Bauhaus

Bauhaus

The Bauhaus era was one of the most important movements of all time it emerged between the two world wars and it created a change in design and great inspirational ideas for the modern designer of today. The word Bauhaus which is a German word means the school of building or house of construction. At the time Bauhaus emerged in the design world it was something new it was a school that created a new way of approach through design. The difference between other art schools at that time was ,that other schools thought subjects separately. Art and design was thought separately so students couldn’t experiment and learn new techniques and to learn new techniques you have to too experiment with different materials .A good example is our own college of art and design Mcast . I’m not trying to make a review but in this college we have the opportunity to experiment with different materials and using that idea it will boost the level of knowledge. The Bauhaus school offered foundation lessons and training in many areas of art and design and that is what changed the way of design The school also focused on mass production so basically the student was thought to create a product which was well made and can be mass produced for the community.

Bauhaus School

The Bauhaus school was mostly the most celebrated school in the world but what happened is the Nazi where rising in power and they tried everything to close the school down, The Nazi didn’t want original ideas and were afraid of the influence and inspirational ideas of the school..

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Mies van der Rohe B42 Chair

Bauhaus thinkers had in mind to reshape the world to create design with less ornaments and less useless things in the design. They wanted to create products with good function and simple form. Which basically can be described as minimalist design. In minimalism design focused on geometrical shapes, and simplicity.

One of the best iconic designs of Bauhaus was the cantilever chair it was designed by Marcel Breuer .He was inspired from his own bicycle and the way the bike was constructed. The cantilever chair was the first light weight chair that was designed. Bauhaus designers designed a lot of inspirational ideas that eventually changed the way of design and way in how we approach design today.

A good example of architecture that was designed in the Bauhaus design was the school and the architecture of the building. The building was designed by Walter Gropius it had a mechanical system in the window shades and most f the interior was also build by the students, Walter changed the way of architecture and most of his work was put into practice before WW I. Most of the paint job of the school is light tones of grey creating a nice contrast to the window shades, which are of dark colours. The architecture of Bauhaus explained how building can be simple yet interesting in form and construction.

Wassily Chair 

Muller-van-severen-zetel-modern-bauhaus-style-furniture

The Bauhaus movement continues to inspire the design of today in architecture, Graphic Design and product design large architecture .Bauhaus was about ideas and reform and how to make a tidy sense in the world around us.


Reference:

Bauhaus Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. 2015.Bauhaus Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm. [Accessed 24 January 2015].

The Bauhaus Art Movement. 2015. The Bauhaus Art Movement. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.abstract-art-framed.com/bauhaus.html. [Accessed 27 January 2015].

The Bauhaus Movement. 2015. The Bauhaus Movement. [ONLINE] Available at: http://bauhausinteriors.com/blog/the-bauhaus-movement/. [Accessed 27 January 2015].

Pop Art and design

Pop Art and design

Art movements throughout history have been created in the midst of various political upheavals. The larger part of art wanted to have itself looked upon as a form of expression with the sole purpose of providing aesthetic pleasure rather than conforming to politics. But the authenticity of this ideological concept was contradicted and faced in the late 1950’s with the emergence of a predominately American Art movement by the name of Pop Art. Pop emerged in the late 50’s and managed to thrive in the 60’s and way in to the late seventies. It utilized the imagery and techniques of consumerism and popular culture.

Many perceived pop as a mere continuation of abstract expressionism, well at least in part, or if anything more a reaction against it. There were forces within abstract expressionism that propelled artists towards the new mode. For example, as abstract expressionism began to exhaust its impulse, prevailing interests in texture led artists to ever-bolder experiments with materials. Pop had been given a well-needed push to reflect upon the homogenous social conditions of conformity that encouraged it to deviate from the normal and thrive for the new. This artistic transition was made in the face of fierce opposition from well-established institutions, unintentionally making pop a very open voice of protest and an integral part of the broader cultural happenings of the time.

The 50’s was an era which provided the right cultural, social and political conditions for the emergence of this new art phenomenon in the 60’s. As the 50’s were seen as a period of immense prosperity and conformity, almost every thing was being mass-produced. From food, to housing products were being produced in the millions. Pop used this as a focal point as it replicated images of mass consumerism to near life like status with a satirical view of western society and its obsession with consumption.

This new aesthetic mode confronted art lovers as well as ordinary people with everyday objects, which gained a new quality. It served as a breaking down of the division between race, poverty, excessive consumption and social injustice. Everyone consumed more or less the same products (such as Coca-Cola) be it someone rich and famous or the ordinary man on the street.

Art critics and mainstream cultural institutions of the time that were rather conservative had alienated pop art and its concepts. They did not respond very nicely to change especially in the form of pop. Critics back then, as is the case even till this day carried immense clout in the art world, one could say they could ‘’make’’ or ‘’break’’ artists.       

Pop favoured figured imagery and the reproduction of everyday products such as Campbell soup cans, comic strips and advertisements, giving art a new realism in its most contemporary form. Pop involves the use of existing imagery from mass culture already processed into two dimensions. Pop emphasises flatness and frontal presentation. Pop artists, especially in America have a preference for centralized composition and for flat areas of unmodulated and unmixed colour bound by hard edges.

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans are about sameness (although with differing labels): same brand, same size, same paint surface, same fame as a product. They mimic the condition of mass advertising, out of which his sensibility had grown. This fascinated and yet indifferent take on the famous object, became the key to Warhol’s work. Warhol extended it by using silkscreen. Pop concentrated on the contemporary subject matter integral to the ready-made sources the artists have used. Pop had been more than just an artistic voice; it was a part of something bigger whose effects were even present in film, literature and music.

 Pop was very much a movement that emerged with very few blessings from the establishment that housed it, as it was thought upon as vulgar and completely contrary to what art should be. And unacceptable were the images it was producing that had been thought of as no more than a colourful satire of society with its sneer like qualities aimed at exposing the inability of a nation as great in size and wealth. This publicity through pop art was widely regarded by major institutions as damaging for the nations morale. As pop delved deep into the darkest part of corporate America, it exposed certain truths that had been repressed for too long.

At that time Pop had not acquired the respect of an establishment, or been elevated in the mainstream to a position of the highest acclaim that it surely deserved. However, it surely had been embraced by ordinary people even more so than expressionism as it captivated the hearts of millions of people through images of everyday ordinary life, represented in varying degrees from its most simplistic to highly explicit. Pop surely should have been credited with the fact that it so took art into to a new mode aesthetically, through techniques and format’s which prior to pop had never been seen before. Pop was a movement that wanted to deviate from the normal practices, thus experimented with new modes of representation as versatile and vigorously vibrant as the socio-political context in which it was created.     

After Pop became Popular it started to influence product design in the late 60 and many designers like Joe  Colombo,Quashar Khan,Verner Penton. Which they all where influenced from pop design and created products fot the pop culture at that time.Pop was in an era where a lot of movements were mixed,Like the psychedelic movement and the Space age era which made a very big combination of ideas and style which till this day is still inspiring a lot of people and designers.

Reference:

POP ART AND PRODUCT DESIGN. 2015. POP ART AND PRODUCT DESIGN. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.technologystudent.com/prddes1/popart2a.html. [Accessed 30 January 2015].

Modern Pop Art Style Apartment. 2015. Modern Pop Art Style Apartment. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.home-designing.com/2013/08/modern-pop-art-style-apartment. [Accessed 30 January 2015].

Pop Art Design – review | Art and design | The Guardian. 2015. Pop Art Design – review | Art and design | The Guardian. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/20/pop-art-design-barbican-review. [Accessed 30 January 2015].

Introduction to Pop Art - YouTube. 2015. Introduction to Pop Art - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IxcJsXyWtQ. [Accessed 30 January 2015].

Post Modernism

Post Modernism

 The word Postmodern was first used in as a way to interpret a new style of painting in other words to depart from the French Impressionism and was used around 1870s. Also postmodernism was another way to distinguish different kinds of music and criticisms about religion and theology which means a study on the religion and the concept of God and of the religion truths. Not to go deep in the subject I’m going to focus my research on the connection of postmodernism with design and architecture .the influences it made on design and different designers through the 19th century.

Before post modernism idealists and creators their was the Modernists, The modernist thought in a different way then the postmodernism era they wanted a room for improvement a better world and in design art and architecture less was more .

 Post Modernism began on March the 16 on 1972.It was a movement which took reaction from a philosophical point of view which was against the modern period in Western Period. In architecture post modernisms is distinguished by the new style of decorative ornaments different forms of angles and the use of formally used reference in decorative forms.  The movement tried to change the perfection of the modern movement than was developed by Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius which they focused on harmony, form and function.

Post modernisms architecture is mostly viewed as an American movement which eventually spread in Europe like most of other movements.

 One famous group that designed postmodern furniture and architecture was the Memphis Group based in Milan in Italy and founded by Ettore Sottsass in 1981 which he designed postmodern furniture with different kind materials. The actual name of the group was taken from a Bob Dylan’s Song .The group was inspired with the art deco movement and pop art .If you see some of their work you could see the bold colors which were used in pop art. They took part in different exhibitions and their work was described as bizarre and misunderstood

Below I have an example  of some the Memphis group works.

Post Modern Architecture

The first architects who made use of postmodern architectural ideas are Aldo Rossi , Robert Venturi, Philip Johnson and Michael Graves .They are known to recover and experiment with historical forms and the use of elements of materials through art and architecture. The first major postmodern work was the Portland public service Building also the At and T Building in New York city .

Other good example of a building is the Citigroup center  skyscraper in NewYork which clearly show examples of post modernism.

IN Design Philip Starck is also considered a post modernist which he designed some unusual point less house hold items that looked good but didn’t function well. Like the Juicy Salif lemon Juicer

Juicy Salif lemon Juicer 

Reference:


Post Modern Interior Design Style Archives - INDOOR Treasure Shop News. 2015. Post Modern Interior Design Style Archives - INDOOR Treasure Shop News. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.interior-design-home-decoration-shop-treasure-trove-blog-news.architectural-treasures.com/tag/post-modern-interior-design-style/. [Accessed 29 January 2015].

Post Modern Interior Design. 2015. Post Modern Interior Design. [ONLINE] Available at:http://interiordesign.lovetoknow.com/Post_Modern_Interior_Design. [Accessed 29 January 2015].

Postmodern Interior Design Design Ideas, Pictures, Remodel and Decor. 2015. Postmodern Interior Design Design Ideas, Pictures, Remodel and Decor. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.houzz.com/postmodern-interior-design. [Accessed 29 January 2015].


Explaining Postmodernism: Full Audiobook - YouTube. 2015. Explaining Postmodernism: Full Audiobook - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQcNjHNXnEE. [Accessed 29 January 2015].

Bauhaus and De Stijl

 De Stijl/Bauhaus

   Bound to the context of a geometrical constructivist form, these works distinguish themselves by the rigorous systematic of their compositions and serial concepts. Away from any natural impressions, both compositions attract abstract elements to achieve a harmonious balance forces, by far free from emotional values.

Recognizing the reed to remerge art and design, the De Stijl movement promoted functionalism. Theo Van Doesburg, a member of the ‘De Stijl’ movement, reflected on the idea, that to create a piece of art with a unique and clear meaning, a reduction has to be made when choosing colours as there should be a harmony of forces. Van Doesburg already absorbed by the idea of abstraction agreed with Piet Mondrian that a clear geometrical order can also give universal validity to subjective feelings. In 1917 the art journal De Stijl was founded and its members aspired to a universal visual language by concentrating on elementary compositional forms while creating a balance between colours and surfaces, trying to avoid symmetry. They emphasized that harmony can be visualised by the use of geometrical simplicity of elementary proportions. They also transposed some of their elementary proportions from their painting to architecture and interior design, thus promoting the marriage of art and design.

Gerrit Rietveld. Red Blue Chair. 1923

Van Doesburg was also regarded as the movement’s founder after appearing in Manifesto of Concrete Art. “Concrete and not abstract painting, because nothing us more concrete, more real than a line, a colour, a surface.”

Opinions from “De Stijl” were absorbed by leading figures among the Bauhaus teachers and students who followed with a philosophy of turning away from old structures, and embracing modern or international art with a sense of functionality for social and political purposes.

Founded in 1919, the Bauhaus offered training both on the artistic side and on technical skills, which initiated cooperation between art, industry and social development. Students were thought how to confront the basic concerns of design with their own creative potential. Representatives from different European art movements made the Bauhaus a hub of the international avant-garde in 1920s.

Bauhaus initially set out to demolish the traditional division between art and crafts, when training was given by representatives of Expressionism. The second phase, was largely informed by the principle of functionalism, were art was placed for more in the service of industrial design. Bauhaus also reflected the influence of ‘De Stijl’ movement whose ideas was circulated around the Bauhaus during the lectureship of Theo Van Doesburg.

Voices from outside criticised the Bauhaus for lack of unity in the works of art which according to them missed combining colour, form and space.

Reference:

The Bauhaus, 1919–1933 | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2015. The Bauhaus, 1919–1933 | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm. [Accessed 30 January 2015].

Bauhaus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2015. Bauhaus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus. [Accessed 30 January 2015].

Bauhaus Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. 2015.Bauhaus Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm. [Accessed 30 January 2015].


Bauhaus-Archiv. 2015. Bauhaus-Archiv. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.bauhaus.de/en/. [Accessed 30 January 2015].