- - The original note follows - -
From: troy kashanipour <smarty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: ARCHITECTURE: Le Courbusier, etc.
Date: 6 Mar 1994 07:27:53 GMT
In article <randolphCLx8L8.KMx@xxxxxxxxxx> Randolph Fritz,
randolph@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
>In my occasional notice of the Bauhaus and other European modernists
>while doing design research, I've begun to wonder if part of the
>sparseness and enforced uniformity of their designs is the result of
>politics; the sparseness a kind of "dressing down" of buildings, a
>deliberate attempt to remove the signs of wealth, and the uniformity
>an effort to enforce a kind of equaliity. I wonder if there was
>perhaps a large dollop of state socialism in their ideology--it was
>popular enough in the time and place of the Bauhaus. I get hints from
>the books I've looked at for other reasons--Le Courbusier did designs
>for the Soviets in Stalin's period (I do not know how if the Soviets
>commissioned or built any of them) and Groupius, in the 50s, referred
>to Russia as a democracy.
As is often the case, I think that many of the architects of that
period got on any boat that was going thier way,
Not only did Le Corbusier try do work in soviet russia, but during the war
he was also tring score points with the Nazi puppet Vichey government
in occupied France. He of-course was Swiss and thus neutral.
It might be helpful to look at some of the competitions sponsered by
different groups in both America and Europe at the time.
Worker's housing vs. the Chicago Tribune.
Lame as it is, read "from Bauhaus to ourhouse"
The oversimplification is well worth the ten minutes it will take you
to read this book. The author paints many of the european modernist, thus
modern architecture with a big red brush.
I think that it would be accurate to say that there was a deliberate
effort to enforce a type of uniformity. My exposure to this group has
been through the study of Peter Behrens, who spent some time in the
Groupius office and served as the director of product design for the AEG.
The AEG was a huge German industrial confederation which made every-
thing from turbines to dishware (with state support-though I'm not sure
of the limits of this endoresment) (if i remember, it is still in
operation by a different name, making what i don't recall). If you look
at the
products of the time, they are meticulously clean and free of the
extraneous;
obvious industrial items. The catalogs recall an infatuation with
the idea that industrialization was a way to free society
from the structure which the first industrial revolution had helped to
create; an underclass of workers which could not afford those things
which they were beginning to produce (keep in mind the attitude of
progress just after the turn of the century in Germany). This
equalization certainly extended to ideas about city planning and
social structure. Yet all of this was to be accomplished through the
agency of a capitalist industrial machine. "Yes, you too can have a
house full of stuff, just like the people down the bourgois down the
street. Political reorgainzation, at least from what I've recall does
not seem to be a big issue, at least at this point in the 10's and 20's.
big knowledge gap
the late 1930's the Bauhaus packs up shop because of political
persecution from the Nazis
From: troy kashanipour <smarty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: ARCHITECTURE: Le Courbusier, etc.
Date: 6 Mar 1994 07:27:53 GMT
In article <randolphCLx8L8.KMx@xxxxxxxxxx> Randolph Fritz,
randolph@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
>In my occasional notice of the Bauhaus and other European modernists
>while doing design research, I've begun to wonder if part of the
>sparseness and enforced uniformity of their designs is the result of
>politics; the sparseness a kind of "dressing down" of buildings, a
>deliberate attempt to remove the signs of wealth, and the uniformity
>an effort to enforce a kind of equaliity. I wonder if there was
>perhaps a large dollop of state socialism in their ideology--it was
>popular enough in the time and place of the Bauhaus. I get hints from
>the books I've looked at for other reasons--Le Courbusier did designs
>for the Soviets in Stalin's period (I do not know how if the Soviets
>commissioned or built any of them) and Groupius, in the 50s, referred
>to Russia as a democracy.
As is often the case, I think that many of the architects of that
period got on any boat that was going thier way,
Not only did Le Corbusier try do work in soviet russia, but during the war
he was also tring score points with the Nazi puppet Vichey government
in occupied France. He of-course was Swiss and thus neutral.
It might be helpful to look at some of the competitions sponsered by
different groups in both America and Europe at the time.
Worker's housing vs. the Chicago Tribune.
Lame as it is, read "from Bauhaus to ourhouse"
The oversimplification is well worth the ten minutes it will take you
to read this book. The author paints many of the european modernist, thus
modern architecture with a big red brush.
I think that it would be accurate to say that there was a deliberate
effort to enforce a type of uniformity. My exposure to this group has
been through the study of Peter Behrens, who spent some time in the
Groupius office and served as the director of product design for the AEG.
The AEG was a huge German industrial confederation which made every-
thing from turbines to dishware (with state support-though I'm not sure
of the limits of this endoresment) (if i remember, it is still in
operation by a different name, making what i don't recall). If you look
at the
products of the time, they are meticulously clean and free of the
extraneous;
obvious industrial items. The catalogs recall an infatuation with
the idea that industrialization was a way to free society
from the structure which the first industrial revolution had helped to
create; an underclass of workers which could not afford those things
which they were beginning to produce (keep in mind the attitude of
progress just after the turn of the century in Germany). This
equalization certainly extended to ideas about city planning and
social structure. Yet all of this was to be accomplished through the
agency of a capitalist industrial machine. "Yes, you too can have a
house full of stuff, just like the people down the bourgois down the
street. Political reorgainzation, at least from what I've recall does
not seem to be a big issue, at least at this point in the 10's and 20's.
big knowledge gap
the late 1930's the Bauhaus packs up shop because of political
persecution from the Nazis