Lecture 3 From Here to Modernity Is Less

Lecture 3 From Here to Modernity

Is Less More? Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House, Illinois, 1946 -50

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

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) John Pawson 1990 s

Anni Albers Weaving 1929 Josef Albers Grid Mounted 1921 Josef and Anni Alber’s living room at the Dessau Bauhaus, 1920 s

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

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

Things to Come William Cameron Menzies 1936 Utopia / Dystopia Thamesmead, London 1960 s

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. ’

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

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

Alexander Rodchenko 1891 -1956 David Mabb Self Portrait posing as Rodchenko, dressed in a Rodchenko Production Suit made from the ‘Fruit’ William Morris fabric 2002

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

Orla Kiely Autumn ‘ 07 Tate Modern Shop: Orla Kiely Purse “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. ”

Jim Lambie Touch Zobop, 2003 Tate 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 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)

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

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 a thousand modernisms for every thousand persons. Octavio Paz (Nobel Prize reception speech 1990)

Doris Salcedo Tate Modern October 2007 ‘Shibboleth’