UNIT 1 MODERNISM---
VISUAL EXAMPLES and CITATIONS
Modernism is an era that tradition design features being excused; whlie modern concepts and technologies with new perspective of thinking came up in the design field. There are several core principles inside modernism; functionalism is a focal one.
According to Paul greenhalgh, he explained funcationalism as:
"...the functionalist aessthetic simply claims that functionalism prepares
the ground for beauty by stripping away inessential details and grounding
a design in rational principles." (Paul,1997 pp.43)
the ground for beauty by stripping away inessential details and grounding
a design in rational principles." (Paul,1997 pp.43)
Due to functionalism, most of the product within
modernism period had a clear outlook and had own function. Take the End Table (image1) as an example. It is
designed by the Dutch Architect, Gerrit Rietveld. The outlook of it is simply a
geometric forms, it comprised of a blue square top and red circular base and
were connected by a black and a white rectangle. The language of
geometry was seemed as totally appropriate to the new machines age,
particularly the straight line and the rectangle. (Christopher,1999 pp.66) The
function of it is crystal clear; moreover, this table is also designed for
Rietveld’s famous house, The Rietveld Schöder House, in Utrecht. It is in an
asymmetrical shape, which is similar to the house’s outlook. There are no
unnecessary details on the table; the only detail of it is the color. Since
Gerrit Rietveld was in the De Stiji group, which works often contains on
primary colors and strict geometry.
As functionalism promoted
non-decorative forms, it claimed design should be as simple as it could be. The
German architect and designer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe proposed “less is
more”(Artifice,Inc.,
2011) principle, which is close to the above idea. Mies van der Rohe was one
of the most influential designers of furniture in the 20th century.
The Side Chair (image2) is one of
his designs. Clearly it is not only carry out “less is more” principle, but
also took the advantage of using technology as well.
“What
industrialization had achieved in all the design disciplines was to
remove repetitive manual tasks from a social context and place them
remove repetitive manual tasks from a social context and place them
entirely into the context of successful
economic performance”
(Christopher, 1999 pp.31)
(Christopher, 1999 pp.31)
Its simply and clear outlook leads to be easier in mass
production, which is a king of economic performance. Since modernism is a
period of revolution, it wasn’t only changed the format of design but the
materials of design as well. From this chair, it is easy to find that the
making of it combined different materials: it made use of the sweeping chrome tubular frame to supports a thick full-grain leather seat and back. It showed how one media complementing with another one.
Apart from the
above, Tea service (image3) is other
good example of functionalism and mass production. The Bauhaus designer Wilhelm
Wagenfeld designed the tea service, which is
a teapot in three different sizes with a central diffuser to strain the tea
.The transparency and geometry of laboratory wares clearly appealed to the
Modernist admiration for the functional, rigorously engineered form. (Christopher,
2006. pp.222) The design of the tea service is clean and practical; it was
being widely published and well known. A classic transparent glass set
continuously manufactured during the post war era. (Christopher, 2006. pp.222) It
is no doubt that this product is one of the symbols in modernism design.
Furthermore, The Chess Set (image4) designed by Josef Hartwig is a classic modernism
design. The Chess set was officially produced by the Bauhaus in Weimar. It is
different from the normal chess set; it made use of simple geometrical.
Although it was not made for long and today the official pieces are the
traditional Staunton figures. This Chess set recorded as a sign in modernism.
What is more, it could be regarded as Adolf Loos’s “Ornament and Crime” (Penny,
2004.pp.81) principle:
“…is either a criminal or a
degenerate…ornament is wasted labor power and hence waste health. It has always
been so.”
(Penny, 2004 pp. 82)
(Penny, 2004 pp. 82)
Last but not least, the Turm des
Feuers(Tower of fire) by Johannes Itten represented the Bauhaus college’s
course. Itten was one of the teachers being taught in the Bauhaus College. In the different Bauhaus courses it was
quite common for teachers and students to work with elementary geometric figures
and their re-elaborations. The shape of Tower of Fire gives a virtual
reconstruction; the elementary geometric outlook of it represents an
experimental teaching outcome of Bauhaus college’s course. According to Itten’s
words, his aim is: “To let the students live the elementary geometric figures
in three dimensions, I made models of plastic shapes like the sphere, the
cylinder, the cone and the cube.”(Droste,1994 pp.28)
