This episode of Going Green explores the evolution of architectural styles from historic to modern to postmodern. It begins with how buildings throughout history have reflected their region and responded to societal changes. The episode examines the emergence of modernism as a reaction to World War I and the socio-economic aspects of elaborate historic architecture.

The Bauhaus movement and the international style are highlighted as major branches of modernism. The episode also explores the rise of postmodern architecture, which emphasized diversity, historical references, and contextual significance.

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Episode Extras - Photos, videos, sources and links to additional content I found during my research.

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Episode Credits:

Production by Gābl Media

Written by Dimitrius Lynch

Executive Produced by Dimitrius Lynch

Audio Engineering and Sound Design by Jeff Alvarez

Archival Audio courtesy of: Boston Society For Architecture, The Orchard Enterprises, DukeLibDigitalColl-Venturi & Brown, Web of Stories, DukeLibDigitalColl-Robert A.M. Stern, DukeLibDigitalColl - Charles Moore, Zak Ghanim

Throughout history, humans have constructed buildings and structures around the world.

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Large -scale projects were often at the command of a ruler or religion, drawing forth

elaborate, ornate, and ephemeral works to support and emphasize hierarchical systems.

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No matter the scale, buildings typically reflected their region, from materials and

construction methods to style.

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Worldwide, styles evolved over time, each responding to its predecessor.

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Modernism began in early 20th century Europe with architects like Victor Orta, Antoni

Gaudí, and Otto Wagner, who introduced innovative designs as a reaction to World War I and

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an objection to the socio -economic aspects of elaborate historic architecture like

classical Greek, Gothic, and Romanesque, for example.

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After World War I, Germany's defeat and the establishment of the Weimar Republic led to a

renewed liberal spirit.

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and an upsurge of radical experimentation in the arts, which had been suppressed by the

previous regime.

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The Bauhaus, a German art school that was operational from 1919 to 1933, became famous for

its approach to design.

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The founder of the school, Walter Gropius, had a different approach to teaching.

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Formerly there were a lot of art schools in Europe where the more or less famous

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teacher would teach his students his own line.

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This I thought was not right.

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We should not find, we should not educate small additions of ourselves as teachers.

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We should really find the objective means how this could be done.

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And so was developed step by step with the help of all these people in the Bauhaus in

objective approach.

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to find the art of design, those things which could be given as tools to any artist who

would be developed in such a school.

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To give you a little bit of insight what it does mean.

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When we create a building, we have a room like this one.

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Any room in...

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in which any one of you may sit listening to us here.

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I think you can change the appearance of the room, for instance, when you have a matte

black color on your ceiling, it will come down on you.

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When you have a very attacking color, like a bright red or yellow on one wall, it comes

closer to you.

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When it is a dark color, it goes away from you.

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So you can let a space appear in a different way than it is in reality of dimensions

and...

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material sense on, the artist had many means also of optical illusions to let things

appear different from what they are in reality.

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And this, a basic method of teaching, has been worked out to many, details.

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The philosophy also attempted to unify individual artistic vision with the principles of

mass production and emphasis on function.

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Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,

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an instructor at the Bauhaus, in a later discussion on architecture as a language,

highlighted his design preference to throw everything out that was not reasonable.

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Thomas Aquinas, says, reason is the first principle of all human work.

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Now, when you have grasped once, you know, then you act accordingly.

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So I would throw everything out, but it's not reasonable.

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I don't want to be interested.

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I want to be good.

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Gropius and Mies were pioneers in using steel frames and glass curtain walls to create

open, well -lit and uncluttered spaces.

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The international style, as it became known, was a major branch of modernism.

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It was linked to social and industrial progress, often aligning with liberal political

ideals, although Gropius said that Bauhaus was entirely apolitical.

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In October 1929, the Great Depression severely impacted Germany, leading to high

unemployment and social unrest.

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President Paul von Hindenburg's use of emergency powers and appointment of a new

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1933, undermining democracy and civil liberties.

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That chancellor was Adolf Hitler.

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Hitler, who had an interest in art and architecture, had a grandiose vision to anchor the

Third Reich's physical spaces.

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Obsessed with the Roman Empire, Hitler promoted Nazi architecture, which had specific

principles, but overall was similar to classism.

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The Nazis opposed and shut down the Bauhaus movement and the international style.

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Many proponents moved to the US, where the style thrived post -World War II, especially in

skyscraper construction.

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The style's lack of traditional or regional character allowed it to be embraced globally,

hence the name International Style, which was to Gropius's dismay.

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because the approach which we tried was to start from the human being and to study the

human being in his surroundings.

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Now, the surroundings are very different when I go to Texas or California or when I go to

Massachusetts.

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So I have to study the man in the region where he is.

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I have to study the climate.

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any conditions of customs of the people living there and so on.

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In former times, it was also the material, but today it doesn't play that role because the

exchange of materials all throughout the world is such that it doesn't play the role as

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formerly.

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But the climatic conditions, of course, play a very big role.

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So this is regional approach and not an international approach.

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And I think it's a wrong connotation to call it international style.

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There's, course, a common denominator of international.

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Despite his efforts to push back on the name and absence of regional context, the style

swept the world, led by Mies van der Rohe and Lé Corbusier.

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The principles and modern techniques spread to prominent US universities and major cities,

influencing the architectural landscape significantly.

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However, by the 1960s, some architects began to critique the repetitive nature of the

international style, leading to new architectural expressions that sought to evoke more

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varied emotional responses and explore new design variations.

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In 1961, Jane Jacobs, American -Canadian journalist, author, theorist, and activist, set

the stage with The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

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an influential book that critiqued the 1950s urban planning policy, which she holds

responsible for the decline of many city neighborhoods in the United States.

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Jacobs was particularly critical of the modernist planning by Corbusier.

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Robert Venturi's 1966 book, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture and Learning from

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further provided a pivotal critique of modernism.

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These works challenged the functionalist and minimalist ethos epitomized by the mantra,

less is more, advocating instead for an architecture that embraced the messy vitality of

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life, historical elements, and vernacular design.

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Venturi famously flipped Mies's famous line of less is more into less is a bore.

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At this time, architects should acknowledge complexity, contradiction, ambiguity.

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At about the time that we were thinking of the fact that architecture could be more

complex and could relate to ambiguity in life, we were very influenced by certain social

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scientists who began to criticize the architecture of urban renewal in America and to

point out that these beautiful high -rise

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Cities growing in the centers of our cities, reminiscent of the social housing in Europe,

were in fact not housing the poor in America.

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And that the beautiful utopian vision was becoming a nightmare for the poor who were

removed to make room for these urban renewal areas.

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And that architects' vision was in a way helping the coercion.

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was born in Zambia.

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Beyond style, design, construction methods, and material choices contributed to

environmental degradations, and society, including architects, was increasingly becoming

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more aware of the effects.

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Many architects felt that the utopian promises of modernism to build social change and a

new, better world through an architecture of functionalism, material honesty, and new

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technologies had failed, or

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at least had been corrupted by commercial developers.

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This shift heralded the rise of postmodern architecture, characterized by diversity,

irony, and playful engagement with historical styles.

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It rejected the modernist mantra that form follows function in favor of a design approach

that embraced historical references, cultural identity, and contextual significance.

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This new movement emphasized diversity and architectural expression and sought to

reinvigorate the emotional,

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and aesthetic engagement of buildings.

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But, as with all architectural styles, over time different ideas began to emerge and

designers began to create ways to provoke different emotional reactions and seek out new

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variations.

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The question of what would come next though resulted in a fractured decade of varying

trends, some that led to dead ends and others that had lasting legacies through the end of

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the century.

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I'm Demetrius Lynch and this is Going Green.

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Postmodernism is an invention, as a term, an invention of the devil since each of us wants

to not be categorized in a narrow way.

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But it does mean, or does refer to the situation in architecture now.

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We are not facing the problem of the cities.

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By not facing the problem of the cities, we are not facing the problem of survival.

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In the previous episode, we explored the evolving recognition of environmental impacts

exemplified by widespread use of DDT and its risk highlighted by Rachel Carson and Silent

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Spring.

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Despite early warnings from scientists and nature writers like Edwin Way -Teel about the

ecological dangers of DDT, its harmful effects were not widely acknowledged until Carson's

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rigorous research brought it to the public and subsequently applied pressure to the

government.

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in the 1960s.

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Her work sparked significant environmental advocacy, culminating in regulatory reforms and

heightened public awareness that helped ignite the modern environmental movement.

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If you haven't listened to that episode, I encourage you to go back and listen to all the

episodes of this series in order.

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The rising awareness of our environmental condition and understanding of the impact that

architecture could have

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led to a broader examination of how architectural styles reflect societal values and

challenges.

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That examination would lead to significant changes in how spaces are conceived and

constructed.

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And I'll get into that evolution after the break.

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Episode 4 Divergence The 1970s were a tumultuous time for the environmental movement.

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While some challenges brewed below the surface, above ground the approach to building

design fractured, with many budding styles, ideas, and philosophies competing to fill the

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void of modernism.

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With the backdrop of social movements and growing environmentalism, many architects were

seeking social change and a new

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better world through design.

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For the postmodern period, the relevance of environment, culture, and history took center

stage.

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Context mattered again, but this time it was not in favor of a ruler or religion, but for

the people.

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Some of the more distinct aspects of postmodernism were historical references,

reintroducing Gothic arches, art deco details,

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Classical columns in the context and connection to local cultural history.

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Ornamentation, amplifying the richness and depth of design.

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Symbolism, developing a story and meaning behind the design to reflect beliefs and

aspirations of the building's users.

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Contradiction or rebellion, protesting the rigid rules of modernism by melding various

styles or creating work that has never been seen before.

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humor, flamboyant theatrical structures that challenge formality, and fragmentation,

disjointed buildings that, while a cohesive space, visually appeared like multiple

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distinct structures with differing purposes.

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In the U .S., there were notable groups that influenced the period.

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The whites, the grays, the Chicago 7, the third bay tradition, the L .A.

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school,

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and the infusion of minorities into the profession.

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The Whites, originally known as the New York Five, were a group of New York City -based

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The architects were Peter Eisman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathme, John Hedic, and Richard

Meyer, heard here explaining the origin of Five Architects.

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I think it was Peter that said, look, why don't we have a sort of little session?

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and we'll get a conference room somewhere and the five of us will each present a project

that we're working on at the time and we'll get, invite a few other people to be kind of

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critics.

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And we each presented a project and we had a discussion.

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And after, say, hey, that was really fun.

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Why don't we put out a little pamphlet to commemorate this event?

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And by the time we got it together,

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Peter said, look, it's taken so long.

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Why don't we not just show that project, but we'll show what we're currently working on as

well.

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So each person gets two projects to show.

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And instead of two pages each, you get 10 pages each.

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don't know, something like that.

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Then finally got out the book, Five Architects, just as a momentum.

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Little did we know, it had this huge influence on what was happening.

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While influential,

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Some critics suggested that the New York Five was uncritical of modernism and that their

work was an unimaginative copy of Corbusier, who each had an affinity for.

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The moniker The Whites was a reference to the white cardboard models that they frequently

presented and the use of white paint in their built work.

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The grays were a direct response to The Whites.

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Robert A Stern organized a form of responses titled Five on Five.

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which was published in the May 1973 issue of Architectural Form.

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Postmodernism as a term is an invention of the devil since each of us wants to not be

categorized in a narrow way.

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But it does mean or does refer to the situation in architecture now in which there is a

reaction to the kind of abstract empty white interiors or gridded

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in a non -communicative self -referential exterior architecture of the 1950s and 60s.

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There is a seeking to return to the larger tradition of architecture, not to revive it,

because it's very hard, no one can ever revive anything, no one knows exactly what was in

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the minds of any individual before or in any epoch before, but to see that work of the

past.

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Five responding architects were Romaldo, Giorgola, Alan Greenberg, Charles Moore,

Jacqueline T.

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Robertson, and Stern.

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The Graves found inspiration in Robert Venturi.

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They believe that architecture is best when it responds to its context, reflects the past,

and introduces humor and irony.

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In the Midwest, the Chicago 7 formed in protest against an exhibition titled 100 Years of

Architecture in Chicago.

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The group, Stanley Tigerman, Larry Booth, Stuart Cohen, Ben Weese, James Ingo Freed, Tom

Beebe, and James L.

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Nagel criticized the emphasis on the role of Meese and his predecessors.

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Nagel later noted, quote,

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The Chicago 7, a name that they embraced as it paid homage to anti -Vietnam War protesters

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forms, meaningful design philosophy, and historical references in their buildings.

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Charles Moore of the Grays was also influential in two groups that emerged from

California.

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In an interview for American Architecture Now, he shared his thoughts on postmodernism.

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It seems to me that the term covers so many different attitudes from the very

architectonic ones of Michael Graves or Richard Meyer to the populist ones of people like

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me that it's very hard to derive much meaning from it except that we're all interested in

trying to make architecture more interesting by attaching to it images and well,

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images from people's past, from people's memories that make it mean more than the pure

forms of the last 50, 60 years.

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One example was the third bay tradition which emerged from the ways that Sea Ranch, an

unincorporated community in Sonoma County, California, was making in the design circles.

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Designed by Charles Moore, Donlin Linden, William Turnbull,

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and Richard Whitaker, or the firm MLTW, and Joseph Eshrick, with landscape architecture by

Lawrence Halperin, the planned unit development community was known for its distinctive

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timber frame structures.

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It was predicated on a concept of living lightly on the land, which included use of local

materials.

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The building form also took inspiration from the regional vernacular, such as wood barns

and mining structures.

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Just south in Los Angeles, Moore also influenced the Virgining LA School after beginning

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in 1977.

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Other architects in the group, Tom Main, James Stafford, and Michael Rotundi, later formed

Morphosis.

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There was also Eric Owen Moss and Frank Gehry, who presented adventurous residential

projects

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that explored more off -the -shelf materials and eclectic approach and vibrant splashes of

color.

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Lastly, behind the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, a more diverse population began to

enroll in architecture programs and become licensed.

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In 1971, the National Organization of Minority Architects, or NOMA, was founded by 12

African American architects.

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William Brown, Leroy Campbell, Wendell Campbell,

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John S.

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Chase, James C.

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Dodd, Kenneth B.

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Groggs, Nelson Harris, Jay Johnson, E.

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H.

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McDowell, Robert J.

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Nash, Harold Williams, and Robert Wilson, who all met at the annual AIA National

Convention in Detroit that year.

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The 1974 Women in Architecture Symposium, which was held at Washington University in St.

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Louis, focused on challenges faced by women in the male -dominated profession.

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It garnered national media attention and inspired other symposia, events and discussions

in cities and institutions across the country.

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These groundbreaking shifts resulted in a profession that could be more receptive to new

concepts like sustainability.

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In 1972, the first UN conference was held on the human environment with victims of

environmental disasters telling their stories to raise attention to politicians.

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That same year was the first usage

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the term sustainability in a similar context as today regarding the future of humanity.

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A leading magazine published a series of articles called Blueprint for Survival, where

more than 30 scientists recommended that we live in small de -industrialized communities,

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among other suggestions.

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For the 1960s and 70s counterculture, rebellion against the perceived evils of high -rise

congestion

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and suburban sprawl motivated some of the earliest and most dedicated eco -activists to

move to rural communes where they lived in tent -like structures and geodesic domes.

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In a certain sense, this initial wave of green architecture was based on admiration of the

early Native American lifestyle and its minimal impact on the land.

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One example lies in the deserts of Arizona where counter -cultural icon, urban visionary

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and Italian -American architect Paolo Silleri established what would become one of the

longest standing communities, Arcosanti.

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But then I was, I never liked the notion of designing single homes because I thought that

the city is the thing that really eventually is going to save the race.

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So I was interested in urban question.

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I was coming from an urban condition anyhow in Italy.

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The city is the thing that really eventually is going to save the race.

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The concept behind Arcosanti was arcology, the combination of the words architecture and

ecology, which offers an alternative to urban sprawl.

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Coined by Soleri, he proposed design principles for very densely populated and

ecologically low impact human habitats.

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Arcosanti was an experimental town developed to demonstrate these principles.

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It consists of 13 buildings and today houses around 40 people.

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but has never exceeded 100, far short of Saleri's vision of 5 ,000 citizens.

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Born in Turin, Italy, Saleri gained his master's degree from the Politecnico di Torino in

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in Wisconsin.

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Wright eventually expanded to a winter home and studio in Arizona, which was called

Taliesin West.

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Solari moved his family to Arizona in 1956, and in 1970 he began construction on his

life's work, Arcosanti.

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Funded by the Cosanti Foundation in conjunction with sales from Solari Designed Ceramic

and Bronze Wind Chimes, it took four decades and over 6 ,000 volunteers to create the low

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-impact, environmentally -oriented micro -city.

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Much of the construction was created using earth casting.

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A unique and innovative technique in which concrete was poured over shaped soil, taking

its form from the contours of the land, creating unique and provocative structures.

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Once the concrete cured, the soil was excavated out from the concrete shell.

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Rather than inefficient, land -hungry, low -rise, car -dependent cities like nearby

Phoenix, Soleri's arcologies are dense, compact, car -free, and low -energy.

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He was seeking an alternative to urban sprawl that grew out of the 1950s population boom.

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The added thing that you put that makes it contemporary or not, the other core I think is

this question that we are not facing the problem of the cities.

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By not facing the problem of the cities, we are not facing the problem of survival.

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In 1974, the world population crossed 4 billion.

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As I mentioned earlier, while competition to establish the next dominant architectural

style ensued, challenges and confusion were brewing below the surface.

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For a brief period in the 70s, there was a theory that the planet was not warming, but

actually cooling and risk entering another ice age.

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Some scientists, including a prominent climate scientist named Reed Bryson, observed

regionally

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cooler temperatures and brutal winters.

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They predicted imminent global cooling and increasing ice coverage in the Northern

Hemisphere solely due to man -made aerosols blocking the sun.

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A 1974 CIA report even supported the notion.

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But to the contrary, temperatures ultimately shifted warmer after 1977.

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Now, jumping ahead a bit to the late 1990s, after sorting through decades of data,

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a group of researchers that were investigating king salmon discovered that migration paths

fluctuated in a strange way.

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For decades at a time, the salmon numbers would stay well above average.

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And then without warning, they would abruptly reverse and swing lower and remain that way

for decades.

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They found that the fluctuations matched natural shifts in ocean temperatures.

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During the late 1940s through the late 1970s, salmon runs were high.

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indicating a cooling phase.

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This period coincided with the regionally cooler temperatures that Bryson observed.

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The brutal winter was influenced by not only uncontrolled sun obstructing pollution in

urban areas, but also natural ocean cooling.

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The true extent of climate change is more accurately reflected in rising sea levels.

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As Bill Pazart, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explained,

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Land masses can't store heat as effectively as oceans, which are also expanding due to

heat absorption and melting glaciers.

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This process has caused a steady increase in sea levels, roughly an inch per decade,

signaling a clear trend of ongoing global warming.

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Hazard emphasizes that the global warming curve aligns closely with the global sea level

curve, making it a reliable indicator of long -term climate trends.

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But it was too late.

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While the projections of Bryson and others were eventually proved incorrect, this

scientific process of hypothesis, peer review, and consensus would later be weaponized

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against climate advocacy.

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Cynics referenced this forecast of global cooling as evidence that scientists could be

wrong about global warming.

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In addition, the incident has been portrayed as if there was scientific consensus on

global cooling.

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However,

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A review by climatologist Thomas C.

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Peterson and his team at the National Climatic Data Center showed that this was not the

case.

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They examined literature from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven articles predicted

cooling, 44 anticipated warming, and 20 were neutral.

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The majority of climate science research during that period in fact did not support the

global cooling theory.

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Skeptics

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also often cite a 1971 science article by Stephen Schneider, then a graduate student,

which predicted that a significant increase in atmospheric aerosols could cool the Earth

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enough to trigger an ice age.

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However, Schneider later acknowledged that subsequent discoveries modified these findings.

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First, the cooling effect of aerosols was found to be less than initially thought.

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and these particles were concentrated mainly around major cities, covering only about one

-fifth of the planet.

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Additionally, scientists found that other atmospheric components, including methane,

ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons, contributed to warming, similar to carbon dioxide.

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But this was just the tip of the iceberg.

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No matter the correction, dramatic change was on the horizon.

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the scientific breakthroughs in the 1800s, resourcefulness and innovative thinking in the

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and amplification from authors like Rachel Carson and Edwin Whateel, and the 1970s

idealism led by people like Senator Nelson, Congressman McCloskey, Ian McCargh, and

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architects seeking social change and a new

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better world through design would all come to meet a powerful resistance movement.

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A national malaise opened the door to a seismic political and economic shift that would

have far -reaching consequences for the environment.

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Next time on Going Green.

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Hello, I'm Ed Fulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington -based public

policy research organization.

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It is a think tank.

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Think tanks are basically

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idea factories.

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We're in the idea business because we believe that ideas have consequences or as John

Maynard Keynes, the economist said, it is ideas not vested interests which are dangerous

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for good or evil.

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Thanks for listening.

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Going Green is a Spaces podcast story brought to you by Lines.

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That's L -Y.

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nes .studio .com and listen in to my wrap up episode to hear my response.

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Visit gablemedia .com, that's G -A -B -L media .com, and before I go, if you want to see

additional photos, videos, clips, and other content that I found during my research,

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you can visit lions .studio slash podcast.

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Talk soon.