High-Tech

High-tech, also known as industrial style and matt black, is a terminological movement style that emerged as a fragment of the postmodernist design as seen in architectural designs in the early 1970s. The designers at the time were inspired by modern technology, due to the development of science and technology, they characterized their work, visually, as simplistic and elegant, with the use of new industrial materials, or made available through technological advances in nonindustrial settings and new production techniques.

Examples of these materials and technologies are industrial carpets and rubber flooring found in hospitals and factory production lines, office supplies, and industrial lighting devices, these were all characteristic of the high-tech style. These designs created new terms in people’s lives with most advanced technology available to give them innovations. This also affected the increase of mass production of high technology, such as automobiles and other high tech products. Other important improvements were made to telephones and radios, to spread further into larger population of users. The term has also been used to refer to a stylistic development within modernism in which designers began using new materials such as glass, bricks, metals and plastics in favour of traditional materials such as wood and has affected different sectors like architecture, automotive, computer, robotics, telecommunications, information technology and many more.

The style was founded in England by British architects, such as Richard Rogers, Michael Hopkins, Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw and Ian Ritchie. They incorporated industrial elements into their buildings making emphasis on glass and steel that were and are the materials of industrial revolution.

They followed the concept of not to hiding the construction but to focus on the outside as well as the inside of buildings making significant design elements out of constructional necessities according to L.H. Sullivan “form follows function” dictum. Examples of this concept is seen in the Centre Pompidou, Paris designed by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano (1971-1977), and Sir Norman Foster’s Hong Kong and shanghai bank (1979-1988), as well as the interior designs of Peter Andes, Paul Haigh and Joseph Paul D’Urso.

When designing the Centre Pompidou, Rogers and Renzo chose to place all the technological requirements outside of the actual glass facade, making the buildings equipment visually aesthetic, while the stairways, cables and a steel skeleton of coloured tubes were deliberately positioned in the visitor’s line of site. By deliberately concealing the steel constructions such as this behind classic facades, this saw the arrival of designers actively breaking with tradition in favour of this new and unique approach. Though the Centre Pompidou was built early on in the high-tech period, its construction still marked a turning point for the style as the leading dependency between form and function was reached.

High-tech architecture are still seen till this day, but not essentially for the right reasons. This is so as architectural designs became increasingly focused on aesthetics, to which constructions are made a lot more complex than what was required to create buildings that looked even more futuristic. Though the High-tech buildings that still exist today are pure high-tech style which is often mixed with more classic design elements.

References

Bhaskaran, L. (2008). Designs of the times. Mies, Switzerland: RotoVision.

Amrutia, J., Amrutia, J., Amrutia, J., Amrutia, J., Amrutia, J., Amrutia, J. and Amrutia, J. (2015). Hightech Architecture Style : Sustainable Architecture. [online] Kadva Corp. Available at: http://www.kadvacorp.com/design/hightech-architecture-style/ [Accessed 29 April. 2016].

Slideshare.net. (2016). Hi- tech Architecture and its pioneering architects, Norman Foster , …. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/rohitarora7798/hi-tech-architecture-and-its-pioneering-architects-norman-foster-richard-rogers-renzo-piano [Accessed 29 April. 2016].

Architecture.com. (2016). High Tech. [online] Available at: https://www.architecture.com/Explore/ArchitecturalStyles/HighTech.aspx [Accessed 29 April. 2016].

History of Design. (2015). High-Tech Design. [online] Available at: http://www.historyofdesign.org/high-tech-design/ [Accessed 29 April. 2016].

SUZANNE SLESIN: The writer of this article is the assistant editor of The Home Section and is a co-author of ”High-Tech: The Industrial Style and Source Book for the Home” (Clarkson N. Potter, 1. (2016). The 1970’s Industrial Look: What Became of High Tech?. [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/19/garden/the-1970-s-industrial-look-what-became-of-high-tech.html?pagewanted=all [Accessed 29 April. 2016].

Modernism

Modernism was the leading design movement of the 20^th century which emerged through the result of growth within the industrialization which occurred during the 19^th and 20^th century. It gained momentum following WWI as modernist theories and principles began to be increasingly influential on planning and rebuilding many European cities. A large number of debates paved way for the development of this movement and the underlying principles can be seen by the represented work of Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe.

The movement’s development is often clarified through architecture as its characteristics took dominance over craft and design at the time. This was then altered thanks to William Morris and A.W.N. Pugin who reformed society by developing well-designed and executed products for everyday use. Though they both supported craftsmanship over industrial production, they also encouraged and stressed that the moral responsibility of designers and manufactures alike are to produce goods with the need for and importance of functionality, simplicity and suitability in design. Through this idea, design was used as a democratic tool for social change and had a fundamental impact on the development of modernism.

As seen in the essay of Adolf Loos; Ornament and Crime, he linked excessive decoration with the disgrace of society while in Deutscher Werkbund; Form without Ornament; we see how he emphasised on the virtues of plain and rational based designs. The emphasis on removing ornamental design was a concept prompted by the de Stijl movement, constructivism and futurism celebrated the machine industrialisation and Bauhaus, under the directorship of Walter Gropius, was established to bring unity to the arts and the revolutionising principles of modernism into practice. With this act Bauhaus had an enormous impact on modernism, through its promotion of functionalism, use of state-of-the-art materials and industrial methods, it created a new language in design that gain access to everything from interiors, furniture, metalware, ceramics, graphics and architecture.

By the 1930’s an International Style of modernism had arisen, this was supported by Le Corbusier, minimalism and Industrial Style, which were to modernist subdivision characteristics of reductionism of machine aesthetic. Fashion was also affected by the International Style by taking geometric concepts to extreme, using industrial materials and strictness of form purely for stylistic purposes.  Through these intervals as a result modernism lost its original moral bearings, but through the succession of Scandinaviandesigners such as Alvar Aalto inspired a whole new generation of modernist designers through their pioneering work which humanized the form through organic design. Represented by the International Style, modernism has evolved in various regional trends from Brutalism and Rectilinearism, but unlike the majority of design styles it had no single manifesto or “members” but it encompassed a variety of different people united by a shared aesthetic and set of common values.

Through this movement many key facts can be seen and have affected the 21^st century, through the growth on industrialisation, the idea of design being used as a democratic tool for social change, the removal of decorative ornamental design to rational based design with simple forms, smooth finishes and minimal surface modelling for industrial production and the desire to exploit the latest materials technology meant that modernism was and is deemed as the most appropriate language for the machine age.

References.

Brissey, E. (2015). Modern project binder. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/EricBrissey/modern-project-binder?qid=e00eaaff-1ef6-4e64-84f4-6ca989ffd007&v=&b=&from_search=10 [Accessed 1 April 2016].

Slideshare.net. (2016). Key Movements in Design. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/markrotondella/key-movements-in-design [Accessed 1 April 2016].

Slideshare.net. (2014). Mid century modernism design. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/franqie1996/mid-century-modernism-design?qid=e00eaaff-1ef6-4e64-84f4-6ca989ffd007&v=&b=&from_search=3 [Accessed 1 April 2016].

Slideshare.net. (2016). History of design. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/RachaelVanDyke/history-of-design-13671134 [Accessed 1 April 2016].

Bhaskaran, L. (2008). Designs of the times. Mies, Switzerland: RotoVision.

Deconstructivism

Deconstructivism is a movement commonly seen in architecture and interior designing, to which it was characterised with the use of broken, jagged, warped, overlapping planes and “disturbing” shapes and forms in contrast to the logic and order in modernism.  It was a concept that was derived from the word deconstruction, this was a method established by Jacques Derrida, in 1960’s, where he derived that any text could have had multiple interpretations and could never exactly mean what it says or say what it means. With this methodology we can see that the movement was aimed to take out the meaningless of the text and alter its intellectual foundation.

As mentioned most of this style can be seen in architecture and interior design and with the use of Derrida’s method the movement aimed to challenge ideas of rational order and expose hidden works. This was seen in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1988 staged in New York entitled “Deconstructivist Architecture” where a number of models and drawings where exhibited with the aim of challenging what was, at the time, considered being a resolution of modernism. The exhibition was organized and curated by Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley who managed to identify a small number of deconstructivism design style’s realized through the works of seven architects, most renowned are; Jacques Derrida, Peter Eisenman, Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Bernard Tschumi.

This new movement, or “ism”, was a centre of attraction within the exhibition as Johnson recognised and praised the elements of this new style. As mentioned the style was characterised through broken, jagged, warped, overlapping planes and “disturbing” shapes and forms. It also featured twisted geometries, centre less plans, shards of glass and metal and stylistic features which were then translated from architectural design to graphical design, which aided graphic designers with a “ready-to-use” formal vocabulary. A number of designers, including Katherine McCow and Lucille Tenazas, within Cranbrook Academy of Art, applied this new style ideology to their work by multilayering both type and image to suggest multiple interpretations  of the message being communicated. While this was done, within the industrial design stream, Daniel Weil’s radio in a bag reinterpreted the recognised form of this everyday product by placing a radio in an encased within a plastic bag revealing the radio’s workings. The fragmented forms of many deconstructivist designs bear similarities to constructivism and can also be seen allied to postmodernism.

Since this appearance architects have associated with the movement have moved away or detached themselves from it, but have kept in mind its terminology and its iconoclastic design philosophy in many contemporary American architecture as well as European designs. Although experts see a link with Constructivism, the movement originated from Russia as seen in the works of Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), Lyubov Popova (1889-1924) and El Lissitzky (1890-1941). Another important, if not necessarily defining, text for deconstructivist is Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (1966) by Robert Venturi.

References

Bhaskaran, L. (2008). Designs of the times. Mies, Switzerland: RotoVision.

Ericaguajardoillustrations.wordpress.com. (2012). Deconstruction Movement in Contemporary Art |. [online] Available at: https://ericaguajardoillustrations.wordpress.com/tag/deconstruction-movement-in-contemporary-art/ [Accessed 20 May. 2016].

Slideshare.net. (2016). Deconstructivism. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/SnehaVijayappan/deconstructivism-16794356 [Accessed 20 May. 2016].

Newworldencyclopedia.org. (2016). Deconstructivism – New World Encyclopedia. [online] Available at: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Deconstructivism [Accessed 20 May. 2016].

Visual-arts-cork.com. (2016). Deconstructivism: Postmodernist Style of Architecture. [online] Available at: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/architecture/deconstructivism.htm [Accessed 20 May. 2016].

Ettore Sottsass

Ettore Sottsass was born in Innsbruck, Austria, but was raised in Milan and attended at the Politecnico di Torino in Turin where he graduated in 1939 with a degree in architecture. He then served in the military but spent most of his time in a concentration camp, after the war he went back to Milan and set up his own architectural and industrial design studio.

He travelled to New York and was commissioned to create a line of ceramics during this visit, but was also inspired to concentrate on industrial design, rather than architecture, after spending a month working in the studio of the US designer, George Nelson. Sottsass later went back to Italy, Sottsass  and started working as a creative consultant to designer and consultant for the company Poltronova before, a furniture factory near Florence. He then accepted a more demanding role and started working as a design consultant for Adriano Olivetti industry of newly created electronics division, designing office equipment, typewriters and furniture.  Years later he was then hired and worked with Olivetti’s son Roberto, despite the fact that he had no technological experience he did some of his most popular, even mainstream, work for Olivetti. Sottsass proved his capabilities as a designer through the colours, forms and styles bringing these office equipment into style of culture. Together with Roberto Olivetti and engineer Mario Tchou,they created a series of landmark products, which were technically innovative, and aesthetically appealing thanks to Sottsass’ love of Pop Art and Beat culture. Most of their known designs where typewriters, the 1963 “Praxis,” the 1964 “Tekne” and the hugely successful 1969 “Valentine,” seen most often in bright red plastic.

They later won the 1960 prestige award, Compasso d’Oro, through their work, the Elea 9003, the first Italian electronic mainframe computer, was acknowledged and promoted with the highest honor in the field of industrial designing. Moreover they revolutionised typewriter design with Olivetti’s first electronic model, the Tekne, in an elegantly angular Sottsass case. At this time he began travelling around the world designing more products for Olivetti remaining a central figure in the Italian avant-garde scene to which he was then granted with an honorary doctoral degree by the Royal College of Art in London.

In the 1970s Alessi, a major housewares and kitchen supplies Italian company, hired Sottsass who created a number of objects for the company including condiments sets and cutlery. In 1972, he proposed a group of plastic mobile containers, multi-functional fibreglass furniture unit on castors that could be moved and rearranged to create different living areas within a house. This proposal was the toast of the ‘Italy: The New Domestic Landscape’ exhibition at MoMA, New York were Sottsass’ theorized that they were “formally exonerated from the ethnic state of ownership.”

He later began working with Studio Alchymia, a group of avant-garde furniture designers including Alessandro Mendini and Andrea Branzi, on an exhibition at the 1978 Milan Furniture Fair, two years later, Sottsass left the studio to form a new collective, Memphis, with Branzi and other collaborators including Michele De Lucchi, George Sowden, Matteo Thun and Nathalie du Pasquier.

Here Sottsass continued experimenting and designing with bright colours, kitsch suburban motifs and cheap materials like plastic laminates which lead to the attention of the mass media as well as the design cognoscenti, and Memphis (named after a Bob Dylan song) was billed as the future of design. Memphis was an intellectual expressive lane for young designers which liberated themselves from the dry rationalism they had been taught at college and enabled them to adopt a more fluid, conceptual approach to design. Sottsass left the group in the early 1985 despite that Memphis collective’s work were exhibited all over the world, he had also seen that it was a temporary pursuit, which he had developed whilst founding Sottsass Associati. This was the architecture and design group where Sottsass worked with former Memphis members and younger collaborators, were he returned to architecture and completed a series of private houses – including one in Palo Alto for industrial designer, David Kelley, and public buildings, notably the Malpensa airport near Milan, in 2000.

He was and still is admired internationally as a key figure of late 20th century, Ettore Sottsass is a role model to many young designers, including myself, for the range as well as quality of his work and as a testimony of his impact, in 1999 Sottsass received the Sir Misha Black medal for his outstanding contribution to the field of design. In the 2000s his work was the focus of a number of exhibitions and retrospectives: the 2006 exhibition ‘Ettore Sottsass’ organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which was the first major retrospective on Sottsass’ work in the USA, and the ‘Ettore Sottsass – Work in Progress’ exhibition displayed at the Design Museum in 2007. At the age of 90 Ettore Sottsass Jr. died on the last day of 2007 however his creations continue to inspire new designers and are the subject of newly published books and anthologies.

References

Breaux, A. (2012). Ettore Sottsass — Designer Dossier. [online] Apartment Therapy. Available at: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ettore-sottsass-designer-dossier-176806 [Accessed 21 May. 2016].

Design Museum. (2015). Ettore Sottsass. [online] Available at: http://designmuseum.org/designers/ettore-sottsass [Accessed 21 May. 2016].

Wikipedia. (2016). Ettore Sottsass. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Sottsass [Accessed 21 May. 2016].

Friedmanbenda.com. (2016). ETTORE SOTTSASS – Artist – Friedman Benda. [online] Available at: http://www.friedmanbenda.com/artists/ettore-sottsass [Accessed 21 May. 2016].

Design Within Reach. (2016). Ettore Sottsass – Design Within Reach. [online] Available at: http://www.dwr.com/designer-ettore-sottsass?lang=en_US [Accessed 21 May. 2016].

R-and-company.com. (2016). Ettore Sottsass – R & Company. [online] Available at: http://www.r-and-company.com/biography_detail.cfm?designer_id=104 [Accessed 21 May. 2016].

 Encyclopedia Britannica. (2016). Ettore Sottsass | Italian industrial designer. [online] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/biography/Ettore-Sottsass [Accessed 21 May. 2016].

Moore, R. (2014). Ettore Sottsass: the godfather of Italian cool. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/18/ettore-sottsass-review-godfather-italian-cool-memphis-collective [Accessed 21 May. 2016].