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As I visited college campuses, I googled to see when they were built, and there was a trend. If a college building was built between 1950 and 1990, chances are it looked like sh*t. College buildings aren't the only buildings from that time period that seemed fecal in appearance. I could safely say that 99% of the buildings built in this era look like totalitarian concrete drones. Small or nonexistent windows, gray concrete walls, a sense of oppression and doom. Single family homes were even worse, nothing but box shaped houses with box shaped garages and pesticide covered lawns. Blyad' man, what happened to the good architects in this time period?
Bureaucracy (planners) happened. Also economics - everything became about money and that doesn't leave much room for art. Plus the war, the attitude after WW2 was that aesthetics didn't matter and buildings should just be functional. There are still great examples of architecture from the 50's to the 90's though. In the uk 'high tech' took off in the early 70's and reached its peak in the mid 80's, and we became famous around the world for it. Minimalism was also 'reborn' in the 80's after the silly toytown po-mo of the 70's.
Around here the modernist stuff from the 50s/60s is mostly brick with pretty large windows. Then you had some brutalism, mostly just used in institutional buildings, then PoMo and stuff like this
(would these be sort of PoMo?) http://goo.gl/maps/PcvTJ http://goo.gl/maps/OKwhq
My university has a lot of buildings in this era with its foundation a little over 50 years ago and big building boom in the 60s and 70s.
I think this engineering building would be considered brutalist
although I much prefer it over the math brutalist building
Pretty sure this building would be considered modernist, I think its alright too.
This is the first building, also modern, and a bit more boring. There's five science on campus buildings that look very similar.
I do have to disagree here. The way I see it the mid ch. modern homes and commerical structures were fantastic! Some of FLWs best work was in the late 50s., the list is long. ...The 40s is another matter , a dark era after the war for architecture , clothing , cars , just about everything. I have often wondered what the world would have been like had the War not happened.
My reference to the "bungalow" of the 40s brings up , to me , so many of the look a like structures that were quickly built , at low cost , to satisfy the demand of returning solders and sailors , who now has some coin, wanted to get married, a new car , and a new house , in that order. Roof overhang was non existent in these homes , the one thing that cut short any style or attempted design of the day. Of coarse there was a cost saving, or so they thought at the time. The same thing happened with clothing . mens trousers started to loose the classic cuff to make way for a set of pants that uses less material.
So much of what we saw back then after the war was related to a shortage of just about everything, from building materials to steel for new cars.The demand was huge , and most industries were just coming off war production products that they were having a hard time retooling...... As far as the tudor revival , yes its true , some interesting structures were created , so much so that architectural trends had skipped a decade or two from the early twenties on up.
In university and commercial buildings, that was *mostly* a dark time. I've been taking my kids to visit colleges for the past 4 years, so I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on college campuses. The pretty campuses have more buildings built before WWII. Graceful brisk colonials with white Federalist trim, ornate neo Gothic structures were built to look as though they'd been here for a few hundred years - these do give a sense of history and presence to a campus.
In terms of private homes there are less beautiful and architecturally interesting homes that were built following WWII. That's a given. Although the style called (retrospectively) "Mid Century Modern" is significant and has a boat load of friends.
Just to set everyone strait, after WWII, the prevalent style of home was not the bungalow or the Tudor revival house.
Both of these style flourished in the teens through 1930s. Not much was built in the 40s owning to WWII.
The dominant styles immediately following WWII was the Cape Cod cottage - usually built with four rooms and a bath downstairs and a large expansion attic that was typically unfinished at the time of purchase - and the ranch style house - typically one level and three bedrooms one bath and two other rooms.
These were the two styles that Levitt used in his Levittowns - built for WWII returning GIs in the suburbs of NYC and Philadelphia.
In university and commercial buildings, that was *mostly* a dark time. I've been taking my kids to visit colleges for the past 4 years, so I've been spending an inordinate amount of time on college campuses. The pretty campuses have more buildings built before WWII. Graceful brisk colonials with white Federalist trim, ornate neo Gothic structures were built to look as though they'd been here for a few hundred years - these do give a sense of history and presence to a campus.
In terms of private homes there are less beautiful and architecturally interesting homes that were built following WWII. That's a given. Although the style called (retrospectively) "Mid Century Modern" is significant and has a boat load of friends.
Just to set everyone strait, after WWII, the prevalent style of home was not the bungalow or the Tudor revival house.
Both of these style flourished in the teens through 1930s. Not much was built in the 40s owning to WWII.
The dominant styles immediately following WWII was the Cape Cod cottage - usually built with four rooms and a bath downstairs and a large expansion attic that was typically unfinished at the time of purchase - and the ranch style house - typically one level and three bedrooms one bath and two other rooms.
These were the two styles that Levitt used in his Levittowns - built for WWII returning GIs in the suburbs of NYC and Philadelphia.
Depending on where you are from makes a huge difference when it comes to " trends". My perspective of the basic house is from the Mid-West, the late forties and early 50s. The ranch was most popular in my area starting about 1953. My version of the bunglow was a carryover from what you correctly describe as coming out of the teens and early twenties, witch were , much better built than anything of this nature built after the war....for a while anyway , and of coarse the local.
Depending on where you are from makes a huge difference when it comes to " trends". My perspective of the basic house is from the Mid-West, the late forties and early 50s. The ranch was most popular in my area starting about 1953. My version of the bunglow was a carryover from what you correctly describe as coming out of the teens and early twenties, witch were , much better built than anything of this nature built after the war....for a while anyway , and of coarse the local.
I agree that the typical late 40s early 50s house was a ranch. What you are calling a bungalow may be the same as a Cape Cod style home. I currently live in the mid-west and my area is full of late 40s early 50s Cape Cod style houses. I think there are more of them then ranches in 40s early 50s subdivisions. But both styes are prevalent and not terribly inspiring.
Also, I happen to love Craftsman style bungalows from the teens through the thirties. So much so, that I own one!
The sale of "kit homes" ended in about 1940. The largest dealer of mail order kit homes in North America was Sears Roebuck. Other companies included Aladdin and Gordon van Tine. I'm not sure that any of these firms continued to sell kit homes after 1940.
The kit house had a decade - the 1920s not 1940s. That was the decade that this phenomena took off. They were generally built is places where freight trains could carry them. The favored style was the bungalow, but four square colonials were also built.
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