Bernard Rudofsky - The Getty

12 downloads 203 Views 733KB Size Report
Apr 5, 2008 - Bernard. Rudofsky of sketches, architectural models, travel notebooks, .... (Basel, 2006) is on sale in th
Bernard Rudofsky

fig. 2

pursuit of beauty. His books acquainted large international audiences with the concepts of neck rings, cranial deformation boards, and foot binding. Some of his finest illustrated comparisons document how European society unknowingly imitated the physical alterations of foreign cultures by using corsets, bustles, heels, and codpieces. One wonders how Rudofsky would have responded to the ease with which we can now sculpt and carve our bodies into nearly any desired shape or proportion. Using an image of leg tattoos from the Marquesas Islands (fig. 2) as a comparison to an illustration of patterned stockings from 1902 (fig. 3), Rudofsky observed in Are Clothes Modern? (1947) that “civilized people are anxious to avoid any permanent decoration; it would interfere with the rotation of fashions” (p. 111). He would undoubtedly be surprised by the fact that today tattoos are as likely to be found under the shirt collar of a corporate executive as they are on the back of a rock star. Together with his wife, Berta (AustrianAmerican, 1910–2006), Rudofsky worked to promote a universal lifestyle of comfort through his clothing designs. He abhorred the fashionable tendency to cram fragile feet into what he considered

personal torture devices masked by colorful leather patterns and alluringly shaped heels. In his book Prodigious Builders (1977), Rudofsky remarked: “With today’s knowhow we are no doubt able to cultivate peanuts on Mars, but nobody knows, or cares to know, how to make shoes for human feet” (p. 113). His Bernardo sandals reintroduced designs that had been tested and approved over thousands of years by civilizations more concerned with comfort and survival than fashion runways. Rudofsky’s sandals became extremely popular during the 1950s and 60s. Thanks to the current emphasis on stylish comfort in walking and athletic shoes, they have become coveted accessories once again. Rudofsky understood that he could reach a broader audience through exhibitions than through books. His provocative displays attracted a significant amount of attention and controversy during his lifetime. Risqué themes of bodily comfort, sensuality, modesty, and intimacy accompanied by explicit visuals, often generated lively debate among people shocked by such unfamiliar material. Rudofsky called his approach “exhibition design with a sting, [which] pricks our complacency [and] puts doubts into

our heads” (Lecture, Tokyo, 1958, p. 3). Many architects believed that the exhibition Architecture without Architects (1964)—an installation at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York of photographs of anonymous architecture around the world— promoted the notion that their profession was superfluous to the building trade. The president of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects protested against the exhibition before it even opened. A professor at the University of Michigan condemned it in print as “subversive.” The dean of Yale University’s School of Architecture vetoed Rudofsky’s invitation to lecture on campus because he felt non-pedigreed architecture was too “controversial” (Lecture, Provincetown, p. 7). Despite the uproar, the show traveled for eleven years to nearly eighty venues, an unheard-of accomplishment. Rudofsky’s notorious installations for the American Pavilion at the Brussels International and Universal Exposition of 1958 even caused President Eisenhower to launch a special investigation into his unconventional methodologies. In his Face of America exhibition, Rudofsky sought to “ban the grimmer aspects of progress; the satellites and robots and machined entertainment, and to concentrate on human matters” (Lecture, Tokyo, 1958, p. 13). To achieve this goal, he created an fig. 3

assemblage of whimsical and unexpected items representing each state in the Union. New York was represented with a display of all 500 pages of the Sunday New York Times. Alaska was highlighted by the exhibition’s smallest object: a facsimile of the cancelled $7,200 check used to purchase the territory. The most captivating component of the show for foreigners was a display of tumbleweed. While European audiences declared Rudofsky’s pavilion a great success, American visitors fumed at its lack of patriotic bravado. While piqued by these responses, Rudofsky did not alter his radical approach. As he declared in a lecture in Tokyo later that year: “The principles underlying the design of such an exhibition are . . . to distract and intrigue the visitor with optical illusions and to display the objects out of context; to pamper his eye with shapes and colors. In the child, the response to this sort of environment is spontaneous; unfortunately, not so in the average adult who tries too hard to stay aloof” (p. 9). Exhibition Curators: Monika Platzer (Architekturzentrum Wien), and Wim de Wit and Christopher James Alexander (Getty Research Institute) The lecture papers cited in this brochure are held by the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute (Bernard Rudofsky papers, 920004).

fig. 2. Detail of Tattooed Legs, Marquesan Islands, from Bernard Rudofsky, Are Clothes Modern? (Chicago, 1947), p. 110 fig. 3. Detail of American Stockings, 1902, from Bernard Rudofsky, Are Clothes Modern? (Chicago, 1947), p. 111 Design © 2008 J. Paul Getty Trust

berta Rudofsky

related events

Berta Doctor was born on May 9, 1910, in Vienna. Influenced by her parents, she studied musicology at Universität Wien. In 1934, Berta met Bernard Rudofsky on Ischia during a trip to Italy, and in 1935 they moved into an apartment together on the island of Procida. They married in November of the same year at New York City Hall. The couple’s only child, Peter, was born in 1936 and died in Como two years later. More than wife and eyewitness, Berta participated anonymously in the work of her husband in a wide variety of ways: as coworker, traveling companion, manager, driver, translator, sandal-producer, teacher, editor, model, muse, and administrator of his estate. After Bernard Rudofsky died in 1988, Berta lived alternately in Vienna, New York, and Frigiliana. She died on June 22, 2006, in Vienna. Learning from Bernard Rudofsky Saturday, April 5, 2008 4:00–6:30 p.m. Museum Lecture Hall, The Getty Center Specialists in the fields of fashion, architecture, and plastic surgery explore Rudofsky’s ideas about architectural design, the body, comfort, and sensuality, and discuss their relevance for contemporary culture. The panel includes Dr. Valerie Steele, director, the Museum at FIT, New York; Steven Ehrlich, principal, Steven Ehrlich Architects, Los Angeles; and Dennis Comeau, designer, Bernardo Footwear L.L.C., Houston. Exhibition curator Wim de Wit is the panel moderator. Exhibition Tours with Curators Wim de Wit and Christopher James Alexander Wednesday, March 12, 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, March 18, 3:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 2, 11:00 a.m. Thursday, April 10, 1:00 p.m.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Exhibition Lessons from Bernard Rudofsky, Life as a Voyage catalog (Basel, 2006) is on sale in the Museum bookstore.

brochure Fold and Stand the brochure to create the gallery space. Fold lines are on opposite side.

xxxxxxx

fold image side to image side

^^^^^^^

fold text side to text side

fold

| 1946–64 Designs and commercially sells his famous Bernardo sandals | 1948 Granted American citizenship; takes his first postwar trip to Europe | 1949–50 Designs Nivola House-Garden in Amagansett, New York (with Costantino Nivola) | 1955 Behind the Picture Window is published; takes his first trip to Japan | 1956 Exhibition Textiles, U.S.A., MoMA, New York | 1957–58 Designs the American Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair (with Peter Harnden) | 1958–60 Travels to Japan | 1960–65 Exhibition Architecture without Architects and other touring exhibitions, MoMA, New York | 1965 The Kimono Mind is published | 1969 Streets for People is published | 1969–71 Designs and builds La Casa, his home in Frigiliana, Spain | 1971 The Unfashionable Human Body is published | 1977 The Prodigious Builders is published | 1980 Exhibition Now I Lay Me Down to Eat,

Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York | 1987 Exhibition Sparta/Sybaris, MAK, Vienna | 1988 Dies March 12, New York

March 11–June 8, 2008

to each room encourage free interaction between the domestic chambers and their natural surroundings. Lacking an American architecture license, Rudofsky built very little after his move to the United States in 1941. Instead, he channeled his creative energies into the development and design of a series of pioneering exhibitions and books that challenged the field of architecture’s traditional boundaries. The interests expressed in Rudofsky’s books and exhibitions resulted from his direct experience with the Mediterranean lifestyle on the Greek islands and his readings about Japanese culture. Rudofsky concluded early on that people in Western society had lost their spontaneity and innate ability to design houses, clothing, and shoes that liberated, rather than restricted, the body. He believed this cultural inertia had profoundly negative sociological and physical consequences. As a result, he devoted his life to exposing the West to foreign architectural paradigms, unfamiliar customs, and evolving attitudes about the body, fashion, architecture, and design. Utilizing surprising visual juxtapositions and engaging commentaries, Rudofsky’s popular exhibitions and books were designed to provoke audiences into challenging the status quo. Rudofsky was captivated by the extreme methods of body manipulation practiced by non-Western cultures in the

fold

l e ss ons from

of sketches, architectural models, travel notebooks, photographs, sculptures, fabrics, and footwear. Rudofsky’s first design efforts were in the field of architecture. Trained as an architect at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna, he left for southern Italy immediately after his graduation. There, in collaboration with the Neapolitan architect Luigi Cosenza (1905–1984), he built the stunningly beautiful Casa Oro Bernard Rudofsky (Austrian-American, 1905–1988) was (1935–1937; fig.1.) on a cliff overlooking the Bay of an architect, curator, critic, exhibition designer, and Naples. Situated on a narrow lot between two fashion designer whose entire oeuvre was influenced retaining walls, the long by his lifelong interest in and slender structure concepts about the body and follows the topography of the use of our senses. He is the land, allowing the best known for his controverhouse to open up sial exhibitions and accompacompletely to the bay and nying catalogs, including Are capture as much sun and Clothes Modern? (MoMA, wind as possible. The 1944), Architecture without front of the house is Architects (MoMA, 1964), and composed as a play of Now I Lay Me Down to Eat projecting and receding (Cooper-Hewitt Museum, volumes that diffuse the 1980). He was also famous for transition between inside his mid-twentieth-century fig. 1. Bernard Rudofsky and Luigi Cosenza, architects, Casa Oro as Seen from and out and provide shade Bernardo sandal designs, Below, Naples, Italy, 1935–1937 for the terraces and which are popular again gardens. Houses subsequently designed by Rudofsky today. Drawn primarily from the Bernard Rudofsky in São Paolo, Brazil (Casa Arnstein and Casa Frontini, papers at the Getty Research Institute, Lessons from both 1939–1941), display the same orderly arrangeBernard Rudofsky analyzes his contributions to ment of precisely defined volumes set within a firmly architecture, anthropology, fashion, and design, and defined perimeter. Lushly landscaped patios adjacent illustrates his thinking through a diverse presentation

the Organic Design Competition (MoMA); moves to New York | 1944 Exhibition Are Clothes Modern? MoMA, New York

1905 Born April 19, Zauchtl, Moravia (now the Czech Republic) | 1922–28 Attends Technische Hochschule, Vienna | 1925–27 Travels to Bulgaria, Turkey, Switzerland, France, and Italy | 1929 Two-month stay on Santorini | 1931 Submits his dissertation on an early concrete construction method in the Cyclades, Greece | 1932 Moves to Capri; collaborates with Luigi Cosenza | 1934 Meets Berta Doctor in Ischia, Italy | 1935 Moves to Procida; designs Casa on Procida and Casa Oro, Naples | 1935–36 Travels to the United States for the first time; marries Berta Doctor | 1936 Birth of son Peter, who dies in 1938 | 1937–38 Moves to Milan; becomes editor at Domus magazine | 1938 Immigrates to South America (Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo) | 1939–41 Completes Casas Hollenstein (Itapetirica), Frontini, and Arnstein (São Paulo) | 1941 Prize-winner of BERNARD Rudofsky

x aan Rotterdam Antwerp Brussels Detroit Washington, D.C. Tehran Bangkok Hong Kong Okinawa Hiroshima Kobe Yokohama Los Angeles Salem Versailles Toulouse Montpellier Arles Turin x x ara Luzern Ravello Positano Prato Modena Charlottesville Remington New Haven Amsterdam London Istanbul Aspen Split Como Parma Messina Sperlonga Perugia Lucca Bologna Ferrara x x Páros Náxos Íos Thíra Oia Mýkonos Árgos Tripoli Sparta Kalámai Olympia Delphi Utrecht Pamplona a Toledo San Domingo Bordeaux Salamanca Nice Arezzo Corfu Patras Corinth Athens x dalajara Madrid Dover Nerja Toronto Lorca Monte Carlo Verona Padua Arles Salon xValencia Aspen Málaga Tallahassee San Francisco Vienna Innsbruck Paris Marseilles San Rafael Nice an Venice Rome Capri Naples Bern Dijon Fontainebleau Monte Carlo Trento VicenzaxxBologna Florence Positano Salerno San Gimignano Pisa Chambersburg Knoxville Jackson Mexico City x aca El Paso Las Vegas Denver Chicago San Francisco Honolulu Tokyo Kyoto Osaka Kamakura Boston Rochester Barcelona New York Philadelphia New Canaan Rotterdam Antwerp Brussels x x Los Angeles Salem Versailles Toulouse Montpellier Arles Turin Ferrara Luzern Ravello Positano roit Washington, D.C. Tehran Bangkok Hong Kong Okinawa Hiroshima Kobe Yokohama x x Split Como Parma Messina Sperlonga Perugia Lucca Bologna Ferrara Ávila Toledo San Domingo to Modena Charlottesville Remington New Haven Amsterdam London Istanbul Aspen x deaux Salamanca Nice Arezzo Corfu Patras Corinth Athens Páros Náxos Íos Thíra Oia x Mýkonos Árgos Tripoli Sparta Kalámai Olympia Delphi Utrecht Pamplona Guadalajara Madrid Dover x ja Toronto Lorca Monte Carlo Verona Padua Arles Salon Valencia Aspen Málaga Tallahassee San Francisco Vienna Innsbruck Paris Marseilles San Rafael Nice Milan Venice Rome Capri x x Salerno San Gimignano Pisa Chambersburg Knoxville Jackson Mexico City Oaxaca El Paso Las Vegas les Bern Dijon Fontainebleau Monte Carlo Trento Vicenza Bologna Florence Positano x x Barcelona New York Philadelphia New Canaan Rotterdam Antwerp Brussels Detroit Washington, D.C. ver Chicago San Francisco Honolulu Tokyo Kyoto Osaka Kamakura Boston Rochester x x ran Bangkok Hong Kong Okinawa Hiroshima Kobe Yokohama Los Angeles Salem Versailles Toulouse Montpellier Arles Turin Ferrara Luzern Ravello Positano Prato Modena Charlottesville x mington New Haven Amsterdam London Istanbul Aspen Split Como Parma Messina xSperlonga Perugia Lucca Bologna Ferrara Ávila Toledo San Domingo Bordeaux Salamanca Nice Arezzo x u Patras Corinth Athens Páros Náxos Íos Thíra Oia Mýkonos Árgos Tripoli Sparta Kalámai Olympia Delphi Utrecht Pamplona Guadalajara Madrid Dover Nerja Toronto Lorca Monte Carlo x x ona Padua Arles Salon Valencia Aspen Málaga Tallahassee San Francisco Vienna Innsbruck Paris Marseilles San Rafael Nice Milan Venice Rome Capri Naples Bern Dijon Fontainebleau x x nte Carlo Trento Vicenza Bologna Florence Positano Salerno San Gimignano Pisa Chambersburg Knoxville Jackson Mexico City Oaxaca El Paso Las Vegas Denver Chicago San Francisco x x olulu Tokyo Kyoto Osaka Kamakura Boston Rochester Barcelona New York Philadelphia New Canaan Rotterdam Antwerp Brussels Detroit Washington, D.C. Tehran Bangkok Hong Kong x nawa Hiroshima Kobe Yokohama Los Angeles Salem Versailles Toulouse MontpellierxArles Turin Ferrara Luzern Ravello Positano Prato Modena Charlottesville Remington New Haven sterdam London Istanbul Aspen Split Como Parma Messina Sperlonga Perugia Luccaxx Bologna Ferrara Ávila Toledo San Domingo Bordeaux Salamanca Nice Arezzo Corfu Patras Corinth x Utrecht Pamplona Guadalajara Madrid Dover Nerja Toronto Lorca Monte Carlo Verona Padua Arles ens Páros Náxos Íos Thíra Oia Mýkonos Árgos Tripoli Sparta Kalámai Olympia Delphi x x on Valencia Aspen Málaga Tallahassee San Francisco Vienna Innsbruck Paris Marseilles San Rafael Nice Milan Venice Rome Capri Naples Bern Dijon Fontainebleau Monte Carlo Trento x x Jackson Mexico City Oaxaca El Paso Las Vegas Denver Chicago San Francisco Honolulu Tokyo Kyoto nza Bologna Florence Positano Salerno San Gimignano Pisa Chambersburg Knoxville x ka Kamakura Boston Rochester Barcelona New York Philadelphia New Canaan Rotterdam Antwerp Brussels Detroit Washington, D.C. Tehran Bangkok Hong Kong Okinawa Hiroshima x x e Yokohama Los Angeles Salem Versailles Toulouse Montpellier Arles Turin Ferrara Luzern Ravello Positano Prato Modena Charlottesville Remington New Haven Amsterdam London x x Toledo San Domingo Bordeaux Salamanca Nice Arezzo Corfu Patras Corinth Athens Páros Náxos nbul Aspen Split Como Parma Messina Sperlonga Perugia Lucca Bologna Ferrara Ávila x Thíra Oia Mýkonos Árgos Tripoli Sparta Kalámai Olympia Delphi Utrecht PamplonaxxGuadalajara Madrid Dover Nerja Toronto Lorca Monte Carlo Verona Padua Arles Salon Valencia Aspen x aga Tallahassee San Francisco Vienna Innsbruck Paris Marseilles San Rafael Nice Milan Venice Rome Capri Naples Bern Dijon Fontainebleau Monte Carlo Trento Vicenza Bologna Florence x tano Salerno San Gimignano Pisa Chambersburg Knoxville Jackson Mexico City Oaxaca El Paso Las Vegas Denver Chicago San Francisco Honolulu Tokyo Kyoto Osaka Kamakura Boston x hester Barcelona New York Philadelphia New Canaan Rotterdam Antwerp Brussels xxDetroit Washington, D.C. Tehran Bangkok Hong Kong Okinawa Hiroshima Kobe Yokohama Los Angeles m Versailles Toulouse Montpellier Arles Turin Ferrara Luzern Ravello Positano Pratoxx Modena Charlottesville Remington New Haven Amsterdam London Istanbul Aspen Split Como Parma sina Sperlonga Perugia Lucca Bologna Ferrara Ávila Toledo San Domingo BordeauxxxSalamanca Nice Arezzo Corfu Patras Corinth Athens Páros Náxos Íos Thíra Oia Mýkonos Árgos Tripoli x rta Kalámai Olympia Delphi Utrecht Pamplona Guadalajara Madrid Dover Nerja Toronto Lorca Monte Carlo Verona Padua Arles Salon Valencia Aspen Málaga Tallahassee San Francisco x nna Innsbruck Paris Marseilles San Rafael Nice Milan Venice Rome Capri Naples Bern x Dijon Fontainebleau Monte Carlo Trento Vicenza Bologna Florence Positano Salerno San Gimignano x Chambersburg Knoxville Jackson Mexico City Oaxaca El Paso Las Vegas Denver Chicago San Francisco Honolulu Tokyo Kyoto Osaka Kamakura Boston Rochester Barcelona New York x x Bangkok Floor Plan, Casa Arnstein, São Paulo, Brazil, 1939–1941 List of Cities by Bernard and Berta Rudofsky during Their Travels Bernard Rudofsky in Kimono, from Domus (June 1956), Kobe no. 319 Yokohama Los Angeles Salem Versailles adelphia NewVisited Canaan Rotterdam Antwerp Brussels Detroit Washington, D.C. Tehran Hong Kong Okinawa Hiroshima Toulouse x x

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Hand Ornament, Ahmedabad, India, from The Unfashionable Human Body (Garden City, New York, 1971), p. 218. Courtesy Musée de l’Homme, Paris

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Architecture without Architects Exhibition Installation, MoMA, New York, November 11, 1964–February 7, 1965. x Courtesy Jane and Benjamin Thompson, Thompson Design Group Inc., Boston x x

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Foot from a Classical Sculpture (detail). Photo: Bernard Rudofsky. Courtesy MAK—Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst/Gegenwartskunst Wien

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

“Si, No” Fabric, 1949, Stimulus Collection, designed by Bernard Rudofsky for Schiffer Prints

Dress Pattern, 1873, from Bernard Rudofsky, Are Clothes Modern? (Chicago, 1947), p. 146

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

Book Cover, from Bernard Rudofsky, The Kimono Mind (Garden City, New York, 1965)