Modernism I: De Stijl and Bauhaus

Review of Previous Week

  • Josef Hoffmann and the Sanatorium Puckersdorf

  • Vienna Werkstätte: Focus on complete interior design (Gesamtkunstwerk)

  • Frank Lloyd Wright: Prairie style architecture, incorporating the landscape

Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright

  • 1911: Wasmuth Portfolio published Wright's work in Germany.

  • Inspired European modernist movement after World War I.

  • Cross-cultural exchange: Wright inspired Peter Behrens.

Peter Behrens

  • Studio in 1908: Influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright's designs.

  • AEG Turbine Factory (1908-1909): Example of industrial design

  • Embrace of the machine age, contrasting with the Arts and Crafts movement.

  • Studio included Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Le Corbusier.

Deutsche Werkbund

  • Similar to Vienna Werkstätte, focused on modern style.

  • Worked with AEG to modernize and standardize production.

  • Emphasized good form, functionality, and mass production.

World War I Background

  • Began in July 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

  • Nationalist sentiments and alliances led to rapid escalation.

  • Devastation due to technological innovations in warfare.

  • Use of advanced machinery: airplanes, machine guns, tanks.

  • Chemical warfare: mustard and chlorine gas.

  • Shift from face-to-face combat to killing from a distance.

  • Weapons of mass destruction introduced.

  • Approximately 37 million deaths (soldiers and civilians).

  • Collapse of infrastructure, especially in Germany.

  • Germany's economic struggles post-war:

    • Suspended the gold standard.

    • Borrowed money to pay for the war.

    • Hyperinflation: money became worthless.

    • People burned cash for heat. e.g. woman pouring cash into her oven to heat her home because the Deutsche mark was, absolutely worthless.

    • Wallpapering houses with Deutsche Marks as a satirical act.

The Bauhaus

  • Founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius in the wake of World War I.

  • Name: "Bauhaus" (construction house) emphasizes architecture and total environment.

  • Rejected traditional, nationalistic design in favor of a new ideology.

    • Unified international postwar culture.

    • Rejection of hierarchy in art and design.

    • Embrace of abstraction; rejection of applied ornament.

    • Aspiration to create utopian design through aesthetic unity, standardization, and universality.

  • Aimed to unify art and industry, developing prototypes for mass production.

  • Located in Weimar, a conservative town, initially.

  • Walter Gropius:
    * Worked in Peter Barron's studio
    * Furthered functionalist ideals
    * Exterior exposes construction logic
    * Emphasis on artistic solutions to industrial buildings for innovation.

Cathedral of the Future

  • Lionel Feininger's woodcut print (1919) served as a "calling card" for the Bauhaus.

  • Shift from fine arts to applied arts with industrial innovation.

  • Guild-inspired educational system emphasizing architecture and political ideas.

  • Guild of craftsmen without class distinctions.

  • Also called the cathedral of socialism.

Bauhaus Environment

  • Open to diverse individuals and artistic expressions.

  • Liberal and progressive: welcomed queer people, Jewish people, and women.

  • Experimental and often caused complaints in conservative Weimar.

Johannes Itten's Preliminary Course

  • First-year program focused on unlearning traditional practices and embracing abstraction.

  • Eccentric teaching style: monk-like attire, vegetarianism, experimental exercises.

  • Yoga to free the body and mind.

  • Curriculum as a laboratory dissecting forms to their base elements.

  • Crossing of boundaries between visual and performing arts.

  • Implementation of design systems and modular architecture.

  • Effort to create universal forms void of nationalist identities.

Instructors and Ideologies

  • Walter Kaninsky and Paul Klee: instructors at the Bauhaus.

  • Equality within the arts, eliminating hierarchical structures.

  • Breaking down color and shape to basic elements.

Peter Keler's Cradle

  • Unity of basic shapes (circles, triangles, squares) and primary colors.

  • Form follows function: rocking motion achieved by moving the form.

  • Rush side panels for breathability and hygiene.

Triadic Ballet

  • Abstract costumes transforming the body into abstract forms.

  • Blurred boundaries between artistic disciplines (performance, music, costumes, set design).

  • Inspired by prosthetics from World War One. Bodies represented as extensions of machines.

Women at the Bauhaus

  • Large presence (over half the students), but often pushed into the weaving studio.

  • Weaving studio became the most profitable part of the Bauhaus.

Annie Albers

  • Student and later master of the weaving workshop.

  • Revolutionized the medium with experimentation and modern design.

  • Committed to hand loom but envisioned products as prototypes for mechanical production.

Gunther Stölzl

  • Explored aesthetic possibilities of weaving through different shapes and directions.

  • Collaborated with Marcel Breuer on the African chair.

Marcel Breuer's Vasili Chair

  • Vasily B3 chair (1925): Pure geometry, using tubular steel (wartime material).

  • Fabric (originally canvas) as the primary weight bearer.

  • Gunther Stölzl contributed to the textile design.

Shift to Dessau (1925)

  • New slogan: Art and technology, a new unity.

  • Dessau: Industrial town, factory town - more accepting of their ideologies.

  • Closure of unprofitable workshops.

  • Focus on well-designed goods for mass production at a decent cost (though not fully achieved).

Universal Design Concepts

  • Masks as anti-nationalist and universalist symbols.

  • Masks strip cultural identity

Josef Hartwig Chess Set

  • Removed militaristic elements from chess with abstracted geometric forms.

  • Pieces corresponded logically to their movements; form follows function.

  • Removed the hierarchical notions

Herbert Bayer Typeface

  • Universal typeface: stripped of national identity through geometry.

  • Aligned with the spirit of new social and political consciousness.

  • All lowercase to slow eye and reject hierarchy.

  • Compared to Nazi propaganda using Gothic typeface.

Metal Shop Objects:

  • Table lamp by William Wagenfeld: made of glass and brass that is silver plated. Breaking down the most basic forms, playing with circles. Showed how all the aspects screw together

  • Teapot by Mary Anne Brandt: Used basic geometric forms. Didn't hide the construction process. Semi sphere with angular feet, semicircular handle and cylindrical lid. You can see the rivets that hold it together.

End of the Bauhaus (1932)

  • Nazi flag planted on the building; closed due to progressive ideals.

  • Members captured and jailed; some sent to concentration camps.

  • Prominent educators escaped to the United States.

  • Dissemination of Bauhaus ideals through teaching at institutions like Harvard and the Chicago Institute of Art.

Frankfurt Kitchen

  • Designed by Margaret Schütte-Lihotzky in 1927.

  • Inspired by Henry Ford's assembly line: efficiency and new materials.

  • Kitchen as a factory: maximizing efficiency.

  • Compact, hygienic, and easy to clean.

  • Inspired by train kitchens.

  • Leaned into the idea of Taylorism. improve economic efficiency, especially labor productivity

De Stijl

  • Means "The Style" in Dutch; originated in the Netherlands.

  • Reaction to historicized modern Baroque.

  • Machine as the supreme example of intellectual discipline.

  • Fused hand craftsmanship, machine, and utopian ideals.

  • Breaking down representational forms into pure geometry.

  • Van Doesburg's principles: openness, truth, relationships, collectivism.

Famous De Stijl Examples

  • Gerrit Rietveld's red and blue chair (1918-1923): reduction of forms.

  • Piet Mondrian's "Composition in Red, Yellow, Blue, and Black" (1920).

Schroeder House

  • Designed by Gerrit Rietveld in collaboration with Truus Schröder, in Utrecht, Netherlands, in 1924.

  • Principles of de Stijl applied to a home.

  • Open plan with moving partitions for flexible space.

  • Modular furniture and customizable spaces.

  • Sharp and angular lines, wrapping windows, and no boundaries between rooms.

Themes Covered

  • Impact of World War One, the advancements in warfare inspired technological advancement production.

  • Peter Behrens: a starting place for Bauhaus teachers/modern architects.

  • Bauhaus themes: art and technology, a new unity; form follows function.

  • Abstraction with De Stijl.

  • Frankfurt Kitchen: laboratory/factory concept.

  • Universal design and utopia.

  • Lack of hierarchy.

  • Looking toward a future of peace and equality.

Film and TV Recommendations

  • Cabaret: Set in 1920s Berlin, explores new-woman concept and the rise of the Nazi party.

  • Bauhaus - A New Era: a fictional miniseries of what it's like to be a student at Bauhaus

  • Graphic novel about the Bauhaus.