After the discussion we had in class about the definition of functionalism and the questioning of IKEA as functionalist design, I decided to write an essay as a response to this discussion. I will do so by tracing functionalism back to William Morris and explain how it eventually led to the interpretation of IKEA as functionalist design, and why IKEA doesn’t actually fit into the definition of functionalist design Bauhaus had, and in some sense IKEA rather is what Morris fought against.
From William Morris to the Bauhaus, functionalism has evolved, some aspects of it have changed, and the original form of functionalist design emerged. However it is interesting that in today’s world the definition of functionalism have many different interpretations which depend on personal opinions; this eventually shifted the true meaning of functionalism and led to the conception of IKEA as if it inherited the functional design of the Bauhaus movement which I completely disagree with. I find it amusing because IKEA’s designs actually oppose Morris’ idea of functionalism. There is an important difference in the overall concept of the Bauhaus and IKEA and we can see this by going through the steps of functionalism.
Even though in today’s world people have many different conceptions of what functionalist design is, in reality there is a pretty solid definition of functionalism. As Nikolaus Pevsner mentions in “Pioneers of Modern Design”, Morris laid the foundation and with Gropius its character was ultimately determined. George Marcus defines functionalism as: “the notion that objects made to be used should be simple, honest, and direct; well adapted to their purpose; bare of ornament; standardized; machine-made, and reasonably priced; and expressive of their structure and materials - has defined the course of progressive design for most of the century.” People in today’s world have different thoughts about functionalist design because they have probably never heard of the original form of functionalist design like Marcus’ definition above. So these people classified IKEA as functionalist design because they only had a vague idea about the topic and they do need better understanding of the roots of functionalism to critique IKEA.
Looking back to the root of functionalism, we can observe Morris’ thoughts to comprehend how the whole functionalism notion started out. Morris’ hostility to machinery combined with his questioning “What business have we with art for at all unless all can share it?” can give a sense of the aspects that can be identified in the definition of functionalism today: What this means is functionalism was actually founded as a view against industrialization and supported having designs within reach. Moreover, he was not against all machinery but he was fighting against the poor quality of mass produced designs those were done by machines. Unfortunately, achieving good quality mass produced designs which were economically accessible without industrialization was untenable because all the designs Morris provided ended up being quite expensive. So, Morris is the one who put the ideas for functionalist design on the table but he couldn’t really resolve the issues concerning him about the topic due to the fact that even though his firm made beautiful handmade products, they were expensive so they were not designs within reach. Morris posed the question and thought about the solutions the problem and the next generations transformed the notion of functionalism just a little bit so that the problem could be resolved.
Morris first inspired the Arts and Crafts movement with his thoughts and then Deutsche Werkbund who followed the same path by promoting the alliance of artists, craftsman and mass production. These lead to the Bauhaus. Bauhaus is the time when functional design was ultimately transformed and determined to become the definition we know it by in today’s world. (It is Marcus’ definition which I quoted in the beginning of my essay) The Bauhaus responded to Morris’ idea of functionalism by trying to create the most intimate union possible between art and industrialization. In Bauhaus, they stripped the ornamentation and made use of machines and manufacturing techniques to create durable, good functioning designs that are mass-produced and economically accessible. So they have basically achieved everything that Morris was asking for. However, it is interesting to see that if Morris’ work and Bauhaus are compared stylistically, anyone can see that they don’t look related. There is nothing similar about them. That is because “Morris’ designs for hand-crafted objects inspired by medieval prototypes and Bauhaus designs for mass-produced objects inspired by Euclidean archetypes. A theoretical link can be identified between them in their shared functionalist notion that beauty results from the truthful representation of construction, materials, use. But Morris’ apprehension of the machine is antithetical to the Bauhaus anesthetization of the machine.”1
After going through the foundation of functionalism, I don’t feel comfortable putting IKEA anywhere in the functionalist design category. Because, IKEA is NOT functional! First of all, IKEA is not a good quality product, it breaks apart and that was what Morris was fighting against and that’s what made him bring up the idea of functionalism. Morris was frustrated that all these machines were creating these bad quality mass produced designs, which is exactly what IKEA is doing. So, after this point it doesn’t matter if IKEA products are economically accessible or not; then Morris could have done poor quality cheap designs too, but that was not the goal of functionalism. People always get the feeling that IKEA is functionalist design because it is very similar to Bauhaus in “style” but while ‘form follows function’ in Bauhaus, in IKEA nothing in literally “functional”, they just resemble Bauhaus designs. Form and style do not relate to the notion of functionalism in the sense that not every functionalist design has to look alike, we know how different Morris’ and the Bauhaus designs are.
Going through the history of functionalism, I realized how many things we have to keep in mind during a design process and I realized I have to find a good balance between some aspects of design in order to reach a conclusion. Since Morris wouldn’t open his mind to new technology, he couldn’t solve the problem he had in hand. Bauhaus was open to new techniques and it managed to balance everything so it was a successful design revolution.
Bibliography
Weingarden, Lauren "Aesthetics Politicized: William Morris to the Bauhaus" Journal of Architectural Education
Marcus, George “ Functionalist Design an Ongoing History”
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Functionalist Chairs Through Materials
Functionalism - “the notion that objects made to be used should be simple, honest, and direct; well adapted to their purpose; bare of ornament; standardized; machine-made, and reasonably priced; and expressive of their structure and materials - has defined the course of progressive design for most of the century.” (George Marcus, Functionalism, 1995, p.9.)
Throughout the history of functionalist design, there were always some innovative designers who tried to integrate new materials and new processes to their designs. Each of the chair designs I have selected for my timeline have unique forms because they were influenced by the functionalist approach. The designers carefully investigated the characteristic of the materials they were dealing with and how it could be manufactured. This functionalist approach leaded to simple but brilliant designs where “form follows function”. All the chairs below demonstrate the investigation of the designers to create a chair that is cheap and easy to be manufactured while taking nothing away from the function of the chair itself. Today, there are so many new materials and new processes which make me wonder how I can apply them in my designs to make something simple, unique and functional.
1859 - The Thonet No.14 by Michael Thonet
The design of the chair is focused on its functionality and mass-production. It is bare of ornament and made out of 6 pieces of steam-bent wood which could easily be taken apart similarly to IKEA furniture we have today. The natural characteristics of the material enabled this simple design. By 1930, over 50 million units of this famous design were sold.
Marcel Breuer made use of “steel tubing” to come up with a functionalist design in his “Cantilever Chair”. The form language of the chair is truly inspired by functionalism; it is geared towards manufacturability and expresses the characteristics and the structure of the material. It is a timeless design.
1986 – The Panton Chair by Verner Panton
The Panton chair is made from a single polypropylene shape. Danish designer Verner Panton pushed the limits of the material and struggled with ways of constructing this chair since 1950s. This simple and unique design is a classic award winning modern chair which caused a sensation when it was finally unveiled in 1968.
1968 - The Blow Chair by de Pas, d'Urbino, lomazzi & Scolari
This first mass produced inflatable chair made a statement about designing with new materials out there by using transparent PVC and a new technology.Eventhough it doesn’t look like a conventional chair it is well adapted to its purpose; it is light, cheap and easy to mass produce.
1999 – Air Chair by Jasper Morrison
The Air Chair is a brilliantly simple design made out of one piece, gas injected polypropylene chair. It is not only light and strong but thanks to its advanced manufacturing techniques it is mass-affordable too. This is one of the most recent designs that make use of the functionalism notion in every aspect of the design.
Throughout the history of functionalist design, there were always some innovative designers who tried to integrate new materials and new processes to their designs. Each of the chair designs I have selected for my timeline have unique forms because they were influenced by the functionalist approach. The designers carefully investigated the characteristic of the materials they were dealing with and how it could be manufactured. This functionalist approach leaded to simple but brilliant designs where “form follows function”. All the chairs below demonstrate the investigation of the designers to create a chair that is cheap and easy to be manufactured while taking nothing away from the function of the chair itself. Today, there are so many new materials and new processes which make me wonder how I can apply them in my designs to make something simple, unique and functional.
1859 - The Thonet No.14 by Michael Thonet
The design of the chair is focused on its functionality and mass-production. It is bare of ornament and made out of 6 pieces of steam-bent wood which could easily be taken apart similarly to IKEA furniture we have today. The natural characteristics of the material enabled this simple design. By 1930, over 50 million units of this famous design were sold.
Marcel Breuer made use of “steel tubing” to come up with a functionalist design in his “Cantilever Chair”. The form language of the chair is truly inspired by functionalism; it is geared towards manufacturability and expresses the characteristics and the structure of the material. It is a timeless design.
1986 – The Panton Chair by Verner Panton
The Panton chair is made from a single polypropylene shape. Danish designer Verner Panton pushed the limits of the material and struggled with ways of constructing this chair since 1950s. This simple and unique design is a classic award winning modern chair which caused a sensation when it was finally unveiled in 1968.
1968 - The Blow Chair by de Pas, d'Urbino, lomazzi & Scolari
This first mass produced inflatable chair made a statement about designing with new materials out there by using transparent PVC and a new technology.Eventhough it doesn’t look like a conventional chair it is well adapted to its purpose; it is light, cheap and easy to mass produce.
1999 – Air Chair by Jasper Morrison
The Air Chair is a brilliantly simple design made out of one piece, gas injected polypropylene chair. It is not only light and strong but thanks to its advanced manufacturing techniques it is mass-affordable too. This is one of the most recent designs that make use of the functionalism notion in every aspect of the design.
Light Sources
The creation of fire is known as one of humankind’s first and most important steps towards where we are today. Thanks to the light sources we are not dependent to sunlight and have the freedom to continue living our lives after the sun goes down. Since men discovered fire, they never stopped improving the light sources which are major elements in our daily lives. There have been many revolutionary steps in the lighting sources throughout history till lighting we have today. Today we have a huge range of lighting options. It’s interesting to see how it all started with the creation of fire and improved till the maximum use of electricity as if that would be the best thing. And today, we are trying to find ways to make more use of sunlight and less use of electricity. And the light sources are designed to conserve energy and to be longer lasting. Moreover, as the technology advances, the light sources are becoming thinner smaller and pushing the limits we know as what "light could be". In the old days they probably couldn't have imagined having a light bulb and electricity and after that no one would believe that such a light source as thin as a film and is flexible would be created. All the steps the light sources took in history are revolutionary and I can't wait to find out what kind of a revolutionary light source is next..
1.8 Million years ago - Fire
The use of fire for light has been an important step for us. Before the discovery of fire, after the sun went down, with no light around, people had no choice but sleep until the sun was up again. Campfire gave people the freedom to extend the day’s activities past daylight. The problem was that it still limited people because it was not portable. Evidence of fire exists from up to 1.8 million years ago.
3000 BC – Candles
The first candles were used by Egyptians as early as 3000 BC. Unlike campfire, candles are portable. Around the first century Romans used candles made out of tallow and the pith of rushes. Paraffin was introduced in 1830 and it was revolutionary because it was an inexpensive material that produced high-quality, odorless candles. Candles are still used, not in everyday life but for creating moods in environments for celebration, romance etc. because they continuously cast a warm glow.
1879 – Incandescent Light
In 1879, Thomas Edison introduced the incandescent light bulb in the form we have today. This is the first electric lamp, and probably is the most frequently used lighting source in today’s world. These incandescent light bulbs work by using electricity and a filament. The first light bulb by Edison lasted 40 hours while the ones we use now last up to 60.000 hours and use magnetic induction.
1901 – Fluorescent Light
2008 - OLED
OLEDs (organic light-emitting diode) are made of thin films of organic molecules which create light with electricity. They consume significantly less power than all the other light sources available. OLED was introduced as a light source this year in a light fair as a lamp by Ingo Maurer. In the near future OLEDs will be flexible and transparent light sources which could even be placed over windows so at nights the light would illuminate all over the room.
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