Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: modern architecture

  • Cité Radieuse, Duplex Type E

    Le Corbusier’s Cité Radieuse in Marseille is, as I have mentioned before, one of the most important and influential multi-family buildings of the 20th century. As an architecture student, this is one of those buildings that you get indoctrinated with, so I was excited to visit it for the first time with Neat B in 2022 on what was our second visit to Marseille. We’re big fans of the city. Here is the post I wrote following that visit.

    Today, let’s look at one of the actual suites, which is currently listed for sale through Architecture de Collection. But first, a reminder: The complex was originally constructed between 1948-1952 and was meant to serve as a new housing model for post-war France. In 2016, the building was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, today, you’ll sometimes find things like a Chanel fashion show taking place on its rooftop.

    The suite that is for sale is Type E, which is about 100 m2. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. A balcony. And a view of the Mediterranean. It is listed for 650 000 €, which works out 6,500 € per square meter. For Toronto readers, this is right now the equivalent of C$965,485 or about C$897 per square foot. The monthly copropriété charge is about 300 € and the annual property taxes are about 2000 €.

    Does this seem reasonable or expensive to you?

    For more info, click here.

    Photo by Louis Charron on Unsplash

  • Accessible modernism

    One of the most extraordinary things about Salt Lake City is that you can land at its airport and then, in 20-30 minutes, you’re in the mountains looking at landscapes like this:

    By my estimation, this makes it the most accessible big city and mountain town combination in North America.

    Historically though, Salt Lake City hasn’t really been known for modern architecture. There is, of course, one glaring exception and that is the work of architect John Sugden.

    Sugden was originally from Chicago, had trained under Mies van der Rohe, and is credited with bringing a similar kind of International Style to Utah.

    The house pictured above is one of Sugden’s projects.

    I’m not sure when it was originally built, but it was meticulously renovated by Brent Jespersen, and featured in Dwell magazine back in 2009. If you’d like to take a closer look, click here. (It is again being renovated right now.)

    When I was researching who in Salt Lake City and Park City was building cool stuff, Brent’s name immediately came up. So I appreciate him taking the time to tour me through some of his projects this evening. Thank you, Brent.

    What is now clear to me is that this whole not being known for modern architecture thing is quickly going away.

  • How buildings convey meaning

    Witold Rybczynski and I clearly do not have the same taste in architecture. But he raises an interesting point about the relationship between architecture and art in this recent post. Here’s an excerpt:

    In the name of renouncing the past—and denouncing anything that smacks of decoration—modernism has largely done away with art, the lonely Henry Moore stranded on a plaza, notwithstanding. The problem is that when you strip away figural and allegorical ornament, what is left are mute building materials, mechanical-looking details, and abstract space.

    There is a long-standing tradition of integrating art, and other ornament, into architecture. But modernism viewed this sort of decoration as being superfluous. It wasn’t functionally necessary and so why include it?

    This has led us to today where there is a joke that investing in public art means investing in some sort of add-on that sits outside of your building and that can be classified as art. Perhaps something by Henry Moore.

    The result, Witold argues, is that we have lost something critically important in our buildings: meaning.

    But is allegorical ornament really all that different from a freestanding art piece? Don’t both tell a story? And don’t they both get applied, in a way, to a building that could surely continue on without it?

    At the same time, what is meaningful art? Does it need to include bas-relief and/or figural representations? Or could it be a signed urinal on a pedestal in the lobby with an accompanying digital NFT?

    There’s no question that buildings need meaning. We all crave stories. But sometimes they communicate in different ways.

    Photo by David Vives on Unsplash

  • The Koblick House by Richard Neutra

    I came across the above photo this morning. If you can’t see it, click here. It’s a photo of the Koblick House in Los Angeles designed by Richard Neutra and Gregory Ain for art professor Harry Koblick. Built into the hills of Silver Lake in 1937, the house is a three-storey duplex with about 1,620 square feet according to some sources. (I couldn’t find any plans or drawings, but I’d really like to see the section.) The upper unit has 2 bedrooms and 1 bath. And the lower unit has 1 bedroom and 1 bath.

    Richard Neutra was a prolific modernist and designed numerous “international style” buildings, like the Koblick House. His work was included in the seminal 1932 MoMA (New York) exhibition on modern architecture, which was an important moment for modernism in the United States. It helped to import the international style from Europe at a time when exhibitions did things like that. It is perhaps easy to forget that ideas didn’t spread as quickly around the world back then.

    I love the simplicity of this house. The double car garage that services the two units. The side stair that leads to the front door. And the two large terraces that probably look out over some kind of landscape. Over 80 years later and it still feels contemporary. Perhaps some of you will be equally inspired by this archive photo.

  • Biden revokes Trump’s executive order encouraging classical architecture

    This week it was announced that US president Joe Biden has revoked a number of Presidential Actions, one of which is Executive Order 13967 — Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture.

    Signed on December 18, 2020 by former president Trump, the order, which I wrote about last February, encouraged the use of “classical and traditional architecture” for all federal buildings.

    Part of the argument was that too many buildings are being made for only architects to appreciate. This includes, you know, modern architecture and styles like brutalism.

    Well that order has been revoked and that means that “beautiful” federal civic architecture is now free to be anything it wants. Look to the past, look to today, and/or look to the future.

    This is the way things should be.

  • Stairway House, Tokyo

    These sketches tell you everything you need to know about the recently completed Stairway House by Nendo Studio.

    The house is setback from its south property line as a result of the surrounding context. A south-facing green space is then introduced, preserving one of the existing trees.

    Given that the house serves as a multi-generational household, a central “staircase” is introduced that visually connects all three floors of the house and serves to mitigate any sort of feelings of social isolation across the families.

    (The staircase-like structure is only partially functional.)

    Finally, the staircase is then expanded outward to connect with the broader city. As you can see from the context plan below, the staircase is on axis with a neighboring city street.

    Here’s how it all turned out:

    Photos and sketches via Nendo Studio

  • Making federal buildings beautiful again

    Here is an interesting topic for debate.

    This week the NY Times reported that a non-profit group called the National Civic Art Society has drafted an executive order that would make classical architecture the default style for all federal buildings in the United States. The draft order is naturally titled: “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again.”

    Here is an excerpt from the New York Times:

    “For too long architectural elites and bureaucrats have derided the idea of beauty, blatantly ignored public opinions on style, and have quietly spent taxpayer money constructing ugly, expensive, and inefficient buildings,” Marion Smith, the group’s chairman, wrote in a text message. “This executive order gives voice to the 99 percent — the ordinary American people who do not like what our government has been building.”

    As you can imagine, this proposed order isn’t sitting well with many architects (the real kind who, presumably, hold licenses). Thom Mayne of Morphosis put it well with this quote:

    “We are a society that is linked to openness of thought, to looking forward with optimism and confidence at a world that is always in the process of becoming. Architecture’s obligation is to maintain this forward thinking stance.”

    I think there are many people who would tell you that they prefer classical architecture to modern architecture. And that’s totally fine. I don’t know how many is many, but I am fairly certain it is not 99% of all Americans. (It would be interesting to know the approximate taste split.)

    My strong view is that I don’t see the need to mandate a particular architectural style. Let architecture respond to the world around us. Let urban context guide. Like Mayne, I am also drawn to the future, as opposed to the past — though I certainly appreciate history.

    What is your view?

    As a side note, classical architecture was used pretty much exclusively for federal buildings up until the 1930s. Architecture school taught me that it was initially chosen because it was seen to embody the ideals of the American democracy.

    Photo by Caleb Perez on Unsplash

  • A video tour of the Niemeyer apartment building

    In the 1940’s, Juscelino Kubitschek invited Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer to design a new planned suburb north of Belo Horizonte called Pampulha. Kubitschek was mayor at the time and Niemeyer was a young modernist architect in his 30’s. This was the start of an important relationship.

    The “Pampulha architectural complex” was completed in 1943 and was widely praised by the international design community. It was included in a 1943 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York called “Brazil Builds.”

    This was an important exhibition for Brazilian architecture and for modernism in general because it demonstrated that the European principles of modernism were traveling (Brazil was one of the first to adopt), and they were evolving. Brazilian architects, such as Niemeyer and Lúcio Costa, had begun to regionalize it and make it their own.

    A Brazilian style of modernism was emerging.

    By 1956, Niemeyer had become a key figure in the world of modern architecture. At the same time, Juscelino Kubitschek had just become the 21st president of Brazil. Shortly after assuming the position, he would ask Niemeyer to help build a new capital city for the country. This was the birth of Brasilia. Niemeyer designed the buildings. And Costa planned its streets.

    A few years before this, Niemeyer would also return to Belo Horizonte to design the “Niemeyer apartment building” at the Praça da Liberdade in the center of the city (and pictured above). It is quintessentially Niemeyer: curved & feminine. Niemeyer despised right angles. He found them harsh and manmade. Everything that is beautiful in nature — from the mountains of Brazil to the curves of a woman — was, in his view, sinuous.

    But the other thing I really appreciate about it is how its “brise soleils” play with your perception of the building. The building is only 10 storeys. But the sun shades, which some of you may read as balconies, make it look much taller (albeit with some minuscule floor-to-floor heights). The reality is that each floor is made up of 3 breaks. And the overall effect is magical (again, see above photo).

    Here is a great video tour of the building by Maíra Lemos, which includes a walkthrough of two of the apartments (note the antechamber in the first). This entire post was to get you ready to watch it. Click here if you can’t see it below. (Also, if I made videos, I would want them to be like this one.)

    Image: Screen grab from the video

  • Architect I.M. Pei dies at 102

    Architect I.M. Pei died this week in New York City. He was 102. Being a centenarian is noteworthy enough. He was born in Hong Kong in 1917. I would love to join that club. Imagine how much change he experienced throughout his life. But, of course, Pei was also a celebrated Pritzker Prize winning architect.

    For those of you in Toronto, you can look to Commerce Court West to see an example of his work (Page & Steele was the local architect). Completed in 1972, it was the tallest building in Canada until 1976. But perhaps his most well known project is the Louvre Pyramid in Paris (pictured above).

    In reading some of his obituaries, I was intrigued — but in no way surprised — to learn that the Louvre Pyramid was deeply hated by Parisians at the time it was being proposed and built. Supposedly, for the first few years after completion, Pei couldn’t walk the streets of Paris without people berating him.

    However, if you surveyed Parisians today, I would bet you that the approval rating of the Pyramid would be extremely high. And I would also argue that it has since become one of Paris’ most globally recognizable symbols. (Parisians, please weigh in below in the comments.)

    All of this, once again, suggests to me that we’re often not very good at evaluating the merits of things that are new to us. Pei’s Pyramid, beyond being a new circulation strategy for the broader complex, was a radically different style of architecture.

    Appreciating that sometimes requires a bit of time.

    Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash

  • Gustavo Capanema Palace

    Brazil has been on my travel bucket list for many years, if not decades. Whenever I tell someone that they often ask me why that is the case.

    In addition to its breathtaking natural beauty, sunny beaches, beautiful people, and lively culture, Brazil is also one of the first countries outside of Europe to have adopted modern architecture.

    The best example of this is, arguably, Gustavo Capanema Palace, which is also known in architectural circles as the Ministry of Health and Education Building. At the time of its construction, Rio de Janeiro was the capital of Brazil. Brasilia took its place in 1960.

    Here are two photos of the building from this afternoon:

    imageimage

    Sadly, the building is currently under renovation and I wasn’t able to get as close as I would have liked.

    All the same, Gustavo Capanema Palace is one of the first modernist buildings in Brazil and, apparently, the first modernist government building in all of the Americas.

    Designed in the 1930s, there were a whole slew of architects involved in this project, including Lucio Costa (master planner for Brasilia), Affonso Eduardo Reidy, Ernani Vasconcellos, Carlos Leão, Jorge Machado Moreira, Roberto Burle Marx, and Oscar Niemeyer.

    But most notable in the roster was Le Corbusier. And the building is everything you would expect from the Swiss-French architect. Pilotis. Brises-soleil. Glass facades. And mid-level programming.

    However, it also incorporated local elements, such as azulejos (glazed tilework common to Portuguese and Spanish buildings). And in my view that makes it a more interesting varietal of modernist architecture.

    So even though I wasn’t able to get inside today, I am still glad that I was able to finally see Gustavo Capanema Palace.