ART-HIST 343 Study Guide - Spring 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Modern Architecture, Bauhaus, Classical Architecture
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ART-HIST 343
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
The Machine Aesthetic: Deutscher Werkbund and
Futurism
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
3:54 PM
Terms:
1. Deutscher Werkbund: group of architects and artists sponsored by the German government to
help develop new ideas
2. Futurism: breaks with the past, they see the future as belonging to them in terms of art and
architecture
• Buildings have the quality of machines, look of machines, and are built from the material of
machines
• The 19th century was dominated by at least 2 domains of architecture
o Classical tradition
▪ Descending from Greece and Rome
▪ Beaux-Arts after the French term for "fine arts"
▪ Paris was the center of western culture, possibly world culture
▪ Prioritized using classical orders
• Doric
• Ionic
• Corinthian
▪ Copying the past, based upon remnants and fragments
▪ Favored symmetry and balance
▪ Dissembling, what was on the outside of a building was not the same as what was on
the inside
• This was not classical
o Gothic Revival
▪ Thought Gothic architecture was a better means to achieve a moral world, rather than
Classical
• Idealistic, utopian, moralistic
• All feed into 20th century modernism
• Art Nouveau
o Breaks away from the Classical and Gothic Revival
o Models itself upon natural plant life
o Architecture of often interior spaces
o Continuous line, sometimes called the "whiplash line," that mimics plant life
o Peter Behrens, The Kiss, 1898
o Criticism: very inward looking, self-concerned, sensual, sometimes called decadent
▪ Some found the decadence to be immoral
o Peter Behrens, Darmstadt, Germany, 1901
• Avant-garde
o Means "before the troops"
▪ Term during the Napoleon dictatorship when certain troops, the avant-garde, went
out before every one else and discovered something new
o Propose new ideas often of a radical nature
o Thought to be progressive and radical
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
o Sometimes reactionary
o Peter Behrens, AEG Turbine Plant, Berlin, 1908
▪ Deutschen Werkbund
▪ Gets a job with the AEG, will design everything for them
• Graphics, logos, buildings, products
▪ Machine aesthetic
• Metallic, not ornamented
o Henri van de Velde, Werkbund Theatre, Cologne, 1914
o Machine aesthetic was favored by the collective outpaced the art nouveau aesthetic favored
by the individual
o Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Werkbund Pavilion, Cologne 1914
▪ Interesting that at factory is their choice of building that they wanted to design
▪ Has a great balance and symmetry that is resonant of the Classical style
▪ Building represents a machine
o Bruno Taut, Glass Pavilion, Cologne, 1914
▪ Exhibit the products of the glass industry
▪ Exterior exemplifies what glass can do
▪ Abstracts the Classical
• Abstraction is one of the most important tendencies of this era
• Futurism
o Don't believe in government support
o They build nothing
▪ Don't have the means or support to build them
o Poets, painters, and architects
o Much more fully embrace the machine
o Centered in Milan, which is very much a industrial city
o Futurism completely rejects Classical
o Umberto Boccioni
o Antonio Sant'Elia, La Citta Nuova, 1913-1914
o Side with fascism, more specifically Mussolini
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Ionic: corinthian, copying the past, based upon remnants and fragments, dissembling, what was on the outside of a building was not the same as what was on. Favored symmetry and balance the inside: this was not classical, gothic revival, thought gothic architecture was a better means to achieve a moral world, rather than. Frank lloyd wright, ward willitts house, highland park, il, 1901: gerrit reitveld, schroeder house, utrecht, netherlands, 1923-1924. Single family house: thing of architecture in a very environmental way. Large planes of different color that hover in the air and interact with one another: attached to very conventional houses that come afterwards, bearer of all the ideas of de stijl, gerrit reitveld, red/blue chair, 1917. Terms: stadtkrone: pyramidal form, drawing upon ancient forms, which taut believes can be used in the 20th century in cities or rural areas a spiritual or artistic focal point.
