The Architecture Thread

[dOmInIX]

I've seen a documentary about the Termas of Vals today, Rob. Interesting design but it isn't really something spectacular IMO.
There was also documentary about Johnson Wax building, by Wright. That is spectacular building, planned to detail...It is amazing.
Check it out: Frank Lloyd Wright : S.C. Johnson Wax Administrative Building

[Rob]

Thanks Dom.

The Johnson Wax building is indeed very beautiful. FLW is the USA's most celebrated architect ....probably followed by Philip Johnson.

There is an Italian furniture maker called Cassina which makes reproductions of the desk and chair from the Johnson Wax Building.

[dOmInIX]

Cool, I've seen that too, it is really nice.

[Centurion]

..............and I thought I would never see a beautiful but yet functional wooden computer desk.

[Rob]

Villa Savoye, Poisse (Poissy-sur-Seine), France, designed by Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) in 1929.

It's like it has dropped out of the sky in the middle of an open field just outside Paris. Villa Savoye is a masterpiece of Modern architecture.








Some furniture designed by Charles Edouard Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) with his associates Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand.

[Centurion]

I guess the architect was before his time. That house looks very modern for something that was designed in 1929. The leather chair in the second picture is pretty common in high end stores or dealerships. I know that I've sat in a very similar one but can't recall when.

[Rob]

Hmmm, well I am always slightly agitated by the term "before his time". Le Corbusier was really very much a man of his time. The 1920s was a time of great advancement in architecture. The buildings of architects like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe have influenced world architecture ever since. Their architecture shared the abstract aesthetics of Modern paintings and sculptures.

Kasimir Malevich, "Black Square and Red Square" 1915


Constantin Brâncuşi, "Bird In Space", 1923.


Also, some high fashion of the time also was influeneced by this new aesthetic purity.

Paul Poiret dress 1923. Navy-blue and red silk faille, gold metallic bullion buttons


Red and Blue chair designed by the Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld in 1917.


Table by Gerrit Rietveld, 1922


Zig Zag chair by Gerrit Rietveld, 1932-34.


Table lamp by Gerrit Rietveld, 1925.


Mies van der Rohe's famous Barcelona Pavilion. 1928/29.















The white leather "Barcelona chairs" were designed specifically for this building. They became very famous in the 1950s when they were produced by the American furniture maker Knoll International. In the 1990s, they became very popular again.


Mies was the director of the Bauhaus school shortly before it was forced to close due to pressure from the Nazis. Hitler considered Modernism to be degenerate. Mies emigrated to the United States in 1937.

[notic]

thanks for the write ups Rob, very informative.

the Jeanneret chairs look a lot like the tubular designs of marcel breuer . i read somewhere that breuer was inspired by his bicycle frame when he designed the wassily chair. would you happen to know who pioneered that design?

[Rob]

Originally Posted by notic

thanks for the write ups Rob, very informative.

the Jeanneret chairs look a lot like the tubular designs of marcel breuer . i read somewhere that breuer was inspired by his bicycle frame when he designed the wassily chair. would you happen to know who pioneered that design?

You are right notic, Breuer was inspired by his bicycle.

Tubular steel became a popular material for furniture in the 1930s. Breuer's Wassily chair is noted as being the first tubular steel chair. It should be acknowledged that the bentwood furniture of Michael Thonet, produced since the 1850s must have been influential.

Thonet bentwood furniture was probably the first true mass-production product and Gebrüder Thonet was likely the first global brand.



Marcel Breuer's famous chair from 1925 was the first chair to use tubular steel, he created it while he was a student at the Bauhaus art school. The chair was named "Wassily" in the 1960s (for marketing) in honour of Breuer's fellow Bauhaus colleague, the painter Wassily Kandinsky.


The Dutch architect Mart Stam created the first cantilever chair made from iron pipes in 1926. His prototype was developed into a steel production model in 1927.


Mies van der Rohe's MR chair, 1927



Marcel Breuer cantilever chairs from 1929.


Mies van der Rohe cantilevered "Brno" chair. Tubular and flat steel versions, 1930.


Mart Stam steel cantilever chair 1931


The Finnish architect Alvar Aalto was creating similarly modern designs but using plywood. Some of my favourite furniture designs.

1931/32


1936/37

[Rob]

I know this is not a thread about furniture design but one cannot really ignore the significance of furniture design in 20th century architecture. For architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, furniture was integral to the overall aesthetic intentions of the space.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Scotland, 1903.






One of several chairs designed for the Willow tearooms.





The dining chair designed for Mrs Cranston's Argyle street tearooms in Glasgow 1897.








Chair designed for the Ingram street tearooms in 1910. The short version of this chair was used in the art museum restaurant scene in "Batman"


Hill House 1902/03





Small ladder back chair designed for a bedroom in the Hill House.