Avant-Garde in Art and Architecture Fall 2024 PDF

laura S1: Why History? S2-S3: America Rediscovered: The Chicago School, the Prairie Houses, the Skyscrapers S4-S5: The Search for Modern Form: Art Nouveau, Modernism, Sezession S6: New Production, New Aesthetic: The Deutscher Werkbund S7: Modernism in Germany: From Paper Architecture to Exhibiti...

laura S1: Why History? S2-S3: America Rediscovered: The Chicago School, the Prairie Houses, the Skyscrapers S4-S5: The Search for Modern Form: Art Nouveau, Modernism, Sezession S6: New Production, New Aesthetic: The Deutscher Werkbund S7: Modernism in Germany: From Paper Architecture to Exhibition Commissions S8-9: Avant-garde in Art and Architecture: Expressionism, Futurism, De Stilj, and Russia S10-11: Modernism in France: From the Machine Aesthetic to the Engagement with Landscape S12: Architectural Education and Social Reform: Beaux-Arts, Bauhaus, Vkhutemas S13: Internationalization through Discourses and Networks: CIAM, Open-air and Museum Exhibitions S14: Modern Languages across the World: Architecture beyond Central-Europe VAP DUE S1: Why History? Beatriz Colomina, “Outrage: Blindness to Women turns out to be blindness to architecture itself” (2018) | León Siminiani,“Arquitectura emocional 1959” (30 min., 2022) S2-S3: America Rediscovered: The Chicago School, the Prairie Houses, the Skyscrapers Laura Martínez de Guereñu, “Plastic Fantastic: El B Auditorium” (2011) | READING RESPONSE 1 + prep VISUAL ANALYSIS PAPER S4-S5: The Search for Modern Form: Art Nouveau, Modernism, Sezession VAP PROPOSAL DUE Adolf Loos,“Architecture” (1910) | READING RESPONSE 2 S6: New Production, New Aesthetic: The Deutscher Werkbund Herman Muthesius/ Henry van de Velde, “Aims of the Werkbund” (1911)/ “Werkbund Theses and Antitheses” (1914) S7: Modernism in Germany: From Paper Architecture to Exhibition Commissions Magdalena Droste, “The Creative Pair: Lilly Reich and the Collaboration with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe” (2017) S8-9: Avant-garde in Art and Architecture: Expressionism, Futurism, De Stilj, and Russia Alice T. Friedman with Maristela Casciato, “Family Matters: The Schröder House, by Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schröder” (1997) | READING RESPONSE 3 VAP OUTLINE DUE S10-11: Modernism in France: From the Machine Aesthetic to the Engagement with Landscape Jean-Louis Cohen, “Pessac | Moscow | Poissy | Roquebrune-Cap Martin” (2013) | READING RESPONSE 4 + prep VISUAL ANALYSIS PAPER S12: Architectural Education and Social Reform: Beaux-Arts, Bauhaus, Vkhutemas W. Gropius, “Principles of Bauhaus Production” (1923) / H. Meyer, “Building” (1928) / Mies “Building” (1923), “Build Beautifully and Practically! Stop This Cold Functionality” (1930) S13: Internationalization through Discourses and Networks: CIAM, Open-air and Museum Exhibitions Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock Jr.,“A Modern Architecture: International Exhibition” (1932) S14: Modern Languages across the World: Architecture beyond Central-Europe VAP DUE S1: Why History? Beatriz Colomina, “Outrage: Blindness to Women turns out to be blindness to architecture itself” (2018) | León Siminiani,“Arquitectura emocional 1959” (30 min., 2022) S2-S3: America Rediscovered: The Chicago School, the Prairie Houses, the Skyscrapers Laura Martínez de Guereñu, “Plastic Fantastic: El B Auditorium” (2011) | READING RESPONSE 1 + prep VISUAL ANALYSIS PAPER S4-S5: The Search for Modern Form: Art Nouveau, Modernism, Sezession VAP PROPOSAL DUE Adolf Loos,“Architecture” (1910) | READING RESPONSE 2 S6: New Production, New Aesthetic: The Deutscher Werkbund Herman Muthesius/ Henry van de Velde, “Aims of the Werkbund” (1911)/ “Werkbund Theses and Antitheses” (1914) S7: Modernism in Germany: From Paper Architecture to Exhibition Commissions Magdalena Droste, “The Creative Pair: Lilly Reich and the Collaboration with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe” (2017) S8-9: Avant-garde in Art and Architecture: Expressionism, Futurism, De Stilj, and Russia Alice T. Friedman with Maristela Casciato, “Family Matters: The Schröder House, by Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schröder” (1997) | READING RESPONSE 3 DUE S10-11: Modernism in France: From the Machine Aesthetic to the Engagement with Landscape Jean-Louis Cohen, “Pessac | Moscow | Poissy | Roquebrune-Cap Martin” (2013) | READING RESPONSE 4 + prep VISUAL ANALYSIS PAPER S12: Architectural Education and Social Reform: Beaux-Arts, Bauhaus, Vkhutemas W. Gropius, “Principles of Bauhaus Production” (1923) / H. Meyer, “Building” (1928) / Mies “Building” (1923), “Build Beautifully and Practically! Stop This Cold Functionality” (1930) S13: Internationalization through Discourses and Networks: CIAM, Open-air and Museum Exhibitions Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock Jr.,“A Modern Architecture: International Exhibition” (1932) S14: Modern Languages across the World: Architecture beyond Central-Europe VAP DUE  3rd READING RESPONSE Alice T. Friedman with Maristela Casciato, “Family Matters: The Schröder House, by Gerrit Rietveld and Truus Schröder” (1997) DE STILJ, Holland SUPREMATISM/ RATIONALISM/ CONSTRUCTIVISM, Russia Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931)/ Cornelis Van Eesteren (1897-1988) Maison Particuliere, 1923 Main reason for the connection of architecture with painting and sculpture: it afforded a laboratory of experimentation that was difficult to match. El Lissitzky (1890-1941) However, the formal experiments that were possible in PROUN room, view 1. 1923 (reconstructed 1965) theoretical and small-scale projects met with considerable resistance when applied to the constructional and programmatic needs of buildings.  W. Simbirchev. Restaurant over a cliff, 1923. Published in ABC, no. 3-4, 1925 The MIND was considered to be able to create form, Independently of traditional crafts Art and architecture were seen as impersonal and objective and not based on individual taste. Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), Schröder House, Utretch, The Netherlands DE STILJ, Holland Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931), Design for the central hall of a university, 1923 2 opposed architecture movements flourished after WWI: De Stilj and the Amsterdam School (expressionist) Both:. were related to the Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the German Expressionism.. believed in a unified style that could reflect the spirit of the age.. Inherited William Morris’s idea, according to which society could be transformed by art.. rejected the eclectic use of past styles, striving for a new, uncodified architecture. Michael de Klerk (1884-1923) Spaarndammerplantsoen Residential Complex Amsterdam, 1917-1920 But each, inherited a DIFFERENT STRAND of earlier movements: De Stijl The Amsterdam School It was rationalist, impersonal…and rejected craftmanship, favoring a geometrical anti-naturalism It was vitalist, individualistic...and made use of traditional materials, particularly brick First Issue of De Stijl, Theo Van Doesburg, J.J.P. Oud and Willian Hszar, 1917. Manifesto, 1918, where the identity of the group is manifested. Published from 1917 until 1932. The 3 main postulates of the movement can be roughly summarized: 1. Each art form must realize its own nature based on its materials and codes. 2. As the spiritual awareness of society increases, so will art fulfill its historical (Hegelian) destiny and become re-absorbed into daily life. 3. Art is NOT opposed to science and technology –both art and science are concerned with the discovery and demonstration of the underlying laws of nature.  Schoenmaeker believed that the new plastic expression, “Neoplasticism.” born of light and sound, would create a heaven on earth The metaphysics of the movements were to a large extent taken from the Theosophist and Neoplatonist M.J.H. Schoenmaeker (1875-1944), whose book The Principles of Plastic Mathematics (1916) claimed that plastic mathematics was a “positive mysticism” in which “we translate reality into constructions controlled by our reason, later to recover these constructions in nature, thus penetrating matter with plastic vision.” Vasily Kandinsky, Über das Geistige in der Kunst. Insbesondere in der Malerei (On the Spiritual in Art: And Painting in Particular), 1911 Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Portrait by Rogi André, 1937. Theo van Doesburg (1883-1931) with Cornelis van Eesteren, working on model for Maison Particuliere, 1923. Piet Mondrian, Composition in Red, Blue and White II, 1937 [Center Pompidou] Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43 [MoMA] The system that Mondrian arrived at was based on a Mondrian organized the picture in such a way that the traditional hierarchy between radical process of reduction in which the complex figural objects and the illusionistic ground is abolished (completely flattened!) accidental appearance of nature was refined to the variations of an irregular orthogonal grid, party filled with rectangles of primary colour. In Mondrian’s painting, meaning is transposed from the represented object to the abstract organization of the two- dimensional surface. What matters is the organization (the relationship between the parts and the whole) Piet Mondrian, Composition, 1929 Piet Mondrian, Summer, Dune in Zeeland, 1910 Piet Mondrian, Mill at Evening, ca. 1905 Piet Mondrian, The Red Mill, 1910-11.  Piet Mondrian, Still Life with Ginger Pot II, 1911-12 Piet Mondrian, Composition in Brown and Gray, 1913 Piet Mondrian, Still Life with Ginger Pot I, 1911  Piet Mondrian, Composition with Color Planes 5, 1917 Piet Mondrian, Composition 10 in Black and White, Pier and Ocean, 1915 Piet Mondrian, Composition with Lines, 1917 NEO-PLASTICISM The system to which Piet Mondrian eventually arrived in 1917, started from figuration, and was based on a radical process of reduction so that figure and ground could be flattened, and become undistinguishable. Piet Mondrian, Composition with Grids: Checkerboard Composition with Light Colors, 1919 Piet Mondrian, Composition with Blue, Black, Yellow and Red, 1922 Piet Mondrian, Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow, and Grey, 1921 NEO-PLASTICISM Mondrian organized the picture in such a way that the traditional hierarchy between figural objects and the In Mondrian, “no element is more important than any other, and none must escape integration” illusionistic ground was abolished. (Yve-Alain Bois, The Stijl Idea). The complex, accidental appearance of nature was refined to the variations of an irregular orthogonal grid, party filled with rectangles of primary colour. Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous Disk Punch (Premier Disque Simultané), 1912 First pictorial grid of the history of modern art. It is a homothetic structure in which the sign and its referent are co-present. Sonia Delaunay, Simultaneous Contrasts, 1913. Oil on canvas. 46 x 55 cm Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Inv. no. 518 (1976.81)  Piet Mondrian, Composition of Red and White: Nom 1/Composition No. 4 with red and blue, 1938-42. These structural principles of non-redundancy and non-hierarchy are similar to those underlying Arnold Schoenberg's atonal and serial music. In tradition, painting represents a figural object that Score by Arnold Schoenberg. conveys the symbolic or lyrical content (which is the Atonal music equivalent to melody in music).  Piet Mondrian, New York City I, 1942 What matters is the ORGANIZATION (the relationship between the parts and the whole). In Mondrian’s paintings, the meaning is transposed from Cartoon published in "The New Yorker,” December 31, 1955 the represented object to the abstract organization of the 2-dimensional surface. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND PAINTING Piet Mondrian in his studio with (top) Lozenge Composition with Four Yellow Lines, 1933 (B241) and (bottom) Composition with Double Lines and Yellow, 1934 (B242), Paris October 1933 Mondrian claimed that: Painting was able to anticipate the desired merging of art and life precisely because it remained on the level of representation, and was not, like architecture, compromised by its immersion in reality. Until architecture freed itself from this condition (!!!!), it could not participate in the movement towards the unification of art and life. “Architecture cannot be abstract; architecture is doomed by anatomy”” Oud claimed that: If art was eventually to merge with life, it could not be at the level of existing reality. The principles of utility and function were inseparable from J.J.P. Oud (1890-1963), Cafe de Unie, Rottedam, front facade, oblique view, c.1927 architecture. The Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau had sought to unify the visual arts and architecture. But this had not been temporarily achieved, when there was a coincidence between the artist and the craftsman. In response to this, one of the aims of De Stilj artists was to occupy the void created by the disappearance of the artist-craftsman, with painters. In this work, colored floor tiles and stainless-glass windows, were simply added to the architectural framework JJP. Oud with Theo Van Doesburg, Spagen Municipal Housing, 1919-1924 A more holistic approach, Detail. Gerrit Rietveld’s chair, reconstructed They designed and colored all the tectonic elements of a room (doors, cupboards, furniture), so as to create a unity of rhythm rectangular forms. The effect was to MERGE structure, ornament, and furniture in a new unity. The difference between ground (architecture) and figure (ornament) as also erased. This created an effect of camouflage. It was not possible to distinguish the different parts that made the system of architecture. Vilmos Huszár (1884-1960) and Gerrit Rietveld (1876-1958). Views of the scale model for Space-Colour-Composition, for the Juryfreie Kunstschau Exhibition, Berlin, 1923  In 1920, Van Doesburg began to “activate” this kind of purely sculptural forms, by making them coincide with habitable volumes Theo van Doesburg, with Jan Wils, Design Theo van Doesburg, with Hans Vogel for monument Studies for Purely Architectural Sculpture Leeuwarden, c.1917 Resulting from Ground Plan 1921 Theo van Doesburg and Cornelis van Eesteren, architects of De Stijl Group, Galerie de L'Effort Moderne, Paris 1923  The aggregation of interlocking cubic volumes appear to “grow” from a central core. In its underlying organization, the house is systematic, but in detail, it is accidental and variable. The idea recalls the system-plus-variety of Mondrian’s paintings. Because of its centrifugal, stem-like structure the house has no front or back and seems to defy gravity. A self-referential and self- generate object that is not “composed” from the outside, but results from an internal principle of growth. 4 elevations Theo van Doesburg/ Cornelis Van Eesteren, Maison Particuliere, 1923  AXONOMETRY, as a system of representation Does not privilege one part of the building over another. They were attempts to represent four-dimensional space (since one needed to imagine the viewer moving through space) Axonometry allowed to imagine the flow of lived experience. Theo van Doesburg/ Cornelis Van Eesteren, Contra-Construction Project Axonometric, 1923  Color scheme for ceiling and short walls of ballroom Theo Van Doesburg, Café l'Aubette, Strasburg, France,1928 Theo van Doesburg House in Meudon, Paris, 1929 Gerrit Rietveld Schroeder House, Utrecht,1923-24 ARCHITECTURE BEYOND DE STIJL: Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) in the Netherlands Johannes Brinkman, Cornelis van der Vlugt, Van Nelle Factory, Rotterdam, 1927-29 JJP Oud, Scheepvaartstraat 2, Housing Estate, Rotterdam, 1926-27 JJP Oud, Kiefhoek Workers' Housing, Rotterdam, 1926-30 Nieuwe Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) Functionalism  Theo van Doesburg Rhythm of a Russian Dance, June 1918 Why is all this so important? As a result of van Doesburg’s exhibitions in Weimar and Paris, in 1922 and 1923, and his presence “off- stage” the Bauhaus in 1921, Neoplasticism exerted a considerable influence on architects like Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and at critical moments in their careers. Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) Le Corbusier (1887-1965) Walter Gropius (1883-1969) Brick Country House Project, 1923 Villa Besnus, Vaucresson, 1922 Bauhaus building, aerial view, 1926