Modernity And Modernism 2/2

Design and Modernism- 2/2:

• Modernism: can be about embracing modern techniques of making images, responding to sensations of modern times, a particular sense of self gained from a technological world. They way in which the modern world makes us understand ourselves in a new way

• Modernism in design: criteria
• anti-historicism- inventing new things, being progressive, implies making things better and pushing things forward
• truth to materials- looking to the ways of making and celebrating them in their very materiality, particularly new ways of making, such as steel, concrete, new cameras. Celebrates using these materials and the way this makes something look, the effect it gives. The material dictates the outcome
• form follows function- places the rational before the pretty and romantic, you design something to work and its beauty comes from how well it functions. Concepts similar to minimalism 
• technology
• internationalism- natural visual language to bring the world together, where one style of making and representing would be common across the planet, social and utopian. Styles don’t look like they belong to one specific country or culture

• criticism of modernists- if you make your work superficially stylish fashions will come and go, the style will go out of fashion and look dated really quickly
• modernists tried to strip down products to their bare essentials so products would be timeless, like cutlery inspired by Bauhaus that we still buy today
• modernism relevant to all our disciplines 
• Anti-Historicism- no need to look back to older styles “ornament is crime” Adolf Loos
• Seagram building 1958- Bauhaus architect Mies Van Der Rohe- still a modern looking building today, building up to accommodate more people, all glass to let light in, also truth to materials made of steel and glass they look like what they are, not nationalistic
• the international style: all buildings same size, all clean and new, natural world mixed with technical, clean, shiny and white (modern world doesn't always look like this, hasn't worked completely)
• Bauhaus building- concrete, cheap and efficient, whole wall filled with windows, invented a new type face to make their lettering (futura). In the spirit of reinventing the world, they started interdisciplinary learning in their institute, resulted in a fusion of ‘high art’ into everyday life. 
• these new things made using new materials like tubular steel were specifically designed with mass production in mind

• Internationalism: a language of design that could be recognised and understood on an international basis e.g. Harry Beck design for the underground map (1933), or Ikea? 
• Herbert Bayer’s sans-serif typeface, no need for serifs now were not carving words into marble with a chisel. Modernists ditch the decorative features (sans-serif), also argued that we don’t need capital letters
• -Laszlo Moholy Nagy- photography and films: how much can you do with the film camera? how far you can push it to still make images
• Reinventing EVERYTHING

-Russian revolution 1917:

• A push from un-education and no culture to development and modernism
• Malevich and Suprematism, distilling communication to the simplest form, red gets attached to the idea of revolution, the peoples flag stained with blood
• 80% of the peasants were illiterate so graphic designs etc had to be immediate and obvious using minimal words. Visual comm for those who can only understand the visual
• Sergei Eisenstein 1925- montages in film started to be used, soviet film-making
• constructivists- theres no difference between disciplines, everyone is just creative individuals collaborating, boundaries built up by society between people or jobs etc are broken down, lean towards equality, more women lecturers and influencers 
• What would once have been seen as the women’s delicate arts become respectable, textile design, art forms in themselves 
• VKhUTEMAS- progressive art school, arguably as important and radical as Bauhaus, but isn’t talked about due to Russia being (the enemy) and not wanting to be seen as that progressive by us
• non-gender specific sports and other wears developed by people like Stepanova, clothing as a collective politic, not designed to objectify in contrast to western fashions. This makes everyone equal but arguably makes everyone look very similar and reduces individuality in favour of standardisation. One thing you can feel in very modernist places is a lack of human and personality? 
• Stalin came in and said we need to stop this modernism as the people don’t understand it, brought in social realism 

• Times New Roman, Stanley Morrison, 1932: directly taken from roman pillars
• Fraktur Font, used by the Nazis as it throwback to nationalistic, gothic times (Nazis also shut down Bauhaus, effectively trying to shut down a world based on collaboration)

In conclusion:

- modern isn't a neutral term, it suggests novelty and improvement