Modernism: the idea that just won't go away The British reviled modernism at first, now it's part of the fabric of our nation. The largest ever survey of the movement suggests the defining aesthetic of the 20th century may be just as influential in the 21st
Deyan Sudjic Sunday January 29, 2006 The Observer Just 50 years after modernism first emerged as the style to end all styles, the design philosophy that tried to abolish history and reduced every shape to its supposedly timeless geometric elements was itself declared dead. I can still remember the day I picked up a copy of The Language of Post Modern Architecture to find myself transfixed by its traffic-stopping first sentence. 'Modern Architecture died in St Louis, Missouri on July 15, 1972 at 3.32pm or thereabouts when the infamous Pruitt-Igoe scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de grace by dynamite.' Charles Jencks, the American critic, went on to claim that the fact that 'many so-called modern architects still go around practising a trade as if it were alive can be taken as one of the great curiosities of our age, like the monarchy giving life-prolonging drugs to the Royal Company of Archers'. Who knows what still more overheated conclusion he would have come to if he could only have known that another huge complex designed by the same architect was one day also going to come to an equally premature but far more violent end. Like Pruitt-Igoe, the World Trade Centre was designed by Minoru Yamasaki. .... Attacks against modernism's inhumanity, and, at their most extreme, anything that can be tarred with the epithet of modern have the absurd conclusion that no beauty can be found in modernism, and nothing of worth ascribed to its ideas,' says Wilk, who at heart still believes in the moral mission of the early modernists. 'Le Corbusier is thus found guilty of the crime of inspiring poorly designed, badly built concrete towers that actually had little to do with his work. Unless we understand modernism, we cannot evaluate it.' The violence of Jencks's attacks has abated, and even the Prince of Wales keeps a lower profile these days, but modernism is in another kind of trouble now. It has been embraced by Wallpaper, smothered in inverted commas, and has started to appear on Antiques Roadshow, killing it with kindness, rather than dynamite. For Wilk, as for a new generation of designers including Apple's Jonathan Ive and Jasper Morrison who are following in the footsteps of Mies van der Rohe and Charles Eames, modernism is too important to abandon. Wilk attempts to rescue it from both these fates, to demonstrate that it is neither cute nor monstrous, but a vital, enormously energetic and wide-ranging cultural movement that is as relevant today as it has always been. Modernism has defined our tastes to a remarkable degree. Without it, there would be no built-in kitchens, and no loft living. The massive school and hospital building programme would look very different. Without modernism, Britain's contemporary domestic landscape would be an entirely different place. · Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939, sponsored by Habitat, is at the V&A, London SW7 from 6 April. The Observer is media partner. cont'.... http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1697037,00.html ========================================================== | and a charming biography of Bauhaus to now- (no Koolhouse)! | http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1697043,00.html Bauhaus to our house Sunday January 29, 2006 The Observer 1919 Walther Gropius opens the Bauhaus in Weimar and for almost 15 years under the successive leadership of Mies van der Rohe and Mart Stam it provides a torrent of ideas about design in the modern world. 1924 The young Marcel Breuer experiences a eureka moment; riding his bicycle he suddenly sees the tubular steel handlebars of his bike as the perfect material for a cantilevered chair. In furniture terms it's the equivalent of splitting the atom. 1929 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe completes the Barcelona Pavilion, the German exhibit for a Spanish expo. 1931 Le Corbusier builds the Villa Savoye, the exemplar of his belief that a house could be seen as a machine for living in. 1933 Nazis close the Bauhaus, by now based in a Berlin factory, saying it is a cathedral of Bolshevism. 1947 Work starts on building the Unite D'Habitation in Marseille, Le Corbusier's raw concrete version of high rise living. 1957 Mies van der Rohe builds the Seagram Tower in New York, prototype for thousands of glass high-rises. 1972 The massive Pruitt-Igoe high-rise housing estate in St Louis is demolished. 1976 Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers open the Pompidou Centre, apotheosis of high tech. Today's top three modernists Rei Kawakubo The woman behind the Commes des Garçons fashion label,who decided we need more than two sleeves to a sweater. Ian Schrager The hotelier who introduced design to the world's hotels. Jonathan Ive Apple's designer, who brought simplicity back to design. _______________________________________________ in-enaction mailing list http://mail.architexturez.net/mailman/listinfo/in-enaction + Architexturez collaborative at http://portal.architexturez.org/
