Assignment 4 “Eyes which do not see: Automobile”, Le Corbusier

I have read the Le Corbusier’s writing, title of “Eyes which do not see: Automobile”
My Presentation is going to be the summary of this reading and my opinion with the research related to this topic. Le Corbusier is one of the greatest architects 20th century who strongly concentrated in the development of modern architecture. He was born in 1887 in Swiss. He decided to become an architect during his travel in Europe and after that he designed lots of influenced architecture which affected to the society and the culture, until 1956.He created ‘Modular Design’, which is the result of his researches into mathematics, architecture (the golden section), and human proportion. It is historically form the Greek architecture.

Villa Savoye, one of his famous architectural buildings. It was the culmination of many years of design, and the basis for much of Le Corbusier's later architecture. It also contains the concept of ‘Modular Design’.

‘Eye’s which do not see: Automobiles’ written by le Corbusier. He wrote about the relationship between the standardization in automobile design and the standardization in architecture.
In dictionary, the meaning of standardization is that the condition in which a standard has been successfully established

Then what is the standardization in design?
Le Corbusier mentioned..
- it is matter of logic, analysis and minute study
- It is established by experiment
- It is established on sure bases with a logic controlled by analysing and experimentation
- It is the solution to solve the problem, creating perfection.

He said the Parthenon is the standardization in the architecture. Parthenon was designed by Phidias in Acropolis in 447 BC. In my research it is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, Its decorative sculptures are considered one of the high points of Greek art and is one of the world's greatest cultural monuments. It has been known as many architects get an architectural inspiration from this architecture. Le Corbusier mentioned that the Parthenon is the standardization in the architecture and the architecture operates according to the standard. I think the reason he choose the Parthenon as his prime example of the standardization is that Parthenon was the first architecture which was designed with the concept of modular design.

With establishment of standardization, there are lots of things to concern us such as
- a recognized type face comfortable to its function
- with a maximum output and a minimum use of meaning
- workmanship and material
- words
- forms
- color
- sound

However when once a standardization is established, competition comes at once, and violently into play. It influences the development of design from the standard. In my opinion, it happens because of the people’s desire. Establishment of the standardization means people already have a lot of experimenting on it until the standardization is established, and they try to keep developing from the standard to satisfy their desire.

The motorcar is an object with simple function which is to travel, but complicated aims such as comfort, resistance, appearance. This situation has forced big industry to standardize. All cars have the same essential arrangement but by the continued competition, the design of the motorcar is forever developing. Designers are trying to find not only perfection and harmony, but beauty as well.
I can say that history of the car has started from when people started using wheel, it is 6000years ago. The invention of car was motivated from the horse wagon. People wanted to make something to carry people without animal such as horse and cow. I’m not going to talk about the development of the technology in automobile.However I will show picture here you will see how the design of the car has been developed.

This is the world’s first car.. Mercedes-Benz 1886 it can be the standardization of auto mobile.

Styling of the car design started in 1920s`

Modernism and Mass production start ed at 1940s

1960s ~ 1970

1980s ~ 1990s

Early 21st Century

Future cars

As you can see, the design of the automobile has developed since the standardization is established and it still keeps developing. Automobile is the best example of the design competition occurring after the standardization is established.

In conclusion, standardization is the starting point of the perfection. People develop its function, harmony, and beauty to reach the perfection. I think the standardization is the essential to improve the quality of design, also the quality of our life as well.

The Standardization is the starting point of the perfection..

Lecture Note Summary 6

-Immaterial Practice-

Episode One-What is design?

Design as..
+ Designis not just one way of thinking.
+ Design as applied creativity.
+Design as problem solving - like a chess game, think about many way of movement and then find the best
way among them.
+ Design as learning.
+ Design as evolution- procedure ro ge a successful generation.
+ Design as social process- Nowadays it is nearly impossible that single designer proceed a complicated
design project by himself.
- Good designer is a good negotiator
+ Design as a game- Design is a chellenge.
+Design as solving wicked problems.

+10 characteristics of wicked problems
1. No definite formulation of it.
2. No stopping rule.
3. Solution to wicked problems are not true or false, but better or worse.
4. No immediate and no ultimate test of a solution.
5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation" because there is no opportunity to learn by
trial and error.
6. Wicked problems do not have an eenumerable set of potential solution.
7. It is essentially unique.
8. It can be considered to be a sympton of another problem.
9. The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways.
10. The planner has no right to be wrong.

+ Design a mastery of expertise
0. Naive
1. Novice
2. Advanced Beginner
3. Competent Designer
4. Expert
5. Master
6. Visionary - Create New things/See the World in a different way/change the standard

+How not to design?
1. Always cling to your first idea.
2. Jump into the detail immediately.
3. Wait for inspiration
4. Ignore an aspect of the problem first.
5. Ignore any tests that suggest the design might not work.
6. First design the form, then sort out how the thing sould work.
7. Be inflexible about your idea and approach.
8. Do not plan because it takes too much time.
9. Try to surprise your tutor ans client with a finished design.

Episode 2- What is form?

- Scientific Realism
The world is governed by natural laws. according to which the objects of scientific study are natural kinds
etc.
- Grilles Deleuze
He thought of reality abd what is form related to the matter of reality, science and design.
- Actual structure change in extension when divided.
Intensive structure do not change when divided in extension and change in kind when "devided by
differences in intencity.

Lecture Note Summary 5

-Embodied Interaction-

+ Definition of the Wearable Technology – Smart Fabrics
Safety
Fashion
Entertainment
High Tech Jewel
Biometrics Device
Health

+ Example: 1. “Printed Organism”, Sonali Sridhar & Monna Anraos, This jacket has a changeable texture on it.

2. “ le’charpe Communicante” Electronic shadow, Putting a
communication system into a cloth

3. Steve Mann’s “wearable computer” and “reality mediator” inventions
of the 1970s have evolved into what looks like ordinary eye glasses.
Existech’s fashionable products for e-security, e-safety and e-comfort.

4. Bendt Manbrey- Die Audio Grappe/ Audio Jacket

5. Audio Ballerinas, Putting a audio device on the ballerina uniform.

6. Audio Peacocks 2003

7. Joachin Santer : Art + Com
New Media Since 1968, the origins of Art + Com lie on a vision to
research and develop interactive media solution.
The latest project they do is Duality (2007), it is located on the park
of an artificial pond in Tokyo.

Lecture Note Summary 4

-Open Source Design and Collective Invention-

+Network- Spatial structure / Space
- Examples: Archigram plug-In City, Max Presure Area Section
Superstudio
Archizoom, No-Stop City
Open Source Software, think of open source as:
free speech, not as in free bear
- User generated Content: ex) Wikipedia.org
Intractable
Mash-up & Re- Mix
Negative Land – Video (include messages)
-Creativity in Art and Design: Collage
Ready Made (Marcel Duchamp)
(Salvador Dali)
(Francis Bacon)
Cut up pop art (William Burroughs)
(Jasper Johns)

Lecture Note Summary 3

-Design and Postmodernity-

+The Key historical date of the Postmodernity
1956: Pop Culture and the House.
1968: Innovation following the Apollo Moon Landing.
1968: Paris Student Uprising, which caused changes in university teaching and eventuallyy, in government.
The massage, autocracy not acceptable.
1969: Sottsass and the Olivetti Valentine typewriter.
1972: Pruitt-lgoe implosion, labeled the End of modernism and the beginning of Post modernism.
1984: Apple Macintosh.
1989: End of the cold war signaled by the destruction of the Berin Wall.

+ The ornament become a part of the design in this period.

+ Post Modernity is a innovation and a inventive.

Lecture Note Summary 2

-Computing & Media art-

+Multi-Media Art / New Media Digital Art / Art & Technology.

+The initial digital Media has come from the capture of motion.

+The base of digital media art is the Fantascope Projection.

+Nam Jun Paik: the world famous Video artist

Nam June Paik (July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a South Korean-born American artist, particularly noted for his video art. Paik studied music history, art history, and philosophy at the University of Tokyo, where he graduated with a dissertation on Arnold Schoenberg. He went to Germany in 1956 to continue the study of music history at the University of Munich. In Germany he met composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage, who inspired Paik to go into electronic art. Paik worked with Stockhausen in a studio for Electronic Music. He also became involved with the post neo-Dada art movement Fluxus, founded by George Maciunas.He began working with modified television sets in 1963 and bought his first video camera in 1965, returning to Japan to conduct experiments with electromagnets and color television alongside electronic engineer Shuya Abe. He was known for using rapid cuts and fast motion in his videos. He also claimed to have coined the term "information superhighway" in a paper written in 1974.He will be remembered as a founding father of video art and will continue to influence the younger generation of artists."Art is just fraud. You just have to do something nobody else has done before", he famously declared during an interview with a Korean newspaper, and this has now become a popular quote.He died on Sunday January 29, at his apartment in Miami, Florida, of natural causes.

The More the Better, (1988) Three channel video installation with 1,003 monitors and steel structure; color, sound; approx. 60 ft. high

Class Readings during the first term ( Feb ~ 11 of April)

-The Revival of Handicraft-

It is written by William Morris.
It is his discuusion about the handicraft in producing products.
When the mass production has been occured people did not prefer the handicraft, the beauty in the products has gone.
I don't think the mass production is too bad to peopel, society and out culture. We can not reject the mass production in thesedays and I can understand why he say that the handicraft is important. Is it impossible to find the beauty in mass production? is the handicraft only way to describe the beauty for the designer?


- Men, Machines, and the World about-

Norbert Wienner began working toward Cybernetics while engaged in a world war 2 research project. Cybernetic is perhaps most immediately recognized for bringing the “cyber” prefix into English usage in terms like cyborg and cyberspace. Cybernetics sought to create an overarching study of “communication and control in the animal and machine”.
He said the new industrial revolution which is taking place now consists primarily in replacing human judgement and discrimination at low levels by the discrimination of the machine.
These days, Men control the machine and the world is being made up by the machines. Does it mean machines are controlling our world even though we are operating the machine? We should be aware whether operating the machine is our option or our compulsory in order to live in a recent world. Men are the owner of the world but not machines.


- Cold War Hot House-

This text makes us to think how much design has come out from the war and how it affected to the industrial fields. Cold War Hot House, written by Beatriz Colomina, she researched on the period had focused on the impact of World War 2 on architectural discourse. In other words, the redefinition of the architect and architectural design by the war. Cold war Hothouse, meaning all of the new forms of domesticity that emerged during the period and that in many ways we still occupy today. Everything in the postwar age was domestic. The entire Cold War culture blurs the distinction between work and play, business and entertainment, appliance and toys, buiding and dollhouses. The consumer was treated as an intelligent and playfully creative decision maker. There were some changes of design in diverse field within and after the cold war, and that influence has been continued to the current society and culture.

Lecture Note Summary 1

-Design and Modemity-

Modernism: Designing a new world
+1600~1700, the barque period
+ Industrialization has occurred: - At first, no style of machine but only function of
Machine.
-Manchester, the first industrialization in the world.
- Style became more modern after 1851.
- William Morris, Simplized form and material,
Thought about quality of design,
Thought decoration will rise up
the quality of human life.
+1914~1918: World War One
+ Searching of Utopia
+ Modernism big concerns of human body
+Italian Futurism
+Early 1920: New design has occurred in many field such as architecture, computer,
technology, product and so on.
+Building Utopia