924),Cass Gilbert(1859-1934).

Chicago SchoolChicagos architecture is famous around the world- style developed here, also called commercial style. Started at the turn of th 20th century. Many architects were a part of this. One of the first to promote steel framed structures. Later grew and gave use to European modernists.

1st Chicago SchoolSteel framed structures with masonry cladding usually terracotta and large plate glass windows. Limited exterior ornamentation. Some C.S skyscrapers used Neo Classical elements. Some skyscrapers have the 3 tier column beam. Chicago window- flat fixed glass in the middle. Smaller hinged shutters on either side. Solved both light and ventilation issues. Later when projected out, gave rise to bay window. Renowned architects- Dankmar Adler, Henry Richardson, William Holabird, Louis Sullivan. 1st skyscraper in the world- Home insurance building, Chicago 1885. 1st steel framed building- Wanwright building,1891,Chicago by Louis Sullivan, had soaring vertical bands to emphasize vertically-first skyscraper in the true sense. Other buildings- Carson, Pirie Scott and co. building, Montank building, etc.

2nd Chicago School1960s majorly due to innovations of Bangladesh, structural engineer Fazlur Khan. Introduced new structural systems of framed tube structures as 3d space structure composed of 3,4 or more, braced frames or shear walls joined at or near there edges to form a vertical tube that resists forces in all directions by cantilevering from the foundations. First building- The write chestnut apartments by Khan himself. Other buildings are Sears tower, John Hancock center, WTC, PETRONAS all have a tube structure

Chicago's Home Insurance Building

(designed by William Le Baron Jenney) was the first steel-frame skyscraper in 1885, with a height of 138 feet, though some claim New York's seven-storey Equitable Life Assurance Building, erected in 1870 takes the title due to its innovative use of a skeletal frame. Another early skyscraper was Burnham and Root's Rand McNally Building (1889), the first all-steel framed high-rise, as was Louis Sullivan's Carson Pirie Scott Store (1899). New materials, concentration of population in new fast growing urban areas, particularly Chicago and New York in the mid-19th century, solid rock foundations, available capital and such inventions as the elevator resulted in the growth upwards of American city buildings. The engineers provided the means and the architects, taking over, exploited them. The first design, not executed, for a real skyscraper of 28 storeys in Chicago by L. S. Buffington in 1887 preceded Louis Sullivan's Wainwright (1890) and Guaranty (1896) buildings by only a few years. Sullivan's buildings were however much ahead of Buffington's and indeed later scrapers such as Cass Gilbert's Woolworth Building (1934) in showing the way in which scraper architecture design was to go. Sullivan's vertical emphasis through the load-bearing columns became the later theme rather than the attempt to extend vertically an historically based design - for example a vertical Italian palazzo.

19th Century Buildings and Architects :Crystal Palace, London(1851)Designed by Joseph Paxton.Industrial Architecture: 300,000 panes of glass on wrought-iron framework.Originally erected in Hyde Park before being moved to Penge Common.Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris(1854-75)Designed by Henri Labrouste.Industrial cast-iron construction.Eiffel Tower, Paris(1885-89) Designed by Gustav Eiffel and Stephen Sauvestre.Industrial Architecture: Giant viaduct pylon, prefabricated iron girders.

Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor(dedicated 1886)Designed by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.Consists of Female figure ofLibertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who holds a torch and a tablet evoking the law, with the date (July 4, 1776) of the American Declaration of Independence.

Palais Wagner, Vienna(1889-91)Designed by Otto Wagner.combining delicate metalwork with ornament.The Galerie des Machines, Paris(1889)Designed by Ferdinand Dutert and Victor Contamin.Industrial Architecture: Metal/glass hall, with three-hinged arch structure.Carson Pirie Scott Department Store, Chicago(1899-1904)Designed by Louis Sullivan.Foreshadowed the uniform grid designs of Modernist architecture.Wainwright Building, St Louis(1890-91)Designed by Louis Sullivan.Based on a grid of pronounced structural verticalsSecond Leiter Building, Chicago(1890-91)Designed by William le Baron Genney.Steel-frame construction: metal frame draped in a light masonry curtain wall.Reliance Building, Chicago(1890-95)Designed by Daniel Burnham and Charles Atwood.Steel-frame construction: a wall of glass and white terracotta.Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New York(1894-5)Designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler.Cladding with steel structure.

Bibliography1. Gyetvai, Agnes . Architecture of the 19th centuru, turn of the century, 2007.2. Scrivano, P 2013 Narratives of Modern Architecture as One. A Review of The Future ofArchitecture:Since 1889. Architectural Histories, 1(1): 7, pp. 1-3, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/ah.ag3. Claude Mignot: Architecture of the 19th Century. Taschen, Kln, 19944. Frampton K (2007) Modern Architecture: critical history. 4th ed. Thames & Hudson,USA5. Pfammatter ,Ulrich; Ferretti-Theilig , M. ; 2000, The Making of the Modern Architect and Engineer: The Origins and Development of a Scientific and Industrially Oriented Occupation

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