Adam style American Empire and Archigram
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American Empire is a French-inspired Neo-classical style of American
furniture and decoration that was initiated just before 1800 and is
most notably exemplified by the furniture of Duncan Phyfe and
Paris-trained Charles-Honoré Lannuier. Their work in this style is
characterized by antiquities-inspired carving, applied, gilded brass
mounts, and inlaid decorative elements such as stamped brass banding
with egg-and-dart, diamond, or Greek key patterns, or individual
shapes such as stars or circles. The most elaborate examples were
made before around 1825, and incorporate carved columns and figures
finished with a combination of gilding and vert-antique. A more
plain version of American Empire furniture, usually referred to as
the Grecian style, generally demonstrates curved forms, figured
mahogany veneer, and sometimes stenciled decorations. This American
version of the Central-European Biedermeier style, continued to be
made in conservative centers past the mid-nineteenth century. Two
major centers of American Empire style cabinet-making were New York
and Baltimore. |
The Adam style (or Adamesque) is a style of neoclassical
architecture and design as practiced by Scottish architect Robert
Adam (1728- 1792) and his brothers. A book of engraved designs made
the "Adam" repertory available throughout Europe. A parallel
development of this early phase of neoclassical design is French
"Louis XVI style.
Robert Adam's main rivals were James Wyatt, whose many designs for
furniture were less known outside the wide circle of his patrons,
because he never published a book of engravings, and Sir William
Chambers, who designed fewer furnishings for his interiors,
preferring to work with able cabinet-makers like John Linnell,
Thomas Chippendale and Ince and Mayhew. So many able designers were
working in this style in London from ca. 1770, that the style is
currently more usually termed Early Neoclassical.
It is typical of Adam style to combine decorative neo-Gothic details
into the classical framework. So-called "Egyptian" and "Etruscan"
design motifs were minor features.
The "Adam style" is identified with:
Roman style decorative motifs such as framed medallions, vases, urns
and tripods, arabesque vine scrolls, sphinxes and gryphons.
Flat grotesque panels
Pilasters
Painted ornaments such as swags and ribbons
Complex color schemes
The Adam style found its niche from the late 1760s in upper-class
residences in 18th century England, Russia, and post-Revolutionary
War United States (where it became known as Federal style and took
on a variation of its own). The style was superseded from the end of
the 1780s by a more massive and self-consciously archeological
style, connected with the First French Empire.
A revived "Adams" style, initiated by a spectacular marquetry
cabinet by Wright & Mansfield exhibited at the Paris Exposition of
1867, competed with revived Sheraton and Hepplewhite styles that
lost momentum after World War I.
Archigram
Archigram was an avant-garde architectural group formed in the 1960s
- based at the Architectural Association, London - that was
futurist, anti-heroic and pro-consumerist, drawing inspiration from
technology in order to create a new reality that was solely
expressed through hypothetical projects. The main members of the
group were Peter Cook, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, Dennis Crompton,
Michael Webb and David Greene. The pamphlet Archigram I brought out
in 1961 proclaimed their ideas. Committed to a 'high tech', light
weight, infrastructural approach that was focussed towards survival
technology, the group experimented with clip-on technology,
throwaway environment, space capsules and mass-consumer imagery.
Their works offered a seductive vision of a glamorous future machine
age, however social and environmental issues were left unaddressed.
The works of Archigram had a Futurist slant being influenced by
Antonio Sant'Elia's works. Buckminster Fuller was also an important
source of inspiration. The works of Archigram served as a source of
inspiration for later works such as the High tech 'Pompidou centre'
(1971) by Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini and
Future Systems.
Some famous projects of Archigram are Ron Herron's "Walking Cities"
and Peter Cook's "Plug-in-City", both of 1964.
Plug-in-City, Peter Cook, 1964
Plug-in-City is a megastructure with no buildings but just a massive
framework into which dwellings in the form of cells or standardised
components could be slotted into. The machine had taken over and
people were the raw material being processed, the difference being
that people are meant to enjoy the experience.
The Walking City, Ron Herron, 1964
The Walking City is constituted by intelligent buildings or robots
that are in the form of giant, self contained living pods that could
roam the cities. The form derived from a combination of insect and
machine and was a literal interpretation of Corbusier's aphorism of
a house as a machine for living in. The pods were independent, yet
parasitic as they could 'plug in' to way stations to exchange
occupants or replenish resources. The citizen is therefore a
serviced nomad not totally dissimilar from today's executive cars.
The context was perceived as a future ruined world in the aftermath
of a nuclear war. |
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