Modernism in America

 Modernism in America 


April 4th 2023


    World war 2 was a tragedy that led to a vast amount of turn over and change over the next couple of years. That began with modernism in America. This Modern movement began in Germany and France and later spread through to America. Yet Modernism had such a huge influence on the pre-war and post-war. The pre-war modernism focussed on theoretical and idealistic and post-war focused on practical and applied. Which began to influence  the designers through the 1900’s. 


    As we all have heard of Frank Lloyd Wright  he has had a big impact on the Modernism movement. In the 1920’s and 1930’s is when he first began his investment in designing. The first house that he designed was the “ Hollyhock house” in 1921. This house was built in Los Angeles, California. The main focus of this house was to portray monumental structures with geometric ornament features. It not only will emphasize the terraces but bring the true beauty of the garden. Below shows the home’s outside features of simplistic and open space to truly enjoy the garden itself. Frank Lloyd Wright's focus was to show the true beauty in a simplistic way and that's what he did. 


    Another key designer in this movement was Rudolph Schindler. He did have a collaborative relationship with Wright back then but unfortunately the relationship ended due to conflict. With that being said Schindler had his own approach on Modernism . His style was called space architecture. When hearing of this style my mind immediately went to elements of space such as open floor plan, simplistic and spacious.  It is that same idea but he narrowed it down to spaces in the interior. Some materials he was widely known for are concrete,redwood and glass. To my understanding that approaches a more earthy design as this allows more of a natural feature to be included. One home that he designed was the Schindler house in 1922. The whole purpose behind the design was to have a living and work space for two young families. This home represents all the aspects of what he is creating  in one building. I took a step back to really admire the geometric shapes,the red wood and glass used throughout the space. Below are some pictures of the interior and exterior of the building. 

Exterior, Schindler House

Interior, Schindler House




Materials used throughout the Designers :


Materials in this Movement were very essential for modernism. As I further read into the designers and dived deeper into each designer, I found for them to all have the same ideas and same materials used throughout their buildings. 



  Materials : Steel, Glass, Stone 

Richard Neutra created this home to include nature within the home in a collaborative way with modernism. It was considered to be geometric and airy, as that was to be his style overall. In his other building he incorporated nature throughout with concrete slabs painted. As he focused on those materials it brought together the homes tremendously well.


  Materials: Glass, Concrete, Steel


Philip Goodwin and Edward Stone were the architects behind this building. It was a commercial design built in New york. It was a museum of modern art on 53rd street that showed modernism to the public to understand the movement and see the variety of designers  who contributed to this era.


Materials: Glass,Brick,walnut


The glass house designed by Philp Johnson  is a small cylinder enclosed with glass walls.  When seeing this design it reminded me a lot of Mies’s designs. Which I found to be very unique and intriguing. It included low walnut cabinets with nature surrounding the outside. As I was very interested in this home I personally would never live in it due to it being very open. But it does focus on the open concept in the interior while giving earthy vibes which I enjoyed. 


One Step Further: 


  Eero Saarinen (1910-1961)


Eero was an Architect and industrial designer who focused on making furniture that was considered Iconic. He created the Tulip chair,Grasshopper Lounge chair and Womb Chair. They had the same accent color (Red) but were different styles of chairs. I found them to have different purposes in different settings. I personally love the Tulip chair with the movement and unique design. Below are the three chairs he created. 

Grasshopper Chair

Tulip Chair

Womb Chair 



Other Sources:

 Eero Saarinen history: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Cg6qfytlA


Glass house Tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnCwPZifJ9w

Comments

  1. Eva SerratoApril 7, 2023 at 3:58 PM

    Kahlan,
    You did a great job going over the history of modernism and how World War II effected the movement. I also appreciate how you went over the different designer of the era and explain their style and how it corresponded with Modernism. The section where you talked about the main materials used in the design style was extremely informative on how to understand the style of Modernism. The videos you added also did a good job diving deeper into the understanding of the designers and their houses.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Izabella CleavelandApril 7, 2023 at 7:57 PM

    Kahlan,
    By explaining the context of what is happening during the period allowed for a better understanding of the design choices that were occurring and the material used. With that said, I liked your description of the material used with the photos. Your deep dive in Rudolph Schindler and Frank Lloyd Wright allowed to see the different architects and design characteristics in this era.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Professor VanderNoordaaApril 22, 2023 at 4:46 AM

    Excellent Blog post. Very informative historical introduction to this design period. I appreciate how you covered all of the influential designers that we studied this week in an in-depth manner.
    I also appreciated how you covered the materials used during this design period. You also showed examples of these materials in prominent works of architecture. Total Points 50/50

    ReplyDelete

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