Isokon And The Bauhaus In Britain

Author : Leyla Daybelge,Magnus Englund
Publisher : Rizzoli Publications
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2019-03-07
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781849944915

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Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain by Leyla Daybelge,Magnus Englund Pdf

In the mid-1930s, three giants of the international Modern movement, Bauhaus professors Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, fled Nazi Germany and sought refuge in Hampstead in the most exciting new apartment block in Britain. The Lawn Road Flats, or Isokon building, was commissioned by the young visionary couple Jack and Molly Pritchard and designed by aspiring architect Wells Coates. Built in 1934 in response to the question ‘How do we want to live now?’ it was England’s first modernist apartment building and was hugely influential in pioneering the concept of minimal living. During the mid-1930s and 1940s its flats, bar and dining club became an extraordinary creative nexus for international artists, writers and thinkers. Jack Pritchard employed Gropius, Breuer and Moholy-Nagy in his newly formed Isokon design company and the furniture, architecture and graphic art the three produced in pre-war England helped shape Modern Britain. This book tells the story of the Isokon, from its beginnings to the present day, and fully examines the work, artistic networks and legacy of the Bauhaus artists during their time in Britain. The tales are not just of design and architecture but war, sex, death, espionage and infamous dinner parties. Isokon resident Agatha Christie features in the book, as does Charlotte Perriand who Jack Pritchard commissioned for a pavilion design in 1930. The book is beautifully illustrated with largely unseen archive photography, and includes the work of photographer and Soviet spy Edith Tudor-Hart, as well as plans and sketches, menus, postcards and letters from the Pritchard family archive. In Spring 2018, the Isokon building and Breuer, Gropius and Moholy-Nagy were honoured with a Blue Plaque from English Heritage.

Author : David Burke
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Page : 312 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 9781843837831

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The Lawn Road Flats by David Burke Pdf

The story of a modernist building with a significant place in the history of Soviet espionage in Britain, where communist spies rubbed shoulders with British artists, sculptors and writers

Author : Alan Powers
Publisher : Thames & Hudson
Page : 481 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2019-08-20
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780500774656

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Bauhaus Goes West: Modern Art and Design in Britain and America by Alan Powers Pdf

An exploration of the Bauhaus school and its legacy in the context of the modernist period, including its wider influence on art, design, and education. Bauhaus Goes West is the story of cultural and artistic exchange between Germany and the West over a period of seventy years. It presents a view of the influential Bauhaus school in relation to the wider modernist period, distinguishing between the received idea of the Bauhaus and the documented reality. Initially, the Bauhaus was seen as an educational experiment, only later was it recognized as a style and a movement. Working from meticulous research, Alan Powers reexamines speculations about the reception and understanding of individuals connected with the Bauhaus school and what they ultimately achieved. Looking in greater detail at the theory and practice of art, design, and architecture between the arts and crafts movement and modernism, this book challenges the assumption that the 1920s represented a void of reactionary conservatism. Bauhaus Goes West offers an opportunity to recover some of the overlooked aspects of avant-garde that ran parallel with the work of the Bauhaus, such as the film-making of Francis Brugui re and Len Lye, and the development of art instruction for children under Marion Richardson and the London County Council.

Author : Caroline Maclean
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2021-05-27
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781526643698

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Circles and Squares by Caroline Maclean Pdf

A spellbinding portrait of the Hampstead Modernists, threading together the lives, loves, rivalries and ambitions of a group of artists at the heart of an international avant-garde. Hampstead in the 1930s. In this peaceful, verdant London suburb, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson have embarked on a love affair – a passion that will launch an era-defining art movement. In her chronicle of the exhilarating rise and fall of British Modernism, Caroline Maclean captures the dazzling circle drawn into Hepworth and Nicholson's wake: among them Henry Moore, Paul Nash, Herbert Read, and famed émigrés Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, and Piet Mondrian, blown in on the winds of change sweeping across Europe. Living and working within a few streets of their Parkhill Road studios, the artists form Unit One, a cornerstone of the Modernist movement which would bring them international renown. Drawing on previously unpublished archive material, Caroline Maclean's electrifying Circles and Squares brings the work, loves and rivalries of the Hampstead Modernists to life as never before, capturing a brief moment in time when a new way of living seemed possible. United in their belief in art's power to change the world, her cast of trailblazers radiate hope and ambition during one of the darkest chapters of the twentieth century.

Author : Fiona MacCarthy
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 560 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2020-02-06
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0571295142

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Walter Gropius by Fiona MacCarthy Pdf

* A Times and New Statesman Book of the Year * * BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week * * Illustrated with over 130 colour photographs and drawings * 'A masterpiece.' Edmund de Waal 'Commanding, intelligent, gripping.' The Times From 1910 to 1930 Gropius was at the very centre of European modern art and design, as the founder of the German art school, the Bauhaus. Yet Gropius's beliefs and affiliations left him little choice but to leave Germany when Hitler came to power. In this riveting book, Fiona MacCarthy draws on new research to re-evaluate Gropius's work and life. From his shattering experiences in the First World War to his turbulent marriage to the notorious Alma Mahler and the tragic early death of their daughter, MacCarthy leads us through his disorientating years in London, to his final peaceful and productive life in America. This is biography at its finest and most vivid.

Author : Susie Harries
Publisher : Random House
Page : 884 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2011-08-18
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781446433331

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Nikolaus Pevsner by Susie Harries Pdf

Born Nikolai Pewsner into a Russian-Jewish family in Leipzig in 1902, Nikolaus Pevsner was a dedicated scholar who pursued a promising career as an academic in Dresden and Göttingen. When, in 1933 Jews were no longer permitted to teach in German universities, he lost his job and looked for employment in England. Here, over a long and amazingly industrious career, he made himself an authority on the exploration and enjoyment of English art and architecture, so much so that his magisterial county-by-county series of 46 books on The Buildings of England (first published 1951 - 74) is usually referred to simply as 'Pevsner'. As a critic, academic and champion of Modernism, Pevsner became a central figure in the architectural consensus that accompanied post-war reconstruction; as a 'general practitioner' of architectural history, he covered an astonishing range, from Gothic cathedrals and Georgian coffee houses to the Festival of Britain and Brutalist tower blocks. Susie Harries explores the truth about Nikolaus Pevsner's reported sympathies with elements of Nazi ideology, his internment in England as an enemy alien and his sometimes painful assimilation into his country of exile. His Heftchen - secret diaries he kept from the age of 14 for another sixty years - reveal hidden aspirations and anxieties, as do his numerous letters (he wrote to his wife, Lola, every day that they were apart).Harries is the first biographer to have read Pevsner's private papers and, through them, to have seen into the workings of his mind.Her definitive biography is not only rich in context and far-ranging, but is also brought to life by quotations from Pevsner himself. He was born a Jew but converted to Lutheranism; trained in the rigour of German scholarship, he became an Everyman in his copious commissions, publications, broadcasts and lectures on art, architecture, design, education, town planning, social housing, conservation, Mannerism, the Bauhaus, the Victorians, Zeitgeist, Englishness and how a nation's character may, or must, be reflected in its art. His life - as an outsider yet an insider at the heart of English art history - illuminates both the predicament and the prowess of the continental émigrés who did so much to shape British culture after 1945.

Author : Valeria Carullo
Publisher : Lund Humphries Publishers Limited
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2019
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1848223765

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Moholy-Nagy in Britain by Valeria Carullo Pdf

One of the most innovative artists and thinkers of the first half of the twentieth century, László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) emigrated to Britain after the forced closure of the Bauhaus, following his colleague Walter Gropius. This book examines the two years he spent in Britain in the mid-1930s before moving on to the United States--two intense years filled with commissions, collaborations, opportunities, disappointments, artistic exchanges, and friendship. Moholy-Nagy was especially known in the UK as a photographer, his photos having previously been published in the Architectural Review. In Britain, he worked as a graphic designer on books, advertisements, and London Transport posters. He worked as an art advisor for Simpsons' menswear store and designed publicity for the Isokon Furniture Company. He made a couple of documentary films--Lobsters and New Architecture at London Zoo--and worked as a designer on Things to Come for Alexander Korda. Although brief, Moholy-Nagy's English period represented the peak of his photographic activity. As well as the films and photographic essays for the AR, he was introduced by John Betjeman to publisher John Miles, who commissioned him to illustrate three books: The Street Markets of London, Eton Portrait, and An Oxford University Chest. He also worked with Gropius and Maxwell Fry on various exhibition designs. Moholy-Nagy also gave lectures and wrote articles throughout his stay and The London Gallery held an exhibition of his work in January 1937. This highly visual book weaves a stimulating collection of images, documents and narrative to create a picture of the man and the artist during this critical and highly productive phase of his life.

Author : László Moholy-Nagy
Publisher : Courier Corporation
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2012-03-14
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780486138411

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The New Vision by László Moholy-Nagy Pdf

This book, a valuable introduction to the Bauhaus movement, is generously illustrated with examples of students' experiments and typical contemporary achievements. The text also contains an autobiographical sketch.

Author : Paul Bevan,Anne Witchard,Da Zheng
Publisher : Hong Kong University Press
Page : 438 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2022-04-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9789888754137

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Chiang Yee and His Circle by Paul Bevan,Anne Witchard,Da Zheng Pdf

This book, Chiang Yee and His Circle: Chinese Artistic and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1930–1950, celebrates the life and work of Chiang Yee (1903–1977), a Chinese writer, poet, and painter who made his home in London, England during the 1930s and 1940s. It examines Chiang’s relationship with his circle of friends and colleagues in the English capital, and assesses the work he produced during his sojourn there. This edited volume, with contributions from eleven distinguished scholars, tells a story of a Chinese intellectual community in London that up to now has been largely overlooked. It portrays a dynamic picture of the London-based émigré life during the years that led up to the war and during the conflict that was the catalyst for many of them moving on. In addition, the book broadens our understanding of cultural interactions between China and the West in Hampstead, one of the most vibrant artistic communities in London. ‘The collected essays convey a striking portrait of a community of Chinese intellectuals in England during World War II and how it interacted with cultural elites in London and elsewhere both as artists and as anti-fascist activists. As a whole, the volume makes significant points about how people claim status as “authentic” interpreters of a cultural tradition, a process that can pit friends against each other.’ —Kristin Stapleton, The University at Buffalo, SUNY ‘In this delightful collection of essays, a team of experts in literature, history, and the arts bring to light a world of literary interconnectedness and wartime collaboration seldom explored in scholarship. The perfect resource for anyone who values the humanistic common ground between the East and the West.’ —Jenny H. Day, Skidmore College

Author : John Allan
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2023-09-15
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781802071979

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Berthold Lubetkin by John Allan Pdf

This book presents a compact and compelling account of the life and work of Berthold Lubetkin (1901-1990), widely regarded as the outstanding architect of his generation to practise in England. It explores the key themes, achievements and setbacks of his career, drawing from the author’s twenty-year personal friendship with Lubetkin himself, from discussions with former colleagues, and from his direct experience of working with many of Lubetkin’s buildings as a conservation architect. The study reveals the significance of Lubetkin’s Russian origins and European travels, re-assesses his prime work of the 1930s and charts the extensive output of his often-overlooked post-war career. It also considers Lubetkin’s legacy in the later work of his key associates, several of whom became significant architects in their own right. Lubetkin is a legendary figure in architectural circles, while still remaining slightly mysterious and misunderstood. The author shines new light on the man and his ideas, and assesses his unique place in modern architectural history. Illustrations include original black & white images as well as high-quality colour studies of the buildings as they are now. A complete List of Works and published commentaries also provide a valuable source of reference.

Author : Robin Schuldenfrei
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 46,7 Mb
Release : 2024-01-23
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780691254951

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Objects in Exile by Robin Schuldenfrei Pdf

An essential examination of how emigration and resettlement defined modernism In the fraught years leading up to World War II, many modern artists and architects emigrated from continental Europe to the United States and Britain. The experience of exile infused their modernist ideas with new urgency and forced them to use certain materials in place of others, modify existing works, and reconsider their approach to design itself. In Objects in Exile, Robin Schuldenfrei reveals how the process of migration was crucial to the development of modernism, charting how modern art and architecture was shaped by the need to constantly face—and transcend—the materiality of things. Taking readers from the prewar era to the 1960s, Schuldenfrei explores the objects these émigrés brought with them, what they left behind, and the new works they completed in exile. She argues that modernism could only coalesce with the abandonment of national borders in a process of emigration and resettlement, and brings to life the vibrant postwar period when avant-garde ideas came together and emerged as mainstream modernism. Examining works by Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy, Herbert Bayer, Anni and Josef Albers, and others, Schuldenfrei demonstrates the social impact of art objects produced in exile. Shedding critical light on how the pressures of dislocation irrevocably altered the course of modernism, Objects in Exile shows how artists and designers, forced into exile by circumstances beyond their control, changed in unexpected ways to meet the needs and contexts of an uncertain world.

Author : Axel Tilch
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2018-11-06
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9783791384818

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Bauhaus Architecture by Axel Tilch Pdf

Now available in an expanded and revised edition, this book contains an outstanding collection of photographs by the renowned architectural photographer Hans Engels and provides a detailed survey of surviving Bauhaus architecture in Europe. Focusing on buildings designed by Bauhaus members from 1919 to 1933, this book features some 65 famous and lesser-known building projects in Germany, Vienna, Barcelona, Prague, and Budapest by architects including Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Arranged chronologically, Bauhaus Architecture offers informative commentary and site plans along with photographs, taken especially for this book. Engels' photographs show many buildings in their newly restored conditions and reflect the full range of Bauhaus architecture, one of the most influential schools of architecture in the twentieth century.

Author : Christopher Wilk
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 200 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1981
Category : Furniture
ISBN : UOM:49015001227561

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Marcel Breuer, Furniture and Interiors by Christopher Wilk Pdf

Author : Zeynep Çelik Alexander
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2017-12-08
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9780226485201

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Kinaesthetic Knowing by Zeynep Çelik Alexander Pdf

Introduction: a peculiar experiment -- Kinaesthetic knowing: the nineteenth-century biography of another kind of knowledge -- Looking: Wölfflin's comparative vision -- Affecting: Endell's mathematics of living feeling -- Drawing: the Debschitz school and formalism's subject -- Designing: discipline and introspection at the Bauhaus -- Epilogue

Author : Deborah Lewittes
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2022-02-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781802070774

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Shaping the City to Come by Deborah Lewittes Pdf

This study reassesses modern architecture and town planning in mid-twentieth-century England, highlighting ideas and debates that were in circulation as modernist ideals gradually took root. The book reveals an architectural culture that was serious, active, and visionary, with impact that extended into the postwar years. Through close studies of specific works and writings, the author acknowledges the importance of the international context of modern architecture as it intersected with the variety of narratives that defined English modernism, such as national identity, the New Empiricism, and the picturesque, taking into account the large community of émigré architects who settled in England with the approach of World War II, as well as a more general dissemination of international style forms and theories from continental Europe. The book places familiar figures such as Berthold Lubetkin and Ernö Goldfinger, as well as projects such as Tecton’s Penguin Pool and the Festival of Britain’s “Live Architecture” Exhibition, in new light, presenting a rich picture of the modern architectural climate in England. The study draws attention to the debates, proposals, and processes that fed into the development of modernist, urban-minded, and forward-looking architectural ideals.