Health at the core of Modern Movement Architecture

Investigation into healthcare facilities involves dealing with multiple spheres beyond the technological, physical and psychological. Nowadays, the growing emphasis on wellbeing goes beyond the seminal ideas that modern buildings were cleansing machines, or that modern architecture and urbanism were shaped by bacteria. Presenting some stimulating philosophically-orientated essays, this journal makes a link between the Modern Movement and what we have entitled the “Cure and Care” concept, connecting health and the environment, body and design. Considering healthcare buildings and their role in the welfare policy of societies, the discussion addresses future challenges, driven by developments in technology and medicine, envisaging a key role for healthcare facilities in ensuring a sustainable built environment

Building Physics and its Performance in Modern Movement Architecture

The science of Building Physics was developed in Germany from 1880–1940 but its performance in Modern Movement architecture is considered immature and in aspects problematic. Still, some international pioneers found theoretical and practical ways to catch the theme

The Home at the core of Modernity, an optimistic architecture

Devoted to the theme of single-family houses, given the key role they played in the ideal definition of the Modern Movement architecture, as a symbolic and functional affirmation of the utopian turning of dreams into reality, the aim of this issue is to consider the transformation of daily life, and to address the architectural challenges that arose from the joy contained in what we might call the “architecture of happiness.” As we continue to endure a pandemic that has now lasted for more than a year, docomomo wishes to declare that “till the moment, the best vaccine to prevent contagion was invented by architects: the house”. Thus, in response to the question “How should we live?”, it is intended to debate the house and the home agenda as an important topic at the core of Modern Movement architecture. Nowadays, the growing emphasis on wellbeing goes beyond the seminal ideas that modern houses were “machines à habiter” and is closer to an idealistic vision of a stimulating shell for humans, which is shaped by imagination, experimentation, efficiency, and knowledge

Review: The Other Modern Movement: Architecture, 1920-1970

Book review of The Other Modern Movement: Architecture, 1920-1970 by Kenneth Frampton. Yale University Press, January 2022. 344 p. ill. ISBN 978-0-300-23889-1 (h/c), $50.00. Reviewed March 2022 by Paul Glassman, Director of Scholarly and Cultural Resources, Yeshiva University, [email protected]

A hidden beauty. Siza’s adequacy lesson at the secret and delicate MMH

For the design of the Manuel Magalhães House (1967-1970), Álvaro Siza revisited the purist rationalist principles of Modern Movement architecture. This project represents a shift in his work after the first Matosinhos’ houses and the Tea House of Leça da Palmeira. The appeal to the vernacular roots and a kind of telluric topos that characterized the works of the 1950s, in this project gave rise to an abstract and minimalist approach applied to a domestic life. Intricate and meticulous in all its details from inside to out, in this house the overall design achieves a perfect harmony, in other words, a balanced and beautiful gesamkunstwerk

Transcontinental Modernism: How to Find the Shortcut

More than ever, it is urgent to expand the new emerging consciousness focused on the need to include other territories in our efforts to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the “Modern Diaspora.” Recently, the development of concepts such as ‘hybrid’ or the ‘otherness’ has been promoting a nuanced historical analysis on architecture and politics in the 20th century beyond a Eurocentric vision. The recognition that a widespread awareness of the Modern Movement architecture has always been serving colonization involves rethinking the basic principle of Modern welfare society and practiced architecture as a mission: how Modern principles have been exchanged, resulting from a Eurocentric culture with the cultures of East and Africa

Modern and Sustainable

Modern Movement Architecture is envisioned as a concept that deals with forms, spaces, techniques and social responsibility. In this docomomo Journal, the contributions on this discussion put together modernity and Modern heritage, economy and energy saving, the social mission and the responsibility of architects towards the future. Modern Movement is often mistakenly related to a style, perceived in a skin–deep point of view and superficially adopted as simple form, as a modern shape, when in fact Modern Movement has always shown great concern with such issues, seeking for eficiency and economy, i.e., an accurate use of materials, a design approach that incorporates intelligent saving resources in order to create a better world

Seismic vulnerability and strengthening of a modern architecture building

In Portugal, at the end of the World War II, a new generation of architects emerged, influenced by the Modern Movement Architecture. In the fifties, it was built a large number of Modern housing buildings in Lisbon, with particular structural characteristics that, in certain conditions, can induce weaknesses in structural behaviour, especially under earthquake loading. For example, the concept of buildings lifted in "pilotis", present in this architectural style, can strongly facilitate the occurrence of soft-storey mechanisms, which makes these structures very vulnerable to earthquake actions. To investigate the vulnerability of this type of construction, one building, representative of the Modern Architecture, in Lisbon, was studied with a non-linear dynamic analysis program, PORANL, which allows the safety evaluation according to recently proposed assessment procedures. Additionally, it was proposed and analyzed a retrofitting solution, to improve the seismic performance, based on a bracing system with a damping device associated

Seismic vulnerability of Modern Architecture building's: Le Corbusier style: a case study

In Portugal, at the end of the World War II, a new generation of architects emerged, influenced by the Modern Movement Architecture, born in Central-Europe in the early twenties but now influenced also by the Modern Brazilian Architecture. They worked with new typologies, such as multifamily high-rise buildings, and built them in the most important cities of the country, during the fifties, reflecting the principles of the Modernity and with a strong formal conception inspired in the International Style’s codes. Concrete, as material and technology, allowed that those “Unity Centre” buildings become modern objects, expressing the five-point formula that Le Corbusier enounced in 1927 and draw at the “Unité d’Habitation de Marseille”, namely: the building lifted in pilotis, the free design of the plan, the free design of the façade, the unbroken horizontal window and the roof terrace. In Lisbon, late forties urban plans transformed and expanded the city, creating modulated buildings repeated in great extensions – that was a progressist idea of standardization. The Infante Santo complex is a successful adaptation to the Lisbon reality of the Modern Urbanism and Architecture. In the fifties, it was built a large number of Modern housing buildings in Lisbon, with structural characteristics that, in certain conditions, can induce weaknesses in structural behaviour, especially under earthquake loading. For example, the concept of buildings lifted in pilotis can strongly facilitate the occurrence of soft-storey mechanisms, which turns these structures very vulnerable to earthquake actions. The development and calibration of refined numerical tools, as well as, assessment and design codes makes feasible the structural safety assessment of existing buildings. To investigate the vulnerability of this type of construction, one building representative of the Modern Architecture, at the Infante Santo Avenue, was studied. This building was studied with the non-linear dynamic analysis program PORANL, which allows the safety evaluation according to the recently proposed standards