20th Century Architecture

There are several buildings in The Bronx that were built in the early twentieth century and which now stand as vestiges of an era when the borough served as a center of charitable "homes" that provided refuge and aid to people with special needs.

Izložba Etnografski muzej-palača s potpisom organizira se povodom završetka obnove Etnografskog muzeja kojom je rekonstruirana dekoracija pročelja ove građevine. Jedina u secesijskom stilu namjenski podignuta muzejska zgrada u Hrvatskoj time je dobila izgled koji joj je podario njezin arhitekt Vjekoslav Bastl početkom 20. stoljeća. Cilj je ove izložbe prikazati, s jedne strane, povijest izgradnje zgrade koja je prvotno udomljavala Trgovačko-obrtnički muzej, a s druge njezinu recentnu obnovu kroz arhivske projekte, stare fotografije, fotografsku i drugu dokumentaciju te artefakte.

Članak govori o Bijelom gradu, četvrti Tel Aviva s brojnim reprezentativnim primjerima građevina podignutih u stilu internacionalne moderne arhitekture u razdoblju između dva svjetska rata, a u povodu izložbe održane u Architekturzentrumu u Beču u prvoj polovini 2008.

Л. Стоилова,
Биографии на архитекти
из цикъла "Творци на българската архитектура"
"Aрхитект Николай Казмуков - 100 години жизнен и творчески път".
- Архитектура, 2007, No. 1, 38-39.
"Architect Nikolay Kazmukov - 100 Years Life and Creative Development". - Architektura (Architecture), 2007, No 1, pp. 38-39.
Presentation delivered at the jubilee celebration of the 100th anniversary of architect Kazmukov at the central home of the Union of Architects in Bulgaria in May 2007

Usually focused on tangible projects, cataloguing them in a progressive manner, scholars do not always show more holistic, qualitative nature of Pietilä’s fluctuating evolving process. By studying Pietilä’s generative strategy that stems from his personal experience, this essay is presenting selected unbuilt projects as the architect’s intellectual and conceptual starting points toward his materialized work - withstanding test of time.

The article is based on the research dedicated to two masterpieces of the Twentieth-century architecture: the Novocomum
residential building in viale Giuseppe Sinigaglia in Como (Italy) by Giuseppe Terragni (1904–1943) and
the Zuev Workers’ Club in Lesnaja ulitsa in Moscow (USSR, now Russia) by Ilya Golosov (1883–1945). Both designed
and built at the same time — between 1927 and early 1930, two buildings have a similar solution of the corner
part — expressive glass cylinder. Although realized in different countries and circumstances, they become for years
a case for comparisons, and a cause for suspicions in plagiary. Despite the case is noticeable in history of modern
architecture, it becomes for the first time the case for specific study.

English translation of special issue of l'Architecture Vivante devoted to Eileen Gray's villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin. Includes translation of Eileen Gray's dialogue with Jean Badovici "From Eclecticism to Doubt", as well as translation of the descriptive captions for the photographic illustrations and plans. Also translated, Jean-Paul Rayon's essay "An (Other) Modern Villa."

Timber is an ambiguous material, saturated with implicit values of sustainability, and locality, and at the same time globally ubiquitous. This essay examines the curious moment in Norwegian architectural history when timber, long associated with tradition and craft, became an industrial material of mass-production—in particular, through prefabricated structures produced by the Norwegian company Moelven Brug. By tracing the marketing narratives behind the company’s two main products—large timber housing panels and glued laminated (glulam) beams—this essay reconstructs a complex field of ideas related to building with timber. It argues that, on one hand, Moelven products reflected shifting architectural attitudes towards timber in mid-twentieth century Norway, treating it as the most “neutral” material, and on the other, they shaped new narratives of “updated tradition” advanced through the use of engineered timber in representative buildings. A curious by-product of a marketing narrative, the myth of updated tradition survives until today, providing a local resolution to the homogeneous global typologies of timber construction.

Este artículo estudia el conjunto de edificios construidos por el arquitecto Fernando Moreno Barberá en el campus universitario de Blasco Ibáñez de Valencia, cuyos proyectos se redactaron entre el final de los años cincuenta y primeros sesenta del siglo XX. Este artículo se ha elaborado a partir del estudio de las fuentes originales, sobre todo de las actas de las sesiones celebradas por la Junta de Obras de la Universidad de Valencia; se trata de documentos inéditos que describen con exactitud el proceso constructivo de este espacio tan singular.

The architect Fernando Moreno Barberá built a very important set of buildings on the university campus of Blasco Ibáñez in Valencia. All the projects were designed between the end of the 50s and the first 60s of the 20th century. The work we are now presenting is based on the study of the original sources, especially the minutes of the Board of Works of the University. These unpublished documents describe with precision the constructive process of this singular place.

публикувана в:
Граници на гражданството:
Европейските жени между традицията и модерността
(Сб. материали от международна конференция, Съст.: К. Даскалова, Р. Гаврилова),
С., 2001, 280-301.
http://20c-arch-bg.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_28.html

An overview of the architectural public and private developments in Fouad Chehab's era in Lebanon (1958-1964), and the internal and external influences on these developments varying from political, religious, and economic.

The research was done in 2016, and it includes an architectural and political analysis of a variety of different types of projects that were done in Lebanon's golden age.

The late 19th and early 20th century was a period of transition architecturally, marking the entrance into a new era of building. This was the beginning of forward looking architectural design with styles not based on previous building forms. Changes in construction techniques, especially the development of sky scraper technology, and a desire to create houses that fit visually into the natural environment influenced the developing styles of this era.

In November 2006 a bilingual catalogue was published for the exposition with the same title.
The album was compiled by the two women-authors.
Special acknowledgements are due for the book design.
On 87 pages articles are published about the pioneer women in the 20th century fine art and architecture in Bulgaria. They are represented by their biographical portraits and artistic works.
Lists of exhibits and bibliographical sources are attached.
Sofia Art Gallery, 8th November – 2nd December 2006
Book design – Nadezhda Oleg Liahova.
Sofia, ET IDA – Krasimir Gandev, 2006.
http://bauw-bg.com/en/?p=44
http://kulturni-novini.info/news.php?page=news_show&nid=2984&sid=2
http://bauw-bg.com/?p=248
http://bauw-bg.com/?page_id=367
двуезичен каталог към художествена и документална изложба в Софийска гpадска художествена галерия  (08.11.-02.12.2006 г.). Дизайн – Надежда Олег Ляхова.
С., ЕТ ИДА – Красимир Гандев, 2006.

Antonio Lasciac was one of the most active of European architects working in Egypt in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. His output was as eclectic as it was prolific, ­comprising buildings and decoration in neo‑Renaissance, neo‑Gothic and neo‑Mamluk styles. This paper focuses on of the origins of the motifs on his buildings decorated in Mamluk revival style, and particularly on his villa at Rafut, in Slovenia, beside the modern border of Gorizia in Italy.
The paper first gives a background to the rise of the neo‑Mamluk style in Egypt before analyzing Lasciac’s contributions to it. In one of his early buildings, the neo‑Renaissance palace of Yūsuf Kamāl at Matariyya, a newly‑discovered neo‑Mamluk room is discussed. The detailed analysis of his villa at Rafut and later buildings show the unusual extent to which the decorative motifs he used were accurately based on earlier Mamluk designs, reflecting his long‑standing involvement as a board member of the Comité de conservation des monuments de l’art arabe.

This article traces the changing perception of the house by the sea in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin known as E1027. Drawn exclusively from land registration and historic preservation records, this archival analysis examines the history of the house designed by Eileen Gray.

El s. XIX en Granada fue propicio para la consolidación del carácter filantrópico de la masonería. Numerosas logias se crearon en la provincia, cifrándose en 475 sus miembros en la ciudad. Este artículo pretende ser una aproximación a uno de los arquitectos masones más relevantes de este período, Juan Monserrat. El Arzobispado, la Universidad y el Ayuntamiento de Granada, fueron algunos de sus comitentes institucionales. También realizaría obras para la burguesía granadina como los Rodríguez-Acosta. El ejemplo presentado es el de una casa de estética masónica, obra paradigmática que repercutirá en la construcción de la Gran Vía de Colón.

Such was the development of cinema architecture in Spain during the course of the 20th century that the country boasted one of the highest number of functioning picture halls in Europe. Founded on travelling cinemas and music halls in the early part of the century, the Spanish cinema industry eventually saw the emergence of a wide variety of permanent facilities, among them the large halls of the 1950s and 60s. Those buildings adopted the latest architectural trends, chief among them Art Nouveau, Art Deco and modernism, with the aim to stand out in the urban landscape and ultimately to attract people to venture inside. This architectural heritage, which played a key role in the modernising of Spanish society and its cities, is now an integral part of 20th-century social history, a manifestation of what was the most popular form of mass entertainment at the time

Makalenin amacı 20. yüzyılın ilk çeyreğinde yeni mimarlık ideallerini dile getiren Le Corbusier ve Theo van Doesburg’un odaklandığı makineleşme ve özlük kavramlarının birbiriyle olan ilişkisinin ortaya konmasıdır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda Le Corbusier’nin 1920 tarihli “Towards A New Architecture: Guiding Principles” (Vers Une Architecture) metni ile, Theo van Doesburg’a ait 1924 yılında De Stijl dergisinde yayımlanan “Towards A Plastic Architecture” metni karşılaştırılmıştır. Metinlerin yazıldığı dönemin düşünsel ortamı, siyasi ve sosyal altyapısı metinlerin karşılaştırılması için ortak bir zemin kurulmasına olanak sağlamıştır. Makalenin öne sürdüğü argüman ise, Corbusier’ye göre makineleşmenin özünü temsil eden geometrik formların; Doesburg’un nesnenin özüne inerek ulaşmak istediği nokta olduğu ve farklı kavramların odağından tarif edilen her iki “yeni mimarlığın” da çağın yeniliklerini içinde barındırması beklenen aynı zamanda çağa yön vermesi istenen mimarlıklar olduğu yönündedir.

The stylistic and historical analysis of the Croatian bridge design and construction of the 19th and first half of the 20th century has not yet even been tackled. This paper presents the work of the Vukovar - based engineer - architect Fran Funtak thus covering at least a small part of this topic. As a scholarship holder of the National Government, Fran Funtak graduated from the Polytechnic in Budapest. Being employed in the Josip Banheyer and Son company as an expert in reinforced concrete construction, he quickly turned this small trading and construction company into one of the leading Croatian bridge and other reinforced concrete construction companies. This was the result of his talent as well as the quality and beautiful design of his bridges. The Zagreb-based firm Josip Dubsky was the company’s major competitor for large construction projects. His design work started as early as 1903 during his studies. It was, however, not until 1906 that the bridge across the river Vuka won the company a reputation of a reliable constructor. In the period before World War I a large number of reinforced concrete bridges were built as a part of the measures undertaken by the Croatian National Government to modernise transportation system. The Banheyer and Son company with its leading architect Fran Funtak received a large number of these commissions. Until 1910 Funtak’s bridge design was mainly engineering-based without many stylistic features except for a secessionist inscription on the bridge beam with a date of its construction. In the subsequent period until 1914 and the company’s termination, his bridges became lavishly decorated in the Secessionist style. Date and year are still noticeable on the beam but the usual motifs became rings „suspended” on the bridge cantilevers, rectangular projections, disc motifs, shallow horizontal and vertical cuttings. All these elements were also coloured. Bridge parapet ends became more massive, at first with strengthened banisters but later mostly built in reinforced concrete. Remarkable examples of secession-style constructions were the bridges across the canal Voćinska - Drava (1911) and the bridges in Orahovica, Čačinci, Sunja as well as drawings for some unknown bridges in the Vinkovci region, all of them with specific trapezoid openings. A special example is the arch bridge across the Biđ near Vrpolje not only for its specific construction (arch bridge) but also for the quality of expressiveness with obelisks at the bridge parapet ends and the specific division of fields between the intrados and the road. Funtak built bridges throughout northern Croatia (about 60 of them between 1903 and 1914) and in this way brought modern materials and types of reinforced concrete constructions as well as modern Secession-style vocabulary into the smallest and most remote regions. This paper is based on the research conducted mainly in the Construction Engineering Department of the Internal Department of the National Government of the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia between 1903 and 1914. Archive data are combined and compared with data from the publications of that period particularly the annual reports for individual counties as well as the newspapers.

The last 100 years in Romania (and its architecture) appear as three successive but radically different eras. If they have anything in common, this is precisely modernization, the quest for a sense of modernity, even if diverging from one to another. What is it that defines modernity? Rejecting tradition? Rationality? Modernism? Technological progress? Capitalism? Social progress and democratization? Cultural synchronicity with the West? Turning towards the future? The new? Maybe the most important discovery of the last 100 years in Romanian society (and architecture) is that there is always another modernity to quest for.

The municipal Central Mineral Baths is located in the heart of the Bulgarian capital city of Sofia. It is a monument of culture of national value and a typical example for the development of Bulgarian architecture during the first decade of 20th century.
For long after the mid-1980s there were unsuccessful attempts to adapt the abandoned building for new contemporary function. Finally, due to the efforts of Sofia Municipality and thanks to financial support by EU, in  September 2015 the building adapted partially as the Sofia History Museum opened doors for public. The rest part of the building is still  not functioning and the mineral water has not been used. The author hopes that the problem will be soon resolved in a pragmatic way since different present SPA complexes all over Europe show opportunities for diverse multi-function combinations.

A principios del siglo XX se empezó a construir la Ciudad Universitaria de Valencia en los terrenos del paseo de Valencia al Mar, actual avenida de Blasco Ibáñez. Sin embargo, el proceso se dilató durante años, dando como resultado un espacio singular. No existía hasta ahora un estudio exhaustivo de las circunstancias que propiciaron su origen, ni se había abordado con rigor la evolución cronológica de sus edificios. Para ello, ha sido necesario localizar numerosos expedientes, documentos y noticias de todo tipo, lo que ha hecho posible finalmente elaborar una narración cabal de aquello que pasó y de sus artífices.
Palabras clave: Ciudad Universitaria de Valencia, urbanismo, arquitectura, edificios, Historia. the university city of valencia: a slow and continuous construction process (1908-1969)

The University of Valencia Campus started to be built at the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless , the building process lasted several years, and its result was a singular space. Till now, there wasn't a thorough study about the circumstances that contributed to this particular architectural project, and about the chronological evolution of these buildings. New documents and records have been found, in order to compose a consistent account of the facts.

Любинка Стоилова, Петър Йокимов.
"Българската архитектура между двете световни войни
в контекста на световния архитектурен процес".
- Архитектура, 1994, № 2, с. 40-44.
"Bulgarian interwar architecture in the context of world architecture process",
- In: Arkhitektura (Architecture), 2 (1994), pp. 40-44.

http://20c-arch-bg.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_15.html

This paper examines the construction in 1906-07 of Rodef Shalom Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The relationships between the Paris-trained, New York-based architect, Henry Hornbostel; the Philadelphia-based general contractor, Thomas Reilly; the Rodef Shalom building committee, and a host of sub-contractors, materi-als suppliers and agents on the building site is unusually well-documented and includes the involvement of the New York-based Guastavino Company for the construction of the building’s signature dome. Emerging from the Rodef Shalom correspondence is a clear picture of the sequencing of design documentation as building work progressed, the central role of the general contractor in managing the project, and the hierarchy in communica-tions between architect, client and general contractor. The challenges of coordinating a complex project at a dis-tance relied on correspondence, photography, telephones, telegrams and railways, which together contributed as much as on-site agents to shaping the construction process.

Доклад в рамките на юбилейните тържества по случай 100-годишния юбилей от основаването на БАУХАУС, представен на 22.10.2019 г. в Художествената галерия "Капана" в Пловдив по покана на Камарата на архитектите в България,- клон Пловдив.
A presentation within the celebrations on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of BAUHAUS, delivered on October 22, 2019, at the "Kapana" Art Gallery in Plovdiv after the invitation by the Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria - Plovdiv Branch.

The information of this paper was delivered at the
Conference of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History
[In Association with the Bulgarian Women’s History Group, the Bulgarian Association of University Women and Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”],
Women, Gender and the Cultural Production of  Knowledge,
St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, 8-11 August 2007

Investigations on women architects from the 1980s until the present have pointed out worldwide pioneering figures, however, the analyses on their work are scarce.
For the entire period between the two world wars, the number of architectural, urban and interior designs that Bulgarian women architects have worked on is over 200.
Still, their names are rarely mentioned in publications on 20th century history of architecture and rather small part of their professional experience is familiar to the public.
Numerous works and several sensational facts concerning the 20th century history of  architecture in Bulgaria were discovered by a research project on the topic. This research underlines the necessity to popularize the pioneer women architects’ creativity in Bulgaria and worldwide through publications and exhibitions, and to introduce information about them into the architectural curriculum of universities. This will change the views on the 20th century development of architectural profession as well as of the Modern Movement culture in Bulgaria.

Architectural atlas of Zagreb contains overview of the history of Zagreb architecture and 900 entries on buildings from all parts of the city.
The buildings are grouped according to Zagreb’s neighborhoods: Upper Town, Kaptol, Lower Town - Centre, Lower Town - West, Lower Town - East, Savska street, Vukovarska street and Slavonska avenue, New Zagreb, etc. Each of these neighborhoods has been split into streets, and the buildings are organized according to their official street number. Along with each city area, a map showing the locations of all the marked buildings mentioned in the atlas is also attached.
The buildings in this atlas have been selected primarily according to their importance to the history of Zagreb’s architecture, while also bearing in mind their interest to the average visitor to Zagreb. The city center (Lower Town, Upper Town, and Kaptol) has been covered in most detail.

- В: Епохата на Цар Фердинанд I. Част ІI. С., 2008, с. 52-61.
L. Stoilova,
"The Big Architectural Competitions in Bulgaria
At The End of 19th and Beginning of 20th Century
or
About Missed Chances and The Difficult Way of Bulgarian Architecture",
- In: The Epoch of Czar Ferdinand I. Coll. Vol. II.
Sofia, 2008, pp. 52-61.
http://sofiazanas.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_18.html