Design Before Design: A Quick and Dirty History

of Style to 1800

The Parthenon, Athens (448-432 BC)

Pantheon, Rome (2nd century AD)

Andrea Palladio’s Villa Almerico-Capra "La Rotonda"in Vicenza, Italy, 1550

Mannerism and the Late Renaissance

Michelangelo, Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo, Florence, Italy from 1524

Borromini, Dome of San Ivo della Sapienza, 1642-62, Rome, Italy

Baroque Architecture, Italy

Borromini, Dome of S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1643-43, Rome, Italy

Baroque Architecture, Italy

Bernini and Roman Baroque

Bernini, Baldacchino, St. Peter’s 1624-33, Rome, Italy

Bernini and Roman Baroque

Bernini, Throne of St. Peter 1657-66, St. Peter’s, Rome, Italy

Design for a frameJohann Paul SchorRomec. 1670s

Mirror with sunflower motifAnonymousRomeSecond half of seventeenth century

State bed of Maria Mancini ColonnaJohann Paul SchorRomec. 1663

“the bed’s innovation and magnificence filled all the world with admiration”

Rococo

Print from Tableaux d’ornements et rocaillesDesigned by Jacques LajoueFrench c.1740

Centerpiece and terrines for the Duke of KingstonJuste-Aurèle MeissonnierParis1735

CandelabreJuste-Aurele MeissonierParis, 1734

We should be infinitely obliged to (metalsmiths) if they would be good enough not to alter the intention of things and to remember for instance that a candlestick out to be straight and perpendicular in order to support its light, not twisted as if someone had forced it out of shape; that its pan ought to be concave so as to hold the wax than runs down and not convex so as to let it drop in a sheet on the candlestick, besides a quantity of other charming devices no less unreasonable which it would take too long to mention.

Charles-Nicholas CochinMercure de FranceDecember, 1754

ormolu chénetsunidentified makerFrancec. 1730

Nothing is monstrous, as Horace observes, than to couple together beings of different nature; and yet ‘tis what many of our artists at this time glory in doing. A cupid is the contrast of a dragon; and a shell of a bat’s wing; they no longer observe any order. . . they heap cornices, bases, columns, cascades, rushes and rocks in a confused manor, one upon the other; and in some corner of this chaos, they will place a cupid in a great fright, and have a festoon of flowers above the whole.

Abbé le Blanc

Mantel clockAttributed to Jean-Pierre LatzFrenchc. 1730’s

Mantle clock Maker unknownFrenchc. 1745-1750

. . . Be pleased not to make a scythe smaller than an hour-glass, a hat ot tambourine larger than a bass viol, a man’s head smaller than a rose, a bill hook as large as a rake, etc. It is with much regret that we find ourselves obliged to beg them (artisans) to confine their genius within these laws of proportion.

Charles-Nicholas CochinMercure de FranceDecember, 1754

Rococo cartel clockattributed to Jacques CaffieriFrancec.1750

What do the pendulum clocks, so much in fashion, resemble; which have neither basis not console, but seem to spring out of the wainscot . . . those stags, dogs, huntsmen, or Chinese figures, which they dispose in so odd a manner about the dial-plate; are they its natural ornament?

Abbé le BlancLetter to Comte de Caylus1737-44

commodeAntoine Gadreaux and Jacques CaffieriFrancec. 1738

Casket (coffres de toilette)Maker unknownFrance1755-1760

. . . We furnish them with fine straight wood and that they ruin us with expense by working it into all these sinuous forms, that in bending our doors in order to subject them to circularities which it pleases the good taste of our modern architects to give to all our rooms, they make us spend much more than if they were to make them straight, and that we find no advantage in them since we pass just as well through a straight door as through a rounded door.

Charles-Nicholas CochinMercure de FranceDecember, 1754

The Cabris roomGrasse, France1775-72Metropolitain Museum

WeiskircheJ. B. ZimmermannGermany1745-54

Robert CleeTrade card for liqour dealerEnglish 18th century

Title cartoucheA New Book of OrnamentsAntonioVisentiniEngland, 1753

Critiques of the rococo• Illogical, Irrational or “unnatural” (material,

structure and ornament)• Corrupting, seductive, luxurious,

ephemeral, fashionable• Dysfunctional, decorative• expensive

The Continuing Curve

Rococo Classical• Curvalinear, organic• Exuberant and emotional• Feminine, private• Amoral and irrational• Synthetic and inclusive• Artist as servant, artisanal• Ahistorical

• Rectilinear, geometric• Restrained and rational• Masculine, public• Moral and rational• Reductive and exclusive• Visionary and academic• Ancient pedigree

CandelabraJuste-Aurele MeissonierParis, 1734

Rococo

Hot water urnJean-Babtiste-Claude OdiotFrancec.1800

Neoclassical

Title cartoucheA New Book of OrnamentsAntonioVisentiniEngland, 1753

Rococo

John Baskerville, Title page for Virgil’s Bucolica, England, 1757

Neoclassical

Hôtel TasselStaircaseVictor HortaBrussels1893

Sitting room furnitureGeorges De FeureParis1900

Parody of Art Nouveau /Jugendstil Interiors, Berlin, c.1900

Art Nouveau Lyre-GuitarLuigi MozzaniItalyc. 1910

A decorative disease?

MT8 table lampWilhelm WagenfeldGermany1924

Cover for Elementare TypographieJan Tschichold, Germany, 1925

Marcel Breuer, Wassily-Chair, Bauhaus, 1926

Le Corbusier, Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France, 1929-31

Seagram BuildingMies van der RoheNew York 1958

Eero Saarinen, TWA Terminal, JFK Airport, New York, 1956-62

La ChaiseCharles and Ray EamesUSA, 1948-present

Organic Mid-century Modernism

Concert poster for “The Association”Wes WilsonUSA, 1966

TeakettleMichael Graves for AlessiUSA, 1985

Postmodernism

Heatwave radiatorJoris Laarman, The Netherlands2003

Altermodernism

Cinderella Table Jeroen VerhoevenThe Netherlands,2004

Imac G3,1990’s

Isub subwooferJonathan Ive for Harman KardonUSA, 1999

PowerMac G4Jonathan Ive for Apple ComputersUSA, 1999