History and theory of contemporary architecture

"AS SIMPLE AS IT IS"

Couple of years before getting into this strong abstraction, there is also the process of erasing the traditional concepts of art history. But why erasing history? Why destroying the past? It's a bit of a tricky thing, because we can see the artist-for example, the first works of Malevic-trying to be as simple as possible, with basic geometries, depicting a primordial world. Realism through primordial and basic geometry + basic colours, trying to eliminate the art of the past. Going back to a primordial language.

The Avantgarde though will look to history, but a history that is being put aside from traditional art. The proportion of elements is simple as well as the perspective. The Avantgarde art discovers the art of the icons and ortodox paintings from the 15th century, where the negation of space was in experimentation. The Avantgarde artists trained themselves by looking at 15th century's icons; flat backgrounds, no tridimensional space.

This process

of going towards the old russian art it’s showing us that the Avantgarde is not negating all of the history, but only this part of the war.

362. CONSTRUCTION IN SPACE

Let’s look at a series of architects who looked at space on a new scale.

Naum Gabo: shows how an artist was conceiving a tridimensional sculpture represented not as usual; the question is the research of the material, which can be wood, paper, cardboard, with which I can construct a piece of culture in space. I eliminate the material and transform it into a piece of art. I take a material which is not meant to be for structure and I cut it in pieces, transforming it into a tridimensional figure. Plan materials transformed/assembled in 3d.

He was an engineer who studied and was interested in art. He was interested in combining knowledge from engineering within art. He uses a kind of manifesto to express his belief.

His idea is creating two ways of observing an object:

1. Stereometric
2. Volumetric

Through a process of building

Linear elements that interact with us and our perception, working with shadows, lights and tridimensionality. I can invite the public to be active in understanding the process of how I built the sculpture, so the main focus is on the process of transforming the material into an art piece.

Here on the left, one of his sculptures made in iron; a great game of shadings, with this contrast within lights and shadows - somehow, it brings us back to the baroque's style of shaping an object or a detail with lights and shadows; the form is carved by lights and shadows, which give us the perception of this finished object in a space dimension.

In his sculptures, he is also inviting the observer to walk around the sculpture and perceive it from different angles. Mutation of the shape given by the movement (kind of futuristic ideas? ndr).

OTHER QUESTIONS OF SPATIALITY

Rodchenko is another artist who is using this concept of space for constructing a sculpture. They are not even sitting anymore on a pedestal (some...)

be mounted in different conditions.

His friend Aleksander Vesnin was another artist who focused on theatre spaces.

The stage is no more planar but is being constructed in the process.

THEATRE AND ARCHITECTURE

El Lissitzkij, "Project for a theatre for Mejerchol'd" (1933)

He works with the idea of transforming the relationship between his audience and the theatre space. The theatre enters the space of the audience (such as Bauhaus' moving theatre). The theatre performance is a magic moment where we are invited in the space.

The theatre stage and the audience are continuously asked to interact together.

Interaction between art and reality.

Important moment which summarizes what we talked about this morning: the "Monument to the Third International", 1919-20. The artists of this period caused a great shock in this environment, bringing together all the people that during the WW1 were alone into a new ideological point of view, also with politicians. New ideology.

An extremely important meeting where all the States that were fighting in the WW1 were staying at the same table, discussing the future of the world. An extremely courageous moment. We experienced the link between politics and art.

This sculpture in the manifesto was built and could be moved around and be transformed. Moving installation.

Art is a triangle between politics, representation of politics, representation of normal people. "Machine building".

The sculpture is extremely interesting; it was firstly built using a maquette, and was thought to welcome the Third International. This spirali is twisting itself until the peak. The construction in space. built in space.

It's made by iron and wood sticks, This beams give a push to the structure, towards the ceiling.

You can see a kind of cone being cut by arches, and mixed with a cilinder which is somehow breaking the rhytm apparently. The structure is followed by this double line of spirals going upwards. Interior static

The sculpture is represented by the cone and the visual element of spirals, creating a dynamic object. The only decorative element present are the arches, while everything else focuses on the structure. This association parallels the presence of engineering applied to art, similar to the Eiffel Tower.

Sculpture began to approach form in a different way, influenced by transparent materials such as glass and steel. This transformed the concept of form into something new. Everything is seen as structure, eliminating decoration.

In today's lecture, we will continue discussing the Russian Avantgarde and its relationship with primitive art and abstraction. We will explore the Constructivist structure and the declaration of the degree zero of language.

Malevic moved from his bidimensional resource to experiment in the field of sculpture/installation, through a concept of repetition and composition of geometric elements. Complex landscape developed in different combinations, from the geometry itself to mix it creating a visual experimentation, which Malevic contestualized in some urban context. He explores this three dimension with combination of geometric elements.

El Lissitzky studied in Germany and was very influenced by this. When he went back to Russia he started working with Malevic, and the topic was the experimentation of spatial arrangemet of an object inside a bidimensional space: a 3d object illustrated in a bidimensional surface, such as a canvas (see the pic on the left). He called those paintings as a mid phase between painting and architecture, where he started to explore a combination of simple geometrical elements. This combination of elements can be a simple surface, used with repetitions and crossing of other geometries.

Different combination of a basic element. Axonometry, flat representation, planimetry, combined with a dynamic element viewed at 45 degrees. It repeated in an infinite possible combinations.

The position of this elements on the canvas is very strange: like here, we can see a black circle, two grey blocks parallel among themselves, two lighter panels. All this elements are floating in a space. In order to read this painting, we are called to participate in an interpretation of the rules and laws on how those elements were combined.

Here there is a process of total sublimation, eliminating a kind of surplus of form/significance, reducing it to a simple balance of geometric elements, but with a constant ambiguity of the forms.

He gave to this kind of operation also sometimes actual names. Like this one on the right, called "Bridge"; he started to develop more architectonical combination of elements. Use of different combination of figures, use of diagonals, use of simple colours, declaring

The nature of experimentation of his art. What is also interesting for us is how he was particularly important for the Soviet context, working in a series of interesting projects around Europe as well. He put the Russian avant-garde in contact with other avant-gardes in the world.

It's very difficult to make a line between where does the architect finish and where does the art start. Artistic experimentation can't stop inside the space of a canvas, but has to overcome those limits and go further. The real field where the prones will be finally realized is architecture, because it is the finalization of experimentation.

Idea of proposing a series of objects, positioned at the crossings of Moscow's ring disposition.