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| Library status: currently open during regularly scheduled hours. |
De Stijl (Art movement)
Functionalism (Architecture)
Neoplasticism
Doesburg, Theo van, 1883-1931
Mondrian, Piet, 1872-1944
Rietveld, Gerrit Thomas, 1888-1964
Schoenmaekers, Mathieu, 1875-1944
De Stijl by
The ideas that later had such a marked influence on the architecture of Walter Gropius and others of the Bauhaus movement, and subsequently on commercial art and graphic design, were first advocated by the Dutch magazine De Stijl.
De Stijl 1917-1931 by
Here is the essential book on De Stijl, one of the longest lived and most influential of modern art movements. H. L. C. Jaffeacute; recounts the history of this abstract movement; explains its artistic goals and practice; delineates its utopian ideology; and describes the special qualities of De Stijl painting, sculpture, architecture, and design. Jaffeacute; charts the evolution of the movement from its beginning in 1917 with the founding of the journal De Stijl. He locates the philosophical origins of the artistic program, which put aside representation of nature and confined itself to "pure" forms of expression: vertical and horizontal lines and the primary colors--yellow, blue, red--against white, black, and gray. He describes the roles of Ban Doesburg, De Stijl's driving force, and Mondrian, its leading exponent; the application of its principles to design and architecture; and the involvement of sculptors Arp and Brancusi. He places De Stijl in relation to other abstract arts and demonstrates its wide range of influence. Throughout Jaffeacute; quotes extensively from the writings of the De Stijl group, allowing the artists themselves to describe their aims and methods; a complete forty-page pamphlet by Mondrian, Art and Life (1931) is appended.
The De Stijl Environment by
The Dutch magazine De Stijl, published from 1917 to 1931, was the focus of a remarkable group of advanced artists and architects who sought to combine their individual talents in collaborative projects that reflected their social and aesthetic ideals. The De Stijl Environmentexplores the group's approach to exterior and interior spaces and to furniture. It treats such themes as color, abstraction, and the corner, and describes the various collaborative efforts within the movement, in particular, the one that produced the De Stijl environment. Troy traces its evolution from an architecturally defined space to one determined by coloristic design. Among the painters discussed are Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, Vilmos Huszar, and Bart van der Liek; the architects include Gerrit Rietveld, Rob van't Hoff, Jan Wils, J. J. P Oud, and Cornelius van Eesteren. Nancy J. Troy is Associate Professor of Art History, Northwestern University.
East European Modernism by
Suppressed by the former communist governments and overshadowed by a focus on German and Dutch early modernism, the outstanding achievements of functionalist architects in Eastern Europe have been largely ignored by historians and critics. this book is the first retrospective ever published of functionalist buildings completed between the wars, the "Golden Age" of modernism, in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. It is illustrated with rare archival and current photographs of the most famous and exemplary projects in each country: sanatoriums, hotels, sports facilities, private houses, offices, and religious and governmental buildings. Among the illustrious architects whose work is presented here are Karel Teige, Bohuslav Fuchs, and Josef Gocar of Czechoslovakia; Alfred Forbat and Jozsef Fischer of Hungary; and Lucian Korngold, Barbara and Stanislaw Brukalski, and Bohdeon Lachert of Poland. An introductory essay examines functionalism in Eastern Europe from an international perspective; essays by prominent architectural historians from Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland explore competing ideas and functionalism in each country.
The Furniture of Gerrit Thomas Rietveld by 
The Heroic Period of Modern Architecture by 
Mondrian by
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), who can be assigned to the school of classical modernism, was born in Amersfort, Netherlands. After studying in Amsterdam, he started his artist´s career in the impressionist style as a figure and landscape painter. His works from these years showed the influence of Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) and of Fauvism, a French school from the beginning of the 20th century. When he traveled to Paris in 1911, he discovered Pablo Picasso´s works (1881-1973) and, with that, Cubism. He thereafter became a pioneer of abstract painting in the Netherlands. From the 1920s on, his paintings show a vertical and horizontal composition that, combined with the oppositions of blue, yellow, red, and noncolored spaces, turned into his trademark. His art was very appreciated in New York, where he spent his last years. Mondrian was not only a painter but also an art theoretician and cofounder of the art school De Stijl.
Mondrian by
Piet Mondrian pioneered the de Stijl movement--Dutch for "The Style"--that emerged in the early 20th century and which served as an important transition from a focus on Symbolism and Realism to a new and growing focus on abstraction. The evolution of Mondrian's initial, traditional style, akin to that of The Hague School, through to his much later works in primary colors and geometric forms, which he called Neo-plasticism, is marked by rather sharp deviations in stylistic form and experimentation along the way, including Cubism and Fauvism. Much of Mondrian's work was greatly influenced by Theosophy, a movement considered to be the genesis of "New Age" beliefs, begun by the Russian occultist Helena Blavatsky in 1875. The goal of her followers was to find inner enlightenment. As Mondrian sought personal inner beauty and the reason for his existence, he sought the same in his art, reducing and simplying the subjects of his paintings to the true essence of what he perceived as their inner beauty and raison d'etre. In the company of artists such as Picasso and Dalí, Mondrian's body of work is without question one of the most evolutionary in style and imaginative in content, ranging from excellently executed realistic depictions to the most abstract interpretations of their subjects.
The New Art--The New Life by
When the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) made his first ventures into the realm of nonrepresentational art, he could hardly have imagined the impact his vision would have on twentieth-century art, architecture, and design. Internationally recognized as the leading pioneer of abstract art, the founder of Neo-Plasticism, and the ideological father of the De Stijl movement, Mondrian embodied the spirit of modernism. His unmistakable grids and angular compositions expressed his desire for order and clarity amid the chaos of industrial civilization. This comprehensive collection of his essays, letters, notes, and interviews is arranged chronologically from Mondrian's earliest De Stijl essays up to an interview conducted shortly before his death. The texts are complemented with a chronology, an intimate memoir by his close friend Harry Holtzman, an essay on Mondrian's early writings by Martin S. James, a selective bibliography, and 254 reproductions of Mondrian's paintings,works, by his contemporaries, and photographs of the artist, his family, and friends.The New Art -The New Life is the definitive source for understanding the underlying principles of Mondrian's art and life. Revealed in these writings is the self-denial, discipline, and patience of a man who modified the way we perceive the world.
Piet Mondrian, 1872-1944 by
Commemorating the 50th anniversary of his death, this is an extensive study of the work of the Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian, which has greatly influenced 20th-century design, architecture and art. The essays in the book cover Mondrian's entire career and also include information about his life.
Rietveld Schroder House by
Schroder House, built in 1924 in Utrecht, the Netherlands, is the first and perhaps the most famous structure designed by revered de Stijl architect Gerrit Rietveld. A pilgrimage site for architects and historians, this small townhouse is considered the first truly modern residence. Its revolutionary open-plan layout provided an alternative to confining small rooms, its strip windows broke down the barrier between inside and outside, and its primary color scheme and shifting wall planes were symbols of its rupture with tradition. This title on the building's history presents a wealth of new information, including new photographs showing details uncovered in the recent restoration, archival images from when the house was built, and floor plans of each level of the house. It also contains material from the extensive archive amassed by the client, as well as information provided by Bertus Mulder, Rietveld's assistant at the time the house was built.
Theo van Doesburg by
This is a comprehensive study of a major figure of the modern movement, in whose work philosophy, architecture and painting are inextricably entwined. From the founding of the periodical De Stijl in 1917, van Doesburg occupied a central position in the development of a Modernist aesthetic. His early career was concentrated on poetry and painting, but from the inception of De Stijl and his association with painters and architects such as Piet Mondrian and J. J. P. Oud, he turned increasingly to architecture as the locus for the accomplishment of the 'total work of art'. Van Doesburg became an architectural theorist of international renown, but encountered disappointment at every turn in his architectural practice. Projects and buildings became object-lessons in the fundamental principles of architecture; theory was shown to be a necessary concomitant to practice. Van Doesburg's extreme polemic guaranteed controversy and conflict so intense that it is still fresh in the minds of his surviving collaborators and correspondents. As the flint to the steel of architects like Gropius and Le Corbusier, as a painter and architect, and as the editor of De Stijl, he was a key figure in the growth of Modernism.
Theo van Doesburg, Propagandist and Practitioner of the Avant-Garde by 
Towards a New Architecture by
"Towards a New Architecture" by Le Corbusier is THE classic book advocating for and exploring the concept of modern architecture. It has had an undeniable lasting effect on the architectural profession, serving as the manifesto for a generation of architects and unquestionably a critical piece of architectural theory. The architectural historian Reyner Banham claimed that its influence is definately "beyond that of any other architectural work published in this [20th] century to date" and this unparalleled influence has continued into the 21st century.
