Lecture 6
New Movements in Twentieth-Century
Architecture and Design: Cubism,
Futurism, and Expressionism
Kasimir Malevich,
The Knife Grinder,
1912
The Overlapping of Cubism and Futurism and their Relevance to Architecture
the fragmentation of forms (derived from Cubism)
the focus on movement (from Futurism)
the bold colors and lines (from Neo-primitivism)
a general departure from objectivity, with an emphasis on individual creativity.
Marcel Duchamp's
Nude Descending a
Staircase
1
Josef Chochol, Prague apartment house, 1913-14
“We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty-the
beauty of, speed. A racing car with its hood draped with exhaust pipes like firebreathing serpents – a roaring racing car, rattling along like a machine gun, is more
beautiful than the winged victory of Samothrace.”
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti 1876-1944 (seen below in a “Futurist Portrait” 1930)
Umberto Boccioni, Unique Form of Continuity in Space, 1913
We go all the way back to the first universal sensation that our spirit can already
perceive thanks to the extremely intense synthesis of all the senses in a universal whole
which will make us return through and beyond our millennial complexity, to primordial
simplicity."
"It is achieved through the intuitive search for the one single form which produces
continuity in space."
Umberto Boccioni’s visual
transcriptions of energy help
artists think about the
representation of movement in a
variety of forms and materials
2
Antonio Sant’Elia,
Project for a station
for airplanes and
tranes with funicular
lifts connecting to
three levels of
streets,” Italy, 1914
(Stazione
d'aeroplani e treni
ferroviari con
funicolari e
ascensori su tre
piani stradali)
Antonio Sant’Elia
La Citta Nuova
(The New City),
1914
Sant’Elia, Project for
an Electrical Power
Station, 1914
3
Nicola Djulgheroff
Lighthouse to mark the victory
of the machine, 1927
Piero Portaluppi, Studies for dwellings and offices in "Hellytown" (1926)
Giacomo Matté-Trucco, FIAT Lingotto car factory (1916-1926)
4
.
.
Bruno Taut, “Sun, Glacier, and Glass,” from his book, Alpine
Architecture, 1919
5
Bruno Taut, “Crystal
Mountain,” Alpine
Architecture, 1919
Bruno Taut, Various projects for a “City Crown”
(Stadtkrone), 1919-20, a new expressionist
iteration of a cultural acropolis
Hermann Finsterlin, project for a house of glass, 1920
6
Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain, 1986-1997
Frank Gehry, Mixed-use Office and Residential Building, Prague, 1996
(the “Fred and Ginger” Building)
Bruno Taut, Pavilion for the
Glass Industry “Luxfer”
Syndicate, 1914, Cologne
Werkbund Exposition
7
Bruno Taut, Pavilion for the Glass Industry “Luxfer” Syndicate, 1914, Cologne
Werkbund Exposition, longitudinal section
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe,
Project for a Glass High
Rise, 1922, Berlin
Friedrichstrasse.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Project for a Glass High Rise, 1922, Berlin
Friedrichstrasse, view of model as reconstructed by MoMA.
8
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Project for a Glass High Rise, 1922, Berlin
Friedrichstrasse, view of alternative design
Erich Mendelsohn
(1887-1953), the
adaptable curves,
glass, and dynamism of
form in projects such as
the Einstein Tower
Observatory, Potsdam,
Germany, 1921
Mendelsohn,
Schocken
Department Store,
Stuttgart, 1926
9
Rudolf Petersdorff
Department Store,
Breslau, 1927/28
Night view of another
Schocken Department
Store by Mendelson –
note the effects of his
‘Lichtarchitektur’ (light
architecture) and the
purposely achieved
transparency of the
floor-to-ceiling shop
windows on the
ground floor
Piet Mondrian, Dutch Modernist painter, 1872-1944
An important contributor to 20th-century abstract painting and the Dutch De Stijl
movement. His journey from realism to Impressionism to abstraction represents a major
moment in the evolution of 20th-century artistic expression in painting. Contemporary
Photograph, “Live Oak” – very similar to Mondrian’s early hyper-realist graphite sketches
of trees and views of the forest executed in the 1890s
Piet Mondrian, Red Trees, 1908
10
Piet Mondrian (Dutch), Study of Trees, 1913
Piet Mondrian, The Red Tree, 1910
Piet Mondrian, The Red Tree, 1910, detail
11
Piet Mondrian, The Grey Tree, 1911
Piet Mondrian, Trees, 1912
Piet Mondrian, Flowering Tree, 1912
12
Piet Mondrian, Line and Color, 1915
Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1915
Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1915
13
Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1921
Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1943
Theo van Doesburg, Project for the “Cinema Dance
Hall,” perspective view, Strasbourg, France, 1928
14
Theo van Doesburg, Cinema Dance Hall,
Strasbourg, France, 1928
Gerritt Rietveld, Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924
Gerritt Rietveld, Schroeder House, Utrecht
(Holland), 1924, exterior view
15
Gerritt Rietveld, Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924,
ground floor plan
Gerritt Rietveld, Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924,
second floor plan (note retractable partitions)
Gerritt Rietveld, Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924,
interior view
16
Gerritt Rietveld, table and chair, 1924
Gerritt Rietveld, Schroeder House, Utrecht, 1924,
interior perspective view
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