Week 9: Technology and Progress

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technology +/= progress


The personal and social consequences of any medium—that is, of any extension of ourselves—result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology. Marshall McLuhan, “The Medium is the Message” Understanding Media (1964)


DLF: Digital Migration


DLF: Digital Migration


The Bauhaus Weimar: 1919-1923

Lyonel Feininger, woodcut for Bauhaus manifesto, 1919


Walter Gropius, Fagus Shoe Factory c.1911-1913


Deutscher Werkbund Cologne, 1914 individual vs. universal


Hermann Muthesius Aims of the Werkbund, “thesis” 1914


Henry van de Velde Aims of the Werkbund, “anti-thesis” 1914


The Bauhaus Weimar: 1919-1923

Lyonel Feininger, woodcut for Bauhaus manifesto, 1919


Walter Gropius Programme of the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar, 1919


Johannes Itten the Bauhaus vorkurs (foundation course)


woodworking workshop

Walter Gropius’ office


Sommerfeld House,1921-22 collective Bauhaus project—a new unity of art and life


art and technology “a new unity” 1923 Before the machine, everyone is equal. . . There is no tradition in technology, no consciousness of class or standing. Everybody can be the machine’s slave or master.

László Moholy-Nagy


Joost Schmidt Bauhaus exhibition Weimar 1923


Haus-am-Horn living room + kitchen Bauhaus exhibition, 1923


Vladimir Tatlin “Monument to the Third International� 1919 Soviet Constructivism


art and technology “a new unity” 1923, Bauhaus products


Bauhaus Institute for Design, Dessau, 1926

Student Workshop Building, Bauhaus, Dessau, Germany, 1926


Marianne Brandt, self-portrait, metal workshop, Dessau, c.1926


photograms, L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy, 1922-43


Marianne Brandt, ashtray, metal workshop, Dessau, c.1926


Marcel Breuer, Model B3 for Thonet, Dessau, 1925-26


Marcel Breuer, B32 for Thonet, Dessau, 1928


Herbert Bayer, universal alphabet, 1926



There is a strong parallel between the prominent role of such “empty” white space in these layouts and the sparsely-furnished interior of the Haus-am-Horn and other experimental housing projects being planned during the same years. In these projects white walls dominated and space “materialized” in relation to standard rectangular tables, chairs, and shelves. In this way mechanized mass production, involving standardization and uniformity, was, at least symbolically, linked to a universal and egalitarian socialist vision for the society of the future. David Raizman, “The Bauhaus” History of Modern Design



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