Reflections Unit: Point

The Reflections unit that we have just completed in class can be summed up by a single word, revolution. This was a time of many changes not only in the design world but in the world around us as well. In America; Vietnam, Civil Rights, political, and sexual revolutions were springing up amongst the citizens of this, still, fairly new country. People were learning how to feel and think for themselves, learning what they deserved, liked, and were finding their own voices. They began to create ideas of what they believed architecture and design should be like and how they wanted to be represented by the structures and interiors that surrounded them. But while they looked forwards, often times they were looking back as well.

Revolution, as defined by Patrick in class, "reconstructs the world as we know it, ends a cycle and begins a new one."

During this time, as a cycle of design began to die out in England; a number of revivals were springing up across the ocean in America. Examples of these revolutions can be seen dotting the American landscape. First, we look to our very own capital, Washington D.C at the Capitol building itself. This was based off of Roman architecture, again looking to antiquity for models and inspiration. The American government wished to exude a sense of balance, equality, and stability and did so through architectural forms, a concept that is not unfamiliar to the world of design.

With the turn of the 19^th century, new materials were introduced into the world of architecture and design, creating the beginnings of what would be one of the most significant revolutions to date. Glass and iron allowed buildings to be designed and built in ways that could not be achieved before. Iron was a more malleable material than any that had been used to date, able to bend and flex in ways stone, wood, and concrete could not.  Thus begins, as stated in class, “the quest for what it means to be modern.” A question that, to this date, still has no clear or defining answer.

Then, a very peculiar thing happened, suddenly there were trade routes dotting the landscape, linking the once foreign east to the western world. Explosions of new design revelations were brought into the western designers viewpoints. World Fairs began expose things from all across the globe under a single roof, allowing people to be able to touch and experience the world around them. Thus began yet another revolution of eastern inspired architecture and décor in Europe and America.

This influx in design left American homeowners overwhelmed, with the world at their fingertips. The rich and powerful; made these things through trade and manufacturing of newly available materials, looked back to the Renaissance when deciding styles for their own personal dwellings. These Renaissance exteriors were often contradicted with the compilation of style existing within the interiors. While Renaissance style country estates popped up to represent the rich, an exhausted middle class came up with a dwelling style of their own. These dwellings focused on simplicity, a place to escape the hustle and bustle of Industrialism. Thus the Arts and Crafts movement and age of the fluid interior began and a new revolution began to take root once again.

All in all, the design cycle can be looked at as a series of lifetimes. Some ideals die out, never to be heard from again, while others continue to be given new life again and again as the years wear on. While the answers to “what is modern?” or “what design style will be reborn next” are still unclear, one thing is certain, design is and always will be a series of revolutions. Revivals, deaths, and rebirths of new and ancient ideals alike, keeping us looking forwards but always with a watchful eye on the past as we go.

From top left to bottom right: (1) U.S Capitol, (2) St. Pancras Railway Station 

(3) London World Fair 1851, (4) Robie House