Introduction to Contemporary Visual Arts: Modernism Starts Mon 10 Oct 2011 18:30 – 20:30 6 weeks

The Manchester Modernist Society is an artist-led initiative championing 20th century architecture and related art and design in Greater Manchester, whose projects range from a tour of the Mancunian Way to a musical commission for a telephone box, as well as publication of the quarterly modernist magazine. Founded in May 2009 by Maureen Ward, Jack Hale and Eddy Rhead, the society works in a number of ways informal ranging from walks, talks, picnics and film shows in and around the city, dedicated to exploring the Modernist landscape of the twentieth century, a period of enormous social, cultural and political change, innovation and revolution every bit as significant as the Industrial Revolution.

Modernism was a rejection of conservative thought and tradition in every sphere. Initially a loose collection of ideas rejecting history, ornamentation, and embracing abstraction, it flourished in cosmopolitan centres such as Moscow, , Berlin and New York, and had a utopian desire to create a better world. This was first expounded through the ideas and architecture of Corbusier, Walter Gropius and the Bauhaus who believed in technology as the key means to achieve social improvement and in the machine as a symbol of that aspiration, combined with the belief that design and art could, and should, transform society.

In Britain, Modernism was initially embraced by the avant-garde but soon encompassed popular culture, spanning literature, music and the visual arts as well as architecture, expressed boldly in civic structures and municipal institutions as well as commercial and ordinary buildings in every town and city. The slow recovery of the British economy after the second world war meant that this home grown modernism only took hold in the fifties and sixties, aided and abetted by the moral boosting Festival of Britain Exhibition in 1951, and it is this popular version rather than the High Modernism of the thirties that defined the postwar landscape, its workplaces, cafes and homes.

The 2006 V&A exhibition and publication on modernism said - At the beginning of the twenty-first century our relationship to Modernism is complex. The built environment that we live in today was largely shaped by Modernism. The buildings we inhabit, the chairs we sit on, the graphic design that surrounds us have all been created by the aesthetics and the ideology of Modernist design. We live in an era that still identifies itself in terms of Modernism, as post-Modernist or even post-post-Modernist. Our course will lead you upon an unconventional journey through modernist design, art and architecture from Lubetkin’s Penguin Pool and post-war reconstruction to Sheffield’s Park Hill, the Pompidou Centre and the pop aesthetic of Verner Panton.

Each week we will explore aspects of modernism through a seemingly random selection of threads which by the conclusion of the course will have woven together the key themes, ideas and personalities of the Modernist era.

Beginners' level – no prior knowledge required.

Tutors: Maureen Ward and Eddy Rhead, Manchester Modernist Society

Week 1 Penguin – from high modernism to austerity design, The Annexe Mon 10 Oct from Lubektin’s Penguin Pool to Utility Furniture 18:30 – 20:30 Week one will trace the journey from the high modernism of Bauhaus to everyday British design including Lubetkin, Penguin Books, the birth of popular branding and Utility Furniture

Week 2 Pipes – From pipe smoking Joe Columbo to the The Annexe Mon 17 Oct Pompidou Centre 18:30 – 20:30 This week we will start from the ‘myth’ of the pipe smoking architect and travel via Charles Holden and Frank Pick’s London Transport designs, through the development of corporate identity to the high tech modernism of the Pompidou.

Week 3 Pop – the 1960’s from Peter Blake to Verner Panton The Annexe Mon 24 Oct 18:30 – 20:30 In week three we will examine the influence of modernism on the pop culture of the 60’s from from the Mods to the space race

Week 4 Course screening – Alphaville Cinema Mon 31 Oct 18:30 Dir Jean-Luc Godard / FR, IT 1965 / 98 mins , Eddie Constantine, Howard Vernon, Akim

Director Jean-Luc Godard’s classic sci-fi noir finds inter-galactic special agent (Eddie Constantine) in Alphaville, the capital city of a distant planet. Sent there to track down the mysterious Professor von Braun, Caution finds a city controlled by Alpha 60, a vast computer which has outlawed such illogical trivia as love and poetry and turned the residents into emotional zombies. Assisted by the professor’s daughter Natasha (Anna Karina), Caution’s investigations set him on a collision course with the all-powerful machine…

Week 5 Plans – from Utopian idealism to the post war The Annexe Mon 7 Nov reconstruction 18:30 – 20:30 This week after the dystopian vision of last weeks screening of Alphaville we will turn our attention to the Utopian ideals of Le Corbusier manifested from Marseille to Milton Keynes

Week 6 Politics – Totalitarian planning to the Welfare State The Annexe Mon 14 Nov 18:30 – 20:30 In our final week we ponder the relationship between 20th Century politics and modernism from the Anti- modernist Nazis to the birth of the Welfare State

References & Further Reading

Modernism: designing a new world, 1914-1939, Christopher Wilks, V&A Publications, 2006

Cold War Modern, Pavitt & Crowley, V & A Publications 2008

Modern – the modern movement in Britain, Alan Powers, Merill, 2005

British Modern – architecture and design in the 1930s, the journal of the 20th century society.

Websites of interest http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/m/modernism/ http://www.manchestermodernistsociety.org/ http://www.c20society.org.uk/