THE MODERN WORLD AS TABULA RASA:
THE AVANT-GARDE
AVANT-GARDE
French military term: “advance guard”
(those soldiers who go forward into battle before the
other soldiers)
The group of people in any field, especially in the visual, literary, or
musical arts, whose works are characterized by experimental
methods. The pioneers or innovators of a particular period.
EXPRESSIONISM
Germany
A utopian view of modern technology
and a Romantic nostalgia for die Volk (the People)
Bruno Taut, Stadtkrone (City Crown)
Hermann Finsterlin,
“Traum aus Glas,” (Dream in Glass)
Wenzel Hablik, “Exhibition Building”
Exhibition for Unknown Architects, 1919
Bruno Taut, “Glass Pavilion,” Cologne, GERMANY, 1914
exhibition of glass products and a “house of art”
Bruno Taut, “Glass Pavilion,” Cologne, GERMANY, 1914
exhibition of glass products and a “house of art”
According to Taut, architecture should develop a
new ‘structural intensity’ based on expression,
rhythm, and dynamics, as well as on new
materials such as glass, steel and concrete.
Bruno Taut, “Glass Pavilion,” Cologne, GERMANY, 1914
Bruno Taut, “Glass Pavilion,”
Cologne, GERMANY, 1914
Hans Poelzig, “Grosses Schauspielhaus (Big Theatre),” Berlin, GERMANY, 1919
for director Max Reinhardt’s People’s Theater Movement, it held 5,000 people
interior meant to be a “fantastic spectacle,” plaster stalactites adorning the ceiling
Hans Poelzig, “Grosses Schauspielhaus (Big Theatre),” Berlin, GERMANY, 1919
for director Max Reinhardt’s People’s Theater Movement, it held 5,000 people
interior meant to be a “fantastic spectacle,” plaster stalactites adorning the ceiling
Hans Poelzig, “Grosses Schauspielhaus,” Berlin, GERMANY, 1919
the purpose was to improve mental and moral issues in the society
Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Max Reinhardt
According to Max Reinhardt, it was the responsibility of the modern stage to recreate a perfect mixture of
music, poetry, dance, and song, which he believed to be instinctive to man. He sought to appeal to the
senses and the feelings, and the bringing together of all these arts on one stage. Reinhardt rejected the
realistic stage and searched for new, expressive, and emphatic ways of visual, scenic, and musical
representation, which led him directly to experimentations with ways of mixing the arts.
Eric Mendelsohn, “Einstein Tower, Potsdam (near Berlin), GERMANY, 1919-21
Eric Mendelsohn, “Einstein Tower, Potsdam (near Berlin), GERMANY, 1919-21
Eric Mendelsohn, “Einstein Tower, Potsdam (near Berlin), GERMANY, 1919-21
Eric Mendelsohn, “Einstein Tower, Potsdam (near Berlin), GERMANY, 1919-21
Eric Mendelsohn, “Einstein Tower, Potsdam (near Berlin), GERMANY, 1919-21
Eric Mendelsohn, “Einstein Tower, Potsdam (near Berlin), GERMANY, 1919-21
FUTURISM
Italy
Total rejection of tradition and “the past.”
In keeping with the “Machine Age,” the Futurists saw technology as the basis
for a new culture. Speed, noise, machines, transportation, communication,
information, and all the transient impressions of life in the modern city excited
and intoxicated the Futurists.
Anton Bragaglia, “The Typist,” 1911
Giacomo Balla, “Passing Car,” 1913
Giacomo Balla, “Abstract Speed and Sound,” 1915
Anton Bragaglia, “The Cellist,” 1913
Umberto Boccioni,
“Unique Forms of Continuity in Space,” 1913
F. T. Marinetti, “Zang Tumb Tumb”
(On the Battle of Adrianopolis), 1912
“All these convictions compel me to search in sculpture not for pure form but pure plastic rhythm;
not the construction of bodies, but the construction of the action of bodies. Thus, I have as my
ideal not a pyramidal architecture (static state), but a spiral architecture (dynamism)...”
Umberto Baccioni, 1913
“buildings with external elevators and decks”
Antonio Sant’Elia, “La Città Nuova” (The New City), 1913
“studies for buildings”
Antonio Sant’Elia, “La Città Nuova” (The New City), 1913
The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the airplane and the
industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and
they were passionate nationalists.
“airplane and train station with funicular rail lifts on roadways”
Antonio Sant’Elia, “La Città Nuova” (The New City), 1913