International Style

After the closing of the Bauhaus school in Germany, designers such as Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius emigrated to America and continued their landmark work. They continued trying to communicate their idea of combining functionality with technology. Designers such as Ray and Charles Eames (yes, Ray was a woman) combined the Modern Movement's ideals with methods of industrial production in order to create a better idea of Good Design.

Le Corbusier's Chaise Lounge is still a design icon to this day 

During the 20s and 30s the International architectural style was heavily affected by Art Deco's geometric inspirations, however some designers took the functionalism ideals so seriously that they created an extreme of design called Brutalism where they did away with everything they considered ornamental even smooth concrete surfaces and hiding pipes and structural components.

Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe's
Barcellona Chair

This International Style was particularly useful in the years after and between the two World Wars when every country and council was embarking on large scale housing projects in order to try and return to normal the lives of those people who had ended up homeless due to war-time bombardments. This obviously meant that they needed designs which were not only quick to complete, but also cheap. It was really a question of supply and demand I suppose. I like to think of the International style as a more simplistic side to Art Deco. Art Deco was reserved for those customers who could afford spending a little extra on ornamentation while International Style was more widely reachable.

REFERENCES:
Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

, 2001. Design Classics (Architecture & Design) (English and French Edition). Bilingual Edition. Taschen.

Unknown , (2013), Le Corbusier Chaise Lounge [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.brookstone.com/webassets/product_images/700x700/728469p.jpg [Accessed 22 November 13].

Unknown , (2013), Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe Barcelona Chair [ONLINE]. Available at: http://blog.fishpools.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mies-van-der-rohe-barcelona-chair.gif [Accessed 22 November 13].

International Style

Between the two World Wars, there was a huge social and cultural change. Politics, technology and economics all went through a radical change. Most countries saw the removal of Monarchy to be replaced by Democracy (the only exception was England while the biggest example was Russia where the police ended up killing the royal family during their revolution). In America and Britain most families were still feeling the effects of the Great Depression.

Eames Office Chair by Ray and Charles Eames

It's hard to explain really, because Bauhaus and the International style were so concurrent that the lines where one movement ends and the other begins hardly exist at all. While the Bauhaus only existed from 1919 to 1933 mainly in Germany, The International Style is thought to have started in 1920 and lasted to about 1980 in... well, pretty much everywhere, thus the name.

It was happening at the same time as popular design movements such as Art Deco, Organic Design, Streamlining  

International style influenced Eileen Gray
 while designing this Art Deco Table

and Pop Design (all of which I will eventually be covering in my future blogs) which meant that these design movements obviously had an effect on this style and vice versa. The style became known when Alfred H. Barr Jr. (at the time, director of MoMA) noticed that certain designs of designers such as Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius, were popular in most countries regardless of culture and context of a country, in other words they were International designs.

This hadn't happened in the western world since the Gothic style in the Middle Ages when every public building was designed in this style in order to communicate without the use of language. That was the key thing to designers in this time. Whereas, in the middle ages Gothic was used to communicate religion to the people, now design was being used to communicate function.

In order to avoid writing the longest blog-post ever in history I will bring this post to a close and continue where I left off in my next post.

REFERENCES:
Thomas Hauffe, 2001. Design: From the Industrial Revolution to the 21st Century (Flipguides). Edition. Dumont Monte.

Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012. Design of the 20th Century (25). Edition. Taschen.

, 2001. Design Classics (Architecture & Design) (English and French Edition). Bilingual Edition. Taschen.

Unknown , (2013), Eames Office Chair and Ottoman [ONLINE]. Available at:http://www.fantiques.com/periods/IS.jpg [Accessed 22 November 13].

Unknown , (2013), Eileen Gray Round Table [ONLINE]. Available at:http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2006/08/31/431785/EGTABLE.jpg [Accessed 22 November 13].