Design and Architecture – Modernism

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Design and Architecture of the 20th Century: Birth of Modernism

What is commonly referred to as Modernity in the fields of philosophy and sociology can basically be summed up as lots of new science coupled with angst. The science included ideas such as evolution and new fields such as psychology. The angst in the early 19th century manifested itself as Romanticism, which was best expressed by writers (especially poets like Byron), and composers like Beethoven (large-scale) and Chopin (small-scale - seriously this dude wrote his own funeral march.)

• Bauhaus design is everywhere, but its roots are political
• Showroom Wiener Werkstätte

The new science and philosophy of modernity changed during the Industrial Revolution, resulting in a period of waxing poetic (culminating in ideas like Socialism and Existentialism) about how technology changed social order and how people lived and worked.

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• Modernism
• The Post-war Era
• Post-Modernism

Suggested Post Series Design and Architecture of the 20th Century

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Technology

The 19th century saw the rise of the factory, which changed how the masses lived and worked. (Hint: it was mostly in filth and poverty.) It also saw the rise of two dope new building materials: reinforced concrete and steel. Architects, being architects, went insane. Suddenly one could build things that were REALLY TALL and REALLY WIDE and totally not reflective of one’s ego at all.

Rondella-Polo by Christian Dell, 1928

Architectural Betchiness

Basically, throughout most of the 19th century (which will get its own post) architecture was really flowery.

The use of ornament in architecture got more and more, well, ornate. By the 1880s, architecture was producing many extremely complex styles such as Gothic Revival and Beaux Arts. Besides looking pretty, architectural ornament played another, less flattering role: hiding the ugly structural bits of the building.

However, the new technology that was emerging made the structures of buildings a lot stronger and cleaner looking. For example the use of steel made the iron-age buildings, which relied on complex arch forms for their structural integrity, obsolete. Gone too were the limits regarding height that were imposed by the structural shortcomings of masonry.

This, of course, led to a stylistic *existential crisis* amongst architects, because none of the historical precedents of the past really applied to this new way of building. Trust me: if you think your ex dwells on the past a lot, the field of architecture has them beat 10000 fold.

Sullivan’s main point was actually that this new way of building was unprecedented, and therefore deserved a new stylistic language to go with it, rather than relying on the tired vocabulary of Greco-Roman inspired Classicism.

Somewhat ironically, many of his contemporaries took the “form follows function” bit and ran off with it, decrying that in this new technological age, ornament was “nonessential” to the construction of buildings, and was thus frivolous. But we’ll get to that bit later.

The Fagus Factory was designed by Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer. It was constructed between 1911 and 1913, with additions and interiors completed in 1925.

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Pre-Modernism: Exploring New Ornament

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human, and all things super-human, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.

Louis Sullivan, 1896

This idea of establishing a new language of architectural ornament wasn’t limited to Sullivan and his much more famous (and douchey) protege Frank Lloyd Wright. In Western Europe, it seemed like every country had its own new ornamental language

As we can see here, late 19th century ornament was super cool and also, in the case of Gaudi’s vaguely skeletal buildings, super weird. Still, all this dopeness wasn’t enough for the dudes who saw all ornament as frivolous and also dumb.

To literally no one’s surprise, this line thinking began with the ever-so-practical Germans and Austrians. Like Marx, whose Communist Manifesto sparked massive political change, the Austrian architect Adolf Loos’ 1910 essay Ornament and Crime sparked a similar reaction in architecture.

The Rational Style: Modernism Canonized

In Loos’ essay, he makes a somewhat valid point that ornamentation can have the effect of causing objects to go out of style and thus become obsolete. Therefore, ornamentation was wasted effort (a crime in this new factory-driven hyper-rational world). What was the point of adding ornament when it would make buildings “meh” in like 10 years?

Loos attached ornament to the concept of morality, (he literally called it “degenerate”) And, in a very manifesto-y way, declared its suppression was necessary for regulating modern society.

• 1. Wassily Chair by Marcel Breuer, 1925
• 2. Villa Berthe by Hector Guimard, 1896
• 3. Elefantenrüsseltisch by Adolf Loos, around 1900
• 4. Wiener Secession by Joseph Maria Olbrich, 1897-1898
• 5. Serie B Lobmeyr Trinkservice by Josef Hoffmann, 1912
• 6. Casa Batlló by Antoni Gaudí, 1904–1906
• 7. Tea Infuser Model No. MT 49 by Marianne Brandt, 1927
• 8. Zeche Zollverein by Fritz Schupp & Martin Kremmer, 1932

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MEANWHILE IN GERMANY a few years before (1899) the Austrian architect Joseph Maria Olbrich seceded from the Vienna Secession (something something Secession II: Electric Boogaloo) to form an artists colony in Darmstadt back when forming an artists colony meant that actual work got done.

This colony, named the Deutscher Werkbund, became the official national designers’ organization of Germany. Its goals focused on how to best utilize the sweet new tools of mass production (with the side effect of a ton of designers bickering about aesthetics.)

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What the Hell is Modern Architecture

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