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Herman Hertzberger: an Interview on Education
Get PDFHerman Hertzberger is one of the main actors of the debate that relates Architecture with Education. He is not only the architect of many school buildings, but he is also the author of the book Space and Learning where he reflects about education and more specifically about how architecture contributes to the education issue and vice–versa
Modern Architecture and Modern Furniture
Get PDFModern architecture and Modern furniture originated almost during the same period of time. Modern architects needed furniture compatible with their architecture and because it was not available on the market, architects had to design it themselves. This does not only apply for the period between 1920 and 1940, as other ambitious architectures had tried before to present their buildings as a unit both on the inside and on the outside. For example one can think of projects by Berlage, Gaudí, Mackintosh or Horta or the architectures of Czech Cubism and the Amsterdam School. This phenomenon originated in the 19th century and the furniture designs were usually developed for the architect’s own building designs and later offered to the broader consumer market, sometimes through specialized companies. This is the reason for which an agreement between the architect and the commissioner was needed, something which was not always taken for granted
Modernism in Finnish Furniture Design and Production
Get PDFWhen looking at the development of Modernism in Finnish furniture design from abroad the conventional image is Alvar Aalto´s Paimio chair descending in 1931 into a desert of traditionalism and starting a new, bright era of Modernity. This cliché is partly, but only partly true. In the following I will outline some major trends in design, use of materials and techniques of production in Finnish furniture before World War II
Duikers’ Open Air School: Re-Use or Contin-Use?
Get PDFEven more than eighty years after its inauguration in 1930, Jan Duiker’s ‘First Open Air School for the Healthy Child’ in Amsterdam remains in use as an elementary school for the education of children between 6 and 12 years old. The building has recently undergone substantial restoration works, including some changes that were necessary to keep up with current regulations. Some 1950s interventions have been retained which posed particular challenges regarding the colors and finishes. The clear cut appearance of the building seems to ignore the complexity of the design decisions that had to be made to grant this building a second lease of life. Restoration architect Sander Nelissen (Wessel de Jonge architects, Rotterdam) and architectural paint researcher Mariël Polman (Cultural Heritage Agency) worked closely together on the restoration of the building and its interior
The Vision of Utopia
Get PDFDesigned in late 1932 by Josep Lluís Sert and Josep Torres Clavé, Casa Bloc is one of the paradigmatic works of these architects who represented the most active core of the Modern Movement in Catalonia, known as GATCPAC (Group of Catalan Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture), founded in 1930 echoing the Spanish GATEPAC. I use the word “paradigm” in the sense of a theoretical framework or set of theories. In fact, Casa Bloc was not only the first major social housing building in Barcelona conceived in functional terms but it also exemplifies the reception in this city of the notions of the Modern Movement and how the guidelines recently approved in the 4th CIRPAC Congress were applied
Alexander von Vegesack
Get PDFIn July 2012, Bárbara Coutinho, Director of MUDE–Design and Fashion Museum, Francisco Capelo’s Collection since 2006, interviewed Alexander Von Vegesack, founding Director of the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein and the person who set up Thonet Museum in Boppard am Rhein. The subject of this interview is the importance of Collect—Curate—Exhibit—Publish to the Preservation and Communication of Modern Architecture/Design
Metsäpaviljonski, Form Follows Wood
Get PDFNowadays, the emphasis in the design of exposition pavilions is mainly full of pseudo–technical or rhetorical ideas of progress. Nevertheless most of them do not communicate a vision. They show a lack of spatial qualities and continuity with the built environment. In general, there is not a common conservation agenda to adapt or reuse exemplary Modern Pavilions. Some emblematic cases are haunted icons, a consequence of undocumented, incorrect or simply fake reconstruction, whilst others are victims of neglectfulness and degradation. Nevertheless, what can we still rediscover by reviving or reconstructing Modern Movement Exposition pavilions? During the 1930s, pavilions were not only visionary and experimental manifestations of living systems but were also temporary and fast–built showrooms disseminating a cultural or ideological message
Dieter Rams: Ethics and Modern Philosophy. What Legacy Today?
Get PDFGerman industrial designer Dieter Rams has turned eighty this year. His attitude towards product and industrial design, which he has been developing since the 1950s, once again arouses keen interest today. On the occasion of his birthday, a major German daily news paper saw in him the representative of a "present–day Modernism that is not as megalomanic as that of the 20s, 30s and 50s" and also not "the adolescent unleashing that we erroneously call Postmodernism." A revision of Postmodernism or, more correctly, a new "revision of Modernism", certainly seems to have come to stay. Konstantin Grcic, undoubtedly the most prominent German designer active today, wrote in the same newspaper one day before: "the product lines that Rams developed for the Braun and Vitsoe corporations have founded our notion of representational form and function. The once - from the pre–Grcic generation - so-called cool technocrat Dieter Rams, has now been rediscovered by virtue of his "almost romantic look at the manufacture of products."
Svetlovodsk: Realized Urban Utopia of the USSR. A Revitalization Strategy for the Small Post-Soviet Monocity
Get PDFThe article is devoted to one of the most pressing problems for the former Soviet Union - the problem of survival and development of the small mono–industry towns. The aim of this work is the actualization of the problem of survival and development of the small post–Soviet towns - the unique urban artifacts of the Soviet industrial utopia. Svetlovodsk that was created in the 60’s of the twentieth century during ‘Khrushchev’s Thaw’ gave the example for the analysis of the specificity of small towns in Ukraine. The strategy of the development of this type of towns has been described in the article
Ricardo Legorreta. An Architect in Search of Modernity within Tradition
Get PDFRicardo Legorreta is one of the Mexican contemporary architects who have garnered the most recognition; only in 2011 he was distinguished as Doctor Honoris Causa by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM, and the Praemium Imperiale in Japan. One year before, on August 27 at the docomomo Conference held in Mexico City, he gave a memorable Keynote Speech on the main figures of the Modern Movement in Mexico, José Villagrán and Luis Barragán, that the attendants treasured in their memories