Charles e Ray eram americanos e se casaram em 1941, tendo contribuído muito para o design industrial, de móveis e arquitetura, além da indústria de fotografia e cinema.

Foram inovadores no uso de materiais como o plástico, resinas, fibra de vidro, arames e compensados moldados, e trabalharam com outros tantos desigers famosos como Saarinen, Herman Miller e Harry Bertoia.

A “La Chaise” foi criada em 1948 e faz uma brincadeira com o nome do escultor Gaston Lachaise e a própria chaise (cadeira). A combinação de materiais e o movimento de suas linhas realmente fazem dela uma escultura.

La Chaise - plástico reforçado com fibra de vidro, aço e madeira

E a poltrona e divã Eames foi o primeiro de luxo produzido pelo casal, feito originalmente de lâminas de jacarandá, metal e couro.

Perfeita para ler um livro no fim da tarde.

Tem as cadeiras de plástico, com algumas variações, mas os pés ainda são de outros materiais, madeira ou aço.

Quem tem uma avó com uma cadeira de balanço dessas?

Os pés desta cadeira a batizaram de Eiffel. Sim, referência à torre do mesmo nome.

Repare na combinação dos pés de madeira com metal

Também muito conhecida, a cadeira de compensado moldado, exemplo interessante de como eles começavam pela função e acabavam numa forma muito interessante.

Esta cadeira foi feita em parceria com Herman Miller

Le Corbusier nasceu na Suíça em 1887 e foi um arquiteto e urbanista  de grande expressão, posteriormente se naturalizando francês. Ele foi o criador dos “5 pontos da nova arquitetura”:

1 – Pilotis, que tem uma função estrutural.

2 – Plantas livres, onde as paredes não tenham uma função estrutural.

3 – Fachadas livres, também não tendo uma participação na estrutura do edifício.

4 – Janelas em banda, possíveis pela liberdade das fachadas.

5 – Terraço-jardim, que recupera o verde perdido na ocupação da construção.

No Brasil, Lúcio Costa e Oscar Niemeyer são exemplos de terem usado integralmente os cinco pontos de Le Corbusier no projeto do edifício do Ministério da Educação e Saúde Pública.

Seu mobiliário sempre apresenta o uso de aço tubular e um equilíbrio fantástico entre forma e função.

Chaise lounge preta, toda regulável...

... e com uma estampa super moderna.

Ele desenhou também uma linha de poltronas e sofás muito conhecida, utilizando de novo o aço tubular.

Linha completa

Mies van der Rohe foi um arquiteto nascido na Alemanha, professor da famosa escola vanguardista de arquitetura Bauhaus até seu fechamento – quando também percebeu que seu estilo “não-alemão” não se encaixava no contexto de seu país, em pleno nazismo – e se naturalizou norte-americano após sua emigração. Ele trabalhou em conjunto com Lilly Reich durante aproximadamente 10 anos, que o ajudou a construir algumas de suas obras-primas.

A cadeira Barcelona com o banquinho para os pés

A cadeira Barcelona foi apresentada ao público no pavilhão alemão para a Feira Mundial de 1929 em Barcelona (também conhecido como Pavilhão Barcelona. O legal é que ela foi desenhada para ser o trono para a realeza Espanhola naquele evento! E é um ícone de design até hoje.

Estas aí embaixo são a BRNO, o nome vem de um projeto de arquitetura e design que van der Rohe fez em uma cidade Tcheca que tem esse nome (mas não me peçam para pronunciá-lo). Ela pode ser de estrutura tubular ou achatada, e o mais interessante nela é o desafio à gravidade, que dá um balanço e uma leveza inigualáveis.

Reparem que os braços e pernas são achatados...

... e desta são tubulares

E tem a coleção MR, toda em aço tubular, seguindo o “Less is More” que van der Rohe sempre repetia.

Espreguiçadeira MR Lounge

MR Lounge Branca

Reparem como lembra a BRNO

Start With a Bauhaus-designed Tree

Michael Cannell — our fearless correspondent in Manhattan, blogger for Fast Company, and former Home Editor for The New York Times — presents ten home-oriented gift suggestions for the holidays:

1. Believe it or not, fake Christmas trees are coming back into fashion as mid-century artifacts.

Kuno Prey, a Bauhaus professor, designed this 58-inch tree (it’s widest branches are 44 inches) to resemble a cluster of pipe cleaners. ($325)

2. Here’s a good way to replace ornaments dented or cracked in storage.

These felt holiday ornaments by Joshua Stone — snowflake, dove, tree, and snowman — are die cut from thick grey industrial wool. Each is threaded with orange yarn for hanging. ($20 for a set of four)

3. Kids will love this walking elephant because it trudges forward with a realistic rocking motion, making them feel like they’re on their own jungle safari.

Parents will love it because it’s made with non-toxic dye and chemical-free rubberwood. ($250)

4. These star-shaped lights can be hung from a light fixture, doorframe, or rafter to cast a dappled holiday glow.

Called Starlightz by Artecnica, they’re made from chlorine-free bleached paper and silk-screened and glued by hand. Light and cord included. ($35 each)

5. There’s no rule that you have to use those old-fashioned red-and-white stockings.

Give your mantel a more contemporary spin with wool felt stockings decorated with monkeys, mermaids and a surfing Santa from the New York textile company Hable Construction. ($76 to $135)

6. These super energy efficient L. E. D. (light emitting diode) mini lights — they use 80% less energy than conventional lights — will last up to 100,000 hours.

So no more replacing dimmed bulbs. Unlike earlier L.E.D. Christmas lights, which produced a bluish white, this version emits a pure white. ($14.95 for a string of 50 lights)

7. Here’s a modern variation on the cardboard take-out drink carrier: Brigade by Furni is a set of four porcelain cups, glazed on the interior and top lip.

They fit snugly into a walnut-veneer carrying tray so the quartet of mulled cider can be safely conveyed to the fireside. ($79)

8. The mid-century designers Charles and Ray Eames were fascinated by toys. They scattered their office with a menagerie of playful objects, and in 1969 they made a short documentary about a spinning top.

Their interest prompted the artists James Klein and David Reid, who collaborate under the name KleinReid, to design a limited-edition set of three solid walnut tops made by Herman Miller. (set of three for $199)

9. How great is this? Bertand Planes, an artist and designer, created a mashup of high and low technologies by turning an iron windup music box into a USB drive.

The handle acts as a mouse, allowing you to scroll up and down text, change window size, etc. (Limited edition of five, price available on request)

10. The holidays occur in waves: first comes the tsunami of catalogs. Then gifts. Finally, the obligatory thank you notes.

Make your gratitude stand out with these vintage-style cards from John Derian. ($1.50 apiece)

Thank you to you, also, Mike!

Jag har lite skrivtorka just nu. Ni får hålla till godo med Kapitel 1, där finns lite mer att läsa.

Imorgon ska jag till Stockholm och vernissaget för en utställning som Ozma har jobbat med, det blir en lång tågresa under vilken jag ska se om jag kan få i mig lite Stragetxt.

Nu till Bauhaus och Ziggy. Goter inspärrade i burar och grejer. Vem var det förresten som trodde att texten var “making love with a seagull”?

As we continue adding websites to our del.ici.ous collection of bookmarks, we want to keep you informed of our favorite recent additions, organized by subject:

Fine Arts

Bruce Nauman Leave the Land Alone: Documentation of Bruce Nauman’s performance of Untitled (Leave the Land Alone), 1969/2009.

The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated: A Library of Congress exhibition documenting the work of photographer to the Tsar Sergei Mikhailovich Prokrudin-Gorskii.

French National Library’s Image Bank: A searchable collection of digital materials from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture: Website for the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Vézelay: Benedictine Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine: A searchable collection of digital images of the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine at Vézelay, photographed by Alison Stones, and cataloged by the Digital Research Library at the University of Pittsburgh.

Architecture/ Design

Arch Daily: An the online source of continuous information for a growing community of thousands of architects searching for the latest architectural news: projects, products, events, interviews and competitions among others.

E. A. Seguy’s Butterflies: A digital collection of Seguy’s collotypes from the New York Public Library.

Environmental Design Archives: Gertrude Jekyll: Archival material from the University of California at Berkeley. The Jekyll collection includes presentation drawings, planting plans, plant lists, surveys, photographs, and correspondence relating to residential gardens throughout the United Kingdom.

Plastics Network: Website of an international collaborative project to promote an understanding of the study of plastics and design.

Tom Eckersley Poster Archive: A collection of digital images of Eckersley’s posters hosted by the Visual Arts Data Service, VADS, created from the artist’s archive at the University of the Arts in London.

Liberal Arts

American Treasures of the Library of Congress: Online exhibition displaying some 250 items from the Library of Congress collections, including some not currently on permanent display. The organizing principles of this exhibition are Memory, Reason and Imagination.

Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database: “The Literature, Arts, & Medicine Database is an annotated multimedia listing of prose, poetry, film, video and art that was developed to be a resource for teaching and research in MEDICAL HUMANITIES, and for use in health/pre-health, graduate and undergraduate liberal arts and social science settings.”

Transatlantic Slave Trade Database Images: A collection of images of places and vessels involved in the Transatlantic Slave trade, as well as slave portraits. This collection is part of the Voyages database project, which has collected archival data from all over the world to create an invaluable resource for scholars of the slave trade.

Van Gogh: The Letters: A project of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, offering all 902 letters to and from Van Gogh in digital format, with scans of the originals, transcripts and annotations.

Voice of the Shuttle – Cultural Studies: Voice of the Shuttle (VoS) is a subject gateway for humanities and humanities-related resources on the Internet.

Museums

Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity: MoMA exhibition displaying “over 400 works by some 100 Bauhaus teachers and students that reflect the extraordinarily broad range of the school’s output.”

New Ceramics Galleries, Victoria and Albert Museum, London: “Purpose built in 1909 for the display of the Ceramics collection the newly refurbished galleries tell the story of world ceramics, with 3000 objects on display from the earliest Chinese pottery to contemporary ceramic art.”

RISD Museum: The Brilliant Line: An exhibition of engravings from the Early Modern period.

Reunion des Musees Nationaux: A digital collection of art images from French museums.

The Virtual Museum of Iraq: Online exhibition of objects from Iraqi museums created by the Italian National Research Council.

Marianne Brandt entrou para a Bauhaus em Weimar em 1924. Aprendeu nas oficinas de metais, que na altura eram dirigidas por Lázló Moholy-Nagy. Depois de fazer o exame final, tornou-se directora-adjunta das oficinas  e organizou projectos com a colaboração dos fabricantes de candeeiros Korting & Mathiesen AG (Kandem), em Leipzig, e Schwintzer & Graff, em Berlim. Na Bauhaus com colegas como Christian Dell e Hans Przyrembel, e desenhou o candeeiro Kandem com a colaboração de Hin Bredendieck em 1928, como parte de um projecto de turma. De 1928 a 1929 Brandt foi mestra assistente da oficina de metais da Bauhaus de Dessau. Em 1929 trabalhou no atelier de arquitectura de Walter Gropius em Berlim, e durante os 3 anos seguintes desenvolveu novos conceitos de design para a Matellwarenfabrik Ruppelwerk, em Gotha. Depois regressou a Chemnitz, onde começou a pintar. Durante esse período tentou licenciar alguns dos seus produtos á loja Wohnbedarf. Brandt ensinou na Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste, em Dresden, de 1951 a 1954, altura em que visitou a China e lá organizou uma exposição de design industrial com o apoio do governo alemão.

Robert E. Goodin

This post is a simple summary of and a low profile commentary on Robert E. Goodin’s working paper “On Constitutional Design”.

According to Goodin, “political scientists do not have a particularly distinguished track record when it comes to designing constitutions” (p. 1) despite the fact that they often come up with ideas for new constitutions and reflections on the existing ones. He thinks they’d better keep working this way, since it is more interesting to have them commenting on a wide range of issues besides constitutions.

I. Constitutional Design

A. Contra the Skeptics

Goodin emphasizes the fact that constitutions, contrary to many other institutions, are built and rebuilt consciously by definite actors at a definite time. He defines the modus operandi of designers as

1. First-principle: “Minimally sensitive to local traditions”
2. Blue-sky: “Minimally sensitive to constraining circumstances”
3. Blank-sheet: “Minimally sensitive to past practice”

His example for this? Well, he thinks that designer clothes are not comfortable (see the picture). He doesn’t leave the metaphor there.

He says that there are two alternatives to designer clothes (or, should I say, houte couture constitutions?):

1. Off-the-peg items (even these are cut to some basic design. It is a generalized version of the common-sensical design)
2. Made-to-measure articles (preferable)

Goodwin is a supporter of made-to-measure constitutional designs but he approves that in the end, it all comes to general principles (p. 3).

"Designer clothes are notably uncomfortable." Well, who can disagree with that?

For the concept “design”, the author borrows the Bauhaus slogan: “harmoniously fitting form to function”.

Forms? “Alternative constitutional arrangements”.

Functions? “Purposes those constitutional alternatives are supposed to serve”.

What’s harmony? It means “fitting the separate bits together in such a way that they interfere minimally one another in the performance of their designated functions”. Cool definition.

But all this is about internal consistency. What about the relationship between the design and its environment? A good design must also adapt well to the “larger functions which [it is] supposed to serve”, according to the writer.

To meet these ends, constitutional design has two crucial elements:

1. Functional requisites: The things the constitution is expected to do.
2. Functional equivalents: Alternative mechanisms to fulfill functional requisites.

A good design picks the best functional equivalent to satisfy the functional requisites. Obviously.

II. Constitutional Aspirations

“Constitutions constitute the skeleton of the polity” (Here comes another metaphor!). This function of the constitution is called higher law. (But, to make things more confusing, Goodin says that we should call this function lower law. However, thank Jupiter, he does not follow this idea in the coming paragraphs and leaves us in peace with the initial definitions).

But constitutions also act as the source for the flesh by creating goals and aspirations.

And this makes the skeleton metaphor a very very bad metaphor.

Goodin agrees with Bruce Ackerman’s claim that constitutional moments evoke people’s higher selves and motivate them to pursue long-term ideals rather than short-term interests.

Although people put a serious effort in constitution-writing, constitutions are to be amended in the future. However, they are hard to modify. This hardness comes from the constitution’s function: being the framework within which primary laws are amended, enacted and utilized.

There’s also a political reason: we want it to be hard to amend the constitutional law because we want it to limit the playground of politicians. We want it to define the grounds on which political commitments and agreements will take shape.

What makes citizens interested in long-term common interests is that since constitutional laws are hard to amend or replace, it is hard to calculate the benefit one will gain from any one article of the constitution. It is thus rational for citizens to try to increase the “average citizen’s long-run well-being” by coming up with good constitutions. He calls this logic of uncertainty.

Something makes me wanna draw a parallelism between this and Rawls’ veil of ignorance.

Goodin thinks the fact that we don’t bump into the traces of this logic in the classified records of parliamentary meetings weakens this argument.

This doesn’t make much sense really. No parliamentarian would openly state that he is pursuing long-term principles just because his short-term interests appear to be incalculable at the moment.

He thinks logic of appropriateness is at work along with logic of uncertainty. Parliamentarians, because they are sitting in the parliament and discussing high-level concerns, they tend to think about long-term common benefits.

To be honest, this sounds far less convincing than logic of uncertainty.

Ability of constitutional debates to evoke higher ideals makes Goodin claim that political philosophers should focus on uncovering these ideals and finding out ways of “framing institutional structures capable of evoking them”.

III. Constitutional Options

A. Against Borrowing Off-the-Peg Models

Many constitution writers tend to borrow “tried-and-true” models. Goodin says that he is planning to do this but he makes it clear that he intends to go “beyond the tired trinity of British, French and American constitutions” (p. 8).

However, Goodin also warns us about the perils of borrowing constitutions from elsewhere. To explain why, he utilizes the general theory of second-best. This theory says, if I understood him correctly, that if one of the aspects of the first-best model does not work, it is not enough to replace that aspect with the second-best: all of the first-best aspects will need to be revised. This theory makes it clear that it is not enough to have a model which is partly appropriate to the reality at hand. The reality might necessitate wholesale alterations to the model. Thus, it is clear, it is not good enough to borrow a model which functions good in a completely different framework.

B. Canvassing Wider Options

If a tried-and-true model can be devastating in a different environment, constitution-writers need to know all kinds of alternatives in order to pick the model appropriate to the given environment. For this, they need a menu which includes far more than this year’s catalogue of off-the-peg products.

Goodin’s aim, here, is not giving all possible alternatives that could be utilized by constitution-writers. He merely wants to give “different ways of skinning the constitutional cat” (and no, it has nothing to do with Satanism or illegal Vietnamese cuisine).

1. Democratic Responsiveness: Making vs. Applying the Laws

“We want our laws to reflect the will of the people”, don’t we? (Don’t bother to ask who ‘we’ are.)

Goodin gives two alternative strategies to keep the will of the people relevant to the laws:

1. “Franglo-American” strategy: Keeping the actors of the law enactment accountable.
2. Alternative strategy: Keeping the law enforcement actors accountable.

The second is really interesting. Since what simply matters is to force the legal process to take the will of the people into consideration, keeping law-makers accountable does not appear to be the only option. However, would it be equally democratic to keep the monarchy and having citizen councils when it comes to law-enforcement? Ofcourse not. Because the laws citizens will try to enforce in this case would be created arbitrarily, which is completely non-democratic.

2. Checking the Abuse of Power: External vs. Internal Controls

A very wide-spread concern is to keep the government within a circle where it will maintain its power but will not abuse this power.

There are alternative strategies to achieve this aim, according to Goodin:

1. Giving people vested rights and empowering courts to stop government from violating these rights.
2. Separation of powers. (Shoot yourself if you’re reading this summary but you don’t know what this means)

These both mechanisms try to create an external control over branches of government. However, Goodin claims, it is possible to create internal control within branches. A way of doing this would be concentrating the power and “thereby giving the authority in question both the motive and the ability to check abuses of power”.

My reaction to this proposal? Nothing but a huge question mark that could be seen from the Moon. Although Goodin talks about diffusion of responsibility (“what is many people’s job is no one’s”) and blame avoidance (“each passing the buck to co-responsible parties”), if we are to keep our concern with the abuse of power with our concern of the will of the people, references to the Middle Age arguments don’t mean much. At least to me. Adversus solem ne loquitor.

As Goodin argues, such arguments can be used to show why “responsible party government” is good.

But responsible party government does not mean the USSR government where governments were supposed to have internal control if this line of logic is functional.

3. Protecting Minorities: Output vs. Input Filters

“The standard way of” protecting minorities “is through rights guarantees of one sort or another” (p. 11).

Goodin defines this method as “filtering outputs”, outputs being the actions/laws. An alternative to this method is to filter inputs: limiting the legal arguments to a sphere where the discourse will not include “racist appeals or arguments defamatory of minority religions or ethnic groups”.

Will limiting the language of parliamentary debates in any way guarantee the non-existence of discriminatory laws? Ofcourse not. Any parliament is capable of making terrible laws while talking about beautiful concepts. Goodin also admits this weakness of filtering inputs.

4. Social Pluralism: Tolerating Diversity vs. Promoting It

The “ordinarily mechanisms”, as Goodin calls them, for accomodating social pluralism “are constitutional guarantees of toleration” (p. 12). There are hands-on and hands-off variants of such mechanisms while the former defines various institutions of social pluralism and the latter recognizes an unregulated space where civil society acts on behalf of various religions, races, languages, etc.

However, this is not the only way of recognizing the importance of social pluralism constitutionally. A constitution can also “actively promot[e] more diversity”. Goodin gives the example of Locke’s constitution for Carolinas where everybody was free to belong to whatever church they desire to, but it was obligatory to belong to one or another.

Goodin gives various reasons why this alternative might be preferable to the standard attitude of mere tolerance:

1. Mere tolerance might give authority to “distinctly illegal groups”.
2. It might ossify the existing power relations among groups.

C. Ensuring Functional Fit

As he has already said before, Goodin thinks it is essential to go beyond creating novelties when it comes to writing constitutions: bits need to be harmonious with each other and the whole needs to be harmonious with the circumstances.

In this section, Goodin gives the example of “the perils of presidentialism”: where the president and the parliament both enjoy the authority given by popular elections, neither of them tend to recognize the authority of the other. Often this mechanism leads to deadlocks between two branches. This makes comparativists to think that popular legitimacy is better to be given to one branch of the government. It is deemed preferable to have parliamentarianism where the parliament enjoys the advantages of being elected by the people while the chief executive is elected by that parliament. The other alternative is Latin American presidential dictatorships where the popularly elected president ignores the views of the popularly elected parliament.

Goodin offers two alternative ways to solve this tension which is rooted in having two branches of government elected by the people:

1. Having an unaccountable or indirectly-accountable institution to filter the decisions of the parliament. This will, according to Goodin, decrease the parliament’s ambition to own the final word on representing the will of the people.
2. Limiting the authority of the parliament to the local issues while deeming the president as the only representative of all nation.

Although I support Goodin’s idea that we should look beyond the tried-and-true models and be more creative when it comes to design issues, I really don’t think the first alternative is convincing since a popularly elected parliament which does not even tolerate the control of a popularly elected president will not tolerate the control of an unaccountable upper house.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Goodin states that there is a “higher purpose to be served” by creating constitutions. Although he does not clarify what that higher purpose is, from the rest of the paper we can claim that the higher purpose is coming up with a constitution which will blend sensible alternatives harmoniously with each other and with the circumstances. He finishes the paper by saying that “when it comes to fundamental questions of constitutional design, … much can be known and much can be done – and theorists can help.

The List is the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office’s weekly news round-up of historic preservation (and related) news from throughout the state. A more robust version, that covers arts and culture, archaeology, economic development, architecture, and general “green” news, is available through the SHPO’s listserv.

You can subscribe to the listserv by visiting our web site, or by sending us an email.

As always we welcome your comments and contributions.

Century-old fieldstone icehouse is nucleus of home four times its size – Pavilion Township

Historic sites dressed up for holiday tours – Muskegon

Fight against blight: Heights working to clean up neighborhoods – Muskegon Heights

Tourism officials push for historic designation for 170-miles of U.S. 31 – Grand Haven

$60M development proposed for Macatawa Park

SAC displays 10-year restoration project

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: Man honored by Main Street for restoration of historic hut – Walled Lake

Detroit DDA approves property purchase for Capitol Park redevelopment

Editorial: The road more traveled

Lincoln Park’s historic newspaper building saved from wrecking ball

City of Muskegon wants private group to maintain Marsh Field

A land bank plan that could succeed

Curing sprawlitis – Lansing

Michigan targets urban blight

East Jordan pursues Main Street revitalization

Afloat in the Ocean, Expanding Islands of Trash

A Revolutionary War Widow’s Estate Becomes a Preservation Battleground – Annandale-On-Hudson, NY

Haus proud: The women of Bauhaus – Berlin, Germany

It seemed a silly tagline for MoMA’s full-page advertisement in the NYTimes a few weeks back. But considering the exhibitions on the fall program of NYC’s premier venue for modern art, “Plan Accordingly” is the best advice anyone could give you.

MoMA’s two marquee shows, “Bauhaus: Workshops for Modernity, 1919-1933” and “Tim Burton” are each staggering in their own way. They’re also causing mobs in the museum as visitors flock to them. Plan accordingly – try to visit the museum on a weekday.

A drawing of Edward Scissorhands from "Tim Burton"

We all knew “Tim Burton” was going to be special, and despite a general need for editing, it still lives up to those expectations. It is the first exhibition of the director’s non-cinematic work at a major fine arts museum. It is also a retrospective of his major motion pictures – pretty much everything from “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” to “Sweeney Todd” is being screened in one of MoMA’s plush theaters. The journey into the third floor gallery is quite literally a walk into the belly of the monster. The exhibition, with its hundreds of drawings, dozens of sculptures and film props is a journey into the macabre and relentless imagination of Tim Burton. There are a lot of distorted gothic characters on the walls and many of them you’ll recognize (Edward Scissorhands is everywhere). The majority of the drawings come from Burton’s personal sketch books, and as such they are not so much works of fine art as they are a visualized stream of consciousness. It’s hard not to like the Burton show. Sure it could have about a hundred fewer sketches, but ultimately it’s a refreshing and entertaining display of the work of an undeniable (twisted) genius. (Note: there are timed-tickets for the Burton gallery, which can be booked in advance online).

While Burton is cool, the jewel of MoMA’s fall program is unarguably “Bauhaus.”  It is a scholarly yet approachable survey of the 20^th century’s most influential school of design. Beautifully curated with something for everyone, Bauhaus sandblasts misconceived notions that German design is grey and industrial. Color abounds, particularly in the glistening textiles that adorn the walls. Bauhaus should be slowly savored, and luckily with everyone crammed into Burton, you’ll probably have most of the 6^th floor gallery to yourself.

A chair from "Bauhaus"

*******
Kathleen Reckling
CC ‘07, GSAS ‘09

This is the part of our blog series 30 Museums in 28 Weeks. Through CUarts’ Passport to New York program, Columbia students get in free to 30 museums in the city. We will attempt to visit every single one of these museums before the end of this academic year and share the experience here with you. 30 museums. 28 weeks. That’s a lot of culture. Check out our progress here.

Yves St. Laurent received the macabre treatment when he dressed actress/muse Catherine Deneuve for the 1983 horror/suspense film The Hunger, also starring David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. Deneuve’s wardrobe showed the darkest reaches of St. Laurent’s range — acclimating to the hardness of the 80’s, notably designers Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana, he had French glamor and sexual subversion easing his way.

Perhaps it was this macabre treatment that inspired Martin Margiela’s second reiteration of the squared shoulder in his fall 2007 collection (if in fact it was him). The severity and darkness of the mood is vampire worthy, and certainly those graphic shoulders don’t shy away from Deneuve’s YSL wardrobe, complete with his signature shoulder. But the real give away is the soundtrack of Bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi’s Dead as it creeps along in the opening scene of The Hunger and on Margiela’s catwalk, connecting the two not so disparate visions of the night.

Mario Barth hat recht! In seinem neuen Bühnenprogramm prangert er zu recht die Auswirkungen von unkontrolliertem Konsum von Bausendungen im Fernsehen. Das ist vor allen sehr gefährlich für Frauen, die dann zu recht bzw. zu unrecht denken, eine Komplettrenovierung der Wohnung dauert 90 Minuten mit maximal 2 Werbeunterbrechungen für eine Zigarettenpause oder nen Kaffee mit Milchschnitte. Er verteufelte Tine Wittler als Gefahr für die Bauwut und Renovierungsplanung der Frauen. Am eigenen Leib habe ich erlebt, was Mario meint mit Farbauswahl. In deutschen Baumärkten, also egal ob Toom, Bauhaus, OBI oder Hornbach gibt es keine normale Farbezeichnungen mehr.  Am letzten Samstag war ich im Bauhaus Mannheim und durfte mit meinem Schatzi Farbe für unser Schlafzimmer aussuchen. Und tatsächlich, die Farbe braun gab es nicht. Es gab nur Caramel, Cappochino, Olive, Maragoni oder vielleicht noch Creme. Die simple Farbe hellbraun oder braun gab es nicht. Na also wie bei Mario Barth, er nannte es lustig: kackbraun gibt es nicht mehr. Die Fahrt nach Frankental und Oggersheim zum nächsten Baumarkt, dem OBI Baumarkt ergab das gleiche Problem. Kackbraun gibt es nicht mehr , quasi ausgestorben, dafür alles in Kaffeeschattierungen und alle Farben von irgendwelchen Olivenbäumen. Jetzt wurde mir klar, wo ich Mario Barth in Berlin Kreuzberg treffen könnte. Ich lege mich im den dortigen Baumärkten auf die Lauer und recherchiere vorab die nächsten Programmpunkte auf seiner Deutschlandtour im nächsten Jahr. Also ab nach Berlin.

La première école de design au Québec a désormais 40 ans. Son histoire, telle que relatée par docteur Roger Camous dans le livre TÊTE, CŒUR, MAIN, s’est construite dans l’adversité dans la mesure où la discipline est jeune et les connaissances qui s’y rattachent parfois immatures.Voici deux propos essentiels à l’évolution de l’enseignement du design.

Le premier, tiré du témoignage de M. Jean-François Jaques, est en quelque sorte un plaidoyer professionnel sur l’importance du concept de stage. Le stage est-il un atout majeur pour l’étudiant qui en tire partie ? Si tel est le cas, pourquoi cette composante n’est-elle pas obligatoire dans la formation du designer industriel alors qu’elle représente une large proportion du cursus de son cousin, l’étudiant en architecture ?

Jean-François Jacques, président, Météore design Inc.

Que pensez-vous de l’éducation en design au Québec ? Des réformes sont-elles nécessaires ?

Saviez-vous qu’il y a eu une réforme il y a quelques années à l’Édin (École de design industriel) ? L’une des conséquences est qu’il n’y a pas eu d’admission cette année là.

Je vous dirais qu’il y a toujours besoin d’une certaine réforme. Est-ce que cela doit-être aussi radical que d’interrompre une année complète ? Je ne crois pas !

Je crois que les cours doivent toujours être en évolution. J’enseigne depuis 1992 à l’Édin et je crois que c’est une excellente école au niveau de la pédagogie. Je dirais que c’est l’encadrement qui est le plus important, ainsi que le type de professeurs qui participent aux ateliers. Il y a de plus en plus de chargés de formation pratique qui sont engagés à l’école, ce qui a pour effet d’intégrer un grand nombre de professionnels actifs du milieu de la consultation en design industriel. Ces derniers qui participent énormément à l’enseignement ont pour effet d’enrichir le contenue de la formation. C’est donc cette formule qui intègre un corps professoral garant d’une idéologie propre à l’école, ainsi qu’un ensemble de professionnels qui contribuent à enrichir les ressources de cette dernière qui m’apparait souhaitable.

Voyez-vous un décalage entre les notions enseignés au baccalauréat et la pratique professionnelle ?

Définitivement ! On ne peut faire autrement dans la mesure où il s’agit d’un cours qui ne dure que quatre ans. On indique souvent aux étudiants que la fin de la formation universitaire marque difficilement la fin de leur formation professionnelle. Il faut donc vivre l’intégration du milieu de la pratique comme une nouvelle étape de formation qui peut se vivre à travers les stages professionnels. C’est la raison pour laquelle l’Édin permet d’effectuer des stages post-baccalauréat ou durant l’été de la troisième année. Ces stages sont formidables lorsqu’ils sont effectués à l’étranger, car c’est extrêmement enrichissant pour les étudiants. Suite au bacc, il faut donc rapidement envisager l’étape du stage comme un complément incroyable qui permet véritablement de parfaire la formation universitaire.

Bruno Miron, créateur de la torche olympique de Vancouver, souligne également l’importance de ses expériences de stages professionnels comme étudiant à l’ÉDIN.

Bruno Miron, designer Bombardier aéronautique

Quel évènement a été le plus marquant dans votre cheminement professionnel ?

Je ne pourrais pas mentionner un projet précisément,  mais en ce qui me concerne ce sont davantage les rencontres qui ont été marquantes. Par exemple,  quand j’ai fait mes premiers stages, lorsque j’étais à l’Université de Montréal, chez BRP, chez GMS design, j’ai rencontré des gens supers et c’est cela le bon souvenir que j’ai.  Quand j’étais étudiant, cela n’a rien à voir avec des projets, mais c’est la rencontre avec des gens qui fait que cela a été pour moi un très bon moment.

Le second, témoignage qui fait cette fois référence à l’expérience de M. Réal Gauthier à l’école d’Ulm, est également un plaidoyer. Il s’agit de l’importance de l’étude du contexte (d’utilisation, de vie, etc.). Il est donc question de la valeur de l’apprentissage des facteurs humains dans la formation en design, car c’est principalement cette composante qui permet de mieux comprendre le contexte.

Réal Gauthier, Commissaire, Commission d’enquête Rioux sur l’enseignement des arts au Québec.

Je suis passé par l’« Hochschule für Gestaltung », l’école d’Ulm, on peut dire le Bauhaus. Alors je suis un peu un intrus et cela dépeint un peu sur la philosophie actuelle …

Feriez-vous des comparaisons ?

Pas nécessairement des comparaisons, c’est difficile de vous dire les mots, parce que les mots que je prononcerais, ne sont pas des mots que vous allez comprendre. Ce ne sont pas des mots que l’on utilise ici, mais le sens de ces mots-là, venant d’Allemagne, c’est autre chose.

Par exemple, toute l’importance du contexte, me semble un peu oubliée. Lorsque l’on parle de définir un besoin, ça passe par des analyses du contexte. Apprendre à analyser le contexte nécessite de la théorie, de la science et il y a là un point faible, ce n’est qu’un exemple, je pourrais enchainer sur autres choses. De ce point de vue, j’ai aussi suivi l’évolution de l’Illinois Institute of design et le résultat du travail de Moholy-Nagy (37-38). Lorsque l’on regarde ce que c’est aujourd’hui, du point de vue d’où je viens et du Bauhaus originel, ils font des sacrilèges ! En même temps, sur le plan de l’enseignement, des contenus et des méthodes qu’ils mettent de l’avant, il y a beaucoup à apprendre, mais pas sur le plan philosophique – et je vais prendre mon vieux langage – éthique et idéologique! Pas des mots que l’on prononce à la télévision !

Enfin, M. Patrick Mainville, qui traite essentiellement du profil de l’usager, ajoute une pierre à l’importance des facteurs humains. La réussite des projets passants souvent par la compréhension des besoins de l’usager.

Patrick Mainville, gestionnaire, ALTO design inc.

Quelle importance l’étude des facteurs humains prend-elle dans la pratique québécoise d’aujourd’hui ?

C’est un élément clé du projet, du développement, c’est la première question que l’on doit se poser.  Je suis dans la consultation, donc les gens qui font appel à nous sont souvent des manufacturiers, c’est une clientèle externe qui ne se pose pas toujours cette question de façon claire. Donc, cela amène effectivement à devoir réfléchir sur l’utilisation et de là découle l’importance des facteurs humains, l’ergonomie n’en étant qu’un seul. Il faut rendre le projet intelligible, le produit doit être au service de sa fonction, il a quelque chose à accomplir. De plus en plus, les projets bien conçus émergent  de par leur intuitivité d’utilisation, donc c’est vraiment clé.

Peter knows which way to go. And not only because his spaceship knows.

On his personal, newly established, music label Huvolla Peter Murphy has been releasing some Secret Covers, named after his latest concert tour. It started with the John Lennon classic Instant Karma, that was also used in a (JP Morgan) commercial.

Then came David Bowie’s Space Oddity. Peter added his special oriental feel; the one in which his CD Dust was already… covered. The distinct electric violin of Hugh Marsh re-appearing after Dust and Peter’s -incredible- live album Alive (Just For Love).

Next, Peter released the live and cracklin recording (with his band) of Joy Division’s Transmission, performed at the Highline Ballroom (NYC) in July 2009. I remember Bauhaus playing “Isolation” live during their last tour (ever), with Peter already copying some of Ian Curtis’ typical gestures.

Both as solo artist as with Bauhaus, Peter has performed on a number of occasions with Nine Inch Nails. He performed Hurt with Trent Reznor at a radio (FM live) session. I downloaded that one for free. Peter now released it as secret cover #4. And I bought it. Being a collector-fan and to support Peter.

Peter Murphy is a remarkable voice in today’s musical landscape, a position he rightfully gained by being an expressive, committed and original artist. Not because he’s god. Because there is no god.    But god.

No photography is allowed inside the show, so this will have to suffice. MOMA intends this Bauhaus exhibition to be one of their holiday blockbuster shows. Just in case visitors don’t flock to see the work of the 1920’s German art and design school, there’s also a large show of filmmaker Tim Burton’s work. My advice – see both. The Bauhaus show is extensive and contains numerous unexpected pieces.

Here’s Ween performing “Stacey” in 1991.  Best Parts:  A young Gene Ween and Dean’s solo.

Flight of the Conchords - “Ladies of the World” in 1999 on Newtown Salad (public access?).  What an audience.  Anyway, another great early performance from a duo.

Here’s another duo, Tenacious D, performing “Explosivo” in 1998 on what looks like a Comedy Central show.  And did the creators of Hancock rip off his get-up from Jack Black’s accessories here?  Who’s to say?

Next up is Bauhaus performing “Stigmata Martyr”.  Not sure what year this was filmed or how long the band had been together at this point, but it looks like an early capture.  Quality is a bit choppy, but a gem nonetheless.

And here’s my favorite “early performance” on Youtube - Steely Dan performing “Reelin’ in the Years” sometime in the early 70’s.  The video reads it was in 1978, but apparently that’s when this performance aired and not when it was filmed.  By 1978, Steely Dan had become strictly a “studio band”  but this video showcases their live capabilities. 

And those are my selections for now.  One day, I’m sure I’ll stumble upon some early videos of Pixies or Wilco and will have to add them to the list.  Until then, enjoy these selections hand-picked for your viewing pleasure.

Si vous aimez le design et tout particulièrement le style de De Stijl ou du Bauhaus alors peut-être que vous êtes déjà tombé sur mon blog. Mais il était question soit de lampes design ou de chaises design.

Jamais de maisons pour nos amis à quatre pattes.

De niches pour chiens si vous préférez.

Désormais il y a des niches pour chiens sans goût et désargentés et des niches pour les chiens qui ont un peu de culture et de dicernement.

Best Friend’s Home a créé The Cubix. La niche est réalisée à la mano. Elle est en bois et verre et disponible en trois tailles . Il y a même un système de drainage des eaux de pluie.

A partir de 3 950 euros. 

On aime sa bête ou pas.

Voir la chaise de Gerrit Rietveld symbole de De Stijl.

The Museum of Modern Art MoMA, New York

The Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Gallery, sixth floor



Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity
November 8, 2009 > January 25, 2010

The Museum of Modern Art presents Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity from November 8, 2009, to January 25, 2010. The Bauhaus school in Germany—the most famous and influential school of avant-garde art in the twentieth century—brought together artists, architects, and designers in an extraordinary conversation about the nature of art in the modern age.

Oskar Schlemmer

Oskar Schlemmer
Bauhaus Stairway, 1932
63 7/8 x 45″ (162.3 x 114.3 cm)
© The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Philip Johnson

Aiming to rethink the very form of contemporary life, the students and faculty of the Bauhaus made the school the venue for a dazzling array of experiments in the visual arts that had a transformative effect on the 1920s and 1930s. The effects are still felt in our contemporary visual world. The exhibition brings together over 400 works that reflect the extraordinarily broad range of the school’s production, including industrial design, furniture, architecture, graphics, photography, textiles, ceramics, theater and costume design, painting, and sculpture. It includes works by famous faculty members and well-known students including Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer, Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Lyonel Feininger, Walter Gropius, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy, Lilly Reich, Oskar Schlemmer, and Gunta Stölzl, as well as less well-known, but equally innovative, artists.

Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity opens 80 years after the founding of MoMA, and 90 years after the establishment of the Bauhaus. It brings together a rich group of approximately 150 rarely seen works of art from the three German Bauhaus collections—Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, and Klassik Stiftung Weimar—and over 80 works from MoMA’s own collection to form the foundation of the exhibition. In addition, major loans come from The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation; the Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de création industrielle; the Harvard Art Museum/Busch-Reisinger Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and numerous other public and private collections in the United States and Europe.

In popular discussion, the Bauhaus is often used as shorthand for a timeless style of international modernism. In contrast, Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernit looks at the Bauhaus as a radically new school deeply in tune with its historical moment from 1919 to 1933. These were the exact years of the tumultuous tenure of the Weimar Republic. The school was led by three different directors—Walter Gropius (1919–1928), Hannes Meyer (1928–1930), and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930–1933)—each one of the 20th century’s most important architectural minds, but each quite distinct in outlook and philosophy.

Herbert Bayer

Herbert Bayer
Design for a multimedia building. 1924
Gouache, cut-and-pasted photomechanical elements, charcoal, ink, and pencil on paper.
21 1/2 x 18 7/16″ (54.6 x 46.8 cm)
Harvard Art Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum. Gift of the artist
Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College
© 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius
Törten housing estate, Dessau. 1926–28
Row houses, isometric. 1926–28
Ink, spatter paint, and gouache, on paperboard. 34 15/16 x 42 1/4” (88.8 x 107.3 cm)
Harvard Art Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum. Gift of Walter Gropius
Photo: Katya Kallsen © President and Fellows of Harvard College
© 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

The school also occupied homes in three cities with distinct cultural and political climates: founded in 1919 in Weimar, the city of Goethe and Schiller, the school was later forced by local political opposition to depart for the industrialized city of Dessau in 1925, where it moved into the internationally acclaimed buildings Gropius designed for the school. In 1932, after the National Socialist-dominated local government closed the school in Dessau, a small core of students and faculty tried to hold on in an abandoned telephone factory in Berlin, but the institution was closed in less than a year.

The exhibition is organized in loose chronological order, with sections dedicated to the Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin years. This historical grounding demonstrates the degree to which the school functioned as a cultural think tank for trying times; its diverse faculty of prominent artists, designs, and architecture engaged in a 14-year conversation about the nature of art in the age of technology, industrial production, and global communication.

The exhibition installation focuses on the productive interrelations among diverse mediums, mixing works from the school’s different workshops to trace formal and conceptual ideas as they manifest in objects made of different materials and for different purposes. The focus on cross-pollination makes the show pertinent as a re-evaluation of the Bauhaus in its time, with resonance for our own. The color palette used in the exhibition comes from those that Gropius used in houses he designed for himself and the Bauhaus masters in Dessau in 1925. Along with the standard Bauhaus colors of white, black, and gray, unexpected colors such as gold, pink, and tangerine are used.

Erich Mrozek

Erich Mrozek
Design for a poster for Internationale Hygiene Austellung (International hygiene exhibition), Dresden. 1930
Gouache on paper. 16 1/2 x 23 3/8″ (41.9 x 59.4 cm)
Collection Merrill C. Berman. Photo: Jim Frank
© All rights reserved

Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer
Wassily Chair, 1927 28
28 1/4 x 30 3/4 x 28″ (71.8 x 78.1 x 71.1 cm)
©The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Herbert Bayer

A full range of historical work is presented in the exhibition, including such Bauhaus icons as Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel furniture and László Moholy-Nagy’s oblique angle photographs, as well as works that counter expectations, like Lothar Schreyer’s design for a coffin (1920) or Kurt Kranz’s project for an abstract cinema (c. 1930).

Among the many other objects in the exhibition are rare textiles by Anni Albers woven in the Bauhaus period (most seen today are rewoven later) and others by Gunta Stölzl; important paintings by Vasily Kandinsky (including On White II and Black Form, both from 1923), Paul Klee (such as Fire in the Evening and Highway and Byroads, both from 1929), and Oskar Schlemmer (Bauhaus Stairway, from 1932); graphic designs by Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt; a superb range of photographs, including a selection of Lucia Moholy’s close-up photographic portraits; stained glass windows by Josef Albers; a tea set by Marianne Brandt; and marionettes by Kurt Schmidt from the 1923 Bauhaus production of The Adventures of the Little Hunchback directed by Schlemmer.

Also included is Marcel Breuer’s ―African‖ Chair (1921), created in collaboration with the weaver Gunta Stölzl. Made of painted wood with a colorful woven textile, this chair embodies the spirit of the early Bauhaus in its romantic experimentalism. The chair was presumed lost for the past 80 years—the only documentation available was a black-and-white photograph—until 2004, when its owners offered the chair to the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin. This is the chair’s first appearance outside of Germany.

Paul Klee

Paul Klee
Fire in the Evening, 1929
13 3/8 x 13 1/4″ (33.8 x 33.3 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Joachim Jean Aberbach Fund
© 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Marcel Breuer

Marcel Breuer with textile by Gunta Stölzl
“African” or “Romantic” chair. 1921
Oak and cherrywood painted with water-soluble color, and brocade of gold, hemp, wool, cotton, silk, and other fabric threads, interwoven by various techniques with twined hemp ground.
70 5/8 x 25 9/16 x 26 7/16″ (179.4 x 65 x 67.1 cm)
© Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Acquired with funds provided by Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung. Photo: Hartwig Klappert

This exhibition was organized in cooperation with Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung, Berlin; Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau; Klassik Stiftung Weimar; and the German Federal Cultural Foundation. A version of the show was presented at Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin from July 22 to October 4, 2009. The New York and Berlin exhibitions share a core group of loans, but have distinct curatorial perspectives.

Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art
Images © Their respective owners. All rights reserved

Links

• The Museum of Modern Art

Stampfli & Turci – Art Dealers

Disclaimer & Copyright

there are countless films about love, loss, and the confusion that those two emotions breed when together. countless. but this film, The Hunger, does it best.

you can click HERE for a plot summary, or if you want to purchase the film, which i HIGHLY recommend, you can click HERE.

the movie is expertly directed by one of the famous Scott brothers (Tony). It is able to truly show loss and love with what seems like little effort. the cuts in the first 10 minutes of the film alone are worth the price of the DVD, but it only gets more powerful as it goes on. David Bowie plays John, a jilted vampire lover who finds himself aging at an incredibly fast rate. his portrayal of a betrayed lover is moving. as the make-up piles on to make him look older and older, his eyes become the only thing that stays the same. those two glowing Bowie eyes. it is a shame that this film wasnt more of a commercial success, David Bowie proves that he is an expert actor who could not have been better cast. the whole range of sadness to anger that he shows only with his eyes is actually astounding. and some how, he plays his part in such a way that the viewer, or at least i, could identify with him. we all know what it is like to be lied to and used, but here, Bowie shows us how horrible it can be.

past Bowie though, the film is still a classic piece of artistic horror. Catherine Deneuve plays the lonely and immortal Miriam like she was born to play her. she is a dark and mechanical woman who has learned to shut off her ability to love after centuries of loss. this portrayal tore me in half through out the film. part of me wanted her to be punished for what she had made John and countless other go through, but the other part of me felt for her. she was just as much a victim as the others. her own immortality was a curse, she could never die with someone, only live past their body’s decomposition.  Susan Sarandon plays her character, Sarah Roberts,  with great artistry. her transformation from victim to hunter is terrifying. the cold look she gives in the very final scene of the film makes for one of the most unsettling moments in the film. in later years she has complained about the very last scene of the film, as has most of the cast and crew seeing as it was tagged on my the studio, but i still hold that it gives the film a far more horrific ending.

when Bowie’s character, John, and the other lovers rotting bodies, locked away in the attic, forgotten but always above Miriam’s mind, rise and exact their revenge, i almost cheered alone in my dark room. Tony Scott and the others associated with the film have all explained the movie in different ways. they have all given their own explanation for the ending, my explanation however is different.

i believe that John and the others never actually came out of their coffins int he attic, but that Miriam, after watching Sarah attempt suicide, realized all the pain she had caused would never end and that she would be alone forever, no matter how many other souls she trapped. i think it was that realization that drove her mad. the bodies didnt actually come out of their boxes, but their existence haunted her and drove her to fall from the staircase. the fall destroyed her body, and now, without the will to survive, she began her rapid decay. she had lived for countless centuries, so her decay happened faster than the others who were only a few hundred years old. after her death, Sarah boxed up the body and moved to London to live out the rest of her few century shelf life before she would age and decay like the rest.

the movie is beyond beautiful, and i hate that it is a forgotten gem. there is some talk of a remake, but i couldnt be less excited for it. the trio of actors, even the little girl who plays Alice, and Tony Scott were the perfect combination. no other line up could capture the magic like they did. and no other song than ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ performed in the film live by Bauhaus could hold the same impact. instead of remaking the movie, the studio should invest in re-releasing this one. maybe this time someone will be paying attention. maybe this time people will see how honest and beautiful the film is.

A typical Bauhaus textile pattern.

See the Bauhaus exhibit at MoMA, and read my review of it.

A Bauhaus newspaper rack. Will anything ever be this awesome again?

years ago, as an art and architecture student at the university of wisconsin-milwaukee, i fell deeply and madly in love with the bauhaus. founded by walter gropius in 1919 in weimar, germany, the school known as the bauhaus pioneered early interdisciplinary design. students were exposed to the design of architecture and furniture, as well as print making, graphic design and photography.

one maxim of herbert bayer, one of the instructors of graphic design, was that there was no need to use upper and lower case letters in typography. “we do not speak in a capital a and a small a,” he said. in addition, he advocated the use of sans serif type for its simplicity and readability.

long live the bauhaus, sans serif fonts and the use of lowercase type. check out the wall street journal’s coverage of the bauhaus exhibit at moma in nyc.  (jm)

A László Moholy-Nagy retrospective is currently taking place at Schirn Kunsthalle.

Images of the show here.

Also, the MoMA has a nice online collection of Moholy-Nagy’s work.

Schon seit früher Kindheit beschäftigt mich die moderne Architektur des 20. Jahrhunderts. Dieses Interesse hat sich allerdings erst mit meiner Matura verfestigt – eines meiner Maturathemen war nämlich “Architektur in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts”. Heute gilt mein besonderes Interesse dem Bauhaus-Stil (Funktionalismus, Moderne, Neue Sachlichkeit, Internationaler Stil): spannende Bilder zum Thema und noch ein paar mehr habe ich hier zusammengetragen.

Gent, Belgien
Mai 2008

Leuven, Belgien
Mai 2008

Malmö, Schweden
November 2007

Aalborg, Dänemark
November 2007

Tel Aviv, Israel
September 2008

Riga, Lettland
Juni 2008

Sofia, Bulgarien
Mai 2008

Warschau, Polen
März 2009

Reykjavik, Island
Dezember 2008

Bratislava, Slowakei
August 2008

Bukarest, Rumänien
Oktober 2009