OPUS 13

There was a concentration at this time of 'less is more' as Mies Van Der Rohe put it. It was a meditaion on what the building was about and a celebration of the building itself. There was less of an impact of what was in the building and the focus was the building - that was the art. This 'less is more' attitude also allowed for concentration on the small, important details of a building, and not the overwhelming, distracting things that may be put into it.

This 'less is more' also created a juxtapositioning. Take Mies van der Rhoe's barcelona chair, for example. It transposed what one was expecting with the juxtapositioning of materials. It was as if the chair was floating due to its thin metal frame. This cold frame however was paired with a comfortable leather seat - this then marries the use of machine with comfort. It is a chair made for the human form, one which you can slide right into. It also has a hand-made curve in the metal, which contrasts the machine feel it has.

As we discussed last week, and hit on again this week, there was a bold flattening of space in which geometrics was key, and things were reduced to basics. This was both literal - the forms used to make the buildings were not at all hidden - and abstract in that the ideas were new and, still being worked on. Take Crown Hall at IIT, a college campus, by Mies van der Rhoe for example. It was abstract because he created 16 identical buildings which were difficult to tell apart and in abundance. These were literal though, because they were basic buildings which allowed you to focus on small details.

During this time of 'less is more' there was also a strong impact of light, and the shadow it created, on a space. Some homes that were built had large windows which allowed for light to enter in, and in turn created shadow. These small details were not overlooked, and were utilized by the designers.

There were many things we discussed this week concerning modern designs and what is to come next. Some challenges to Modernism were historic preservation, where designers prefered to look back to the past for information, technology, which allowed for things such as deconstructivism (not at all a minimalist design, it has many details) and locality, or the use of what materials and building designs were already there (or the opposite - international). All of these factors led to the post modern movement.