The Emergence of Modernism

This era consist of four major architects. There were Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, and Mies Van Der Rohe. These architects took a completely new direction with design. Frnak Lloyd Wright began his careerin 1920. He designed over 1,000 structures and bulit 532 works. His focus was "Organic Architecture". His design phases were separated into early Wright and later Wright. In 1893 he began his own practice in Oak Park, Illinois where he studied archiecture and design. In result, he had many other works like the Robie House, the Unity Temple, and the Winslow House. His most popular style of residential architecture was the Prairie House Form. Wright also had fantastic and interesting commercial work. His most famous projects would consist of the Larkin Company and the Avery Coonley building. Wright first introduced the grid system that is still used in today's designs. That was his main concept for these spaces.

De Stijl was a period of expressing spiritual harmony and order as a main concept. It became a popular style in the Netherlands and originated from a magazin called De Stijl. This means "the style". The use of either vertical or horizontal lines were widely used. The colors were restricted to the basic primary along with black and white.

Walter Gropius established his own architecture in 1911. Bauhaus stemmed from Walter being the director at the School of Fine and Applied Arts at Weimer. Bauhaus was eventually closed due to economic and financial issues. The most famous chairs from this era would consist of the Cesca chair, Wassily Chair, and the F 51 Armchair.

The Wassily Chair

Modern Applications:

Frank Llyod Wright inspired (horizontal lines)

Prarie House Style ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Discussion: For this period, I enjoyed Sammy's blog because she not only presented amazing pictures but she also informed us us on background information regarding the different architect's contribution. I also enjoyed Nicole K's blog for the simple fact of her using the "Z" chair as a modern application. It was something that I didnt think about.

Deutscher Werkbund Movement

The Deutscher Werkbund Movement was founded in Munich, Germany by Herman Muthesius. The translation of this movement is the "german workshop". This movement is very closely related to the Art and Crafts movement. Germany's wish was for civilians to set the stage for the International Style and Art Deco style. The collaboration between design professionals with product manufacturers was to improve the competitiveness of German design. The Vienna workshop was established in 1903. This building became known as the Secession building. It is a exhibition building designed by Josef Olbrich. The Secession building is symbolic of the "proto-modern" building.

Fun fact: A symbolic architect from this movement is Otto Wagner. He was part of the Vienna Secession and taught at the Vienna Academy. He designs furniture to relate to his architecture. The perfect way to describe his design is a plain and clean interior with aluminum details.

Current Applications:

Discussion: For this movement I viewed Nikki's blog. I enjoyed her current application pictures and her reasoning for choosing them. She chose them because of the curvilinear lines and it really tied back to the design style we learned about. I also viewed Samantha's blog. She discussed the Werkbund movement took the style of the arts and crafts period with a twist by using mass production in coordination with design professionals and product manufacturers. Video: