Lecture 3 From Here to Modernity. Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House, Illinois, 1946-50 Is Less More?

Lecture 3

From Here to Modernity

Mies van der Rohe

Farnsworth House,Illinois, 1946-50

Is Less More?

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)

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

Josef AlbersGrid Mounted1921

Anni AlbersWeaving

1929

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

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

Utopia / Dystopia

Thamesmead, London

1960s

Things to Come William Cameron Menzies1936

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, 1928-31

Nathan Coley, Villa Savoye, 1997

‘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

David Mabb

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

2002

Alexander Rodchenko 1891-1956

Drum and Bass, 2003

Combat(after Rodchenko), 2003

Mathieu Mercier

Orla Kiely Autumn ‘07

“Bauhaus art and design has been an important influence for many contemporary designers, but for Orla Kiely the geometry and colour of the work has special resonance.”

Tate Modern Shop:Orla Kiely Purse

Jim Lambie

Touch Zobop, 2003Tate Britain, London

Tomma Abts

Winner of Turner Prize 2006

Ert, 2003 Boros Collection, Berlin

Less is More

Mies van der Rohe

Less is a Bore

Robert Venturi

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)

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

Marcel Breuer 1925

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

Shanghai 2000

The Titanic - Photomontage, Stanley Tigerman, 1978, USA

Modernism ran out of steam

over a decade ago. But at its

core was an ethic - the

responsibility that a designer

has to actively contribute to,

indeed enhance, the social,

political, and cultural

framework.

Steven Heller, Émigré 33, 1995

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

1990)

Doris Salcedo Tate Modern October 2007

‘Shibboleth’