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19. Specimen of Futura, issued by the New York City sales office of the Bauer type foundry. 1928
20. Ivan Leonidov.
Drawing concept of a printing house. 1925
21. Audrey Hepburn poses for photo to promote the film Sabrina. 1954
22. George Carwardine.
Anglepoise lamp. 1932
As ornament is no longer organically linked with our culture, it is also no longer an expression of our culture. Ornament as created today has no connection with us, has no human connections at all, no connection with the world as it is constituted. It cannot be developed. The artist always used to stand at the forefront of humanity, full of health and vigour. But the modem ornamentalist is a straggler, or a pathological case. He rejects even his own products within three years. To cultivated people they are unbearable immediately, others are aware of their unbearableness only after some years. Where are the works of Otto Eckmann today? Where will Olbrich's work be in ten years' time? Modern ornament has no forbears and no descendants, no past and no future. It is joyfully welcomed by uncultivated people, to whom the true greatness of our time is a closed book, and after a short period is rejected.
23. Ulm School of Design. Designed by Max Bill. Completed in 1955
Mankind today is healthier than ever, only a few people are sick. But these few tyrannize over the worker who is so healthy that he cannot invent ornament. They force him to make the ornaments they have invented in the greatest variety of materials.
This is well-known to the ornamentalists, and Austrian ornamentalists try to make the most of it. They say: “A consumer who has his furniture for ten years and then can't stand it anymore and has to re-furnish from scratch every ten years, is more popular with us than someone who only buys an item when the old one is worn out. Industry thrives on this. Millions are employed due to rapid changes.” This seems to be the secret of the Austrian national economy; how often when a fire breaks out one hears the words: ”Thank God, now there will be something for people to do.” I know a good remedy: burn down a town, burn down the country and everything will be swimming in wealth and well-being. Make furniture that you can use as firewood after three years and metal fittings that must be melted down after four years because even in the auction room you can't realize a tenth of the outlay in work and materials, and we shall become richer and richer.
Changes in decoration account for the quick devaluation of the product of labour. The worker's time and the material used are capital items that are being wasted. I have coined an aphorism: The form of an object should last (i.e., should be bearable) as long as the object lasts physically.
I shall try to clarify this: A suit will change in fashion more often than a valuable fur. A ball gown for a lady, only meant for one night, will change its form more speedily than a desk But woe to the desk that has to be changed as quickly as a ball gown because its shape has become unbearable, for than the money spent on the desk will have been wasted.
24. Hans (Nick) Roericht, TC100 tableware for Thomas Rosenthal, degree project, 1958—59
25. Shukhov Tower on the Oka River, Russia. Designed by Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov. 1929
I am preaching to the aristocrats. I tolerate ornaments on my own body if they afford my fellow-men pleasure. Then they are a pleasure to me, too. I put up with the ornaments of the natives, the Persians, the Slovak peasant woman and my shoemaker's ornaments, for these workers have no other means of reaching the heights of their existence. We have art, which has replaced ornament. We go to Beethoven or Tristan after the cares of the day. My shoemaker can't. I must not take away his joy as I have nothing to replace it with. But whoever goes to the Ninth Symphony and than sits down to design a wallpaper pattern is either a rogue or a degenerate.
Today, ornament on items that need no ornament means wasted labour and spoilt materials.
The loss does not hit only the consumer, it hits the manufacturer above all.
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If all objects were aesthetically enduring for as long as they lasted physically, the consumer could afford to pay a price that would enable the worker to earn more money and work shorter hours. I don’t mind spending four times as much for an article which I am certain I can make use of and use up completely as I would for one inferior in shape and material. I don't mind spending forty kronen for my boots although I could get boots for ten kronen in another shop. But in trades suffering under the tyranny of the
ornamentalists, good or bad workmanship does not count. The work suffers because nobody wants to pay its true value.
And that is a good thing, because these decorated objects are only bearable in the cheapest form. I can get over a fire's havoc more easily if I hear that only worthless rubbish has been destroyed. I can enjoy the tripe in the Künstlerhaus because I know that it has been put up in a few days and will be torn down in a day. But throwing gold coins around instead of pebbles, lighting cigarettes with a banknote and pulverizing a pearl and than drinking it is unaesthetic. The most unaesthetic decorated objects are those made of the best materials with the greatest care, those that have demanded hours of work. I cannot deny having asked for high quality work above all-but not this kind.
Modern men who revere ornament as a sign of the artistic expression of earlier generations, will immediately recognize the painfully laboured and sickly ornament of today. No-one can create ornament now who lives on our level of culture.
textiles to a certain rhythm, which can be seen only when torn apart, the Persian knotting his carpet, the Slovak peasant woman embroidering her lace, the old lady crocheting wonderful objects in beads and silk. The aristocrat lets them be, for he knows they work in moments of revelation. The revolutionary would go there and say “This is all nonsense.” Just as he would pull the old woman away from the roadside shrine with the words: "There is no God." But among the aristocrats the atheist raises his hat on passing a church. My shoes are covered over and over with decoration, the kind made up of pinking and perforations. Work done by the shoemaker but not paid for. I go to the shoemaker and say: ”You want thirty kronen for a pair of shoes. I'll pay you forty.” In this way I have raised the man to a level of happiness which he will repay me for by work and material of a quality absolutely out of proportion to the extra cost. He is happy. Good fortune rarely comes his way. Here is a man who understands him and appreciates his work and does not doubt his honesty. In his imagination he can already see the finished shoes before him. He knows where the best leather is to be had at present, he knows which of his workers he can entrust the shoes to. And the shoes will boast perforations and scallops, as many as can possibly be fitted on an elegant shoe. And then I add: ”but there's one condition. The shoe must be quite plain.” With that I've toppled him from the heights of contentment into Tartarus. He has less work, but I have robbed him of all his pleasure.
It is different for people and nations who have not yet attained this level.
I am preaching to the aristocrats; I mean, to the people in the forefront of humanity who still fully appreciate the needs and strivings of those beneath: them. They understand the native weaving ornaments into
The most unaesthetic decorated objects are those made of the best materials with the greatest care, those that have demanded hours of work.
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26 Hans Wegner. CH33
Chair. 1957
27 Vase designed by Erich
and Ingrid Triller for Tobo, Sweden. 1950's.
28 Dieter Rams. Braun PC 4.
1960.
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29 Giuseppe Terragni.
Casa del Fascio.
1932—36
30 Alvar Aalto. Main
staircase at Paimio Sanatorium. 1933
31 Walter Gropius. TAC 1 tea
service. 1969
32 Ferdinand Porsche.
Volkswagen Beetle. 1952
6 ‘TAC 1’ Tea Set by Walter
Gropius for Rosenthal, 1969
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33 Alvar Aalto. Riola Parish
Church. 1978
34 Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe. Chicago Federal Center. 1974
38. Ulmer Hocker
by Max Bill for Ulm School manufactured by Zanotta
1954
37. Chair 69
by Alvar Aalto
for Artek
1935
36. Military Side Chair
by Gerrit Rietveld
1923
35. Armchair
by Marcel Breuer
1922
39. The Panton Chair
by Verner Panton
and Vitra
1960
40. Fionda chair
by Jasper Morrison
for Mattiazzi
2013