Novelty architecture

The term Great architecture by various authors summarized Structures which are contrary to the prevailing norms and conventions of the established architecture and act unreal and dreamlike in terms of structure, material use, function and structural logic. Was particularly interested in such examples, to judge from the number and popularity of relevant publications in the 1960s to the 1980s. Referred to in various publications fantastic examples of architecture are varied, so there is no style shape, but a residual category of the extraordinary and eye-popping.

Fischer Lexicon of Fine Arts, 1961

Günther Feuerstein mentions as criteria of fantastic architecture, the colossal and the megalomaniac, the visionaries, the pathetic, the literary- Idealistic and utopian to continue the dominance of the symbolic, low usability and ephemeral Improvisiertheit. Buildings naively amateurish character, the curvy with nature Verwachsende and Decorative - Hypertrophic, the expressive Exaggerated and the exotic - well rationalist - Exaggerated, and of the laws of statics challenging or is based at the border of the technical feasibility of construction. According to Feuerstein Usually several such characteristics would be given to expel an architecture as fantastic.

Fantastic Architecture, 1980

Richard R. Collins divided the phenomenon in the book Fantastic Architecture, published in 1980, in a half-dozen major groups: Künstlerbauten, private castles and palaces and buildings in a symbolic " form of" (about geometric figures, or animals ), visionary architecture, architecture unusual materials and fantastic garden architecture.

• The Künstlerbauten Collins cites as examples to explore the unbuilt visions Giambattista Piranesi and the private house Juan O'gorman, Monkton House of Edward James, Robert Tatins La Frénouse and Bruno Weber's home in Dietikon; further works by Niki de Saint -Phalle and the Merzbau of Kurt Schwitters.
• Among the private castles and palaces he refers to the buildings of Ludwig II and the Sicilian Villa Palagonia as realized fantasies. Are presented by way of example under this title Taródi - vár, the " Palais idéal " of Ferdinand Cheval and the sand castles of Pieter Wiersma, but also Belgium's " Tower of the Apocalypse " by Robert Garcet and the Watts Towers by Sam Rodia.
• Under the title " in the form of" Collins cites the " symbolic functionalism " of the French Revolution architecture and builds a bridge to commercial buildings of the presence in the shape of animals and plants, shoes, barrels, etc., for "Elephant Hotel " in Atlantic City 1883 and houseboats in the form of pagodas or churches.
• Under the section " visionaries " Collins treated again the French and Russian Revolution soviet architecture, called Gaudí, Bruno Taut and Finsterlin. Rudolf Steiner, Erich Mendelsohn, Paolo Soleri, Buckminster Fuller visions domed cities, but also Ron Herron's Walking Cities.
• Under the title " unusual materials " among other things, the bottles houses of George Plumb, Godfried Gabriel and David Brown are presented under " inside and outside " the trompe l'oeil effects painted fire walls and under the heading garden art that many figures Tiger Balm Gardens Hong Kong and the age- old art of bizarre tail section.