From the formal play to the functional diagram: Experiences in Soviet and North American skyscrapers

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  • Víctor Larripa Artieda
Víctor Larripa Artieda
Vol. 4 (2014), Articles, pages 01-12
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17979/bac.2014.4.0.1004
Submitted: Jul 8, 2015 Accepted: Jul 8, 2015
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Abstract

The article narrates the origin of one of the project strategies that modernity brought: the functional diagram. For this, it examines the moment in which the pioneers veered from their early abstract formal experiments towards more functionalist and objective positions based on the program and the construction, not in the form. Specifically, the discourse explores the development of the architectural type of the skyscraper because it is a clear example of those experiences. In fact, the skyscraper -as a type- and the diagram -as a strategy-, share a similar historical and cultural trajectory: both were invented in the U.S., then they were reformulated by the soviet and European avant-garde in the twenties, and finally they were exported back to America in the thirties. The article eches these vicissitudes, and finishes with an explanation of the PSFS tower as a climax: designed by an American architect and an European architect, this building is the first skyscraper of the second generation built in America and represents one of the first clear examples in which was used the diagram as a formal strategy.

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