Modernism, Modernization and Modernity: A Comprehensive Overview

Modernism, Modernization, and Modernity

The Modern Age: Origins and Defining Elements

Paris 1889: The Eiffel Tower
  • The Eiffel Tower, designed by Gustave Eiffel, served as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle in Paris.
  • It exemplified modern engineering, materials, and technologies of the time.
Paris Exposition Universelle 1889
  • An international trade fair showcasing colonial empires' economies and cultures.
  • Attracted over 32 million visitors, highlighting mass popular culture.
The Shock of the New
  • The industrial age brought machine technologies, new materials, and new objects, transforming life.
  • New spatial experiences abstracted the world, moving away from stability.
  • Art shifted towards experiential, rather than representational forms.
  • The modern world was increasingly shaped by science and technology.
  • Robert Delaunay's "Eiffel Tower" (1928) captures this sentiment.
The Statue of Liberty
  • Designed for the centenary of US independence in 1886.
  • Frederic Bartholdi was the sculptor, and Gustave Eiffel the engineer.
  • Showcases modern engineering disguised in a classical form.
New Technologies and Transportation
  • Trains, boats, and planes were celebrated by artists, reflecting new technology and industry.
  • Engineering transformed construction, emphasizing transparency, light, and space.
  • Claude Monet's "Gare St Lazare" (1877) exemplifies this fascination.
A Machine-Made World
  • Emergence of a new visual and material language influenced by machine-made designs.
  • Gustave Caillebotte’s "On the Pont de l’Europe" (1876 – 1877) captures this.
Café Culture and Urban Lifestyle
  • Café culture, leisure activities, and the spectacle of the street emerged as key aspects of urban lifestyle.
  • Also, there were new forms of work, advertising, economics, and consumerism.
The Home as a Site of Consumption
  • The home became a retreat characterized by interior decoration, comfort, and feminine aesthetics.
  • Collections of objects, textiles, surfaces, color, novelty, and ornament were common.
  • Individualism and the display of status and wealth were emphasized.
  • Labor-intensive, requiring servants to maintain.
Advertising and Graphic Design
  • Advertising, posters, and graphic design became the new art of the street.
  • Figures like Jules Cheret and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec merged art, industry, and technology.
The Department Store
  • Galeries Lafayette exemplified the rise of the department store.
  • Sonia Delaunay was a designer/entrepreneur in this era.
Sonia Delaunay's Work
  • Atelier Simultane, Paris, 1925 focused on fashion illustrations and design.

The Modernist Avant-Garde

Cultural Revolution
  • By 1909, art and design became forces of cultural revolution.
  • Envisioning a utopian machine age future.
Italian Futurists
  • Design manifestoes aimed to change the world.
  • Filippo Marinetti published the First Futurist Manifesto in Paris in 1909, becoming the Futurist leader.
Manifesto of Futurist Architecture
  • Authored by Antonio Sant'Elia in August 1914.
  • Showcased utopian worlds and visionary design.
  • La Citta Nuova (The New Town) exemplified this vision.
Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting
  • Created in 1910 by Boccioni, Carra, Russolo, Balla, and Severini.
  • Carlo Carra’s works, such as "Patriotic Celebration" (1914) and "Cyclist" (1913), embody Futurist principles.
Experiencing Modernization
  • New visual language and subject matter emerged.
  • Changing perceptions of space and time.
  • Responding to new technologies.
  • Examples include Giacomo Balla’s "Street Light" (c.1911) and Umberto Boccioni’s "States of Mind: Farewell" (1911).
Futurist Photodynamism
  • Manifesto written in 1913 by Anton Giulio Bragaglia.
  • Explored photographic science as forward-looking and in sympathy with the evolution of life.
  • Works include "Head in Movement" (1911) and "Violincellista" (1913).
Dynamism and Energy
  • Expressed by Giacomo Balla in "Abstract Speed & Sound" (1913).
  • Captured the dynamism and energy of the machine age.
  • Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s "The Typist" (1911) depicts the speed of change, with multiple moments of time in a single image.
Words in Freedom
  • Marinetti’s "Words in Freedom" explored graphics and text as image.
  • New poetry of ‘words in freedom’ sounds communicated within image.
  • Experimentation with new graphic expression, integrating text and imagery.
Commercial Design
  • Fortunato Depero’s commercial designs, like the Campari bottle (1922) and advertisement (1931).
  • Giacomo Balla’s ‘Anti-Neutral Suit’ from the Futurist Manifesto 1914, designed for the modern machine age man.

Modernist Design: The Bauhaus

Ideological Manifesto
  • The Bauhaus (1919) was an ideological manifesto for a new and better world after World War 1.
Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus
  • Theorized design as a practice and intelligence, shaping a new world.
  • Aimed for a universal design language for all.
Russian Constructivism
  • Focused on the new designer/scientist and new technologies.
  • El Lissitzky’s "The Constructor (Self Portrait)" (1924).
Modernist Design Principles
  • Socially democratic and moral.
  • Anti-ornament.
  • Spoke of the era, rejecting historicism.
  • Integrated art and industry, embracing the machine age.
  • Utilized modern materials and production technologies, including new modes of communication.
  • Simplicity of form: triangle, square, sphere, cube.
  • Primary colors: red, blue, yellow.
  • Form follows function/production as advocated by Herbert Bayer.
Modern Color Theory
  • Johannes Itten explored the science of the sensory, establishing a language and grammar of design.
Bauhaus in Dessau
  • Gropius designed the Bauhaus in Dessau (1925) for staff and students.
  • It featured working architectural prototypes for new building types, emphasizing standardization and modularity.
  • Architecture/House was seen as a symbol of social need underpinning all design.
Rethinking the Domestic Home
  • The Bauhaus Master’s house in Dessau rethought and simplified the domestic home.
  • It introduced new ideas of space, light, and form in architecture.
Interior Design and Furniture
  • Marcel Breuer explored new spatial relationships, inside/outside transparency, and glass.
  • Aesthetics of efficiency, reflecting the machine age, promoted health, fresh air, cleanliness, and order.
  • Modern lifestyle: new freedom and simplicity.
Marcel Breuer's Furniture
  • Chair (Model B33, 1927 – 1928) exemplified form following function, truth to material, honesty, transparency, and simplicity.
  • Stool (Model B37, 1932) followed similar principles.
Pure Form
  • Marianne Brandt’s Teapot (c.1925) demonstrated rethinking everyday objects using pure forms: sphere, triangle, square.
  • Williem Wagenfeld’s Lamp (1924) introduced new design forms for modern technologies like electricity.
Marianne Brandt's Graphic Design
  • Brandt, head of the Bauhaus metal workshop, experimented with graphic design, photography, and photomontage.
  • Examples include "Autoportrait" (1928), "Palucca Dance" poster, and "Tempo-Tempo, Progress, Culture" (1927).
Herbert Bayer's Design
  • Herbert Bayer focused on design for mechanical print, type, and image, abstraction, and a universal visual language without historical or national references.
Mies van der Rohe
  • The last head of the Bauhaus and a grand master of International Modernism.
  • Designed the Barcelona Chair for the German Pavilion at the International Exposition, Barcelona, 1929.
  • Also known for his Design of a Skyscraper (1921).
Closure of the Bauhaus
  • Iwao Yamawaki’s "The End of the Dessau Bauhaus" photomontage, 1932.
  • The Bauhaus was closed by the Nazi regime in 1933.
  • Key Bauhaus teachers emigrated to England, the USA, or other parts of Europe.
Modernization and Internationalism
  • Evidenced by travel and tourism, magazines, advertising, and promotion/commercial art.
  • Art Deco emerged as a commercial art & design style.
American Modernism
  • Modernism went international, particularly in American Modernism during the 1930s-1950s.
  • William van Alen’s Chrysler Building, New York, 1930, featured modern design for industry/commerce with Art Deco, luxury, and ornament.
  • Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, New York, 1958, exemplified Modernist, minimal design.
Le Corbusier and the Modernist City
  • Plan Voisin, a utopian Modernist city plan for Paris, 1925, sponsored by an automobile company, was never constructed.
  • Le Corbusier, a Swiss/French architect living in Paris, developed theories and principles of Modernist design, especially architecture and urban redevelopment, also designing furniture using new forms and materials.
Le Corbusier's Vision of the Home
  • The house of the future ‘should be a machine for living,’ emphasizing architecture and interior design for function and efficiency.
  • Le Corbusier’s Pavilion de l'Esprit Nouveau, at the Paris Exposition, 1925, was a controversial design initially rejected by expo authorities.
Le Corbusier's Chair Design
  • Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret, and Charlotte Perriand designed the Chaise Lounge LC4, 1928, rethinking chair design in response to the form of the human body.
  • The chair became a sculptural form: minimal and functional.