What is Modernism?
by The advent of the machine in the nineteenth-century was to have such revolutionary significance that the subsequent years can legitimately be termed the Machine Age. Among the great number of cultural changes engendered by this new era was the installation of a machine aesthetic in the fields of architecture and design. This was of central importance to the Modern Movement as it provided a means by which its practitioners could engage with what they regarded as the spirit of the age. The machine aesthetic can be discerned in the work of each major figure of the Modernist pantheon, it therefore conditioned the entire range of Modernist activity.
Despite this uniformity, the reasons why individual Modernists employed the aesthetic varied greatly, and to conclude that they did so only to evoke the current zeitgeist would hardly seem satisfactory. Instead, the aim of this essay is to analyse the various uses made of the machine aesthetic in order to determine why it was so central to Modernist theory and practice. Since the particular character of the aesthetic varied according to the nature of the interest in it (e.g. political, economic), the reasons for its use are fundamental to any understanding of Modernism.
Firstly, the idea that Modernism embraced the machine aesthetic in order to give tangible form to the spirit of the age, though not the sole motivation behind Modernist activity, is valid in itself and deserves to be elaborated. The Industrial Revolution precipitated a series of immense changes which can be understood to have genuinely transformed the world. These include industrialisation, the rise of the metropolis, an accompanying decline in ruralism, and rapid technological progress. In being plundered for their natural resources, even Third World countries felt the impact of the new era.
For many these changes threatened to create an environment that was both alien and hostile to humanity and nature. In the cultural sphere, the nineteenth-century design reformers John Ruskin and William Morris attacked machine-production for undermining the craft skills and individuality of the worker. Since the machine usurped both tradition and individual endeavour, it would become impossible for the artist or craftsman to take pride in their work, and the consumer, in turn, would suffer the spiritual disadvantages of no longer living in an environment that had been lovingly crafted.1 As a countermeasure, Ruskin, Morris and others proposed a return to traditional craft processes and sources of inspiration that were primarily medieval.
In other sectors, this reactionary measure was felt to be unrealistically traditionalist. Since the machine was, as Ruskin and Morris had argued, inept at emulating traditional craft processes and designs, those who recognised that the machine was an indisputable reality were aware of the need to evolve a new aesthetic that it was suited to. This would re-establish a high standard of quality in design and ensure that designed goods were attuned to the age, rather than being hopelessly revivalist. One such figure was Adolph Loos, whose essay ‘Ornament and Crime’ (1908) argued that applying decoration to a designed product was both uneconomical and criminal, because ultimately it resulted in the exploitation of the craftsman: ‘If I pay as much for a smooth box as for a decorated one, the difference in labour belongs to the worker.’2
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