Modernism Archives - Page 17 of 19

The Life and Work of Henri Matisse

Posted on January 21, 2020May 20, 2024 by Nancy

Henri Matisse is often regarded as the most important French painter of the 20th century. Leader of the Fauvist movement, his work was expressive, colorful and rigorous, often depicting flattened forms and decorative pattern. He operated with a unique way of seeing, stating, “I don’t paint things, I only paint the difference between things.” To understand the influential work of one of art history’s greatest minds, we first examine his life.

Matisse’s Early Life

Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (1869 to 1954) was a draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor, most renowned for his work as a painter. Born to a wealthy grain merchant in Northern France, he first studied law before finding his calling as an artist. His mother gifted him art supplies during his recovery from appendicitis. Through the gift, Matisse discovered “a kind of paradise” in creation, and made the decision to abandon law for a lifelong pursuit in art.

In the last decade of the 19th century, Matisse studied art in Paris, and was influenced by the work of early masters and modern artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin and Éduoard Manet. However, an 1896 trip to the island of Belle Île introduced Matisse to Australian painter John Russell, who then introduced Mattisse to Impressionism and the work of Vincent van Gogh, Russell’s dear friend. Seeing the vibrancy of Impressionism and van Gogh’s work, Mattisse’s style transformed with brilliant hues. Of his experience with Russell, Matisse said he, “explained colour theory to me.”

The Art of Matisse

After time spent learning from Russell, Matisse was plunged into the world of Fauvism at the turn of the century. The style began around 1900, continuing beyond the first decade. Part of an innovative group later dubbed “Fauves,” Matisse explored his new understanding of color through paintings with tones bright, clashing and dissonant from those natural to their subject. Even though he helped to pioneer Fauvism, Matisse never really fit in with the crowd due to his conservative appearance and strict bourgeois work habits. And although the radical movement eventually declined, Matisse nevertheless forged on.

The work that Matisse created during this period set the stage for the work he would create for the rest of his career. His focus on color continued, explored through what he called “construction by colored surfaces.” Even as his style and subject matter changed from abstract, to decorative interiors, to cut-out paper collages at the end of his life, this approach remained the same.

We are lucky to hang the work of Henri Matisse in our own communities. His consideration of form and color is reflective of our own thought process, and serves as a reminder that while style may change over time, a well-formed approach will always shine through.

A Tour of the Mies-designed IIT Campus

Posted on January 15, 2020May 20, 2024 by Nancy

The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is the place for Modernist architecture enthusiasts — and more specifically, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe enthusiasts — to be. Not to mention that the school is where Optima’s own David Hovey Sr. and David Hovey Jr. further honed their architectural education.

The campus, a place with a special place in our own heart and history, is home to the largest group of buildings designed by renowned architect Mies van der Rohe, arguably the most influential figure in American Modernism. As such, there is no better way to get an understanding of where our work began and where Modernism expanded, and to experience Mies’ philosophy than to explore the very campus that he designed and led.

Perlstein Hall designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Credit: Joe Ravi on Wikimedia Commons under the license CC-BY-SA 3.0

An Overview of the Campus

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe chaired the IIT School of Architecture from 1938 to 1958. During this time, he created a new master plan for the campus, the most ambitious he ever came up with, including twenty of his own works. This collection is the greatest concentration of Mies buildings in the world. Among the twenty are famous structures such as Wishnick Hall, Perlstein Hall, Carr Memorial Chapel and S.R. Crown Hall. Perhaps Mies’ most iconic piece of work, S.R. Crown Hall is the campus gem, a modern icon and National Historic Landmark, and even heralded by Time magazine as “one of the world’s most influential, inspiring and astonishing structures.”

Overall, the campus is a bold expression of the Modernist discipline, utilizing steel, concrete and glass minimalist frames as a radical departure from traditional college quadrangles and limestone buildings.

An Official Architectural Tour

A tour of the campus, offered by the Chicago Architecture Center, places special emphasis on Mies’ time as head of the IIT School of Architecture. The tour covers iconic Mies structures alongside newer additions such as State Street Village, designed by Helmut Jahn.

During the warmer season, tickets for the tour are available for purchase here. Though not required, advance reservations are recommended, and private bookings are available. Truly enhancing the reach of the experience, the ticket price also gives entrance to the Chicago Architecture Center within seven days of your tour.

As a piece of our own history at Optima, and as a grander piece of Modernist architecture’s history in America, the IIT campus is something that must be seen to be truly understood. Whether it’s on your own or with a tour, witnessing this iconic collection of designs is a necessity.

A Brief History of the Swan Chair

Posted on January 8, 2020September 1, 2020 by Nancy

An iconic piece in modern furniture design, the Swan chair’s fluidity and endless curves make it both a comforting perch and a sight to behold. Often swathed in vivid colors, the Swan chair makes a bold statement incorporated into striking interiors across our Optima communities.

An Iconic Design

The Swan chair was designed in 1958 by Arne Jacobsen, the same architect and designer who created the Egg chair. Alongside the Egg chair, the Swan chair was originally crafted for the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen (also architected by Jacobsen). The chair let hotel guests spin its swivel base and rotate 360 degrees to take in the bustling hotel atmosphere, while cocooned in comfort. As a chair with no straight lines, the Swan was a technological innovation in furniture design. Created in the Danish modern style, the chair swiftly became an icon.

A Feat of Engineering

Prior to designing the Swan chair, Jacobsen (and other furniture designers of his generation) were constrained by the pliability of the materials they used, which at the time, were stiff and difficult to sculpt. However, the introduction of molded foam — a new, flexible material — rewrote the rules. Through experimentation with the new product, Jacobsen found the freedom to shape fluid curves and single-piece molded shells.

The Swan chair, originally made from Styropore, is now made from polyurethane foam, both inventive materials that allow for the chairs’ continuous shape. The shell of the swan is made of molded synthetic material, and covered by a layer of cold foam. The swiveling base, always star-shaped, includes a satin-polished, welded steel tube and a 4-star base in injection molded aluminium. With upholstery options available in a variety of textiles and colors, the Swan chair easily adapts to lobbies, lounges and homes across the world.

Throughout our residential spaces, Swan chairs are right at home in our Modernist buildings, reflecting the same passion for form and function. Easily employed in entry lobbies, lounges across the community or even commercial office space, the unique curves and comfort of this sculptural chair leave a lasting impression.

Green Space Spotlight: Optima Kierland Center

Posted on January 6, 2020September 1, 2020 by Nancy

As we began construction on Optima Kierland Center, we envisioned a beautiful community that embraced the desert surroundings and welcomed residents and visitors alike with beautiful Modernist design and, of course, gorgeous green space. A multiphase development project, each building within Optima Kierland Center is connected to the others through aesthetic structure and physical pathways amidst lush gardens. More than 5.5 acres of landscaped open space create a park-like setting for both our neighbors and our residents.

Within the building, our innovative vertical planting system features self-containing irrigation and drainage, including the vibrant and colorful planters at the edge of each floor. The system ultimately culminates into a beautiful rooftop garden, one of the many amenities throughout the building. Within the individual residences, hanging gardens and expansive, private terraces bring the outdoors in, perfectly designed to let our residents enjoy the surrounding greenery.

As with all of our projects, we designed Optima Kierland Center to take advantage of the beauty of the surrounding environment and to integrate our design with soft, natural elements. Working in tandem with our expansive amenity spaces, our green space gives Optima Kierland Center residents endless opportunities to enjoy — and be a part of — the outdoors. With the next two towers underway and with 7180 Optima Kierland 50% sold, we eagerly await the completion of what will be a truly stunning community.

The Work of Jules Olitski

Posted on December 30, 2019May 25, 2024 by Nancy

Jules Olitski was an American painter, printmaker and sculptor whose work explored color as a subject. Olitski’s innovative experimentation in paint and its properties yielded results that were at once atmospheric and beautiful. In many of our properties, displaying the work of Jules Olitski plays complement to our own exploration of color, form and function.

The Life of Jules Olitski

Jules Olitski was born Jevel Demokovsky in 1922 in Snovsk, Russia (now Ukraine). His birth came just a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Soviet government. At only a year old, along with his mother and grandmother, Olitski emigrated to the United States, where the family resided in Brooklyn. Even at a young age, Olitski demonstrated an aptitude for art. In high school, he won a juried prize that allowed him the opportunity to attend art classes in Manhattan.

In 1939, at 17, Olitski attended an exhibit at the New York World’s Fair, and it was there that he first saw work by Rembrandt. Olitski described the experience as “transformative.” The budding artist delved into the academic art world to study portraiture, but his schooling was interrupted when Olitski was drafted into the army during World War II.

Luckily, the G.I. Bill allowed Olitski to spend time studying in Paris following the war. The Paris schools were Olitski’s first introduction to the European modern masters. Their modernist approach led Olitski to engage in a deep process of self-analysis and reinvention — a process which involved painting while blindfolded, enabling the artist to unlearn his academic training as a portrait painter and freeing his inhibitions.

The Art of Jules Olitski

After school, his originally classical work became more abstract and focused on the surface, color and physical properties of paint and painting. This process-oriented approach led him to express a desire to create “color that would hang in the air.” To do so, he rented an industrial spray gun that allowed him to experiment and discover a radical new technique of layering atmospheric blankets of thick color onto canvas.

Olitski’s unique approach to the canvas helped establish the movement of Color Field painting in the mid-1960s. It also led him to represent the U.S. in the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966, and to become the first living American artist to showcase a one-person exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1969. His work has been described as “visual drama” and “visual muzak” by international art critics.

Olitski was able to learn a classical approach to art, and then subvert that through his own unique innovation. Having his works on the walls of our own properties reminds us to always challenge the status quo, and to never stop inventing.

Redwood at Optima Signature

Posted on December 18, 2019September 1, 2020 by Nancy

Our design is often driven with sustainability and efficiency in mind. This leads to the thoughtful incorporation of unconventional materials in many of our projects — whether that be for the exterior facade or an interior accent. One such detail, the redwood in the lobby at Optima Signature, is an unconventional material that serves to juxtapose the strength of the building’s steel-and-glass exterior.

A striking statement throughout the Optima Signature lobby, the barge wood adds a soft, natural texture behind the front desk, creating a stark contrast to the surrounding steel and glass. The wood lines the north wall of the lobby in long planks and is the first sight to greet residents and visitors when they enter the building. Though now on display for all in our community, the wood came all the way from California in the 1850s.

Barge wood in the lobby at Optima Signature.

The planks are redwood, formed from one massive log that sat on the bottom of the Big River in Mendocino California. This particular log was a “sinker,” the name given to the handful of logs that unfortunately sank during their river journey from a redwood forest to the sawmill at the mouth of the Big River, not far from San Francisco.

For over 100 years, the log sat at the bottom of the Big River, until it was salvaged by Arky Ciancutti. Ciancutti began a redwood salvage business in the 1970s, raising large redwood logs that had previously sat forgotten at the bottom of the river. This particular log, Ciancutti determined, was from the first growth period of the redwood forest. He knew this because it was more than six feet in diameter and had axe-shaven markings at its ends, indicating that it was cut down, prior to the invention of the “raker tooth” saw of the late 1800s.

A close-up look at the barge wood at Optima Signature.

Having sat in the river for over one hundred years in mineral-rich water, this redwood log developed a truly rare and unique “curl” pattern within the grain of the wood. To highlight this unique feature, the wood was cut into three-inch-planks that ran the full length of the log. We then carefully installed these planks, with their raw beauty intact, leaving the live edges of the wood as is. The planks were then hung vertically in the lobby space, the orientation the same from which they grew.

From a river in California to the lobby of a Chicago residential building, our barge wood at Optima Signature has a unique story that connects our urban lobby back to nature, and reflects our commitment to sustainability and longevity.

A Brief History of the Terrace

Posted on December 11, 2019May 25, 2024 by Nancy

A hallmark of Optima properties is our integration of the built environment with the natural. Oftentimes, we employ terraces—level platforms incorporated into buildings that allow for plantlife to thrive—that allow our buildings, and their residents, to live in harmony with the surrounding landscape. The usage of terraces is one that dates back for over 12,000 years, evolving over the millennium to be the sophisticated components of urban architecture that they are today.

Terraces of Ancient Times

The word terrace is derived from terra, the Latin word for earth. The technique has been in use for over 12,000 years, first utilized as an ancient farming method in hilly regions. Agricultural terracing involved cutting the land into a series of successively receding flat platforms, much like steps, to allow for more effective farming, by decreasing erosion and surface runoff and increasing the effectiveness of irrigation.

An illustration of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

In 9800 BC, ancient civilizations realized that they could adapt this technique to buildings, and they began to add terraces to their homes and other domestic structures. This first usage was seen across the globe, from the Middle East to the Pacific Islands. The most famous interpretation is undeniably King Nebuchadnezzar’s Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Although no actual proof of its existence has been found, depictions show an ascending series of tiered gardens abundant with plantlife, complete even with a waterfall.

Thousands of years later, from 3000 BC – 600 BC, Mesopotamians grew gardens atop ziggurats, terraced religious temples that allowed for religious spaces to become placed ever higher. The structures were placed upon many layered platforms, and it’s believed that ziggurats were what inspired the Biblical parable The Tower of Babel.

Terraces continued to be integrated into homes. Around 1500 AD, Venice adopted terrace design to the tops of their homes, called altanas. Altanas were private, slat-floored roofs. They started out as a place to hang laundry out to dry, but continue to be used today as social spaces.

The terraced design of Optima Camelview Village.

Terraces in the Modern Age

Following the progression of altanas as a place to socialize, people began more and more to use the terrace as a location to congregate in privacy. Private rooftop and per-unit terraces became luxury amenities in the 1920s, when building height began to increase due to the adoption of the elevator. At that time, terraces become a status of wealth, allowing for privacy, fresh air and separation from the increasing bustle of life on city-level.

Today, the use of terraces continues to flourish, finding increased purpose and urgency in response to population growth and a changing environmental climate. They provide private places to reconvene with nature, away from the bustle of the city. Terraces also create sustainable and contributive space, by providing thermal insulation, solar shading to mitigate air pollution, increased biodiversity and enhanced quality of life.

At Optima, we incorporate terraces to create private social space, to integrate nature into our communities through our signature hanging gardens, and to contribute to our sustainability practices at many of our properties, including Optima Camelview Village, Optima Sonoran Village and Optima Kierland. Terraces at Optima serve as outdoor living space, connecting the outdoor and indoor for a seamless living experience. From agricultural beginnings, the terrace stays true to its roots, allowing us to find harmony with nature.

Desert Dwellings: Laboratories to Test Our Tastes

Posted on November 27, 2019September 1, 2020 by Nancy

Optima’s residential work goes back to 1982, when Sheridan Elm in Winnetka, IL first allowed us to challenge the status quo. Sandy Knoll and Ravine Bluff followed, each an exploration of the steel-and-glass Modernist aesthetic on our own terms. Ultimately, however, it was our geographic leap to designing homes in the Arizona desert that drew our practice, and design, into a new realm. Our desert dwellings serve as laboratories in which we are able to test our tastes and stretch the boundaries of our thinking.

Shadow Caster, Optima, Scottsdale, Arizona.

A New Frontier

In moving out to Arizona in the early 2000s, our intention was to build in a physical environment that was drastically different than our Chicago beginnings. Our team, led by David Hovey Jr., needed to utilize the outdoor space year-round, an interesting new challenge in comparison to Midwest seasons. Over the years, our desert homes have included Shadow Caster, Cloud Chaser, Vanishing Rain, and Sterling Ridge. While our Illinois residences were straight-forward, functionalist modular builds, the Desert Homes are deepened and complexified by the multi-layered and defined spaces within.

Our desert residences also allowed us to test changes in traditional components of Optima architecture, like our all-glass facades. Traditionally, transparency into such a hot region is ineffective for temperature control. However we were able to experiment with landscaping and solar screening that would help to shield our structures from direct sun and subsequent heat, while still allowing seamless desert views. We also discovered new methods of landscaping, creating shallow and bridged beds, as well as self-irrigating planter boxes, in order to create the vibrant verdure of the landscaping seen today at Optima Camelview Village, Optima Sonoran Village and 7160 Optima Kierland.

Relic Rock, Optima DCHGlobal, Scottsdale, Arizona.

A New Way of Seeing

With a new office in Arizona, we were able to utilize current technology to form a project flow for both areas. About this time in 2001, technology was improving from an architecture standpoint; things were moving from a 2-D CAD design system into a 3-D building information modeling system. This allowed us to communicate effectively through our offices, helped our executive team take on more responsibility and started the process for multi-family projects in Arizona.

Part of this expansion in Arizona was the introduction of Optima DCHGlobal, which acted as another laboratory for some of the processes we envisioned for large-scale buildings, especially with the transformation from 2-D design into 3-D BIM systems. The vision for Optima DCHGlobal was to create a customizable, flexible and standardized system, which resulted in additional desert dwellings, Relic Rock and Arizona Courtyard House. Through our desert laboratories, we have explored not only how to create beautiful spaces, but how to make them sustainable and adaptable across all types of geographic environments.

The discoveries that we make through our desert dwellings don’t exist in isolation. With each new home, we uncover more of what makes our design uniquely us, and how to create our vision in the best way possible, so that we can bring it to each and every project that we undertake, no matter the type of home or type of terrain.

Forms in Bronze: The Work of Henry Moore

Posted on November 25, 2019May 25, 2024 by Nancy

As one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century, Henry Moore often used his sculptural work to explore landscape and the human form. With our design deeply rooted in a respect for nature, Moore’s art is an innate fit to our beliefs and passions at Optima.

To honor this connection, we look back on his life and its work.

The Life of Henry Moore

Henry Moore was born July 30, 1898 in Castleford, Yorkshire, lucky number seven to a household of eight children. Moore’s father was a miner, looking to help his children escape poverty by seeking advanced education — he believed that pursuing art and sculpture was just another form of manual labor with few career prospects. And while Moore displayed an affinity for and interest in the arts at school, he was nonetheless pushed in the direction of a teaching career.

On his eighteenth birthday, Moore enlisted in the British Army during World War I. A gas attack injury forced his honorable discharge, and led to an ex-serviceman’s grant that allowed him to pursue an education in the arts. In 1919 he became a student at Leeds College of Art and in 1921 continued his education at the Royal College of Art in London.

Ironically, Moore did end up teaching at the college, and it was there that he met his wife. Eventually, the two moved to a farmhouse in Perry Green, Hertfordshire, where Moore was able to further explore landscape, nature and the female form in his sculpture.

Two Forms by Henry Moore. Credit: M. Readey on Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

The Art of Henry Moore

Moore was a driving force in the English Surrealist movement, although he was also inspired by the primitive forms that he saw as a schoolboy at the British Museum, citing Mexican, Egyptian and African sculptural influences.

His work was also undeniably influenced by nature, landscape and the female form — the softly undulating curves found within his sculptures are reminiscent of the lulling hillside of his birthplace, Castlefor, and his sculptures are always abstractions of the human figure that typically depict mother-and-child relationships or reclining bodies.

One of Moore’s most famous works, Recumbent Figure 1938, was commissioned for the terrace of a modernist house in the Sussex countryside. Moore said of the sculpture, “My figure… became a mediator between modern house and ageless land.” His wood and bronze sculptures set apart by their curves, hollows and piercings, evoking the feeling of objects that were both ancient and modern all at once in their influence and form.

Because of his connection to nature and to Modern abstraction, Moore is indeed a beautiful mediator between natural and built environments, something we too strive to achieve through our projects.

The Inception of IIT

Posted on November 20, 2019May 20, 2024 by Nancy

Where we come from is a large part of who we are today, and Optima founder David Hovey Sr., FAIA is no exception. His long career as an architect is grounded in the education and mentorship that he found during his time at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT). Optima’s ties to the school run deep; David Hovey Jr. followed his father’s footsteps in passion and education, also attending IIT. To better understand our founder and our own story, we’re diving deep into the history and inception of the school that helped shape him.

Frank Wakeley Gunsaulus, the minister that gave the Million Dollar Sermon. Photo in the Public Domain.

A Million Dollar Sermon

In 1890, Chicago minister Frank Wakeley Gunsaulus delivered the “Million Dollar Sermon.” In a church on the South Side, near the current site of IIT, Gunsaulus declared that with a million dollars, he could build a school where students from all backgrounds could prepare for meaningful roles in a changing industrial society. He believed that the students could learn in practice, not in theory — taught at a school to “learn by doing.”

In response to his vision, Philip Danforth Armour Sr. gave that million dollars. Armour’s money founded the Armour Institute, opened in 1893, a school that offered engineering, chemistry, architecture and library science courses. Two years after that in 1895, another school on Chicago’s south side opened; Lewis Institute offered liberal arts, science and engineering courses for co-ed classes.

47 years later, the Illinois Institute of Technology was created when Armour Institute and Lewis Institute agreed to merge together to form a stronger, singular school.

Mies and IIT

Two years before the merger and the inception of IIT, German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe joined the Armour Institute of Technology to head their architecture program and bring a new, rationalized curriculum. Once the new school was created by the two colleges joining, Mies was tasked with designing an entirely new campus for IIT, set apart by his distinct Modernist style in the surrounding urban environs.

Coming from the Bauhaus, Mies brought with him a new way of thinking about architecture, design, form and function. Because his arrival came at a time of transition, he was able to share his belief system and help shape the curriculum that now makes IIT markedly unique.

It is this distinctive series of events that led to the creation of this program, passed down from the Bauhaus, to Mies, to IIT, to David Hovey Sr. and David Hovey Jr., eventually shaping the way we think at Optima today.

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Tag: Modernism