Vienna Secession
The Vienna Secession was formed by a group of artists about their rethinking in collaborative work in art and design. It included architects, painters and sculptors. The goal of the Secession was to provide exhibitions for young artists , to bring artists work to Vienna and to publish its own magazine to show members work.
The meetings were held in the Secession building built by Joseph Maria Olbrich, a statement building for the movement. It was a monumental presentation through the use of architecture, sculptural elements and decorative ideas.
1. Joseph Maria Olbrich | Secession building 1897
Gustav Klimt was a painter and one of the most prominent individuals of the Vienna Secession. He completed paintings for the secession, which were seen as pornographic and inappropriate. He also made portraits of wealthy women.
Egon Schiele, an artist was also in the group. In his self-portrait he brakes down the figurative representation. There is an abstractness to his work which overlaps with the architecture at the time.
Chicago Oak Park - Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright built a lot of houses in Oak Park, Chicago including his own.
Frank Lloyd Wright | Unity Temple 1960
The Unity Temple, 1960, was built there and people were convinced to think of a new church form rather than the traditional before. The church design was more considered internally than the exterior. Inside the interior it is very geometric with a triple height congregation space. It is still in use today. The exterior of the church is quite harsh, but still holds a sense of beauty to it even though it is mainly concrete. There is a threshold between the interior and the exterior of smaller spaces. As your walk through from the outside you are twisted from an open space to a smaller intimate space and contrasted to an open space inside the main body of the church.
I am interested in how Frank Lyod Wright plays with the scale of the space, from the exterior to the interior of the church. He is playing with peoples perceptions, which are surprised when led into a large open volume with a triple height interior. It is very monumental. Looking at the sense of scale it is interesting to see if this strong contrast in scale could be related to what I am currently working on with the Cienam Museum in Kennington. There are many small rooms within the site and one large open Hall upstairs which is a complete surprise to the building. I have been looking at opening up the spaces but creating smaller, more intimate thresholds from one room to another space could be effective and really work with the light projections, as well as looking at the programme of the cinema experience. You move through from one room to the next, sometimes from a small foyer to a large cinema auditorium and sometimes the opposite. Playing with the height of the room as well as the square footage reacts with the people and creates a completely different feeling.
Frank Lloyd Wright | Robie House 1908
This house consisted of cantilevered roofs and spaces. He brought a new aesthetic to American domestic architecture by using horizontal planes. The interior related to the horizontal lines outside which is an important aspect to the house. The horizontal mortar for the bricks is darker than the vertical mortar, which is a similar colour to the bricks. This emphasised the horizontal forms of the building. This detailing is very inspiring and really influences the aesthetics of the design. It is clear that horizontals are important. It seems simple but it looks beautiful.
Vienna – Adolf Loos
Loos was working on small projects at the end of the secession movement, such as shop fronts and single rooms.
Adolf Loos | Villa Karma | Geneva 1906
This set a marker for his design language. He used an existing building to wrap a new form around it. The composition of the piece is cubic and he challenges the decorative ideas. Was it was the right way to move forward? At the time, the house was seen as too simple and even ‘ugly’. It was very fresh in design and the residents were not keen. The exterior is a white box but the interior contrasts with an abrupt language. The entrance is round and 2 stories high, very unusual. Simplicity in the design allowed the material to speak for itself, the ornamentation and decoration is reduced; this was a key feature. Every room in the house was distinguished by its materiality and lighting.
Adolf Loos | Kartner American Bar 1907
This bar was very bespoke in design. There was a structure and ordering of space and amazingly it still looks the same today as when it was built. The materials used are elegant and the detailing gives a rich look to the design. Mirrors cover the two opposing walls in front of and behind the bar giving an infinity feel of space above.
To me, the design looks so rich and quite grand. The space is fairly small and so the mirrors help to show a larger room. The mirrors an opposing walls and t the top are really effective and make the columns look for ever lasting. Using mirrors can be tricky in design but they can also look very effective, which could be brought onto my site in some way to bounce light from on place to the other.
Image References
1. http://www.secession.at/building/images/olbrich.gif
2. http://unitytemple-utrf.org/images/graphic_building.jpg
3. http://forum.arts-crafts.com/groupee_files/attachments/9/3/7/9371038772/9371038772_robieHousepic1.jpg?ts=4B7364FB&key=0A7E72495E04308A585E625E1961309A&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.arts-crafts.com%2Feve%2Fforums%2Fa%2Fga%2Ful%2F1471038772%2Finlineimg%2FY%2FrobieHousepic1.jpg
4. https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLlHefeN2ObqMfP49B58OXr8BGefCJRjEVVc09eyVBrT0YtmA3qXDTj5IL3ivPi9nVS0Vrt_YTo4hdtP157LzKEXlVnPbn7WJjYbbmu9Iq96D5QbOOYpTV6toO2pkWdPy4UT-YpwWx0aXg/s400/side+facade.jpg
5. http://www.anneke.net/Loos/i/circrail.JPG
6. http://spsu.edu/architecture/classes/3113-Rizzuto/Precept1/AmericanBar/bar2.JPG
No comments:
Post a Comment