digital collection

Creator Theo van Doesburg, (Artist), Dutch, 1883-1931
Cornelis Van Eesteren, (Artist), Dutch, 1897-1988
Title Contra-Construction Project Axonometric
Work Type Architectural Drawings
Date Drawing date: 1923
Project date: 1923
Material Gouache on lithograph
Measurements 22 1/2 x 22 1/2 (57.2 x 57.2 cm)
Description Unbuilt Project for a private house. Excerpt from Envisioning Architecture catalogue (essay by Peter Reed): With the zeal of a crusader, Theo van Doesburg, the prolific writer, painter, and cofounder of the avant-garde Dutch movement de Stijl, promoted a new order uniting art and life. In his utopian quest for a universal ideal, cleansed of social and artistic conventions but not without moral and spiritual dimensions, van Doesburg predicated a formal language of abstraction on the rectangle, primary colors (red, blue, and yellow), and asymmetrically balanced compositions. To suggest what a de Stijl environment might look like, van Doesburg enlisted the assistance of the architect Cornelis van Eesteren. In 1923 the two men mounted a landmark exhibition at Léonce Rosenberg’s Galerie L’Effort Moderne in Paris. This so-called Contra-Construction was among the works exhibited. The Contra-Construction is not a study for a specific building but a meditation on a new kind of architectural space and structure. Serving as a demonstration of the ideas in the artists’ manifestos, the composition-an axonometric placed diagonally on the paper-is key to understanding their aims. The construction seems to float on the sheet, divorced from time or place. The high vantage point lets us see many sides at once, but we have no clear understanding of front, side, or back, or of inside and out. Horizontal and vertical planes define a complex of asymmetrical volumes around a central open core. Color is a constructive element, applied to elements running the height, length, and width of the construction. The planes have an atectonic character, being divorced from a supporting function. The spatial relations and sense of freedom in the composition underscore van Doesburg’s overarching goal: to liberate humanity from material things through a new form of modernism.
Gift of Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.
Repository Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)

I know Mondrian had a hard time seeing the value of van Doesburg‘s vision to bring the abstract into every part of modern life. In my hometown, Jacksonville, Florida, architecture here is generally uninspiring. Among the countless strip malls and eateries the few architectural gems of my city can be found in downtown Jacksonville. Possible remnants from an area when architects and designers, “Got it.” Now designers usually use beige neutral colors when designing buildings. Besides the historic districts my city really lacks any kind of architectural voice. I find this unfortunate. The article here from FastCo Design is an idea that I have been having for a while about designing for the ethos. I hold a philosophy that the ethos needs to create its own beat and go with it instead of following what has always been. Imagine if we followed the protocol all the time and never stepped forward. It is necessary too to look back to make sure what you are creating is new and to make sure you aren’t about to make the same mistakes which others may have already made. I think Jacksonville is in this point of not stepping forward and the result is that downtown is dying and new places are now filling the void. So to revitalize downtown I would encourage them to rethink and refit the current public spaces and venues, to really study what is happening on in the world around, and finally create something beautiful, functional, and environment friendly. I think people would want to go downtown then.

Mondrian and van Doesburg got in an argument over Doesburg use of the diagonal line. Mondrian was a very restricted person (think of Calvinism, asceticism) and this philosophy showed up in his works. Where as Theo van Doesburg was much more extravagant and ready to play with what art is and the meaning of art (which is good aswell). I like van Doesburg’s drawing because there is a lot of movement and the building seems to just have come together out of space. But I do know that while this all looks good on paper, placing it into an urban environment does not work well all of the time.

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Inspiring. TED Talk by designer Philippe Starck.

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we live in an age where nearly everything is a lie and man has access to too much information.

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I sometimes feel that way.

But tonight, you know what I did? I rode my bike as fast as I could through Time Square, screaming a the top of my lungs and almost running over some people.

It was exhilerating for 30 seconds. I’m still running the high of it, because I always wanted to do it, and I finally just fucking did it.

Most of the things you want to do probalby don’t require shitloads of money or power. you can probably go and do them. So go do one of them. And then another, and then another.

Most of us don’t get a life where our job ties into our lives in such a way that we feel “meaningful”, but we don’t need that. what we need is to have fun, because we can, and we are without a doubt the peak of evolution- this random weird thing that happened in the universe for who knows what reason- I know that I can experience amazing shit if I let myself put my guard down. you should do the same. Even if it is stupid.

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Sitting on my friend’s bed. Looking out the window into the quad, a white fan blows smoke out of the room. We are talking about the mutual people we know. Summing them up in one or two words. The conversation isn’t negative, just light hearted. I find myself laughing and coming to realizations on the characters of my fellow men. My friend calls a person something “asjndadkld-head,” I sit for a moment reflect and I ask “What does that mean?”

He looks at me and ignores me and grabs another string of conversation floating in the air. I grab another string and continue too. The string runs out. I get out my smartphone and goto “Urbandictionary.com” and look up the word. I find it. The definition is simple. If I were to deconstruct the original word “akdmakda-head”, I would have been able to figure it out based on the “akdmakdka” part. But, something much more has happened and this subtly bothers me.

I am very sensitive to language. I like to take sentences and words apart and reconstruct them (like the Surrealists did), play with the meaning of enunciation (like the Dadaist did), deconstruct words, reconstruct words, reinterpet words based on their contextual meaning (think “don’t get an attitude with me, boy” I would ponder someone going to Target and buying a specific attitude). When someone says a word like “adkamdkma-head” I am looking beneath the surface for something that is more than a literal transfiguration. I am looking for an idea (enlightenment). I find it interesting that artists throughout history have played with language and ineffabilities. Trying to capture the inexplicable by showing the shortcoming of language. The Bhudda’s in their Zen state create mind bending paradoxical syntax which answer seemingly bizarre “questions” like: Show me your original face before you were born. Bucky Fuller made new words to be clearer about the ongoing happenings of everyday life.

Maybe I should work on generative lexical analysis model meaning if the person is known for creating words that actually represent new complex ideas I should take my conversations at a slower pace, versus analyzing someones syntax who uses words for words sake. Because what happened next is that I seemed like I was “out-of-the-cool?-loop” but really I was just stuck on the idea presented and was not ready to move on from the cliff presented.

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