Ep144: Objects of Design

From a design standpoint, some things are just cooler than other things – and these things don’t need to be justified to anyone because people either understand it or they don’t … but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an interesting and amazing story behind these objects that might contribute to their coolness in a meaningful way. Today Andrew and I each selected three items and we are going to share with you some amazing stories …  Welcome to EP 144: Objects of Design [Note: If you are reading this via email, click here to access the on-site audio player]   [hoops name="top1"] Today we are going to share with you something we feel is meaningful to us and why, maybe, it should be meaningful to you. Rather than making this a list of things we like – and by extension – things we think you should like as well, we are going to dig a bit deeper and talk about the story behind each item we discuss today. In a sense, it’s that story that should make today’s podcast interesting … just that fact that WE think it’s interesting probably isn’t good enough, so we are stepping up our game. The rules are simple – Andrew and I were each tasked with identifying a handful of items that we think are worthy of being labeled “Objects of Design” and we are going to present them in an alternating fashion. We are going to be keeping score because, at the end, I want my list to be better than Andrew’s list. Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier (image credit here) CC by SA 3.0 Deed Villa Savoye jump to I am starting my list today with a building – one that architects, fans of architecture, and French people should all be familiar with … Villa Savoye, a modernist villa designed by Charles-Edouart Jeanneret-Gris, better known as “Le Corbusier” and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret located just outside Paris, France in the town of Poissey. It was built out of reinforced concrete between 1928 and 1931. The villa was designed for Pierre and Eugenie Savoye as a country home but the reality is that they barely lived there, but I’ll get to that in a moment. I visited this building in the Fall of 1990 after having become quite familiar with the work as a result architectural history classes and quite honestly, even though it was not the popular still of architecture at the time, I really enjoyed Le Corbusier’s work, not so much some of his ideas on Urban planning. But to really get to the interesting part of this particular project, we have to go back to 1927 when the League of Nations rejected the modern building that Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret proposed for its headquarters. To say Le Corbusier was disappointed would be an understatement and this moment became a jumping off point that led to Le Corbusier forming the International Congresses of Modern Architecture in 1928. Another Swiss from Zurich, Siegfried Giedion, who was trained as an Engineer, attended the Bauhaus School where he met Walter Gropius and formed his initial interest and opinions on the modern architecture movement, was the Secretary of the International Congress of Modern Architecture and he, along with Le Corbusier wrote the Working Programme of the congress and formulated the text of the declaration. This program would eventually be distilled into the 5 principals  of architecture that I will mention in a Just from that standpoint, Gideon plays an important role into what Villa Savoye is at its essence but he actually continued to play a role in the building as well as its salvage from destruction. So it’s now September 1928 and Le Corbusier has taken on the commission of Villa Savoye. It is called that, maybe obviously because it was the summer house for Pierre and Eugénie Savoye. The Savoye’s developed a brief that called for the programming of the villa, but according to apparently Le Corbusier was given free reign aesthetically and he used this project to articulate some ideas that he had been working on and what would eventually be articulated in the book “Vers une Architecture”  - which translates to Toward a New Architecture. The principals as all architecture students learn are: Pilotis (or pillars) Roof Garden Open Floor plan Long windows Open Facades And all of these principals are on display the Villa Savoye. Construction started in 1929 and was virtually completed within a year but the house wasn’t habitable until 1931. Meanwhile Gideon has been writing and starting publishing articles about Villa Savoye and how it was an exemplary building of new architecture – which of course he would think this as it reflected the principals of architecture he and Le Corbusier set out in the International Congress of Modern Architecture. These initial articles were bring a lot of attention to the Villa but it was still under construction during this period and hadn’t been lived in yet. There are a handful of historical documents you can find on the internet that show a dialog between Giedion and a publisher by the name of Christian Zervos, some are focused around the photography being used in these articles – most of which was either taken by Pierre Jeanneret or Giedion and how they weren’t all that great – but the images I’ve seen look pretty amazing as the Villa is unfinished and it is about as diagrammatic a building as you might ever see. Moving forward a bit, the Savoy’s lived in the house until WWII, at which point it was commandeered by the Germans who apparently used the Villa to store hay. Not too long after, it was passed along to the Americans who used it for purposes other than storing hay. When it returned to the Savoye’s they were no longer in a position to live as they had done before the war and the house was abandoned. The city expropriated the Savoye property in order to build school buildings – meanwhile Le Corbusier was not aware of all of this and was notified by the family in 1959 what was going on and he took immediate action in an attempt to save the Villa. Le Corbusier talked with the city and essentially learned that the only steps that could be taken to save the villa was to buy it outright. Corbusier reached back out to Giedion was in New York at this time, was that this was not a vanity exercise but that the Circle of Architectural Studies of Paris, Andre Malraux – who was the minister for Cultural Affairs and UNESCO had all been briefed on the matter but none came forth with the money to purchase the property. What these folks could do is identify the property as being of historic value and they could simply appropriate it – but there was not even the slightest intention to do this. So Le Corbusier reached out to Giedion and basically asked him secure American money to make this purchase. If you read enough on this you can see that there is an exchange where Gideon tells Corbusier to let him know exactly how much Poissey paid for the expropriation, Corbusier’s estimate for the cost of the renovation, and for what purpose would the Villa essentially exist once it was secured and repaired? “From the American point of view it is impossible to ask for money without knowing the exact sum and the use to which it will be put?”  ~Siegfried Giedion Based on the estimates of agronomists as to the estate and its fruit trees, along with Le Corbusier, they determined it would be 100 million Francs. Since this was an extreme amount of money, What Le Corbusier did in an attempt to save the Villa Savoye is rather remarkable. He set up a “Le Corbusier Foundation” where the foundation would be Corbusier’s sole heir. He states that there is an asset of very significant value: thousands of drawings, some 200 paintings, the whole of architectural and Urban planning designs from 1922 onward, the royalties on about 50 books, etc. "All of this money is in front of us, it is never in my pocket because my pockets never had it." I found this 4K video walkthrough of the project which can help you to not only see the building, but you'll be able to see how the spaces work with one-another. Barcelona Chair  (image credits Knoll.com) Barcelona Pavilion Chair jump to So my first selection is the Barcelona chair. This iconic piece has always been attributed to Mies van der Rohe and debuted at the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona, Spain. Initially conceived for the German Pavilion (i.e. the Barcelona Pavilion) there were only two chairs in the original pavilion. Of course we know the chair is now very popular and an icon of Modernism and Modernist design. But recently it has come to light that Mies worked very closely with Lilly Reich on the creation of the chair. Reich, an influential figure in early Modern Movement design, worked closely with Mies van der Rohe during the Weimar period, crafting textiles, furniture, and exhibition spaces. She was a master member of the Bauhaus; in fact the first female master craftsman. Their collaboration was significant and extended to projects like the Stuttgart "Die Wohnung" exhibition and the Barcelona Pavilion, where the iconic chair debuted. Lilly Reich's vision emphasized industry integration and mass production. This was clear in her design approach during the 1929 International Exposition. She advocated for the seamless integration of mass-produced items, showcasing them in refined contexts. This philosophy was shared by Mies and others at the time. In many parts of my research referenced Mies and Lilly as “inseparable companions” during the short period of the Bauhaus and up until Mies moved to the United States in 1938. Their partnership extended beyond design projects, encompassing teaching roles at the Bauhaus and numerous exhibition curation ventures. Notably, their joint efforts birthed iconic pieces like the Barcelona Chair and Brno Chair, leaving a lasting imprint on modern furniture design. Despite their shared accomplishments, Reich's contributions often went overlooked, a result of the typical behaviors of the time,