How should designers deal with industrialization?

1. It is already evident that inventions no longer are, as they had been in earlier times, means for warding off want and for helping consumption; instead, want and consumption are the means to market the inventions. The order of things has been reversed. …The abundance of means is the first serious danger with which art has to struggle. Where will the depreciation of material that results from its treatment by machines, from substitutes lead? –Gottfried Semper, 1852 How should designers deal with industrialization? 6 years after German unification, the nation had the chance to show their industrial ability at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876. However, visitors commented that the German goods were “cheap and nasty.” The German government was embarrassed and angry. How did Germany become the world leader in superior industrial design?

2. 1890: resignation of Bismark rise of the demand for improved design in craft and industry Why did Germans see good design as their path to becoming an economic powerhouse? -raw material poor-no ready outlet for cheap goods (market already filled) Why did they embrace machine production? -only economically feasible way to manufacture and mass-market goods (unlike William Morris, Germans were not interested in one-off craft produced pieces for a small, well-educated, upper-class. To build their GDP, they need to mass produce goods. The idea was to appeal to the middle class’s desire to ‘buy up.’ Naumann reinforced this idea in his 1904 essay, “Art in the Epoch of the Machine.”)

3. 1907: Muthesius, Naumann, and Schmidt founded the Deutsche Werkbund The English Arts and Crafts Movement had seen a contradiction between art and industrial methods of art-production. The Werkbund aimed in the first place to bridge this contradiction without denying the reality of industrial production. The Germans spoke "of the artist on the one, of the worker on the other side" - they accepted the reality of the division of labor (Pevsner 24). 1907: Behren (a Werkbund member) is appointed as AEG’s chief architect and designer Peter Behrens. Fan Model No. GB 1. 1908. Painted cast iron and brass, mfg by A.E.G., Germany. Behrens. Nitralampe. 1910. Mfg by A.E.G.

4. Behrens’s accepted of industrialization as Germany’s destiny. He built “a temple to industrial power” while bringing to the workers a sense of common purpose that was lost when they moved from the farm to the city (Frampton 111-12). Behrens. AEG Turbine Factory. Berlin, 1908-09.

5. “What is Monumental Art?”–Behrens, 1908Behrens argued that such art is an expression of the dominant power group in any given epoch. He also rejected Semper’s theory that form comes from technical criteria in favor of Riegl’s theory that talented individuals are ordained to design through their ‘will to form’(note the Nietzschian influence). He fell on the Form (individuality) side of the Werkbund style argument (as opposed to the advocates of Norm, or type.) Behrens. German Embassy. St. Petersburg. 1912. Schinkel. Altes Museum. Berlin, 1824-30.

6. Gropius and Meyer. Werkbund Pavilion. View from front showing glass stairs. Cologne, 1914. Van de Velde. Werkbund Exhibition Theater. Cologne, 1914. Norm Form Hermann Muthesius’s address at the Werkbund Exhibition advocated Norm. He argued that architecture and industrial design can attain significance only through the development of types that can be mass-produced and sold to the world. Van de Velde countered by rejecting that the goal of design is export products and proclaiming the creative sovereignty of an individual artist. He advocated Form, not Norm.

7. 1. Feiniger. Zukunftskathedrale Woodcut for the Bauhaus Proclamation. 1919. 2. Van de Velde. Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts (Bauhaus). Weimar, Germany. 1904-1911. The Bauhaus resulted from the merger of the former Grand-Ducal Saxon Academy of Art (Mackensen) with the former Grand-Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts (directed by Van de Velde, Behrens a teacher), and also was influenced by the Norm ideology of the Deutche Werkbund.

8. The ultimate, if distant, aim of the Bauhaus is the unified work of art – the great structure – in which there is no distinction between monumental and decorative art.–Gropius The Bauhaus was founded with the visions of erecting the cathedral of socialism and the workshops were established in the manner of the cathedral building lodges. The artist was no longer “above” the craftsman, but both were equals.

9. 1. Fritz Mackensen. Der Säugling (Moor Madonna). 1892. 2. Itten. Horizontal-Vertical. 1915. 3. Klee. Twittering Machine. 1922. Fritz Machensen thought that designers should be educated in a fine art academy. Gropius believed that designers and craftsmen should be educated together in a workshop-based program. Gropius prevailed, but Itten had the most influence during the first 3 years of the school. He aimed to release individual creativity and enable each student to access his own ability. (A 1900s reformer like Dewey)

10. Wassily Kandinsky. Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle), 1913. Theo van Doesburg. Counter-Composition XIII. 1925–26. Can the artistic mind grow in an institutional setting? Can creativity be taught? The emotive, mystical approach vs. the rational, anti-individualist aesthetic – the battles escalates in 1921 when these two artist join the faculty.

11. Frank Lloyd Wright. Ward Willitts House. Highland Park, IL, 1902. As published by Wasmuth in 1910. Van Doesburg’s influence at the Bauhaus was immediately felt. He helped Gropius resolve his dilemma of desiring both continuity and spatial movement and a closed, hard, machined aesthetic. He did this through the influence of Wright (published in German by Wasmuth in 1910-11). Van Doesburg’s painting is derived in part from the linear pattern of the Willitts House. Theo Van Doesburg. Rhythm of a Russian Dance. 1918.

12. Frank Lloyd Wright. Ward Willitts House. Highland Park, IL, 1902. Vantonerloo’s construction can be derived by concentrating on the advancing and receding volumes. A Neo-Plastic house if arrived at by reading the planes as forming hollow interlocked boxes. George Vantongerloo. Construction of Volume Relations. 1921. Rietveld and Van Doesburg. Project for a Private House. 1920.

13. Frank Lloyd Wright. Ward Willits House. Highland Park, IL, 1902. Rietveld’s Schroder House is arrived at by separating some of the planes even further. In all of these cases, a linear and planar clarity of separate parts has been combined withcontinuouslyshifting sets of spatial relationships.The result is a machined freedom. Gerrit Rietveld. Schroder House. Utrecht, 1924-25.

14. Gerrit Rietveld. Schroder House. Utrecht, 1924-25. Café de Unie takes all of the prior experiments and smoothes them out into a single plane – combining strict linear and rectangular order with theflux and movementof calculated asymmetries. J.J.P. Oud. Café de Unie. Rotterdam. 1924.

15. Gropius. Bauhaus. Dessau. 1925-26. Finally, by joining all the planes firmly into boxes and interlocking their separate volumes into an asymmetrical composition like the continuous mechanical movement of a set of gears, Gropius’s Bauhaus emerges.

16. Metal Workshop at the Bauhaus (Dessau) The form of the Bauhaus also reflects Van Doesburg’s influence on the pedagogy. In 1922, Gropius changed the focus of the school from craft to the understanding of industrial methods of production. Metal workshop 1923 in Weimar

17. The classrooms/ administration offices were built on one side of the road, while the studios were across the street. These two volumes were connected by the bridge where the professors had their offices. The teachers had mastered both the intellectual and technical knowledge needed to produce artistically designed, economical goods.

18. Moholy-Nagy. Light-Space Modulator. 1921-30. Albers. Skyscrapers on Transparent Yellow. 1927 Sand blasted flashed glass Itten left in 1923. His position was filled by Moholy-Nagy, who taught first year studio with Albers. They reworked the studio so that it concentrated on revealing the statical and aesthetic properties of free-standing asymmetrical structures, which portray both a machined purity and a modern continuity of space.

19. Albers’s student’s work. 1927-28. The first year studies taught basic formal principles of design to all majors in the school. After first year, students chose a specific workshop. Each workshop was headed by both an artist and a master craftsman.

20. Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt. Poster for the Bauhaus Exhibition of 1923. Van Eestern and Van Doesburg. Model of their “artist’s house” for the Rosenburg Exhibition. 1923. Two examples of the changing Bauhaus design approach, which acknowledges the change in the means of production and no longer searches to create a “total work of art” that emotively displays the singular creative force of its designer. This is work that is done collaboratively.

21. Homogeneous professional roles started to dissolve in practice, or at least to change radically. At the same time it seemed necessary for the student to take personal responsibility for his or her studies and the development of professional skills. The Bauhaus workshops ( metal, weaving, pottery, furniture, typology, wall painting, and architecture [after 1927]) were the birthplaces of new industrial designs.

22. The Bauhaus was a socially orientated program. "An artist must be conscious of his social responsibility to the community. On the other hand the community has to accept the artist and support him." Specialization together with solid basic knowledge was not a risk when the students were employed by the production.They were able to follow the changes in technology and society in a flexible manner. Lazló Moholy-Nagy: Folio Cover, 1923. RT: Lucia Moholy, Bauhaus building Dessau, Balcony of the studio house, 1926. Herbert Bayer,1932.

23. Much & Meyer. Experimental House. Bauhaus Exposition. 1923. MarcelBreuer. Metal Tube Chairs. 1925-29. The focus on craft continually gave way to the focus on deriving form from productive method, material constraint, and programmatic necessity. Breuer’s tubular steel chairs exemplified this approach to creative design solutions.“To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.” (Benjamin 224)

24. Bauhaus Pendant Lamp - Marianne Brandt and Hans Przyrembel, 1925. Josef Hartwig, 1880 - 1955, Bauhaus, manufacturer (Weimar), Chess set, 1923.

25. Bauhaus light fittings of pressed metal. Mass produced under Meyer. Gropius. Main Hall with Breuer Furniture. Dessau. 1925-26. Their Dessau building became a showcase for their designs. The school was coming into its own aesthetic which joined a strong sense of composition with clean, moderndesigns easily mass produced in a factory.

26. Gropius' interest was to industrialize the building process for low cost housing. In the Bauhaus Exhibition of 1923, he and Adolf Meyer introduced prefabricated housing units to address Germany’s growing housing crisis. Georg Muche introduced Haus am Horn that has no servants' rooms, corridors, or staircases. It consists of seven small rooms and a living room in the middle. It reflects the socialist ideals held by the majority of the faculty. New spaces for the new unified German worker. Torten estate, 1930. Haus am Horn. Georg Muche, 1923.

27. 1933 - Police search the Bauhaus on the orders of the Dessau district attorney’s office, 32 students are detained for 1 to 2 days and an application made for the closure of the Bauhaus. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe dissolves the Bauhaus at the start of the summer semester with the masters’ consent. Yamawaki. The End of the Dessau Bauhaus. 1932.

28. After the school’s closing in 1933, many of its artists moved to the United States. The New Bauhaus, founded in 1937 in Chicago by Moholy-Nagy, was the immediate successor to the Bauhaus. The complete curriculum developed by Walter Gropius in Germany was adopted and further developed, aiming at the education of the widely oriented universal designer. The methods which came from the German Bauhaus were adopted in manifold modified form by other American schools. The Bauhaus is mainly responsible for the gradual reduction of the until then unchallenged predominance in the United States of the Beaux-Arts tradition. L�aszlo� Moholy-Nagy, School prospectus "the new bauhaus", Chicago 1937/1938

29. The Bauhaus masters on the roof of the Bauhaus building in Dessau.From the left: Josef Albers, Hinnerk Scheper, Georg Muche, Las�zlo� Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, Joost Schmidt, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Gunta Stolzl and Oskar Schlemmer.