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introduction on traditional architecture vs contemporary
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History / Educational Influences
Marina City, as a modernist urban solution, was possible by Bertrand Goldberg because of his formal architectural training as well as his early practice and interaction with key architects. Exposure to architectural, socioeconomic, and cultural context that shaped modernist architecture developed him as an architect. Influence began early on from his physics teacher, George Vaubel, which inspired him with a lifelong love for logic and “reasoning backwards” and finding evidence for what was taught to him. Goldberg studied at the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape then at the Bauhaus in Berlin, Germany and lastly, at the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago. He discovered architecture while studying at Harvard in 1930. The dean, Henry Frost, allowed Goldberg to study with his graduate studio as an undergraduate. During the Great Depression, Goldberg was studying at Harvard where debates with professors and fellow students centered on the political and social problem, dealing with poverty. It unleashed and influenced his lifelong consciousness of social and political factors because he took social and political problems into consideration when designing. Harvard exposed Goldberg to the Beaux-Arts architecture and he desired to go to Paris to study but instead went to the Bauhaus after being advised.
The Bauhaus introduced Goldberg to the new ideals of art and architecture. The Bauhaus emphasized on vision and spatial skills. Goldberg was greatly influenced by Mies van de Rohe and Josef Albers. Goldberg embraced “less is more” and was disciplined to work out details of the total design by creating an aesthetic out of structure and seeking alliance with an industrial world. At the B...
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... solution of a central core and columns made the structure safe and efficient. The concrete also acted provided security against uplift because of concrete nature of heaviness. Mechanical systems were engineered within the floors which allowed for more spatial freedom. The efficient solution to the foundation was also achieved through engineering and the use of caissons. Construction initiated after structural issues were resolved. Machine and hand became the medium to create the building. While the tower crane allowed for the fast construction of Marina City, artisanship was also required. The use of formwork to create the petals require of artisanship while being mass produce implied machine. The hand work can be seen in the uneven surfaces were molding was required. Marina City became the biggest structural and residential building at the time of its completion.
Marcel Breuer, born in the early 1900’s in Hungary, was one of the first and youngest students to learn under the Bauhaus style, taught by Walter Gropius. Breuer started his career designing furniture, using tubular, or “handle bar like”, steel (Dodd, Mead, and Company 32). One of the most popular of these furniture designs was his Club Chair B3designed in 1922. In the 1930’s, Breuer moved to the United States to teach and practice architecture. In the 1950’s, he received the Medal of Honor from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Between 1960 and 1980, Breuer was honored with several honorary doctoral degrees from several universities around the world. After retiring in 1976 due to poor health, Breuer was awarded several other awards, and his work was displayed in exhibitions around the world. Breuer died on July 2nd, 1981, at the age of 79 (Marcel Breuer Associates 6).
Considered as one of the most innovative and influential photographers of the 20th century, Erwin Blumenfeld made a significant contribution to the fashion industry between 1940’s and 1950’s. His photographs were on the postwar pages of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Life and Look magazines. Besides the fashion photography, his oeuvre includes portraits of celebrities, fine art photography, as black-and-white nudes, drawings and Dada collages. The undiscovered part of his work consists of the hundreds of Dadaist photomontages produced between 1916 and 1933, never exhibited during his life, and
Pablo Picasso is one of the most famous and well-documented artists of the twentieth century. Picasso, unlike most painters, is even more special because he did not confine himself to canvas, but also produced sculpture, poetry, and ceramics in profusion. Although much is known about this genius, there is still a lust after more knowledge concerning Picasso, his life and the creative forces that motivated him. This information can be obtained only through a careful study of the events that played out during his lifetime and the ways in which they manifested themselves in his creations (Penrose).
...erfect atmosphere to convey speed, efficiency, and technology of the time. This open floor plan not only functions as an efficient visual element but also incorporates the idea of communal work. Customers, store leaders, associates, tech gurus etc. are all free to wander and work together without office walls or boundaries to separate them. The change in the use of light began during the Bauhaus era when lampshades which used to block light and create harsh separations were replaced with broad flood lights evenly spaced to create equal lighting throughout. The use of pure white walls and metal trim also make direct reference to the Bauhaus ideals. Likewise there is an egalitarian principle evoked in the designs. Built to human scale and made clearly for use by people rather than large monumental or overly scaled buildings that often promote power and authority.
Mark Rothko is recognized as one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and during his lifetime was touted as a leading figure in postwar American painting. He is one of the outstanding figures of Abstract Expressionism and one of the creators of Color Field Painting. As a result of his contribution of great talent and the ability to deliver exceptional works on canvas one of his final projects, the Rothko Chapel offered to him by Houston philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil, would ultimately anchor his name in the art world and in history. Without any one of the three, the man, the work on canvas, or the dream, the Rothko Chapel would never have been able to exist for the conceptualization of the artist, the creations on canvas and the architectural dynamics are what make the Rothko Chapel a product of brilliance.
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks states, “Art Hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home” which is true for many viewers when experiencing Bruce Nauman’s work. Nauman is classified as a contemporary American artist whose works also incorporate ideas of post-modernism and minimalism. He has been making art since the early 1960’s and has moved through many different mediums as his art progressed and his style changed. At first Nauman was a painter who soon ended that career and turned to sculpting, photography, film, and video. Bruce Nauman’s works of art have interested me and inspired my final assignment by his professional legacy, inspirations, and techniques.
Cultural and political changes such as the spread of Marxism, the rise of psychoanalytical ideas, and the growth of media in the face of technological advancement prompted many artists to reassess notions of art (Farthing). Rejecting the idea that art must realistically depict the word, many artists started to explore abstract ideas such as symbolism and focused more on the representation of emotions or personal subjects they had direct experience or interest in (MoMA). Modernist sculpture cannot be identified by one defining characteristic, rather it encompasses different art movements and represents a pivotal moment for sculptors to investigate different materials, methods of construction and formal elements of sculpture such as form, space and mass. Constantin Brancusi played a major role in developing modernist sculpture, after rejecting Rodin’s naturalism. Brancusi tried to capture the essence of the subject by distilling them down to their most refined and simplified forms. For example, he used a section of the body to represent its entirety, often focusing on the head as he felt that was the most expressive component of a human being. He also emphasized a commitment to the material’s natural properties, using a direct carving
The Bauhaus was a school in Weimer, Germany. It was founded in 1919 by a German architect named Walter Gropius. The goal behind the Bauhaus was to bring the arts together into a new age of modern art or, as Gropius described, “Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all get back to craft” (Borteh). Gropius expressed this idea in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus, a document by Gropius that stated the Bauhaus was a “utopian craft guild” that combined architecture, sculpture, and painting (Wilson). This idea attracted many highly experienced staff members.
Naum Gabo is another representative of Constructivism and in his Realist Manifesto (1920) Gabo claimed that it was relevant and in the spirit of an epoch to substitute static mass with a dynamic form. He said about himself: “making images to communicate my feelings of the world”(Gabo, 1962). Gabo considered an artist as a talented master, who is able to catch up mome...
The use of symbols in surrealism and the meaning within these paintings by Max Ernst played a significant influence on the notion of my experimental art making. He was a German painter, sculptor and a graphic artist but also considered as one of the primary pioneers of the Dada and Surrealism movement. They aimed to revolt against everyday reality by exploring the construction of the unconscious mind. By exploring the mind and transforming reality by surveying the desires of the human nature, it allows one to contemplate on the actuality and the realities of our world. Uniquely, Ernst created his own set of techniques such as collage, frottage, grattage, decalcomania and oscillation in order to convey his symbolism of his art making – but it also later incentivized artists such as Jackson Pollock and William De Kooning, revealing his such influence and impact in the art world.
Throughout the vast history of visual art, new movements and revolutions have been born as a result of breaking past conventions. This idea of moving past traditional styles was done by many artists in the 1950s and 1960s, including those artists who participated in the many different abstract movements. These artists decided to abandon old-fashioned techniques and ideas such as those of classical Renaissance, Baroque, or even Impressionist art. One of these new conventions, as discussed by art historian Leo Steinberg in his essay, “The Flatbed Picture Plane,” is the concept of a flat and horizontal type of plane in a work that does not have a typical fore, middle, or background like that of the traditional art from classical periods previously mentioned. The flatbed picture plane that Steinberg refers to is similar to that of a table in which items can be placed on top of, yet they are merely objects and do not represent any space. In his article, Steinberg explains that the opposite of this flatbed plane is the
His work is mostly famous with his Cubism events. As he enters its twenty-fifth year, Picasso changed his style of painting. It breaks down and reproduces objects in simple geometric shapes. Cézanne, African tribal art and Iberian sculpture would be the inspiration the painter when it turned to Cubism. (Picasso, P. (1970) With the Demoiselles d 'Avignon that this new style explodes in 1907. That same year, he met Georges Braque with whom he develops the power of Cubism. The two work closely together. To address the problem of representing what exists in three dimensions on a two dimensional surface, Braque and Picasso bring a new answer. They replace the usual codes of color, volume and perspective through a system of geometric signs. They will add to it, in a subsequent phase (synthetic cubism), the use of pieces of various materials (sand, paper, metal, wood, fabric, cardboard ...) to avoid falling into abstract art. Picasso abandons Cubism in 1915. (p25) It had been demonstrated that his work had given a big importance in our current historical events and how it was also given a big importance in his times such as in the support of the cubism
The Bauhaus was the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century as it laid many foundations for design theory and helped us understand the importance of art in relation to society and technology. Although the school was in operation only between 1919 and 1933, it was a major influence in the fields of architecture, graphic design, typography, industrial design and interior design long after it has closed.
... that unity to mass produce products and beautiful art has earned it the right to be known as the House of Construction.
Art is all around us. The architectural design of buildings to the ornamentation of jewelry and art is in almost everything. To those who have little prior knowledge of certain architecture styles and or influences, a building can appear, as just a building and a piece of jewelry can appear as just that. With the idea that art is everywhere there are two art styles that have heavily influenced the architecture seen in todays communities, those being Art Deco and Bauhaus. These styles represent so much more than architecture, they represent a time period and a cultural and political reform. The purpose of this paper is that one will be able to understand