Monday, June 9, 2008

cuba street riot

http://www.whitefungus.com/contents/articles/history.html

Transplastic






would be covering the sites and objects that may have seen the departures of my UK and European ancestors who traveled to NZ and ended up covering the land here with things ( like the Babich side of my family which immigrated from Dalmatia and has covered bits of New Zealand with hundreds of acres of vineyards ).Transplastic Bucket Fountain Cuba Mall Wellington 2006TV One News Link to article on Bucket Fountain Transplasticismclick hereDirector Simon Burgin and Producer Gareth Moon of Nektar Films made a documentary about the Bucket Fountain Transplasticism. This documentary won Best Short Documentary in the New Zealand Documentary Awards in 2007

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Final Thesis w/o Pictures

Design as creative problem solving, evolves due to, and is a solution for, conflict and when a society is in need of change; WWI and the Russian Revolution of 1917 were events that largely influenced innovative Design in the early-mid 20th Century

Position: That original
Design shifts towards ideals such as the Bauhaus and constructivism only occur through extreme conflicts

“Together Let us desire, conceive and create the new building of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will arise from the hands of a million workers like crystalline symbol of a new faith”
[1]

When society needs to be rebuilt on new principals a visual aspect is used to drive the thinking of the ‘new’, a call for this can happens due to wars or changes in government. WWI and the Russian Revolution of 1917 were events that largely influenced innovative design in the early-mid 20th Century; new arts were called upon to reflect the new direction. Modernist design, reacting against the early romanticism, called for change in society after the disconcerting events of the War, the Bauhaus was that call put into practise and influenced profoundly modernist and constructivist thought and theory. The Bauhaus was about that need for a return to handicraft, the mass produced products of the past, and the romanticism of the 19th century had to be swept aside for a modern era. WWI was a time people never wanted to return to. The reaction to WWI was the ‘new’, the modernist movement, driven by architects such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a time when the old Tsarist regime was overthrown and all the ‘old ways’ were tossed aside to create a free country for the worker people, New art was used to express the direction of the new communist government, one of dynamism, direction and power; Constructivism, founded by the works of artist and architects and driven by the monumentality of their ideals. It’s means mirrored Modernism in a way, striving for a new direction and an eclipse of the past in the shadow of the disconcerting Wars

“Buildings justified their existence in symbolic terms” (Smock). Americans built University campuses that resembled English Universities. Buildings were in an overabundance of symbolism, a nest of it. And soon the symbolism became Cliché, with Gothic facades ‘glued’ onto gyms or power plants. Many Buildings of the post war Western World got the Gothic treatment. A building’s function was hidden under ornamentation and fruitless decoration and industrially designed household items followed suit. Early romanticism design of Victorian ages was overdone, Rather than disperse light, Lamp shades blocked it, giving a room an eerie glow where light was very sparse. Light was seen as destructive, to art and materials, so it was contained, the common sight of the classicism living room with its sparse windows and overstuffed armchairs perturbed the Modernist, and therefore its artistically romantic deformation of functionality and design was revolutionized. Everything, the very symbolism was re written.

“A novel was no longer a good yarn. A concerto did not move anyone to tears. A painting no longer recreated a moment in the past. A dance did not reinforce noble ideals of love and honour”[2] (Smock 21)

This was a viewpoint shared by modernist in all fields of the arts to ‘sweep out 19th Century romanticism’ (Smock). Which was seen as fake, symbolism had lost its meanings and design was a nest of the clutter of eras past. Design needed something new, something modern. Mies van Der Rohe and his contemporaries promised ‘a new’.
Modernist buildings were full of light; Mies van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion lets in adequate light in while still providing shade from the Spanish summer. Modernist promised to deliver daylight and fresh air. They took nature and function as guiding perspectives, not the glory of God or authority of the State. Engineering advances dictating form was seen as ‘a tribute to human reason’ (Smock)
Robert Venturi’s book “Learning from Las Vegas” is Venturi’s study on the Las Vegas signage’s impact on architecture, symbolism has become so in your face and crude that to define what a building does you place a massive sign out front, and soon that sign evolved into the building. A giant duck shaped building sells … well, ducks.
[3]Many designers and architects saw WWI as a loss of rationalization, where people simply ‘lost their heads’ which they thought may have been attributed to the common style of the time, with a largely ornamented style of pointless decoration full of eclecticism that cluttered and complicated the life of the working man. Therefore they wanted to change the way of thinking through design, and to wipe clean the slate of society and start anew, a ‘New Architecture’ expressed by Le Corbusier’s work Towards a New Architecture, 1923, led by architects and Designers who tried to rationalize their art to create a more rational society, as they believed that a person could be changed by his surroundings. William Morris created Art Nouveau like flower designs for Wallpapers which he believed could create better morale people by creating better surroundings[4].

Founded by Architect Walter Gropius in Weimar 1919, the Bauhaus was a response to the boom of industrialization created just after the World War. Instead of being horrified by mass production of the industrial age they attempted to control and perfect it. Its goal was to develop a modern architecture that enhanced every aspect of life. Bridging the chasm between architecture, applied arts and technology in order to break the barriers separating art and Industrial Design. Modern artist obeyed an inner prompting, Bauhaus artist like Klee and Kandinsky were modern artist. Kandinsky painted simply how he felt at the moment; it existed for its own sake and did not tell a storey, a bold rejection of post-war values of art where a painting should tell a storey of a scene from the past, Kandinsky painted the very present.
Bauhaus student Lyonel Feininger created his wood carving: “The Cathedral of Socialism” in 1919 round the time Bauhaus was introduced. Feininger’s woodcarving was the visual counterpart to Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus manifesto statement at the opening of Bauhaus in 1919; through both this conception and Gropius’s manifesto the artist would ‘serve society through a return to the handicrafts, rather than designing for mass production.’ (Smock)

The Russian Revolution was symbolized by the murder of the Tsar; it was the murder of all the traditions of the Tsarist regime as well, its art, architecture and direction. Art was to be free, free from the burden of the object, free from the denotations of class; it would be integrated into the lives of the people, no longer solely for the rich to admire on a wall.
The architecture too was abandoned, it was now architecture of new direction, design without fruitless ornament or cluttering decoration, Art was stripped down to its basic geometric proportions, free from the object and expressed pure emotion of human nature, as constructivist artist Alexander Rodchenko
[6] demonstrated in his various illustrations where he dismissed ‘pure art’ for an art that became a social tool, widely used as propaganda by the new communist government. (Cook 1984: 67) Artist during the Russian Revolution responded by abandoning easel painting for a private clientele and began producing revolutionary propaganda instead.
Fig 8 El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1920

El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1920, uses ‘constructivist theme of abstract forms, seen from above, floating in space to produce an image resembling a battle plan’. (Kennedy) Lissitzky reflected the society of the time through his works, Lenin Tribune, with the photo Montage Lenin towering over the people from his speaker booth.

After 1933 Lissitzky’s work suffered official eclipse once constructivism fell through and Stalin opted for a soviet architecture.
‘Various forces of political action and reaction that isolated Lissitzky and terminated the international socialist movement in Europe culture also closed the Bauhaus and caused it to move in a decimated form to the U.S.’ (Frampton 121)
Lissitzky in his book An Architecture for world revolution proposed new rules for the revolutionary architecture: The rejection of art as mere emotional, individualistic and romantic affair. Objective work,

undertaken with the silent hope that the end product will eventually be regarded as a work of art. Goal directed work in architecture, which will have a succinct artistic effect on the basis of criteria. (Lissitzky) Such architecture will raise general standards of living, by razing ideals of styles past and creating new values from the ashes of the old, as described by Lissitzky like the process of melting down old iron and forging it into new steel. (Lissitzky: 71)
Vladimir Tatlin’s Proposal for the Monument to the Third International (Fig 10) would pave the way for constructivism and set the mark for what constructivist would aim for, to pierce the heavens and strive for direction. Although like many early Soviet projects it never made it past the planning stage because of funding due to economic struggle.

Constructivism would break past the barriers and restrictions of old, it was the ‘new’ that modernism was built on similarly, both had similar means but to different ends. Constructivism was to symbolise a new direction of their country and a new Government, Modernism was to reflect a rational society, free from such inhumane acts as war and was seen as a solution for poverty. Although put in practise, some of Le Corbusier’s urban city designs in hindsight would create hotspots for poverty living, in its elevated internal streets. Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago 1962 was a
Fig 11: Corbusier, Le, Contemporary City for 3 million,
[9]
Fig 12: CHA, Robert Taylor homes, 1962complex of 28 high rises apartment blocks creating by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) that was pulled down after it became slums, housing drug addictions and violent crimes, just three years after completion reports were published that shocked readers on conditions within. Robert Taylor Homes was ultimately a symbol of housing and modernist utopian failure. Surveys were even set up to determine the effect of a ‘lack of green space’ on the human condition. A new way to approach housing problems by Modernism had failed utterly. Le Corbusier’s proposals had been put in practise and caused a major setback for Modernism becoming an answer to social problems. William Morris’s designs for wallpapers create an Art Nouveu like interior with its brilliant curved patterns and organic shapes, believing nicer spaces create nicer people, he led the arts and craft movement and believed society needed to be fixed[10] (MacCarthy 49), but there is still a lot of controversy about such philosophies and many argue against them.

Both containing roots in each other, Modernism and Constructivism, were new, original, and at their time extremely radical due to the ideas they rejected and principals behind the design philosophy (Cook 1984: 127) True innovative thought went into each style at the time of two important events, founding of the Bauhaus in Weimar, 1919 and the Russian Revolution of 1919. These styles originated due to the reaction of a major conflict or huge social upheaval, they abandoned all the styles before them, no more borrowing from the past styles of eclectic decoration and ornament, both Russian Constructivism and Modernism looked only forward. Yet they were accepted because they were driven by a few leaders of the movements; Vladimir Tatlin and artist Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitzkey drove constructivist propaganda. Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and William Morris found themselves in a public spotlight as city planners and established designers, where their designs were getting out, winning competitions and were causing controversy, were able to express the new movement and pave the way for modernism design. This group of fathers of Modernism wanted to steer society in their pre determined direction, towards a utopia for the realistic world of ‘today’, they were shocked by the world war and wanted to fix society to avoid such a catastrophe again, which meant the old style of thought wasn’t working; it failed when WWI started, so something new was needed. Constructivism was a solution to another problem, but ultimately similar to modernism in that it rejected styles of the past, and aimed for a new direction, but the difference is, Constructivism symbolises the new direction, Modernism is what is being used to create the new direction.True innovation arises from a problem. Design is creative problem solving, as when there is a conflict in society. It can be used to symbolise, direct and express using design for architecture, furniture, wallpaper and art, and reflects greatly the society it portrays, and greatly influences the mindset of that society. Design and architecture, as social tools and not pure art, adapt and reflect society to express meaning and significance, giving solutions to such social conflicts, whether through the Russian propaganda of El Lissitzkey or Le Corbusier’s Contemporary City, they are both proposals to problems, intuitively created during a time in need of answers after the catastrophe of a World war

Bibliography:

Written References


Cook, Catherine, Fantasy and Construction, London: Architectural Design, AD Editions, 1984

Cook, Catherine, Russian Constructivism & Iakov Chernikov, London: Academy Group, 1989

Corbusier, Le, Towards A New Architecture (Vers Une Architecture), 1923
Darley, Gillian, Factory, London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2003

Frampton, Kenneth, Labour, Work and Architecture, New York: Phaidon Press Limited, 2002

Gmurzynska, Galerie, Alexander Rodchenko: Spatial Constructions, Germany: ERSCHIEN IM, 2002

Hannah, Gail, Elements of Design: Rowena Reed Kostellow and the structure of visual relationships, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002

Kennedy, Andrew, Bauhaus, London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2006

Lissitzky, El, Russia: An Architecture for World Revolution, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1970

MacCarthy, Fiona, William Morris: a life for our time, New York: Knopf, 1995
Meuser, Phillip, New Revolution in Russian Architecture, Singapore: Page One, 2006Saunders, Gill, Wallpaper in Interior Design, London: U&A, 2002

Smock, William, The Bauhaus Ideal: Then and Now, Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2004


Electronic Reference

CHA. Change. Chicago Housing Authority. 2007
<
http://www.thecha.org/housingdev/robert_taylor.html>

CNET Networks Australia Business. 2008
<
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3945/is_200104/ai_n8939181>

Bauhaus-archiv Museum of Design - Bauhaus 1919 - 1933 – manifesto.
<
http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/manifest1919.htm>

Peter Lindberg. Le Corbusier’s The City of Tomorrow and its Planning. 2005
<
http://tesugen.com/archives/04/06/corbus-city-of-tomorrow>

William Morris
<
http://www.ragnarokpress.com/artype/morris/main.html>

Answers Corporation, Answers.com, 2008
http://www.answers.com/topic/william-morris


Images References

Title Image: Fig9
Title Image Bauhaus: <
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ecs/>

Fig 1: “Feininger, Lyonel, “The Cathedral of Socialism” 1919”, Kennedy
Fig 2: “Example of a Victorian styled armchair. This one is from 1890” Found on eBay, <
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Rare-Style-Victorian-Armchair-Arm-Chair-circa-1880_W0QQitemZ150231013710QQihZ005QQcmdZViewItem>

Fig 3: “Example of ‘horrific clutter of what an over decorated early 19th Century home looked like” Real Estate Magazine
Fig 4: Mies van Der Rohe, Ludwig, Barcelona Pavilion, Barcelona 1928-29, <
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/spain/barcelona/mies/pavilion.html>

Fig 5: Morris, William, Leading designer for Arts and Crafts Movement, Organic patterns, <
http://www.ragnarokpress.com/artype/morris/main.html>

Fig 6: Feininger, Lyonel, The Cathedral of Socialism, 1919. (Kennedy)
Fig 7: Malevich, Kasimir, Black Square and Red Square, 1915, <
http://www.duke.edu/~ach11/writing20/images/black%20square%20and%20red%20square.jpg>

Fig 8: El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1920 (Kennedy)

Fig 9: Russian Soviet Propaganda collage
<
http://x-factor-e.blogspot.com/2007_05_01_archive.html>

Fig 10: Tatlin, Vladimir, Monument to the third International, 1919
<
http://www.siggraph.org/publications/video-review/sig99/132.shtml>


Fig 11: Corbusier, Le, Contemporary City for 3 million
<
http://blog.roughtheory.org/2007/04/25/utopian-cities/>


Fig 12: CHA, Robert Taylor homes, 1962
<
http://www.thecha.org/housingdev/robert_taylor.html>

Fig 13: Design for Windrush printed textile, 1881-83
<
http://www.answers.com/topic/william-morris>

Footnotes


[1] Walter Gropius: Bauhaus manifesto, 1919 (Kennedy) Extract from opening statement of the Weimar Bauhaus

[2]See Bauhaus Ideal by William Smock page 21 for further detail about the transition various modernist artist including Jazz musicians and prominent authors made from early 19th Century Romanticism to the clean minimalistic spaces of modernist art.
[3] Robert Venturi’s book is a reaction against Le Corbusier’s Vers Une Architecture where he describes how the machine aesthetic, predominantly the automobile will shape Design, architecture and the arts. In the section Automobile: Eyes which do not see, he talks about Handicraft being replaced by mass producing factories, such a transition would have been widely influenced by the World War.
[4] See Fig 5 and Fig13
[5] It expresses a desire to reach new limits of design, arts & crafts and architecture by combining techniques and images of architecture and spirituality
[6] Alexander Rodchenko worked with spatial constructions and paved the way for the constructivist ideal that was to follow form his work, he was not an architect or industrial designer, he was an artist. (Gmurzynska)
[7] Collages like this one depict Lenin at the forefront of revolution, leading the industry, people and county itself.
[8] This indeed was a political proposal, the monumental building was a propaganda tool, human scale is lost and the individual is lost by its sheer size.
[9] Le Corbusier’s first attempt at city planning came with his Contemporary City for 3 Million, it was essentially a plan to solve Paris housing problems by clearing half of inner Paris and building a series of high rise apartment blocks. Notice on the map The Eiffel Tower is not there. This was an early example of Industrial Capitalism destroying the historic city, a clean slate for the future.
[10] William was even involved in politics, calling for British intervention against the Turks, and wrote his book: To the Working Men Of England, 1877

Monday, June 2, 2008

Essay Draft Ideas process

Essay Draft

“Together Let us desire, conceive and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will arise from the hands of a million workers like crystal symbol of a new faith”

Walter Gropius: Bauhaus manifesto, 1919

Why we need a change.

“Buildings justified their existence in symbolic terms”. Americans built University campuses that resembled English Universities. Buildings were in an overabundance of symbolism, a nest of it. And soon the symbolism became Cliché, with Gothic facades ‘glued’ onto gyms or power plants. A building’s function was hidden under ornamentation and fruitless decoration and industrially designed household items followed suit, the early romanticism of Victorian ages was overdone, armchairs were overstuffed to accentuate comfort when a well designed chair could be equally comfortable yet contain less material. Rather than disperse light, Lamp shades blocked it, giving a room an eerie glow where light was very sparse. Light was seen as destructive, to art and materials, so it was contained. Modernist art and design changed everything, the very symbolism.

“A novel was no longer a good yarn. A concerto did not move anyone to tears. A painting no longer recreated a moment in the past. A dance did not reinforce noble ideals of love and honour” [Reference me].

This was a viewpoint shared by modernist in all fields of the arts to ‘sweep out 19th Century romanticism’ [Reference me]. Which was seen as fake, symbolism had lost its meanings and design was a nest of the clutter of eras past. Design needed something new, something modern. Mies van Der Rohe and his contemporaries promised ‘a new’

Robert Venturi’s book “Learning from Las Vegas” is Venturi’s study on the Las Vegas signage’s impact on architecture, symbolism has become so in your face that to define what a building does you place a massive sign out front, and soon that sign evolved into the building. A giant duck shaped building sells … well ducks.

When society needs to be rebuilt on new principals a visual aspect is used to drive the thinking of the ‘new’, a call for this can happens due to wars or changes in government, WWI and the Russian Revolution of 1917 were events that largely influenced innovative design in the early-mid 20th Century, when a new art is called upon to reflect the new direction, and Design, as creative problem solving evolves due to and is used as a propaganda tool for conflict and war. WWI was a time people never wanted to return to, so a new design was used to reflect this new ‘rational’ society. The reaction to WWI was the ‘new’, the modernist movement, driven by architects such as Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a time when the old Tsarist regime was overthrown and all the ‘old ways’ were tossed aside to create free country, a new art was used to express the direction of the new communist government, one of dynamism, direction and power; Constructivism, founded by Kasimir Malevich by works like Black Square and Red Square and driven by such as Vladimir Tatlin.

Many designers and architects saw WWI was a loss of rationalization, where people simply ‘lost their heads’ which they thought may have been attributed to the common style of the time, with a largely ornamented style of pointless decoration full of eclecticism that cluttered and complicated the life of the working man. Therefore they wanted to change the way of thinking through design, and to wipe clean the slate of society and start anew, a ‘New Architecture’ expressed by Le Corbusier’s work Towards a New Architecture led by architects and Designers who tried to rationalize their art to create a more rational society, as they believed that a person could be changed by his surroundings. William Morris created Art Nouveau like flower designs for Wallpapers which he believed could create better morale people by creating better surroundings.

The Russian Revolution was symbolized by the murder of the Tsar, it was the murder of all the traditions of the Tsarist regime as well, the art was no longer for the rich to admire, Art was to be free, free from the burden of the object, free from the denotations of class, it would be integrated into the lives of all, including the working man. The architecture too was abandoned, it was now an architecture of direction, design without fruitless ornament or cluttering decoration, Art was stripped down to its basic geometric proportions, free from the object and expressed pure emotion of human nature, as constructivist artist Aleksandr Rodchenko demonstrated in his various illustrations where he dismissed ‘pure art’ for an art that became a social tool, widely used as propaganda by the new communist government. Vladimir Tatlin’s Proposal for the Monument to the Third International would pave the way for constructivism and set the mark for what constructivist would aim for, to pierce the heavens and strive for direction. Although like many early Soviet projects it never made it past the planning stage. Constructivism would break past the barriers and restrictions old, it was the ‘new’ that modernism was built on too, both had similar means but to different ends. Constructivism was to symbolise a new direction of their country and a new Government, Modernism was to reflect a rational society, free from such inhumane acts as war and was seen as a solution for poverty, although put in practise, some of Le Corbusier’s urban city designs created hotspots for poverty living in its; elevated internal streets. Maison Radieuse (Radiant City) was a complex that was pulled down after it became the slums of Rezé. William Morris’s designs for wallpapers, believing nicer spaces create nicer people, but there is still a lot of controversy about such philosophies.

Both containing roots in each other, Modernism and constructivism, were new, original, and at their time extremely radical due to the ideas they rejected and principals behind the design philosophy. These styles originated due to the reaction of a major conflict or huge social upheaval, they abandoned all the styles before them, no more borrowing from the past styles of eclectic decoration and ornament, both Russian Constructivism and Modernism looked only forward. Yet they were accepted because they were driven by a few leaders of the movements, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and William Morris found themselves in a public spotlight as city planners and established designers, where their designs were getting out, and winning competitions and were controversy, were able to express the new movement and pave the way for modernism design. This group of fathers of Modernism wanted to steer society in their direction, they were shocked by the world war and wanted to fix society to avoid such a catastrophe again, which meant the old style of thought wasn’t working; it failed when WWI started, so something new was needed. Constructivism was a solution to another problem, but ultimately similar to modernism in that it rejected styles of the past, and aimed for a new direction, but the difference is, Constructivism symbolises the new direction, Modernism is what is being used to create the new direction.

True innovation arises from a problem. Design is creative problem solving, as when there is a conflict in society. It can be used to symbolise, direct and express using design for architecture, furniture, wallpaper and art, and reflects greatly the society it portrays, and greatly influences the mindset of that society. Design and architecture, as social tools and not pure art, adapt and reflect society to express meaning and significance, giving solutions to such social conflicts.

Why they needed a new direction

Bauhaus

Founded by Architect Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus was a response to the boom of industrialization. Instead of being horrified by it they attempted to control and perfect it. Combining Art and Crafts the Bauhaus abolished the line between pure art and applied art in their teachings.

Modern artist obeyed an inner prompting, Bauhaus artist like Klee and Kandinsky were modern artist. Kandinsky painted simply how he felt at the moment, it existed for its own sake, it did not tell a storey.

Walter Gropius denoted art for art’s sake as sterile self-indulgence. Gropius was an architect and saw art as something to be applied to a problem.

Modernist buildings were full of light; Mies van Der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion lets in adequate light in while still providing shade from the Spanish summer. Modernist promised to deliver daylight and fresh air. They took nature and function as guiding perspectives, not the glory of God or authority of the State. Engineering advances dictating form was seen as ‘a tribute to human reason’ [Reference me].

Bibliography

Bibliography:

Books


Cook Catherine, Fantasy and Construction, London: Architectural Design, AD Editions, 1984

Cook Catherine, Russian Constructivism & Iakov Chernikov, London: Academy Group, 1989

Corbusier, Le, Towards A New Architecture (Vers Une Architecture), 1923

Darley, Gillian, Factory, London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2003

Hannah, Gail, Elements of Design: Rowena Reed Kostellow and the structure of visual relationships, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002

Kennedy, Andrew, Bauhaus, London: Flame Tree Publishing, 2006

Meuser, Phillip, New Revolution in Russian Architecture, Singapore: Page One, 2006Saunders,

Gill, Wallpaper in Interior Design, London: U&A, 2002

Smock, William, The Bauhaus Ideal: Then and Now, Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2004

Websites

CHA. Change. Chicago Housing Authority. 2007
<
http://www.thecha.org/housingdev/robert_taylor.html>

CNET Networks Australia Business. 2008
<
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3945/is_200104/ai_n8939181>

Bauhaus-archiv Museum of Design - Bauhaus 1919 - 1933 – manifesto.
<
http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/manifest1919.htm>

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Bauhaus

Founded by Architect Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus was a response to the boom of industrialization. Instead of being horrified by it they attempted to control and perfect it. Combining Art and Crafts the Bauhaus abolished the line between pure art and applied art in their teachings.

Modern artist obeyed an inner prompting, Bauhaus artist like Klee and Kandinsky were modern artist. Kandinsky painted simply how he felt at the moment, it existed for its own sake, it did not tell a storey.

Walter Gropius denoted art for art’s sake.
Mies Van Der Rohe and contemporaries
Modernist buildings full of light, modernist promised to deliver daylight and fresh air. They took nature and function as guiding perspe
“A novel was no longer a good yarn. A concerto did not move anyone to tears. A painting no longer recreated a moment in the past. A dance did not reinforce noble ideals of love and honour”

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Seira Pomodoro

Just some pictures of Pomodoros sculptures, about finding a complex inner form when the outer form suggest something entirly different ... A new form being founded within the chaos of an outer form. His Spheres are called Sphere Perforations



Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Final Composition


Final Photos to Form Final Composition

Each photograph is a process of a system to represent movement, each adds to the experience of movement through different mediums.
This first Photo shows in close up detail the movement being mapped on the 2D, then as it branches out beyond the board
, Two maps here; One is Paris ariel view and the other is a map of hireachy, which points are allowd to match up, where the large streets stopped, they were branched off to the other map.

This photo Branches the 2D movement into the 3D. The large shapes begining to form are city blocks as they are suspended between the roads in space

The 3D mapped movement model placed on the google earth image of Paris.






Detail of the
water falling down the model, here the wire 3D roads are the paths of movement as
the water falls along

This detail shows the shadow play and the next photo shows the sequence of that process to get the shadows as the light source moves over the movement map. Here the wire roads stop movement, light passes around the wire while the wire hinders it.















This sequence shows the movement through this 3 Dimensional space. The light moves through the 3D map modelling movement of a more complex nature the simple "Birds eye view Observation" and point plotting, it observes the new movement and argues hirarachey of space and occupation, where does or doesn't the light reach? where can or can't we move?

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Composition Process

This is the Compositional model made for the final project, started off with a few maps of Paris from Google earth on seperate walls, then connecting up the major streets, it starts off being held with masking tape just because it was hard making it all connect in the right way without it falling down but i didn't want unnecessary complication ... so yeah, it was annoying.







































































































































Saturday, May 24, 2008

Assignment Three

Direction, Movement, Change

All refferenced MLA stly in the essay 9th June

Keyword and sketching... Moving it into aspects, developing.
What kind of marks can it make?

Media - Control of the line, constraint, running out of ink { Minalmilistic
- Photography. Meanings and perspectives asscociated, experiment with different media
-Light and Shadow.
- Video of spatial experience
- Small model? Or instilation?
-Water, movement Different Marks.
- Fire.

Future

Hopefully we have deepened our knowledge of the past to better our decisions of the future.

Predict the future through patterns of the past: Design motif

"The Best way to predict the future is to invent it"
Allen Key

Robotics:
Took decades of engineering to create a robot that could move on two legs. Word Origin:
1920's Factory that produced artificial people, called robbots.
"Robot" in Chekoslavakian means to force labour.
Leonado De Vinci - First robots: He was the first to contemplate the idea of the robot.

MIT's 2007 annual robotics engineering competition.

"Suvival Research Labs"
SLR Art proformances by robots, industrial robot fights. They have been made ledgenary by such free invitation proformances, as in if you invite SLR they will come and preform for free. Over the years their proformances have grown more violent as the robots have gotten more sophisticated.



Robotlab
Jukebot
- They study the relationsip between robots and people. More common robots are the industrial robots, of which there are literally millions, however they are rarely found in public spaces, usally only foound in industrial places.

They Argue that because of this, people have not assesed their own relationship with robots and they want more robots in public spaces.
"bios [Bible]"
2007
- A robot wrote out the entire bible by hand in ink pen, uninterupted. - High precision of text! Script writting.
Stalrac
"Third Arm"
1981 We never had a mind of our own, our bodies are manipulators.
The Tissue Culture as Art project. "dissembodied Cusine" www.tca .uwa.edu.au. Frog steak, Do we need to kill animales to eat them?
Seems like science teachers trying to pass off math as art when art is the emotional side, they just can't mix!
Eduardo Kac - "Alba"
Flourescent Bunny, now that we can create life like this, how will we deal with it?
Maray Shelly (Frankenstein 1818)
Jules Verne (journey to the centre of the earth 1864)
H G Wells (War of the Worlds 1898)
Issac Asimoue (I, Robot 1950)
2001 A Space Odessey (1968)
- Robots taking over, Turning Evil and killing. Popular Idea up to the 1980's; Yet now robots are smarter, instead of simply killing people, they infiltrait them, with the goal of genocide of the entire human race, Battle Star Galactica.
Star Trek, We copy ideas from it (Palm sized communicators ...)
"Any sufficiently sophisticated technology is indistinguishable from magic"
Authur C. Clark

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Paris Maps

Paris maps as chosen city to build up 3D movement



Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Early Model

These are the early model of what it could posible, or posibly not! look like, this is just taken from building fake streets in the air. After building this was looking at what movement to map... Looked at cities and decided Paris would do suitably. It looks like a giant network of connecting steets, the streets are perfect molds for the mapping of movement through a city as the bigger the streets the more movement through it.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Experiments

Movement

I was starting to look at movement of a city! As design can drive the direction of City, and exspecially at a time of Crisis.
During an Urban Design lecture they showed us time lapse drawings of Palmerston North every 12 years dating back to 1912, showing the spead of buildings and the city itself. This reminds me of Archigram and the idea of walking Cities, but our cities are moving, so could I build a 3D form of this movement?

Mediums
Fire leaves a lasting mark, yet it in itself is never a solid form, always moving and spreading.
Shadow and light
Spraypaint

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Ecology of the Artificial

The moral responsibility of the designer; "There are few professions as harmful as Industrial design"

Ecolologically sustainable design

  • The Ecosphere [earth]
  • Atmostphere [Air]
  • Biosphere [Life] } A Limited Evironment
  • Lithosphere [Rock]
  • Hydrosphere [Water]

Easter Island Example

Stone Statues on the coast.

Europeons arrived and found barren wasteland

The inhabitants chopped down all the palms to make ropes and transport the newly created statues to the coast. The last statue was erected and the last palm cut down. But the main source of food was fish, but without the wood to make canoes there was no more fishing, so soon the inhabitants decended into chaos. Civil war erupted and the natives turned to canabilism. 90 percent of the population was killed off.

This storey shows how a comparitivily primitive peoples with primitive technology was able to destroy themselves.

As designers this raises te question of "What was the persons thoughts as he cut down the last Palm Tree?" did he think somehow more would appear?

Redistribution of materials, taking more from the biosphere and dumping it back into the earth. Product Life Cycle: -> Design Concept -> Materials and Manufature -> Packaging and Transport -> Consumer Marketing -> Consumer Use -> End Of Life ->

The transition from 'Green Design' to an ecological model of the artificial.

Deconstructivist Architecture.

  • Frank Gehry - Gehry House
  • Our world has changed - So our architecture should reflect that.

Green Design

Ethics. eg Energy saving 'sleep' function. We added on an energy sleep mode to the computer, which is a plus, but then we feel ok about leaving the computer on the whole time.

Ecologically Sustainable Design

Instead of throwing away computers for a faster one, just replace the part you need. An extreme example for this is a tyre puncture, don't throw away the tyre, just repair the puncture.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Internet Reading


Unfortunatly i can't read my own notes on this page. My handwriting is very bad. So i just took a photo of the page.

Keyword

Movement

My Essay is about the new designs of the early 20th Century being the driving forces of nations, Modernism driving the West, and constructivist art and architecture driving Russia to abandond the old and completley review all concepts of definition.

Therfore the driving words behind Movement are direction, nation, new and change.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers

Dragon technology, speaking to a computer; New Zealanders tend to mumble words compared to other English speaking countries. Having background music may distort readings.

Computers that will read hand movements or body movements; readings will be distorted as something unpredicted enters the area; A Child is playing in the background.

Jackets with iPods in them, but what do you do when it becomes too hot to wear the jacket; no iPod?

Watches should be adaptable to do what we do, along with other such gadgets. Watches should withstand more, not be precious commodities.

Wearable computers as a means of control.

  • Monitoring, Imbedded chips,
  • Cameras Tracking devices
  • Behavioural Monitoring devices, such as for use in prisons

Privacy issues

  • Big Brother
Steve Mann is a leading inventor of the wearable computers

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Lecture on Technolgy

  • Consumerism as a weapon against Communism.
  • Consumerism as a distraction.
  • Aluminium the material of the war. Houses were built more like military houses.

We can change and rearrange the house as a plaything.






The Push Button House [It starts off as an ordinary shipping container, but throw a switch and ninety seconds later the Illy Push Button House has magically expanded into a five-room abode. Architect and designer Adam Kalkin created this jack-in-the-box-like dwelling, whose sections are unfolded by powerful hydraulic cylinders controlled by a computer in the kitchen section. The house is made out of recycled materials, and has a dining area in the centre, surrounded by a bedroom, living room, library and kitchen. This mechanized hydraulic contraption is on display now at New York's Time Warner Centre until December 29th, in hopes of demonstrating how prefabricated houses can be placed in, say, a disaster area and quickly assembled in a matter of seconds. Now if Kalkin could just figure out how to include a roof in this design, we think he might be onto something.]
A house made from a shipping container. The Wife can control the house at the push of a button from the kitchen.

Objects produced that we don't actually need, i.e. Fluoride in water, do we actually need it? Or an electric tooth brush as opposed to a normal one?

The Car is like a moving home, treating it like a living space.
TV screen as our Window into the World, but it isn't because its actually artificial, and yet people treat it as such.
Drive Throughs.
Americas strength is compared to how many appliances they have, not how many Nucleor Weapons they have.

DIY multi talent embrace of technology.

Graphic Digital Artist; Romoki
People need to get away from buying completely useless stuff.
- “Why do we need to mess with electronic devices and call it art?”
Romoki designed objects that have no use and provide minimal entertainment.
Taking consumer products and presenting them as art in a different context, i.e. Cell phone converted into a toy racing car. Taking old consumer products people put too much emphasis into and turn it into art.

Open sourced software.
- Human readable code is distributed freely to anyone who wants to modify it

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Criticality of Art Design

Ren Koolhaus

"Peirecing analogues apparently incongrous ideas and creating something industrial"

Richard hamilton, Marcel Duchamp - Representing ideas as art. presenting something in a different way i.e.

Andy Warhole - Campell Soup

Frank Gehry

Drooy Design

Salvador Dali

Sex Pistols - Punk

Gorden Matta-Clark - Creating Voids through the buildings, making cuts in the unodorned buildings to show beauty.




























Friday, May 2, 2008

Networks


About horozontal, charcterised by flat space, or infinite space. British group of Paper Architects [Paper Architects produce work that is not built but more a political proposal] called Archigram; 1960's


-Their ideas included plug in cities that were mobile, and entire cities that were moveable as if they walked, a city that was more like a network of connections. it was more like utopian idea.






New Babelon; 1969














Archizoom; 1969 - Non stop city ( A plan that looks like a circuit board).

When the city becomes a circuit, a moving network. Users contribute to the design, many people adding a small peice, adds to the whole project.





Superstudio; 1969
- Architectural model for urbanisation




Wikipedia
- Open sourced network.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Binary Opposition


Post modernism, opposition of made form. Post modernism made awareness of 'other' disabled access. To design in the 1950's: Richard Hamilton: Just what is it that makes today’s houses so different; 1956 Pop art; Art is for the masses! "Magnifying glass" 1962 1970: Abstract Expressionism; painting about how one felt at the time he painted it. Hippy movement, design, music, clothing. In the 60's society stopped needing and started wanting. Needs vs. Wants. Explosion of mass consumerism.

Moon landing, Sparked allot of 'moon design' i.e. TV’s shaped like helmets, futuristic "space looking design"

Ettore Sottsass, Started Memphis movement, highly post modernism. No innovation in time at crisis

No innovation in a time of crisis as there is any money to buy. [1971 Nixon suspended conversion of U.S dollar into gold]

Paris [1968] - Student uprising, the students did not like what they were being taught and by who, so they started protest which led to riots and many arrest but finally they were able to choose their lecturers


Post Modernity Building


X Y Z Buildings, Alienating with its mirror glass "Curtain" Walls which don't allow passer bys to look in yet they don't know if they are being watched...

Robert Taylor Homes
Chicago Housing Authority 1964, His buildings turned into slums, housing drug addicts and crime, which eventually turned into murder...
Therefore his buildings were demolished.


Le Corbusier wanted streets within the levels of the buildings, yet on hindsight we can see this created slums as these streets could not possibly police all the streets.

The Architects' dream 2001, Collage, VSBA Rutter Thomas Cole, demonstrates principals from Learning Las Vegas, Learn from what is on the highway. A building with a sign sells what the sign says, it doesn't matter what the building looks like. Poetics of space

Structuralism

- Levi strauss. Foucault Lucan, Bathes

Word is meaningless, it is just association, and post modernism is only significant.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Essay Draft

When society needs to be rebuilt on new principals a visual aspect is used to drive the thinking of the ‘new’, a call for this can happens due to wars or changes in government, WWI and the Russian Revolution of 1917 were events that largely influenced innovative design in the early-mid 20th Century, when a new art is called upon to reflect the new direction, and Design, as creative problem solving evolves due to and is used as a propaganda tool for conflict and war. WWI was a time people never wanted to return to, so a new design was used to reflect this new ‘rational’ society. The reaction to WWI was the ‘new’, the modernist movement, driven by architects such as Alter Gropius and Le Corbusier. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a time when the old Tsarist regime was overthrown and all the ‘old ways’ were tossed aside to create free country, a new art was used to express the direction of the new communist government, one of dynamism, direction and power; Constructivism, founded by Kasimir Malevich by works like Black Square and Red Square and driven by such as Vladimir Tatlin.

Many designers and architects saw WWI was a loss of rationalization, where people simply ‘lost their heads’ which they thought may have been attributed to the common style of the time, with a largely ornamented style of pointless decoration full of eclecticism that cluttered and complicated the life of the working man. Therefore they wanted to change the way of thinking through design, and to wipe clean the slate of society and start anew, a ‘New Architecture’ expressed by Le Corbusier’s work Towards a New Architecture led by architects and Designers who tried to rationalize their art to create a more rational society, as they believed that a person could be changed by his surroundings. William Morris created Art Nouveau like flower designs for Wallpapers which he believed could create better morale people by creating better surroundingsThe Russian Revolution was symbolized by the murder of the Tsar, it was the murder of all the traditions of the Tsarist regime as well, the art was no longer for the rich to admire, Art was to be free, free from the burden of the object, free from the denotations of class, it would be integrated into the lives of all, including the working man. The architecture too was abandoned, it was now an architecture of direction, design without fruitless ornament or cluttering decoration, Art was stripped down to its basic geometric proportions, free from the object and expressed pure emotion of human nature, as constructivist artist Aleksandr Rodchenko demonstrated in his various illustrations where he dismissed ‘pure art’ for an art that became a social tool, widely used as propaganda by the new communist government. Vladimir Tatlin’s Proposal for the Monument to the Third International
Would pave the way for constructivism and set the mark for what constructivist would aim for, to pierce the heavens and strive for direction. Although like many early Soviet projects it never made it past the planning stage. Constructivism would break past the barriers and restrictions old, it was the ‘new’ that modernism was built on too, both had similar means but to different ends. Constructivism was to symbolise a new direction of their country and a new Government, Modernism was to reflect a rational society, free from such inhumane acts as war and was seen as a solution for poverty, although put in practise, some of Le Corbusier’s urban city designs created hotspots for poverty living in its; elevated internal streets. Maison Radieuse (Radiant City) was a complex that was pulled down after it became the slums of Rezé. William Morris’s designs for wallpapers, believing nicer spaces create nicer people, but there is still a lot of controversy about such philosophies.


Both containing roots in each other, Modernism and constructivism, were new, original, and at their time extremely radical due to the ideas they rejected and principals behind the design philosophy. These styles originated due to the reaction of a major conflict or huge social upheaval, they abandoned all the styles before them, no more borrowing from the past styles of eclectic decoration and ornament, both Russian Constructivism and Modernism looked only forward. Yet they were accepted because they were driven by a few leaders of the movements, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, and William Morris found themselves in a public spotlight as city planners and established designers, where their designs were getting out, and winning competitions and were controversy, were able to express the new movement and pave the way for modernism design. This group of fathers of Modernism wanted to steer society in their direction, they were shocked by the world war and wanted to fix society to avoid such a catastrophe again, which meant the old style of thought wasn’t working; it failed when WWI started, so something new was needed. Constructivism was a solution to another problem, but ultimately similar to modernism in that it rejected styles of the past, and aimed for a new direction, but the difference is, Constructivism symbolises the new direction, Modernism is what is being used to create the new direction.

True innovation arises from a problem. Design is creative problem solving, as when there is a conflict in society. It can be used to symbolise, direct and express using design for architecture, furniture, wallpaper and art, and reflects greatly the society it portrays, and greatly influences the mindset of that society. Design and architecture, as social tools and not pure art, adapt and reflect society to express meaning and significance, giving solutions to such social conflicts.

Bibliography: Cook Catherine, Fantasy and Construction, London, Architectural Design, AD Editions, 1984 Cook Catherine, Russian Constructivism & Iakov Chernikov, London, academy group, 1989 Corbusier, Le, Towards A New Architecture, (1923) Meuser, Phillip, New Revolution in Russian Architecture, Singapore, Page One, 2006 Saunders, Gill, Wallpaper in Interior Design, London, U&A, 2002