De Stijl

In October 1917 a small group of Dutch architects, designers and artists join together and formed a new style called De Stijl. "Their main attraction was for harmony and order through a universal language of form. A different approach from the dada movement." (Hans Janssen and Michael White (2011) The Story of De Stijl Mondrian to Van Doesburg). As from the nonsense of DADA they wanted to make something that could be understood from everybody. This style was restricted to the use of straight lines: only all about lines, even in architecture and design. Right angles, straight lines and pure primary colours and non colours (black and white). 

 The De Stijl movement was known in almost every aspect of design whether in furniture, interior, textiles, graphics and architecture. They all had something to do with this style, the rules that they use can be applicable to many things. Nowadays can be found in toys, layouts, accessories and much more. 

                                              Red/Blue Chair      

Gerrit Rietveld’s revolutionary Red/Blue chair of 1918. The first thing you notice that this is a De Stijl furniture because of the primary colours, those where the mainly used on almost everything, the second thing is the straight flat surfaces of the chair. Rietveld's chair was exhibited at the Bauhaus in 1923 and inspired Marcel Breuer’s later tubular metal B3 Wassily chair. Another examples like this are the Sideboard from 1919 and the Zigzag chair 1932-34, they were designed and developed. 

The ZiZag Chair.

 

                                                                       Schroder House

Architecture and interior design were mostly done by the artist Van Doesburg and Gerrit Rietveld that they used the strong geometric forms, the rule of De Stijl it is also valid for buildings both in exterior and interior, in paint and furniture. A good example of their architecture and interior style is the Schroder House in Holland, it was made in1924. This house had new methods of building it and a different look. First of all this style in architecture was a shock for the architects because nobody would ever image houses build this way. Openness and lightness, pillars that indicated forms and use of new materials. The exterior was made up like large blocks of stone and placed onto each other giving that effect of depth and of course keeping with straight rectangular shapes. It had a lot of windows, all rounded with glass, pillars that they might be the support of the building like we use nowadays in skyscrapers they show the huge diameter of each column, different railing featuring the less is better, same with the rooms they got them to a smaller area to make them warm and welcoming. Although it was an open space the rooms where divided with patricians. The colour of the exterior are the shades of grey for a more structure colour but with pillars and other elements in primary colours for attention.

 Schroder House Interior.

Reference: 

:Hans Janssen and Michael White (2011) The Story of De Stijl Mondrian to Van Doesburg. 

Henry Ford and the model T.

Henry Ford was the owner of the motor company Ford that still manufacture cars today. In 1891 he started working as an engineer, after two years working he became chief head of engineering. At that period he had enough money and time to experiment on gasoline engines. By experimenting he introduced his first car the Ford Quadricycle.  By time he improved his invention to a better automobile and he named it the Model T. In that time the industrial production heads in and Ford began on Mass production on his car.

Ford Quadricycle

Henry ford had his own factory and by building such a big object and he needed to make it multiple times he was one of the first of the mass production. He needed many men working for him so he also made an assembly line where each worker had his own job. By this process the car can be build in a very short time. The model T made a huge hit for a number of years, it was one of the best cars and almost shipped all over the world.

 

As the years go by the model T remained the same and customers wanted something different, like a new design or colour. Ford began to make new colours and with more attractive deign to catch the customer attraction. Every design cannot remain the same because the people will get sick of the same thing. As for the designers is a challenge to introduce a new model with a better shape and colours.

 Model T car

Another designer that got in the industrial revolution is Michael Thonet, he experimented in bending wood and he brought a new style mostly in chairs. The most popular is the model No. 14. Thonet also had an assembly line that each worker does his own job. The most design that be mass-produced is the model No 14 that was sold around 7,300,000 times.

                                                               No 14 chair

As for mass production in industries need to have an assembly line nowadays we leave the hard and delicate work for the machines and the easy and for the hand made the workers get involved.

Reference:

 Charlotte and Peter Fiell, Taschen (1999) Design of the 20th century.

Renaissance (The Rebirth)

The rebirth has begun in the 14^th century after the dark ages. As in the birth of the Greeks and Roman art, sculptures, architecture and others that inspired the artists of the Renaissance. They took ideas and studied their work in great detail that transferred them to their art or design, otherwise in a better transformation. This period was the peek of everything such as art, sculpting or architecture they wanted everything not to be good or great but perfect.

 The Parthenon

The Parthenon one of the biggest architecture of the Greek times. Similar a lot to the Pantheon structure in the Roman times where they got inspired from. Another thing is the Mosta dome is commonly and inspired from the Pantheon dome itself, it has the same pattern and how it is build. Everything is inspired from one another.

                                                                                                                              The Pantheon

The Mosta Dome. 

For example in Art the Renaissance learned how to get depth, perspective, realism, light and shadow by learning all this is by looking previous works and looked closely to what it was wrong. In the early period it was still not that good but in the late period they got it perfectly by practicing and looking at other works. They got inspired mostly by the Roman art.

           
                                                         Giotto's work in the St. Francis cathedral

Another example is on architecture where Fillipo Brunelleschi was the architect that had to finish the dome of Florence Cathedral. He achieved his goal and he done it but with the help of understanding other ancient classical buildings by mathematical perspective. 

The dome of Florence Cathedral 

 

As for architecture Renaissance studied the types of Roman columns the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. These columns were designed to hold large buildings and with a decorative ends. In the Renaissance, architects aimed to use columns to integrate with the structure as the Romans did. On of the first buildings to use pilasters as integrated system was in the Old Sacristy by Brunelleschi.

Reference: 

:Gombrich, (2009) The story of Art, E.H.