The Emergence of Modern Architecture

The emergence of modern architecture grew from reactional design to the rising industrial age and the progression of society and culture, usually working within the framework of either individuality or collectivism.

            The Arts and Crafts Movement was one of the first in which the influence of the Industrial age began to shape the work of designers. They championed craftsmanship and the importance of how an artist produces designs within the framework of economic and social reform, all as a counter movement to Industrialization. Designers looked to nature as an example of God’s design and worked within a style associated with romantic, medieval fold decorative elements. In their minds, Industrialization was destroying the art of craftsmanship and the beauty of true design, which lay in the process and work of the individual craftsman. 

As the first systematic attempt to replace the classical system of architecture and the decorative arts, the Art Nouveau movement fit more cohesively within the Industrial Age. Although designs utilized craftsmanship like the Arts and Crafts Movement, the acceptance of industrial methods for mass production moved design and the philosophy behind it in a new direction. The focus on the creative process of craftsmanship was dropped for the industrial system. Artist originality and spirituality were stressed, but the importance of that expression did not extend throughout their entire school of thought, meaning it did not carry through to an avoidance of industrial mass production which works against that idea.

The De Stijl took this removal one step further, focusing on the machine made materials and uniform production. Designers used industrial methods to shape the experience of user in the relationships of spatial volumes, relating abstraction in the arts to architectural design.  Gone was the concept of the individual and in its place was the expression of the character of contemporary society as a whole. Design grew from universal values expressed from individual perception as abstraction. De Stijl emphasized uniformity in its simplification of the Cubist structure that worked within the frame of Industrialization but pushed for universalism.

The Amsterdam school, which coincided with De Stijl, operated on a different school of thought, drawing from the ideals of Ruskin, Morris, and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Designers did not view collaboration as particularly valuable and championed individualism, craft work, and traditional materials. They attached communist ideals and values to art and the ideal of a communal art. For the Amsterdam school, machines were useless and the individuality of the artist or architect was an important element in the creative process, believing that the betterment of society would come from contact with the arts stressing individuality.

Like the preceding movements, Russian Constructivism and Suprematism drew inspiration from the ideals of the contemporary culture and society. This movement operated within the Industrial Age and replaced the idea of individual identity with utopian ideals of a socialist commune state. Architecture was meant to represent the superiority of the state, to express the communal power of the masses and dominate building form. In this was lost individual identity, both in the creation and expression of architecture.

The Bauhaus movement continues this trace of of the communal environment, taking a utopian stance on the form and encouraging public exposure and social encounters through design. Bauhaus was greatly influenced by Industrial America, expressing the new society through design. Unlike Constructivism, the Bauhaus School of Thought, particularly Walter Gropius, looked to reconcile the individual and the community in a global vision of architecture. Within Bauhas, the Arts and Crafts Movement was reborn, featuring the same ideas behind design dressed in the garments of Industrialization.



SOURCES:

Images:
http://www.ruksliving.com/bauhaus.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Noitrotsky.jpg
http://lisathatcher.wordpress.com/2012/04/10/gerrit-rietveld-furniture-and-architecture-and-design-and-de-stijl/

William Morris and 19th Century Architecture

           William Morris, a designer and manufacturer of crafts, largely influenced the Arts and Crafts movements and worked towards reshaping modern architecture in the 19^th century.  He is considered one of the most versatile and influential designers of the Arts and Crafts Movement in England—a movement associated with social reform and romantic, medieval fold decorative style.

                Morris’s distaste for industry and his taste for fine art and high quality led him to be a strong supporter of the complete reform of industrial society. He believed in the union of social and political issues with design and worked to reform industry with his own model of business exemplified in Morris & Co. Through his model he emphasized relaxed working conditions and the creation of art. According to Morris, leisure involved four things: meeting a vocation, pleasant surroundings, a certain scope of variation, and usefulness. He believed in individual development, the abolition of the division of labor and better working conditions.

Morris’s vision of applying his values of high quality, crafted fine art to commercial design and production was key to the evolution of design. He believed there to be an uneven pattern of forced ownership in society that stripped production of the “expression by man of his pleasure in labour” that created true art. He once wrote: “what is an artist but a workman who determined that, whatever else happens, his work shall be excellent? Or, to put it in another way: the decoration of workmanship, what is it but the expression of man’s pleasure in successful labour?” For Morris, work was to be driven by two forces—nature (the need to make a living) and desire (love of art)—in order to produce his vision of society.

His value originality in design and his belief that art’s inferior quality was a product of poor quality of life pushed him to champion social, commercial, and design reform. His belief in nature as the perfect example of God’s design manifested itself in a common theme of nature-inspired designs such as the floral tapestry design below.

Morris brought quality and life to modern design with vision reminiscent of the ideals of John Ruskin. “No person is able to give useful or definite help towards the special applications of art, unless he is entirely familiar with the conditions of labour and materials involved in the work”—a sentiment Ruskin expressed that made a great impression on Morris. He shared Ruskin’s value of the decorative arts as well as his views on work and business morality. In Morris’s case he made efforts towards practical expression of those values through his business. Both Morris and Ruskin advocated social harmony over individual profit and believed in providing opportunities to give workman creative freedom. In the minds of Morris and Ruskin a happy worker in a beautiful environment led to the creation of beautiful things.

Morris’s impact shaped many designers’ perceptions and ideals of the quality of design in the industrial age and helped form the language of modern architecture in the 19^th century.

Harvey, Charles and Press, Jon. (1995). John Ruskin and the Ethical Foundations of Morris & Company. Journal of Business Ethics, 14(3), 181-194. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25072636

Kinna, Ruth. (2000). William Morris: Art, Work, and Leisure. Journal of the History of Ideas, 61(3), 493-512.  10.1353/jhi.2000.0027