THIS IS THE ASSIGMENT
In this week’s lecture and readingswe learn about the modern skyscraper as well as the horizontal growth of the suburban areas. In Le Corbusier book A Contemporary City, it gives us a brief overview of his life. We know that he is a founding father to the modernist movement known as the International style, and that he also entered a competition to plan a “contemporary city of 3 million people,” that did not end up winning. Although he did not win, in this book he describes the leading factors that would contribute to his plan of a contemporary city. Of these factors was this topic of skyscrapers. He states, “The skyscrapers are designed purely for business purposes,” he later discusses how skyscrapers are also capable of housing employees, businesses and hotel sections. We also learned that skyscrapers have essential characteristics that define what a modern skyscraper and how there were certain technological requirements that were needed in order to develop a skyscraper. With regards to the development of skyscrapers, zoning properties were quickly established, which ultimately came to the influence of the aesthetic and visual properties of the city as a whole.
In Widogers publication on The "Solar Eye" of Vision Emergence of the Skyscraper-Viewer in the Discourse on Heights in New York City, 1890-1920 we learned how Alvin Coburn, a photographer, takes his camera upon Madison Square in 1921 from the vantage point of the metropolitan life tower, and creates the first abstraction of a city viewed from above. It is also important because he also discusses how modern skyscrapers correspond to the urban transformation in New York City between the period 1890 and 1920. This then brings about the observation on how periods of social upheaval affect individualism and mass identity, which in turn conditions the way artists and writers define their artistic vision in relation to daily life in the city. He also states that, “The tower on Madison Square Garden and the Metropolitan Life Tower had similar features: they were not fully fledged skyscrapers but rather towers constructed either beside or on top of a block-shaped building.” The author also capitalizes on how this metropolitan lifestyle can alter ones behavior due to the environment that surrounds them.
Post World War Two was the beginning of the housing boom. “The transition from a war to peacetime economy was centered on the mass consumerism, ”According to the lecture. The scarce shortage of material forced designers to develop new ways of building. This then lead to large scale housing production where some of these housing parts were sometimes made up of refashioned tank and airplane parts. This allowed for houses to be produced more efficiently and in bulk. During this transition time between wartime to peacetime women played a large role in the workforce. While loved ones were away at women were encouraged to take time way from their domestic lives of being a housewife and mother and contribute time to the war efforts. The Federal Housing Administration shaped housing in the U.S. in significant ways that included the experimentation of building materials as well as fabrication techniques. One of the biggest significance the FHA contributed to was the large-scale development of Levittown that was designed by the Levitt brothers. They used a simple prefabrication method that enabled them to build affordable simple homes.
Questions:
Why do you think the zoning policy in New York had a large affect on the aesthetic and visuals of the city? Do you think the zoning policies are the most important aspect when designing a skyscraper for the city?
Do you think that the Levittown development is an influence on today’s suburban living? And do you think we should find ways to refashion materials to build our homes today so we don’t create anymore waste that is needed?
THIS IS MY ANSWER
The skyscraper had become a form of physical manifestation of the corporate and economic restructuring. In 1913, the Woolworth building in New York served as a visual representation of financial power. Skyscrapers were an iconic advertisement for the companies that financed their construction. A contemporary skyscraper ought to exhibit great height about the surrounding buildings. The other distinct factor is that its interior management of space is in terms of stories, and each storey is provided with a maximum amount of space and light. The development of communication technologies enabled physical separation of management and production within a corporate setting. The exaggerated verticalism of structures came to signify the pride of capitalists(Vertical Cities and Horizontal Suburbs, 2015).
The urban zoning code of 1916 brought control over the visual appearance of the skyscrapers. This code led to the overall skyline taking a distinctive form especially in the golden era of skyscraper construction. The code passed to become municipal law through the combined efforts of city planners, wealthy real estate owners and urban reformers (Wigoder, 2011). Among the main objectives of the zoning code was to decongest the cities, provide safer buildings and to make the city more beautiful, convenient and agreeable. In this quest, the code accomplished two major controls in New York City. The first control was to separate the city into districts. These districts were in terms of businesses, industrial and residential setting. The other control was placing restrictions on the height and bulk of a skyscraper (Vertical Cities and Horizontal Suburbs, 2015).
The restriction on height and setback of a building led to a new style of architecture in New York. The law protected the amount of light and air allowed in the streets between these building known as the zoning envelope. After a set vertical height, the building had to be stepped back as it rose at a provided angle. Then after some point, a tower covering not more than ¼ of the total site could rise to unlimited height. The zoning law influenced the visual and aesthetic properties of the buildings and that of the city as well. This design transformed the city’s landscape from a sea of flat-topped buildings to mountainous masses of similar proportions. The setback design helped to promote the construction of safer and convenient buildings (Jeanneret, 2013).
During the postwar period, there was a scarcity of building materials that made designers come up with new ways of building. William Levitt was contracted by the federal government to provide quick housing solutions for military personnel. He applied techniques mass production to construction. He used 27 different steps to build a house. Using these steps, he hired 27 different building teams to construct the homes. With this huge workforce, they managed to work at a rate of 36 houses per day within a year. These homes were initially available to only veterans however Levittown was eventually opened to others. Levitt revolutionalized the manner in which Americans lived and ushered in an age of inexpensive housing outside the city (Vertical Cities and Horizontal Suburbs, 2015).
The method applied in Levittown development promoted affordable housing. The use of alternative materials for constructing houses lowered the costs of construction. The building teams used in Levittown refashioned materials from tanks and airplanes used in WWII that were no longer constructive as the war was over. This method also enabled the less skilled workforce to contribute to housing as the houses were built were not as complex. The building also takes lesser time unlike where construction is done using conventional materials. Besides the lowered cost of building and taking less time, refashioned materials still brought out the aesthetic uniformity that is seen with regular materials (Jeanneret, 2013).
References
Jeanneret, C. (2013). A Contemporary City. In L. Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow and its Planning(1st ed.). Courier Corporation.
Vertical Cities and Horizontal Suburbs. (2015) (1st ed.).
Wigoder, M. (2011). The "Solar Eye" of Vision (1st ed., pp. 1-19). California: University if California Press.
please post another brief comment here in response to the prompt below
Prompt: Describe an experience you have had inside or at the top of a skyscraper. How did your experience relate to concepts discussed in Wigoder's article?
(200-300 words)
MY CLASSMATE ANSWER
The typology of skyscraper is one that has an enormous impact on a city, because of it’s huge size and also the amount of human traffic that it provides. Because of this, I think that a zoning policy was needed to have more control on the city. In the case of New York, this zoning had an enormous impact because it transformed the urban fabric of this city. People started to occupy new dimensions in space such as Berenice Abboa’s photographs shows the new ways of looking at the city from one of the floors of this building. When considering the zoning strategy of the city, I think that zoning polices are one of the most important aspect of a skyscraper design, but along with it comes the internal and external circulation of the skyscraper, which also plays an important roll when designing a skyscraper. In the case of New York, we can see how they solved this problem by using the Sub-Way as a new way of transportation, if it wasn’t for this, the city will be a chaos.
I am not a big fan of suburban developments for many reasons, for example the negative impact to nature and the segregation that it causes. Levittown is not the exception; I don’t think that suburban developments are the solution for today’s housing needs. What I do appreciate from these development is the methodology of construction, how the line-like production and prefabrication allows to build many houses in an efficient and fast way. These is something that designers should consider when designing social housing. Along with these; the implementation of green technologies and materials is something that we should consider always in a design. More than a need it should be an obligation that is regulated by the building code.
I NEED TO WRITE A COMMENT TO HIS ANSWER
THIS IS HOW THE COMMET SHOULD BE “respond to one or more students’ initial post. This response should be brief yet substantive, inquisitive and courteous. In other words, be engaged with your fellow student’s ideas, ask him or her questions to both gain deeper understanding and to challenge their assumptions, however, always treat others with respect. This post should be about three or four sentences.”