during the 1920´s a new mechanical era started, and the question of should peoples homes be a castle or a machine for living in became popular. they learned that people and things are joined together in this world by design. people had different views on what was design and there were different styles of design.
in 1926 Walter Groupius founded the Bauhaus school in Dessau, Germany. the school looked like an industrial factory, were it was founded to educate young people to design and create products with an industrial look. Groupius wanted to join together all kind of craftsmanship disciplines to get them to experiment together to design products, and see what got out of them working together. with this they educated people for a new future were artist learned from the construction workers, and the construction workers learned from the artists again. this was a vision for a new kind of life, a new future, and a new way to design.
Bauhaus´s enemy was the style of Art Novae with organic, erotic and a decorative design. this was the complete opposite of the modernist style that were objects of quality with no decoration. the modernist were imposing a future vision on people, many felt that they were forced on this kind of way to live.
the new technology made it possible to produce tubular steel. this opened up a whole new field of shapes; all sort of possibilities. tubular steel was mainly used on the chair were it became half structure, half product.
this new machine age led to the mass production of the kitchen, were the kitchen had become a functional room, a fitted kitchen were it was almost to be like a factory for the women were they were to produce food faster and simpler. it was designed for living, easier living.
the kitchen in a way became a machine. a machine for living in. something that led the film to the Swiss born architect Le Corbusier that saw the house as a machine for living in. a fitted house should open up for entertainment were the service places, like kitchen and bathrooms, should be limited, and small places. the house for Le Corbusier was a modern traffic machine were it stood for engineering and the future. a house should be flexible in the future with multifunctional furniture's. the occupant should be able to do whatever they wanted inside the house, were the floor plan should be flexible and walls could be moved around to create wider or smaller spaces after what was needed.
the furniture's were functional but not so comfortable. they saw that it was easier to change products after the style then the architecture. many saw the modernist style as too simple, some liked it, some did not.
in 1932 Bauhaus school got closed down by Hitler and the Nazis, and Groupius moved to Britain.
in 1935 Le Corbusier moves to USA, with ambitions to change the American design and style. but the Americans had already chosen their style and future. it was chosen by capitalism and consumerism. and in New York Le Corbusier saw that every building had its own style.
Henry Dreyfuss is seen as a genius in the USA; he applied common sense and a scientific approach to design problems. his work both popularized the field for public consumption, and made significant contributions to the underlying fields of ergonomics, anthropometric, and human factors. Dreyfuss designed for the consumer and their needs, were he wanted to include everyone in his vision of the future. with the use of his measurements of the average human that he called joe and josephine he designed thinking of the ergonomics of the human being. he looked at how people used objects, and wanted to make it easier for people to use different objects. Dreyfuss way of thinking of the human was very different from Le Corbusier´s way of thinking, that was very functional and machine like. and that is also the reason why so many disliked Le Corbusier and his ideas of the future.
the Frenchman Raymond Loewy is seen as the first interior consultant were he uses inspiration from the modern and streamlined design and made it in to interiors and homes. in Loewy's early years in the U.S., he lived in New York and found work as a window designer for department stores, including Macy´s, Wanamaker´s and Saks in addition to working as a fashion illustrator for Vogue and Harper´s Bazaar.
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