Structural Expressionism | Origin Design Studio

World Architecture: Barcelona Part 2

Posted August 18, 2011

Following last week’s Barcelona blog, we continue our look at the best of the Catalan capital city’s architecture, from the famous and the luxurious to the minimalist and the undiscovered…

6. HOTEL ARTS

Hotel Arts – Photos by Photo Kamil and [bastian.]

As the joint tallest structure in Barcelona, the Hotel Arts was designed to be noticed. Designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who have been behind such iconic architecture as the John Hancock Center and the Willis Tower in Chicago and 1 World Trade Center, currently under construction in New York, the Hotel Arts was constructed in 1994 as luxury hotel accommodation on Barcelona’s sea front. As with many of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill creations, the Hotel Arts is a classic example of structural expressionism, with the exterior aesthetics made up of the structural elements of the building (although whether these beams are fully functional or simply decorative is questionable). Operated by Ritz-Carlton, the hotel is extremely luxurious and considered one of the top ten places in the world to indulge in some celebrity-spotting.

7. CASA VICENS

Casa Vicens – Photos by ctsnow, Lico43 and Morgaine

Casa Vicens is one of Gaudí’s first important works of architecture, with building work beginning in 1883 and completion in 1889. Although at first glance it seems to shun Gaudí’s usual Catalan influences, Casa Vicens draws from Barcelona’s Moorish past, as well as adding biographical details about its owner, Manuel Vicens.

The Moors conquered Barcelona in 717AD, and much of historic Barcelona still demonstrates their influence. Las Ramblas, one of the most famous streets of Barcelona and a favourite of the tourists, derives its name from the Arabic ‘ramla’, meaning sandy riverbed. Although re-conquered in 801 by the son of Charlemagne, the Moors left behind Mudéjar – a Moorish influenced architectural style that was adopted by Muslims and Christians alike. Gaudí taps into this history with Casa Vicens in its ornate tiling, red brick, undressed stone and use of geometric columns and arches and minaret-style towers. The ceramic tiles and red bricks also relate to Manuel Vicens, owner of a brick and tile factory, and the yellow flowered tiles on the facade were manufactured by his own factory.

As a forerunner to Gaudí’s later, more famous works, several signature patterns can be noted, including the use of bright colours, ceramic tiles and elaborate chimneys, not to mention Gaudí tapping into Catalan history for inspiration. Gaudí also worked as an interior designer for this project, with the interior just as extravagantly and intricately decorated as the exterior. The Smoking Room in particular is a beautifully lavish affair, with a carved wood Mudéjar ceiling, elaborate stained glass and floral tiles. Whilst the house remains a private residence, its owners generally open Casa Vicens to ‘neighbours and citizens’ on May 22^nd.

8. IGUALADA CEMETERY

Igualada Cemetery – Photos by axmiller, Cecilia and Fred Scharmen

Whilst a cemetery may seem to be an unlikely source of inspirational architecture, Catalan architects Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós designed Igualada Cemetery as something completely different from the norm. An entrant into a design competition to replace the old cemetery, Miralles and Pinós’s concept of a ‘City of the Dead’ that complemented the landscape and contemplated the relation between living and dead won and construction began in 1985, finishing in 1994. Originally there were plans to include a chapel and a monastery; whilst these were not completed, the spaces that would have housed them exist on the second floor.

The cemetery is set up as a ‘river of life’ that flows from a processional pathway, past the gates of rusting steel that are reminiscent of the crosses at Calvary (see photo above), down into the burial areas. The materials used are wood, concrete and stone, designed to blend into the landscape rather than stand out from it, which creates the effect of the cemetery seeming to have naturally come from the land rather than having been built upon it. This is particularly noticeable in the wooden railway sleepers set into the concrete floor, the placement of trees emerging from the pathways, subdued earthy colours and the sloping gabion walls that resemble hills and mountainsides. This sense of immersion and seamless linking with nature and the surrounding landscape is intended to create a link between the living and the dead, breaking down binary oppositions and creating a space for gentle contemplation.

Miralles himself is buried here, sadly passing away in 2000 at the age of 45.

9. SAGRADA FAMILIA

Left: Sagrada model (Graceycat)

Centre: Passion Façade as of Feb 2011 (Howard Walfish)

Right: Interior (Montxo-Donostia)

Sagrada Familia is Gaudí’s most famous and impressive work, with vast amounts of tourists flocking to see it each day, and yet it is not expected to reach completion until 2026. Amazingly, work began on Sagrada Familia (full name: Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família) in 1882, and when Gaudí sadly passed away in 1926 less than a quarter of the project had been completed. Despite this, the project continued to progress, with the project reaching the halfway stage in 2010.

Sagrada Familia began life as a very different design, when a Catalan bookseller called Josep Maria Bocabella was inspired by a church in Loreto, Italy and returned to Barcelona with the intention of building a similar Gothic Revival church. Work began in 1882, but when the architect retired in 1883 Gaudí was drafted in and changed the entire design to the radical structure seen today. Gaudí was an extremely religious man, with previous works including several small scale churches and others such as Casa Batlló and Casa Milà containing religious symbolism, so the chance to work on such a project must have been enticing. Apart from some extremely small scale projects, Sagrada Familia almost exclusively dominated his professional life from 1915 until his death. His work has been continued by a team of architects that have been inspired by Gaudí’s work and have tried to follow his original directions and plans as much as possible.

The most noticeable features of the exterior design are the spires and the facades. The spires, of which there should be eighteen, represent the twelve Apostles, four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, and each of these groups should be at a different height with the Jesus Christ spire being the tallest. At present, only four of the apostle spires have been constructed. There will also be three grand facades detailing important events in Christ’s life – the Nativity façade to the east, the Passion façade to the south and the Glory façade to the west. All three are very different, with the Passion façade evoking a sombre and severe mood with its bare stone cut into angular columns that represent sequoia trunks. In contrast to this, the Nativity façade is joyful in its ornamental sculptures and use of natural imagery such as the turtles and tortoises that decorate the base of each column. Gaudí also intended for this façade to be brightly painted, in contrast with the bare stone of the Passion. The Glory façade will be the largest of the three, offering access to the central nave and depicting scenes of both Heaven and Hell. Construction began on this in 2002.

Opinion has been divided over Sagrada Familia; it has been praised both for its ‘ruthless audacity’ and as being ‘sensual, spiritual, whimsical, exuberant’, but has also been termed ‘one of the most horrendous buildings in the world’. Funded privately by donors and through visitor ticket costs, Sagrada Familia is not supported by any government or church authorities.

10. MONTJUÏC COMMUNICATIONS TOWER

Montjuïc Communications Tower – Photos by Stefan Schmitz and Wojtek Gurak

Built to transmit television coverage of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the Montjuïc Communications Tower, also known as Torre Téléfonica or Torre Calatrava, is a novel design for a potentially very plain piece of telecommunications apparatus. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, an architect that incorporates engineering and sculpture into his designs, the tower is 136 metres tall and represents an athlete holding the Olympic flame. The ring-shaped element holds the transmitting dishes and connects to the pylon in the middle, and the whole structure is covered in trencadis, the mosaic method that Gaudí pioneered using ceramic tile shards. As well as transmitting television signals, the tower also doubles as a sundial as it casts a shadow on the circular platform on which it stands.

Crash Course: Structural Expressionism/High Tech Architecture

Posted April 11, 2011

Want to know your structuralism from your deconstructivism, and your neo-gothicism from your classical rococo? Need a small refresher, or perhaps interested in learning a little more about architecture? Try our crash courses in architectural styles! This week: structural expressionism, also known as high-tech architecture or late modernism. Most associated with contemporary architects such as Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Norman Foster, structural expressionism emerged in the 1970s and is still popular today.

HISTORY

A child of the Modernist movement, structural expressionism emerged in the 1970s, and was influenced by emerging technological breakthroughs in steel frames and structural design. The key development was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Fazlur Khan’s work on framed tube structures in skyscraper design, allowing approximately half of the exterior surface to be used for windows and with fewer interior columns creating a greater usable floor space. Other great technological advances of the 1960s also fuelled the movement, culminating in the Space Race and Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk. This set the scene for a cultural movement that looked towards technology for its muse, and became inspired by great technological achievement.

HSBC Hong Kong Building; Photo courtesy of Miguel Udaondo

The term ‘high tech architecture’ was coined following the publication of High Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for the Home, written by design journalists Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin. This book was critical in linking industrial objects, such as factory shelving and chemical glass, with a movement that incorporated such things in interior style, terming it ‘high-tech’. This spread to a new architectural school of thought that rebelled against monotonous, standardised buildings, built with economics rather than aesthetics in mind. This, coupled with the belief that technology was progression, led to a new, rebellious, edgy, industrial-based aesthetic.

KEY CONCEPTS

Structural expressionism has similarities to the futurist movement of the 1920s, but crucially adds updated methods of engineering to each structure, enabling bigger and better concepts than the futurists could achieve. First and foremost in structural expressionism is the use of cutting-edge technology, and the aesthetics that proudly display this technology to the outside world. Whereas most structures seek to conceal the structural elements that make up a building, structural expressionism seeks to reveal them, embracing a kind of skeleton-as-exterior aesthetic. Services are often positioned externally too, and the whole effect is to create a high-quality, high-impact industrial look that rebels against historicism and antiquity. The most famous example of this would be the Pompidou Centre, with services, structural elements, entrance/exit tubes and even ventilation ducts appearing externally as part of the overall stylisation, marking a radical departure from the usual classically modest nineteenth century styles found in Paris. The heavy emphasis on functionality created its own aesthetic: originally each of the structural elements of the building were colour coded, so that blue ducts indicated climate control elements, green pipes denoted plumbing, electrical wires were encased in yellows and safety devices such as fire extinguishers were red. Ironically, many of the structural components featured at the Pompidou Centre are purely aesthetic and serve little to no structural role – structural expressionism usually adheres to the ‘function over form’ motto of modernism, although it tends to fuse the two together to create a sleek, edgy look born out of the functional core of the structure.

The Pompidou Centre; photo courtesy of Konrad Glogowski

In the more recent past, structural expressionism has found a niche in large commercial structures, mostly due to the technology that spawned its development. The ability to provide larger internal floor spaces with fewer internal columns and external services, combined with the sleek geometric patterns in the exterior created by the structural elements, usually in chrome, black or glass, has been favoured by large corporations looking to own a statement piece of architecture to house their head offices. The use of a skeleton pipe steel structure also allows for a very tall building to be constructed, meaning that many of today’s skyscrapers incorporate structural expressionism into their design, showcasing the technology that allows them to exist. The school of thought that developed as a wild-child, rebellious reaction to stagnating traditional forms of architecture has now been embraced by internal corporations, and many of today’s large cities have numerous examples of structural expressionism gracing their skylines.

John Hancock Centre, Chicago; photo courtesy of Scott Jungling

STRUCTURAL EXPRESSIONISM IN PRACTICE

Structural expressionism is today a very popular style, and is used widely across an international market. Simple and sleek, it has become the de rigueur style for large corporation headquarters, and has irreversibly shaped the international skyline. The most iconic example in London is the Lloyd’s Building, home to the insurance company Lloyd’s of London and situated in the heart of the City. The Lloyd’s Building, sometimes called The Inside-Out Building, is another Richard Rogers project that harnesses high-tech architecture to create an iconic structure. Opened in 1986, the Lloyd’s Building was highly rebellious in its attitude towards commercial architecture – much like the Pompidou Centre, all of the services of the three towers are external, including twelve glass lifts that were the first of their kind in the UK. This allows the services to be easily replaced as they wear out, leaving the essential structure of the building untouched and the interior floor space much larger than if the services were located internally. The presence of the glass lifts also adds movement to the exterior of the building, juxtaposing it with the still, traditional and somehow lifeless buildings surrounding it. The Lloyd’s Building manages to still look futuristic even twenty-five years on, and has been used in a number of films and other art projects, proving its iconic status. Whilst it may not always win people over (critics have been quoted as complaining that it is ‘hideous’ and ‘like going to work in a factory’), it was the project that Richard Rogers has credited as saving his career as an architect – and that has to be a great thing for British architecture.

The Lloyd’s Building; photo courtesy of Richard Tucker

In more modern times, structural expressionist design has defied the blocky, square look of early developments, instead embracing the more flowing and organic structures of postmodern design. Examples of this include 30 St Mary Axe (the Gherkin) and London City Hall, both of which are based on abstract skewed-sphere shapes. There is still the heavy emphasis on the structural, however, with glazing and steelwork making up repeating geometric patterns in the external faces of both buildings. Whilst both structures are curved in shape, neither incorporates curved pieces of glass in the designs, choosing instead to make up the external faces from many smaller, flat panes of glass rather than one large, curved panel. This means that the glazing is held in place with steelwork (see left), producing straight geometric lines within curved external faces and creating the skeleton effect that is at the heart of structural expressionism. The triangulated glazing also serves to make the buildings stiffer, meaning that less reinforcement is required to keep the skyscrapers stable. As with all structural expressionist buildings, function becomes the form – the practical engineering elements used become the aesthetics of the building.

National Centre for the Performing Arts, China – photo by Hui Lan

Finally, structural expressionism, despite its rebellious, edgy and industrial roots, can produce structures that are extremely graceful and feel somehow organic and natural. The National Centre for the Performing Arts in China is a 212 metre wide ellipsoid dome of titanium and glass, surrounded by a man-made lake, and could have been a dense, heavy construction that dwarfed everything around it. Instead, it manages to feel somehow light and delicate, with the glass intersection and geometric beams adding just enough diversity in the external face to create interest without becoming overpowering. Despite its futuristic appearance, it is reminiscent of an egg or a seed floating in water, and tiny lights set into the titanium shell light up at night to look like stars. Structural expressionism has indeed come a long way from its roots – or perhaps the rebellious nature of high-tech architecture simply rebelled against itself.