Week 11 - Modernism

BACKGROUND

The modernism is an art movement that started in the middle of the 19th century (1850) but that started to emerge in architecture around 1910. This art movement is rejecting the idea of what was here before it and is now a way of willingly making the new world through shapes, space and images (Aaron Betsky,2016). The concept of the modernism is to reject everything that turn around beauty. Modernist artists are thinking about allowing functions so, everything is reduced to the design that concern functionality. The contextual factors that determinate it are the industrialisation and the capitalism. In fact, the industrialisations has leaded to the technological advancement, which has allowed the development of a lot of fields until now. This development has then allowed a lot of artists to produce different type of work in literature, paint, drawings, sculpture, architecture, design...

Raymond Duchamp-Villon - Seated Woman, 1915

• For this sculpture, Duchamp-Villion took his inspiration from the pose that Michelango invented for the woman he painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the early 1500. (Risd Museum, n.d)
  

• This art work show a woman seating on a base, with her left leg higher than the other one and taking support on the base with the help of her foot while her right foot is on the tip of her toes. Her right arm is dropped along her body while the other arm is covering her chest. The woman's face is a smooth area with not details on it besides the nose that can be detected as it is represented with a little bump.
  

• All the structure has a gold colour and is made with the same bronze material with a gold wash technique giving a smooth texture. (Risd Museum, n.d)

Walter Gropius - Dessau Bauhaus, 1926

• Walter Gropius has been inspired to create this institution with an emerging style that would forever influence the field of architecture. (Sveiven M. , 2010)
  

• The building is composed of three sides that are connected by bridges.
  

• From a aerial view, the building hints at the form of a airplane propellers. (Sveiven M. , 2010)
  

• The most prominent features are the glass curtain walls that provide views of the building's interiors and the windows enable sunlight to pour in during the day.

Mies Van Der Rohe - Tugendhat House (1930)

• The Tugendhat house is a representation of modern architecture and is in the Czech Republic, the only example of modern architecture. It has been designed for upper-middle-class clients during the 1930s.
  

• The overall shape of the house is rectangular with an all white painting. It is surrounded by a garden and is constituted of two floors.
  

• The house is placed on a sloped terrain and is entirely windowless allowing the sunlight to pour into the house.

Serge Chermayeff - Radio (model AC74), 1933

• Many artists were envisaging a world recreated in terms of the machines. The machines by themselves and the elements that constitute them were seen as models of functional design without ornament and that's when a lot of technological objects started to have another facet. (Moma, n.d)
  

• The radio, with a symmetrical feature has a central square shape associated with basics geometrical forms such as rectangles and cercles.
  

• The colour of the object is grey and the circular buttons that serves as control buttons are white.
  

• The material with which it was made is the Bakelite, a synthetic plastic material that could be industrially shaped. It has also been made with chrome and celluloid. That's the reason why the texture is smooth. (V&A Collection, 2006)

Gerrit Rietveld - Zig Zag Chair, 1934

• The reason why this chair looks more like a sculpture than a real object is because Rietveld interest in abstract design has been justified by his earlier participation of the Avant garde movement which embraced the notion of abstraction as the representation of pure spirit and universal appeal. (The Met, n.d)
  

• This chair is a succession of flat unpainted wood planks, that are adjusted in a series of perpendicular and angular position of the geometric planes. They are adjusted in an zigzag way that form on the bottom, a Z shape.
  

• The chair used the wood material at its furthest extreme, making one line that is support, structure and image (Betsky, 2016). The shape of this chair creates a sense of asymmetry with the presence of positive and negative spaces and also creates a sense of warm and natural colour as the wood used is unpainted.

Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius - Chamberlain Cottage (1941)

• The collaboration between the two authors of the project had the intention to create a structure that would pull together nature with modern design. (Dahl B. ,2017)
  

• The structure is not placed directly on the soil but is nestled.
  

• The overall building is a coordination of different size of rectangular boxes and forming two floors levels and is clad with rewood boarding. (Dahl B. ,2017)
  

• As it is made with wood and stone (Dahl B. ,2017), the colour looks like a mix of brown and green

Image list

Image 1 - Raymond Duchamp-Villon - Seated Woman, 1915

Image 2 - Walter Gropius - Dessau Bauhaus, 1926

Image 3 - Mies Van Der Rohe - Tugendhat House (1930)

Image 4 -Serge Chermayeff - Radio (model AC74), 1933

Image 5 - Gerrit Rietveld - Zig Zag Chair, 1934

Image 6 - Marcel Breuer and Walter Gropius - Chamberlain Cottage (1941)

Reference list

1. Betsky, A. (2016). Making it modern. New York: Actar Publishers

2. Duchamp-Villion R. (1915), Seated woman. [Sculpture], Retrieved from: https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/collection/seated-woman-67089 [Accessed 20th January 2024]

3. Rids Museum, Raymond Duchamp-Villion Seated Woman. [Online], Retrieved from: https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/collection/seated-woman-67089 [Accessed 20 January 2024]

4. Walter Gropius (1926), Dessau Bauhaus, [School], Retrieved from: https://www.archdaily.com/87728/ad-classics-dessau-bauhaus-walter-gropius [Accessed 21 January 2024]

5. Sveiven M. (2010). AD Classics: Dessau Bauhaus/Walter Gropius [Online] Retrieved from: https://www.archdaily.com/87728/ad-classics-dessau-bauhaus-walter-gropius [Accessed 21 January 2024]

6. Mies Van Der Rohe (1929) Villa Tugendhat [Villa] Brno, Czech Republic

7. Koten M. (2023), The birthplace of the first smart home. Retrieved from: https://3seaseurope.com/villa-tugendhat-first-smart-home-mies-van-der-rohe/ [Accessed 21 January 2024]

8. Frampton, K. (2015). A genealogy of modern architecture. Switzerland: Lars Muller Publishers

9. MME Villa Tugendhat, Villa Tugendhat Mies Van Der Rohe. [Online] Retrieved from: https://www.tugendhat.eu/en/ [Accessed 21 January 2024]

10. Chermayeff S. (1933), Radio (modelAC74). [Radio], Retieved from: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/173629 [Accessed 22 January 2024]

11. Moma. Serge Chermayeff Radio (modelAC74). [Online] Retrieved from: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/173629 [Accessed 22 January 2024]

12. V&A Collection (2006), EKCO AC 74. [Online] Retrieved from: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O121385/ekco-ac-74-radio-chermayeff-serge/ [Accessed 22 January 2024]

13. Rietveld G. (1934), Zig Zag Chair. [Furniture], Retrieved from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/495195 [Accessed 20 January 2024]

14. The Met, Zig Zag Stoel [Online] Retrieved from: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/495195 [Accessed 20 January 2024]

15. Breuer M. and Walter Gropius (1941), Chamberlain Cottage, [Structure], Retrieved from: https://coolmaterial.com/lifestyle/home/chamberlain-cottage-breuer-and-gropius/ [Accessed 23 January 2024]

16. Dahl B. (2017) Chamberlain Cottage. [Online] Retrieved from: https://coolmaterial.com/lifestyle/home/chamberlain-cottage-breuer-and-gropius/ [Accessed 23 January 2024]

17. Frampton, K. (2020). Modern architecture : a critical history. London: Thames and Hudson