The construction by strata. Techniques and strategies of the modern project (1923-1945)
Arribas-Blanco, Ruth
Department of Construction Engineering, Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain.
Abstract:
The influence of industrialization on architecture in the first half of 20th century inevitably changed architects’ way of working. New projects strategies were put into practice in which the role of technique became something more than simply resorting to new materials or advanced industrialized technology. This research explores, from a technical and constructive point of view, diverse strategies used by architects in the first “modern” years. They rejected the architectural language that had been used up to that time and resorted to products manufactured on an industrial scale to create an architecture characterized by construction by strata.
The form was moved away from the traditional visual acceptation and became related to the constructive component of architecture’s materiality. The expressiveness of the joint acquired undoubted importance as the element that aesthetically characterized the tectonic building. The aesthetic component became an inherent aspect of the building itself and was always subtly present to reflect the consistency with which the objective criteria of scientific methods were used.
Through the detailed analysis of various case studies, the main objective has been to demonstrate the creative capacities of the construction process itself, as well as to check the current validity of the identified strategies.
Keywords: modern architecture; project strategies; technique; aesthetics; construction; creativity.