Wallace Stevens has his position as a notable poet in the 20th century. The road wasn’t easy for Wallace Stevens. He is an author with many skills. His unique style grabbed the critics’ attention. Some of them liked his style and some others didn’t. Wallace Stevens nearly never changes the themes of his poems. He was a “philosopher of aesthetics” (Poetry Foundation). Throughout his life Wallace Stevens earned many awards for his works.
A Brief Biographical Sketch of Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was born in “Reading, Pennsylvania on October 2, 1879”. He went to Harvard University in 1897 and studied for 3 years but didn’t finish studying. After that, he went to “New York school of law” and studied there until 1903. In 1904, he started to work in local law firms. He stayed working in law firms for three years after that (“Biography”).
Wallace’s beginnings in literature were in the 1910’s. Wallace Stevens needed to wait for eight years to see his first book published. His first book was called “Harmonium”, and it was published in 1923. This book didn’t receive positive reviews from the critiques back then. Stevens stopped writing for several years because of that. He returned to writing with “Ideas of Order” in 1935. His final work was called “The Necessary Angel” in 1951 (“Biography”).
Wallace Stevens died “in Hartford, Connecticut on August 2, 1955″ (Biography”).
Which Literature Genres is Wallace Stevens Famous for?
The main literature genre that Wallace Stevens is famous for is poetry. Nearly all of his works were in the genre of poetry except his last book under the title “The Necessary Angel” in 1951; it was in the genre of prose (Poetry Foundation).
His poems are divided into many subgenres; here are some examples:
Narrative Poetry: From his first book “Harmonium”, the poems “Peter Quince at the Clavier” and “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle” (Poetry Foundation).
Lyric Poetry: From “Harmonium”, the poems “Sunday Morning” and “The Emperor of Ice Cream” (Poetry Foundation).
Epic Poetry: From “Harmonium”, the poem “The Comedian as the Letter C” (Poetry Foundation).
Wallace Stevens’s Style in Writing
Many experts tried to describe Wallace Stevens’s style. Wallace Stevens’s style is a combination of unique elements.
Reuben says that Wallace Stevens’s style is considered “obscure”. The ideas in his poems are not clear. Understanding the poem is the reader’s job. His poems contain a lot of “contradictions”. His style is influenced by his own character which is “like his poetry, enigmatic”. Stevens used literature as a way to express his own thoughts about life. But he showed just a small part of them (Reuben).
Lee M. Jenkins says that Stevens’s “oeuvre is a quasi-spiritual quest for the supreme fiction, for a poetry that “must take the place / Of empty heaven and its hymns” and thus help modern man find meaning in a godless world”.
The Common Themes Often Presented by Wallace Stevens
In his first book, “Harmonium” (1932), Wallace Stevens expresses his atheistic ideas and prefers the ideas of “nature”. “Sunday Morning” is good example. And also he tends to talk about death and immortality. “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle” is an example of that (Poetry Foundation).
In his second book, “The Ideas of Order” (1935), Wallace Steven’s continued mentioning death and praising nature. “Like Decorations in a Nigger Cemetery” is an example. Also, one thing in common between “Harmonium” and “The Ideas of Order” is imagining the surrounding environments as vital elements in the stories (Poetry Foundation).
Wallace Stevens’s most common themes started to appear in his works with the book “Owl’s Clover” in 1936. The themes were: The poet and poetry, and “imagination”. He tried to explain (in his opinion) the role of the poet and in life and understand the reality through imaginations (Poetry Foundation).
In his third book, “The Man with the Blue Guitar” (1937), he continued presenting the themes about poetry and imagination. This book “constituted a breakthrough for Stevens by indicating a new direction: an inexhaustive articulation of the imagination as the supreme perception and of poetry as the supreme fiction” (Poetry Foundation).
In “Parts of a World” (1942), he continued explaining the meaning of poetry. And also he included his atheistic ideas again; he considered art the “new deity”. In “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” (1942), once again the main theme was poetry. And also he recalled the theme of supreme fiction. In “Esthetique du Mal”, Wallace Stevens talked about evil as the main theme. He says that it is “profitable to the imagination”. Finally, in “The Auroras of Autumn” (1950), the theme was poetry and imagination (Poetry Foundation).
A Brief Description of Some of Wallace Steven’s Works
Form his first book ‘Harmonium’ here are a group of poems
Peter Quince at the Clavier
Wallace Stevens talks about a woman who meets some “lustful” old men. Stevens says that the physical beauty of a woman is immortal (Poetry Foundation).
Sunday Morning
This poem is similar to “Peter Quince at the Clavier” in the idea of the immortality of the human body. In this poem, Wallace Stevens shows that he rejects the beliefs of Christianity especially the belief of “spiritual afterlife”. He instead adopts the belief that the human body becomes a part of the earth after death (Poetry Foundation). About that poem, Susan B. Weston says that this poem is a “revelation of a secular religion”. She says that the main theme of this poem is the concept of accepting non-religious beliefs and rejecting Christian beliefs (Poetry Foundation).
Le Monocle de Mon Oncle
A narrative poem. The poet talks about what he likes in a decorated style. The theme of this poem is very optimistic (Poetry Foundation).
Comedian as the Letter C
This poem tells the story of a man called “Crispin”. Crispin travels from place to another. After finishing his long trip he tries to figure out the reason why he was created. Crispin’s character changes throughout the poem. This poem suggests that no one can be a father and a poet at the same time. Crispin was indeed a father. He was confused and started “questioning the validity of creating anything that must, eventually, become separate from him” (Poetry Foundation).
In this poem, Wallace Stevens showed his skills. He used a variety of vocabulary. This poem contains many different feelings. It is a very “complex work” (Poetry Foundation).
Wallace Steven’s second book was called “The Ideas of Order” and it was published in 1935 (Poetry Foundation). Here are some works from that book:
Like Decorations in a Nigger Cemetery
In this poem, Wallace Stevens talks about many things including death. This poem also talks about “the litter that, in Stevens’s opinion, accumulated in blacks’ cemeteries” (Poetry Foundation).
The Idea of Order in Key West
In this poem, Stevens imagines himself walking with his friend on the beach. And suddenly they find a girl. The girl started singing. Her idea of the song came to her after watching the moving water of the sea (Poetry Foundation).
Critical Opinions of Others (Writers and/or Critics) about Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was a hot target for the critics. Jenkins says that many critics were against his writing style in his early years. About that Jenkins says:
Stevens’s extended meditations on poetry and his insistence, in his “endlessly elaborating poem[s] ”, that “the theory / Of poetry is the theory of life”, has made him the critics’ poet. To some a belated Romantic, to others a modernist in the Symbolist tradition, Stevens has been the subject of major studies by the dominant critics of the day (Harold Bloom, Helen Vendler, J. Hillis Miller, Frank Kermode, and Marjorie Perloff have made particularly significant contributions to the extensive secondary literature on Stevens).
One of the negative reviews came from “Percy Hutchinson”. He says that Wallace Stevens’s style doesn’t touch mind or emotions. Hutchinson didn’t like the body of Stevens’s Poetry (Reuben).
After more than 2 decades of writing (although he stopped writing for several years after his first book), a new generation of critics came. This new generation welcomed Stevens’s writings. His works received positive reviews from “New Critics”, “phenomenologists”, “practitioners of hermeneutic criticism” and “New Historicists” (Jenkins).
Harriet Monroe reviewed Wallace Stevens’s “Harmonium”. She says that Stevens’s style is vivid, and he has a good sense of humor in his philosophical view of the facts of life (Poetry Foundation).
Awards Presented to Wallace Stevens
1945, elected to National Institute of Arts and Letters; 1949, awarded Bollingen Prize in Poetry from Yale University; 1951, awarded National Book Award for Poetry, Gold Medal from Poetry Society of America, and honorary degree from Harvard University; 1952, honorary degree from Columbia University; 1955, second National Book Award for Poetry, and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. (Reuben)
Conclusion
Despite his unusual style, Wallace Stevens gained respect and recognition. The rejection of his style was very strong in his early days. But by time, people admire his style very much. The main themes in his works are:
Poetry and imagination.
Immortality and godlessness.
Works Cited
Jenkins, Lee M. “Wallace Stevens.” The Literary Dictionary. Web.
Reuben, Paul P. “Chapter 7: Wallace Stevens.” PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A, Web.
In chapter 3 of A Room of One’s Own, Woolf begins by turning to history in an attempt to find information on the relationship between women and literature, however, she fails and employs fiction to tell her story. The lack of actual historical information is a testament to the treatment accorded to women in the 16th century and this is an element of modernity that Woolf uses; the oppression of women in the Elizabethan age.
Woolf finds very little historical material on the legal rights of women in the said period and despite this, she gives her readers a detailed analysis of the opposing roles to which a woman living in the 16th century encountered, and which have been erased by modernity. She accomplishes this by pooling together the little historical material available and merging it with fictional works. She asserts that chauvinist assumptions would have been internalized, proving that oppression of this form comes from both internal and external factors. Woolf writes “It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare.” (Woolf, chapt. 3).
To illustrate her point on the oppression of women, Woolf uses an imaginary person known as Judith Shakespeare, William Shakespeare’s brother. Judith is as talented, possibly as her brother, but gets very little education. Even though she is her father’s favorite child, her family expects her to follow the conventional culture that leaves her with little space to develop her talent. The quest to follow her passion finally sees her run from home and her attempts to go into acting are met with negativity and scorn. A theater manager takes her in but impregnates her and she eventually kills herself.
Judith Shakespeare’s life is a generalization of the life of a woman with Shakespeare’s ability at the time, these have however changed, thanks to modernity.
Three Pictures and The Fascination of the Pool
Woolf further promotes the theme of modernism in The Three Pictures through the concept that one of the goals of modernism is to open our minds to newer ways of viewing the world. She writes that although we can see pictures from the words that they create, these same pictures can deceive us. She cautions us from the beginning that we are walking on a risky ground for it is unavoidable that we can be ‘quite wrong’ in our interpretation of pictures (Woolf, para. 1). The first picture captivates our mind and generates joyful thoughts, the second, accompanied by an unexplained shriek, interrupts the harmony and compels us to doubt our judgment and we start to question whether the beauty that we seek to take in and comprehend is just superficial. We fool ourselves and believe it is “far more likely that this calm and content and goodwill lay beneath the surface than anything treacherous, sinister” (Woolf, para. 9). Woolf informs us that beauty is not necessarily found in that which looks beautiful.
In The Fascination of the Pool, Woolf expresses the sense of modernity in the same context as stated above, i.e. that of opening our minds to newer ways of viewing the world. She gives us a view of the world further than the pool, the water in the pool represents the mind for it is not an inactive reflector of the world but obtains its identity from the reflecting surface. She writes “Many, many people must have come there alone, from time to time, from age to age, dropping their thoughts into the water, asking it some question, as one did oneself this summer evening.” (Woolf, para. 4). This illustrates the pool as the inheritor of ages of thoughts from many voices which, changed in this pool, function ironically in a realm aspect beyond our understanding.
Conclusion
From Woolf’s works, I learned a couple of fresh ideas of looking at life. For example, from The Three Pictures, we should not give meaning to the things in this world at face value for there is always a hidden, deeper meaning attached that we can only understand once we open up our minds to new ideas.
Works Cited
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt Inc., 1929.
Woolf, Virginia. The Fascination of the Pool. New York: Harcourt Inc., 1985.
Woolf, Virginia. The Three Pictures. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989.
Literacy modernism was adopted in the early 20th century when modernist writers adopted a new form of writing. Unlike in the traditional writings where writers could narrate their messages directly to the readers, modernists brought some sense of self-consciousness and imagery in their writings (Lewis The Cambridge 39).
In the modernism literacy, readers are able to understand and involve their minds throughout the pieces of writing. Essentially, modernists worked from the perspective of earlier writers but they overturned the traditional modes of representing work into some new form of expression.
This paper will give a stringent analysis of the works of three modernist writers, Yeats, Eliot, and Wolf. Essentially, the three writers expressed their form of writing by changing the philosophical, psychological, and social thoughts of the earlier writers.
The Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
The lake Isle of Innisfree is one of Yeats’ most famous poems that earned him a Nobel Prize. In the poem, Yeats describes a small island where one would find peace. The small island is located far away from the busy city where people struggle to earn their living.
The narrator insists that he will arise and go, which is a clear indication that he is fed up with the daily stresses of life (Greenblatt 2391). Yeats applies a change in the philosophical approach to present his modernized poem. Essentially, reality has dawned to the narrator, and he intends to change his locality to an ideal place.
From this point of view, Yeats takes the reader through a powerful imagination of a different kind of life that would prove to be more comfortable than the current lifestyle of the narrator. Yeats brings some self-conscious into the reader’s mind.
The reader is conscious of the fact that whenever people live a life of agony, they tend to have some psychological torture, and thus they have the will to do anything to obtain a new lifestyle that would offer them some happiness.
Yeats’ poem is a clear representation of a drastic change in the psychological, physiological, and social thought in presenting literacy work. While traditional writers would present their work flatly, Yeats achieved modernism by capturing the reader’s minds and taking it through all the proceedings.
Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats
Yeats poem, Sailing to Byzantium, depicts the manner in which time passes and the aged individuals are disregarded in the society. The narrator clearly describes how the young individuals are powerful whereas the old individuals have no place in the country.
In his poem, Yates depicts that the world changes so rapidly, where, the things in the past and the traditional lifestyles become outdated with time. It has dawned to the narrator that there is no place for the old in the country (Greenblatt 2406).
The narrator of the poem encourages the old people to rise up and air their voices so that they cannot be ignored. There is some form of visual imagery to the readers of how the old are dreaming of being reborn as some monument that would be remembered forever.
The reader imagines of how the narrator will sail over the seas into Byzantium where he would transform into a singing bird made of gold. From the poem, it is evident that realism dawns to the people that the evolving world is embracing change, where, the old and their outdated lifestyles would be forgotten forever.
Therefore, the old people are triggered to think of some ways through which their lineage would be remembered forever. Yeats successfully draws the minds of the readers of the reality of the aging population. Indeed, modernism is achieved in his presentation that attains a self-conscious break at the end of the poem.
Traditional and Individual Talent by T.S. Eliot
Eliot’s essay on Traditional and individual Talent explores the works of writers. In actual sense, almost all topics in the world had been explored before, but writers ought to upgrade the old literature to formulate some new work (Greenblatt 2640).
According to Eliot, writers ought to give tribute to the earlier authors who facilitated their literacy works. Although the original writers would have died, their works remain immortal, as readers would find those works worthy to read. In other words, the reality that writers are ignoring the historical backgrounds of their literature work came to Eliot’s attention.
He was psychologically disturbed because of the writers who did not give tribute to the original authors of some piece of writing. Therefore, Eliot insists that contemporary authors should not repeat the ideas in researches that were previously done, and his social thought achieves modernism.
The writers should struggle to come up with some original ideas, but they should not ignore the efforts of previous researchers, and neither should they replicate the works of previous researchers and writers.
Essentially, modernism literacy encourages writers to research about the past literature to form a comparative basis of the contemporary world. Therefore, the efforts of combining tradition and modernity will influence the writer’s perspective and give a great overview of the future.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
Eliot’s poem introduces the readers to a prototypical modern man who is overeducated and silted emotionally. In spite of the eloquent expression, the modern man’s psyche is tortured in the modern city. This is an ironical beginning that would draw the readers’ conscious of why the educated man is silted emotionally (Greenblatt 2612).
In the poem, Prufrock appears to be speaking to a potential lover. However, the overeducated man knows too much such that he hesitates to approach his potential lover. Prufrock comes across a social gathering of women, and through his conscious, his mind conveys to him that the women are commenting about his inadequacies.
J. Alfred Prufrock rebukes himself for having presumed that he would have an emotional interaction with a woman. Eliot is a modernist writer who describes the weakened psychological human state of the twentieth century. This very insinuating scenario would draw the minds of the readers to think of the contemporary world.
After a critical analysis of the house in which the women are gathered, Prufrock notes that the First World War fractured and alienated the world, however, a time will come when people will be able to do many things in the social world.
In the poem, Eliot’s is able to draw the conscious of the readers to imagine of the outlook of the tortured world after the First World War.
To The Light House by Virginia Woolf
In her literacy work, Woolf explores the internal thoughts of two characters, Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey. Mr. Ramsey is an intellect, whereas, Mrs. Ramsey is an emotional woman. The two characters depend on one another, but they are aware of the transient world. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey have the philosophical knowledge that nothing in the world will last forever.
With the awareness of the passage of time, Mrs. Ramsey purposes to live a precious life on earth. In fact, Mr. Ramsey is certain that even the everlasting works of Shakespeare will eventually become void. This fact brings some form of visual imagery to the readers of the reality of transient world.
Ramsey is frustrated by the fact that he will die, and his body will rot. From this point of view, Mr. Ramsey is envious of the geniuses that will live longer than he will, and he is inspired to establish a desirable philosophy.
In his ironical philosophy, Mr. Ramsey argues that an unadorned man has a better position in the world than an immortal writer does. At this point, the reader’s self-conscious is drawn, as one cannot imagine why Mr. Ramsey would envy the lifestyle of the unadorned man.
Woolf uses the Whitehouse as a symbol of the destinations that people are sure of, yet they have to struggle before reaching those destinations. The Whitehouse is a modernist’s representation of some good life. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey are conscious of the passage of time, and they want to make the best of the time they live on earth.
Therefore, as much as there is some light at the end of the tunnel, the readers obtain some conscious that they must use their brains and employ some form of social thought before reaching their desired destinations. Certainly, Woolf achieved the modernist’s level of presenting her work.
Conclusion
From the discussions, it is evident that changes in the philosophical, psychological, and social thought of humankind lead to literacy modernism.
Psychological changes stimulated the mentality of the writers, whereas, philosophical changes stimulated the writers to employ some form of reality and self-conscious instances in their writing (Lewis “Modernist Writing” 697).
Lastly, the thought of a social change influenced the writers to embrace change, and they presented their work in a modernized manner.
Works Cited
Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Anthology English Literature. 9th ed. 2012. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. Print.
Lewis, Pericles. The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
Myth is a fundamental property of human consciousness that ensures its integrity through the integrity of world perception. Each epoch, as well as a personality, lives in the space of its myth because it holds together islands of knowledge and intuitive guesses on the verge of material and spiritual experience. It gives the key to understanding the essence of things and, in relation to literature, the inner world of the writer. Thomas S. Eliot and James Joyce were among the most eminent writers who have incorporated the myth into modernism, adding novelty to this direction. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate how Eliot and Joyce have found a way to overcome the limitations of direct experience and reveal an objective image of reality in modernistic flow.
Primarily, it is vital to characterize modernism because this paper will review how the current presentation of it was affected by Eliot’s style. Modernism is an ideological trend in literature and art of the late 19th and early 20th century, which is characterized by a departure from classical standards, the search for new, radical literary forms, and the creation of an absolutely unique style of writing works. This trend replaced realism and became the predecessor of postmodernism; the final stage of its development dates back to the 30s of the twentieth century.
The main feature of this direction is a complete change in the classical perception of the world picture: the authors are no longer carriers of absolute truth and ready-made concepts but, on the contrary, demonstrate their relativity. The narrative’s linearity disappears, replaced by a chaotic, incomplete, fragmented plot and episodes. They are often presented on behalf of several characters at once, who may have opposite views on the events taking place.
There were not many prominent authors who could combine myth and modernism and adjust these two incompatible phenomena into a masterpiece. Thomas Stearns Eliot, poet, playwright, critic, and cultural critic, was declared a classic during his lifetime and is rightfully recognized as the leading figure of Anglo-American poetry of the XX century. In the work of Thomas Stearns Eliot, the myth is one of the central semantic and structure-forming units. The mythologism of Eliot’s works became a kind of standard for modernist poetry and drama. Eliot’s creative path reflected the search for a “universal point of view” familiar to many early twentieth-century writers.
“The Waste Land” is one of Eliot’s most recognizable poems that vividly incorporates myths. It is unique in content and artistic structure, in an authentic way accumulating feelings of disappointment, awareness of general chaos, and exhaustion of vital resources themselves. The poem is in tune with the attitude of the lost generation, which made Eliot one of his first literary forerunners. However, it should be understood in a broader, metaphysical way as it is about the tragic fate of humanity. There are continuous transformations in the poem, and different people perform at different times and places (Eliot). The changes that various characters of “The Waste Land” continuously undergo emphasize the conventionality of everything that is depicted and, at the same time – the nonsense of being and the immutability of suffering on earth.
The action takes place in England after the First World War. The parts of the poem are incomplete and do not form a unity. The poem is based on the myth of the search for the Holy Grail and the legend of the poor fisherman (Eliot). This is the cup with which Christ walked around his disciples at the Last Supper. The guardians of the Grail cup were virgins, dishonored by King Arthur and his knights, for which divine retribution befell the guilty: the king’s childbearing power left, his land was struck by infertility, and the cup disappeared. The knight who finds the cup and answers the magic questions will save the king from infertility, the country from the curse and return its life-giving power to the earth.
The plot unfolds the theme of futile efforts and senseless human agitation, which equally lead to inexorable death. In associative images, Eliot recreated his ideas about the degradation of modern society, its decline, and its deathly essence (Eliot). What is more, an epigraph is written in which the myth of the Cuman Sibyl is mentioned about how she, wanting to live forever, forgot to ask for unfading youth. Over time, having grown old, Sibyl lived for centuries in the body of an old woman and she had only one desire – to die.
In the first part of the poem, “The Burial of the Deas.”, the theme of death appears. It is prophesied by the clairvoyant Sozostris: “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (Eliot para. 1). In the second part, “A Game of Chess,” the idea sounds that life is like a game – the movement of pieces, changing situations: here, too, the author is talking about death. In the third part, “The Fire Sermon,” bones can be heard rumbling and giggling like a threat. The blind prophetess Tiresias tells about men and women who have not experienced love. The fourth stanza, “Death by Water,” narrates the drowning of Phlebas and Phoenicians. In the fifth part, “What the Thunder Said,” the poet emphasizes the theme of the death of all living things. Thunder rumbles in the arid, rocky desert, but there is no rain, and people are shackled by fear, like shackles (Eliot). The poem ends with the motif of madness and the thrice-repeated Sanskrit word “shantih” (“the world, the highest of all understanding”). It signifies that throughout the text, the spirit of death is present.
Mythologism is inherent in the poem. The author uses myths about the Holy Grail, Adonis, and Osiris. The appeal to the tale is connected with the desire to create a universal being (Eliot). The images of the barren land and the valley of bones become the leading ones. Eliot’s ironic and overcast poems differ in complexity and fragmentary form. The poem is based on the associative connection of different images, motifs, and scenes.
Like James Joyce, the author of Ulysses, which was released almost simultaneously with “The Waste Land,” Eliot based the work on a symbolic and mythological principle, the aphoristic title of the poem emphasizes the importance of an all-pervading image that grows into an symbol of the entire modern civilization. And the poet sees her stricken with an incurable disease. The poem is based on the myth of the Holy Grail – a mystical vessel that saturates people and gives them vital energy.
In the meantime, James Joyce was a pioneer who began to ruin all boundaries and classifications. He was also a harbinger of postmodernism. He, like all postmodernists, was especially fond of playing with text, which is full of games-tricks, evasions, hints-traces, quotes, pastiches, parodies, puns, turning inside out ancient archetypes (Joyce). The author does this by first learning, exploring, and delving into the “ritual” of a “category” and then exploding it from within with a stream of connotative meaning that breaks through signs honed to symbols. Joyce sets some limits and tasks and breaks them with his “textuality, his serious play with letters, words, sentences, concepts, and images (Joyce). For example, jocoserious is a keyword that Joyce repeatedly applied to his own style, in which there is a share of comedy everywhere. Still, serious content lives in any comic hint. He united in the very process of creation, writing his consciousness torn between spiritual and sensual, embodied in the pages of the text “Giacomo Joyce.”
Ulysses by James Joyce consists of 18 episodes, and the content of each episode covers approximately one hour. The plot of the novel tells about one day, June 16, 1904, in the life of an advertising agent, Leopold Bloom, who leaves home in the morning, knowing that a lover should come to his wife, Molly, around four o’clock in the afternoon (Joyce 7). All day long, Bloom, to be more precise – his physical body, does everyday things: eats a lot and expeditiously, works a little, goes to the funeral of an old friend, picks up a letter from a woman with whom he flirts by correspondence (Joyce 10). However, his brain is busy with only one thing: counting down the time to the fateful hour when he becomes a cuckold.
The second storyline is connected with Stephen Dedalus, a young schoolteacher who constantly argues and quarrels with someone for most of the novel. Sometimes, with his neighbor in the Martello Tower, Bull Mulligan, then with the headmaster, he starts talking about Shakespeare and Hamlet in the library, which no one listens to, which makes him extremely angry. These lines intersect in the last three episodes, and they intersect not by chance: Joyce, conceiving the novel, wanted to create a modern “Odyssey” where it would be possible to “see everything in everything”(Joyce). Therefore, Bloom is associated with Odysseus himself, and Stephen is associated with his son Telemachus. Each of them goes a long way, including spiritual, so that the meeting of father and son takes place.
All three main characters of the novel have prototypes of the characters of the Odyssey myth. Joyce considered the Odyssey archetype to be the most rounded image of all world literature. In fact, Odysseus is the first of the ancient heroes whose weapon was not only physical strength but intelligence, cunning, and various skills. Homer’s Odysseus is shown in all the life roles that can fall to the lot of a man – he is a son, husband, lover, father, leader, and beggar, diplomat, and braggart. That is, the fullness of life experience is concentrated in the Odyssey, and Joyce creates such a “universal person” in the image of the main character of the novel – the Irish Jew Leopold Bloom (Joyce). Bloom’s wife Marion, or Molly, is a modern Penelope, and the closest to the author is the young hero of the novel Stephen Dedalus – respectively, a parallel to the son of Odysseus Telemachus.
For James Joyce, the Homeric myth is only a literary form. The entire content of the novel is about a new Odyssey who is afraid and does not want to return home, ironically reinterprets this old myth. According to the poet and literary critic T.S. Eliot, the myth of the Odyssey is needed by the writer in order to give the chaos of modern reality the appearance of order. Nonetheless, behind this appearance lies total skepticism and longing for the golden age of mankind, when people still believed that the world could be explained and ordered.
There is an internal, subconscious, or semi-conscious connection between these images, originating in the psychophysiological substrate of a person. Moreover, this substrate itself is deeply connected with the “cosmic” as a sphere of interpretation of the “psychophysiological” (to the connection of the micro- and macrocosm). Or else, with a different approach, the cosmic has as its substrate psychophysiological data sublimated and illuminated to the level of elements and energies of universal scale and character. In this situation, the reflection in “poetic” texts of the memory of the ancestors, of what was “before birth,” can be perceived as something immediate. They are culture and its meanings; content as a means and method of mapping the world and organizing the source material in such circumstances are irreparably delayed and adjusted only at the end of the chain. Secondarily, it would be forced to master the “natural” in the process of its “cultural” processing, which, however, is conducted in accordance with its own cultural and mythopoetic traditions and skills.
Joyce’s idea in Ulysses is to “see everything in everything.” One ordinary day turns into an epic narrative about the history of the oldest of the European capitals – Dublin, about two races, Irish and Jewish, and at the same time into an image of the entire history of humankind. It becomes a kind of encyclopedia of human knowledge and a synopsis of the history of English literature. Joyce only retains the real certainty of time and space on the narrative’s surface. Since the main action is played out in the minds of the characters, time and space in the novel acquire a universal character. Everything happens simultaneously, and everything penetrates each other. This is why Joyce needs a myth – in the myth, modernists find a fulcrum, a way to resist the torn, fragmented modernity. Myth, as a receptacle of universal properties of human nature, gives integrity to the novel and mythologized becomes a characteristic feature of modernist literature.
In conclusion, the pioneers of myth implementation in modernism were Thomas Stearns Eliot and James Joyce. The former has written a poem “The Waste Land” which symbolizes a dying culture, a state of death-in-life (the predominance of the sensual over the spiritual). The lyrical hero tries in vain to find salvation on three levels: at the level of an individual, at the level of individual social strata, and at the level of the whole society. The barren earth is the inner world of each individual and the state of all mankind. In Ulysses, Joyce took the path of overcoming the traditions of realism and naturalism by decomposing the usual narrative norms and creating a new integrity by referring to an ancient myth. Other founders of modernism have chosen other ways of abandoning tradition.
Works Cited
Eliot, Thomas. The Waste Land and Other Poems. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2021.
Gone are the days when people took any point as being true as was told. Nowadays, people question how a given statement can be true. This is due the fact that people have learnt that under different conditions, even scientifically proven truth can change. People have embraced the idea that nothing is static, not even the truth.
There are many perspectives from which an idea can be looked at. There is a lot of information found nowadays. Technology has also advanced and has led to many discoveries. Due to this, it has come to the knowledge of people that there exist multiple levels of reasoning in any area.
More importantly, is the discovery that there are limits to everything including science inquiry. This wave of post modernism has swept through all areas of humanity including the nursing science. It is important to note that post modernism is both a benefit and a deterrence of nursing as a science.
Post modernism has brought to the view the idea of holistic therapies where people believe that medication has to go beyond diseases. Health should be more of the patient that it is about the disease.
It is the belief of holistic therapies that healing should begin with the individual first setting his or her mind that he or she needs healing. With this in mind, post modernism has helped in fostering the theoretical view of nursing that treatment is within the power of an individual.
Nursing science takes it that nurses are just supposed to give psychological, physical and to some extent spiritual support which will evoke the inner force within the patient.
It is important to note that just like post modernism, nursing science has come to the view that there is some inner force that helps to heal patients. In this regard, post modernism has actually helped nursing.
On the same note, post modernism places a lot of emphasis on the patient and safety. The two are the pillars of nursing. In nursing, the patient is the core and safety of the patient is the main focus. Similarly, post modernism looks at the patient as the epicenter of healthcare.
Consequently, patients have been lately included in the recording of events regarding adverse drugs thus enhancing credibility of the information. Moreover, post modernism has enabled nurses to approach issues objectively knowing that truth is not fixed.
This has helped in solving many problems which were quite different from classical ones. It is important to note that every case in nursing is unique thus no laid down principle or precedence applies. This is the same principle that post modernism brings to the board.
On the other hand, post modernism has also hindered the prospects of nursing. To begin with, the idea that truth can be challenged brings about great problems because people challenge every step the nurses take. Moreover, due to the availability of almost any information on the internet, patients are becoming risk averse.
Patients are unwilling to use various medicines due to the negative information about the medicine. It is important to note that some of the information is actually contradicting and also wrong.
This makes the work of nurses difficult because they have to start by changing the minds of the patients who have very low confidence in nurses.
Post modernism has led to increased cultural interactions which have come with a lot of complications. This has complicated the nursing science which now has to take into consideration the cultural diversity in its approach to healing.
On the same note, holistic approach to healing becomes problematic when diseases involved require express medication. Similarly, healing is not all about some improvable force from inside the patient. It sometimes has to involve immediate and active medication.
Nursing also needs the application of pragmatism. It is important to note that though truth exists in the world, being certain when it is found is difficult. Consequently, pragmatism requires that nurses should constantly be searching for the truth.
Pragmatism has led to a lot of improvements in the nursing sector by leading to new ways of taking care of patients.
Arguably, geriatric nursing has highly benefited from pragmatic approach. To begin with, the idea that there is no perfect way of containing pain that old people go through has led to new improved ways of managing pain.
On the same note, it is important to point that geriatric nursing has been left behind technologically and requires research to come up with quality services to the old. Moreover, the elderly exhibit unique symptoms which are distinct from one another.
Therefore, geriatric nurses especially in home settings have learnt to approach each case objectively leading to discovery of new ways of taking care of various conditions. It is important to note that in home settings, geriatric nurses have minimal access to most hospital equipment.
As a result, pragmatic approach is very crucial since these nurses need to devise methods of handling different and sometimes new conditions.
The term expressionism originated in France in 1901 to describe the paintings of the artists around Henri Matisse. These artists had a unique way of making their work which involved modification of the depictions of nature according to their own subjectivity. The virtual arts had increased the use of abstract characteristics in their creations. Expressionism was introduced to other parts of the world from the year 1911. It was influenced by the German aesthetic philosophy of the late-nineteenth century. Expressionism involves transforming the world according to the inner desires. It is an active and euphoric creation, not just inert reception. (Colquhoun 2007).
Expressionist Architecture
According to Colquhoun, expressionism is a permanent and recurrent occurrence in modern architecture. Adolf Behne was the first person to relate architecture with expressionism. Modern architecture aims at developing structural intensity which is based on expression, dynamics and rhythm. This also includes the use of new materials like steel, glass and concrete. In expressionism there is unsettled tension between the analytical approaches and emotional approaches whereby the attitudes and feelings are projected into technology. (Colquhoun 2007).
Modernism and Modernity
Modernism is a movement in music, literature, drama and visual areas which disallows the use of the old standards of the nature of art. This included how it should be created, used and its meaning. Modernism emphasizes on impressionism and subjectivity in visual arts and writing.
Modernity is a set of political philosophical and ethical ideas which establish the basis of the aesthetic aspect of modernism. It is essentially about rationality and rationalization i.e., creating order from anarchy. The assumption is that the more rationality, the more order there is and the more order in society the better it will function. It is assumed that modern societies try to eliminate anything that is not orderly or that may upset order.
Modernity in architecture and industrial design was in response to the technological and societal changes. The new machines forced the architects to think, portray and participate in the world. Many modern architects maintain that they do not follow a specific style in design. Modern design is interested in exploring new material, refusing the historical precedents and simplifying the designs by reducing the ornaments used. (Klages 2007).
Expressionism had been widely rejected in the 1920’s. Lukacs and other Marxist intellectuals had rejected it as dissolute. However various architects and authors continued to support it. Bloch was one the adamant supporters of expressionism and in his view, it was an authentic reaction to the experiences of lack of continuity and disintegration caused by the contemporary condition.
Benjamin was another author who differed with expressionism. His focus was on the exterior and surfaces. His aim was to keep the elements of the old way of doing things and not to give room for the radical new way of living. He rejected anything that was based on a close relationship between the interior and exterior. He gave precedence to destruction, montage and allegory. He rejected creativity, security and warmth as he interpreted this to be elements that represented false humanism.
Bloch on the other hand pointed out that what expressionism does is to point to the cracks in the wall so as to expose the void. It is opposition to capitalism, a type of criticism which is no longer existence in the New Objectivity. Although it is true that expressionism is decadent, it should not be rejected. Bloch sees imagination and creativity as important qualities. Security and warmth are important qualities for him. He finds the capitalist way as being hollow and whose surfaces hide an inner void. (Heynen 2000).
Montage is a technique used by the expressionists. They use it so as to back up their personal intent with parts drawn from reality. Montage gives room for one to turn the old system into an advantage, separating of the best parts and using them. In this way, the old methods are transformed into elements that are good for putting in place a new way of life. (Banham 1980).
Expressionist architecture is a reemergence of Romantic attitudes to design which are also a part of architectural designs. This method of design is superior to the traditional techniques. However expressionism has received much criticism from various quarters. It was seen as an acceptable method in the 1920s. Irregardless of the disproval many architects and industrial designers use expressionism to come up with the structures that not only are in conformity with the appropriate guidelines but are also in line with their personal tastes and desires. It allows a person to create from his heart and come up with something truly beautiful.
References
Banham R 1980, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age, MIT Press, London.
Colquhoun A 2002, Modern Architecture, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Heynen H 2000, Architecture and Modernity, MIT Press, Cambridge.
Klages M 2007, Literary Theory: A Guide for the perplexed, Continuum Press, 2008. Web.
Modernism is considered as a socially oriented type of artistic movement that is better revealed through manifestation of the industrialized era of the twentieth century. Modernism also deviates from the excessiveness of the Victorian style and resorts to propaganda of social and cultural reconstruction. It is generally acknowledged and formally founded in Europe with the emergence of the Bauhaus school in Germany that gave rise to the creative work of such famous modernists as Walter, Miles van de Rohe, and le Corbuser. Finally, it is worth mentioning that Frank Lloyd Wright, the American modernist, was highly inspired by overt living spaces of Japanese dwellings and had an enormous impact on the next generation of architects, which inherited his desire to play with spaces.
Modernism and industrialization in Europe
The term modernism has always been considered as the most disputable and the most confusing one in various spheres of art. Hence, modernism in architecture is aimed at describing an artistic approach of functional and rational analyses, which is found in the Bauhaus projects of Germany (Hollub 2003:277). This term is often defined as an intermediary between the traditionalism, the predecessor of this style, and post-modernism succeeding it. Either in music or in painting, modernism is usually defined as deviation from social reality. Modernism rejects classical forms thus referring to the fragmentary world where all forms and sounds are subjected to experimentation. This style also emerges as an outcome of the social and economical situation in the world between the two Wars.
Generally speaking, the term modern denotes and identifies things that can refer to nothing but original. Arising from this, it is reasonable to assume that modernity is a more common phenomenon which can be applied to any displays of modern tendencies (Pile 2005:273). The following term had already existed in the classical and medieval era serving to distinguish the new from the old (Hollub 2003:278). Modernity, therefore, is a complex combination of science, morality, and creativity irrespective of time spans.
Comparing these two terms – modernism and modernity – it should be stressed that modernism is an aesthetic display of modernity, it one angle that determines the art as a integrity of the views. Hence, modernism mostly relates to the artistic movements within certain spheres of art, like music, dance, painting, and architecture (Hollub 2003:280).
The advent of modernity, or the division of human activities according to the modern waves invading different spheres of life can be perceived as the process of modernization, which is a kind of stage and brunch development of the most influential modern tendency (Hollub 2003:283). This process touched the social situation in Australia thus discovering another dimension of development, both political and cultural. Australia has always been considered as a modernist society being especially relevant when applying this term to the process of urbanization and industrialization of Australian cities (Eysteinsson 2002:769). This state was indulged in this stream from the very beginning where society and artistic movements manifested the cultural and social conformity in the modernistic context. Additionally, modernism in Australia results in the empire policy of industrialization thus recognizing relations between the colonial past and the modernistic movement. Therefore, modernism is perceived as “a metropolitan imposition and cultural domination by the colonizers” or “collective resistance of the colonized, anti-colonial insurgency at the level of culture” (Eysteinsson 2002:769).
Australian architectures
In the modern era, the rise of building in Australia was largely predetermined by economical and social issues. In particular, the period of World War I was an active session of building implying the use of vital and vigorous styles. The large-scale building also touched the capital of Australia where one could perceive the prevalence of the Federation style (MacMahon 19). The brightest examples of architecture were marked by the bravery of forms and constructions, unconventional techniques and vigorous colors. The most famous architects of this time- Burley and Marion Griffin, Harry Seidler, Robin Boyd, and Hardy Wilson- greatly contributed to the development of the art of construction in the era of urbanization. A closer consideration deserves the houses of Castlecrag where Burley and Marion Griffin managed to combine the purity of modernism strokes with the
Meller House at Castlecrag 1
Simplicity of natural landscapes
Another wave of modernism originated from English emigrants, the main representative of which is Leslie Wilkinson. His style was narrowed to the building of beautiful and freestanding houses constructed on small blocks of land with the combination of natural features of the view.
Eryldene is the masterpiece created by Hardy Wilson where he managed to present the return to simple forms as the underpinning of modern architecture. One can also view the traditional undertones of this construction; at the same time, it is possible to notice the modernist strokes of the surrounding flora (Macmahon, 2001:21).
Perhaps, the most influential figures of the modernist movement in Australia in the 30s of the twentieth century were Harry Siedler and Robin Boyd. Both architects developed their own direction in constructions and at the same time they were striving to break the conventional vies building design (Day 2004:n.pag).
Robin Boyd
Robin Boyd, the supporter of free and unlimited spaces, introduced domesticity to the architecture. He also belonged to the family of famous architects, potters, and writers. Being the brightest representative of the modernist movement, his creative works were directed at fighting against conservatism. In general, the architect saw the houses as mere containers that can be filled with spaced of divergent forms. The main merits of Boyd lied in the introduction of innovative look at the forms like diagonal bracing windows, domestic curtain walls, and spiral constructions. His geometry of spaces greatly influenced the current image of Australian cities (Day 2004:n.pag). Especial consideration deserves the Featherston House erected in 1967, which presents a huge container with the enclosed garden. The entire house is a bid space crammed with unusual details and encountering spaces. Here the living, dining, and bedroom areas are supported on four open platforms hung within the space. The transparency of ceiling allows to softly illuminate the enclosed garden thus forming the entity with the outside nature. In a whole, the Featherstone house is an outright example of the domestic design that expresses Boyd’s vision of houses as a multidimensional interpretation of distorted spaces (Featherston House 2008).
It should be stressed that Boyd’s constructions, on the one hand, have a simple outer structure thus serving as a protest of conventional images of building techniques. On the other hand, the interior sophisticated forms also manifest Boyd’s reluctance to follow the traditions of closed spaces. In addition, Boyd strived to preserve a tangible connection between the building environment and natural landscape and to create the design that would mirror the lifestyles of modernist society. His architectures also managed to encompass and to develop the sense of identity among Australian modernists.
Like Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler was devoted to the design of domestic interiors. The horizontal configuration with sleeping areas located in one dimension was the main feature of Seidler’s dwellings before 1970. Later constructions proclaimed the prevalence of the vertical dimensions introduced into interior design of the houses (Siedler and Abel vol. 2:2003:6). Seidler’s works are not reduced to boring and monotonous forms and colors, as asymmetry and rejection of repetitive forms serves as the basis of his building projects. The urban character and geometric forms discloses the architect’s aspiration to preserve the modernistic spirit of his works. What is more, Seidler succeeds in combining the openness of modern elements with the suppleness of reinforced concrete structures in order to reveal an expressionist vision on the building form (Seidler and Dobney:1997).
On of his earliest works where the architect demonstrated technical prowess was the Rose House constructed in 1952. For this building, Seidler worked out the footbridge that connected two elements of the entire scheme. The Rose House encompasses the usage of diverse materials, including the timber floors, the roof supported by a steel structure, and glass war covering the space from floor to ceiling that gives an impression of unlimited space (Seidler and Abel vol. 1:2003:7). In general, the most part of Seidler’s dwellings were erected entirely from the ground, which were supported by columns. Such floating constructions perfectly suited the climate rural Australia so that it is not vain that the architect’s building preferences spread over the country sites.
The above shows that both architects put their emphasis on the suburban areas due to the rapidly growing population of Australia. These two creative personalities changed the people’s outlooks on architecture, which was based on the implementation of geometries becoming more flexible and fluid, and sensual forms introducing the harmonious perception of different dimensions of the building. Further, both architects attempted to link the natural subtle forms and rough materials applied in the house; moreover, there observe a close integration of the artificial materials and the enclosing natural landscapes. The play of spaces was revealed through considering the house as the entire vacuum with inserted vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and even spiral spaces.
Conclusion
Analyzing the modernist architecture in economical and social terms of this period, it is worth mentioning that Boyd and Seidler’s works also bear a practical character, their work was also aimed at creating a dream of a house for Australian people living in the time of social realism. Therefore their creative activities reflect the main characteristics of Australian cities but with adding the elements that shaped the sense of Australian identity. The social and cultural integrity was especially seen in the Boyd’s dwelling that resembled containers where space was not separated by the walls. Instead, the structures represented different dimensions of social minds that mirrored the rise of protest against conservatism and established orders. In a whole, modernism in Australia witnessed the most significant spread of modernist spirits dictating the integration policy in terms of culture and economical development of the country.
Bibliography
Day, N 2004, ‘Robin Boyd, at home’, theage.com.au, Web.
Eysteinsson, A, and Liska, V 2007, Modernism, volume2, John Benjamins Publishing Company, the Netherlands.
‘Featherston House’ 2008, RAIA Victoria – Significant 20th Century Architecture, Web.
Holub, R 2003, ‘Modernism, Modernity, and Modernization’, The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Twentieth-century historical, philosophical and psychological perspectives, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom.
McMahon, B 2001, The architecture of East Australia: an architectural history in 432 individual presentations. Edition Axel Menges, London.
Pile, F 2005, ‘A History of Interior Design’, Laurence King Publishing.
Seidler, H, and Abel, 2003, Houses and interiors, volume 1, Images Publishing, Australia.
Seidler, H, and Abel, 2003, Houses and interiors, volume 2, Images Publishing, Australia.
Seidler, H, and Dobney, S 1997 Harry Seidler: selected and current works. Images Publishing, Australia.
By founding his Modernist approach on the pillars of Neoclassicism, Gio Ponti managed to embrace the specifics of the urban environment to create the solutions that made the form serve the function, as his “Bottle with Stopper” proves (Castanò and Mingione 3).
Topic 1: Merging Neoclassicism and Modernism
“Bottle with Stopper” that Gio Ponti created is defined by a unique, inimitable style by combining an insightful transformation of the Neoclassical approach to shape and the addition of utility to it. As a result, the transition to Modernism was evident in “Bottle with Stopper,” which can be seen when analyzing the urbanistic design choices used to emphasize its inherent purpose and use (Dellapiana 26).
Topic 2: Form and Function
Like every art piece created by Ponti, from his architecture masterpieces to the elements of furnishing, “Bottle with Stopper” challenges the traditional approach toward designing to increase the usability of objects and at the same time add a personality to them (Crespi 41). The solutions that it is emblematic of are minimalistic yet robust in their implicit meaning, further exploring the relationship between form and function in art.
Works Cited
Castanò, Francesca, and Giangaspare Mingione. “The Space Narrated. The Stained Glass Windows of Pietro Chiesa in the Early Twentieth Century.” Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Proceedings, vol. 1. no. 9, 2017, pp. 1-9.
Crespi, Luciano. “Design Strategies as Paradigms.” Design Innovations for Contemporary Interiors and Civic Art. IGI Global, vol. 1, no. 1, 2017, pp. 26-64.
Dellapiana, Elena. “Italy Creates. Gio Ponti, America and the Shaping of the Italian Design Image.” Res Mobilis: Revista Internacional de Investigación en Mobiliario y Objetos Decorativos, vol. 7, no. 8, 2018, pp. 19-48.
The architecture of California was highly advanced because of the social and political revolutions coupled with the rise of technological and engineering developments. The characteristics of this modern culture were among others; machine drawn creative designs, an expressed structure adoption, the elimination of unnecessary details, emphasis on functional aspects in which horizontal and vertical lines were being accentuated. Different styles adapted in Mississippi included the Beaux arts style which is still being used in designing public buildings like museums and the colonial revival style popularly used for houses and government buildings (Rifkind 250).
Architectural modernism in California, as written by Hines, had an effect to liven up and urbanize the surrounding environment. The inhabitants of California saw the need to change the building designs both at work and home to meet their religious and economic needs. This as well served as an opportunity for confronting and enjoying life. On the other hand modern architecture has offered much delight by emphasizing light-shadow patterns and having a variety of shapes for every new building. Structural foundation and support beams are also popular. These buildings are able to withstand earthquakes of some higher magnitudes and in the process, people feel relatively safe unlike in the past (Baker 94).
The culture of Modernism that swept the United States in the 20th century saw the construction of a skyscraper after another one. This enabled industries to accommodate their staff under one roof. This led to the maximization of productivity since all the processes and transactions would be handled within a centralized place. This also made the country’s economy expand and grow because many kinds of businesses operate in a single building as well as employ many people. The possibility of altering the appearance, partitioning, minimizing maintenance, and making extensions are some of the other advantages.
Since the 20th century, architecture in the USA has led to the development of modern homes which has attracted investment in real estate by international and local investors who come from different parts of the country. This has also enabled people to acquire modest, affordable homes which are safe and secure. The main security feature is the inclusion of the basement (Baker 94).
About structural construction, there is a desire to adopt the most rational form possible. The engineering aspect of construction has made creative use of materials and rapidly evolving techniques. The United States adopted organic architecture which was primarily developed as a response to rationalism. This has fostered an ornamental use of creative style (Baker 94).
This has enabled cities to function more efficiently and meet the needs of the masses. Art has proved capable of improving and progressing aesthetics. The buildings’ feel and touch have a view that looks like a painting that strikes off imagination and sensuality. Architects are now able to formulate new ideas for housing, block apartments, and individual family homes (Rifkind 250).
In all these cases of architecture, space is limited hence buildings have to extend upwards rather than sideways. The designs are bold, simple, and serve practical purposes. Architecture in California affected the modernism of the United States in the 20th century because the basic principles behind most buildings were to maximize space while offering an opportunity for multipurpose utilization and expansion.
Works Cited
Baker, John Milnes. American House Styles. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002. Pp 94.
Rifkind, Carole. A Field Guide to Contemporary American Architecture. New York: Dutton, 1998. Pp. 250.
The notion of sustainability became widely popular during the last two decades. In a general sense, sustainability is about confirming that the quality of human life and the surrounding eco-systems will not be reduced in the short and the long terms, making sure that the capacity of the environment will not be exceeded without affecting the main human activities. Sustainability in such context is about finding ways to improve the efficiency of all human processes, e.g. ecological, economical and social, so that the environment will be preserved for the future. Thus, sustainability can be explained through different perspectives and contexts, one of which is architecture. In the context of architecture, sustainability can be seen through the way sustainable principles in building can be applied. Such ways include such aspects as new forms of contracts and declarations of intent and adopting environmental measures “via standards, regulations or financial incentives”.1 Although sustainability in architecture gained popularity in the recent two decades, the awareness of many sustainability aspects was reached many decades earlier.
Certain aspects of sustainability can be seen through modernism and modernist architecture in the 20th century. In terms of architecture, modernism can be seen as a movement that revolves around the work of architects from the early to the middle 20th century. As bound in the same term of modernism, modernism in architecture can be seen as the creation of something new in buildings’ design, planning, materials, and technological know how, which would be different from previous creations. There is a lot in common between sustainable and modernist architecture in terms of foundation, inspiration, and to some extent ideology. 2 The correspondence of both movements can be seen through the views of many famous architects and designers. Buckminster Fuller, a “renowned 20th century inventor and visionary”, believed that modernism would harness technology to improve the lives of the average family, an aspect that can be seen applicable to the case of sustainable architecture and falling within its goals as well.3 Kevin Pratt, an architect from New York, was more specific in pointing out the similarities between modernist and sustainable architecture, stating that, “[g]reen design… shares with the modernist project the righteousness of a cause, [and]improving the world through reform of its material culture.4
In the light of the aforementioned, the present research argues that even prior to the wide formulation of the principles of sustainability in architecture many of those same principles were implemented previously in the works of many modernist architects. Thus, this paper will provide an analysis of several modernity architects, outlining the main elements of sustainability that can be found in their works.
Sustainable Architecture in the 20th Century
Adolf Loos
The first architect of the 20th century, whose work contains elements of sustainable architecture, is Adolf Loose. Adolf Franz Karl Viktor Maria Loos, born on December, 1870, was an Austrian architect whose work was one of the prominent examples of modern architecture.5 Being recognized for his writing even more than for his buildings, Loos was celebrated as a “pioneer of modern architecture”.6 Additionally, Loos was among the first European architects who criticized European architecture, in favor for the American one. Expressing views on modernity Loos viewed it, as the actuality of tradition.7 Analyzing his views on the ways houses interacts with its surroundings; Loos stated that the appearance of the house should not be obtrusive, where it should fit in with its surroundings and continue the traditions of the city where it is built.8 Among the works of Loos, that fits the context of this paper and which at the same time can be considered his master piece is Villa Muller (1930).
Villa Muller (1930)9.
One of the first factors that should be mentioned regarding the villa is its relation to the economic perspective of economic sustainability. The economic perspective can be seen as one of three elements that form the general concept of sustainability. As stated previously, the main aim of such sustainability can be seen in making sure that the quality of life will not be reduced (see Fig.1).
Figure 1 –Economy as an Essential Aspect of Sustainability.
The design of the house makes an emphasis on economy and functionality. Making use of the spaces, the design in Muller Villa was used in the subsequent designs for social housing.10 The relationship between economic sustainability and Loos’ design can be seen in that economic sustainability can be seen through the economic side of modernism. As noted by Manfredo Tafuri, cited in Hilde (1999), “the course of modern architecture cannot be understood independently of the economic infrastructure of capitalism… [where] the process of modernization as a social development that is characterized by an ever-expanding rationalization and a more and more far-reaching activity of planning”.11 Walter Benjamin, on the other hand, focused on the change of experience, as an essential aspect of modernity. Linking both concepts together, it can be stated that Loos attempted to achieve both in Villa Muller. The rationalization can be seen through the practicality in integrating different spaces with different heights and levels. The height, or the space devoted to each room in the house is based on its function, and accordingly, its symbolic meaning. 12 Similarly, the same can be said about the sizes of the windows in the villa, where it can be assumed that the variations in their size also connected to the purpose of the room it illuminates and its symbolic meaning.
The spaces in Villa Muller 13.The variations in Windows Sizes 14.
The characteristic elements of the building, other than the usage of space, can be seen through lighting, the entrance to the house, flat roofs, and the link between the building and the ground. For example, flat roof can be seen as a utilization of an additional space in the house, which can be connected to the issue of practicality and rationality, outlining the inseparability of the economic context from architecture.
Rudolph Schindler
Rudolph Schindler can be also considered among the architects connected to modernist architecture. Born in Vienna in 1887, in which he studied and graduated from the Royal Technical Institute and the Academy of Art. Schindler relocated to Los Angeles in 1914, where the majority of his most important works were built.15 The main focus of Schindler was on the way “design could free modern existence, bringing the outside in, and helping to improve the mind”.16
In order to analyze elements of sustainable architecture, one of the most important buildings of the modern movement in the United States that were designed by Rudolph Schindler will be analyzed. The building in question is Schindler’s Lovell beach house (1922-1926), which is often compared with the Bauhaus Building of Walter Groupius at Dessau (1925-1926).17
Schindler’s Lovell beach house (1922-1926)18.
The design of the house can be seen through the ideology behind its concept, which was a personal setting for a way of life based on a profound respect for sport, health, and nature. 19 Describing the house, it was exemplary of Schindler’s idea of space architecture. Three elevations are present in the house, the entrance elevation (street elevation), facing north, the west elevation (the ocean elevation), and the south elevation. The house also contained huge windows, which corresponded to the double storey living rooms. In terms of materials, it can be stated that the house was mostly built from concrete and wood, where wood joints laid “crosswise between concrete frames to support the floors”.20 The frames of the house were also from concrete, with the inside framer receiving architectural coating, while the external frame remaining pure concrete. In order to analyze the elements of the house, Schindler’s articles might be used as they demonstrate his main ideas regarding “space architecture”. The main elements that can be paralleled to sustainable architecture are related to the question of the relationship between a good physical environment and a healthy life, which can be seen through the following:
The nature of the house as a weekend house, escaping the unhealthy cities to a place closer to the nature.
Close contact with the sun, soil, and sky.21
“The distinction between the indoors and the out-of-doors will disappear… rooms will become part of an organic unit, instead of being small separate boxes with peepholes”.22
It can be stated that the connection to the nature as one of the concepts behind the house’s ideology is a factor supporting environmental sustainability in architecture. In this context, it can be stated that improving human well-being can be seen as the main purpose in such perspective, connecting people and the surrounding environment. The cooperation between Schindler and Lovell can be seen as the introduction of the concept of healthy living; “Philip Lovell was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, his column, Care and Health of the Body, promoted the idea that the house must encourage and enable healthful living”. 23 Additionally, it can be stated that the concept of a beach house is more related to dwelling. Despite being a modernist example of building, Lovell beach house in particular and beach houses in general can be seen exemplary of the dwelling concept introduced by Heidegger. Dwelling, as defined by Heidegger, is “a way of being that has to do with a cautious and guarded attitude… [where] the main feature of dwelling is to preserve and care for, to allow things to exist in their essence”24 Such aspect can be evident in many issues, where on the one hand, the location of building and its placement is crucial in that matter, an issue that can be evident through the placement of the elevations in the house. On the other hand, the connection of the place to its surrounding is very important, where “dwelling is in the first instance associated with tradition, security, and harmony, with a life situation that guarantees connectedness and meaningfulness”.25
The Four Elevations of the Beach House26.
The Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building
A distinctive example of sustainable architecture evident in modernist architecture can be seen through courtyard buildings. Not attributed to a specific architect, it can be stated that such buildings contained, namely those built in the early 20th century, contained many elements of sustainability which were emphasized later. One example of courtyard buildings can be seen through the Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building. The concepts contained in such buildings can be seen through the works of many architects, where as an example the building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright are considered as forerunners to the courtyard type in Chicago.27 Those buildings were built in early 20th century, between 1902 and 1930. The characterization of such buildings can be seen in primarily low height and open court, which extends into “the block perpendicular to the street”.28
Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building 29.
It can be seen that the present example of modernist architecture contain s all three elements of sustainability in its design, i.e. social, environmental, and economic. In a modernist context, the main goal of the innovations introduced in the design can be seen through the intention of improving the well-being of the masses, where a defining characteristic of modernism, as argued by scholars, was “the modernism’s predisposition toward socially responsible architecture able to “raise the living conditions of the masses”.30 The sustainability part was in make these living conditions:
Economically feasible (Economic sustainability)
Not harmful to the environment (Environmental sustainability).
Accessible and with a defined cultural identity (Social sustainability).
Taking the environmental sustainability perspective, the main elements that can be outlined in such buildings can be seen through lighting and ventilation, where the standards set early in the last century can be seen as precedents for sustainable development in our time. Currently, the development of new technologies in the area of air conditioning made it possible for home owners to realize artificial climate inside the house, regardless of the local climate or season. However, early in the last century, the multi-housing units built, such as the example of the Chicago courtyard apartments, relied on passive ventilation to achieve the same results. “As air-conditioning made it possible to ignore passive ventilation and lighting strategies, building footprints became wider and larger and the potential for passive ventilation and lighting was compromised or lost”.31The design of the buildings followed the 1902 Tenement House Ordinance who dictated several requirements regarding lighting and conditioning. Such requirements dictated the design of windows in a way that facilitated passive ventilation and lighting. Additionally, there was the requirement of an exterior window, which combined with the building’s configuration width facilitated cross-ventilation. Other features specific to the courtyard buildings built in Chicago, as compared to those built in New York at that time can be seen through the apartments planning module. Such module featured “multiple pairs of vertical stair halls”, in contrast to “a single double loaded corridor”.32 Such module was better for the cross ventilation of the building.
Multiple Vertical Stair Halls33.
All of the latter contribute to the preservation of energy concept, which in the long term can be seen as a substantial factor in protecting the environment. At the same time using passive methods which are mainly achieved through architectural design elements is a major factor contributing to the economic sustainability factor. Accordingly, the economic feasibility as well as the design of the apartment can be seen as a contributing factor to that the apartments were socially sustainable. The differentiation between the number of flats and building in a module like structure can be a contributing factor to the social sustainability element in such architectural example. In that regard, it can be stated that buildings developed in the style of modernist architecture contained many of the elements of sustainability which became popular in recent decades. In this example in particular, it can be stated that the approach followed early in the 20th century is even more efficient in term so utilizing ventilation, solely relying on architectural solutions, rather than new technologies in maintaining the buildings’ climate.
Frank Lloyd Wright
The connection between modernism and sustainability in architecture cannot be more obvious that in the in the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. Born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, on June 8, 1867, Wright is considered as one of the greatest modernist architects. 34 Analyzing modernity, Wright viewed the artist in modernity, as having the responsibility not only to comprehend the spirit of his age, but also “initiate the process of changing it.35 Wright pioneered organic architecture, which is now considered as the foundation of the modern green movement. The latter in turn can be seen as one of the pillars of sustainability and sustainable development. Wright, as far back as 1920, was already advocating for the extension of buildings from their environment, which also was far before the sustainability movement began. In that regard, it can be stated that the most famous and at the same time one of the most exemplary buildings of Wright’s ideas is the 1956 Price Tower, Oklahoma. The building was one of a group of buildings designed by Wright that was selected by the American Institute of Architects and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Price Tower, Oklahoma36.
The tower can be seen as one of the first buildings that can be truly called skyscrapers. Built for 1952 to 1956, the tower was designed as a vertical multifamily housing. The tower was built using vertical reinforced concrete with cantilevered floors, and consists from nineteen storeys. The themes that were implemented in this tower and which now can be classified as sustainable can be seen through the following:
Controlling solar gain and light through external louvers.
Implementing opaque façade, as opposed to glass curtain walls, which reduced solar gains.
Implementing mixed use functions, i.e. office and residential zones. 37
It can be seen that the outlined themes can be divided between environmental sustainability on the one hand, through reducing and controlling solar gain as well as preserving land use, and social aspects of sustainability on the other hand, which can be seen through the mixed functions of the buildings.
Horizontal utilization of Space in Price Tower38.
Being designed prior to the explosive growth of population which was seen in the following years, the ideas presented in the tower were representative of Wright’s vision of the future. The social sustainability aspect can be emphasized in this context, especially considering the novelty of such design. At the same time, the arguments against tall buildings imply anti-social aspect, where such building usually lack open recreational spaces. Nevertheless, it can be stated that the social sustainability element is still present, where the combination of business and residential areas combines both the innovative approaches characteristic of modernist architecture, and the social approach through being more affordable to larger population, and thus, improving their working conditions.
At the same time, the introduction of apartments similar to each other, an aspect characteristic of residential tall buildings can be seen as a representation of the classless society of Walter Benjamin. Not only his representation of modernity as a steel and glass architecture is applicable, but also his views on the way a classless society might be represented through architecture. “A genuinely classless society in which collectivity reigns instead of individuality, privacy becomes an out-of-date virtue that in no way should survive revolution”.39 In buildings of such scale, where apartments are stacked close to each other, it can be seen that such representation is close to Benjamin’s view. In one aspect, the economic feasibility of the business area might be lacking, where it was found that it is not feasible for a businesses to share their office areas with residential parts. Nevertheless, it can be stated that the other elements compensate such factor, making the building nevertheless an example of sustainability.
Another famous example of the works of Wright which are related to sustainability can be seen through the concept of prairie house which Wright designed. An examination of the prairie houses which Wright designed during the period 1900-1910 revealed many innovative environmental concepts, which might have been overlooked at the time. However, the perspective of sustainability allows looking at these concepts as innovative environmental system. A building which can be considered as the finest example of Wright’s prairie houses is Frederic C. Robie House in Chicago, which was built in 1909.
Robie House in Chicago (1909)40.
The house carries most characteristics that Wright gave for such style in houses such as the free-floating roofs, endless ribbons of windows, horizontal lines, open interior spaces, and assembly out of giant blocks.4142 The only unique characteristic, by which the house is distinguished, is the cantilevered roof which extends twenty feet beyond the last support. 43 The elements of sustainability that can be seen in this work can be observed through the usage of natural materials, the integration with the landscape, and the creation of environmental systems. The latter can be seen through the design of the heating and the cooling system in the house. Enhancing human comfort in the house was the main objectives that Wright undertake when designing the house. Natural ventilation was implemented in the house through such features as increased window area, open flowing spaces, properly sized overhangs, ceiling plenum ventilation and building orientation. 44
The heating was achieved through incorporating a fireplace. In general, it is argued that such system, being superior to the comfort requirement of the time, is still relevant at the present time, needing little modifications that can be implemented without a great deal of conflict.45 It can be seen that the main aspect in sustainability is environmental, where maintaining a comfortable micro-climate in the house conforms to the goal of sustaining ecosystem integrity. The use of passive systems of heating and cooling can be seen as substitutes to the role of technology in achieving the same goal. Nevertheless, the solution proposed by Wright can be seen more economically feasible, and thus, integrates an economic perspective in the sustainability elements in the house. It can be added that the element of sustainable architecture implies the inclusion of the aesthetic factor into the design, which in this case can be overlooked by the novelty of Wright’s concept. The aesthetics can be seen through a choice of location and connecting with the nature, which can be seen through a careful placement of trees around the house, all combine to produce an aesthetic effect which in addition to the environmental approach, produce sustainable architectural design.46
Planning the aesthetic aspect of Robie’s house 47.
Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier, born on 6 October 1887 as Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, is considered as the leader of the modernist movement. One of the most influential architects of the 20th century, Le Corbusier’s ideology can be seen through the creation of better living conditions and a better society for people to live in. Taking the modernist approach in general, it can be stated that the ideology behind the work of Le Corbusier was not focused on sustainability as a distinct approach. It was rather an approach of rational minimalism, which is “free form class distinctions”, and employing modern materials and new technologies. 48
However, if analyzing the ideas behind Le Corbusier’s contemporary city, it can be seen that they hold many of the ideas of sustainable development. Such ideas include the ideas of ecological sustainability, through the incorporation of green space, and the incorporation of vertical building which preserved the most unpaved land. 49 Nevertheless, in terms of economical and social sustainability it can be stated that such vision is a bit lacking. Taking a single in particular elements of sustainability can be more evident in that regard. Such elements can be seen through a work such as Villa Savoye, one of the most exemplary works of the theories of Le Corbusier.
Villa Savoye (1929)50.
The elements of sustainability that can be seen in both the Villa and the basic tenets of a new aesthetic of architecture -“The Five Points”, on which the villa was built, include the following:
Preservation of land, through raising the building above the ground, and using the freed space.
Ribbon windows which provide the most light and ventilation to the building.
Flat roof, which providers additional space, and can be used as a garden that bring the landscape into the house (connecting the environment and the house). 51
The environmental aspects, which can b evident through the windows, can be combined to the space utilization evident through the flat roofs. All of the latter can be combined with the aesthetic aspects of the design and demonstrate sustainability elements in the building. The social aspects are less evident through the bui9ldign which nevertheless, do not minimize the overall impact of the architectural design.
Conclusion
The present paper investigated the relationship between sustainable architecture and modernist architecture in the 20th century. The paper attempted to demonstrate that despite being a contemporary notion, sustainable architecture was already evident through the works of modernist architects in the early to middle part of the 20th century. The paper analyzed six works of notable modernist architects such as Adolf Loos, Rudolph Schindler, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier. Analyzing the works of architects such as Loos, Schindler, Wright, and Le Corbusier it can be concluded that pursuing the balance between human and nature they already implemented concepts which are now can be connected to the sustainability movement. Being pursued with different names and for different purposes, sustainability at the time can be seen through improving people’s well-being at the time and increasing their comfort, the connection with the nature aspect might have been pursued for aesthetic purposes. At the present time, though, sustainability is put at the highest priority when designing buildings. The ideas put in the works of Walter Benjamin and Heidegger might have emphasized materials and connection to places and dwelling, their nevertheless, find reflection in the suista9inability elements found in modernist architecture. Thus, it can be concluded that even prior to the wide formulation of the principles of sustainability in architecture many of those same principles were implemented in the works of many modernist architects of the 20th century.
Works Cited
” Internet Homepage of the Müller Villa”. 2010. Internet homepage of the Müller Villa. Web.
A Digital Archive of American Architecture. “20th Century Architecture”. 1998. A Digital Archive of American Architecture, Web.
Carter, Morgan M. “Architecture and Social Change in the Development Era”. n.d. International Sustainable Development. Web.
Connors, Joseph. The Robie House of Frank Lloyd Wright. University of Chicago Press, 1984. Print.
Gissen, David, and National Building Museum (U.S.). Big & Green : Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003. Print.
GNAT, RICHARD. “The Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building: A Sustainable Model Type.” 98th ACSA Annual Meeting. Ed.: Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Print.
GNAT, RICHARD. “Looking Backward in Order to Move Forward ” 2009 Kansas State Sustainability Conference. Ed.: Kansas State University. Print.
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Wiley-Blackwell, 1995. Print.
Heynen, Hilde. Architecture and Modernity : A Critique. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999. Print.
McLennan, Jason F. The Philosophy of Sustainable Design : The Future of Architecture. Kansas City, Mo.: Ecotone, 2004. Print.
Rappaport, Nina. “Sustainability, a Modern Movement.” The Challenge of Change : Dealing with the Legacy of the Modern Movement. Eds. Heuvel, Dirk van den and International Working-Party for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings Sites and Neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2008. xvi, 549 p. Print.
Sarnitz, August E. “Proportion and Beauty-the Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 45.4 (1986): 374-88. Print.
Tournikiotis, Panayotis. Adolf Loos. 1st ed. New York, N.Y.: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994. Print.
Ultimate House. “Villa Savoye – a Machine for Living”. 2007. Ultimate House. Web.
University Art Museum. “Rudolph M. Schindler Collection”. n.d. Architecture & Design Collection. Web.
Vallen, Michael Earl. “Housing… The Hillside Los Angeles, California ” Thesis. Virginia Polytech Institute and State University, 1993. Print.
Wood, Antony. “Green or Grey? The Aesthetics of Tall Building Sustainability”. 2008. CTBUH 8th World Congress. Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Web.
Footnotes
Dominique Gauzin-Müller and Nicolas Favet, Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism : Concepts, Technologies, Examples (Basel ; Boston: Birkhauser, 2002) 16.
Alanna Stang, Christopher Hawthorne and National Building Museum (U.S.), The Green House : New Directions in Sustainable Architecture, 1st ed. (New York Washington, D.C.: Princeton Architectural Press ; National Building Museum, 2005) 13.
About Bucky, 2010, Web.
Stang, Hawthorne and National Building Museum (U.S.), The Green House : New Directions in Sustainable Architecture 13.
Panayotis Tournikiotis, Adolf Loos, 1st ed. (New York, N.Y.: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994) 9.
Hilde Heynen, Architecture and Modernity : A Critique (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1999) 75.
Heynen, Architecture and Modernity : A Critique 78.
Heynen, Architecture and Modernity : A Critique 78-79.
Tournikiotis, Adolf Loos 94.
Internet Homepage of the Müller Villa, 2010, Web.
Heynen, Architecture and Modernity : A Critique 129.
Internet Homepage of the Müller Villa.
Internet Homepage of the Müller Villa.
Galinsky, Villa Muller, 2006, Web.
University Art Museum, Rudolph M. Schindler Collection, n.d., Web.
Nina Rappaport, “Sustainability, a Modern Movement,” The Challenge of Change : Dealing with the Legacy of the Modern Movement, eds. Dirk van den Heuvel and International Working-Party for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings Sites and Neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement. (Amsterdam: IOS Press, 2008) 337.
August E. Sarnitz, “Proportion and Beauty-the Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 45.4 (1986): 374.
A Digital Archive of American Architecture, 20th Century Architecture, 1998, Web.
Sarnitz, “Proportion and Beauty-the Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926.”
Sarnitz, “Proportion and Beauty-the Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926.”
Sarnitz, “Proportion and Beauty-the Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926.”
Sarnitz, “Proportion and Beauty-the Lovell Beach House by Rudolph Michael Schindler, Newport Beach, 1922-1926,” 386.
Michael Earl Vallen, “Housing… The Hillside Los Angeles, California ” Thesis, Virginia Polytech Institute and State University, 1993.
Heynen, Architecture and Modernity : A Critique 15.
Heynen, Architecture and Modernity : A Critique 18.
Vallen, “Housing… The Hillside Los Angeles, California “.
RICHARD GNAT, “The Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building: A Sustainable Model Type,” 98th ACSA Annual Meeting (New Orleans, Louisiana: Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, 2010), vol.
GNAT, “The Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building: A Sustainable Model Type,” vol., 497.
RICHARD GNAT, “Looking Backward in Order to Move Forward ” 2009 Kansas State Sustainability Conference (Kansas: Kansas State University, 2009), vol.
Morgan M. Carter, Architecture and Social Change in the Development Era, n.d., Web.
GNAT, “The Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building: A Sustainable Model Type,” vol., 495.
GNAT, “The Chicago Courtyard Apartment Building: A Sustainable Model Type,” vol.
GNAT, “Looking Backward in Order to Move Forward “, vol.
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Wiley-Blackwell, 1995) 19.
Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change.
Antony Wood, Green or Grey? The Aesthetics of Tall Building Sustainability, 2008, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Web.
Wood, Green or Grey? The Aesthetics of Tall Building Sustainability.
James Polk, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Price Tower, 2009, Web.
Heynen, Architecture and Modernity : A Critique 109.
Jason F. McLennan, The Philosophy of Sustainable Design : The Future of Architecture (Kansas City, Mo.: Ecotone, 2004).
Connors, The Robie House of Frank Lloyd Wright.
David Gissen and National Building Museum (U.S.), Big & Green : Toward Sustainable Architecture in the 21st Century (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003) 116.
Stanford Humanities Lab, Le Corbusier’s Contemporary City, n.d. , Web.
Ultimate House, Villa Savoye – a Machine for Living, 2007, Web.
Ultimate House, Villa Savoye – a Machine for Living.