In the 30s, new centers for the development of modern architecture appeared in the world, which adopted the views of functionalism. On its basis, the construction of a number of significant buildings was carried out, which made it possible to free architecture from the schemes of surviving academism and national decorative tendencies.
Among the new centers of rationalist orientation, the group of architects "Group 7", founded in 1936, has shown itself. Its emergence after Futurism was a new step in the development of Italian architecture. Among the members of this group stood out D. Terragni - the author of a dwelling house in Como (1927), L. Figini, D. Pollini, known for their architectural activities, especially after the Second World War, for the Olivetti firm in Yves Rea. The building of the Fiat plant in Turin (1927, by M. Trukko) with a test circuit on the roof is also worthy of attention. The R group in Rome, founded in 1928 by D. Minucchi, and the group in Turin led by A. Sartoris, were distinguished by their rationalist program.
The use of reinforced concrete, however, finally got its specific expression only with the beginning of the activity of the engineer P.L. Nervi, who used the form-building capabilities of this material in the staircases of stadiums in Florence and new vaulted hangar ceiling systems. With extraordinary constructive and artistic ingenuity, P.L. Nerzi, after the Second World War, developed a new vaulted system for covering exhibition and sports halls. A typical example is the Olympic Palace in Rome, which has a dome formed by curved intersecting reinforced concrete ribs, built using new technology.
The bold reinforced concrete structure of the bridges and the ceiling of the hall in Zurich (1939) distinguishes the work of the Swiss engineer R. Maillard, who, in collaboration with the architects G. Brechbugler, C. and R. Tam, laid the foundations of modern Swiss architecture in the 1920s and 1930s. In Spain, the principles of functionalism were guided by X. L. Sert and the architectural group GATEPAC.
England, which had a progressive tradition in the design of garden cities and cottages, took the path of functionalism in the 30s. In this direction, the members of the creative group "Teckton", headed by B. Lubetkin, who built a house in London in the shape of a double cross (1933), the Finsbury medical center and the pavilions of the London Zoo, stood out. The factories in Beeston (1930-1932, by O. Williams), as well as a department store in London (William Grabbtree), are distinguished by their expediency, constructive lightness and modernity of form.
His contribution to the development of English architecture was made by E. M. Fry, who collaborated with V. Gropius (school in Cambridge, 1936), and after the Second World War with Le Corbusier in the construction of the city of Chandigarh in India. Did you maintain constant contact with the CIAM? MARS (formed in 1931), founded by R. S. York. A large-scale urban planning project for Greater London (1940-1944) created by P. Abercrombie is also associated with new trends in English architecture. Its phased implementation begins after the Second World War with the construction of the first of 14 planned satellite cities - Stevenage and Harlow.
The influence of the functionalist school also affected the architecture of the relatively isolated Scandinavian countries, where functionalism and local traditions of northern architecture interpenetrated. This became the reason for the emergence of modern architecture here of a completely specific nature, which reflects the local climatic conditions, rich resources of natural building materials and the peculiar cultural traditions of individual countries.
This new wave in the architecture of the Nordic countries is associated with the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930, which demonstrated the widespread use of new building materials, structures and new forms created on their basis.
The main creator of the most progressive exhibits in this exhibition was E. G. Asplund, although his other works bear traces of neoclassicism, as can be seen in the example of the library (1920-1928) and the crematorium in Stockholm (1935-1940). The exhibition simultaneously showed the first examples of mature architectural solutions for dwellings. Their prototypes later were the groups of residential buildings in Danvikslippen and the Grandal complex (1944), built according to the project of S. Bakstrom and L. Reinius, who, together with the uncompromising supporter of the modern concept of architecture S. Markelius, were the authors of the project of the satellite town of Wellingby. built after the Second World War west of Stockholm.
The modern spirit of the Stockholm exhibition also influenced the architecture of Denmark, for which simplicity and severity of form, the use of unplastered bricks and reinforced concrete are most characteristic. An example of such architecture is the University of Aarhus (1932-1938, authors K. Fisker, K. F. Moller and P. Stegman) and most of the buildings of the famous Danish architect A. Jakob-sen, which in spatial isolation and compactness of volumes resemble some features traditional for the rural architecture of Denmark.
In the 1930s, the Finnish architect A. Aalto became the leading architect of the Scandinavian countries. From the very beginning, Aalto's work is a harmonious combination of architectural form and nature, the unity of material culture and is distinguished by a high artistic level. He combines the solution of rational requirements with an extraordinary understanding of the peculiarities of natural materials - stone and wood, their artistic and technical processing is still one of the most perfect ones.
The peculiarities of Aalto's work, already evident in the architecture of his early works at the library in Vyborg (1927-1935) and the sanatorium in Paimo (1929-1933), quickly became characteristic of the entire architecture of the northern countries. The further development of Aalto's creativity can be shown on the example of the Villa Mayrea and the Finnish Pavilion at the World Exhibition in New York, where Aalto, instead of the generally accepted rectangular system, proposed a curved plan and a complex structure of enclosing surfaces, which created the impression of a space full of dynamics. Its post-war buildings are based on the same principle, for example, the cultural center in Helsinki and the cathedral near Imatra in the mid-50s.
The architecture of the Finnish architects A. Er-va and K. and H. Siren, the authors of the famous garden city of Tipiola (1954-1960) near Helsinki, who, with their subsequent works, created an idea of modern Finnish architecture, had a similar character. Other Finnish architects also relied on the principles of the international style - A. Blomsted, E. Huttunen, Lingren, who worked in the same way as Aalto did after the Second World War. Finnish architecture from the 30s to the present is a harmonious combination of local traditions and principles of functionalism, is distinguished by the unity of material, technical and artistic culture and a perfect solution to the issue of the relationship between architecture and the surrounding nature. Here, just as in Sweden, the solution of interiors, furniture and various architectural details reaches a high level, creating a kind of northern style, which after the Second World War spreads to other countries. These features of Finnish architecture have become a significant contribution to the development of modern world building culture, first of all, by the natural connection with the nature of the newly created urban planning and architectural complexes.
A new group of countries, where in the late 1920s the principles of the rationalist concept of architecture began to be used, were Poland, Hungary and Romania. In Poland, this was associated with the group "Present" and the magazine "Blok". Its members were B. and S. Brukalski, B. Lakhert, J. Shanaets, the most active were E. and S. Syrkusy, the creators of the residential buildings "VSM" in Warsaw. Sh. Syrkus and Y. Khmelevsky are also the authors of the "Functional Warsaw" project (1934). In Hungary, supporters of functionalism were F. Molnar, J. Fischer and M. Mayer, according to whose designs a number of villas and tenement houses were built in Budapest. The immigrants from Hungary were M. Breuer and Mogol-Nagy, who, since the 1920s, constantly worked in other countries. Among the Romanian architects, one should note M. and Y. Ianchu, H. Creanga, A. Chinescu - the authors of apartment buildings in Bucharest, which are complex dismembered volumes.
Bulgaria and Yugoslavia found themselves somewhat apart from this direction in the development of world architecture. New designs and functional systems were rarely used here. I. Popov, N. Diulgerov and S. Ovcharov in Sofia came closest to functionalism. In Yugoslavia, one can note the work of 10. Neidhardt, a student of Le Corbusier, N. Dobrovich, who studied in Paris, and E. Ravnik-ra. Although the international style in these countries was represented by only a few buildings, here it also developed independently.
In the 30s in the United States, almost independently of the currents of modern architecture in Europe, a second major center for the development of architecture emerged. Strong rationalistic tendencies overcame the eclecticism that existed here and the influence of the Paris School of Fine Arts. There was a revival of the traditions of the Chicago School in the form of "record" technicism, in the spirit of which began an intensive restructuring of the centers of the largest American cities and the massive industrial construction of typical cottages on the outskirts of the city. Their construction was carried out within the framework of the so-called new course of the Roosevelt government simultaneously with large-scale landscaping, the construction of energy and transport systems on the river. Tennessee. Of particular note is the Empire State Building, at that time the tallest administrative building (398 m), and the Rockefeller Center skyscraper complex.
The closest to European architecture was the building of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1939, authors P. L. Goodwin and E. D. Stone) with a fully glazed facade. An even more striking manifestation of the existence of rationalistic tendencies in American architecture in the 1930s was industrial buildings.
New York, with its skyscrapers centered on Manhattan, was a typical example of American architecture in the 1930s. Their forms almost coincide with a century-old fantastic proposal by E. S. Field, which he called "Historic Monument of American Architecture." In the mid-1930s, the SOM group was founded (L. Skidmore, N.A. Owings, D. Merrill), the main works of which date back to the post-war period, as well as the work of G. Banshaft, M. Abramovich and W. K. Garrison.
The second trend, which from the very beginning of the XX century. oriented American architecture in a progressive direction, associated with the creative, theoretical and pedagogical activities of F. L. Wright, which reached its culmination in the 30s. F.L. Wright remained unaffected by the psychosis of technicalism and persistently strove to create an artistic image in which romantic motives sometimes sounded, to maximize the fusion of architecture with the environment.
The main intermediaries in the spread of functionalist principles in America were the progressive European architects who emigrated from Europe in the 1930s, mainly before the outbreak of World War II. They played a significant role in the formation here in the 40s of various concepts and approaches, sometimes opposite in their principles, but which still characterize the architecture of this continent to this day.
Already in the 1920s, E. Mendelssohn moved to the USA from Germany, R. Neutra from Austria, known as the author of luxurious country houses (Kaufman Desert House, 1964), by their decision very close to Wright's understanding of organic architecture; from Finland E. Saarinen, who in the 1950s attracted attention by the breadth of his creative expression - starting with the General Motors technical center in Michigan (1951-1957), called "industrial Versailles", through the soaring shell of the TWA airport building in New -York to the unusually finely designed buildings of the university dormitory in Nyo Haven (1958-1962), located near the historical monuments of architecture. In the 1930s, they were joined by Mies van der Rohe, V. Gropius, Mogol-Nagy, IA Olbers, who skillfully combined their clear idea of the necessary expediency of architecture with the solution of artistic and aesthetic problems. L. Sert emigrated from Spain. These architects had a decisive influence not only on the nature of American architecture, but also on the conceptual orientation of higher education institutions, many of which they headed up until the 1960s.
The European functionalist school had a similar influence in the countries of South America, where architecture until the 30s drowned in eclecticism with echoes of the Portuguese Baroque. The foundations of modern Brazilian architecture were laid by the “Manifesto of Functionalism” (1925), written by G. Varshavchik. In the late 1930s, the works of Brazilian architects L. Costa, O. Niemeyer and A. Reidy appeared - the authors of the high-rise building of the Ministry of Health and Education in Rio de Janeiro (1937-1943), the design of which was consulted by Le Corbusier. The buildings designed by O. Niemeyer in Pampulha, whose architecture was distinguished by a special poetic understanding of the possibilities of reinforced concrete, already indicated the nature of the architecture of the future new capital of Brasilia, based on the urban planning scheme (1956, by L. Costa), bearing the features of classicism. The construction was basically completed in the late 50s according to the designs of O. Niemeyer and designer H. V. Garcia. The architecture of these buildings is distinguished by stylistic clarity, almost antique monumentality and simplicity.
Mexican architecture has been influenced by functionalist ideas since the 30s. They were interpreted in a peculiar way by H.O. Gorman, H.M. de Velasco and other Mexican architects when designing university, public and sports facilities in Mexico City, among which the Central Library building (1952) stands out for its monumental mosaics on the facade. Wall paintings by D. Rivera and D. Siquei-rosa are closely connected with modern Mexican architecture. New paths in modern Mexican architecture in the mid-1950s were also opened by the Spanish architect F. Candela with his thin-walled shells of a dynamic form, for example, near the buildings of laboratories, cathedrals and restaurants in Mexico City. In Venezuela, the representative of this orientation was KR Villanueva, the main author of the university campus in Caracas, the construction of which began in the early 50s.
European functionalism had a significant impact on the architecture of Japan. Bearers of this influence were Japanese architects who worked in Europe in the 1930s, especially for Le Corbusier, as well as F.L. Wright, A. Raymond and other architects who designed for Japan. Manifesto of the International Architectural Union, which met in Kyoto (1927), works of T. Muran, M. Yamada. and especially K-Maekawa and Ya-Sakakura, who collaborated with Le Corbusier, helped the Japanese architecture of the 1920s and 1930s to free itself from local decorative romanticism and the influence of the New Art (Art Nouveau). At first, the nature of Japanese architecture was similar to the European understanding of constructivism (the dental school in Tokyo, 1934, by B. Yamaguchi), but after the Second World War, unlike Europe, where the classical heritage was practically ignored due to the rapid development of modernist trends, Japanese architects remain are faithful to ancient traditions when creating a unique, but even then modern architecture.