Modern British Architecture

The London Zoo has a longstanding tradition of working with both architects and zookeepers to create a neighborhood—even a lot like a gated community—for its animal residents and visitors. So invested in creating these environments, the zoo has been known to raise their entrance fees to cover the production of these architectural monuments, with a fee now soaring around £16 for entrance! Even so, the zoo has been able to attract visitors from far and wide to show off the residential, commercial, and civic space it embodies.

Read more

The London Zoo is a neighborhood in its own right—even a lot like a gated community. To begin by looking at the special layout of the area, there are three types of land use: residential, commercial, and civic. The residential space is where the animals reside and this space is comprised of buildings, outdoor exhibits, and walk through indoor/outdoor spaces. These are like the apartments or town homes in another neighborhood:

This is a picture of the giraffe habitat, which is an example of the residential-like space in the zoo. The giraffes live both outside of this building and inside stalls inside the older looking, dark, brick building.

Read more

This is a picture of a window in Hill House, and more specifically, my detail is the curving piece in the center of the window. Made from iron, it is not only a decorative detail to the window, but it also allows the window to be locked in place in different intervals. It has holes in it along the top that the white cylinder fits into, which would have held it open at the desired angle. The iron material matches the window pane detailing on the glass itself, and serves as a contrast to the wood and glass that make up most of the furniture and decoration inside the rooms of Hill House.

This detail is reminiscent of the wrought iron detailing in the stairwells of the Glasgow School of Art. On the tour, our guide told an anecdote about how Mackintosh wanted the ends of the iron pieces of a grid to curve in certain ways and when they didn’t, he sent it back and made them construct it again. This curvature is similar to those pieces of iron, showing a similarity between the two famous Mackintosh buildings. Even in Hill House alone, there are many other window details that are also functional to the operation of the windows. If you look at Emmett’s detail, he has an example of an exterior piece that is both decorative and functional, and uniquely Mackintosh as well.

The Hill House is a home designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for the family of Glasgow publisher Walter Blackie. Designed in 1902 and completed by March of 1904, the house is located in the town of Helensburgh, Scotland. Helensburgh, a burgeoning, wealthy seaside town, had developed as a retreat from the ever-more industrialized city of Glasgow (McKean 175). The country hillside provided an ideal setting for Arts and Crafts designers to express their anti-industrialist sentiments in the design of new homes. However, according to Blackie in John McKean’s “The Hill House,� many of the homes in this area drew on more traditional styles with red-tiled roofs, plaster walls, and wooden beams (178).

Unknown. “Hill House (Mackintosh).� [Online image] 14 Jul 2007. <http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/Vineyard/2423/hill_house.jpg>.

Read more

The Chicago theatre opened in 1921 as a movie theatre, but mainly hosts live performances now. The actual building itself, the arch behind the marquee in particular, is reminiscent of the French Baroque style, but the marquis is the most striking and notable feature of the building. This marquis contains brightly colored lights and a nostalgic ’20s feel that juxtaposes interestingly with the detailed carving of film reels on a stone French-styled archway. It is an iconic building in Chicago, mainly due to the marquee. When the marquee needed to be replaced, an exact replica was made and the original was donated to a museum. It was designed by Cornelius & George Rapp.

If you take note of the building itself, it is very rectangular in nature, with the windows at the top evenly spaced with the sindows underneath it, and the rectangular forms on the far right and left. This creates a contrast to the curved arch, drawing an eye to that part of the building. The most detailed part of the building, the arch is the central focal point of the building, although it is far subtler than the flashing signs connected to the structure. Overall, the building is ornate and detailed, much like French baroque architecture, with a “modern” 1920s marquee, bringing the feelings of both modernity and nostalgia to the building.