Abstract

This presentation will note commonalites between two innovators: (1) rejection of historicism and associated pastiche built structures; (2) recycling of vernacular design andarchitectural features of their homelands into their commissioned prjects; (3) ties with German-speaking design contemporaries, Mackintosh with the Vienna Secession, Van de Velde with the Deutsche Werkbund; (4) concern with merging the advantages of industrial materials and fabrication with traditional hand craftsmanship; and (5) participation in avant garde art organizations, The Group of Four in Glasgow, Les Vingt in Brussels. The study will also focus on the two final commonalities, (4) and (5), listed above. To illustrate the symbiosis of industrial fabrication with hand craftsmanship in the work of Mackintosh, the presentation will address the Glasgow School of Art, noting as well the critical role process drawings played in this and all the architect’s built projects. In discussing Van de Velde, the talk will highlight the Belgian’s involvement in the German Deutsche Werkbund, examining his modernist Workers’ Theater, built for the 1914 Werkbund Fair in Cologne, as well as his opposition to Muthesius’ demand for govenment-imposed standardization of structural elements in German design and architecture. The study will trace this opposition back to Van de Velde’s participation in Les Vingt.