modernism in industrial designby rik burger

motivation for choosing modernism in industrial design

my mother is an art historian who has a great understanding of modernism, bauhaus and de stijl. as a small child i grew up with art. my mother took me to museums, galleries and exhibitions. she even took me and my little brother to venice to visit the biennale. i always had affinity with art and expressing through form, shape and color. when chosing to study industrial design, i hoped for an emphasis on art. when it became clear to me that students were allowed to choose their assignments, i chose for my first assignment to be an assignment that underlined art.

reflection on different topics.

the first question asked to us on the first day of this assignment was: what is modern? a very confusing question, because interpreting modern is very time-based. when asked the question, i answered: define modern. everyone has a different view on whats modern.

modern is time and context related. when designing something that is supposed to be modern, you have to keep in mind that your design will be timeless. making something timeless can be done by using a small variety in materials and

using materials that are durable. this is also one of the aspects of modernism.

(the seagram building, new york city, 1958.)i learned during this assignment that modernistic design is partly about using materials that are new. in the 1920s, architectures used a lot of concrete, steel and glass. glass wasnt new back then, but the way modernistic artists made use of glass was. for example, their use of glass in big square windows.

modernism is also about the relation between form and function. material receives form through construction. modern demand and economy of means require each other.[footnoteRef:1] form becomes clear through function. in the us, especially after wwii, modernism was about showing people what was possible. to be more precise, what men (in particular the usa) were capable of creating. new technology and optimizing it was important. the form had to be shaped to the function. they were equally important. [1: jan brand and han janselijn, architectuur en verbeelding, page 39. citation from el lissitzky]

the origin of modernism lies at the start of the enlightment. when church and society became separated from each other and when science and rationalism started to gain ground. but it was when the industrial revolution began, that modernistic ideas could easily be converted into something tangible.

the industrial revolution caused for rapid development of production systems. the production systems were based on efficiency and time use. the product had to be made as fast as possible in the assembly line. an assembly line is an arrangement of workers in which the product being assembled passes consecutively from operation to operation until completed. every worker stood still and had a very repetitive job and made long hours.

frederick winslow taylor thought of taylorism which is about how the production process can be optimized. his inspiration was the factory of henry ford, who was a great american industrial who started the ford motor company and was the instigator of the assembly line. taylor visited fords factory and saw how improvements could be made to speed up the production process. taylors vision was that workers were naturally lazy and therefore had to be rewarded for the work they did, not the hours they made. for every worker and the job they had to perform, a schedule was made that showed them exactly which consecutive movements were required from them. taylor only had in mind how he could optimize the production process and did not think about how the workers were affected by this. by some, he was criticized for this.

in 1927, a movie came out titled metropolis. it was a movie directed by fritz lang that was set in a futuristic dystopia. it explores the relation between workers and factory owners and focuses on the negative sides of capitalism. in the movie, there is a clear difference between the upper class and the lower class. the upper class enjoys the wonders of life and it is not required from them to work hard. the lower class on the other hand has to work in shifts of 10 hours that require great physical endurance. [footnoteRef:2]

karl marx was a germanphilosopher,political economist,historian,political theorist,sociologist and communist revolutionary. he thought of how capitalism would eventually lead to its own destruction because of the class inequalities that were present. we see this when we look at the way workers were being treated in factories especially in the usa. they had to work long shifts for little money, while the owner of the factory performed a smaller amount of work and would earn a great deal more. in marxs mind capitalism would after a while be replaced by a classless society he called communism. in this society, everyone was equal.

these ideas that marx presented were mostly present in europe. but in the usa, similar ideas can be seen within the arts & crafts movement. instigator of this movement was william morris who was an english textile designer, artist, writer, andsocialist. the arts & crafts movement started as a search for authentic design and was in fact a reaction against the styles being produced by machines. these machine-made styles were not creative according to the arts & crafts movement and if these styles would persevere, they would lead to the extinction of the creative mind. what we see is that these ideas were not quite the same as marxs ideas, but had a (william morris, peacock and dragon fabric, 1878)similar foundation. which is that the capabilities and the social wellbeing of men should not be lost at the expense of capitalism. unfortunately for morris, his opposition couldnt stop the upcoming of the machine. [2: also notably is the fact that the architecture in the movie is based upon modernism.]

(ameritrust tower, marcel breuer, 1971)in the 1920s, the people who played significant roles in modern architecture had truly established themselves. these were le corbusier, ludwig mies van der rohe and walter gropius. these last two were both directors of the bauhaus. bauhaus was a school in germany that taught a specific approach to design in crafts and fine arts. multiple subjects were being taught to young artists. there was a painting, sculpturing and architectural department.[footnoteRef:3] there were also subjects as metal, textile, furniture, glass, wood and more. the bauhaus was founded with the idea of creating a total work of art also called a gesamtkunstwerk. the combination of arts and crafts would be defining for bauhaus. but unlike the arts & crafts movement, bauhaus would not have an aversion towards modernity and industrialization.

walter gropius, who started the bauhaus, had modernistic influences and these are also in his view on what the bauhaus should represent. form was created through function. space was also important in design by bauhaus students. when you look at the teapot[footnoteRef:4] by marianne brandt, who was a student at bauhaus, geometrical shapes are present. this is because now each individual part can be clearly read. its function is obvious. marcel breuer is another bauhaus student. his primary medium was concrete and when we look at the buildings he designed, we can clearly see the modernistic influences he picked up at bauhaus. the solid tall ameritrust tower with big open windows and an absolute use of space. when i say absolute use of space, i mean that in the sense that breuer didnt waste any space.

bauhaus is in a sense the pinnacle of modernism. industrialization had met socialism and this combination is what defined the bauhaus. creations made at the bauhaus were industrial products, but werent being made by neglected workers. students and teachers at the bauhaus provided a service to society. their object was to eliminate the drawbacks of the industrial revolution without losing its advantages. bauhaus wasnt lart pour lart, neither was it purely about (bauhaus in dessau)the business end itself. it combined the two together. morris wanted to obstruct the industrial revolution because it would destroy the creative mind. it was only later on, that became clear that the creative mind could benefit from the industrial revolution. the machine could be used to perfect design. bauhaus trained its students to not only be an artist, but in both hand- and machinework, and as a designer.

the bauhaus started in weimar, which is the place where the new german law was decided after wwi, and the first german republic was called the weimar republic. this is also the reason why bauhaus started here. bauhaus stood for a new beginning after the horrors that took place in wwi. it had an innovative modern look on things and wanted to present the future to its followers. the history of bauhaus is parallel to the political history in a way that political views disrupted the ideas of the bauhaus. after 6 years, the bauhaus moved to dessau where they stayed for 7 years, before they were issued to move to berlin. this is where the bauhaus was eventually closed by its own leadership under pressure of the nazi regime.

we see that during the industrial revolution, speed was of the essence when producing in a factory. the product had to be made as efficient and fast as possible. this desire for speed became more apparent in other layers of society. a design style where this desire became more obvious, was streamlining. the focus in this style was that everything was made within the thought of air passing the object and the object would cause for the least amount of disturbance of air. not just means of transportation were being streamlined, but also household objects, toys and more. as long as it wouldnt lead to loss of function.

one of the first designers to apply the concepts of streamlining was norman bel geddes. influenced by frank lloyd wright and erich mendelsohn, in 1927 he started to focus on architecture and product styling. although a successful industrial designer, he is best remembered as a design propagandist. an example of this is his futurama exhibition in 1932. it speculated on the future and predicted the freeway system. 45 million people visited this futurama. norman bel geddes made some of the first innovative streamlined objects. examples are his locomotive i and his airliner #4. [3: the architecture department started when bauhaus moved to dessau.] [4: see cover, left bottom corner.]

locomotive 1, norman bel geddes, 1931

(coca cola dispenser, raymond loewy, 1947)especially this last one is a great example of the great futuristic mind of norman bel geddes. while the biggest airplane in that time had the capacity to carry 150 persons, geddes thought of an airplane that could carry a great amount more. geddes: air liner number 4 is a tailless " v "-winged monoplane, carrying (sleeping accommodations) a total of 606 persons, 451 passengers and a crew of 155. she has a total wing spread of 528 feet. on the water she is supported by 2 pontoons 104 feet apart, 235 feet long and 60 feet high. () to-day, the average speed of express transport air planes falls considerably below three hundred miles an hour. however, the day will come when for ordinary commercial purposes an airplane speed of three hundred miles an hour will be practicable.an apprentice of norman bel geddes who is also one of the most remarkable streamline designers is henry dreyfuss, who later on became a competitor of norman bel geddes. probably most famous for his telephone design in which he incorporated the microphone and the receiver in one handheld set. henry dreyfuss concerned himself more with problem solving and improvement than with style. he madeproductsbetter suited to work the way people used them.hisdesignsoftentimes produced a better look in the process but usability was his key objective.

another modernist and one of the most famous streamliners we discussed is raymond loewy who summed up his approach in design to one phrase: never leave well enough alone. loewy envisioned that the outside of a product could be the opportunity a product needs to express itself. the difference between most modernists and loewy was that he found a compromise between engineering criteria and aesthetic concern to achieve the optimal solution. an obvious streamline design made by raymond loewy is his coca cola dispenser and his studebaker car designs. both streamlined, but the coca cola dispenser had no functional use of being streamlined. but as a critic once noticed: streamlining is permissible for a tricycle, because the younger generation expects the newest gadgets on toy range.

the impact of modernism, architectural and personal environment

modern architecture started at the beginning of the 20th century, but didnt gain popularity until after the second world war. this popularity remained dominant within architectural design for almost 3 decades. modern architecture was mostly present in commercial and governmental buildings. reason for this was the emphasis on functionality within modern architecture. residential homes didnt require this emphasis, but required one where humanism would be underlined. le corbusier once noted that buildings are machines for living. but no one would want to live in a machine. so since the early 80s, people tended to more organic architecture that felt more human and accessible.

still modernism had a great influence on architecture. it described a way how functionality could control form. especially this aspect of modernism is one that will remain and will reappear in other movements as well. this because we live in a society where speed and driving for success are a given and modernism created an enablement of greater efficiency for these two criteria. a lot of modernistic products and buildings that are common for us were in their time truly a revolutionary innovation.

in my personal environment, the presence of modernism is still tangible. for one, my parental home is filled with modern design. unfortunately i personally do not know who made what in our house or how the objects are named. i can only present them in photos.

(backside of parental home)

(chair in living room) bookcase in front living room

experience of visit to the raum der gegenwart.

when approaching the room, i came from a direction that directed me to a small platform that stood next to the room and provided an overview of the room from above. from on top of the platform, a person would have a view that made you look into the room as an observant, not as an active participant. after entering the room and reflecting upon what was there, it became clear that the platform view caused for a look into the past, while when being in the room itself, you would feel present in the time of its construction.

the slideshow projected on the walls, was in fact a view in the past. presented in this slideshow were various art objects from different movements in the past, a time before modernism. the only real modernistic art object in the room was a light space modulator. made from strong modern materials, it was a representation for me of how a moving could create an almost complete use of space. it also presented different ways of moving and seemed to be a symbol of what was possible.

everything else in the room was mostly a reproduction of art, design, architecture, technology and sport that belonged in the past. but the space light modulator wasnt the only moving object in the room. the slideshows were placed in a small vertical angle and would rotate 360 degrees horizontally. also present in the room, is a wall where pictures from modernistic influences would slide horizontally to present itself. the room seemed to be a presentation of how life was back then or maybe what according to moholy-nagy was a perfection of the world and how the future was almost destined to become.

The schrderhuis.

(truus schrder-schrder and gerrit rietveld) (the schrderhuis)the rietveld schrderhuis is a home that was designed by gerrit rietveld in 1923-1924. It was created in order of truus schrder-schrder, who lived in this house from 1925 till 1985, the year she passed away. After her death, the house has been restored to its original state in which rietveld designed it. The surroundings of the house have truly changed since it was built. Where there used to be a beautiful extended view over a forest, there is now an elevated motorway.

After she lost her husband in 1923, truus schrder-schrder wanted to move to a house that was more appealing to her. The house she inhabited at that time had high ceilings and large pieces of furniture that together formed a static surrounding. She wanted a house that would be underlined within the theme of active living. Rietveld designed the house in such a way that the house could meet its habitants desires. The walls of the upper-floor rooms were movable, making the rooms interflow with each other and letting the habitant choose how to inhabit the house. Ms. Schrder-schrder had a special desire to live on the top floor, closer to the sky. Truus schrder-schrder didnt live by herself in the house. She lived together with her three children and later on with rietveld himself. The opinion of the children and truus schrder-schrder didnt coincide with each other. While ms. Schrder admired the house for what it was and what it represented, the children lied when asked if they lived in the house. Reason for this is that they would else be picked upon for living in such a bizarre house. Her two daughters had to share a room that during the day would be transformed into a sitting area. Her son had his own room, but also his room would during the day be a part of the general living area. It is pretty self-explanatory that these children, who lived in the house during their teen years, werent contempt with this lack of privacy.

The children eventually moved out and the rooms they once filled were now empty. Ms. Schrder-schrder decided to rent the empty rooms to students. One of these students is corrie nagtegaal who has mentioned that living in the rietveld schrderhuis was quite an experience. This because for her the schrderhuis was primarily her home, while for other people it was a monument and a work of art. This also caused sometimes for a lack of privacy. She couldnt poke her nose out of the door without being approached by different people who were all curious about the house. She also noticed in her inner circle of friends that they sometimes seemed more interested in her home than in her as a person.

What she tells about living in the house is how there was a segregation between the upper floor where ms. Schrder-schrder lived and the ground floor where the students lived. The hall was basically an intermediate to both. A place both floors met. In this hall, theres a small platform with a bench and a phone. This platform is where ms. Schrder-schrder and the students met and had small neighbor-to-neighbor chats.

Corrie nagtegaal also mentions the windows on the top floor and how ms schrder-schrder, if the weather allowed her, always had her windows open. She loved the windows and the connection with the nature outside. But even when the (the schrderhuis with its windows open)motorway was build, ms schrder-schrder still opened the windows and according to corrie nagtegaal she always used to say that the noise of the motorway was the prize that had to be paid for progression.

(hole in heating cover with heating tap)although there are a lot of practical improvements within this house that arent available in most houses, there are also some disadvantages. The house could be adjusted to you, but you as a habitant also still had to adjust to the house. There wasnt a lot of privacy and the house itself was quite noisy. The movable walls were very handy, but were also quite thin and didnt completely shut a room off. But when you look around in the house, it becomes apparent that there are a lot of places in the house that are made for social contact. The small platform in the hall, the bench thats outside, the bench in the study etc. These small spots around the house are evidence for the fact that the house is made for social open living.

The art movement that was rietvelds major influence is de stijl. Its a movement that is filled with dogmas, certain rules that together form an undisputed approach on forming, shaping and coloring. For example the believe that everything should be reduced to its primary shape and that when coloring, only the primary colors should be used.

But when walking through the schrderhuis, it becomes apparent that these rules are not as closely followed as other artists within de stijl would have done. A lot of things have been placed rather clumsy, not geometrical. There are also clumsy looking holes in the wood covering the heating. But these little errors are also what makes the house so beautiful and humanly accessible. Rob schrder explaines: a lot of materials such as water taps or sinks had a certain appearance and these objects just had that appearance. It wasnt possible for rietveld in that time to construct these objects with another appearance. Often what you see in modern architecture is that its perfect in its implantation, but with that perfection, all humanity is lost. And rietveld is actually quite a humane architect.[footnoteRef:5]

one of the most important aspects of the house are the windows of the top floor. The top floor existed of different rooms, but the walls of these rooms could be folded to the side, causing for all the rooms to be merged into one big room. When these walls were folded, the view was tremendous in all directions. A person looking outside could almost feel elevated from the earths surface. When looking outside a regular window, you feel like you are a spectator to the world outside. This feeling (top floor)was even more present from the top floor of the schrderhuis, because there was such a wide and descending view from these windows. Since the motorway was built, the beautiful view has vanished.

There was a huge contradiction with the outside and the inside of the house. While the outside was more colored with white and grayscale colors, the inside was filled with more of the primary colors. Even more, while the outside looked static and firm, the inside of the house represented motion and action. Even more the inside of the house was designed with geometrical square figures in mind. But in the garden, rietveld deliberately chose for the plants to create the surroundings. He wanted the nature to take its course and decide what the garden should look like. He even chose for the path in the garden to be made from stones with random shapes.

There used to be a huge difference between the modern feeling inside the house and nature that was present outside around the house. Nowadays, the house feels more integrated with its surroundings in a way. This isnt what rietveld wanted to achieve when he chose this spot to build the house, but these present surroundings are still a better location in my opinion than an urban neighborhood. If the schrderhuis would be surrounded by even more regular houses, it would have been alienated and it would look like its the exception, not the rule. The motorway gives an extra modern dimension to the house. I am not stating that a motorway next to the house is better than a wide open forest. What i am stating is that i feel a motorway might be better than brick stone tall dutch houses around it. I do feel its a shame that the motorway isnt placed on ground level, but that it has been elevated to a much higher level. This way, you as a spectator from the top floor will look horizontally to the motorway, instead of looking down upon it.

Tangible visualization of added design to schrderhuis.

I chose for the bathroom to be redesigned. Most important reason for me to do this is that the bathroom is a static, solid room and is quite the opposite of what the rest of the top floor represents. It looked more like the kitchen downstairs. I wanted the bathroom to be an extension of the general impression given by the top floor design. I therefore chose for my design to be moveable and for the room to be used in various ways. Furthermore, i wanted to implement the de stijl impression and to further develop their chain of thought and what this mend for the house itself.

I chose for a square-looking bathtub at the start, but when reflecting upon the shape, i chose for one of the sides to be a slope so it would still be a square, but more comfortable for the user. I then thought about how i wanted to implement a sink in the bathroom. I wanted the three primary colors able to be separated from each other, but also, when separated, able to be brought together. In short, the three primary colors should be movable. If all different objects would have different colors, then the sink had to be able to connect and disconnect with the bathtub. I chose for a vertical motion, because a horizontal motion is not possible in the small bathroom of the schrderhuis.

since one of my assignments last semester was cardboard modeling, I figured I could make my prototype using the same materials and techniques I learned during this assignment. The outcomes are these: [5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyT4gblNLFI]

The baththub is elevated to the ceiling, making the room more spacious. It is now possible to use this room in a different way. The color of the bathrooms wall is blue. The bottom of the tub is red and the side of the tub is black.

The bathtub and sink are lowered to floor level. It is now possible to use the bath or sink. The sink is yellow and can be lifted on its own towards the ceiling. This way, the bath is completely empty.

This picture shows only the bathtub lowered. If you look at the use of color, we see that the bathtubs primary color is red, the sinks color is yellow and the rooms color is blue. The motion of the objects coincides with the motion of color. This way, the bathroom also coincides with the living room in which we see that on the ceiling the three primary colors are present along the lines of the motion of the foldable walls.

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