Out of the need for protection, architecture, construction and civilizations were born,
in order to protect from the weather, from animals or from enemies.
Towers, forts, trenches, barricades, and enclosures were built for anticipation and protection.
Then came industry, technology, war machines, bombs, and satellites.
The fortifications and tall buildings made it easy to find and attack and the cities were razed to the bone.
Architecture has become more than an instrument of survival and honor: shelters, soldiers’ quarters, and memorials.
Architecture can be the first thing attacked and destroyed during wars, due to its new expression of cultures.
The impact of war on architecture
The impact of the war on architecture
Architecture is affected by everything, ordinary daily life, great achievements, colossal downfalls of history, everything that affects man.
Everything influences his perception of space and his need for a different place to meet his ever-changing needs.
Wars destroy cities on Earth, leaving people traumatized, lost, and heartbroken, and needing time to survive.
In contrast to this slow process, there is a quick and urgent need to actually make up for these losses and re-establish society.
The contrast here lies in how these two opposing processes influence and synergize each other.
The different architectural schools and their influence on the styles of architecture
Many schools and architectural styles were born due to the world wars and how architects dealt with different ways of fixing the consequences.
These styles can be summarized in three main principles:
The first principle centered on restoring what had been destroyed to its pre-war state.
This approach was romantic, with people feeling nostalgic for their old, “normal” lives.
They viewed war as merely an event interrupting their natural, continuous flow,
and this approach resulted in replicas of classical architecture that no longer served the needs of societies and lifestyles.
The second principle
The second principle was inspired by pre-war architecture but did not seek to imitate,
large, well-balanced buildings and order but without unnecessary or excessive embellishment.
The third principle sought to completely get rid of what was harmful and destructive,
and relied on building from scratch.
There was a need to rebuild the cities quickly; many people were homeless and homeless and services were destroyed.
This resulted in many architectural styles that rejected the past and hoped for a new future that it all represented;
Damage, technology and even the need for expression.
Six months after the end of World War I, Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus movement,
which sought to rebuild society and repair the disasters caused by the war.
Bauhaus emphasized logical, utilitarian design that embraced the “form follows function” and the “less is more” spirit of the new post-war period by combining fine arts and crafts, design, architecture and technology.
The architecture of the Bauhaus movement followed certain principles;
Such as avoiding decoration to focus on simple, rational and functional design.
And also focus on simple geometric shapes such as triangle, square and circle; He also preferred asymmetry to symmetry.
Using steel, glass, concrete and other modern materials such as flat roofs;
Glass curtain walls and smooth facades.
Because of the urgent need to build homes for the homeless, the new construction style of apartment complexes that followed the brutal movement arose.
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among post-war reconstruction projects.
The buildings are characterized by simple construction that exposes building materials and structural elements to decorative design.
The style typically uses exposed, unpainted concrete or brick, angular geometric shapes,
and a mostly monochromatic color palette.
They also feature other materials, such as steel, wood, and glass.
In the United Kingdom, Brutalist architecture was featured in utilitarian design and low-cost social housing.
It soon spread to other regions around the world.
Then the Quiet and Romantic Expressionist school emerged against the formal, rational and functionalist schools of architectural thought.
Apart from this artistic goal, Expressionist architecture also dealt with societal concepts.
The massive physical and human devastation was born immediately after the First World War,
which was caused by the first large-scale mechanical war.
It also generated an anti-industrial sentiment, as the industry excelled in the manufacture of death machines that led to complete destruction.
Such a common enemy brought ideas about brotherhood, community and democracy,
and the post-war reality of Germany in particular was hard to bear.
The trauma of losing the war also brought with it a feeling that an era had passed and that it was time to orchestrate a rebirth of collective life and the arts.
By propagating exactly such aims, Expressionism offered a useful way of dealing with the problems of the early 1920s in Europe.
Expressionism rejected the age of the machine, as a basis for artistic creativity,
and in architecture, this appeared as an opposition to design as conditioned only by facilities, materials, construction, and economy.
Instead, Expressionism advocated that political and artistic revolution be the same by transforming social uprising into artistic activity.
