This series of blogs is for knowing the ones who pioneered the modernist movement in Design and Architecture. Modernism was a reaction to the old highly ornamental schools of design. Buildings were being built till the end of 19th century with lot of ornamentation and lacked simplicity,
the Interiors were too heavy with many elements. There was a revolution in Philosophical outlook of European countries when Friedrich Nietzsche Declared “God is dead and Man is free” . There was a rise in population in Europe and people were getting more and more uncomfortable with their living spaces. Suddenly there was a wave of new ideas generating in art, architecture and Interiors .Simplicity was the buzzword of the “Modernist Movement”. There was a cry for “Less is more” in design. Architects all over the Europe and USA started experimenting with fantastic ideas. Suddenly asymmetry was introduced in architecture and Interior design.
During this period a great Architect “Frank Lloyd Wright” ( 1867- 1959) started working in USA. He started a movement called Bauhaus. Clean simple lines and integration with the environment was his achievement, he proposed organic architecture, an architecture that did not look like imposition in its environment but integrated with it. Frank Lloyd Wright worked on Architecture and also gave Interiors to his building apart from designing the structure of the building. He lived a long life and is known as the greatest living Architect of the Modern world. Indeed he was great he worked between 1893 till his death in 1959. Some pictures of his architectural work and interior designs. He played with lines horizontal and vertical also he used simple shapes like arcs circles and cubes. He created tremendous balance using simple lines. His most famous home design is “Falling waters”, a house which he built over a water fall wherein he did not stop the water but let it flow below the building and some of the water was flowing through the living room. He used both symmetry and asymmetry in his buildings. His individual design of furniture is unparallel in modernism.
There was another great architect “ Ludwig Mies van der Rohe”( 1886-1969) , he is also a pioneer of the modernist movement. He was from Germany and later on moved to USA and was the Head of Department of Architecture in Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. He was radically different, nothing like what he created ever existed, his expression was simple to the core. Yet he was great in his simplicity He preferred an open plan for his design, he used simple horizontal and vertical lines which integrated the house into the surroundings. He was the first Architect to use glass and Steel as building material in Architecture. He made lot of buildings and his contribution to Modern Architecture and Interiors design was great. Like all the Architects of that time he was an Architect, Interior designer and structural engineer, all together. He is popularly called “Mies” and his style is copied by many Architects .You can see lot of steel and glass buildings in many countries, which stand as a tribute to Mies. Look at following pictures of his Architecture and Interiors. He designed fantastic steel furniture too in fact he was also a pioneer in using metals in Interiors.
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (1887 – 1965) more famous as “Le Corbusier”( The Crow in French ,due to his black framed glasses) was a Swiss and French Architect and also a pioneer of the Modernist movement.
He is well known in India because he designed the city of Chandigarh. His Architecture had great effect on Indian architecture and many of his students like Balakrishna Doshi, Joseph Allen Stein and Bhalla among others contributed a lot to Indian Architecture of modern times.
Seventeen of his buildings all over the world have been declared as a world heritage building by UNESCO.The contribution of Le Corbusier is very great in world Architecture. His contribution to cubism in art is also great. His plain and simple designs mostly in Reinforced Cement Concrete became a standard in Indian Design. He wanted better living spaces for the masses and was critical of useless luxury. A versatile genius he wrote some important books in French. Let us look at his paintings, sculptures, buildings and Interiors of this Architect whom the writer of this blog remembers every moment when designing. Le Corbusier created
“Le Modular” the proportions related to Human body and nature, it is an inspiration to millions of Designers as a reference in Design.
The three architects mentioned this part of the series struggled a lot for attaining success in propagating their pioneering work; they made permanent space for themselves in the History of Art and Architecture and contemporary design is mostly dependant of their work.
This ends our blog, we are sure you have liked it, wait for the subsequent blogs on great Architects and Interior designers, you will begin to like something which is different yet very beautiful.
For learning Interior design you can join Lakhotia College of design visit www.lakhotiaedu.com