Modern Movement
1910 – 1940s
Functionalism
whatever you design MUST work
Ornament as Crime
Raumplan & Plan Libre
space planning issues
Adolph Loos,
1870-1933
•“father of modern movement”
•architect—loved theory
•used no historical references in
his architecture—especially
ornamentation
•ornament does not serve a
function
•wrote of people that
continue to ornament their
bodies—backward &
uncivilized
•likened those with tattoos to
criminals
backyard
Steiner House, Adolph Loos, 1910-1920
•white box as a dwelling
•strong desire for symmetry
•front façade
•curved line for interest
•very rigid
Moller House, Adolph
Loos, 1910-1920
•believes society has two
faces—public face (exterior)
& private face (interior)
•client did own interior
•gave you the shell to work
with—you chose individual
pieces
•space should be freed from
having rigid floors
•wanted much more organicism
Raumplan—he freed the
space vertically—different
sense of complexity
Maison Domino, Le Corbusier, 1914
direct contrast with Le Corbusier’s—“Plan Libre”
Director of Bauhaus School—
1919
•combines two schools of
thought—hand craft & fine art
•you design it, you make it,
but you accept that it will be
made by a machine & mass
produced
Walter Gropius
first year
•completely
disregarded
history in design
•all incoming
students went
through a “ritual
cleansing”
•first year
consisted of a
study of elements
and principles of
design
•original location of the
school—very
conservative town
•1923—exhibition; public
didn’t like it
•thought that the
Bauhaus was creating
socialist freethinkers
•made them move
Bauhaus, Dessau, Gropius & Faculty, 1926
•city (Dessau) funded the construction of the new building
•faculty designed building
•still exists
•simplified
approach to
building
•little
ornamentation
•very rational
•designed to function in a specific
manner
•if it functioned well, it was
beautiful
•used as few materials as
possible
very linear & avant garde
Director's Office at
Weimar Bauhaus, Gropius
& collaborators, 1926
•did use color
•only soft thing in the room
is textile
•lighting by Laslo
•two faculty members per studio
•one to explain production &
one to explain design
•Itten believed his job was to
reach into each student and
unleash inner creativity
•Gropius wasn’t happy with this
Johannes Itten, 1916
•loved expressive and
manipulative aspects of
color
Die Begegnung,
Johannes Itten, 1916
Laslo Moholy-Nagly
•more of an industrial
designer—about production
•form is the expression
Light Display: Black- White Grey, Moholy-Nagy
Marcel Breuer
(Broyer)
•taught furniture making
•used materials efficiently
and in new ways
•sling seat—fabric held in
tension
•step in the direction of
trying to see function of
chair
•cantilevering becomes
popular
Cesca Chair
Breuer, 1926
•inspired by a bicycle
•sitting only on two
legs—entirely
cantilevered
meant for a
middle class
market
Tubular Steel furniture by Marcel Breuer, 1925-1927, Bauhaus
Wassily Chair
Wassily Chair,
•named
after his friend—Wassily
1927
Kandinsky
•some people argue it uses more
material than necessary
Gunta Stolzl
•weaving workshop director—
began on a temporary basis
•women could only go into
weaving
•would sell students designs to
industry for money for school
•women in weaving were
supporting entire school
eventually
•did wall
hangings, rugs,
bedspreads,
etc…
•only soft
surface in entire
space—
humanized
interior
1926
Wallhanging, Stolzl, 1926
Student dorm room with Stolzl’s bedspread,
Pellerhaus, 1926
Lily Reich
•heads up weaving workshop in the 30s—when Mies van der
Rohe becomes the director
•called herself an “inner architect”
Textiles from
the Bauhaus
Weaving
Workshop
Interiors by Lily Reich, Berlin
Expositions of 1931, Bauhaus,
1934
Berlin exposition vignette—uses textiles to make
space more livable
Interiors by Lily Reich, Berlin
Expositions of 1931, Bauhaus,
1934
manipulated textiles so that room feels soft—uses
tubular steel like Breuer—chair reference to Mies
Mies van
der Rohe
1886-1969
“Architecture
is the real
battleground
of the spirit.”
•wants to take
Bauhaus to its next
step—focusing more
on aesthetics
Tubular Steel Cantilever
Chair, Mies & Lily Reich,
1926
•MR2
•tubular steel
•fabric in tension
supports padding
•injected lead into
back stretcher to
hold it down—in
order to keep more
elegant line of
curved legs
German Pavilion, Barcelona, Spain, World's Fair,
1929; w/ Barcelona furniture
perhaps the most famous of all work
•based off of Corbusier’s “plan libre”
•all walls are non-load bearing—do not articulate and close
off space
concrete ceiling & slab floors
limited structure
•free flow of space—walls are accenting depth of space
•rug/textile helps to identify space & function
•can have glass walls now—are not supporting anything
browns &
oranges
brilliant
blue/
gray
collection of different types of marble in structure
Barcelona Chair, Spain, Mies, 1929
•throne for king & queen of Spain’s visit
to pavilion
•leather and strap steel with fabric &
tension webbing
centers all weight on one
point—had to thicken joint
Tugendhat (family) House, Mies,
Brno (city), Czechoslovakia, 1928-1930
•residential—façade; simple white boxes
•strong horizontal quality—flat roof
•unornamented
•generally unpretentious
glass curtain
wall can roll
down into
basement
walls
looks to be one story—actually two—
top floor servants; ground floor family
Corbusier’s idea of structure used—columns or “pilotes”
only thing holding up structure
frames an extraordinary view
front door hard to find—kind of like FLW
•“wallpaper” is nature—curtains play vital role in climate control
•textile defines space
•chrome plated columns
distinguishes Mies work
from Corbusier
•curtains being used as
temporary walls
•textiles & glass used as
dividers instead of walls
chrome plated columns distinguishes Mies work from Corbusier
Tugendhat
chair
•fabric & tension webbing
•tufted leather
•still cantilevered, but with
“S” shape curve
•again used strap steel
Identifying features?
dining room articulated by curved wall—
built-in marble side board seems to be floating
•wood grain
of wall
creates
distinct
patterns
•view brings
color and
pattern to
space
Brno Chair
•named after location of
house
•emphasizes cantilever
•dropped seat
•not fabric & tension
•strap steel
Brno Chair
tubular steel version
STRAP STEEL VERSION
•more elegant
•heavier
•more expensive
TUBULAR STEEL VERSION
•easier to move
•less expensive
Le
Corbusier
1887-1965
•his interpretation of modern
movement most clear—published
•“Vers un Architecture”
•made five points:
•plan libre—eliminate load
bearing walls so it can be open
to anything—furniture created
space definition—furniture
becomes most important
•skeletal steel frame should
show—columns/pilotes
•lift structure off ground away
from “dampness”
•creates abstraction of nature
on roof to balance footprint
below
•uninterrupted strip/ribbon
windows due to less structure
Maison Domino, Le Corbusier, 1914
demonstrating his five points with model of Villa Savoye
real marker that modernist movement is catching on
Grand Comfort Lounge Chair (LC2), Le
Corbusier and Perriand (Charlotte), 1929
•example of
theories in furniture
form
•showing structure
•“lifting up”
Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier, Poissey-sur-Seine, France,
1931
ramp
•turning radius of a car
•auto beginning to
shape architecture
service stair treated as sculptural piece
•grill grate at door for cleaning feet—saw architecture as
“machines for living”—help you live
•furniture was “equipment” for machine
garage doors
places sink here to help keep
the house “machine” clean
sculptural
stair
front
door
ramp
white used because it is all about form
wants you to believe that it is
all machine made
leads you right into perfect view—”idealized version of nature”
creates abstraction of nature on roof to balance
footprint below
•strip window lends visual texture & color to space
•indirect trough lighting
•structure separated from wall
•burnt orange
walls—denote
mass
•powdery blue
trim—delicate
base
•paint highlighted
sculptural form
living room—very large space + strip windows to view outside
spatial complexity
curtain for privacy
bedroom
bathroom—drip dry on built-in chaise lounge
skylight
built-in storage
easy to maintain—house is meant to help you live
varied treatment of pilotes throughout space—
freestanding; pretty close to a wall; submerge column partially;
hide in wall completely
Chaise Lounge (LC4), Le
Corbusier and Perriand, 1928
•tubular steel, painted wood & leather
•still being produced today
•meant to be a moveable system
Chaise Lounge (LC4), Le Corbusier
and Perriand, 1928
Charlotte Perriand
french architect and designer
recognized at age 24 for "Bar Under the Roof"—furniture made
out of chromed steel and anodized aluminium
collaborated
with Corbusier
for nearly ten
years
furniture still in
production
Eileen
Gray
•counterpart
for Corbusier &
Mies
•architect that started out as a
decorative artist—completely
untrained
•started in Ireland
first craft—
lacquering
Le Destin
1914
more graphic
in nature—
leaves
classical
behind
•block screen—created
so that it is very pliable
•iconic piece of Eileen
Gray
Lacquer work,
furniture and
screens, Eileen
Gray, 1913-1920s
•Madame
Levy—Gray’s
first interior
commission–
Rue de Lota
•applied
concept of
block screen
down hallway
•large, custom
graphic design on
wall
•sitting in Pirogue—
like boatish daybed
fireplace only remaining original interiors—all else Gray modified
Pirogue, from the apartment of Mme Levy
used a reeding effect—Egyptian inspiration?
graphic imagery on wall separates Gray from everyone else
House, E1027, Eileen Gray, Roquebrune, France, 1929
example of architectural work—on Mediterranean Ocean in Saint
Tropez—built with the help of Jean Badovici
part of interior stepping out of the “box”
Eileen worked mainly in exploded floor plan
•looks much bigger than it is
•has two bedrooms, a maid's room, utility rooms and a large
space, partitioned with screen furniture, that could serve as a
living room, dining area, cloakroom or guest room
Bathroom, E1027, Eileen
Gray, Roquebrune,
France, 1929
villa provided what she called the
"minimum of space, maximum of
comfort"
•filled every surplus cubic
metre with concealed
storage compartments
•each designed to
accommodate a specific
item
Gray called Le Corbusier's murals "an act of vandalism."
detail of Le
Corbusier’s
mural
Le Corbusier wrote to
Gray after staying at
E-1027:
"Those few days spent in your house
have made me appreciate the rare spirit
that dictates all of its organization, both
inside and outside, and has given the
modern furniture and equipment a form
that is so dignified, so charming and full
of wit."
Transatt Chair, Eileen Gray
•produced a second
furniture type for the
house—”le style
camping"
•flexible, light and
portable
•capable of assuming
different configurations
•accommodate a range
of activities.
Adjustable Table
Bibendum Chair