Perhaps belatedly, and despite the lack of works by ceramiscist Margarete Heymann (see our blog Designalog for other fascinating design posts!), we’d like to recommend an article by Nicolai Ouroussof entitled “Finding a Bit of Animal House in the Bauhaus” (catchy title?) in the Art & Design section ot The New York Times (online) which reviews the show “Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity” now open at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and speaks a bit about the non-tubular side of the Bauhaus.  The article is well-written and informative and together with the MoMA show help us see around the monolithic Gropius presence to some of the “arty-er” goings-on.

nothingisinvisible@live.fr

Manifesto Bauhaus:

“O fim último de toda a actividade plástica é a construção. Adorná-la era, outrora, a tarefa mais nobre das artes plásticas, componentes inseparáveis da magna arquitetura. Hoje elas se encontram numa situação de auto-suficiência singular, da qual só se libertarão através da consciente atuação conjunta e coordenada de todos os profissionais. Arquitectos, pintores e escultores devem novamente chegar a conhecer e compreender a estrutura multiforme da construção em seu todo e em suas partes; só então suas obras estarão outra vez plenas de espírito arquitetônico que se perdeu na arte de salão.
As antigas escolas de arte foram incapazes de criar essa unidade, e como poderiam, visto ser a arte coisa que não se ensina? Elas devem voltar a ser oficinas. Esse mundo de desenhistas e artistas deve, por fim, tornar a orientar-se para a construção. Quando o jovem que sente amor pela atividade plástica começar como antigamente, pela aprendizagem de um ofício, o “artista” improdutivo não ficará condenado futuramente ao incompleto exercício da arte, uma vez que sua habilidade fica conservada para a atividade artesanal, onde pode prestar excelentes serviços.
Arquitetos, escultores, pintores, todos devemos retornar ao artesanato, pois não existe “arte por profissão”. Não há nenhuma diferença essencial entre artista e artesão, o artista é uma elevação do artesão, a graça divina, em raros momentos de luz que estão além de sua vontade, faz florescer inconscientemente obras de arte, entretanto, a base do “saber fazer” é indispensável para todo artista. Aí se encontra a fonte de criação artística.
Formemos, portanto, uma nova corporação de artesãos, sem a arrogância exclusivista que criava um muro de orgulho entre artesãos e artistas. Desejemos, inventemos, criemos juntos a nova construção do futuro, que enfeixará tudo numa única forma: arquitetura, escultura e pintura que, feita por milhões de mãos de artesãos, se alçará um dia aos céus, como símbolo cristalino de uma nova fé vindoura.”

Walter Gropius

Weimar, Abril de 1919.

The Gropius House

Last week I had an opportunity to tour the house Walter Gropius designed for himself in Lincoln, Massachusetts.  Fleeting from Nazi Germany, Gropius immigrated along with much of his personal belongings to Boston, a circumstance that eventually led him to become Professor at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University and established the architectural firm The Architects Collaborative (TAC), which forever changed the story of Modern architecture in Boston.

Gropius became the founder and first director of the Bauhaus, one of the world’s most important and influential design schools established in 1919 in Weimar, Germany. The school takes its name from Bau meaning “to build” or “building” and haus meaning “house.” Having attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) for a short period of time, I realized how much of an influence the Bauhaus had on other design schools in the world.

The curriculum at RISD and the Bauhaus share many similarities, including the “six month trial period” whereas those who were not “destined” to become true artists were weeded out of their respective program. Although I made it past the six month weeding out period and continued on to the winter session to take classes in film studies, I left RISD for personal reasons, but enough about me, and let’s learn more about the Bauhaus and the Gropius House in Lincoln.

Teachers at the Bauhaus consisted of masters like Wassily Kandinsky, Joseph Albers, Lyonel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee, Marianne Brandt and Marcel Breuer among others. Its principles were drawn from the Arts and Crafts Movement, but whereas William Morris and his circle rejected the machine, the Bauhaus embraced it in order to provide everyone in society with access to art and good, affordable design. There is no such thing as a “Bauhaus style,” each and every one of the masters at the school encouraged the experimentation in all the arts.

The influence of the Bauhaus still resonates with us today. The furniture we see for sale in stores like Target, Walmart, Ikea and others have all been influenced by the school. The Gropiuses owned an important collection of furniture designed by Marcel Breuer, Saarinen, Aalto, Marianne Brandt and others. Some of the artwork was created by artists like Spanish Surrealist Joan Miro, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy (whom I’ve fallen in love with), Henry Moore and Ati Gropius Johansen; Walter’s daughter.

 This semester in my seminar on Boston Architecture, I have been learning that Massachusetts was a hot bed for Modernism. This was somewhat surprising to me because when I think of Modernism I think of New York City, California or the Midwest.  The Gropius House speaks to the eloquent vocabulary of modernism created in the New England region.  Lincoln is home to a few outstanding examples of Modernist houses as are the surrounding towns of Lexington, Arlington, Belmont and Cambridge. Sadly, these modernist treasures are threatened by demolition on a daily basis and as recent as last year, we lost an excellent modern house by Eleanor Raymond, one of Boston’s leading modern architects.

The house is owned by Historic New England  and is open to the public for tours.

Walter Gropius estudou arquitectura na Technische Hochschule de Munique de 1903 a 1905, e depois na Technische Hochschule de Berlim, de 1905 a 1907. O seu primeiro projecto de edifício, em 1906, era para habitações de baixo custo, destinadas a trabalhadores agrícolas. De 1908 a 1910, Gropius trabalhou no atelier de Peter Behrens, em Berlim, projectando escritórios e mobiliário para o armazém Lehmann em Colónia. Em 1910 Gropius estabeleceu uma sociedade de arquitectura com Adolf Meyer (1881-1929) em Neubabelsberg e tornou-se membro da Deutscher Werkbund (estabelecida em 1907). Como membro activo da Deutscher Werkbund, opôs-se inicialmente ás exortações de Hermann Muthesius (1861-1927) a favor da estandarização e tomou o partido de Henry Van de Velde, que advogava individualismo e criatividade pessoal no design. A Fagus Factory (1911) de Gropius incorporava inovadoramente uma parede-cortina que estava suspensa dos elementos verticais do edifício e que foi apresentada no Jahrbucher da Werkbund, que Gropius editou de 1912 a 1914. Também desenhou a fábrica-modelo para a “Deutsche-Werkbund-Ausstelung” que teve lugar em Colónia em 1914, que com a sua construção de aço e vidro foi uma poderosa expressão do Movimento Moderno. Após a devastação da I Guerra Mundial, Gropius aceitou a necessidade da estandarização no design e tornou-se director da Hochschule Fur Angewandte Kunst, que uniu á Kunstakademie em Weimar em 1919, para formar a Staatliches Bauhaus. Enquanto dirigiu a escola, de 1919 a 1928, Gropius insistiu na unidade das artes e instigou um sistema de oficinas chefiadas por “mestres”. Durante este período, aceitou numerosas encomendas privadas de arquitectura, incluíndo a Sommerfeld House, desenhando várias peças de mobiliário pintadas de branco e desenvolveu uma casa pré-fabricada para a exposição “Weissenhof-Siedlung” de Estugarda em 1927. Quando a Bauhaus se mudou para Dessau, a escola adoptou por necessidade um novo racionalismo, e em 1925 Gropius projectou instalaçoes com esse objectivo, que encarnavam esta deslocação em direcção á modernidade industrial. Em 1934 Gropius emigrou para a Grã-Bretanha, onde trabalhou em sociedade com o arquitecto E. Maxwell Fry (1899-1987) até 1937. Enquanto teve em Londres, Gropius trabalhou para a empresa de Jack Pritchard, a Isokon, onde foi nomeado chefe de design em 1936. Um ano depois emigrou para os Estados Unidos e tornou-se professor de arquitectura na Harvard University.

Alice Rawsthorn has written an interesting and rather provocative article entitled “A Distant Bauhaus Star” in the Arts & Design section of The New York Times (online) which looks at the one-time Bauhaus ceramicist Margarete Heymann, her life and work, and the gender politics of Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus.  All this is worth keeping in mind as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (NYC) opens an important exhibition entitled “Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity” in which one will not find any of Heymann’s creations…

designalog@live.fr

Last Summer MeinMann and I visited in Berlin the wunderbar bauhaus exhibition in Berlin. We were a bit disappointed by the fact it was located at the Martin Gropius Bau. The furniture and interior design section was a bit cramped in the tiny exhibition rooms. But this was the first time we could see all in one go the entire history and the whole spectrum of the bauhaus movement, starting with the skyscraper inspired by the gothic cathedral…

Now the exhibition migrates to the neo-modernist cathedral, the MOMA in NYC…

1. Save Gropius Buildings at Michael Reese

Blair Kamin in today’s Tribune makes the case for saving the Gropius buildings at the former Michael Reese Hospital. He also takes to task the city’s spokesperson for an indefensible “we are proceeding” position. This is no longer an overnight development for the Olympics and it is no longer a job for the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing sector of the development community. It is not that hard to reuse some or all of these buildings, and now that we needn’t follow the dictates of the Olympic village, we can use variety in height and scale (as Gropius did) to make the south lakefront more urbanistically interesting than it would have been under the previous plan.

2. 839 Park Avenue, River Forest. I blogged about this one recently. Hometown architect. Significant student of Frank Lloyd Wright. A design that sits in the landscape in a way that CANNOT be achieved in less than a generation. What new building will look half as good as this?

This has been covered in the local press, but NO ONE mentions the Illinois Property Tax Freeze as an option, which it clearly is – as noted by Landmarks Illinois and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.

My conclusion? The new owners are head over heels in love with property taxes!

They have chosen to put this million-dollar home in a landfill and GIVE us twice as much in property taxes than they would have if they simply built a rear addition to double the size of the house and improve its floorplan. I guess they are saving everyone else in River Forest a lot of money.

Maybe not – depending on how the new building looks, it could depress local values. Could that be the strategy? Build an ugly house and thereby reduce values and thus property taxes? Hmm. We will have to see.

3. Aqua – Sitting (or standing) in the new modern wing at AIC you are surrounded by Piano and confronted by Gehry. But you are also astounded by the female winner of this “contest” – Jeanne Gang and her Aqua, quite easily the most interesting, urbane and aesthetically pleasing highrise in twenty years. Everyone is noticing its insistent elegance between its more brusque and brash neighbors.

4. The Society of Architectural Historians conference is here in Chicago in April. I am Local Chair and you should all come – great tours and the latest and greatest thoughts from those who think about buildings across all places and all times.

FRIDAY UPDATE:

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA – Only the second Chicagoan to win this award – the first being Jane Addams in 1931. The New York Times headline calls it a political liability at home. Huh? John Bolton, the cantankerous anti-furriner that was made ambassador to the UN (that’s IRONY with ALL of the letters capitalized) said: “It’s high-minded Europeans talking down to hayseed Americans, saying this is the way you ought to be.” That’s probably true, but Mr. Bolton shouldn’t worry. If history is a guide, low-mindedness will certainly make a comeback before too long. Or did they blow it all on town hall drive-by shoutings?

There’s an uphill battle to preserve Modernist buildings. First of all, most of the examples in the U.S. were built after World War II so non-preservationists often don’t see the point of saving them. And many people don’t like Modernist architecture because can seem cold with with the industrial materials and straight lines. The sustainability argument can only get you so far if people don’t like the architecture and adapting for a new use isn’t cost feasible. Invoking the importance of saving works by famous architects is a challenge, even if the architect’s name is Frank Lloyd Wright. But if preservationists concentrate on the human connections to Modernist buildings, they’re destined to be more successful. Oh, and having a viable preservation plan helps, too.

The recently shuttered Michael Reese Hospital campus in Chicago consists of 29 structures. Walter Gropius, the father of Modernist architecture, was the consulting architect and planner for eight of those buildings in the 1940s and 50s. The hospital’s 37 acres were to be the site of the Olympic Village had Chicago won the 2016 Games with all but one of the structures, the Prairie Style main hospital built in 1905, destined to meet the wrecking ball. The city bought the property for $80 million in preparation. Even though Chicago didn’t get the Olympics, the city plans to clear the land anyway and have it redeveloped as a residential area. A contractor was hired to demolish the buildings in the summer, and some work has already started.

The Gropius in Chicago Coalition is fighting to save the buildings overseen by Gropius. The eight structures are the only in Illinois to have ties to Gropius because he was based in Boston after leaving Germany during the rise of Hitler. With Michael Reese Hospital’s proximity to the Illinois Institute of Technology and its Mies van der Rohe designed campus, GCC wants a “Bauhaus Historic District” (Gropius and van der Rohe were the first two heads of the influential Bauhaus architecture school in Germany).

I applaud the GCC for calling attention to Gropius’ little known work in Chicago, but I think they need to alter their approach. Invoking Gropius is sure to get the attention of the design community, but outside of that tiny segment of the population how many people are aware of Walter Gropius? Plus, it’s easy to dismiss ties to him because he merely consulted on the project.

What the GCC needs to do is get the community members involved who couldn’t care less about Gropius. People should be reminded why the hospital was so important to the people it served, whether they worked or visited there. Maybe then they’ll be interested in keeping it around. GCC does a good job of quickly summing up the non-Gropius importance of Michael Reese Hospital in its flier, but the ideas aren’t fleshed out on their site.

If there’s enough support for preservation, GCC first needs to figure out how it’s going to be paid for. Next, a charrette or design competition should be held to come up with a plan for adaptive reuse of the buildings. I’m guessing there’s a reason it’s no longer seeing use as hospital. What about the non-Gropius buildings? Are they not worthy of preservation just because Gropius didn’t have a hand in them? The GCC needs to at least consider their preservation. They wouldn’t be responsible preservationists if they didn’t. And maybe if GCC lowers their expectations and just concentrate on saving the most architecturally important structures or the most adaptable for new use, they will find success. Something is better than nothing.

Here are Michael Reese Hospital buildings with all photos courtesy of savemrh.com.

The main building from 1905 is the only structure being considered for preservation.

The Laundry Building, 1949.

The Singer Pavilion, 1950.

The Power Plant, 1953.

The Private Pavilion, 1955.

The Serum Center, 1956.

The Convalescent Home, 1957.

The Cummings Pavilion, 1958.

The Linear Accelerator, 1967.

Untitled, Mixed Media.

Pre Sense Form
(Jeffrey Isom)
The Art of Pre Sense Form

6-9 p.m.

Wonder Fair Art Gallery & How!
803 Massachusetts
Lawrence, KS
406.360.5875

Hours after opening reception: Noon-9 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Noon-6 p.m. Sunday
Runs through: Aug. 2

Artist’s site: http://www.presenseform.com
Gallery site: http://www.wonderfair.com

Time for another road trip to Lawrence, and not for a college football game. What’s important here isn’t blocking form, running form or tackling form … it’s Pre Sense Form.

That’s the nom d’arte of Jeffrey Isom, who regional music fans will also know as the founder of Lawrence’s Range Life Records. His  show, The Art of Pre Sense Form, opens tonight at Wonder Fair Art Gallery & How!

Or is it their show? The distinction between personalities shows up in Isom’s statement, where he (or Pre Sense Form) refers to himself (or Isom) in the third person:

Between World War I and World War II the demand for change and the search for a new aesthetic created groups of like minded creative people — Modernists. This period in time marked a significant shift in how art, design, and architecture would impact and influence the world.

The original art Isom has created for this show reflects the direct influences of some of the foundations of the Modernist Movement — Constructivism [1] and Concrete Art [2] . However, the media he has chosen to use introduces a more contemporary presence to the work, thus creating a bridge from the beginning of the Modernist Movement to that of the present. Such media includes; fluorescent, flat, and metallic spray paint, cosmetic make-up, along with more traditional medias such as acrylic paint, watercolor, markers, graphite and colored pencils.

That’s direct … to the point … and utterly devoid of emotion. In other words, it’s perfect for Isom/Pre Sense Form’s work.

Note: “Direct” does not equate to “simple’, or to “boring.” Isom’s mixed media works — the untitled mixed media piece above, for example — might be cool, angular products of his left brain, but there are enough strong visuals and splashes of color to keep even the most right-brained viewer engaged.

To borrow a football image — because after all, this is a fall Saturday in a college town — Isom can bring it hard up the middle but knows when to mix things up and cut outside. And there’s not a fumble or missed snap in the bunch.

Das Bauhaus wird 90 und die kommerzielle Berliner Kulturbranche feiert das mit einer großen Ausstellung im Gropius-Bau. Sie ist so aufwendig inszeniert, dass man sich fragt, wie man das wohl zum hundersten Geburtstag toppen wird. Antwort: gar nicht.

Die Schau arbeitet daraufhin, dass das Bauhaus heute vor allem eine Marke und damit ein Distinktionsmerkmal ist, wie das die Soziologen so schön sagen. Das Bauhaus ist  massenkompatibel, und genau das macht es für das Kapital interessant. Die einigermaßen gut verdienende und sich orientierende Mittelschicht nutzt das Bauhaus als Ego-Verstärker. Sich mit dem Bauhaus ein bisschen auszukennen, ist Allgemeinbildung, die auch Günter Jauch abfragen könnte. 90.000 Besucher in knapp sechs Wochen belegen das eindrucksvoll. Distinktionstechnisch grenzt man sich so von Leuten ab, die Geld haben, aber keinen Geschmack, unter anderem von Neureichen. Das dürfte für das, was gerne Bildungsbürgertum wäre, ein ganz wichtiger Aspekt sein. Anders herum: Dem Neureichen wird hier eine Möglichkeit gegeben, das bildungsbürgerliche Lager zu betreten, wenigstens ein bisschen.

Das Bauhaus wird, im Gropius-Bau wie auch in der Praxis (siehe Foto) reduziert auf Ästhetik. Schönes Design, elegant, schlank, zeitlos. Der politische Aspekt fällt weitgehend weg, der sozialistische Ansatz unter dem Bauhaus-Chef Hannes Meyer kommt praktisch nicht mehr vor. Schlimmer noch: Für die Anfeindungen, denen das Bauhaus in Dessau ausgesetzt war, werden die Bauhäusler selbst verantwortlich gemacht. Auf den Schrifttafeln liest sich das so:

“Doch in der von Krisen geprägten Zeit gelang es Meyer nicht, die Offenheit und Radikalität des Bauhauses in der Thematisierung politischer und gesellschaftlicher Probleme zu zügeln, was ihm innerhalb und außerhalb des Bauhauses Kritik einbrachte. Die Stadt Dessau fand den Ausweg in der Kündigung des Direktors.”

Man staunt. Die Aufgabe des Bauhauschefs ist also, seine Dozenten und Studenten zu “zügeln”. Tut er das nicht, wird er nicht nur kritisiert, sondern beruflich liquidiert. Die Ausstellungsmacher haben im Jahr 2009 offenbar vollstes Verständnis dafür, dass Meyer 1930, unter anderem auf Druck der NSDAP, “von hinten abgekillt” wurde, wie er das unmittelbar nach seinem Rauswurf  ausdrückte. Und das war nur das Vorspiel: 1932 musste das Bauhaus in Dessau komplett schließen, weil die Nazis in dieser netten Stadt schon die Ratsmehrheit hatten.

Dazu passt eine andere Lesart des Bauhauses (wobei fairerweise gesagt werden muss, dass die Gropius-Ausstellung diese Haltung nicht einnimmt): Die Bauhäusler selbst waren Nazis. In der Tat haben sich Gropius und van der Rohe nach 1933 an Wettbwerben in Deutschland beteiligt. Die Bauhäusler waren also auch nicht besser als andere, will man damit sagen. Diese Logik funktioniert, weil es einen Bedarf dafür gibt: Die Rechten werden damit moralisch entlastet, den Linken wird erschwert, dieses Erbe anzunehmen. Natürlich ist der Nazi-Vorwurf Blödsinn. Der dicke und träge Mies hat versucht, nach 33 in Deutschland weiterzuarbeiten, was Zugeständnisse an die Nazis bedeutete, doch die Nazis wollten nicht, verständlicherweise. Ein paar Jahre später ist er in die USA ausgewandert. Mies hätte kooperiert, sicher, bis zu welchem Grad, weiß man nicht. Ist ihm daraus ein Vorwurf zu machen? Meines Wissens war kein Bauhäusler naziaffin, geschweige denn, dass einer im 3. Reich Karriere gemacht hätte – im Unterschied zu vielen konservativen Architekten, die sich Hitler andienten (und nach 1945 munter weitermachten).

Viel interessanter ist Mies´ Werk, sein Bemühen, Form und Inhalt zusammenzubringen. Alleine diese Ansatz macht klar, dass er keine ernsthafte Nazi-Architektur zustande gebracht hätte. Erklärt man Kunst und somit auch Architektur aus ihrem Sosein (wow!) in der realen Welt, wird der Nazivorwurf absurd.

Beispielsweise das Revolutionsdenkmal von 1926 in Berlin (Bild): Für damalige Verhältnisse war nicht nur das Thema, sondern auch die Formgebung revolutionär. Die auftraggebenden Sozialisten wollten übrigens ein neoklassizistisches Denkmal mit dorischen Säulen. (Worüber man schon wieder einen ganzen Aufsatz schreiben könnte: Spießer-Sozis, die später in der DDR ihr Paradies fanden.) Mies lehnte die Vorstellungen der Sozialisten als “für einen Bankier” geeignet ab und schlug eine modellierte Mauer vor, weil Revolutionäre gerne vor Mauern erschossen werden. Die Nazis haben das Denkmal 1935 abgerissen.

Zurück zur Ausstellung in Berlin. Das Bauhaus als lukratives Investitionsobjekt. Eckehard Fuhr, Feuilletonchef der Welt, hat das kürzlich in einer Diskussion ganz gut beschrieben. Die Sonderbeilage der Welt zum Thema “Bauhaus” habe den enormen Umfang von 30 Seiten, weil sich die Anzeigekunden geradezu gedrängt hätten, in diesem Umfeld zu inserieren. Texte habe man nicht so viele. Anders ausgedrückt: Die Beilage gibt es nur, weil die Anzeigekunden das so wollen. Selbst die konservative Welt hat keine Berührungsängste mehr mit dem Bauhaus. Dem entkernten, versteht sich.

Dem Bauhaus als mal mehr, mal weniger linker Angelegenheit wird das Gesellschaftliche, das Praxisnahe, die Ideologie entfernt, um als ästhetischer Schein um so strahlender weiterzuleben. Der Mainstream ignoriert die notwendige Verbindung zwischen Theorie und Praxis, zwischen Form und Inhalt. So lebt das Bauhaus weiter.

Der 90. war ein willkommener Anlass, die immer noch einflussreiche Kunstschule endgültig als Marke zu etablieren, die weiterhin für Qualität steht, für gutes Design, für Haptik, für Praxisnähe und für neue Perspektiven. Die Leiter hinauf zur Metaebene wurde zusammengeklappt. Die politische Sicherung ist eine doppelte: Der linkspolitische Bauhausaspekt wurde gekappt, und falls das nicht reicht, kommt man mit der Nazi-Keule, die natürlich nur vorsichtig geschwungen wird, denn die edle, hochwertige Atmosphäre inmitten des schönen Designs darf nicht über Gebühr gestört werden.

Läuft alles im Sinne der Verantwortlichen, ist eine Feier zum 100. Geburtstag nicht mehr nötig. Die Marke wird etabliert sein. Irgendwann wird sie sich abnutzen. Spätestens dann wird man sich auf die Suche nach dem nächsten Opfer machen.

(Fotos: genova und Bundesarchiv Bild)

Where the fun never stops! Unfortunately, the city explorations and museum visits will be replaced by research and studying this weekend. It’s coming down to the last week, which means finals and a paper on Tuesday and Wednesday. I can’t believe how quickly the last half of this trip went by, and, to be honest, a big part of me really doesn’t want to leave.

I still have so many places to visit, so many photos and stories to share. I haven’t posted on this blog quite as often as I would have liked, but my time has been limited here. This week we went on class trips to the Checkpoint Charlie museum as well as walking tours of Berlin architecture. The day we visited Checkpoint Charlie was scorching hot, an omen for the storm to come that night, and although the museum had a lot to offer, I didn’t have the energy to pay much interest. The tour was interesting–we learned about various escape attempts out of East Germany: homemade hot air balloons and airplanes, hiding in tiny little cars and suitcases, literally jumping over the barbed wire when the wall was still going up…

Little known fact: on the East side, the Berlin Wall as commonly known was only one part of a massive border control system that involved a trench, a “death strip,” automatic shooting machines, patrol towers–the works. Escaping East Germany was not as simple as just hopping over a wall.

We had two tours of Berlin architecture. The first was of Karl-Marx-Allee, formerly known as Stalinallee. It’s a large boulevard in the Friedrichshain area of Berlin, constructed under the GDR (East Germany) in 1951, I believe. It’s meant to be like the wide, bustling boulevards in Paris and London and modelled after the grand, ornate architecture favored by Stalin in Moscow. After German reunification, a group of architects got together to restore Karl-Marx-Allee to its former grandeur, and there’s an exhibit dedicated to its history at Cafe Sybille on that street.

The second tour was of modern architecture on the West side of Berlin in an area known as Hansaviertel (Hansa Quarter). West Germany got a bunch of architects together–one of whom was Walter Gropius, the founder of Bauhaus–to construct modern apartment buildings based on the emerging “form follows function” style of architecture pioneered by the Bauhaus school. They emphasized open spaces and connection to an outer, greener environment, as opposed to the Mietskaserne buildings which were closed-in apartment buildings with an inner courtyard, first created in the pre-Weimar era. They also wanted to separate residential space from traffic and shopping areas–sort of like an urban suburb. These buildings in Hansaviertel were constructed in the mid-1950s for an architectural exposition in 1957. It was a direct response to East Germany’s Stalinallee and set the standard for building. This school of thought has since gone out of style, and people are rushing to occupy the Mietskaserne-type apartment buildings again.

Anyway, I’m no expert on architecture, but I prefer being able to walk across the street to Kaiser’s (the grocery store) or down the block for a quick bite. That is, I’d rather have food, transport, entertainment, and residence all in one place. I think I’ve had enough of isolated living spaces after dorm life in La Jolla.

Walter Gropius

Grahm Balkany’s mood lurches from admiration to anguish as he strolls among a group of small, flat-roofed hospital buildings on Chicago’s South Side.

“Look how progressive that is,” he exclaims, pointing to where slatted awnings filter sunlight that falls on patients’ rooms. A moment later, he gazes mournfully on scattered trash, uncut grass, and other signs of neglect. “I can’t tell you how beautiful this was at one point,” he says.

Recently, while studying engineering and architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Mr. Balkany discovered that one of the great minds of modern architecture, Walter Gropius, lay behind many of these buildings, built in the 1950s and early ’60s in a great gust of urban renewal on the South Side. But what began as a triumph for scholarship and Chicago’s architectural history has quickly soured. The city intends to tear down at least 28 buildings on the Michael Reese Hospital campus, including those linked to Gropius, to make room for the 2016 Olympics. Architectural preservationists have so far protested in vain.

“There’s no question that Walter Gropius was instrumental in the overall master planning of the campus and in designing many of the buildings,” says Jonathan Fine, executive director of Preservation Chicago, a group that tries to bring attention to important buildings that are imperiled. “On that basis alone, at least the buildings he designed should be preserved.”

More

Richard Mertens
Christian Science Monitor

Le Corbusier’s seaside cabin at Roquebrune-Cap Martin (between Monaco and Menton) is a rather flimsy structure.    But this unassuming little wooden building has been familiar to fans of modern architecture since the ’50s when international photographer,  Lucien Hervé, immortalised ‘le Cabanon’ and its famous proprietor. Hervé’s architectural photographs  introduced Le Corbusier’s work to a wide audience extending from Europe to North and South America and India.

As a result the modest seaside cabin perched on its clifftop site is regularly visited by individuals and experts from all over the world. Film crews also take an interest, with Hungarian TV being the latest visitor.  Architectural historians often regard the stark contrast between light and shade created by Le Corbusier’s work as the purest expression of the Bauhaus architectural style. Walter Gropius founded the’ Bauhaus School in 1919 in Weimar, Germany and the institution became famous for its revolutionary styles – and students – of architecture, design, photography, costume and even dance.

Eileen Gray

Yet the white house in front of the cabin is an equally significant building.  Behind its rather odd name – the formula E-1027, disturbingly redolent of food additives or incarceration – lurks an extraordinary,  even historic construction. It is a substantial seaside villa  in the modern style, built to her own design and for her own use by Anglo-Irish architect and furniture designer, Eileen Gray, a pioneer of the Modern Movement.  Miss Gray’s career had its heyday in the first two decades of the last century, and she died a recluse in Paris in 1976.

Now retired architect Mary McKeown, a new arrival in Nice,  has raised funds in Paris for the villa to be restored and maintained as a heritage attraction.  Mary’s intention is to serve as curator to ensure that the work of this neglected star of the design scene is not only preserved but also gets some of the recognition that is long overdue.

It promises to be a fascinating project, and I wish Mary the very best of  luck in restoring this neglected and highly-talented woman to her rightful place -  which is, who knows, right next to Le Corbusier!

Sensible plans for the proposed site emerge

Blair Kamin – Cityscapes

For months now, the city officials trying to bring the 2016 Summer Olympic Games to Chicago and the preservationists trying to save buildings co-designed by architect Walter Gropius on the proposed Olympic Village site have been on a collision course. And there was little doubt about who would get their way and who would not.

A visit last week to the city-owned, 37-acre site, formerlyMichael Reese Hospital, did little to dispel the impression that everything on the campus is doomed except for the main Reese building, a 102-year-old Prairie Style structure that city officials have promised to spare.

Chain-link fencing surrounded the Reese complex, from 26th to 31st Streets near South Lake Shore Drive. The once-vibrant hospital campus resembled a ghost town, with security guards racing about in small white cars with whirling yellow lights on their roofs.

But this bleak picture, which emerged after the city awarded demolition contracts for the old Reese hospital site, belied some hopeful signs. Although the city’s landmarks commission voted against placing the Reese campus on the National Register of Historic Places on Aug. 6, for example, some commission members and staff commented that a proposal that suggested saving fewer buildings might win their support.

Last week, as if on cue, a respected advocacy group, Landmarks Illinois, unveiled a plan calling for seven of the campus’ 29 buildings to be reused. In addition, Chicago architects DeStefano Partners have proposed their own alternative village plan to the city’s Olympic organizers. The plan, it turns out, would preserve only one of the Gropius buildings, but the architects stress it can be modified.

What does all this add up to? A tiny opening for good planning, which would create lively streets, save selected buildings and offer a diversity of building types, uses and people. The stakes are enormous. Whether Chicago gets the Olympics or not, the redevelopment of the Reese campus will be one of Chicago’s signature undertakings of the early 21st Century. Blowing it with business-as-usual design should not be an option.

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By MICAH MAIDENBERG

Graham Balkany, with the Gropius in Chicago coalition

What the Olympic Village proposal doesn’t include has sparked one of the biggest historic preservation battles in recent memory. At issue is the future of at least eight modernist buildings, slated for demolition, that dot the Michael Reese Hospital campus, site of the village.

The structures were designed by Walter Gropius. A godfather of mid-20th century modernism, Gropius founded the Bauhaus school of architecture before fleeing the Nazis for London. He later moved to the U.S., making his mark in the postwar era.

The Reese buildings were Gropius’s sole Illinois project, a fact that increases their value to the city’s built environment, said Grahm Balkany, a researcher with Gropius in Chicago, the organization formed to campaign for their saving them.

“If you can’t save Gropius buildings, you can’t save anything,” he said. “We talk about being world-class. No other city has this. You can’t replace it.”

During a recent tour of the exterior of Reese, Balkany pointed out features on each building — two-toned colored brick on the hospital power plant, a canopied entryway and sloping brick wall fronting the Serum Medial Pavilion, for example — that embodied Gropius’s style. Considered with the older Reese buildings, the Gropius structures formed a harmonious whole with parks and mature trees on the hospital grounds, Balkany said.

Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th), whose ward includes the Reese campus, confirmed she requested and received confirmation from the city and Chicago 2016 that the old main Reese Hospital building — a 1905 structure at 2838 S. Ellis that’s rated as potentially significant in the city’s historic resources survey — would be saved as part of an Olympic Village.

Preckwinkle said it wasn’t clear if a consensus existed that the eight buildings in question were designed by Gropius himself or if they just came out of his studio, The Architects Collaborative. She doesn’t plan to request they be saved.

“I don’t share their view. Since some of them are my friends, it’s an awkward position,” she said. “These preservation issues are always difficult and I appreciated the efforts by the preservationists. This is one where we don’t agree.”

Chicago 2016, the group organizing the local Olympic bid, assumes Reese is mostly cleared for the athletes’ village, according to the bid book submitted to the International Olympic Committee. Envisioned as an environmentally oriented community for the 16,000 participants expected to compete in a Games here, 21 new, 12-story buildings would be built on the site.

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On August 13, Landmarks Illinois released an alternative site plan for the threatened Michael Reese Hospital complex—the proposed Olympic Village site in Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid. The plan retains what Landmarks Illinois has identified as six of the campus’ most viable historic buildings for re-use, reintegrates the area’s street grid, saves significant landscaped areas, and retains the required amount of Olympic Village housing to meet the requirements of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“We believe this plan offers a more sustainable approach, not only for the Olympic Village but for a more viable neighborhood after the Olympics,” said Jim Peters, president and CEO of Landmarks Illinois. “By reusing the most adaptable historic buildings—just six of the 29 structures now scheduled for demolition—we think this will result in a more balanced approach for community development.”

“We believe this plan offers a more sustainable approach, not only for the Olympic Village but for a more viable neighborhood after the Olympics,” said Jim Peters, president and CEO of Landmarks Illinois. “By reusing the most adaptable historic buildings—just six of the 29 structures now scheduled for demolition—we think this will result in a more balanced approach for community development.”

“Our organization is supportive of the city’s efforts to bring this important event to Chicago. This is why our plan incorporates all the necessary and critical elements identified by the IOC for the Olympic Village,” Peters noted. “Even though a decision on the Olympics will not be made until October 2nd, we felt it was critically important to put this plan on the table now, if only to stimulate alternative ideas before the project gets underway.”

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Read More About Their Plan

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]]> http://cubaout.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/90-anos-la-bauhaus/ Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:04:50 +0000 cubaout http://cubaout.wordpress.com/2009/08/09/90-anos-la-bauhaus/ http://chicago2016supporters.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/michael-reese-landmark-supporters-hit-road-block/ Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:35:38 +0000 chicago2016supporters http://chicago2016supporters.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/michael-reese-landmark-supporters-hit-road-block/

By Michael Konopasek for ABC7Chicago.com

August 6, 2009 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — A preservation group’s effort to save the Michael Reese Hospital hit a road block Thursday.

The Commission on Chicago Landmarks denied The Gropius in Chicago Coalition’s current proposal to preserve the Near South Side campus.

The group plans to resubmit a proposal but has less than a month to try to sway the commission. They want to prevent the destruction of the former hospital, which is the proposed site of the Chicago 2016 Olympic Village.

To gain landmark status for the site, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks would need to submit a nomination for the Michael Reese Hospital to the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council by September 11, 2009. That nomination would put the former hospital and most of its campus on track to becoming a National Historic Landmark.

Chicago 2016 plans to turn the site into part of the proposed Olympic Village should the city win the 2016 Olympic Games.

The Gropius in Chicago Coalition says it believes the hospital buildings are significant because they were created by German born architect Walter Gropius. The Reese campus holds the only collection of Gropius architecture in the state of Illinois.

Grahm Balkany of the Gropius in Chicago Coalition authored the nomination. “Michael Reese Hospital contains a vast collection of [Walter] Gropius styles,” said Balkany.

“Regardless if we get the Olympics or not, these Gropius buildings can be restored and used for other purposes,” said Preservation Chicago Executive Director Jonathan Fine at Thursday’s meeting.

Commission member Phyllis Ellin says that it is possible for certain parts of the campus to receive National Historic Landmark status, but the current plan should be revised to meet National Register criteria.

“New boundaries need to be created [for landmark designation],” said Ellin during the meeting.

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Click here to read Chicago Sun-Times article on this issue

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Alessandro Russo 

La natura e la storia hanno da sempre stretto legami profondi, modellando di volta in volta i profili dei territori sui quali l’uomo ha posato gli occhi. Nella natura l’uomo ha sempre cercato un modello, un’armonia (talvolta illusoria) che potesse razionalizzare e rendere ordinata la sua idea di mondo e di spazio. I volumi, le luci e le dinamiche della natura, si sono evolute di pari passo con la storia, ampliando significati ideologici e caratteri formali. Dunque, trovo che possa dimostrarsi corretto leggere il paesaggio in funzione del concetto di “spazio”, perché è in esso che l’architetto manifesta le proprie relazioni col contesto, con “l’intorno”. E’ nella definizione dello spazio che l’architettura ha cercato di compararsi con la natura, cercando di instaurare un rapporto di bilanciamento e di continuità. Soltanto se si definisce un “luogo” si può parlare di architettura e, seppur la natura nella sua genuina opera ingegneristica sia già di per sé un opera architettonica – un luogo perfettamente equilibrato – (almeno da un punto di vista strettamente romantico), la lettura di un paesaggio deve tener conto anche delle attività umane, delle sue trasformazioni e delle sue ricostruzioni, oltre che delle alterazioni dell’equilibrio naturale.  

Walter Gropius ha scritto che « il paesaggio umano che ci circonda è un’ampia composizione spaziale, costituita di pieni e di vuoti. I volumi possono essere edifici, o ponti, o alberi, o colline. Ogni tratto visibile esistente, naturale o fatto dall’uomo, conta nell’effetto visivo di questa grande composizione »

La storia dell’architettura moderna ruota intorno al suo rapporto con l’ambiente. Una connessione che risulterà, con le dovute previsioni, sempre più vitale in un futuro ormai prossimo. Nel corso degli anni c’è stata una lenta ricerca fatta di tentativi e di idee progettuali miranti all’equilibrio tra natura e manufatto architettonico; quest’ultimo avrebbe dovuto amalgamarsi col contesto senza creare fratture o traumi al territorio, avrebbe dovuto trovare posto “nella” natura, diventando, paradossalmente, parte di essa, il frutto della genialità, delle percezioni e della sensibilità dell’uomo. Un traguardo che però ha spesso prodotto l’effetto inverso, ovvero quello di trasportare la natura nel manufatto architettonico, la quale si è perfettamente integrata a seguito di cambiamenti di natura economica e sociale, piuttosto che progettuali. Maurizio Vitta, osservando alcune tra le principali espressioni dell’architettura dell’inizio del XX secolo, fa alcune interessanti osservazioni inquadrando fin da subito la necessità del movimento moderno di distinguere il “costruito” dal “naturale”:

 «  Incasellata nella logica architettonica, la percezione del paesaggio naturale era dunque destinata a filtrare attraverso gli interstizi della tecnologia del costruito, fondata su nuovi rapporti tra interno ed esterno, figura e sfondo. In tale prospettiva, la teorizzazione dell’architettura di vetro come pura trasparenza ribadì l’aspirazione a lasciarsi trapassare dalla natura come da un soffio vivificante, al quale ispirarsi per sostituirla con nuove presenze e nuove figurazioni »

L’aspirazione a “lasciarsi trapassare” rivela la volontà di non frapporre, tra la “genuina” natura e la “artificiale” architettura, alcuna barriera invalicabile, in modo da permettere una continua relazione col territorio che ci ospita, riducendo al minimo la sensazione di estraneità nei confronti del “selvaggio” mondo naturale che l’uomo moderno sente più che mai distante dalle proprie abitudini.