> From: Matthew Gardiner <m...@airstrip.com.au <mailto:m...@airstrip.com.au>> > Subject: Re: [Origami] Froebel - Seventh Gift - origami and ratios > Date: March 4, 2017 at 9:48:27 PM CST > To: The Origami Mailing List <origami@lists.digitalorigami.com > <mailto:origami@lists.digitalorigami.com>> > > > On 4 Mar. 2017, at 1:11 am, Laura R <lauraroz...@gmail.com > <mailto:lauraroz...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> >>> I came across something quite wonderful in my PhD research today. >>> >>> I picked up a book on Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect with a >>> considerable global reputation, at the University library, therein I >>> discovered that he was inspired for a series of window-frame designs, and I >>> suspect for the use of proportion in his career, by the seventh gift of >>> Froebel as his insight into proportion. >> >> You should get the book Inventing Kindergarten by Norman Brosterman. There >> is a whole chapter about the influence of kindergarten ideas (and behind >> that, Froebel’s) on Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as other modern artists. >> Quoting from its cover: “Using examples from the work of important artists >> who attended kindergarten —including Georges Braque, Piet Mondrian, Paul >> Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier, among others >> —he demonstrates that the design ideas of kindergarten prefigured modern >> conceptions for the aesthetic power of geometric abstraction.” Norman >> Brosterman’s amazing collection of Froebelian crafts was part of a MoMa >> exhibition, Century of the Child, in 2011: >> http://www.brosterman.com/kindergarten.shtml >> <http://www.brosterman.com/kindergarten.shtml>. >> But get the book, you’ll love it. >> >> Laura Rozenberg > > Thanks so much Laura and Patsy for chiming in here, I’m going to get that > book! > > I happened to also borrow a book on the Bauhaus teaching methodology - > following a research trail left by Erik Demaine on Curved Folding, and from > the list of artist you mention Klee and, Kandinsky were teachers at the > Bauhaus. Made me wonder if they are connected - being German - the time > periods bookending… after a little more research, and I find the connection > is already documented. > > "The Bauhaus ... including the way in which it was set up by Walter Gropius > and Johannes Itten, its roots in the work of Friedrich Froebel” > - Lerner, Fern. "Foundations for design education: continuing the Bauhaus > Vorkurs vision." Studies in Art Education 46.3 (2005): 211-226. > > Without reading Inventing Kindergarten, I can see the same visual and > sculptural language in Froebel and Bauhaus. The visual and sculptural > language - including origami - was being influenced by more than a casual > connection of Froebelian methods, Froebel was in the roots of the course > design. > > The transfer from Froebel origami to Bauhaus paper folding is a very > interesting connection. > > This is a plausible reason as to why Albers was teaching paper folding in the > preliminary course in the first place. Paper as a medium has an intrinsic > property: it can be folded. Folding is geometry; is mathematics; is a > structural language. > > This point in particular would be of interest to origami to know more about. > > Matthew Gardiner
Keeping the whole string of info quoted here for relevance, my apologies for the big text block. Matthew, there is indeed a well documented and strong connection between Froebel, the Bauhaus, and further people as well (Frank Gehry, for example). Many of the Bauhaus instructors grew up in Froebelian kindergartens and were deeply tied to the lessons provided in this very different way of teaching children. Norman’s book on Froebel is truly fascinating and absolutely worth getting if you’re at all interested - he has an amazing collection of materials on the subject. My wife and I have been working on a book about Froebel folding, and in a related connection, I am teaching an Albers-inspired Vorkurs course at the Bauhaus Bernau school just outside of Berlin this August (https://summerschool-bernau.de/2017/en/ <https://summerschool-bernau.de/2017/en/>). Many of the techniques we do in origami are applicable to an exploratory course, and nobody taught it better than Josef Albers! My 2 cents Eric Gjerde
