From industrialization to the industrialization of war

DEUTSCHER WERBUND

In 1907 Muthesius together with other designers and manufacturers formed the Deutscher Werkbund which had as a main goal to introduce fine design in the industrially manufactured goods.
The reason why they wanted to do this was primarly economic as they thought that german products were not going to be competitive in international markets unless they could meet the standards of the other countries such as England.

Peter Beherens was a member of the Werkbund; he worked for the General Electric Company and he was responsible for all the aspects of design for the firm. he was trained as a painter and was also influenced by the arts and crafts movement.Behren's
buildings represented the first architectural attempts to deal with industrial facilities. One of the most famous is the Turbine Factory in Berlin(Moffet, Fazio, Wodehouse,p.511).

Walter Gropius worked for peter Beherens from 1907 to 1910 and the set up his own office with Adolf Meyer. Their first project was the Fagus Shoe - Last factory is considered an iconic building in the history of architecture beacause used elements that later characterized the international style such as glass, curtain walls, simple rectangular massing with a flat roof(Moffet, Fazio, Wodehouse, p.511)

References:
M.Moffet, M.Fazio, L.Wodehouse, A world History of Architecture, , Laurence king publishing, 2003, London

Ornament and Crime

From the ornaments and the nature - based organic, linear decorations developed during the Art Nouveau we go to Adolf Loos rejection of any form of decoration and the absolute purity and austerity of architecture.
“Ornament and Crime “ is an essay included in the collection Trotzdem which appeared in 1931.
“ I have discovered the following truth and present it to the world: cultural evolution is equivalent to the removal of ornament from articles in daily use.”( Loos cited in Tournikiotis).
With this sentence Loos limits the suppression of the ornaments to the daily objects; he is against the ornamentation of the Viennese Secession, which he consider superfluous , but he exalts the grammar of the classical ornaments, which he actually use in his buildings, especially in the interiors(Tournikiotis,p. 23).
Towards the end of his career Loos formulated the theory of the “Raumplan” and the “Rufer House” has been the first building that portrays in its totality the architect’s concept of the spatial organization of a building. Just a couple of years before his death, one of his protégés, Ludwig Munz, wrote a definition of Loos Raumplan. The word “Raum” in german means room or space(Jara,p. 185); the Raumplan therefore is mainly the design of different rooms which are placed in different levels and vary in height and width according to their function. The windows are not rigidly ordered in sequences, but they are freely placed on the façade to illuminate there where it is needed. The exterior of the building then becomes a reflection of the interiors. Loos tacitly accepted this theory when Munz’ published his monograph and this gave further credence to his explanation of the Raumplan(Moffett, Fazio, Wodehouse, p.478) .
Reference:
Cynthia Jara Adolf Loos's "Raumplan" Theory Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), Vol. 48, No. 3 (Feb., 1995), pp. 185
M.Moffet, M.Fazio, L.Wodehouse, A world History of Architecture, , Laurence king publishing, 2003, London

Art Nouveau / Jugendstil

From 1880 to 1905 a new decorative style characterized by sinuous lines and free – flowing compositions based on plant and animal forms, developed in different European countries taking different names like “Art Nouveau” in England, “Stile liberty” in Italy and “Jugendstil” in Germany.

In Architecture the Belgian designer Victor Horta can be considered the earliest art nouveau architect; he used industrial materials like iron and casting and incorporated swirling and tendril designs to his buildings to express the malleable nature of metal and the vitality of plant growth.

The style was indeed initially characterized by arabesque and naturalistic decoration, that we can find in Gaudi’s exuberant ornamentation, and then become gradually more geometric as we can see for example in Mackintosh’ s works.
One of the thing that caught my attention is that art nouveau used ornamentation not just to make buildings and houses interiors more pleasant to see, but it was also moved by a philanthropic aim to give the workers airy, light - filled and beautiful spaces to live and create an alternative to the slums. Besides, art nouveau was influenced by the arts and crafts movement which flourished in England from about 1850 to 1900 and the major exponents of that movement, John Ruskin and William Morris were both socialists and Morris in particular believed that well designed products can raise working-class people above disinterested employment. It is quite interesting though to see how different movements influence each other and also how art and architecture are extremely link to their history and society.

I think that architects and designers should always relate to the needs of their society and aim to give people better places to live. Unfortunately most of the time only people who can afford it can have well – designed houses, while the poor part of the population often lives in ugly buildings. But the cost of the production of handmade well – crafted objects is always going to be high. Or maybe in the future we as designer can help our society to find materials and way to produce beautiful objects and houses that will be accessible to all.

References:
M.Moffet, M.Fazio, L.Wodehouse, A world History of Architecture, , Laurence king publishing, 2003, London
Article “Introduction to Art Nouveau”written by Francoise Aubry, curator of the Horta Museum in Bruxelles, http://www.artnouveau-net.eu/get_page.asp?stran=2