Le corbusier
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This document discusses the rise and principles of modernist design from the early 20th century. It provides examples of key modernist designers like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Marcel Breuer who rejected ornamentation in favor of clean lines and an emphasis on function. Their work in architecture and furniture design embraced new industrial materials like steel, glass, and plastic to create simple, standardized forms. While modernism dominated design for much of the 20th century, the document also suggests it began facing criticism by the late 1970s for its potentially cold and inhuman aesthetic.
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Le corbusier
- 1. Design and Modernism Le Corbusier Contextualised Andrea Peach
- 2. A Great epoch has begun. There exists a new spirit. Towards a New Architecture Le Corbusier 1927
- 4. Modernism Dominant ideology throughout western industrialised world in art, design and architecture for most of the twentieth century
- 5. 19th century: Ornament & Decoration …
- 6. If we challenge the past we shall learn that ‘styles’ no longer exist for us, that a style belonging to our own period has come about; and there has been a Revolution. Towards a New Architecture Le Corbusier 1927
- 7. Die Wohnung Stuttgart 1927
- 8. Adolf Loos 1928 Essay on Ornament and Crime: Evolution is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of everyday use
- 9. Adolf Loos 1928 Steiner House - Vienna, Austria
- 10. Le Corbusier Cook House, Paris, 1926 A house has to fulfill two purposes. First it is a machine for living in, that is, a machine to provide us with efficient help for speed and accuracy in our work, a diligent and helpful machine which should satisfy all our physical needs: comfort. But it should also be a place conducive to meditation, and lastly, a beautiful place, bringing much needed tranquility to the mind. 1923
- 11. Machine Art exhibition at Museum of Modern Art in New York 1934 The beauty of machine art is in part the abstract beauty of straight lines and circles made into actual tangible surfaces and solids by means of lathes, rulers and squares
- 12. Industry, overwhelming us like a flood which rolls on towards its destined ends, has furnished us with new tools adapted to this new epoch, animated by the new spirit. Le Corbusier - Towards a New Architecture
- 13. Russian Constructivist printed textile c 1920
- 14. Le Corbusier 1929 Metal plays the same part in furniture as cement has done in architecture. It is a revolution.
- 15. The machinery of Society, profoundly out of gear, oscillates between an amelioration, of historical importance, and a catastrophe. Le Corbusier - Towards a New Architecture
- 16. Le Corbusier Villa Savoye 1928-31 If we eliminate from our hearts and minds all dead concepts in regard to the house, and look at the question from a critical and objective point of view, we shall arrive at the ‘House Machine’
- 17. We must create the mass-production spirit. The spirit of constructing mass-production houses. The spirit of living in mass-production houses. The spirit of conceiving mass-production houses. Le Corbusier Unité d’Habitation, Marseilles 1947-52
- 18. It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of to-day: architecture or revolution Le Corbusier Unité d’Habitation, Marseilles 1947-52
- 19. Weissenhof Seidlung, Stuttgart 1927 Mies van der Rohe Walter Gropius / Marcel Breuer
- 20. Marcel Breuer 1931 This metal furniture is intended to be nothing but a necessary apparatus for contemporary life
- 21. Modernist Design Objects should be: • Simple, honest and direct • Well adapted to their purpose • No ornament
- 22. Modernist Design • Standardised • Machine-made • Reasonably priced • Expressive of their structure and materials
- 23. Marcel Breuer 1926 Nickel-plated steel and lacquered wood Nesting Tables Germany
- 24. Mies van der Rohe 1927 Chrome-plated tubular steel, oil cloth Cantilever Chair Germany
- 25. Howell ‘Chromasteel’ USA 1946 “Here is gay, sparkling furniture that brings new beauty and charm into your kitchen … it’s the kind that seems to stay new looking indefinitely”
- 26. Greta von Nessen 1952 Aluminum and enameled metal ‘Anywhere lamp’ Germany
- 27. Ocean - Bianco Table / Gamma Chairs - chromed tubular steel frame 2008 …
- 28. Modernism A term used to refer to the principle that nothing is included in a design that does not enhance the object’s purpose
- 29. Marianne Brandt 1924 Tea infuser Germany, Bauhaus
- 30. Metal is cold and brutally hard... It gives no comfort to the eye John Gloag 1929
- 31. “Modern carpet designs may provide endless entertainment for your friends” Heath Robinson 1936
- 33. The end of modernism…? The Titanic - Photomontage Stanley Tigerman, 1978, USA
- 34. Alessandro Mendini 1978 “Redesign of Modern Movement Chairs” Wassily by Breuer, Italy 1925
- 35. The end of modernism ... ?
- 36. Le Corbusier Books: Marcus, G. Functionalist Design – An Ongoing History, Prestel, 1995 Weston, C. Modernism, Phaidon, London, 2001 Wilk, C (ed). Modernism – Designing a New World - 1914-1939, V&A Publications, London, 2006 Websites: From Here to Modernity – Open University Website detailing story of modern movement and architecture: www.open2.net/modernity/ The Le Corbusier Foundation: http://www.fondationlecorbusier.asso.fr/fondationlc_us.htm
Editor's Notes
- Le Corbusier Villa Savoye 1927
- ‘Ornament’ - or decoration - was a key feature of 19th century designed objects. The more garish the more desirable. The ornamentation had nothing to do with the function of the object, but was seen as a symbol of status. Can perhaps draw some comparisons here with Greenberg’s writings and idea of FLATNESS here.
- Die Wohnung - the dwelling - exhibition Stuttgart 1927 Examples of ‘modern living’ Presented model housing and modern household furnishings - mass housing for working classes Prototypes using new construction techniques and materials: concrete, tubular steel Involved many of the most progressive designers practicing in Europe Mies van der Rohe was artistic director
- Progress and Evolution Adolf Loos: What makes our period so important, is that we have outgrown ornament; it is no longer an expression of our culture Again - parallels here with ABSTRACTION
- Built environment also experienced the influence of the machine age. Le Corbusier famously referred to the house as a ‘machine for living in’ a chair ‘a machine for sitting in. Swiss born Le Corbusier started out by designing prefab housing systems which were a response to the devastation after the First World War. Wanted to to harness modern industry as a means of overcoming disaster. Led to his 5 points of a new architecture Use of columns to raise house off the ground - gave room for circulation of people and cars - eliminated basement which he saw as unhealthy and tubercular. Flat roof to be used as a garden - recovering lost space and making a private space for sunbathing, exercising or taking the view. Free Plan - made use of freedom created by structural frame Free Façade - creation of windows and open terraces Long Horizontal window to enable more light Cook House embodied all of Corbusier’s 5 points of architecture - house raised on columns, ribbon windows running from edge to edge of the façade, partitions are freely shaped in response to aesthetic or functional requirements. Flat roof replaced by wall garden
- Official recognition of the transition of machine from industrial tool to aesthetic object came at MOMA exhibition 1934 ‘Machine Art’, which displayed engines, pistons, propellers and placed them on pedestals in the same way that a curator exhibits paintings or sculpture. (MOMA - first museum dedicated to ‘modern art’ opened in 1929) Catalogue pays homage to ‘a great new race of men in America: the engineer. He has created a new mechanical world’ (Catalogue designed by Fernand Leger) Important that these objects were displayed as works of art Through the idea of Machine Art, MoMA established its own set of requirements for design and art - An aesthetic that contained: simplicity, purity, geometry and austerity and a method of production: machine manufactured, actual or implied, using modern materials, and an iconography: the machine
- And in the United States - Machine Age Exhibition 1928 Quote by Le Corbusier - 1927 This machine aesthetic, based on geometry, was felt across the world Le Corbusier: ‘A chair is a machine for sitting; a house is a machine for living’ Ball bearings - poster by Ferdinand Leger
- This printed textile blends the geometric abstraction of the progressive Russian Constructivist movement Potent political forms: mecanised tractor
- Article in ‘The Studio’ magazine ‘Wood or Metal’ Questioned ‘humanity’ of functionalism
- John Gloag - British Art /Design critic and theorist ‘Brutal’ often used in conjunction with modernism - particularly with reference to modernist architecture
- LeCorbusier’s New Architecture was completely radical - offering a machine age structure and Promised to create new freedom by using machine age technology and industrial production in order to solve problems of lack of housing after ravages of WWI, enrich daily life by adding roof gardens, and improve health by allowing more light Villa Savoye - Built in suburban Paris, weekend house which marked the height of Corbusier’s Purist period. Organised as an ‘architectural promendade’ around a central ramp Interior is an example of Corb’s philosophy on purism in architecture Plays with sunlight and geometric form - aesthetic ideals Worth pointing out that this is not a house for ‘the common man’!
- Le Corbusier had utopian belief that world of happiness and equality could be arrived at through combination of social progress and reliance on technology Unite d’Habitation was Corb’s first major post war building - anticipates ‘brutalism’ that is associated with 1950s and 60s modernism. Became model for urban housing Architecture which is arrived at through scientific, rational approach - analysed needs and functional requirements to come up with a solution. Communal living Would have range of carefully considered socialised functions - kindergarten at ground level where parents could easily drop off and pick up children on way to work, shops, social areas
- Le Corbusier had utopian belief that world of happiness and equality could be arrived at through combination of social progress and reliance on technology Unite d’Habitation was Corb’s first major post war building - anticipates ‘brutalism’ that is associated with 1950s and 60s modernism. Became model for urban housing Architecture which is arrived at through scientific, rational approach - analysed needs and functional requirements to come up with a solution. Communal living Would have range of carefully considered socialised functions - kindergarten at ground level where parents could easily drop off and pick up children on way to work, shops, social areas
- Has had massive impact on social housing throughout 20th century Rationalisation and standardisation - tenets of functionalism Component furniture systems of wood, plywood and metal - all mass-produced and inexpensive
- Welded tubular steel furniture - most iconic artefact of this period Shown at Weissenhof Entirely new material - same manufacturing process as making bicycles - impression of being welded from one single piece of extruded steel Rationalisation of components (use of same components for different types of furniture Could be flat packed Affordable by ‘broadest mass of people’ Not particularly ‘artistic’ or ‘cosy’ - instead mechanical and logical - but attracted a lot of interest by all public
- Much of what we think of as ‘functionalist design’ is rooted in the 1920s and 1930s
- Also had a revival in the 1940s
- Also had a revival in the 1950s / 1960s
- Influence continues today
- But functionalism was also symbolic - symbolically functional Meaning that it represented function more that resulted from function. It looked functional more than worked functionally
- John Gloag - British Art /Design critic and theorist ‘Brutal’ often used in conjunction with modernism - particularly with reference to modernist architecture
- Popular opinion was divided on modernism - particularly in domestic situations
- By late 1970s modernism was perceived as a ‘sinking ship’ - Tigerman’s photomontage of Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Crown Hall is emblematic of state in which functionalism found itself at end of 20th century Seen as monotonous and tyrannical (Vincent Scully: ‘brought so many cities to the brink of catastrophe) - very little left of ideals and ambitions which has started it
- Mendini adds painted decoration to Breuer’s chair - irregularity, colour, ornament: all the things that the functionalists deplored!
- Is modernism still relevant? Still remains a benchmark against which design is judged Classic metal furniture designs still widely available