STRUCTURAL DESIGN FOR ARCHITECTURE

Structural Design for Architecture

104

Fig. 4.7 The Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926, Walter Cropius,

principal architect. This building had a reinforced concrete

frame structure which provided the same opportunities for

new architectural expression as had been recognised by Le

Corbusier. The glazed curtain wall which rises through the

upper floors of the building represents an exploitation of

one of those opportunities. [Photo: Paul H. Gleye]

perhaps as a result of the influence of the

second of these that Le Corbusier restricted

himself, in these early buildings, to rectilinear

forms and did not avail himself of the full

potential of reinforced concrete to provide

almost unlimited freedom in the matter of

form. The rectilinearity not only symbolised

reason; it also represented a sensible and

therefore rational way of using reinforced

concrete to provide the structure for a build-

ing. This is an example of the 'structure

accepted' relationship between structure and

architecture (see Section 2.2).

Another of the icons of early Modernism, the

Bauhaus building in Dessau (1926) (Fig. 4.7) by

a team of architects led by Walter Gropius,

also had a reinforced concrete frame structure,

the layout of which was very straightforward. In

the principal block, a rectangular grid of

columns supported a series of deep beams

which spanned across the building and carried

a one-way-spanning hollow-block floor.^3 The

floor deck was cantilevered slightly beyond the

perimeter columns and this allowed the steel

and glass curtain wall on the exterior to run

3 The hollow-block floor is a form of reinforced concrete

ribbed slab in which ceramic blocks act compositely

with in situ reinforced concrete.