Ch 2: High-Tech Movement
Lecture Three
1. High-tech architecture: attempt to revive the technology spirit of the early modernism
and the ethos of pioneers such as Mies Van Der Rohe. Architecture should express the
technology of the times.
2. Despite the hostile criticism to modernism; it was believed that the basic doctrine of
modernism was right; they had merely become obscured in the hands of the less
talented successors.
3. High-tech as a British phenomenon: as a continuity of industrial mass production &
construction industry; bridges, Crystal palace, railways etc. The contribution of
engineers continue to shape the architecture of the 20 century.
4. Breaking the box and encouraging the free flow of space between inside and outside;
the classic glass curtain wall between columns still effectively kept nature at bay.
However, modernism could be humanized , nature not to be excluded and architecture
could respond to its surroundings sensitivity
5. Norman Foster: inventing new structural systems. How much does your building
weight? The quest for lightness was to be a constant high-tech pre-occupation while
applying the technical advances made in the automobile and aeronautical industries to
the cause of better buildings. Rogers and Foster: low-rise metal box, zip-up house
project in 1968 that facilitate rapid on site construction and a high degree of user
control.
6. Pampidou Centre (1 & 2) in Paris designed in partnership between Richard Rogers and
Renzo Piano in 1971-1977 has a lasting influence over the last 30 years. Revolutionary
concept on systems, prefabrication and articulation of structure. Skin and services
highly visible to public. The very embodiment of the building as machine ideal
embracing the concepts of flexibility and demountability (prefabricated)
7. Harshly criticized as being destructive to the spirit of the best-loved city. Reply: the
architects together with engineers took the best materials available at the time and
stretched them to their physical limits. In the same way: the new Lloyds buildings
designed by Richard Rogers 1978-86. Services and circulation pulled to the perimeter
leaving clear floors inside.
8. The works of Rogers in the second half of the 1990's showed greater environmental
awareness and humanism as in the project of the European Court for Human Rights in
Strasbourg 1995. Site integration to the geometry of the river, nautical silhouette when
seen from the water, high technology and low energy via thermal mass, natural
ventilation.
Ch 2: High-Tech Movement
Lecture Four
9. Foster projects: Willis Faber bdg (1975) in Ipswich was the equivalent of Pompidou
centre. An architecture that is based on reflection and transparency. One building by
day and one by night. The building disappears during the day, assuming the reflection
of the image of the smaller scale buildings across the street. Foster's argument not to
dominate nature, but rather find harmony and a natural way of life. In Sainsbury centre
a hangar like shell, freeing the space and grouping the services within the depth of the
external envelope. Inspired from the suspension bridge. Minimum heat gain and loss
through glazed hangar ends, avoiding heating and cooling in the conventional
mechanical
way. Expression of interaction between architecture, nature and
technology. In the Stansted Airport: search for an archetype of the 20 century as the
railway station of the 19 century.
10. Michael Hopkins a partner in Foster's office: use of tensile structures. Teflon-coated
fabric predominating two projects. It is highly thermally reflective, virtually
incombustible, structurally stable in tension and very clean. It was first used by Owings
and Skidmore &Merrill in Jeddah Airport (1980). Intended as a low cost, durable way
of providing shelter from sun for pilgrims. The same structure used by Richard Horden
for a sailing yacht project like in Derby 1989.
11. With a structure: doing more with less, reducing the amount of materials. However,
Hopkins attempted to combine historic forms with high tech, historicist-high-tech
approach appealing a wide range of clients.
12. Nocholas Grimshaw: moved to a far more organic and biomorphic expression (1 & 2)
of the skin and bones of architecture. Clear articulation of structural forces. Ship-like
form for western Morning News Building.
13. Zoomorphic trend for the Waterloo Intl Terminal in London 1993 exploring the organic
connection between the human skeleton and metal engineering structure.
14. The house like an aircraft or automobile is assembled from finely engineered
prefabricated parts and it could be reproduced at will
15. France had a parallel history of industrial revolution and engineering. Architecture
must harmonise with the methods of its industrial production. Introducing efficiency of
industrial techniques in architecture. Better understanding of materials.
16. Jean Nouvel in the Institut du Monde Arabe, 1987, placed him in the engineering or
high tech- tradition. Using high tech language symbols –bridges-, computer- controlled
solar powered Mushrabiyya. A camera like lenses opening or closing depending on the
intensity of light.
17. Renzo Piano, using the revolutionary ideas of Pompidou centre used in the Kansai
International Airport in Osaka (1 & 2) , Japan 1994. A largest building of the 20
century. With its graceful organic form relying on the repetition and gradual diminution
of the a dinosaur-like skeletal tensile beam assembly along the entire length of the
terminal. Close cooperation between architects and engineers.