what's the difference between bow house and brutalism both are 20th century design movements that really care about the social function of design both are considered modern design movements and both start with the letter B bow house and brutalism both came from society's anxieties about rapid social change in the 21st century I did an art history Deep dive to get to the bottom of each movement's main themes and historical contexts I triy to do my research and I read quite a few books still this analysis May have blind spots here is what I learned in a nutshell bow house or the bow house was an art school in Germany from 1919 until 1933 the word bow house comes from the German word for house building but the bow house taught lots of other crafts too like object Design Furniture Design Graphic Design and textile design most brutalist buildings were made between 1950 and 1980 brutalism was most popular in the United States great and Eastern Europe the word brutalism sounds rough but it actually takes its name from the French word for raw concrete beton most brutalist buildings are made from reinforced concrete brutalism and bow house are directly connected because several of the same artists participated in both movements the bow house ended in 1933 with the rise of the Nazis and many of the bow house teachers fled Germany and ended up in the United States and England let's take a closer look at the bow house in the 1920s Germany had just lost World War I badly but Germany's new Vima Republic was a hot spot for social and political experimentation and this is where we find the bow house the word bow house comes from inverting the German word house bow which means house building and the bow house was primarily concerned with building houses the first Bell House school opened in viar German JY in 1919 instead of straightforward teachers and students the school had three tiers apprentices also called Journeymen young masters and Masters there were also three tiers of study the preliminary course one semester designed to see if you could cut it in the bow house workshops where most of the learning happened and the final building course which was By Invitation Only pending exceptional performance in the workshop course the entire process took about 3 years it was collaborative Innovative and exciting bous founder valter gropius wrote The Following Manifesto Architects sculptors painters we must all return to craftsmanship so let us therefore create a new Guild of Craftsmen free of the divisive class pretensions that endeavored to raise a prideful barrier between Craftsmen and artists let us strive for conceive and create the new building of the future that will unite every discipline architecture and sculpture and painting and which will one day rise heavenwards from the million hands of Craftsmen as a clear symbol of a new belief to come it was a highly optimistic movement the founders wanted to solve social problems through art and architecture and the Germans of the 1920s faced some real problems students and Masters were confronted with fundamental everyday problems of the war torn viar Republic there was a lack of clothes food building materials and money which lost value by the hour with inflation reaching a crisis point in November 1923 when you needed 4 trillion German marks to purchase a ky of beef to solve these issues of scarcity the bow house emphasized very functional and material efficient houses and objects no more adornments and decorative doodads these were not functional and they showed excess which was considered ugly and socially irresponsible bow house used raw materials like steel glass and concrete it used many straight lines to save on building materials this use of straight lines is called rectilinear let's take a look at some examples of bow house design [Music] one of the most iconic bow house buildings is the bow house school itself in 1925 the bow housee School moved from viar to D where they manifested this custom complex this complex was designed with no front and no Declaration of an entrance the workshop Wing is an example of what Tom Wolf calls the glass box walls of Windows are a Hallmark of bow house design Windows let in huge amounts of lights but they also let set in temperature heat and cold which causes the temperature of a building to fluctuate rapidly throughout the day another odd Paradox of bow house design is the flat roof flat roofs use much less Building Material than pitched roofs gabled roofs or A-frames but rain snow and debris stay on a flat roof forever it snows in Germany so the adoption of flat roofs here is most puzzling a flat roof makes much more sense in a drier climate like Palm Springs this is the workshop Wing notice how the workshop Wing has four stories this Wing called the pr house is the same height but has five stories this is because rooms in the paror house have lower ceilings lower ceilings mean more units you can squeeze more floors out of the same space if you have lower ceilings this functionality was important to the bow house they wanted to redesign high density worker housing they did this by using low ceilings skinny hallways and small square rooms the desau school also has this iconic typography on the side of the building it says bow house it's iconic in the same way that the Hollywood sign or the welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign are it inspired the iconic bow house font I actually might argue that bow House's second most lasting Legacy is in typography lowercase stylization curvy lines and an effect that is both bold and understated at the same time the disal campus was decimated in World War II but they refurbished it in the 1960s and 1980s today you can visit and even stay overnight and experience all the wonders of bow [Music] house B house founder Val gropos was obsessed with the modular house the Moder house is basically a pre-fabricated house a ready-made house you can prop up on any flat land he never got to realize his ideal modular house in Germany so this is his house in New England valter lived here while teaching architecture at Harvard it probably looks familiar to you because it contains many elements of modern design it has a flat roof and walls with big glass windows the spiral staircase is more space efficient than a lateral staircase and you'll notice corio spared every expense there's barely any material on this spiral staircase the stairs lead to a private entrance built for valter's daughter atti the two-story house also has low ceilings here is a view from inside the house what do you think does the house feel cramped or cozy the gro house is compact geometric and clean It's a Wonderful example of bous [Music] design the bow house lamp by villm wagenfeld is one of the bow House's most iconic and controversial objects in their essay the bow house Paradox Philip Oswalt and Julia Mir write for many people the bow house lamp is a perfect embodiment of the bow house concept a modern functional and well-designed utility object of the Industrial Age and yet closer inspection reveals this impression is in fact deceptive the bow house lamp is not functional the bow house advertised it as a work and bedside lamp however due to its small light beam that shines only downwards on its base it is unsuitable for these purposes it is instead employed chiefly as decorative mood lighting the bow house lamp is not an industrial product it was made by hand even today the design on the lamp requires individual production by hand which is why it costs so much I will pause here to note that the bellous hoped to mass produce stylish objects so that the workingclass could have nice things in their homes more on that later the essay continues to this day scarcely a single bow house exhibition would fail to include the bow house lamp no one expects the bow house lamp to be a practical work or reading lamp as a pleasing illuminated sculpture it symbolizes a way of thinking fits into many contexts and does not take up a lot of space its practical value lies in its symbolic function the German bow housee school closed in 1933 under pressure from the Nazis who hated modernist art at this time many bow house alumni escaped to the United States there bow house influenced the movements known as modern mid-century modern and the international style all these Styles value straight lines raw materials many windows and modular construction today Ikea actually embodies the bow house ethos quite well the bow house liked self assembled furniture and objects because it made the consumer part of the design process Ikea also mass-produces items that are quite stylish and relatively high quality this was part of the bow House's goal for workers to have nice things in their homes bow House's dream of house building never really caught on in a big way turns out most people don't like living in tiny plain cramped little rooms but after World War III and the baby boom more workingclass people needed more places to live and so bow house evolved into brutalism when you see a brutalist building you might think that looks like a bomb shelter well exactly Europe was bombed to bits during World War II and nuclear war loomed heavy on the horizon during the Cold War people wanted sturdy public buildings that looked like they could take a beating or a bombing there are several things that are quite brutal about brutalism the bomb shelter thing for one the walls are thick and usually gray which feels quite oppressive they don't have many windows and a lot of prisons are designed in the brutalist style in the words of GQ writer Brad Dunning brutalism should be kind of scary but the term brutalism doesn't actually mean ruthless or cruel it actually comes from the French Breton brute meaning raw concrete no material defines brutalism better than concrete let's look at a few examples [Music] in 1968 a 22-story housing development in England collapsed only 2 months after it was built four people died and it was a huge deal this along with the prid iGo housing debacle where residents all but demanded that their building be demolished caused a reckoning for the whole Mass scale modular housing idea meet its replacement the Alexander Road estate the estate contains 250 Apartments a school a Community Center a youth club a healing complex and a park it's terraced in a building style known as ziggurat the estate has a larger building footprint than a tower because units aren't stacked they're terrist this also makes the structure less likely to collapse the complex is built of reinforced concrete it looks sturdy but also a bit depressing many residents dress up their homes with plants and laundry still the Alexander Road estate is highly functional people still live there it is a successful example of brutalist public housing this next example is public housing not for humans but for Birds the world of birds exhibit at the Bronx Zoo was a huge hit when it opened in 1973 the New York Times wrote the architect Morris Ketchum recalled he wasn't concerned about the external appearance but wanted to make a habitat hospitable for the animals using concrete as a protective skin it is obvious that the whole Arrangement works well some birds started nesting as soon as they took up residence the concrete multi-tower Department complex for Birds is lit mostly by artificial lighting and skylights it houses over 100 species of birds and most of them seem quite happy there you can still visit the birds and the world of birds at the Bronx [Music] Zoo the Met Brer reminds me of a vogan spaceship frightening indeed its architect Mar Brer studied at the bow house school and is most famous for Designing this chair the Met Brer was once considered the most aent guard building in all of Manhattan it certainly is experimental it's built of concrete and granite blocks the inverted zigurat style isn't space efficient or structurally sturdy looking but it does look cool the Met Brer flips brutalism on its head literally today you can see brutalist buildings everywhere the style is considered quite ugly but you cannot deny the sheer strength of a concrete building brutalism is indestructible bow house and brutalism are not so different they both wanted to achieve functional buildings not pretty ones the bow house glass box evolved into the brutalist concrete brick but they both have the same goals efficiency and function these buildings are all about their materials they say look at my materials look at them look at this handsome concrete look at these sexy Windows look at this sassy steel these buildings don't need decorations or facades or even doorways to make a statement and their statement is their Simplicity thank you so much for watching I hope you learned a little bit and had a little bit of fun here today as always if you have more context or resources please drop them in the comments that's one of the best parts of the video 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