COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0000635
image_record_id
aahi0000635
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
Apartment Blocks (Werkbund Siedlung)
Image Title:
view along Veitinger Gasse with original coloration of buildings
Work Dates (display):
1930
Work Dates type:
creation
Work Creator (display):
André Lurçat (French, 1894-1970)
Work Creator gender:
male
work_creator_or_agent_gender
male
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
(b Bruyères, Vosges, 27 Aug 1894; d Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, 11 July 1970). Architect, urban planner and writer, brother of (1) Jean Lurçat. He began his studies in Nancy, at the studio of the painter Victor Prouvé, and continued them in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he was admitted in July 1914 to the studio of Edmond Paulin (18481915). During the 1920s Lurçat became known for the theoretical designs that he presented at the Salon d'Automne of 1923. Through his brother he won a commission for a group of artists' studios and residences in Paris, which he executed between 1924 and 1926 at the Villa Seurat; there he successfully created the image of a modern complex with sharp edges and geometric openings. He also designed other houses in Versailles and Paris, although he failed to impose his ideas in the field of public housing. In 1926 Lurçat organized the architecture section of the Architecture internationale exhibition in Nancy, where Bauhaus architecture was shown in France for the first time. He was a member of Ciam from its foundation in 1928 (for photograph of congress members see Ciam) and sided with the German and Austrian members against Le Corbusier. As Lurçat built up and established a position during the course of his development, Josef Frank invited him to design four houses for the model estate that the Austrian Werkbund inaugurated in Vienna in 1932. Lurçat published Architecture, a manifesto for moderate Modernism in 1929, the year in which he built the Hôtel NordSud in Calvi, Corsica. The following year he was commissioned to execute the Ecole Karl Marx complex of buildings in Villejuif, whose long horizontal windows, pilotis, accessible terrace and high-quality fittings all marked it out as a striking example of the new French architecture. In 1933 he opened a teaching studio where the German philosopher Max Raphaël lectured on aesthetics. He was invited to Moscow, and in January 1934 he was commissioned to execute a residential building for the engineers of the Moscow underground railway. He remained in the USSR until 1937, working at first for the Moscow Soviet and later heading a studio for the People's Commissariat of the Ministry of Health. Using rudimentary materials, Lurçat worked on designs for a number of projects, including the school in Mashinostroenia Street and the Children's Hospital for Contagious Diseases, whose symmetrical and hierarchically arranged elements restored a decorative quality that had disappeared from his last Parisian buildings. Far from passively accepting the pressures to produce work in the style of Socialist Realism, Lurçat strove to preserve Modernist ideas while at the same time returning to a more monumental style, as can be seen in the project for the Academy of Sciences (1934) and in the theoretical work in which he argued for a reasoned return to the great 'laws' of architecture. None of his Soviet projects was executed, however. On his return to France Lurçat joined the Communists in the Resistance. When France was liberated he was made a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but he resigned under pressure from the traditionalists in charge of the individual studios. At Saint-Denis, Lurçat devoted himself to designing prefabricated 'vertical garden estates' (in fact, high-rise slabs), whose distinctive form, linking housing with collective facilities, made them stand out in the town as clearly identifiable units. The Fabien 'neighbourhood unit' was the prototype for these complexes. Lurçat was responsible for the reconstruction of Maubeuge (Nord), a city destroyed in 1940, where he paid considerable attention to the preferences of the inhabitants themselves, to the town's former appearance and to some delicate problems of land ownership; he succeeded in making use of standard prefabricated units without producing work condemned to monotony. From then on he was inundated with commissions from the municipalities of outer Paris, and he began to publish his theoretical ideas on architectural aesthetics, formulated in response to his experience in the USSR, in Formes, composition et lois d'harmonie. In his last works, for example the town hall (1964) at Le Blanc-Mesnil, Lurçat combined the solemnity of great symmetrical forms with the simplicity of geometrical motifs that had been a constant in his architecture since the earliest years of his career. (Grove Art Online accessed 2007-10-23)
Work Style Period:
International Style (modern European architecture style)
work_styleperiod
International Style (modern European architecture style)
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
Modernist
work_styleperiod
Modernist
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
20th century
work_styleperiod
20th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
apartment houses
subject
apartment houses
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
apartment houses
work_type
apartment houses
Work Worktype
false
Work Worktype:
architecture (object genre)
work_type
architecture (object genre)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
architecture
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
architecture
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Location (Geographic) name:
Vienna, Austria
Image Rights (display):
© Ronald Wiedenhoeft. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Saskia, Ltd.
Image Rights license agreement:
SASKIA, LTD.: WHO CAN USE THIS SOFTWARE: (a) Licensee, including faculty, staff and currently enrolled students may use the Licensed Software to display and or print the corresponding graphic images without limitation for teaching and research purposes at the defined Sites, or at remote locations having electronic access to your Site(s). (b) This license include permission to use the Licensed Software on a multi-user network at the defined Site, and to permit remote access to a computer/server located at your Site. Simultaneous display in multiple locations at or connected to the Site is also permitted. (c) Licensee agrees to employ reasonable security measures designed to limit access to your faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. PROHIBITED USES AND LIMITATIONS: (a) Saskia hereby reserves all rights not expressly granted herein. (b) the License Software may not be used for preparaiton of any publication, scholarly or otherwise; or for any purpose other than teaching or research. Publication of an image from the Licensed Software requires a separate license from Saskia. (c) Licensee agrees not to resell, lease, transfer, sub-license or otherwise distribute a copy of the Licensed Software, or any image taken from the Licensed Software, in whole or in part. (d) Licensee also agrees not to modify, corrupt or alter any digital image graphic content or "digital watermark" or the like in the software provided by Saskia under this Agreement. (e) Licensee agrees not to remove, alter, cover or distort Saskia's copyright notice, trademark, or other proprietary rights notice placed by Saskia in the Licensed Software itself, or in the associated packaging, media or documentation. (f) And Licensee agrees to notify users of the Licensed Software, in writing or by sign-on screen display, of their obligations under this Agreement and solicit their cooperation and compliance with such obligations.
Work Rights (display):
© André Lurçat
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
YOU AGREE: Luna Imaging's Insight Software and the digital image collection associated with it (the Software) are being provided by the University of Colorado under the following license. By obtaining, using, and/or copying this work, you (the Licensee) agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with the following terms and conditions. 1. The Software contains the University of Colorado's Department of Art and Art History's implementation of a digital image collection; 2. Any images obtained through use of the Software will be used only for non-profit, educational purposes; 3. The use of images obtained through the software will only be used while the Licensee is either: a) an employee of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver, or b) an enrolled student at the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver; 4. When the Licensee is no longer an employee or student of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or Community College of Denver, either by an action of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or the Community College of Denver or due to actions of the Licensee, the licensee will cease to use any images exported from the Department of Art and Art History's digital image collection; 5. The Licensee agrees to indemnify the University for claims and liability arising out of the use of the Software or for any violations of this license; 6. THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SUPPLIES THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
CU Copyright Statement:
The contents of the University of Colorado Digital Library are available for your use in research, teaching, and private study. Some of these items are protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) and some items may have additional restrictions. If you use the items in this collection, make sure you abide by any restrictions stated in the descriptive data window. The nature of these collections often makes it difficult to determine the copyright status of an item. We have made every effort to provide information about copyright owners and other restrictions in the descriptive data window. Ultimately, however, it is your responsibility to use the item according to the terms governing its use. If you are a copyright holder and the information is either not listed or listed incorrectly, please let us know so that we can update the information on our site.
Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Center
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see