Week 7- Emergence of Modernism

Chapter 20

History 

• After WW1 chance to redesign the world
• Art Nouveau and Prairie Style contribute to Modernism movement
• Technological advances such as: skyscrapers, automobiles, trains, photography, movie pictures
• “The Machine” was source of design inspiration
• Functionalism term used to describe design style
• Rejection of the past and historical design- embracing industrial design 

International Style

• The International Style is a major architectural style that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s, the formative decades of Modern architecture.
• The term originated from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson, The International Style, that identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism across the world and its stylistic aspects. The authors identified three principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, the emphasis on balance rather than preconceived symmetry, and the expulsion of applied ornament. The aim of Hitchcock and Johnson was to define a style that would encapsulate this modern architecture, doing this by the inclusion of specific architects.
• The International Style as such blossomed in 1920s Western Europe. Researchers find significant contemporary common ground among the Dutch de Stijl movement, the work of visionary French/Swiss architect Le Corbusier and various German efforts to industrialize craft traditions, which resulted in the formation of the Deutscher Werkbund, large civic worker-housing projects in Frankfurt and Stuttgart, and, most famously, the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus was one of a number of European schools and associations concerned with reconciling craft tradition and industrial technology.

The common characteristics of the International Style include: 

•  Radical simplification of form
•   Rejection of ornamentation
• Adoption of glass, steel and concrete as preferred materials. 
•  Transparency of buildings
• Construction -called the honest expression of structure 
• Acceptance of industrialized mass-production techniques

Architects

• Walter Gropius- German
• Ludwig Mies van der Rohe - German
• Le Corbusier- France/Swiss
• Frank Lloyd Wright- American

Frank Lloyd Wright

• First Major Modern Architect
• Born in Richland Center, Wisconsin
• Education: University of Wisconsin Madison
• American architect, interior designer, writer, educator
• Designed over 1000 structures, completed 532 works
• Worked in the offices of Adler and Sullivan in
• Chicago (1887 – 1893)
• Created an “architecture of Democracy”
•  Unity in planning, materials, structure and site
• Organic architecture considered the effect on man and environment
• Wright’s residential design concepts for incorporating  private areas with the public areas of the house illustrates a kindred manipulation of a square-and-rectangle grid derived from the art-glass and wall tiles.

Walter Gropius

• Education: Studied architecture in Munich and Berlin (received no degree)
• Established own architectural practice in 1911
• Director of the schools of fine art and of applied art at Weimar
• Merged the two schools to form Staatliches Bauhaus
• Known as Bauhaus – Design
• Methods and Materials:
• Borrowed materials and methods of construction from technology
• Utilized mass production of 
• Structural components included: steel, glass and concrete
• Smooth surfaces
• Primary Colors
• Furniture made of plywood, metal tubing and plastic laminate

Characteristics and Style:

• Buildings emphasized the honest and direct use of materials
• Functional design
• Structural components included: steel, glass and concrete

Marcel Breuer

• Education: Studied and taught at the Bauhaus
• Born in Hungary 
• Mentored by Walter Gropius
• Master of the construction shop at the Bauhaus
• Design style inspired by the handles of a bicycle

Wassily Kandinsky

• Painter and Art Theorist (1866-1944)
• Born in Russia
• Education: University of Moscow and Academy of Fine Arts- Munich
• Abstract Artist
• Taught at the Bauhaus
• Fascinated by Christian eschatology and the perception of a coming New Age

Mies van der Rohe

• German- American architect 
• Education: son of a tradesman, architectural apprentice to Peter Behrens
• Sought to establish a unique design style for the modern era
• Valued the concepts of simplicity and clarity with a desire for each structure to appear frameless
• Called his structures “skin and bones” architecture
• Director of the Bauhaus
• “Less is more” and “God is in the details”

Methods and Materials:

• Interiors were created using industrial steel and plate glass
• Created overlap  between the outside and the inside to blend them together
• Valued luxurious  materials such as wood and marble
• Chairs were created using tubular metal

Characteristics and Style:

• Focus of details
• Interiors were open and each space flowed into the next space
• The rich materials were the decoration

Le Corbusier

• French architect (1887-1965)
• Education: Had no formal training in architecture
• Worked for Peter Behrens and Josef Hoffmann
• Most known for urban design
• Wanted to improve the industrialized urban cities such as Paris France
• Respected historic design
• Three pronged philosophy about modern furniture:
• Should strive to be a “standard Unit”
• Act as an artificial limb
• Make use of modern technology

Methods and Materials:

• Functional spaces
• Made use of concrete and modern materials
• Made use of modular storage pieces
• Used mass production as a method of construction
• Believed that décor was not necessary but art was

Characteristics and Style:

• Space defining elements are not structural
• This concept is relevant to Commercial design of today

Alvar Aalto

• Finnish architect, designer, sculptor and painter (1898-1976)
• Education: Helsinki University of Technology
• “Second-tier” of pioneer modernists
• Architecture, furniture, textiles and glassware
• Links to Neoclassicism and the Jugendstil movements
• Used modern materials but made novel use of wood in his designs

A Frank Lloyd Wright interior

A Modern Interior that takes ideas from Frank Lloyd Wright 

Farnsworth House

Small Modern Home

Aalvar Aalto chair

Modern Chiar Desinged in 2024 

Through these pictures and comparisons, it is obvious that the modernist movement has an impact on things still designed today!

One Step Further 

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in Western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated from Odessa Art School.

Wassily Kandinsky believed that art could evoke emotional responses through color, line, shape, and texture. He was a pioneer of abstract art and believed that it could convey universal human ideas and emotions. Kandinsky believed that color could evoke emotional responses and connect viewers to their spiritual selves. For example, he believed that yellow could disturb, while blue awakened the highest spiritual aspirations. Kandinsky viewed music as the most transcendent form of non-objective art. He strove to produce paintings that alluded to sounds and emotions through a unity of sensation. Kandinsky's forms evolved from fluid and organic to geometric and, finally, to pictographic.