Architekturzentrum Wien  
 

 
 
How to build? The Modernist book
Architecture of the 20th century from the Marzona collection

Location: Architekturzentrum Wien - Old hall
Exhibition: 09 October 2003 - 02 February 2004
Opening Hours: Daily 10:00 am - 7:00 pm, Wed until 9:00 pm
Opening: Wednesday 8 October 2003, 7pm
Tickets: EUR 5.- / EUR 3,50.- (Students)

Around 500 publications from the collection of Egidio Marzona are on show in the exhibition How to Build? The Modernist Book, all together providing detailed comprehensive reading on the architecture of the 20th century, its leitmotifs, ideas and modes of publication.

The publications presented are organised into 8 categories:

Books
At the turn from the 19th to the 20th century reading becomes accessible to a broader public as a result of the development of the machine-manufactured low-cost utility book and of public libraries. New printing processes and a new understanding of typography allow the designers to be more free in their application of formal means.

Education
Innovative educational facilities like those of Bauhaus (Weimar and Dessau) or Wchutemas (Moscow) develop new teaching methods combining theoretical teachings with practical work, and have a major influence on successive institutions, such as the design college in Ulm or the Chicago Institute of Design.

Isms
Back in 1924 Lissitzky questioned the validity of the notion of style and replaced it with the term 'Ism'. The question as to "in what style we should build" still seems topical. It satisfies a need to divide up architecture into ordered systems, although there is also a permanent attempt to break free of history and the unceasing compulsion to create something new.

Nations
The universal claims of modernity formed the great controversial issue of the 20th century. The broad density of regional and national stock-taking is indicative of the desire to build-up personal identity on the basis of adherence to a national group.

Materials and Construction
The economic and technical changes in the modern age as well as the aesthetic of industrial architecture accelerates new developments in the building sector. Steel, glass and concrete, being suitable for standardisation, become the preferred materials used.

Monographs
Monographs by architects dominate the architecture book market to this day. Beyond the aspects of self-representation involved, the printed word and images generate a significance that the built reality often fails to live up to.

Theory and Practice
Reflections on architecture become increasingly more prominent over the course of the 20th century, and create sustainable positions in the history of architecture. Visions of the future, Utopias or the questioning of existing dogmas preoccupy the historical avant-garde movements, many of whose proponents spread ethical and aesthetic demands.

Urban Development
The planning and the building or redevelopment of a city influence the socio-cultural changes in the structure of society, although these are always dependent on political developments.

Housing Development
The home as the point where a person's life crystallises is linked inextricably with social, political and economic conditions in a variety of ways, while housing developments are completed as the manifestation of ideologies for the most diverse political positions in the 20th century.


© Pez Hejduk 

Current
Preview
Permanent Exhibition

How to build? The Modernist Book
Biography Egidio Marzona
Categories
Guided Tours

Press Release:
How to Build? The Modernist Book


Gallery:
The exhibition


E-Shop Products:
Modern


Links:
* Arte Povera

* A collector's secret - In "Real Video"

* Conceptual Art - What is it?

* Styles & Movements

* Sentences on Conceptual Art - Sol Lewitt

* Land Art - Links


Information:
Ines Purtauf
Tel.: +43 (1) 522 31 15 - 25
Fax: +43 (1) 522 31 17
Email: purtauf@azw.at

 
 
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