Lecture 3 From Here to Modernity

Mies van der Rohe Crown Hall, Chicago, Michael Shewan Gray’s School of Art, 1966

Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House, Illinois,

Josef and Anni Alber’s living room at the Dessau Bauhaus, 1920s

Josef and Anni Alber’s living room in Connecticut USA, 1970s

The minimum could be defined as the perfection that an artefact achieves when it is no longer possible to improve it by subtraction. This is the quality that an object has when every component, every detail, and every junction has been reduced or condensed to the essentials. It is the result of the omission of the inessentials. John Pawson - Minimum, 1996

John Pawson 1990s Flowers, even salt and pepper get in the way… John Pawson Evolution is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of everyday use Adolf Loos (Ornament and Crime, 1928)

Utopia / Dystopia Things to Come 1936 Things to Come William Cameron Menzies 1936

Utopia / Dystopia Thamesmead, London 1960s

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Nathan Coley, Villa Savoye, 1997 ‘This is a shot of the main façade … it’s somewhat blank and forbidding … giving the impression (later to be disproved) of a completely symmetrical building.’

‘The site is expansive, bordered by trees on three sides, and has long views towards the softly rolling fields and valleys.’ ‘At first sight, there is a shock of recognition - a sense of formal inevitability. What can be more natural than this horizontal white box, poised on pillars, set off against the rural surroundings, the far panorama and the sky?’

‘This shows you how the long window becomes part of the façade solution.’ ‘The moment one steps inside the villa one finds a new structural rhythm taking over.’

Dan Flavin Untitled (monument for V. Tatlin) 1975 Vladimir Tatlin Monument to the Third International, Petrograd, 1920

Carl Andre (1935-) Equivalent VIII, 1966 My arrangements I’ve found are essentially the simplest I can arrive at, given a material and a place … Carl Andre

Drum and Bass, 2003 Combat(after Rodchenko), 2003 Mathieu Mercier

David Mabb Self Portrait posing as Rodchenko, dressed in a Rodchenko Production Suit made from the ‘Fruit’ William Morris fabric 2002

Peter van der Jagt (Droog Design) Bottom’s Up doorbell, 1994

Less is More Mies van der Rohe Less is a Bore Robert Venturi

Alessandro Mendini, Redesign of Modern Movement Chairs - Wassily by Breuer, 1978 Marcel Breuer 1925

I like elements which are hybrid rather than ‘ pure ’, compromising rather than ‘ clean ’, distorted rather than ‘ straightforward ’, ambiguous rather than ‘ articulated ’, perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as ‘ interesting ’, conventional rather than ‘ designed ’, accommodating rather than excluding, vestigial as well as well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. Robert Venturi 1966 (Architect)

I am for richness of meaning rather than clarity of meaning; for the implicit function as well as the explicit function. Robert Venturi 1966 (Architect)

The Titanic - Photomontage, Stanley Tigerman, 1978, USA

Functionalism, Yes, But. Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown

We can no longer fulfill our obligations as architects if we carry on as cake decorators. Our role is far greater than that. We, the authors of architecture, have to take on the task of reinvestigating Modernity Zaha Hadid 1983 Zaha Hadid Terminus, Strasbourg France, 2001

Andreas Gursky, Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, 1994

Surely it is time for a new Baroque, based on the clean, cold legacy of Modernism Contemporary Magazine 2004 Won Ju Lim Ruby, 2001

Modernism is the expression by individual human beings of how they will live their own present, and consequently there are a thousand modernisms for every thousand persons. Octavio Paz (Nobel Prize reception speech)

(happy christmas)To Modernity and Beyond?