Three Materials That Changed the Course of Modern Architecture

Steel

• Chicago in the 1880s produced the world's first skyscrapers. Combining strength with relative lightness, steel frames and steel cross-members enabled many more stories than had been possible before. Architecture of the Chicago School featured iconic heights and sharp angles --- both a result of their steel skeletons. These buildings were also largely fireproof --- of huge importance in the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Thin curtain walls supported by steel frames allowed for more internal space. Steel frame architecture produced archetypal art deco skyscrapers like the Chrysler building in New York and altered urban skylines worldwide.

Concrete

• Concrete can be cast in any shape, encouraging innovative design and dramatic statements. It enabled architects to embrace Cubism, Modernism and Post-Modernism. Its strength reduced the need for internal walls, creating vast interior spaces with clean lines. Casting large sections at one time makes concrete construction fast and economical. At its worst concrete produced 1950s towerblocks, underground parking lots and Soviet grimness. At its best it produced striking icons -- Sydney Opera House; the Hoover Dam; Frank Lloyd Wright's "Falling Water." The latter owes its resemblance to natural rock forms to its cantilevered concrete platforms. Concrete enabled Wright's experimentation with circular and spiral forms at his Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wisconsin and at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Structural Glass

• Glass blocks and plate glass revolutionized architecture. With steel bearing the weight, walls no longer needed to be load-bearing and could be replaced by glass -- advantageous in the days of early electric lighting. Glass could be pigmented, molded, curved or sculpted. In the Art Deco period glass was made to resemble marble and was applied as a wall covering. By mid-20th century, toughened glass created in large panes was allowing architects to create entire glass walls. This brought the outside inside, and gave an illusion of greater space. Glass roofs let light into buildings in a way never before seen.

Significance

• Three of the world's most significant 20th century architects are Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Gropius, leader of the Bauhaus. All three relied heavily on steel, glass and concrete. Miami Beach Art Deco featured glass block with curves and ziggurats in concrete and stucco. Steel construction, glass curtain walls and concrete block typify Bauhaus design. Wright's Johnson's Wax Building uses mushroom-shaped concrete columns as roof supports, and glass tubing replaces windows. At Saarinen's Dulles airport terminal, a concave concrete roof hangs on steel cables like a hammock between concrete trees with the space beneath filled in with glass. Gehry's metal-clad, expressionist-modernist Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Experience Music Project in Seattle surround steel frames.