Deconstructivism / Libeskind

Deconstructivism found his name in the literary movement of the déconconstruction. This contemporary movement is opposed to the movement of Modernism . This movement is about creating a break with history, society , the site and the technological traditions. 

Architects seek an opportunity to build another space, a space formally expressive , to reveal and not conceal.  The architect Daniel Libeskind has been associated with this style.

Daniel Libeskind creates an architecture that does not simply construct space and shape of space, but that is almost literally built out of space.

This style is a fundamental principle of creating new spaces, seeking expressive formality. Indeed, if we take the example of the Jewish Museum in Berlin space and shape can beings interpreted by their irrationality and the ability to disturb the usual way of perceiving spatial configurations.

The goal of the architect is to move from the Jewish Historical experience to a sensory and emotionally experience thanks to different steps in the museum that you have to pass in order to continue the visit. The broken line is the concept of this project. Indeed Libeskind defends the values ​​of deconstructivism with its high walls, its forms examined, and the style that comes out of the space.

This monument has to my mind so many ways to represent the history of the jewish people. Like A sinuous path between room which is troubling or even exhausting for the visitor. A succession of empty spaces which give an impression of distortion of time and space , caused by the confusion of the spaces that we travel . Underpasses that puts evil visitor at ease. Spaces with virulent forms are used, with low ceilings , floors awry , non- vertical walls of artificial light . The crossing of this exhibition can be considered a required physical test by the architect. It created an aggressive and confusing building, not trying to seduce the visitor but to push him , surprise him.

Constructivisme / Shukhov Tower

At some point some artists were more interested in the idea of build rather than decorate. This practice linked to a time is called constructivism.

Constructivisme in architecture was perhaps the most concrete application and the most revolutionary of the spirit of the “Avant Gardisme” this artistic movement born of the 1917 events, the Soviet constructivist architecture inspired the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier, the most famous spectacular contemporary constructions and new forms of collective housing in all the major capitals.

The engineer Shukhov had a hard time to accept the Revolution, and the nineteenth-century Reformation. Yet he offered his most brilliant discoveries in the socialist power, without ever denying his personal beliefs, he has always served the country. Shukhov tower in the Moscow district of Shabolovka is only the most spectacular creations of the engineer, who also revolutionized the transportation and processing of black gold. Order of Lenin to spread the socialist message to the world, the Shukhov tower, like most constructivist buildings, has since the construction had to revise its ambitions disproportionate in the light of various shortages of time. This piece of art continues to serve emitter today, even threatened with destruction.

Arts & Crafts / Mackintosh

During the era of Victoria of England, a reformer artistic movement has born, considered as the english equivalent of the French Art Nouveau.
The movement is about all the concerns of the artists through progress, the need of individualism, new values…

The main “names” of this movement:

John Ruskin (1819-1900): poet and writer, fascinated by medieval and Gothic eras. For him, the artistic ideal is born from the meeting of competencies and not their competitors.

William Morris (1834 -1896): manufacturer of furniture and art objects he designed them, but it is primarily a business leader

Walter Crane (1845 -1915): illustrator and promoter of Decorative Arts , he practiced his art in many areas : illustration, painting, ceramics , wallpaper , upholstery, etc.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 -1928): British architect and designer whose simple and functional style had a strong influence on architecture and interior design

For those artists it was urgent, not only to rehabilitate the handmade work, but to save and re invent traditional techniques. Soon they were the initiators of new schools to train artisans, tapestry, embroidery, printing on the board with enamelling, brassware, pottery, natural dyes woven textiles with the trades, the marquetry and cabinet.

Another of their ideas was that we couldn’t do a good job, if we live and work in a healthy and pleasant environment. In their works, arise plants and animals, symbols of nature, but more or less stylized. It is the Fine Art.

In Europe, many artistic movements were inspired by those ideas about the relationship between the arts and crafts, on simplicity and use of natural materials.

Arts and Crafts inspired movements such as the Viennese Secession movement and the Bauhaus movement. It can also be seen as an introduction to Modernism, where its pure forms, stripped of historical associations, have been applied to new industrial production.

Realisations:

According to Mackintosh furniture contributes to the unity of the room.

The furniture that we know the most was developed as part of interior design: Catherine Cranston teahouses, the House of Amateur Art, Hill House, his private etc. It is supposed to participate in this overall unit holds dear, without imposing individually.  

Mackintosh designs furniture with simple lines, stripped upholstery and a proliferation of expensive details in the Victorian era of the times. The furniture is lacquered white punctuated with a few buttons purple, green or silver on the ground. The lacquered furniture end up not standing the white walls, the space becomes immaterial. Mackintosh breaks completely with the overloaded style of his time.

Its high back chairs seem to represent thrones symbolic traces dear to Mackintosh. We also have to appreciate his taste for the system partition of the Japanese interior design because this high back gently separates us from our neighbors. For one of the teahouses of Catherine Cranston, he invented the curved mesh back chair. 

I can see at first in his furniture a skeletal appearance, vertical, straight and rigid compared with rounded shapes, welcoming and padded his time but I rather see those lines as a solution to the partition of the space, expression of an architect.

               

Modernism / The Ephemeral Pavilion

The modern movement was born in Europe after the First World War but it's a movement that was quickly organized internationally. The movement appeared as a result of a convergence of events. It was born in response to decorative arts. But it is a movement that emerged thanks to the growth of new technical possibilities of materials such as glass, steel and mainly reinforced concrete.

                                             
For modern architects facade should only reflect the building's function. « Form follows function. This is the law». This quote represents the spirit of the modernism.

Known as Le Corbusier, whose real name was Charles Edouard Jeanneret; it will be one of the leaders of this movement and one of its main theorists. Le Corbusier wanted to break with tradition by founding a consistent architecture with the needs of modern man.

                     

The Ephemeral Pavilion

From 1925, the modern movement took off; it is in fact this year that Le Corbusier designed the ephemeral pavilion of the new spirit, on the occasion of the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts held in Paris.

This building creates a scandal. Indeed, the pavilion is included in an exhibition that aims to promote the decorative arts. Within this building, no decoration is inserted just simple geometric shapes nested. Despite the harsh criticism made ​​to it, this pavilion will be a decisive influence or significant architectural production on the following decades.

Relegated to a corner of the Grand Palais, the pavilion is not understood in its innovative approach: transformation plan, standardization, and industrialization. "There is no architecture here," concluded the Vice President of the Jury Grand Prize of the Exhibition. At the opening of the Exhibition the building was cache by a fence on the pretext of its incompleteness, but it will be removed the next day by order of the Minister of Education.