Space, Time and Architecture

Sigfried Giedion (1888–1968) was the first secretary-general of the International Congress of Modern Architecture. The author of ten books, including Mechanization Takes Command, he taught at the University of Zurich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University, where he became chairman of the Graduate School of Design.

This book is an important collection of historical and critical surveys and a brilliant study of the trends and developments of the modern scene with its historical background and true significance. For the general reader interested in the past and its relation to our present, and the specialist in architecture preoccupied with its facets of change, the author has succeeded in presenting a consistently developing process and a clear, concise picture.

• * Introduction: Architecture of the 1960's: Hopes and Fears Part I: History A Part Of Life * Introduction * The Historian's Relation to His Age * The Demand for Continuity * Contemporary History * The Identity of Methods * Transitory and Constituent Facts * Architecture as an Organism * Procedure Part II: Our Architectural Inheritance The New Space Conception: Perspective Perspective and Urbanism * Prerequisites for the Growth of Cities * The Star-Shaped City Perspective and the Constituent Elements of the City * The Wall, the Square, and the Street * Bramante and the Open Stairway * Michelangelo and the Modeling of Outer Space * What Is the Real Significance of the Area Capitolina? Leonardo da Vinci and the Dawn of Regional Planning Sixtus V (1585-1590) and the Planning of Baroque Rome * The Medieval and the Renaissance City * Sixtus V and His Pontificate * The Master Plan * The Social Aspect The Late Baroque The Undulating Wall and the Flexible Ground Plan * Francesco Borromini, 1599-1667 * Guarino Guarini, 1624-1683 * South Germany: Vierzehnheiligen The Organization of Outer Space * The Residential Group and Nature * Single Squares * Series of Interrelated Squares Part III: The Evolution Of New Potentialities * Industrialization as a Fundamental Event Iron * Early Iron Construction in England * The Sunderland Bridge * Early Iron Construction on the Continent From the Iron Column to the Steel Frame * The Cast-Iron Column Toward the Steel Frame * James Bogardus * The St. Louis River Front * Early Skeleton Buildings * Elevators The Schism Between Architecture and Technology * Discussions *Ecole Polytechnique: the Connection between Science and Life * The Demand for a New Architecture * The Interrelations of Architecture and Engineering Henri Labrouste, Architect Constructor, 1801-1875 New Building Problems--New Solutions * Market Halls * Department Stores The Great Exhibitions * The Great Exhibition, London, 1851 * The Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1855 * Paris Exhibition of 1867 * Paris Exhibition of 1878 * Paris Exhibition of 1889 * Chicago, 1893 Gustave Eiffel and His Tower Part IV: The Demand For Morality In Architecture The Nineties: Precursors of Contemporary Architecture * Brussels the Center of Contemporary Art, 1880-1890 * Victor Horta's Contribution * Berlage's Stock Exchange and the Demand for Morality * Otto Wagner and the Viennese School Ferroconcrete and its Influence upon Architecture * A. C. Perret * Tony Gamier Part V: American Development * Europe Observes American Production * The Structure of American Industry The Balloon Frame and Industrialization * The Balloon Frame and the Building-up of the West * The Invention of the Balloon Frame * George Washington Snow, 1797-1870 * The Balloon Frame and the Windsor Chair Plane Surfaces in American Architecture * The Flexible and Informal Ground Plan The Chicago School * The Apartment House Toward Pure Forms * The Leiter Building, 1889 * The Reliance Building, 1894 * Sullivan: The Carson, Pirie, Scott Store, 1889-1906 * The Influence of the Chicago World's Fair, 1893 Frank Lloyd Wright * Wright and the American Development * The Cruciform and the Elongated Plan * Plane Surfaces and Structure * The Urge toward the Organic * Office Buildings * Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright * Frank Lloyd Wright's Late Period Part VI: Space-Time In Art, Architecture, And Construction The New Space Conception: Space-Time * Do We Need Artists? The Research Into Space: Cubism * The Artistic Means The Resarch Into Movement: Futurism Painting Today Construction and Aesthetics: Slab and Plane * The Bridges of Robert Maillart * Afterword Walter Gropius and the German Development * Germany in the Nineteenth Century * Walter Gropius * Germany after the First World War and the Bauhaus * The Bauhaus Buildings at Dessau, 1926 * Architectural Aims Walter Gropius in America * The Significance of the Post-1930 Emigration * Walter Gropius and the American Scene * Architectural Activity * Gropius as Educator * Later Development * American Embassy in Athens, 1956-1961 Le Corbusier and the Means of Architectonic Expression * The Villa Savoie, 1928-1930 * The League of Nations Competition, 1927: Contemporary Architecture Comes to the Front * Large Constructions and Architectural Aims * Social Imagination * The Unite d'Habitation, 1947-1952 * Chandigarh * Later Work * The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1963 * Le Corbusier and His Clients * The Priory of Ste. Marie de la Tourette, 1960 * The Legacy of Le Corbusier Mies van der Rohe and the Integrity of Form * The Elements of Mies van der Rohe's Architecture * Country Houses, 1923 * The Weissenhof Housing Settlement, Stuttgart, 1927 * The Illinois Institute of Technology, 1939- * High-rise Apartments * Office Buildings * On the Integrity of Form Alvar Aalto: Irrationality and Standardization * Union between Life and Architecture * The Complementarity of the Differentiated and the Primitive * Finnish Architecture before 1930 * Aalto's First Buildings * Paimio: The Sanatorium, 1929-1933 * The Undulating Wall * Sunila: Factory and Landscape, 1937-1939 * Mairea, 1938-1939 * Organic Town Planning * Civic and Cultural Centers * Furniture in Standard Units * Aalto as Architect * The Human Side Jorn Utzon and the Third Generation * Relations to the Past * Jorn Utzon * The Horizontal Plane as a Constituent Element * The Right of Expression: The Vaults of the Sydney Opera House * Empathy with the Situation: The Zurich Theater, 1964 * Sympathy with the Anonymous Client * Imagination and Implementation The International Congresses for Modern Architecture (CIAM) and the Formation of Contemporary Architecture Part VII: City Planning In The Nineteenth Century * Early Nineteenth Century * The Rue de Rivoli of Napoleon I The Dominance of Greenery: The London Squares The Garden Squares of Bloomsbury Large-Scale Housing Development: Regent's Park The Street Becomes Dominant: The Transformation of Paris, 1853-1868 * Paris in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century * The "Trois Reseaux" of Eugene Haussmann * Squares, Boulevards, Gardens, and Plants * The City as a Technical Problem * Use of Modern Methods of Finance * The Basic Unit of the Street * The Scale of the Street * Haussmann's Foresight: His Influence Part VIII: City Planning As A Human Problem * The Late Nineteenth Century * Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City * Patrick Geddes and Arturo Soria y Mata * Tony Gamier's Cite Industrielle, 1901-1904 Amsterdam and the Rebirth of Town Planning * H. P. Berlage's Plans for Amsterdam South * The General Extension Plan of Amsterdam, 1934 * Interrelations of Housing and Activities of Private Life Part IX: Space-Time In City Planning * Contemporary Attitude toward Town Planning Destruction or Transformation? The New Scale in City Planning * The American Parkway in the Thirties * High-rise Buildings in Open Space * Freedom for the Pedestrian * The Civic Center: Rockefeller Center, 1931-1939 Changing Notions of the City * City and State * The City: No Longer an Enclosed Organism * Continuity and Change * The Individual and Collective Spheres * Signs of Change and of Constancy Part X: In Conclusion * On the Limits of the Organic in Architecture * Politics and Architecture * Index