Post Modernism

During the 1980, sustainability became extremely important. Due to the economical factors at the time, people began to reuse materials and had more of a DIY approach. One major group of this time was the Memphis Movement. Inspired by art deco and pop art, their designs were splashed with color and curves.

Other than Memphis, Robert Venturi was another designer of the time. Mostly focusing on architecture, his designs were focused on history and ornamentation. Perhaps his most popular creation was the Venturi house. He also created the Chippendale Chair, which is still seen today in many forms.

The most iconic of this time is probably the New York Five, a group of five designers who paved the way in this era. Michael Graves, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, and Richard Meier were the stars of this group. Their works among these five included pieces such as: The Denver Public Library, Douglas House, City of Culture, The Guggenheim Museum, and the Wiggle Chair.

 

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Peer Reviews:
Savannah: This post did a great job of covering all of the architects of the era.
Alex: I enjoyed this blog because it covered a lot of the Memphis Movement, including fashion and other things not included in the lecture.

Modernism in America Part 2

Mid-Century modernism was a great time for designers. The era gave way to a floodgate of new designs, mostly consisting of new furniture. The designers for Herman Miller and Knoll came out with tons of new, unique designs that are still around today.

One of these designs being the Womb Chair and Executive Chair created by Eero Saarinen. Both of these creations can still be bought and used today.

Ray and Charles Eames were also major designers of this period. This married couple was known for using molded plywood and plastic to make unique, modern designs for Herman Miller. Many of their classic pieces can still be found today on Herman Miller's website.

The other iconic designer of the Mid-Century was George Nelson, who also worked for Herman Miller. Some of his works include the Coconut Chair and Marshmallow Sofa as well as various modern styled clocks.

 

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 Peer Reviews:

Bailey: This post did a good job reviewing which materials were used by designers. Overall, it covered the Mid-Century era nicely.

Emma: I liked this post because it covered many of the furniture pieces used in the era so the reader was left with a good visual of the Mid-Century style.

Modernism in America

During the World Wars, Modernism quickly spread throughout the globe due to designers fleeing their countries towards America and Britain. One of these people was the return of Frank Lloyd Wright. After his venture in Japan, he returned to America and began working again in 1922. While his work was now scarce, he still managed to do several new buildings, including: the Hollyhock House, La Miniatura, and Fallingwater.

Other than Wright, Richard Nuetra was another architect from this era. He studied in Vienna with Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner, but come to the US in 1921. His style consisted of geometric and airy designs used in various homes, such as the Kaufmann and Lovell Houses.

Eero Saarinen was another designer, who created multiple furniture pieces. Some of his work includes the tulip chair, womb chair, and grasshopper lounge chair along with several building designs such as the Kleinhans Music Hall.

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Peer Review - Emergence to Modernism

Emma-  I really liked Emma's focus on Walter Gropius. She reviewed many of his works and included a video on his works which was interesting.

Erin- Erin had a nice summary of the entirety of this era. She had nice reference images and her modern influences were really good examples.

The Emergence to Modernism

Around 1900 a new era of design came to surface focusing on the the contributions made by the Art Nouveau and Prairie styles. The technological advances of this time such as skyscrapers, movie pictures, and transportation lead to many more needs for the design world. This direction of new design was lead by architects such as Frank Loyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier. With these new types of architecture from these contributors, spaces like offices and other commercial spaces started to become part of the design focus.

Of course, this also meant many advances in furniture and materials. This modernism movement lead to more geometric and manufactures furniture.  Clean lines rather than curvilinear designs became more common in the office and at home. Art and textiles also became more geometric, but kept a watercolor effect. Many pieces includes squares and triangles but kept a decent amount of inspiration from previous movements like Art Nouveau.

 

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Peer Reviews- Postmodernism

Courtney:Courtey had a really nice summary of this era. I enjoyed her video on the falling water house that she included in her blog.

Demi: Demi also had a nice summary on the era with extra focus on  Otto Wagner and Frank Lloyd. She also had the same video as Courtney, which again, was very interesting.

Protomodernism

The protomodernism movement was an interesting design style for its time. Rather than going against the arts and crafts and art nouveau movements, it seems to reject them instead and become a new thing entirely on its own. Instead of working with previous designs, this era allowed artists to come up with new and innovative creations that were entirely their own.
A great example of this are the designs by Frank Lloyd Wright, who was an American architect. A lot of his methods included design motifs that works in tandem with nature, as well as using glass elements and a natural color palette. Many of these worked together to make "organic architecture." He also used hipped roofs  and a prairie style exterior which includes elements like: an interior focused on family, a center fireplace, built in furniture, and other unique architectures.

Frank Lloyd Wright:

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Art Nouveau Peer Reviews

Bailey- Bailey had a nice summary of the time period as well some interesting pictures to add to it. I really enjoyed her modern day examples of the furniture style

Becca- I thought it was really interesting that Becca decided to do her blog on Antoni Gaudi. She provided a lot of pictures of his work and even had some interesting videos to go along with it.

Art Nouveau

When the Art Nouveau movement started in 1890, Europe was in a period of peace and prosperity. This led up to a growth of new and experimental directions in design. The sources of inspiration for this design were flowers, birds, vines, and insects. The designers during this time were also admired by Japanese art and the famous paintings of Van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Gauguin, and Aubrey Beardsley.
The leaders of the Art Nouveau movement were Belgium and France. Some characteristics established by them were rejection of Victorian styles, design style based on nature, use of modern materials for that time period (iron and glass), modern techniques, electric lighting, and using the relationship of fine arts which included paintings and sculptures.
This movement also used curvilinear forms as a dominate design. An example that was used a majority of the time was a design called whiplash. One icon during the Art Nouveau movement was Victor Horta. He was a Belgian architect, designer and teacher. His work was very extensive in this movement and the most influential during this period by using iron railings and hardware, stenciled walls and ceiling patterns, and mosaic tile patterns on the floors, walls and ceilings.

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Arts and Crafts Movement Peer Reviews

Alex: Alex had a nice review of the era and showed off some important textiles of the time. She also added a very interesting video on the making of block wallpaper. Over all, it was a good summary of the arts and crafts movement, but could use more pictures of the design style and the current applications.

Alexandra: I really enjoyed Alexandra's summary of this era. She brought up many important points and added several interesting videos. I personally really liked the Arts and Crafts: Design in a nutshell video.

Arts & Crafts Movement

One of the biggest design movements took place from 1837-1901 during the Victorian period. The movement consisted of many advances in communications, media, materials, and manufacturing processes. Along with these processes came the focus on iron, steel, central heating and other similar materials and the beginning of consumer culture. All these changes had both negative and positive reviews because they were great advances, but it came with a lot of cheap manufactured goods.

The Victorian period also came with many important people. Some of these include: William Morris,  Philip Webb, Edward Godwim, Charles Voysey, and Charles Mackintosh. These men added to the furniture and design styles of the period and are responsible for many modern day designs.One of these design styles in the emphasis on white paint and exposed hardware, which is extremely popular in today's design world. Many textiles and chairs were also developed in this era.

Victorian Period:

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