Module 3

EARLY MODERN ARCHITECTURE II

Modern movement-
DESTIJL MOVEMENT

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

• De Stijl, or The Style, is an art and design movement founded in Holland by painters and architects around 1917
• The movement strives to express universal concepts through elimination, reduction abstraction, simplification, and
a dynamic asymmetrical balance of rectangles, planes, verticals, horizontals, the primary colors, and black, white,
and gray
• Designers formulate a new language and vocabulary for architecture.
• To do this, they take the traditional house apart, analyze it like an object, abstract it to eliminate traditional
references, and then reassemble it in a new way
• The new form emphasizes the cube. It is not a solid box, but instead opens up from outside to inside with solid and
void relationships established through flat planes.

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTERISTICS

• Flat roof, asymmetry, geometric forms, white or gray walls with details highlighted by primary colors.
• Houses for individuals are the most important.
• Compositions generally emphasize the separation of planes, the application of primary colors, and the spatial relationship o
voids.
• Rectangular shapes define the geometric repetition of windows, doors, and blocks of color.
• Window sizes vary on an individual building from large to small. They may be arranged in patterns or one unit on a large w
• Flat roofs are typical, and distinctly different from other structures.

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

SYMBOLS MOTIFS
• There are no decorative motifs in De Stijl design.
• Instead, beauty evolves from simple.
• Unadorned surfaces arranged in geometric relationships and from construction detailing

DECORATIVE ARTS
• Decorative arts are limited in De Stijl house.
• Artwork is prohibited because the house itself is a piece of art.
• Few designers create decorative arts.

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

Stijl rejected pre-war decorative tendencies (think Art Nouveau)
Pushed Cubism to new extremes: total abstraction consisting of only the most basic design components — vertical and
horizontal lines, primary colours.
Social + aesthetic
removing the individualism of the artist in favor of precision and universal harmonies.
Laying the groundwork for a future utopia.

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

 Piet Mondrian
• proposed ultimate simplicity and abstraction
• express a Utopian idea of harmony and order.
• Viewing art as a means of social and spiritual redemption.
• a visual language consisting of precisely rendered geometric forms - usually
straight lines, squares
• Expressing the artists' search "for the universal, as the individual was losing
its significance," this austere language was meant to reveal the laws
governing the harmony of the world.

Piet Mondrian, Composition with

Yellow, Blue, and Red, 1937-42

INITIATION Composition Yellow, Blue, Black, Red And

White by Marlow Moss (1956-57)
• Theo Van Doesburg
• Piet Mondrian A TYPICAL MONDRIAN PAINTING
CONSISTS ONLY OF FLAT
• Gerrit Rietveld RECTANGLES OF COLOUR
• Bart van der Leck SEPARATED BY THICK BLACKLINES.

• Vilmos Huszár
• J. J. P. Oud
HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM
The style became a real architecture style, a three dimensional version of mondrian’s neo-Plasticism. The best and most
famous example of the style is a little two-storey dwelling in utrecht called the schroder house built in 1924 by reitveld
Rietveld was a furniture designer before he was architect and he designed a chair

A chair by Gerrit Thomas Reitveld (1923-9) SCHRODER HOUSE

It is made of wood and its various components- seat, back, legs, arms, - all Are pure , straight forms that touch each other.
Each element maintains its independence and its integritythe parts are important as the whole.
The word “ elementarism” was coined to describe this way of assembling forms.
In its classic version the chair is painted red, blue, ytellow and black, conforming to the de stijl preference for
primary colours.

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

FIRST FLOOR (LEFT) GROUND FLOOR
(RIGHT)
1.BALCONY
2.WORKROOM/BEDROOM 1.READING ROOM
3. WORKROOM/BEDROOM 2.STUDIO
4.HALL 3.HALL
5.LIVING 4.WORK ROOM
6.BEDROOM 5.BEDROOM
7.BATHROOM 6.KITCHEN/DINING

Schroder house is an elementarist composition for living in.

-It stands firmly enough n the ground but somehow manages
to maintain its weightless quality.
-Its walls and roofs are thin rectangular planes
--there are subtle differences of monochrome tone, from pure
white to mid grey , columns, mulllions , transoms painted
red, blue or yellow, the approved neo plasticist colours.

SCHRODER HOUSE , NETHERLANDS

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM
• Still as visionary and eccentric as it was when it was built in the 1920, The Schroder House is the only building that
was designed in complete accordance with the De Stijl style, which was marked by primary colors and pure ideas.

• The flexibility of the interior spaces and the obviously planar quality of the house both give it an edge that makes it
distinguishable and unique on every level.

• The flexibility of space meant that there was no hierarchical arrangement of rooms in the floor plan. The collapsable
walls upstairs positioned around a central staircase were designed to provide the children with an option of pushing
the partitions in during the day for an open play space and closing them at night for private bedrooms.

• What makes the Schroder House an icon of the Modern Movement is its radical approach to design, the use of
space, and the purity of its concepts and ideas as represented in the De Stijl movement. Its transformational quality
of evenly matched spaces composed of independent planes perfectly met the goals of the De Stijl movement

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

• Rietveld gave a new spatial meaning to the straight lines and rectangular planes of the various architectural structural
elements, slabs, posts and beams, which were composed in a balanced ensemble.

• The main structure of the house is of reinforced concrete slabs and steel profiles.

• Walls are made of brick and plaster; window frames, doors, and floors were made from wood.

• To preserve the strict design standards about intersecting planes, the windows are hinged so that they are

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM

HOA- III MODULE – 3 III SEM