Temporizing and Modernist Architecture

Last week, I anticipated this week being crazy busy. Two major research papers, one minor paper, and 32 midterms to grade. So I went ahead and cranked out my two major papers that were due this week. It's really cleared up my schedule. Either that or I've already written them, and now it takes a huge amount of self motivation to go back and read through them to edit and organize them, and I just don't want to. It takes so much to get me to edit one of my own papers. It's a weird thing; I love editing papers that aren't mine, but I hate rereading what I've written. Unless it's been months or years, then I don't mind.

So, in an effort to temporize even more, I thought I would blog about something we discussed in Modern Art today. We were talking about the Bauhaus and the new aesthetic--that sleek, reduced aesthetic that consists of basic shapes and form stripped to the bare minimum. I love this modernist architecture. It's just so clean to me and reduced; it's simplicity at its greatest refinement, and I yearn to live in a house like that.

German Pavilion, built for the 1929 Barcelona World Fair

My professor asked who would like to live in this house, and the majority raised their hand. He then asked those who didn't raise their hand why they wouldn't want to live in a place like this. The answers were varied. It didn't seem practical, what was its use, it's an empty monument to modernist architecture, etc. And my professor agreed with them to an extent, claiming that there was no storage space in a place like this and that its practicality was questionable. 

But I disagree with them on so many levels. 

Yes, the Bauhaus sought to integrate art with technology to establish a new machine aesthetic. But to me, I see it somewhat differently. It's simple and reduced, the way I want my life to be. Sometimes there seems to be such a push to have and have and have the latest and greatest or just the accoutrements that accompany a typical, material life. But I don't want that. I want reduction, I want simplicity, I want the bare minimum. Who needs storage space when all you have is what you absolutely need? Why wouldn't this seem practical? Taking your life and stripping it to just the furniture and accessories that you need to function is to me extremely practical.  

I get so drowned by this push to have little sculptures or decorative asides in my house. I see these magazine with amazing color schemes and colorful pillows that adorn a couch with paintings on the wall and vases and figurines and lamps and decorative books (which I have a problem with to begin with, but that's another story), and it's all so beautiful. But at the same time, it's all so much. Who needs those vases and figurines; why not have one or two pillows instead of six? And above all, read those books. Don't use them to achieve greater aestheticism in your living room. 

I am definitely guilty of this myself. I don't pretend otherwise. I have vases and glass bottles in my home; stacks of books, paintings on my wall, and piles of paper. But I want greater simplicity in my life. With all of its hustle and bustle and constant push to keep busy, I want a place free of clutter, commotion, and chaos, a sleek and calm reprieve. And to me, this is the ultimate functionality of the home I wish to have. 

I stand by my desire to live in a place similar to the German Pavilion.