NYSID students are still talking about the Bauhaus exhibition at MoMA -- what struck them most is the similarity of many of the student projects in the exhibition to those they've been doing in school in the past couple of years. It's fascinating to realize that the Masters of that visionary school developed teaching methods which are as valuable today as they were back then ,,, after all, it was close to a century ago! Which proves that good concepts in design, and in education, can be timeless.

Apart from the Bauhaus ideas, we've begun to transition into reading theories about the interior -- Winifred Gallagher's House Thinking, for one, and discussing the original concepts and the hidden meanings of the various parts of the home. It makes for stimulating conversation, and...Read More

Comments (0)

The Museum of Modern Art has opened a fascinating exhibition on the Bauhaus, and this week the Design Theory students are going to see it -- not as a class, but on their own, so that they can form their own opinions of what they see. Of course they've all read about the legendary school, and they know the work of many of its celebrated masters. But it will be interesting to see their responses to this wide-ranging show, which covers the school and its accomplishments under all three of its directors (Hannes Meyer and ...Read More

Comments (2)

The Museum of Modern Art has opened a fascinating exhibition on the Bauhaus, and this week the Design Theory students are going to see it -- not as a class, but on their own, so that they can form their own opinions of what they see. Of course they've all read about the legendary school, and they know the work of many of its celebrated masters. But it will be interesting to see their responses to this wide-ranging show, which covers the school and its accomplishments under all three of its directors (Hannes Meyer and ...Read More

Comments (0)

This week we're thinking in two directions.
We're reading some of Robert Venturi and Charles Jencks' writings on Postmodernism, and discussing where they felt modern architecture had gone astray. And we've looked at some important Postmodern buildings, most of which seemed amusingly dated to the students. 

Postmodern buildings, Frankfurt Am Main

Postmodern furniture fared better, in everyone's view, though the quirkiest Memphis pieces weren't universally...Read More

Comments (0)

The Lego Group began in the workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen in 1940’s. They struggled during the first years of production due to the perception that plastic toys would never replace the wooden ones. After our field trip in MoMA I have decided to pick the “Lego Blocks” as an example of good design.

Lego is a timeless/ageless toy that many generations grew up with, and many more will in the future. The small plastic bricks in primary colors introduce kids to three-dimensional geometry and color combinations. They evolve as the kids grow up. The shapes formed by the plastic blocks became more complex, more sophisticated. As the years pass, infinite formations have been devised for ...Read More

Comments (0)

We're still talking about mid-century modern design. After all these years and all those pronouncements about the death of modernism, the standards of International Style architecture still seem relevant. That should reassure fans of Mies, Corbusier, and company, and give pause to those who think that quirkiness trumps timelessness. On the other hand, as we decided in class discussion, design that looks radical at first becomes less, so the more we see it familiarity is likelier to breed fondness than contempt.

Next discussions came after going through the MoMA retrospective of the 1950's Good Design exhibitions...Read More

Comments (0)

How can such a simple style be so incredibly evocative and poetic? The International Style, when successfully expressed, defied design expectations of how form and surface should be to usher in grand yet subtle new concepts in design expressions. An awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping example of the International Style is The Barcelona Pavilion by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. The open-plan structure is cleverly composed of a series of vertical and horizontal planes. This design technique provokes the viewer to move through the zones. 

I believe he thoughtfully considered circulation and how to encourage an active spatial experience. When we aren’t provided with al...Read More

Comments (0)

We're looking back a half-century or so this week, to read Hitchcock on "The International Style", and Kaufmann, Jrs., "...Read More

Comments (0)

In his 1908 treatise “Ornament and Crime,” architect and design theorist Adolf Loos equates ornamentation to disease and all decoration childish and “degenerate.” So began the 20th century and its march toward modernism and its militant mantra “form follows function.” Ornamentation in the 19th-century had gotten so out of hand, many architects and critics felt that only a correction to the other extreme felt right.

Why such a violent reaction? The Industrial Revolution wreaked havoc on European societ...Read More

Comments (3)

The big question we've been dealing with, in our readings of design theory, is "what's the suitable style for our time?" The answer varies, of course, but two issues always seem to come up: first, how do we balance manmade and machine production; and second, what do we do about ornament? Should we be inspired by machines or be wary of them? Should we embrace ornament or reject it?

Reading works like ...Read More

Comments (1)

On Friday, we discussed two early modernist architects: Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier. Looking ahead to contemporary design, what can present-day architects and designers learn from them? Why or how are their principles still important to architects and designers today?



Frank Lloyd Wright noted that people did not care what their environment was like as long as it was fashionable, warm, dry, and the neighbors was good. He describes these environments as compartment-like boxes with openings for air and entry. Wright had his own set of rules regarding architecture: it starts with a building; it should have as few rooms as possible to meet the requirements for living; openings...Read More

Comments (1)

Moving into the 20th century, theory gets closer to home -- or, at least, to ideas that design students relate to more easily. Now we're reading some of Frank Lloyd Wright's talks In The Cause of Architecture, and Le Corbusier's Vers Une Architecture. Both of these architects put forth theories that were critical to the development of modernism. Despite Wright's oversize ego and scandalous behaviour, his words show a healthy dose of good common sense. And Corbusier's mistranslated Towards a New Arc...Read More

Comments (1)