Module One - Research Methods and Contextualisation

Module 1 assignments

- produce 7 presentation boards of the 7 interior design elements

- produce a report on an interior designer or architect

It may be 20 years since I last studied but I am just as good at procrastinating as I was then! This time round I have family life and work to contend with also so plenty of excuses to put things off. To ease myself in I spent the first week gathering materials and downloading resources. The deadline counter on my student account is slightly unnerving but I can see it galvanizing me into action as the days lessen.

A key part of this module is learning to reference your sources correctly which I find, to put it bluntly, very dull. To cut down on this I tried to use my own photographic images for the mood boards as much as possible but my photography skills definitely need improvement with regards to lighting and exposure. Here are a few of the pics I took for the materials mood board.

And here are some pics I took for the colour mood board........

I used my following photograph as a background image for the lighting mood board

If you would like to read the final version of my attempt at this first assignment and the following assignments as I complete them, I have uploaded links to the documents in the associated tab at the top of this blog.

Whilst my messy family may do their utmost to ruin my dream of a minimalist uncluttered home, I can dream can't I? My love of simple, clean lines and modernist architecture lead me easily to choose Mies van der Rohe as the subject of my report. Several of Mies' famous quotes clearly explain his design vision.

"Less is more......God is in the details.....Skin and bones architecture"

Mies played a major role in the development of present day city architecture.  Here is, in my view, a selection of his best building and furniture designs.

The BBC documentary Visions of Space (available to watch on YouTube) was a great source of information in addition to the following text books

Mies van der Rohe by C.Zimmerman

Mies van der Rohe A Critical Biography by F.Schultz
Mies van der Rohe at Work by P.Carter

as well as the following websites

www.miessociety.org
www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.html
http://en.wikipedia//wiki/Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
http://bauhaus-online.de/en/atlas/personen/ludwig-mies-van-der-Rohe

At the time of writing my report the Barbican was running its Bauhaus: Art as Life exhibition to rave reviews which featured many works of art, design, architecture, photography, textiles, ceramics and more. My visit to the exhibition helped me to understand the changes surrounding and informing Mies' work.

Bauhaus: Art as Life

3 May 2012 - 12 August 2012
Barbican Art Gallery

"The biggest Bauhaus exhibition in the UK in over 40 years presents the modern world’s most famous art school. From expressionist beginnings to a pioneering model uniting art and technology, this London exhibition presents the Bauhaus’ utopian vision to change society in the aftermath of the First World War. Bauhaus: Art as Life explores the diverse artistic production that made up its turbulent fourteen-year history and delves into the subjects at the heart of the school: art, culture, life, politics and society, and the changing technology of the age.

Bauhaus: Art as Life will feature a rich array of painting, sculpture, design, architecture, film, photography, textiles, ceramics, theatre and installation. Exemplar works from such Bauhaus Masters as Josef and Anni Albers, Marianne Brandt, Marcel Breuer, Walter Gropius, Johannes Itten, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Hannes Meyer, László Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Gunta Stölzl, will be presented alongside works by lesser-known Bauhaus artists and students. "

(source: www.barbican.org.uk)

'Tracing the trajectory of the radical German art and design school from its founding in Dessau by Walter Gropius in 1919 to its closure in Berlin in 1933, the exhibition Bauhaus: Art as Life is superb' - The Guardian

'...a thrilling description of a community engaged in an unprecedented artistic and social experiment. For anyone with even a passing interest in the development of the arts of the past century, it is essential viewing' - The Telegraph

'A survey of the German school devoted to the synthesis of art and architecture is the perfect blend of the instructive and the entertaining' - Brian Sewell, Evening Standard

'This useful show leads us through Bauhauser paintings, furniture, even puppets, all forged in the years between the darkness of two world wars' - The Independent

Here are a few postcards I bought at the exhibition