modernism

10 June 2009Vivian van der Burgt Emin Sinani Thom van Boheemen

Modernism_Final.indd 1 16-6-2009 14:51:58

Assigner Johanna Kint

By Vivian van der Burgt | Emin Sinani | Thom van Boheemen

Date June 10, 2009



Table of Content

Subject Leonardo da Vinici Sketch of lifetime Important for science Education Culture context Ethics Survival designs Quotes Present Leonardo

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau Gaudi Case studies Overall Conclusion Bauhaus

Bauhaus Walter Gropius Case studies Quotes

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12 - 18 19

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32 - 35

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Subject Bauhaus Hannes Meyer Case studies Quotes Overal Conclusion Norman Bel Geddes Highlights View on Design View on Art Design Process Cultural Context Case studies Quotes Overall Conclusion

Modernism vs Streamlining

Vivian Emin

Sources

Bibliography

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Leonardo da Vinci 1452 - 1519

Sketch of lifetime

Leonardo was born in 1452 in Vinci, a little town nearby Florence. His father was a prominent man named Piero and his mother a farm girl of which we only know that she was named Caterina. Da Vinci was a universal genius: painter, scientist, anatomist and much more. The painter Vasari put the biography of da Vinci in the famous book ‘Le vite de pui eccelenti architetti, pittori et scultori Italiano’, as well known as the Vite of Giorgio Vasari. He had never known da Vinci personally, but from the reactions of his students, he was recognized as ‘il Divino’, a God. Da Vinci was charming and very strong. He could bound a horseshoe like it was rubber, but he was also courtly and sensitive. According to Vasari he bought little birds from the market to let them free from the cages they were locked in.

Leonardo did many inventions where no theory was available for yet. He created his own theory


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by doing observations and tests. He invented some amazing ideas and discovered interesting theories which were far ahead of his time and were re-discovered ages later. But sometimes he had got his theory and inspiration from his predecessors or teachers. Leonardo was not an ‘Einzelganger’: He was aware of the things his predecessors had done and sometimes his ideas were variations or improvements of his predecessors. For example Leonardo used in his paintings a technique where you paint the boundary line of the color parts not sharp. Because of that, the paintings looked more realistic. This technique was not Leonardo’s invention, but he had it from his teacher Verrocchio.

Throughout his life Leonardo has had many orders/assignments from several dukes. When

he was 18 he became a student of his teacher Verrocchio. After leaving him Leonardo’s father arranged some assignments for example for the Duke of Florence: Lorenzo de Medici. Leonardo never finished his paintings for him. He was working too slowly. First he had to watch and study a little river and the water flows for months, before he could paint a nice river. After this, Lorenzo offered a gift to the Duke of Milan, Ludovico, and Leonardo went to Milan. There, he finally finished an assignment and a big party was given. After this Leonardo got his own bottega (workplace/atelier). There he worked on for 12 years.


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After messing up some paintings and with no published book, his reputation was not so good. But there were always dukes who were interested in him. Back in Florence again, Leonardo was within a time technical advisor of Cesare Borgia, a famous warrior who was fighting in Middle Italy in order of the Pope. Florence was in war with Pisa in that time and Leonardo had the idea to dry down the river around Pisa. This is an idea that the Persian king of Cyrus did 2000 years ago. The idea did not work as expected, as usual.

After some more fiasco’s Leonardo got back to Milan where he especially was busy with anatomy and his notebook. He worked for another ruler, from who he got much freedom. Because he was 54 years old he wasn’t very popular anymore.

Da Vinci died in 1519.


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Important for science Analogy is at the heart of Leonardo’s scientific and artistic thought. He draws three skeletons: of a human, lion and horse. He saw that the species have similar muscles, nerves and bones and he invented a hybrid skeleton in which the species are combined. He also admired the phenomenon of mountain springs: The analogy between the circulation of water in the earth and that of blood in the human body. Aristotle already puts various explanations of that. You see that he uses the already existing hypotheses of Aristotle, but he renews the way of using it and, ultimately the concept itself. It can first of all serve as a starting point for hypotheses of interpretation, eventually capable of being subjected to experiment. Analogy that Leonardo used most often is a legitimate scientific method even today. (Analogy = highlight the similarities between two objects or phenomena).

Also, there is much interchange between Leonardo’s genuinely scientific researches and the inventions of the engineer, which come under applied science: As a result of the analogy between the man’s body and the urban organism, the scientific analysis of the human body and its functions inspires his concept of the ideal city.

But there were some mistakes because Leonardo was not a scientist. He sometimes applied a poetic kind of analogy to compare two things. He used the model of the human respiration to quantify the respiration of the earth. In the end the calculation used resulted in a contradictory. From then on, he no longer made the analogy the objective of his joint researches into the earth and the human body. A theory he had held for more than twenty years was no longer used.


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In Leonardo’s notebook you can see that art was something he only did when he needed money, to think clearly and to experiment. He was never poor: There were always dukes who were able to pay him. Art was a side issue for Leonardo. He was paying attention to things, systematic and punctual observer, who noticed phenomenon things that were again discovered centuries later. And he was crazy about parallels between human and animal anatomy. But he was not a scientist. But he knew that and he never wanted to confront with them. Maybe there is become to exist some kind of myth around Leonardo. He was admired and divine. Also because he kept his theories secret or he wrote them in secret writing we are not sure if everything was right or genius thinking of Leonardo.

Education

Leonardo comes from a poor family and he did not have the opportunity to go to a university. He went to the Abaco school and after that, he went straight to work in Verrochio’s studio. The abaco school did not formulate general theories. It was a very practical school and they were concentrating on how to find solutions rather than the reasons why they work. This school provided an education of applied mathematics adapted to the needs of the merchants. It was completely different from the school di Lettere where they taught Latin and where the theories were based on the great Latin authors and included rhetoric, poetry, history and moral philosophy. The Abaco school where Leonardo went to provided also religious and moral education, based on the guided reading of a number of texts in the vernacular.


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Culture context In the culture of Italy there were two distinctions: one theoretical science and one practical matters aiming at the production of material goods. You also see this in the distinction of the two schools. Leonardo’s position is defined. Leonardo violently opposed this distinction when he developed and revealed his research that had structural force. Throughout Leonardo’s life he gathered 200 books. It took time to grow but in his time in Milan he added several books to it. Because the influences of the books on Leonardo’s writings were never found it is probable that he never read those books. This library only expressed his desire to overcome his inferior feeling compared to the humanists who went to the school di lettere. The kind of books reflect the kind of education Leonardo had received. He had some religious books and books of chivalry; re-tellings of Roman history was his favored literature. A lot of his theories he had from them. Around his forties he started to learn some Latin words. A duke helped him with that and he started to list some words. This lack was the biggest frustration of his life.

Leonardo was everything except the only inventor. The Renaissance was the time of the art of printing, ship-building, architecture and military science. Lot’s of ingenieurs where of

high quality. But the value of the notebook of Leonardo lies not in the effort of the author but more on the unique life style where he lived in you can see and feel and read in the books. A time and life style where dreamers, artists, inventors were active on the boundaries of the technology which was made by their middle age predecessors.

Ethics

Da Vinci did not seem to care much about ethics. His projects were above everything, he designed new weapons and he dissected over 30 corpses, which was against law at the time. He was the predecessor of nowadays research in genetic manipulation because he tried to combine skeletons of humans and horses. He also wrote down that the sun stood still, which was against the valid dogma’s of the church at that time. But strange enough, he lived under the protection of very important people, even for a while under the pope himself.


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Survival designs

Parachute

Some think that the first primitive parachute was mentioned by Chinese texts 2100 years ago.

In the 9th Century Abbas Ibn Firnas and Ali Ben Isa created a early version of a parachute, described as “a huge wing like cloak to break his fall” (John H. Lienhard).

The first conical parachute mentioned was found in a Italian manuscript from 1470. It was intended as an escape device to allow people to jump from burning buildings, but there is no evidence that it was actually ever used.

Design

Most people think that the first modern conical parachute design had been made by da Vinci in the 15th Century. Da Vinci’s design consists of sealed linen cloth held open by a pyramid of wooden poles, about seven metres long and It weighs about 85 kilo’s.


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A note which accompanied the sketches said “if a man had a tent made of linen, of which all the apertures have been stopped up, and it be twelve braccia [21 feet] across and twelve feet in depth, he will be able to throw himself down from any great height without sustaining any injury”.

Aftermath

Even though da Vinci was probably the first to design a conventional parachute, the modern parachutes are not based on his design as his design remained undiscovered until the 19th century. Modern parachutes are based on a parasol while da Vinci based his design on a tent.

In June 2000 he was proven to be right by Adrian Nicholas, who made a parachute exactly how da Vinci described it. He dropped from a hot air balloon at a height of 3000 meters, an landed safely. He used a conventional parachute for the landing, but that was because he could not steer da Vinci’s, which landed not far from the landing spot, and soft enough to not break the structure.

Survival

This design is a pretty obvious choice because it is literally meant to let you survive a fall from great heights.


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Waterwheel/Archimedes screw

The Archimedean screw is a machine historically used for transferring water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches. It was originally invented by Archimedes but da Vinci made some important improvements. His design had less seepage and friction, which made it more reliable.

Design

He designed a waterwheel which, through the use of two of these screws, would be able to fill a water tower, perhaps for the town water supply. Another possible use for his design was the draining of swamps.

Survival

As already mentioned, this design could be used to fill a water tower, or to drain swamps. This design is also used for the creation of polders and was very important for the Dutch people. This is illustrated by the English saying “God created the world, but the Dutch created Holland”.


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Machine Gun

The first used repeating firearm was the repeating crossbow, invented by the Chinese in the 2nd century. However, a buried library indicates that in the 3rd century BC some sort of repeating crossbow had been designed.

Design

The first thing da Vinci designed was a breech-loading cannon instead of a muzzle-loading cannon. This means that the canon was loaded from from the rear of the barrel instead of the front. This required a cooling down before another firing and da Vinci calculated that this could be done by the use of a vat of water. He then used several cannons combined, which could rotate, which meant that while firing one, the next barrel could be loaded, and the previous could be cooled down.

To increase the fire rate he used different racks containing 11 or 14 guns. While the top row was fired the second row could be loaded and the third row could cool down.

This design is considered to be the frontrunner of the modern machinegun.

Survival

This is a bit ironical for survival design because the purpose of this design is to kill other people, faster and more efficient than before. But it is still a survival design because it is also used for defense and during war it was a important item to have if you wanted to survive.


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Heart Research

Da Vinci dissected over 30 corpses for his research in the field of human anatomy. However, many of the drawings of the heart where made from studies of the organs of oxen and pigs, because that was one of his earlier studies, and he started dissecting human bodies later on in his life. A few of the most important discoveries he did were:

• Heshowedthattheheartisindeedamuscleandthatitdoesnotwarmtheblood

• Hefoundoutthatthehearthasfourchambersandheconnectedthepulseinthewrist with contraction of the left ventricle

• Hededucedthateddycurrentsinthebloodflow-createdbystructuresinthemain aorta artery help heart valves to close

• Hesuggestedthatarteriesfurupoveralifetime,creatingahealthrisk


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Da Vinci discovered a lot of new important things about the heart, even though he still didn’t understand that the blood was a circular system. He believed that blood was made in the liver, cooled in the lunges, pumped by the heart and consumed by the muscles, which was commonly held at the time.

Survival

This research was very important for the heart research in the future generations, and due to this research, da Vinci was also able to explain death’s by sudden heart failure.


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Canals

Da Vinci is also known the engineer who was responsible for the design of a canal which would have linked Milan to the sea. He also designed sets of hinged gates that met at an 90° angle, and formed a watertight joint caused by the pressure of the water on their mitered edges. In 1497 six sluices were built with da Vinci’s design and it is still very common use today.

Survival

Canals were very important in Da Vinci’s age. They where a main transportation route for merchandise, and a connection to the sea could make a city grow out to be a big trading city. Also Da Vinci’s design for sluices are used a lot and are still in use today.


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Quotes

“Our life is made by the death of others.”

People die, other people are born and live on. But, because of the things we create or do nowadays can be reflected on in future generations.

“Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it.”

This can be clearly seen in Leonardo’s paintings. For example in the Mona Lisa, it is not clear if she is smiling (proud, happy) or looking sad (afraid, hurt). With this quote Leonardo tries to say people survive because of the natural fear they have. They are protected for not doing obvious stupid things which can bring them in danger.

“Human subtlety will never devise an

invention more beautiful, more simple or

more direct than does nature because in her

inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is

superfluous.”

“Nature never breaks her own laws.”

Leonardo always was interested in nature. It was the only thing for him which could be called “perfect”. Therefore he thinks it is a good inspiration to look at nature.

“Although nature commences with reason

and ends in experience, it is necessary for

us to do the opposite, that is to commence

with experience and from this to proceed to

investigate the reason.”

It seemed like Leonardo did not really believed in some sort of god, therefore he always was in search of ways to translate things happening into physics. By this quote he tries to say that everything you do has to be reasoned out and thought about. This can also be applied when referring to survival.

“Where there is shouting, there is no true

knowledge.”

Although Leonardo has designed many war machines in his life. Da Vinci was not someone who liked war. Leonardo hereby tries to say that when people do not have the knowledge to backup something they think, they start to shout. But actually you can see this quote also used in war. War is the next level of shouting. People kill each other because they don’t understand each other and do not want to accept each other’s opinions.


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Present Leonardo Industrial Design student

You could say that an ID student could be considered the present Leonardo da Vinci. We create different kind of ideas for different subjects. We are a bit pushed to use already existing knowledge as research, but are also simulated to do tests ourselves and try to create new and opportunity creating concepts. Another more ironic resemble with Leonardo is that we don’t finish our ideas most of the time. Unfortunately when you look at into the business world, no company supports Leonardo’s working style and in most of the companies you have to specialize in one subject and work with deadlines. Therefore it is very hard to go in depth into so many different subjects and try to master them by trying out different things carefully. For example, when Leonardo was working on the “Last supper” painting, he observed for more than one year for several hours a day, to find the perfect facial expression for Judah. We think that when someone is fascinated about something and wants to learn more, that’s the time where he will be able to find out and really work hard on it. When the fascination is over, things can become boring and repetitive. At those times it is best to lay your work down and work on something else to get back to it at later, when you feel interested again. This is exactly what Leonardo did and what is in our opinion not stimulated in the modern day society.


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Jacques Fresco Jacque is an industrial designer, social engineer, author, lecturer, futurist, inventor, and the creator of the Venus Project. Fresco has worked as both designer and inventor in a wide range of fields spanning from biomedical innovations to totally integrated social systems. He believes his ideas would maximally benefit the greatest number of people.

Resource-based economy – Circular City A major theme of Fresco is the concept of a resource-based economy that replaces the need for the money based economy we have now (which is allowing many poor people in the society). Fresco tells that the world is rich in natural resources and energy. With modern technology we can create an economy where not money is needed. All the easy repetitive jobs will be replaced by machines. And people will be stimulated to work to find new technologies. They will do this because of their curiosity.

Fresco says that the human is not bad from his nature. It is influenced by the things he sees when he grows up. By excluding this from the society everyone will be able to live normally and act “human”.

Fresco argues the fact that we live in a civilized world nowadays. If so, why are there still wars, jails and guards all over the world. When there is no money in play these are not needed anymore. Unfortunately, he is not been able to test his idea, since it is requiring social help. Leonardo’s lack of materials can be compared with Fresco’s social help from the people.


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Theo Jansen

Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor. He builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals and are able to walk using the wind on the beaches. His animated works are a fusion of art and engineering;

Quote:“The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds.”

Jansen is dedicated to creating artificial life through the use of genetic algorithms, which simulate evolution inside their code. Genetic algorithms can be modified to solve a variety of problems including circuit design, and in the case of Jansen’s creations, complex systems. Some measure of “fitness” is introduced into the algorithm; in Theo’s case it is to survive on the beach while moving around within two enclosing lines on the wet sand near the ocean and the dry sand at the edge of the beach. Those designs best at the assigned task within the modeled beach environment are bred together and graded again.. Jansen uses plastic electrical conduit to make some of the most promising designs. He then lets them roam free on the beach, evaluates, and updates his models. Theo Janssen can be compared with Leonardo because he is also creating survival designs which are revolutionary because no power is needed.


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Strandbeest Since 1990 he has been occupied creating new forms of life. Yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He creates skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they do not have to eat. Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storms and water and eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will “live” their own lives. It is some kind of emergent behavior. The legs are like wheels, they stay on the same axes, which saves energy.

And for beach use they are probably better than wheels, because they are not touching the ground all the time. The “animal” even has a brain which works the same as a computer does. It has a digital code which changes itself when he reaches things like the water using some sort of pipe which sucks air in. The creatures are also able to store wind, they do this in recycled plastic bottles. Air pressure is being saved and is used when the creature is not able to move, which works with a very complex system consisting of tubes, bottles and wings and using no power at all.


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Art Nouveau Antoni Gaudi y Cornet 1852 – 1926 Art nouveau is an international movement and style of art and architecture that peaked in popularity in 1890 – 1905. The name ‘Art nouveau’ is French for ‘new art’, it is also known as Jugendstil, German for ‘youth style’ Jugendstil is named after the magazine called “Jugend”, which promoted this style. It can be seen as a reaction to academic art of the 19th century; it is characterized by organic, especially floral and other plant/nature inspired motifs and flowing curves. Art Nouveau is an approach to design according to which artists should work on everything from architecture to furniture, making art part of everyday life. Art Nouveau fell out of favor with the arrival of the modernist styles; but it is seen as an important bridge between the neoclassicism and modernism. Art Nouveau architecture illustrates the transition from the 19th to the 20th century in art, thought, and society. It later influenced art that can be seen in the 1960s and 1970s. Art Nouveau was an own way of life and it made no difference between fine and applied arts anymore. Art nouveau had impact on the whole way of living for everyone, it recalled a harmony.

Ideology art nouveau

• Inspirationfromnature

• Reactionagainstacademic

• Socialmessage:Reachthemiddleandlowerclass.Makedesignforeveryone.Arts& Crafts did that, and Gaudi was inspired by them and later on also Bauhaus did

• Humanimprovement

• Universal


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Gaudi

Antoni Gaudí y Cornet was born in 1852 in Reus. This was a city in Spain in the area of Catalonia/Barcelona. In this area Art nouveau was called the Catalan Modernism.

Gaudi interprets the architecture as a natural wonder. As a child he grew up in Camp de Tarragona, in a rocky area. In his childhood he could observe the landscape and the world and it gave him a special look at the world. His environment, animals and trees, gave all the rules of the constructions and structure that the architecture needed for the creation of his buildings. He studied at the school of architecture from 1872 – 1878. The school was led by Elias Rogent y Amat, the first architect in Catalonia who applied styles from the middle ages in his works.Gaudi never left Catalonia, for him there was no better place in the world.

Classicism was a style where they were against the decorations on the buildings and leaning proportions. Gaudi was anti-classicistisch because he used a lot of color, out of shape forms, and extreme asymmetry.


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Gaudi was thinking the opposite way of the style the Gothic. He wanted to over win the Gothic with his arch technique without any double buttress. With building the pillar leaning/skew on the wall he could tide over a huge length. This is very typical for Gaudi’s architecture work. An example where this can be seen is the ‘Le Segrada Familia’. He often worked with the rich or got assignments from extreme religious catholic churches. This was because religion was very important in Spain. But because of the industrialization Barcelona had became very capitalistic, there were some who take advantage of this and let others work for them for low rates. Therefore these were the only clients who were able to pay such buildings.

He made everything out of natural material. His opinion was that almost everything could be build with nature stone and brick. The structures of Gaudi are as bones and skin of the human body.

A lot of architectures in that time used flowers motive in buildings but Gaudi was more abstractive in bringing the nature in his buildings. In the casa Mila, the front of the building that looks like the wobble sea forms, the highest expression of a romantic and anticlassical feeling. His stubbornness and curiosity for new ways of architecture, led him to create original and never seen styles and structures. Therefore he was seen as very innovating and ahead of his time.

At the end of his life he put much energy in the cathedral he was designing and lived very simple.

In 1926 Gaudi had a tram accident and nobody noticed it was Gaudi because of the sloppy cloths. After 3 days he died.


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Case studies

Le Parc Guell 1901-1914

Park Guell was built on a rocky hill in Barcelona. In this area there was little vegetation and a few trees, Gaudi took care of the trees and water as it is now. Guell was a good friend of Gaudi. In this park also the eastern Islamite influences are obvious.

The Dragon-lizard is an imitation of the Phyton, the guard of the underground waters beneath the stair of the Apollo temple in Delphi. Behind the dragon you see tons of water: the function of that is to foresee the whole park of water.


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Purpose: The Park was public and it has a social purpose. The idea was to build a whole neighborhood but it stayed with only a park. It is an inspiration of the English gardens that were meant as escaping from the industrialization. In that time the social aspect was important.

Technology: In this park he used the skew pillars for building the arches. He used the rules of geometry about the parabola, arches and curls to come with this solution of no use of double pillars.

Material: The fusion of structure and decoration started at Palacio Guel; the identification of Gaudi’s later works. The dragon-lizard and couches are covered with little pieces of stone, porcelain, glass and ceramics. Gaudi used pieces of factories they didn’t use. So it was very cheap.

Function: The long snake forms couch in le Parc Guel is formed to ergonomic insight and is an organic element. So the function is clear: The possibility to sit. The wall around the park has as function to feel save in the park. In that time the park lied at the side of the city and the wall had to give the feeling of safety. The ceramics on the wall has also a function: The intruders had no change to climb on the wall because the ceramics are flat and smooth. The ceramics work also waterproof. So the wall is not exposed to erosion influences. The pillars in the hall don’t only have the function to bear the roof, but they were also meant as water pipes for the rain water that will gather on the roof.


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Villa Quijano-El Capricho 1883 – 1885

Gaudi was, regardless to Christian symbolic, also interested in the classic and eastern mythology. You see in this building clearly the Islamite and eastern influences. The almost 800 years of contact between Spanish and Islamite lead to the Islamite influences in the art. The people living in Africa brought the influences to Spain but also the higher classed educated Arabians from Bagdad had their contribution to Purpose: this building is built in order of Maximo Diaz who wanted a house that fulfilled his needs as a single man. This is one of his first projects and you see a more modest work. You still see the decoration and the flower motives in the forms of sunflowers. The building stands in a natural environment and the building is in harmony with the nature because of the natural colors. It has an unpredictable, fickle look because Gaudi wanted to make a connection between the middle ages, the glory of Catalonia and the eastern influences.

Material: The building is built from brick with green varnish tiles. Between those there are some ceramic pieces which have to look like sunflowers. The tower stands out of the whole. The tower is support with four big pillars. The roof of the tower is supported by metal pillars

and it gives the look of a typical mosque. It looks like if the metal pillars can’t bear the roof. A typical element of Gaudi’s architecture is the stained windows.

Function: It definitely has a function. Gaudi has thought about the spatial ranging of the interior that exactly matches the needs of a single man. At the outside, the bald roof is adjusted to the weather of the region, where it rains a lot. The tower has no function just as the tower in the Parc Guel.


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Le Segrada Familia 1882 – 1926

After 1800 Barcelona developed into an important centre of textile industry. And like everywhere else in the world the industrial revolution brought some unhappy people with it.

In 1866 Josep Maria Bocabella was a religious book salesman. He thought these industrial changes were against religion therefore he started the Asociacién Espiritual de San José. They had a paper showing Josef and the holy family as workers class people. By selling publications and collecting funds, money was raised and dedicated to a new church the Sagrada Familia. For letting it look like some kind of punishment, all the funds should come from the population.

The Sagrada Famila of Gaudi has been started to build on 19 March 1882. He took this work over of his predecessor, a gothic church, but he wanted to make a neo-gothic church out of it. Until now this masterpiece of Gaudi has not been finished.


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The towers stand for the 12 apostles. It was a very gothic style and Gaudi didn’t like it. He adjusted the towers by giving them a rotation parabola like a spiral. The finishing crenels look like the miter of a bishop. Because the towers are not put in the middle of the main building, this is considered a revolutionary design, because something alike is never seen before.

Purpose: The west side of the church is dedicated to the suffering of Christ. On this side any decoration is missing. It gives a sad impression. Where the sun comes up, on the eastside of the church there are a lot of decorations. All kinds of bible stories are processed into the building.

Technology: This building is a good example of the discovery of Gaudi that skew pillars and parabola bows the huge arch can bear.

Function: Gaudi thought of the religious worship that had to be held in the church. He removed the unnecessary decorations on the altar by which it wasn’t recognizable anymore. Gaudi thought of the religious function of the church. Gaudi also thought of the different chapels of the church and he also researched how the music would sound in the church.

Overall Conclusion

Henri Ford was more from the practicism, what means that he was down to earth, practical, taking action. Peter Behrens was more concerning aesthetics and expression emotions. He first followed the ideas of eclecticism, a mix of historical styles into one work. After that his designs became straight, with right lines, symmetrical, geometrical shapes. It was an inspiration from the Roman and Greek time. After that classicism he follows the ideas of the expressionism. Another different between America a Europe is that America was aiming on the whole word and Europe only on Europe. The idea of Peter Behrens about mass production is that you had choice out of color in his designs. In America, Henri Ford made only black cars. You couldn’t choose something else.

Bauhaus was more about the abstract forms because of constructivism. Art Nouveau was more figurative in his designs. Arts & Crafts arrived from Art Nouveau. Elements were craftwork, beauty and the interior looks expensive but are not. They also wanted to reach the middle and lower class. Also Henry Ford did that by making the wages higher than normal. Arts & Crafts where against mass production and made everything by hand. That’s why it became expensive and they couldn’t reach their ideology. William Morris is the most important artist of that time. Karl Marx ideology: everybody equal, no layers in society, no religion. William Morris also wanted that.


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Bauhaus 1919 - 1933 Walter Gropius & Hannes MeyerBauhaus Ideology (Input from fordism)

• Massproduction,affordableproducts

• Scientificmanagement(Taylorism)

• Efficiencyoutput

• Highworkerwages/WellfareCapitalism

• Stimulatingeconomicgrowth


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Walter Gropius founded Bauhaus. In 1919 the school of arts and crafts merged with the academy of arts to form the Bauhaus Weimar. Gropius was guided by the idea that the Bauhaus should bring together art and technology to form a new, modern unity. Art needs technology. This idea was associated with a fundamental social objective, namely to anchor art in society. The name ‘Bauhaus’ was inspired by the Bauhütte from the middle age cathedral builders. According to Gropius stood all the crafts in religious projects in the indication of the concerning project.Bauhaus drew on the ideas of the life reform movement of the turn of the twentieth century. The dark furniture in dark rooms was blown away, supplanted by new forms of accommodations. Idea was the modern twentieth century individual, housed in clear bright rooms; this would develop new ways of living. The foundation course at the Bauhaus represented basic polytechnic artistic education, introduced by Johannes Itten. The students were encouraged to experiment and explore their own creativity. The foundation course was conducted first by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and later by Josef Albers, whose goals were “inventive building and observational

discovery.” Methodologically Albers, like Itten, took an inductive approach to design, allowing the students to investigate, explore, and experiment. Theory did not lead the way, cognitive skills were fostered indirectly. In 1925 Weimar moved to a new building in Dessau designed by Gropius. In 1933 the school finally closed.

The founding phase 1919-1923

Education: After the foundation course completed t he students had to choose between a numbers of workshops: printing, pottery, metalwork, mural painting, stained glass, carpentry, stagecraft, weaving, bookbinding and woodcarving. Each workshop had two supervisors: a master of form (artist) and a master craftsman. The craftsmen were soon subordinate to the artists. Tensions arose.


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The consolidation phase 1923-1928

Bauhaus aimed to meet the realities of industrial manufacturing and the social needs of the population. Marcel Breuer achieved a breakthrough: functional furniture capable of exploiting the opportunities offered by mass production; combining the strength and stability of steel with lightweight coverings. The aim of Bauhaus was to develop affordable products for the population, while maintaining a high degree of functionality. In this phase much theoretical and practical work was conducted, which always involved a social perspective in its aim to “govern the circumstances of life and labor” (Moholy-Nagy) and take “questions of mass demands” seriously. Function had two factors: the conditions of industrial manufacturing, like materials, constructions, technology, and the social conditions, the needs of the broader population. In this phase the Bauhaus became University of design. Standardization, series manufacturing, and mass production became backbone of Bauhaus. The principal force behind these developments was Swiss architect Hannes Meyer, who became head of the department of architecture in 1927 and set up a systematic, scientifically grounded architecture program.

The disintegration phase 1928-1933

Hannes Meyer was appointed director of the Bauhaus in 1928. New workshops were introduced, like photography, sculpture, psychology, and several others. His idea had a social purpose for architecture and design. Designer should serve the people, providing products to satisfy their basic needs.


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Goals of Bauhaus

• Toachieveanewaestheticsynthesisbyintegrating all the artistic genres and craft trades under the primacy of architecture.

• Toachieveasocialsynthesisbyaligningaesthetic production with the needs of the general population.

Bauhaus lifestyle

“Today it is impossible to resist the impression that for several years, the industrial spirit of the world blew through Bauhaus. Not only because of the resulting images of newly invented spaces and things, but also because of the self confidence in the ideal subject of the modernity trained there, which is at the same time the object of modernity.” Gert Selle, 1997.

Bauhaus was a way of life where teachers and students shared the same philosophy of life. It was a different mix between different arts styles. The goal was to build one unity. Bauhaus was a kind of laboratory where they did experiments.


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Walter Gropius

According to Gropius design needs to function properly, it should serve its purpose perfectly, it should be long lasting, inexpensive, and attractive. Visualizations of practical functions are a social stance. Woodcut, 1919 This art piece describes the Bauhaus manifesto and the purpose how Walter Gropius saw it. “The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building. Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new building of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith.” The three spires of the cathedral that are converging beams of light representing the three arts: architecture, sculpture and painting. These three aspects would be combined in the Bauhaus and it would reunify all practical arts defined as sculpture, painting, handicrafts, and crafts, under the primacy of architecture and combine the roles of artists and craftsmen. This was the basis of the Bauhaus pedagogy. All practical and scientific areas of creative work and students would be trained in a craft as well as in drawing and painting, and science and theory.


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Case studies

Unity in diversity

He made standardized serial houses that could be composed to the needs of the habitants. Modulated sections of houses, rooms and combinations of rooms that could be assembled in various ways, diversity could be achieved. Yet this diversity would be a basic consistency, resulting from the use of the components.

Kallenbach house

City house, one of the largest commissions of this kind he had up to that time. The house was not built because of the rising costs. Gropius wanted that the students interact with the citizens of Weimar. They had to improve the relations and Gropius organized meetings between students and citizens. The school was attacked for being different.

Entry for the for the Chicago Tribune

newspaper office building

This was the biggest project of Gropius and Meyer. “When I designed the Chicago Tribune tower in 1922, I wanted to do a building which definitely would not use any historical styles, but express the modern times with modern means, in this case with a reinforced concrete skeleton which clearly should express the functions of the building.” It was too many years ahead of its time to win acceptance, and that was the problem that Gropius had often with his designs.


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Site plan

The site plan for Bauhaus where rows of houses for young instructors and students with families could live. There were to be workshops and gardens. The essence behind this idea was the integration and cooperation between the students, masters and the whole community. A lot of his ideas he couldn’t realize because he had not enough money. In 1921 the school was rapidly developing and clarifying its goals and directions. This created cohesiveness among students and good working relationships among its faculty. The political turmoil had continued. The state had a socialist government which Gropius supported to maintain the Bauhaus, but he didn’t supported wholeheartedly. This was suspicious in the eyes of the Weimar conservatives. This disenchanted his allies in the Parliament.


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Quotes

“building is the only thing that gives me

inner joy, while other people are a constant

burden who always take without ever

giving.”

He was convinced of this in a constant state of turmoil at the Bauhaus. This shows that building was his life, his passion. “The success of the Manifesto speaks for itself;

young people came from Germany and from

abroad, not to design ‘correct’ lamps, but

to participate in a community that wanted

to build a new man in new environment

and to liberate the creative spontaneity in

everybody.”

The Bauhaus wasn’t just a architecture school, it was a way of life, a school were they tried to build a community among teachers and students. it was free and experimental were the students could liberate their creativity and make a new world for the people.

“Constant touch with this fomenting youth

does me good.”

You see that Bauhaus was the ultimate joy for Gropius. He could do what he loved to do: Building. And he could teach younger people what he believed and did for a living. The youth was very enthousiastic and driven by the Bauhaus so that is what did him good.


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Hannes Meyer

Hannes Meyer is a Swiss architect, theorist and designer. He was born into a family of architects and studied building at the Gewerbeschule, Basle (1905-9). In Berlin he continued his training at the Kunstgewerbeschule and attended classes in urban planning at the Landwirtschafts-Akademie. He became increasingly concerned about housing conditions in the modern industrial city and developed a strong interest in urban planning and land reform. In 1919 he set up his own practice in Basle, where he designed and supervised the foundation of the Siedlung Freidorf (Freihof ) (1919-24) at Muttenz, near Basle, the first full-scale cooperative housing estate in Switzerland.

Hannes Meyer joined the Bauhaus at 1927. Gropius entrusted Meyer with the responsibility for building up the department of architecture. Meyer served as head of the department and lectured on theory. He introduced Marxism and Leninism into the Bauhaus as a fundamental study. Meyer encouraged political activities for students. There was an ominous growth of politicization, the student found themselves caught between Marxist ideas. No layers in society but the state divide the money between the people. In most histories of architecture Meyer is remembered as a marginal figure, a ‘radical functionalist’ who attempted to reduce building design to a set of objective functional parameters. Meyer rejected aesthetic judgment in building design by trying to eliminate all subjective or aesthetic design decisions. His Petersschule project in Basel (a winning competition entry designed in collaboration with Hans Wittwer in 1927) was partially represented in the competition submission by a list of construction materials directly available as industrially produced off-the-shelf materials. The competition entry is like a similar experiment in mass-produced art: Moholy-Nagy’s dictation of paintings by telephone to a sign painter who would produce them, during Moholy’s years at the Bauhaus.


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This comparison is useful: it serves to re-introduce the context in which Meyer was working, and from which he has been more or less effectively stripped. Marxist ideology led him to question individuality in design, substituting a mechanized, de-aesthetic architecture that would have its basis in new modes of living. Meyer’s interests found their parallel in other radical, anti-individualist artistic practices, like those of Moholy-Nagy and others. Meyer’s Marxist affiliations are thoroughly normative and his dismissal from the Bauhaus a function of the political situation that began to prevail in Germany in the 1930s. Instead of being cast as a politically inept radical, he might be seen as merely another modern German artist with socialist leanings who fell afoul of the incipient Nazi regime. Like Bruno Taut, he then went east instead of west; like Taut he has subsequently failed to receive adequate recognition for what was extremely important modernist theory and production.

Architectural studies were expanded rapidly in number and variety. Meyer was head of the department and lectured theory. He was concerned with analyzing housing in relationship to its environment. He described this process in a variety of functions:

Terms of Acoustics: house to house, garden to garden, street to garden, pets and motorcycles Terms of odor: smoke from garden fire, kitchen rubbish, compost, laundry, traffic Terms of view: opposite garden, intervening space, Terms of social status; and in relation to political, communal, and neighbor to neighbor relations

Concerns with the relationship to the outer world touched on everything from the water inspector, to the coal delivery, repairs, visitors, cars and sickness.


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Case studies

Meyer brought the two most significant important building commissions for the school, both of which still stand: five apartment buildings in the city of Dessau and the headquarters of the Federal School of the German Trade Unions (ADGB) in Bernau. The school turned its first profit under his leadership in 1929.

Meyer’s Collectivist approach alienated many people (he made Marxism and Leninism essential studies), and his insistence that architecture had nothing to do with formal aesthetics caused friction with other teachers Meyer’s vocal communism and his encouragement of the Communist student organization in the Bauhaus became a threat to the very existence of the school. Gropius fired him in 1930. He went to the Soviet Union where he was heaped with honor and privilege until the Stalinist demand for Classicism made him return to Switzerland (1936–9), after which he spent a decade in Mexico before retiring to Switzerland (1949).

Bundeschulle des Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund

This is a complex of buildings Meyer built in 1930. It’s the biggest Bauhaus style building except for the Bauhaus itself. It is considered Meyer’s most important project during his Bauhaus time. Located at the outskirts of Berlin, Germany, the buildings, located in former East-Berlin, are only now on the historic register. Plans for the school’s rehabilitation have not yet been finalized. For now, one of the former teacher’s apartments houses a small exhibition. The complex is famous for the glass corridor that connects different buildings, such as dormitories and classrooms. Everything in the interior of the buildings was designed in the Bauhaus Workshops.


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Quotes

“All these things are products of the formula:

functions times economics.”

Steamship, aircraft, motorcar, office furniture. Each component was adapted to manufacturing conditions and assembled in such a manner as to give reliable service, these products were intended to fulfill practical requirements which were precisely defined and, with a view to this end, their forms were designed to allow the highest possible output.

“Building is a technical biological, not an

aesthetic, process. The house is a machine for

completing mental and bodily needs, and its

form results from measurable, visible, and

weighable functions.”

Hannes Meyer starts designing his architecture from looking at the user. How do they live, what do they need? His designs has to function, it has to add something to the live of the user. It is all about functionality, and not the aesthetics.

Overall Conclusion

The furniture, buildings and other designs became more easy, primary colors, straight lines, everything around us was simplicity. All the new arts and ideas were combined in one school. In difficult and political and economical chaos the Bauhaus begun a new lifestyle to change the world. Because of the political changes and oppose the Bauhaus couldn’t continue. But nowadays the Bauhaus style is still present, especially in Chicago with the big skyscrapers.

Walter Gropius

He did made a lot of wonderful designs who where ahead of his time, but because of that he did not won acceptance and he was attacked for being different. Also the Bauhaus school felled with the political and economical fortunes. He wanted to make a community where students, masters and teachers where one unit, but there where teachers and students who were very individualistic.

He wanted to convince the people of Weimar and everyone else that the Bauhaus was the best school and the works that where delivered where unique

Hannes Meyer

The Marxism and Leninism ideas didn’t work out for the Bauhaus. Gropius did have socialistic ideas: anchor art in society, but Hannes Meyer was an extremist who tried to add the political aspects into the Bauhaus and pushed the socialistic ideas to far.


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Norman Bel Geddes 1893 - 1958

Norman Bel Geddes was born on April 27, 1893, in Adrian, Michigan. He studied briefly at Cleveland Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. He began work as an advertising draftsman in Chicago and Detroit in 1913. In 1925 He developed a very successful career in theatrical set design in New York and created film sets for Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood. He began working as an industrial designer in 1927 at the suggestion of Ray Graham of Graham-Paige Motors Company.

Bel Geddes designed five brass concept models for him, each representing progressive future car designs for 1928 through 1932, though none were built. He continued to design and patent not only

incredibly innovative futuristic streamlined

cars, trains, ocean liners and planes, but practical consumer products as well. Many of these were published

in his 1932 book, “Horizons,” dramatically illustrated by his employee, Stowe Myers. The book enhanced

his reputation as a flamboyant “P.T. Barnum” of industrial design. Indeed, his work inspired many actual

transportation wonders such as Union Pacific’s M-10,000 and the M-130 Pan American China Clippers

(both 1934). In the book Horizons his design process is explained. What is so interesting is that this

process is still being used by a lot of industrial designers. Further on he tells about his designs and he

compares his designs with others.


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Prior to his introduction of the revolutionary concept of designing for industry, manufacturers had made products without giving any thought to line, visual appeal, efficiency or practicality. His definition of the new profession he had in itself a streamlined simplicity: solve the client’s problems aesthetically and practically. To achieve this: Infinite research, experimentation and painstaking care were needed.

He achieved rapid and unbelievable results, to the astonishment of clients and established architects. His interests were in the visual and functional. He always used his creativity and imagination combined with the enthusiasm he always had to get to amazing original results which has changed the visual world of now.

For the New York World Fair in 1939-1940 he designed the General Motors exhibit, called the Futurama.

In 1944, Bel Geddes was one of the 15 founders of the Society of Industrial Designers. In 1945 he prepared a giant 59-foot model of “Toledo Tomorrow,” proposing a future development of the city that was never implemented.

He died in New York on May 8, 1958


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View on design

Many artists in his time have isolated themselves from the changing world, which was losing his individuality, because it was becoming more machine made. Few artists, who started doing industrial design, have used it as an income to be able to do their own, more creative work. On the other hand, Bel Geddes was drawn to the industry because of the great creative opportunities.

When working in the theater he has always felt a sense of duty to handle his materials in terms of his own time, instead of an older time. Many of his colleagues failed to do so, which he thinks is because of laziness. He saw it all differently than the other artists: “Whether you are sympathetic to the idea or not, industry is the driving force of this age”. In 1927 he stopped working for the theater exclusively and decided to experiment in designing motor cars, ships, factories and railways. Since these were the more vital sources to life at that time. Many of his friends saw his decision as an eccentric gesture and predicted it wouldn’t last long. But for him it was not a big jump from the principles he always had maintained. It was a natural evolution. He found it weird why no one else has done the same as him.

For Bell Geddes the most important thing was the purpose of the design. Other important characteristics for him were color, simplicity and the use of the right materials from his age.

He had is own definition for design and designer:

“The design is a mental conception of something to be done. A visual design is the organism of the idea, so that it may be executed. It is the practice of organizing various elements to produce a desired result. Design deals exclusively with organization and arrangement of form. It is the opposite of accidental. It is deliberate thinking and planning to a purpose. Everything a designer does is in the view of a designer, he always thinks in terms of design.”


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Bel Geddes thought that design in the future (for his time) would be characterized in four specific sections:

• Designinsocialstructuretoinsuretheorganization of people work wealth and leisure.

• Designinmachinesthatshallimproveworking conditions by eliminating drudgery.

• Designinallobjectsofusethatshall make them economical, durable, convenient and congenial to everyone.

• Designinthearts,paintingsculpture,music, literature and architecture, that shall inspire the new era.

View on Art/ Artists

Bel Geddes though that for the average intelligent human, Einstein was a genius, Picasso was not because his works was not understood. For Bel Geddes Picasso was a great and intelligent man which would influence many artists in the future. He compared himself with Picasso.

For Bel Geddes a real artist did not work inspired by what would sell, but would be inspired by the work itself. He understood that many artists failed to see that there can be art in industrial objects. In his opinion an airplane also could be seen as art. It’s about the vitality and subtlety of feeling (and emotion) an artist puts in his work, which makes it art, not the materials or equipment which he uses. For him, Art is something which while looking at it you are enjoying it and it gives you an emotional experience.

He thought that art in future generations will be have to do with people and their life and less with frames, pedestals, museums, books and concert halls.


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Design Process

Norman Bel Geddes had his own way of working. At the start of a project, he gathered gathered everyone who would be connected to the design problem in any responsible way and the problem was discussed in all its phases. A checklist was made to see what the objectives are and what had to be done. A working schedule and later on a day-to-day schedule were created. By working by schedule it was prevented that things were forgotten and had to be guessed. The ground work was founded on facts. All decisions arrived in a meeting or with the client or the employees were sent to everyone for correction to prevent confusion and mistakes. It was important to become familiar with the object to be designed, all information which could influence the design would be gathered by doing research in all different ways. Also it was important for him to do surveys to get peoples opinion. Many drawings were been made in every stage and been approved/rejected. When a design was approved by the client, more detailed drawings were made and a model in wood or metal was created. All the values (height, price, weight) were been calculated and everything got detailed care. This was finally sent to the client.


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Culture context

Because of the crisis, many companies had to change their strategies to be able to sell their products. The period of the industrial designers in America can be seen as an importance of advertising in the formation of a “culture of consumption”. Streamlining was introduced which made products look more beautiful but did not always function as a purpose. The overwhelming achievements of materials technology and mechanized mass production lead to exciting desire and consumption of the people. The Industrial designers directed their

energies to meeting the perceived, minimum needs of a mass society. But in the United States the industrial design profession was often seen as a commercial strategy to stimulate consumer interest in a wide range of products. Industrial design embraced mechanized mass production, new materials, and a more expansive understanding of the designer’s role that included ease of construction, hygiene, and the use of standardized and changeable parts.


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Case Studies

Cars

Automotive engineers understood the fundamentals necessary for solving wind resistance, but manufacturers had never encouraged their engineers to think about it. The main reason was the thought that the public likes the appearance of the “present” day cars and would not buy a fully streamlined car. With the development of the cars, also design changes had to be made and manufacturers had seen people liking new designs. Though, minor changes were expensive. By adding accessories they did not really change the design. Many cars were behind years of the knowledge of the industry. Bel Geddes was convinced that the artist should have complete freedom over the design.


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Drop Shape/ Streamlining

The streamlining trend had much influence on Bel

Geddes’s designs; he was fully that the drop shape

was the ultimate shape for vehicles. In many of

his vehicle designs the drop shape could be seen,

because it was the most aerodynamic shape. And

for Bel Geddes the purpose of the design was the

more important than the looks.


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Motor Car Number 1

Car Number 1 was one of the first cars

Bel Geddes designed. Car Number 1

apart from his complete simplicity

should have resembled the modern day

car. Although most of it was most of it

was streamlined, it should have been able

to drive on the streets without special

attention.

The principles of aerodynamics were

applied on this car. Because of the

design, it could go 58 miles an hour with

same power of a car going 48 miles an hour. Other features were the round front radiator, the top folding

down into the body. The wind shield was implemented vertically into body, driving lights turning with

wheels. It was never built, it impressed the various departments, but the market crashed in that period.

Motor Car Number 8

This was designed to as near as fully

out of the drop form, from the top till

the end. It was created for high speeds

in that time. The major problem was

to keep it from rising from the ground.

It seeked to eliminate all the flat

surfaces for resistance. The drop theory

had to be changed a little, because he

didn’t want it to be a race car, therefore

it was not fully streamlined. The

interior design was purely functional.


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Aviation

In his time aviation was almost only progressing on a purely military basis. The government was the actual handicap in the development of commercial aviation. Many people, who attempted flight at one thousand or more feet, were made guilty of attempted suicide. A Russian officer who did the first loop in an airplane was arrested, because he risked his life instead of saving it to fight for his country. Bel Geddes found nothing foolish about aviation.

Comparing the earliest bi-planes with the ones of his day, the main difference is weight. The ratio in size and bulk of the wings, fuselage and motor has changed considerably. The difference

will be further accentuated in the development of aviation in the future. This is because it also happened with other vehicles. Size will provide safety, and space will make travel by airplane comfortable as travel by steamship. The largest heavy aircraft which successfully flown in his time, was the DO X. It had successfully carried more than 150 people. (Wing spread of 175 feet, length of 131 feet, height of 33 feet, 48 tons)


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Airliner number 4

Bel Geddes designed The Arliner 4 in 1929, he got help from Doctor Koller, who was responsible for over 200 airplane designs, including an airplane (Phalz) used extensively in WWI by germany.

This airplane was much bigger than the existing ones, but Bel Geddes was convinced it would go more smoothly. The Arliner 4 is a tailles V-winged monoplane, carrying (sleeping accommodations) a total of 606 persons – 451 passengers and a crew of 155. Total wing spread is 528 feet, 235 feet long and 60 feet high with 2 pontoons of 104 feet apart for landing on water and including 20 motors (+6 reserve motors which can be replaced for a disabled motor in 5 minutes) with each 1900 horse power.

Chicago business men were interested in the possibility of constructing this plane to operate between Chicago and London. It could fly 3 crossings a week, this is a great advantage with other ocean liners, which fly 1 crossing a week the fastest. It is also cheaper (9 million, against 60 million for other ocean liners).

The airliner had 2 major design elements: Safety and comfort. Both were resolved by the major size. It was save because it had many motors than it needed and it had live boats. It had comfort because people would be able to walk around freely and enjoy recreations (Including shops, a library, dining areas and tennis courts), which were already possible in the Ocean liners.

The plane was based on the latest developments, every detail and principle was tested before, but the combination of all these things makes it new and interesting. Bel Geddes thought that the development in aviation would change the world, especially for the structure of the world metropolises.


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Kitchen hygiene

Studies of the work of American industrial designers in the 1930s reveal the dynamic interrelationships between esthetic, commercial, social and production considerations. Norman bell Geddes was hired by the Standard Gas Equipment Corporation in 1933 to redesign its kitchen ranges in the hope of creating consumer demand. Market research revealed that ease of cleaning was the primary consideration of housewives in their decision to purchase a new range. Geddes’s response to market research was to use large rectangular panels of enamel-coated sheet metal rather than cast iron to create a more enclosed and unified, essentially box-like form, eliminating open areas that collected dust as well as the clutter of decorative handles and other hardware. With the lighter sheet metal, Geddes attached the panels to a sturdy tubular metal frame at the corners. The new model presented a more integrated, unified housing, while advertising identified smooth surfaces and simple forms with improved hygiene as well as reduced housework. Bell Geddes’ industrially re-designed stove demonstrated the commercial advantages of pressed metal production technology, with structural changes for strength, integrated esthetic form, and responsiveness to market research.

This approach, balancing new housing with mechanical or structural change resulting in improved performance, appears to have been the ideal toward which many of consultant industrial designers directed their effort, that is, to a point somewhere beyond ‘styling’ or cosmetic change. It also helped to create some semblance of a partnership between designer and engineer.


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User products

Bel Geddes also designed smaller products, which some of them were actually created. An example is the Toledo Counter Scale.

Through years of research and development the scale was

created to function better but also to look good. Because

of its success it was widely imitated. The Toledo company

asked Bel Geddes to re-design their Counter Scale.

According to Bel Geddes the problem was the weight and the huge bulk. The redesign was with thin pressed metal, so the consumer would see the right weight all the time. The design was simplified as much as possible and the scale was set into the counter for a more complete form. It is a streamlined design because of the round forms and because the scale exists out of one part. In this case the streamline

is used mostly for aesthetic reasons. It looks better and more beautiful but is probably also easier to mass

produce.

Toledo Counter scale


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After Bel Geddes had designed the island scale Toledo asked Bel Geddes to design a portable scale. He liked it that a company not only wanted to aim on but also put some energy for innovation.

Toledo Island Scale


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Architecture

According to Bel Geddes, houses had changed very little since many years ago. Methods of construction and materials used had remained primarily the same. Modern conveniences, such as plumbing, electricity and central heating had been added. The high building costs affected the materials and workmanship negatively. Mechanical and decorative things have been introduced to hide the deterioration of essential parts. Prices were high, because much space was wasted on useless rooms like attics. Houses were too often planned from the exterior, resulting into inconvenience. The starting point should have been the purpose of the house. Bel Geddes said that in your home you spend a big time of your life, here you need to rest, eat and play.

According to Bel Geddes the most important things you do in the house are sleeping, eating and playing.


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To rest/sleep you need the most comfortable beds and all the possible fresh air. The most antiquated bedrooms have only 2 average size windows. Every bedroom should be a sleeping porch, but also a comfortable room.

To eat there should be a place to cook and this in such a way organized to minimize the amount of footwork for the worker. There are many tasks have to be done in a kitchen, therefore all the equipment should be well organized and if possible done by machines.

For play, space is needed. Not a matter of size, but proportion. A big room or a big yard is more useful than the same space, but broken up in multiple areas. Rooms should be designed to give flexibility and variety. A living room should do what it is intended for. And therefore it has to be easy to change it into different kind of purposes (living is not only one thing).


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House Number 3

In house Number 3, Bel Geddes implemented all these things. Every detail was thought about and not was left for accident. The living quarters are at the rear overlooking the garden. The study/library room is separated from everything else, so it is private. Sleeping rooms are on the second floor. Guest room is on the floor so that the guest will not be interfered by the normal household routines. The child’s room is a complete area separated from the rest, in case of diseases it can be fully be isolated. The maid’s room is right beneath the child room, so she can here cries. The house has a skeleton structure, which requires few shapes and space. It is also lightweight, cheap and easy to assemble.


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New York World’s Fair - Futurama Theme of New York World’s fair: “The World

of Tomorrow”.

Norman Bel Geddes was hired by the General Motors Corporation to design the company’s popular Futurama exhibit. This was the opportunity to realize a unified conception for a future in which design contributed directly to the overall quality of life. The New York world’s fair where several multicolored avenues converged in a circular space that contained the fair’s symbolic Trylon and Perisphere. The avenues where organized in themes for various activities such as transportation, international exhibits, amusement and entertainment. Geddes’s Futurama exhibited the traffic flow in the modern metropolis by multilane highways and banked exit ramps, as well as by a radio-controlled system that monitored speed and distance between vehicles; the exhibit stressed the importance of highways, and paralleled the lobbying efforts of automobile and tire manufactures and oil companies to expand the nation’s road system and further stimulate the purchase of new cars. Pedestrian traffic in the city was kept separate from vehicular traffic by elevated platforms. This design fulfilled the utopian vision of Geddes: That he define collective rather than heterogeneous needs, taking advantages of the efficiency and

logic of modern technology and materials to erase differences, contradictions, conflicts and irritants. The World’s fair represented a mingling of utopian ideology and consumer engineering; the strategies of advertising agencies and the balancing of competing characterized the profession of industrial design in American life during the interwar period. They wanted to create a science fiction feeling. Like Lapidus did with mirrors to create spaciousness and with curving window shoppers.

The exhibits of the New York world’s fair caused

great excitement but were a short escape from

the reality and failed to sustain interest. The

public saw the fair as a short lived collection

with little meaning. The world of tomorrow too

quickly became yesterday’s news.


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63

Quotes

“Many artists fail to see that there can be art

in industrial things. Things written about a

Grecian urn could also have been told about

an airplane.”

He was an industrial designer who combined art and technology. He said that many people understood that industrial products could be seen as works of art.

“Critics fail to see that the machine age is not

really here. Although we can build machines,

we have not become at ease at it and have not

mastered it. Our condition is the result of a

swift industrial revolution.”

Bell geddes hereby criticized the common thought of that time: that they were in the machine era. Bel Geddes understood that the machines were able to develop much more than what they had in his time and that his age was only the transition to the machine age.

Overall Conclusion

In that time the designing for the user needs was very important. Because of that they did get the status and credits for their designs. All the big five were using streamline design in their designs, but there were differences in using that. For example Norman Bel Geddes was using streamline design as a function. It wasn’t just a decorative style, because the streamline design he made often had a functional purpose like in cars for less wind resistance and fuel efficiency. Also Henry Dreyfuss and Buckminster Feller where concentrating more on the functional aspect of streamline design. On the other hand, Raymond Loewy, the founder of streamline design, used it more as a decorative style and for the aesthetics of his designs. He made luxurious products that would fulfill the user needs and that it was the most attractive and beautiful design. He was an exception of aesthetics of waste.

The designs of Raymond Loewy were more humble and less out of the box, because Norman Bel Geddes and Buckminster Feller where designing more futuristic designs.

Norman Bel Geddes

Norman Bell Geddes had a visionary for making a new world, to begin a new time period in history with his designs. He was really motivated to do that and with his futuristic designs he would design the world how it would look 1960. He was far ahead of its time and the technology he wanted to use wasn’t yet available and in the minds of the population of that time. His ideas were worked out in concept in the very little details. He had a visionary about a new world, a new time. But it was almost if he was living in a dream.


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Modernism vs Streamlining Vivian van der Burgt

Introduction

Streamlining is an advanced American design through the mid-twentieth century. Whereas the term previously had been seen as emblematic of speed, progress, and technological utopianism. Look at the interrelationship among technology, form, and function and the personal and culturally confrontation with waste is timely, because the Americans appear finally to be confronting the limits of resources and ecological systems. Between 1890 and 1940, America’s culture of consumption took its modern form: products were mass produced and mass distributed, designed to be purchased and rapidly replaced by a vast buying public. Kitchen and bathroom became laboratories. It was not exclusively focused on the form or aesthetics of objects.

Streamlining: The aesthetics of waste

The study of streamlining began in the late 19th century as part of the new science aerodynamics. Streamline is to design to make it modernize, organize, to make more efficient and simple. It soon became a stylistic code. (Raymond Loewy, pencil sharpener). Streamlining generalizes an object, enveloping its constituent parts inside a continuous body. Streamlining were products with forms that are biologically curved yet industrially hard and incorruptible. First you had products that were aggressively “clean” and yet designed to be thrown away. Streamlining embodied an aesthetic of waste, a material style for expressing the logic of consumption. It made organic, yet industrial forms that marked the cleanliness in an economy dependent on waste. The form follows function. Streamlining is a process of elimination of dirt, aesthetics of waste.


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Streamline object Chrysler Airflow imperial coupe – by Norman Bel Geddes

The basis for the Chrysler Airflow was rooted in curiosity about how forms affected their movement through the environment.The tear-dropped forms and stream-lining reduced the wind resistance, enabling faster speeds as well improved fuel consumption. Passengers were sitting on the wheel base. It had a sleek, streamlined form that existed out of one unified part. The airflow adapted a more unified approach to the construction of the grill, hood, etc. The advertising campaign for the Chrysler Airflow generated excitement and numerous orders, but negative

publicity about flaws in the first units to reach the market doomed the car, and in any case the changes didn’t improved the fuel efficiency or speed. Designs that went on before were cars with a two-box design. They consisted out of many parts whereas the streamline car was one unified body. Also the upright forms of the headlights, windshields and grills of the previous cars were disappeared. The framing of the old cars were made out of wood whereas the Chrysler airflow was made out of steel framing.


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The Chrysler airflow is an example of the adaptation of streamlining to automobile design in terms of styling rather than performance or function. Industrial designers thought that beauty coincide the functionalism of the car. Engineers didn’t agree with that.

Chrysler 1931

Chrysler 1933


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Utopian dimension

The utopian dimension was that the industrial designers wanted to reach an obviously beautiful result with the function of streamlining. They didn’t manage that because aesthetic is subjective and personal. They didn’t eliminate the aesthetics of waste because the streamlining did not fulfill a function. It was more a decorative style here in this car. Another dimension is that they wanted to explain and show the aerodynamics study to the public and get engineer and industrial designer closer together.


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Impact nowadays

The aerodynamic study is still used specially in racecars. They are smaller and lighter. These low profile cars have less wind resistance and therefore get better fuel efficiency. But a disadvantage of those cars are that they have less interior room. So people with a big family won’t buy such a car. They rather would drive a big SUV. Because the public’s demand of interior space the car industry had to design box-like cars because they have to create more space inside. Therefore they can’t create very streamlined cars and that cuts into the fuel efficiency. On the other hand we have the sedans. They attempt to strike a balance between interior room and car aerodynamics. They have enough interior space inside and have a streamlined body. Although aerodynamics continues to play an important role in car design, it is most important in racecar designs.

Sports car SUV

Sedan BMW


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Modernistic object Dear Ingo – by Ron Gilad for Moooi

Material: powder coated steelYear: 2003 This ceiling lamp is designed in homage to the German lighting designer Ingo Maurer. The Dear Ingo lamp consists of 16 black metal task lamps, allowing for infinite lighting combinations.

It is like a robotic spider crawling across the ceiling. It can curl up into a ball or spread its legs, allowing those underneath to be caught in its web of light. From a distance it looks like an abstract chandelier so it reinterprets how a traditional chandelier looks like.


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Ron Gilad breaks with traditional forms: He’s taking ordinary forms but using them in an unorthodox way. Here with this lamp he uses the traditional form of a chandelier using it in an abstract way. His hybrid objects combine material wit with aesthetic play; He sits on the line between the abstract and the functional.

Serge Mouille’s ceiling lamp of 1950s


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Design what went on before

The Dear Ingo is an update of Serge Mouille’s ceiling lamps of the 1950s. It has the same look but the Dear Ingo lamp has got more function and the aesthetics of waste is eliminated. The lamp looks like this because of its function. The lamp is a material for expressing the logic of consumption. It’s all about the function.

Impact nowadays

It questions our relationship with the furniture and things we are surround with. It is explaining how important role our homes play in our lives. It reveals the questions and doubt about the functionality of the objects that surround us now.

Utopian dimension

Ron Gilad wants to bring another approach of objects in houses. He questions our relationship with the furniture and objects surrounding us and reveals the doubt about the functionality. That is also what he wants to reach. He wants to bring objects into houses that have purpose, function and logic.

Why modernistic

Embrace the new economic aspect – question us about the functionality of objects surrounding.

Breaks with traditional forms – traditional chandelier using it in an abstract way.

Mass produced. More complex, functionality, improvement.

Sources

David Raizman – History of Modern Design

Laura Slack – What is product design?


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Modernism vs StreamliningEmin Sinani

Modernism overall played a big role in Europe. The ideology was focused on giving people a better live with better and affordable products, focused on the working class. The products were being improved functionally wise. The shaped and materials were tried to keep simple, so that the product was highly mass producible and therefore cheap. Not all designs approved for this. Streamlining was introduced in the United States because of the crisis. Products were streamlined so they would look better and sold cheaper so many people would buy them. The focus was overall on the making the products more aesthetically more attractive for the benefit of the company. For the people there was a benefit in having aesthetically more pleasing products.

Modernist Object: Swiss Railway Clock by Hans Hilfiker, 1944

Swiss railway clock, 1944


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The Railway clock designed by Hans Hilfiker was created for a clear purpose: showing the time. Since the beginning of 1980 there have been railways. The older clocks were created in a manner to be delightful to the eye. They looked like they were made of gold and had many flowing curves; also roman characters were used to show the numbers. Because of the aesthetics the purpose of the clock went down.

This Swiss clock is looks very simplistic and when looking at the shapes you can clearly see that it possibly has had influences from the Bauhaus designs. Because of the simplicity it is very easy to see what time it is. Even though the numbers are missing, there is no problem reading it, based on the fact that many people are used to clocks with numbers for home use. You can easily make a link with the angles of the stripes and the numbers. Also the spacing between the lines is “perfect” to distinguish the lines from each other.

Older Railway Clocks, 1800 - 1930


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Functionality wise it is very interesting It is not only easy to read, but it is also more functional in the back-end. When this clock was introduced in all the Swiss railways, there was no station left, which had the wrong/different time. The second bar rotates a whole cycle in approximately 58 seconds and waits for a pulse from a main server. After this pulse is given all the clocks go one minute further on the same time.

The materials used for this clock were glass and some kind of metal (nowadays aluminum). Because of the basic shapes and small amount of materials, it was easy to being mass produced. Hereby it could be spread quickly so everyone could benefit of its high functionality, one of the main characteristics of modernism ideology. The clock made a major impact back then and nowadays we still benefit from it.

This exact clock, maybe with minor changes, is still used on many railways, including all the railways in the Netherlands. Also many office/home clocks and watches have lent the style of it for creating giving higher attention to its real purpose.

Trainstation of today


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Clocks of today


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Streamlined Object: Lama Aprillia by Philippe Starck, 1992

Scooters have been created since the end of the 19th century. Like many new products, the first scooters served their purpose; not much attention was given to the aesthetics. When streamlining was introduced, also many scooters were being streamlined. Until now streamlining has played an important role for the looks of the scooter.

The Lama from Philip Starck is very noticeable, because it looks fully streamlined. The streamlining of scooters has always been improved over the years. Starck’s fully streamlined design made a bigger step in the streamlining than the other scooters.

Functionally it did not have many improvements comparing to the other scooters. Probably the streamlined design would make it have less wind resistance and a therefore bit quicker. But it did not bring anything new which was used later on in new motors.

Since this motor is never developed further than its prototyped form, not much info is there about the material. It looks like some kind of hard plastic, but probably includes metal for the frame. Most of the body looks like it is created from one part. Depending on the inner system it could be highly mass produced.

Lama Aprillia, 1992


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The scooter did not make a huge impact at his time, since it was probably seen as too futuristic. Also because of Philippe’s background as toilet designer, critics did not take him too seriously and said it was a very modern toilet of his. Nowadays you can see some influences from the scooter. Like the overall development, scooters look more streamlined. Material wise they could have been influenced by the Lama. Maybe we will see scooters which look closer like the Lama in the near future.

Older Scooters, 1884 - 1990

Vespa Scooter, 2009


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Utopian Dimensions

In my opinion the ideology of streamlining is to create an utopian ideal world. With all the futur-istic shapes which have been the designers wanted to create a perfect world with high functional-ity and aesthetically pleasing designs. I think streamlining failed in creating this perfect world, since it was too much benefit-based. Not many of the products were created to for improvement for the people, but mostly for small improvements a whole new product was created with an im-proved design. You can see this back in the Lama design, the design is abit more streamlined but nothing else is much improved.

In my opinion an utpian ideal world is a world where products have high functionality and are created to improve peoples lives. Therefore modernism’s ideoligy is more trying to be utopian in my opinion. Products were created to be cheap to reach the mass, so people would be able to benefit from the improvements. In the railway clock, you can see this back, since the focus was on high functionality and basic shapes/materials to reach the mass. I think this product could be seen as an product a high utopian thought.

Aesthethics of Waste

Aesthethics of waste was introduced in streamlining. The designs were designed to be extremely clean looking. The Lama really fits the eastethic of waste thought, because of its flowing curves and because it is created out of one shape, it gives a really clean feel. The aesthethics of waste had a bad influence too; in the streamlining, more and more products came which had no improve-ment than the older product. Older products were thrown away easier, and you can say aesthetics were wasted with no improvement. Yet when looking at modernism no aesthetics were wasted on the products. In the example of the clock, you see that after more than 60 years the exact same design is used. Still the cock looks clean but does not have the flowing curves.

Today

I think nowadays, there is a mix of modernism and streamlining when you take a look at differ-


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ent products. When customers buy products, they expect that the product is better than the old one. Also companies try to be opportunity creators and improve their products. Although in some of the markets that only stays as an ideology; new products are often only slightly improved to sell more. On the other side, ad-vertising, which was introduced at the start of the streamlining period, nowadays also plays a big role. Many products are depended on the right marketing strategies to be seen as a suc-cess.

The aesthetics of a product also plays a big role in this time. People do not want prod-ucts, which look “ugly”, even though they function well. Streamlining is often applied in products, but mostly you can see the streamlined shapes and ideology in vehicles. There are different streamlined user products, but also more abstract and simplistic shapes influenced by the modernistic era can be

found nowadays.

When looking at a product like iPod, you can see that the marketing is based on improve-ments of the product. When the iPod was introduced it made huge impact, they found a way to make it easy and fun to navigate and listen to your whole music collection (modernism). It was created out of basic shapes which served their purpose (mod-ernism). In 6 years many new iPods were in-troduced, they only had minor improvements and software add-ons (watching images and movies) which can be seen as gadgets. Aes-thetically, the iPod changed over the years, it got more streamlined. In 2007 the iPod touch was introduced, which is by many people seen as a big improvement when looking at other mp3 players (for example you can actually play games, which work and are really new and improving). Therefore you can clearly see that it is a mix of the 2 ideologies.

Apple iPod Timeline, 2001 - 2008


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Bibliography

Leonardo da Vinci – Survival design

Jack Wasserman – Leonardo da Vinci

Redactie H. Anna Suh – Leonardo da Vinci Notities

Daniel Arasse – Leonardo da Vinci

Art Nouveau - Gaudi

Jugendstil – Gabriele fahr-becker 1996

Gaudi – Architect van het modernism 2002

Gaudi – Jan Molema 2005

Jugenstil – Klaus Jurgen Sembach 1990

Bauhaus – Walter Gropius & Hannes Meyer

Bernard E. Burdek – Design history, theory and practice of product design

Pioneers of modern design

Design of the times

Reginald Isaacs – Walter Gropius

http://web.gc.cuny.edu/ArtHistory/part/part2-3/Comrade.html

Industrie & vormgeving in Nederland 1850-1950 – Stedelijk museum Amsterdam

Norman Bel Geddes

David Raizman – History of Modern Design

Horizons, Norman Bel Geddes, 1932

http://idsa.org/webmodules/articles/anmviewer.asp?a=238


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modernism