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/