Modernism and the Machine

Progress and Efficiency 

Frederick Winslow Taylor thought he was designing a new world when he developed a working system known as Taylorism. This is what we see now in warehouses, people stood by conveyor belts for umpteen hours per day. He argues that dividing labour roles so that each person repeated the same small task continuously would make for progress in the work place. Henry Ford used this new assembly line system as it went from taking 12 hours to 2 hours to make one of his cars. This method also requires no extra skills as it is doing the same thing over and over again. German Trade unionists were concerned that this would dehumanize people, "Life is not determined by consciousness but consciousness by life." Quoted by Marx in Shaw (2008), the idea of "alienated labour." William Morris also criticised the idea, "Apart from the desire to produce beautiful things, the leading passion of my life has been and is hatred of modern civilization.”  How I Became a Socialist, William Morris

Anxiety and the Machine

Women, nature and the machine had become a mass of significations which all had one very existence: otherness; by their very existence they raised fears and threatened male authority and control - Hayssen, A. (1980) After the Great Devide: Modernism, Mass Culture and Post Modernism, London P70.

Modernism and the Machine

Bauhaus Art School (1919 - 1933) were the next generation in design. 

Modernist design favoured:

• Progress
• Democracy; designs affordable for the average person
• New technology
• New materials
• Simple lines
• Rational forms
• Abstract and Geometric
• Less is more

Modernist design rejected:

• History
• Elitism
• The hierarchy of fine arts over the world
• Equality (not being able to physically see who is rich and poor from their clothes/belongings 

The Weissenhoff Estate designed by 17 Architects. Art Deco
Evan. (2009). DE STIJL ARCHITECTURE. Available: http://cosmogeny.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/de-stijl-architecture/. Last accessed 29th Sep 2014.

A few examples that show these favoured ideas in action are the Weissenhof Estate exibition and the Frankfurt Kitchen

Grete Schütte-Lihotzky and Ernst May, “Frankfurt” Kitchen, 1926-1929Adam M. (2010). Art History. Available: http://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/ah235/deck/113880. Last accessed 29th Sep 2014.

Constructivists celebrated industrial and political symbols for example Lyubov Popova and Varvara Stepanova. 

Varvara Stepanova poster
Wiki. (2010). Varvara Stepanova. Available: http://www.designishistory.com/1920/varvara-stepanova/. Last accessed 29th Sep 2014.

Lyubov Popova Abstract Painting
Wiki. (2014). Lyubov Popova. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyubov_Popova. Last accessed 29th Sep 2014.

Futurist Movement: Radicalism

Manifesto of Futurists (1909) Marineti. 

Expressive use of words, "Abolish even punctuation"