Modern Love

My my, it was good to be back at class on Saturday.

I had gotten myself in absolute tizzy about being behind, worrying about how behind I was, how everyone was ahead and I was behind.

HOWEVER, everything is fine. I am not behind. I am not ahead, but I am not behind. So there we go.

Then we had the most amazing lecture I’ve ever heard. We had a professor from Northwestern come in to pave the way for Mies. He was basically teaching us European Modernism.

But the man takes us from Art Noveau to Hitler to 2001 A Space Odyssey to Quantum Physics. And he had it all make sense. Which is the most amazing part of all. We all decided we wanted to sit there for 15 minutes and just let it sink in, so we remembered how all these things came together.

The basic gist of it is: It's like...after WWI so around 1920 and all these Germans were building these churches and government buildings and all these buildings all had the same style. Sort of how the Beaux Arts style took over Chicago and Burnham wanted everything to look like the Art Institute. The old baroque buildings and gothic spires represented church AND state, represented the government and dictatorships.

But the artists were hating it right? They wanted to branch out, be creative. So they start by using "machines" to begin creating their art. But the public is still nervous about "machines" Machines scare them. So the architects and artists start spinning nature into everything, to ease the minds of the public. "We're not pulling away from the old ways, we're just adding some things".

Now this doesn't happen in America right? Especially Chicago. We built this city with Machines, that's how we made it here, we weren't afraid. The Europeans were.

Then come the nazi’s and they’re battin’ down the hatches. So Mies and a coupla other guys start designing totally “equal” buildings. Buildings that all look alike, so one is no different from another. Banishing silly ornament that was the sign of the old days. Ornament that celebrated church, or government. Their buildings were stark, egalitarian and purposeful. As an example, the United Nations Building in NYC (not designed during this time, but definitely a representative of it). Big, tall glassy and with no windows on the side. Because no “country” should have more windows than another “country”.

Fascinating. And that is about maybe…5 minutes of this guys lecture. I’ll save the 2001 A Space Odyssey connection for tomorrow.

So I’m not behind, I still don’t love Mies and have learned much about “the corner problem” which I will also go into later.

Happy Presidents.