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Riki
 Riki
(@riki)
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Joined: 14 years ago
Posts: 1395
11/08/2008 3:05 am  

The following YouTube Video names Gio Ponti as the Father of Modern Design. Would you agree or disagree with that designation? Do you think more time and perspective is needed before that title is laid in cement?

Either way, the video is lovely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGrr3XcarKY


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SDR
 SDR
(@sdr)
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Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 6462
11/08/2008 3:18 am  

Nice
little video.
Did Guastavo enlighten us in another thread about Ponti's sojourn in Venezuela -- when and why ?
Of course, modernism had many fathers and mothers. "Modern" is many children, a whole family, with siblings and cousins galore. Trying to designate a single parentage is an unnecessary exercise, isn't it ?


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rockland
(@rockland)
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Posts: 984
11/08/2008 4:02 am  

Yes, modernism had many parents.
But no denying he had a fantastic career.
Living room, Villa Arreaza,
Caracas, 1956
Architect: Gio Ponti
© G. Ponti archives/
S. Licitra ? Milan


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rockland
(@rockland)
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Posts: 984
11/08/2008 4:04 am  

Villa Planchart
Villa Planchart, Caracas, 1955
Architect: Gio Ponti
© G. Ponti archives/
S. Licitra ? Milan


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rockland
(@rockland)
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Posts: 984
11/08/2008 4:10 am  

I'd entertain di fruitti for this...
Bedroom with decorations by Piero Fornasetti for the 9th Milan Triennale, 1951
Design: Gio Ponti & Piero Fornasetti
© G. Ponti archives/
S. Licitra ? Milan


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Riki
 Riki
(@riki)
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Joined: 14 years ago
Posts: 1395
11/08/2008 4:25 am  

Long Term
I was thinking more in the long term, say 40 years from now, to whom will the distinction fall? As you are aware, the more removed we become from an era, the more we tend to think and perceive in sound bytes (bites?), except for connoisseurs of said era. Hence, Erte has become the Father of Art Deco. Stickley has become the Father of Arts and Crafts. Obviously, others, cousins, mothers, brothers, to use your analogy, created important works during those eras, yet they didn't "win" the title. They didn't become "The One" to the general public or in the historical context.
So, if you could have your vote, your influence, your "say", who would you pick?
And, on another note, why do I keep using so many "quotation marks" when I write in this forum??? Does anybody else find themselves doing that?


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SDR
 SDR
(@sdr)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 6462
11/08/2008 5:44 am  

(Yes, I
do it a lot. I think it's a way trying to de-emphasize the finality or starkness of a statement, giving "permission" to correct oneself or be corrected, to soft-pedal one's point ?)
I submit that not everyone has decided that the designers you mention have been accorded the honor you give them, and that it is always too soon to brush many aside in the (understandable) effort to award a crown to one individual. The longer we delay that process, the longer we have to enjoy the variety that is represented by all the individuals who have contributed to the arts we pursue. In other words, it is not inevitable that the history books will declare a "winner" -- unless (in our impatience and ennui ?) we allow it to happen !
(Exclamation marks, and ellipses. . . may also indicate either irony, or indifference -- a way of taking the "curse" off on one's proclamations ?)
I was going to say that I would nominate Gio Ponti as one of the earliest Post-Modernists; some of his pre-war decorations would be right at home in the 'seventies !


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PasternakAntiqu...
(@jeremiahpasternakhotmail-com)
Honorable Member
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 131
11/08/2008 6:12 am  

it was
Rietveld and Breuer were the first modern furniture designers for the formers design principles starting in 1915-17 and the latters use of new material in 1925.


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barrympls
(@barrympls)
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Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 2649
11/08/2008 8:23 am  

Probably either
* Josef Hoffman or
* Mies van der Rohe or
* Marcel Breuer or
* Charles Rennie mackintosh or the dreaded
* Frank Lloyd Wright
deserves that honor.


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SDR
 SDR
(@sdr)
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Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 6462
11/08/2008 10:19 am  

AND
Ledoux
AND Schinkel
AND Paxton
AND Pugin
AND Godwin
AND Riemerschmid
AND Furness
AND Voysey
AND Dresser
AND Gaudi
AND Guimard
AND van de Velde
AND Thonet
AND Bugatti
AND Behrens
AND Moser
AND Perret
AND Sant'Elia
AND Wagner
AND Loos
AND. . .


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NULL NULL
(@paulannapaulanna-homechoice-co-uk)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 696
11/08/2008 3:34 pm  

Thonet leaps out of that list...
Thonet leaps out of that list because the B14 was the first truly mass produced chair.
But essentially a debate on father of MCM is going to be pretty meaningless as it presupposes there is one such figure, that we can all agree on a definition of 'father' and that any influence is objectively quantifiable.


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barrympls
(@barrympls)
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Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 2649
11/08/2008 5:56 pm  

I think my list might be more to the point
After all, Mid-Century Modern is essentially post WWIImodern designs that use a lot of the technology of wartime production. Yet through the Art Noveau, Deco, and Streamline periods, some designers of furnishings were so advanced and timeless that they continued to be considered iconic (and even popular) well into the classic MCM era and even today.
Designers like the already mentioned van der Rhoe's stuff looks well besides Eames, Nelson, etc.
Also, you can add to my original list Alvar Aalto, Eileen Gray* and Russel Wright.
Aalto, because his stuff STILL looks modern and current against anything from the 1940's and 1950's and I've read that Russel Wright was considered an early modern MCM designer, well before it became commonplace.
I guess Eva Zeisel* belongs there somewhere.
In MCM modern books, you see Josef Hoffman's Kubus Sofa in rooms of the MCM and considering it's from about 1910, it's amazingly timeless and modern.
Thonet did mass produce, but nothing he did before about 1940 looks particularly Mid Century Modern.
Oh yeah, Poul Henningsen's PH light penants from the early 1930's are darn modern too.
*Mother of Modern??!!


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dorieg
(@dorieg)
Trusted Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 52
11/08/2008 6:23 pm  

Barry,
why is Frank Lloyd Wright dreaded??? Just wondering?


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NULL NULL
(@paulannapaulanna-homechoice-co-uk)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 6 years ago
Posts: 696
11/08/2008 7:26 pm  

Hey at least we're all agreed...
Hey at least we're all agreed it wasn't Gio Ponti! Incidentally Michael Thonet was well dead by 1940 - but before the advent of mass produced 'modern (ist)' furniture, the Thonet no 14 (1850 ish) was one of only a very few designs deemed acceptable by Corbu et al in the early 20s. To talk about a 'Father of MCM' is to me a rather banal concept that could only come from someone weak on their design history coincidentally saddled with a Messiah complex. MCM is simply a chapter in a 150 year old story.


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whitespike
(@whitespike)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 15 years ago
Posts: 3499
11/08/2008 8:03 pm  

I think there is no father...
I think there is no father or mother. Rather there were many who contributed ... many equally important design.It was a movement. A movement involves many people.


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