EARLY MODERNISM

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE

1910-1935
SEMESTER 6

LECTURE 1
MODERNISM

 Sought of reaction against what was happening in 19th Century.

 Demand of something new.
 It is a modern thought, character or practice.
 New approach to everything.
 Impact of Industrial revolution was pronounced.

MODERNISM IDEALS
 Evolution of machines.
 Technological advancement defines progress.
 Modernism believes in FUNCTION, building forms are not important….it’s
function was main concern.
 MODERNISM is a trend of thought that affirms the power of
human beings to make, improve, deconstruct and reshape their built

EARLY
and designed environment, with the aid of scientific knowledge,
technology and practical experimentation.
 Movement began in the closing years of 19th Century.
 Early Modernism was a movement characterized by its deliberate
break from design patterns and traditions of the past.

INFLUENCES
 Reacting against Victorian sensibilities, and distraught by political
and social upheavals across the globe, these artists sought to create a
new concept of design through experiments in simplicity, geometry,
color, and photography.
 Early modern designers drew inspiration from modern art
movements, and frequently traveled through Europe to draw
inspiration from each other as well.
 Early pioneers of Modernism began to
experiment with geometric forms.
 A major player in the early days of
Modernism, Peter Behrens designed for
the Allgemeine Elektrizitats-
Gesellschaft (AEG). (Top)
 This cover for the Berlin Electric
Works Magazine (bottom right, 1908)
demonstrates his geometric approach to
design problems.
 Edward Johnston contributed an
exclusive typeface for the London
Underground, in addition to this revised
symbol (bottom left) which was used
until 1972.
 REASONS FOR EARLY MODERNISM
• Modern Architecture was the invention of late 19th
century and early 20th century.

• To discover a new, a true path of architecture, to

unearthed forms suited to the needs of aspirations of
modern industrial societies.

• To create images capable of embodying the ideals

supposedly distinct modern age.
 Modern Art Influences

• Around the world, modern art was in a constant state of change. Pressing
economic and political turmoil pushed artists to find new ways of
expression, resulting in a series of modern art movements that went on to
influence graphic design.
• Cubism began to appear in the first part of the 20 th century. Cubist art often displayed
its subject using a series of geometric planes, allowing the viewer to see multiple
angles in one piece.

CUBISM
• It has a basic fundamental of resolving things into straight lines and creating
architecture out of pure geometric forms, solids and planes- Cubes, Cuboids, Spheres
and Cones.
• The geometric abstraction present in Cubist paintings became a pivotal influence on
modernism.
• Le Corbusier was the first painter who took pure forms as the subject of his paintings.

(1908-1914)
Left: Woman with a
guitar, by Georges
Braque, 1913

Right: Le Guitarist
Pablo Picasso 1910
 Futurism was a movement launched by Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti, designed to express the speed and noise of 20th
century life.

FUTURISM
 In Italy in the first decade of 20th Century was born a
movement in art that violently rejected all traiditions and
attempted instead to glorify contemporary life mainly
emphasis on:
 Machine
 Motion principle of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
 Futurist artwork used typography and writing as its own
expressive means. Words used color, character attributes, and
position to express what images could not.
 It is the sensation as the synthesis what one remembers and of
what in sees, representation of forms in motion.

(1909-1916)
Top: Carlo Carra,
Guerrapittura (War-
Painting), 1915.

Bottom: Cover and page

design for Zang Tumb
Tumb: Adrianopoli
Ottobre 1912 by Filippo
Marinetti.
 Dada was a short-
lived movement
reacting to the

DADA
horrors that fell on
society during and
after World War-I.
 Dada was an artistic
& literary movement
that started in
Europe when World

(1916-1920)
War-I is going on.

 Dadaists sought to destroy tradition

through the use of shock and
nonsense, and the movement became
a means for protest with a deep
underlying negativity.
Left: Dada 6 (Bulletin Dada), Tristan Tzara 1920
Right: John Heartfield, Hitler tells fairy tales II,
INSCRIPTION: “...and then the poor German Michel
screamed so long, that finally the whole world
believed him: ‘Help, help, I'm surrounded!’”
• Artists found a means of expressing fantasy and intuition
through Surrealism.
• Surrealism is a cultural movement that begin in early
1920 and is best known for visual art work and writings of
group members.
• It is originated in the late 1910s and early 20s as a literary
movement that experimented with a new mode of

SURREALISM
expression called automatic writing, or automatism which
sought to release the unbridled imagination of the
subconscious
• Officially concentrated in Paris in 1924.
• Surrealist works often included dream-like images,
unexpected juxtapositions, and non-sequiturs.

Top: The Difficult

Crossing by Rene
Magritte, 1926.
Bottom Left: The Red
Tower by Giorgio de
Chirico. 1913.
Bottom Right:
Salvador Dali.
(Spanish, 1904-1989).
The Persistence of
Memory. 1931.
 Expressionism extended beyond its subject to
depict emotions and personal responses using

EXPRESSIONISM (1909-1925)
color, line and proportion.
 Images were often exaggerated or distorted in
symbolic representation.
 The name expressionism is loosely applied to
various Avant- Garde movement in Germany in
early 20th century which recall the times the
emotional violence of Grunewald and other
German masters.
 Based on EMOTIVE & ORGANIC forms.
 It is characterized by intense colors, agitated brush
strokes, disjoined spaces and forms.

Top: Woman with Dead Child by Kathe

Kollwitz, etching, 1903
Bottom Left: On White II by Wassily
Kandinsky, 1923.
Bottom Right: Henri Matisse. Portrait of
Madame Matisse. (The green line). 1905
 Left: Man Ray (Rayograph) Untitled,
• Although not a new medium, Center: Alvin Langdon Coburn, Vortograph, 1917
photography was rapidly developing Right: Man Ray, Le Violon d'Ingres, 1924
during this time period. Artists began to
explore photographic options such as
multiple exposures, and differences in

PHOTOGRAPHY
light and shadow.
• Often these photographic discoveries
intersected with surrealism, resulting in
dream-like images.
 Art Nouveau was a movement
characterized by its simplification of
objects.
 Subjects were drawn with very little
detail, and little or no tonal variation.

ART
Modernists expanded on this idea,
simplifying objects even further.
 Art Nouveau is an
international philosophy and style, of art,
architecture and applied art —especially
the decorative art- that were most popular

NOUVEAU
during 1890–1910.The name "Art
Nouveau" is French for "new art.
 The style was influenced strongly
by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha,
 The result was a mechanized, often
geometric representation of subjects that
embodied the cultural shift toward Left: Folies-
reliance on technology and industry. Bergere,
Ju`les Cheret
Right:
Ambassadeurs,
Henri de Toulouse-
Lautrec
•Plakatstil ("poster style" in German) was an early poster style of art that began in the
early 1900s and originated out of Germany. It was started by Berliner  Lucian

PLAKATSTIL (POSTER STYLE)

Bernhard in 1906. The traits of this style of art are usually bold, straight font with flat
colors. Shapes and objects are simplified while the subject of the poster remains
detailed. Plakatstil incorporated color combinations not seen in other art forms such as
Art Nouveau
•Early expressions of modernism are evident in the simplistic and flat-colored Plakatstil
(poster style) design school. Plakatstil artists often included nothing more than a single
background color, a large simple image, and the product name.
•The Sachplakat movement in Switzerland was closely related to the Plakatstil, sharing
characteristics of minimalism.
•Plakatstil shied away
from the complexity of
Art Nouveau and helped
emphasize a more
modern outlook on poster
art.
•Famous Plakatstil artists
include Lucian Bernhard
and graphic artist Ludwig
Hohlwein. Left: Ludwig Hohlwein, Gaba (bookplate), 1926
Center: Otto Baumberger, Hotel St. Gotthard Zurich, 1917
Right: Lucian Bernhard, Breisgau-Perle, 1914
•The political and social climate

POLITICAL & SOCIAL CLIMATE

during the first part of the century
was a major catalyst for modernist
ideas.
•Starting before World War I,
many countries were facing
growing tensions and unrest in the
social order.
•These tensions became evident in
the design world as modernists
sought to break from past
ideologies, and experiment with
new forms that echoed their
dissatisfaction with tradition.
•With the onset of World War I in 1914,

WORLD WAR I (1914–1918)

applied art took on a new role as a means
of propaganda.
•Countries seeking to justify their
involvement in “the war to end all wars”
launched poster campaigns to acquire
resources necessary for the conflict, and
to garner support from the public.
•Modernist ideals of simplistic form and
geometric expression are evident in these
examples of propaganda from various
countries.
 The National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, led by Adolf
Hitler, rose to power during the economic and political turmoil in
Germany that followed World War I.
 Hitler and the Nazi party launched a massive, and psychologically
powerful propaganda effort in order to advance their views and gain
power.
 These posters, like propaganda used during World War I, embody the

THE NAZI RISING

ideals of modernist theory. Even the swastika symbol of the Nazi party
(right) embraces the pure geometric form loved by modernists.
•Like Germany, Russia was facing serious

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND

political and economic turmoil following the war.
•Political and social upheavals resulted in the

THE SPREAD OF SOCIALISM

overthrowing of Czar Nicholas II and the end of
Russia’s Romanov dynasty.
•Shortly after, the Bolshevik party led by Vladimir
Lenin, gained power, establishing rule in what
was to become the Soviet Union.
•Under the new socialist regime, the artist’s sole
purpose was to advance socialist theory. Art for
art’s sake was denounced, and artists who refused
to comply were severely punished. Unable to
express themselves, many artists and designers
perished in the Gulags (Soviet prison and labor
camps).
 •A result of changes in Russia (USSR), a new movement of art and architecture
called Constructivism was born.
•Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in
Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art.

CONSTRUCTIVISM
•Constructivists believed that “pure” art had no purpose in society, and that art’s only
application was to serve the new socialist regime.
• Dominant motifs in constructivist art include minimal use
of colors (generally red, black, and white), and a strong
geometric element.
• The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social
purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art
movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends
such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement.

Advertising poster for the Klutsis, Gustav, Millions of

state airline Dobrolet. qualified workers for the 518
1923. A. Rodchenko and new factories, 1931
V. Stepanova Archive,
Moscow
 • Its influence was pervasive, with major impacts
upon architecture, graphic and industrial design,
theatre, film, dance, fashion and to some extent
music.

CONSTRUCTIVISM
• Constructivist artists, such as El Lissitzky,
experimented with photomontage and abstraction
in shapes.
Proun 12E, El
Beat the Whites with the Red L`issitzky, 1923
Wedge, 1919 El Lissitzky

Top: Photomontage study

Bottom: Exhibition poster, El
Lissitzky, 1929

Composition with Yellow,
Blue, and Red, 1939-1942, Piet
Mondrian
Arithmetische Compositie, 1924,
Theo van Doesburg
 In the early 1920's a group of architects and artists, influenced by
some of the ideas of DaDa, formed a movement called De
Stijl (Dutch for The Style).
DE STIJL (THE STYLE)
 De Stijl was a short, yet influential, movement launched in the
Netherlands in summer 1917.
 The philosophy was based on functionalism, with a severe and
doctrinaire insistence on the rectilinearity of the planes, which seem
to slide across one another like sliding panels. All surface
decoration except color was to be eliminated, and only pure primary
hues, plus black and white were to be allowed.
 De Stijl artists sought universal harmony and order through the use
of pure abstraction. Subjects were reduced in form and color.
 Characteristics of classic De Stijl design include strong horizontal
and vertical components, and the use of primary colors with black
and white.
 Proponents of De Stijl include
its founder, Theo van Doesburg
and Piet Mondrian.
 "INTERNATIONAL MODERN" STYLE
 At the height of the Modernist
movement emerged one of the most
influential design schools of all time, the
Bauhaus.
 The Bauhaus was opened in 1919 in

BAUHAUS AND THE

Dessau, and closed in 1933 as a result of
Nazi persecution.
 The Bauhaus school was established in
1919 in Dessau, Germany by a group of
architects, engineers, and artists led by
Walter Gropius. The ideals of this group
were social and political as well as
aesthetic.
 Even after its closing, the Bauhaus
continued to leave its mark on the world,
through influences on graphic design,
architecture, and furniture design.
 • The design style of the Bauhaus group owed a great deal
to the De Stijl group. The ideal of form following
function was also emphasized, emphasizing the honest
and direct use of materials as the most "functional" way
to design. The result was spare, rectilinear forms-- in
architecture, for example, the structural components of
steel, glass, concrete, and other industrial materials were
to be used directly and honestly, without imitative form.
• Faculty and students from all over the world united at
the Bauhaus to combine new design approaches using
elements from a variety of movements.

Bauhaus Ausstellung Poster, Fritz Schleifer,

1922

Staatliches Bauhaus, Weimar, 1919–

1923, 1923, Walter Gropius
 MODERNISM IN FURNITURE DESIGN
 Modernist ideals became a pivotal influence in other areas of design as well.
 These examples show how furniture reflected modernist principles.

Nonconformist
Chair, Eileen Gray

Red and Blue Chair,

Gerrit Rietveld, 1917

The Barrel Chair, Frank

The Barcelona Chair, Mies van der Rohe Lloyd Wright
 The Bauhaus Gropius

MODERNISM IN ARCHITECTURE
House in Lincoln,
 These examples show modernism’s Massachusetts, Walter
influence on early and present day Gropius
architecture.

I.M. Pei, Architect -

Herbert F. Johnson
Museum of Art at
Cornell University

The Berlin Holocaust

Memorial, Peter
Eisenman.
• Elam, Kimberly. Geometry of Design. Princeton Architectural Press, 2001.
• Meggs, Philip B and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. John Wiley &
Sons, Inc., 2006.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/ Online.
• http://www.moma.org Online.

REFERENCES
• http://www.colophon.com/ Online.
• http://www.artic.edu/reynolds/essays/hofmann.php Online.
• http://www.kentgallery.com/exhdia.htm Online.
• http://www.artic.edu/aic/ Online.
• http://www.getty.edu/ Online.
• http://www.masters-of-photography.com Online.
• http://www.internationalposter.com Online.
• http://www.nga.gov.au/Home/index.cfmwww.popartuk.com Online.
• http://architecture.about.com Online.
• http://www.firstworldwar.com Online.
• http://gds.parkland.edu/gds/!lectures/history/1915/modern.html Online.