Responses to the Metropolis

I always love watching black and white film. Metropolis is another classics film that i had a chance to watch in History of Architecture class. The uniqueness of this film is not just it is a classics black and white film, but it is a silent film too. There is no dialogue in the movie but the action of the actors could tell all the story. 

The film is set in a futuristic city Metropolis, where the society was divided into two classes: high class and low class. High class people usually be a thinker or manager who live higher above the ground, up in a luxurious skyscrapers but in opposite way, low class people like workers who work with machines live and work desperately underground. After a while, when the scene change from the underground factory to a luxurious city above ground where everything is magnificent, a girl appeared with kids and then the son of Metropolis's master followed her to the underworld. The fact that low people live and work underground, rich people above ground could not see the poor people. The man was surprised with what he saw. At this point I started to get some point from the story which is about the differences of level of people and society.  

I think the movie is trying to tell the differences between classes of people through the society, environment, and architecture. Higher level of people usually rich and live in a high rise luxurious building while the worker living underground. Comparing to our present society, the idea of classes of people still there, through people's living and society. High rises building or skyscrapers come up more in a present day to serve anyone that have enough money to buy a tiny room in a huge building. But where are the place for poor people? Is it underground like Metropolis's workers?

From Bauhaus to Our House [History of architecture class]

In the last two decades in architecture, modern buildings occurred and spread out the trend all over the world, from a small group called “Bauhaus” in Germany. The building started to covering more with glass, aluminum, steel and concrete, as ornate buildings with the exterior decoration of stone go down.  The size and shape of the building changed, from a dome to just a box like shape as well as high rise building or skyscrapers go up, taking stranger and stranger shapes.

In From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe give the view of art to the world of architecture. Thus, the reflection of a philosophy or theory had occurred in the twentieth century of architecture. According to Wolfe, the philosophy that explains architecture is Marxism, the central vision that was translated into main form of architecture in the century. 

Tom Wolfe wrote in the introduction chapter in his book, “From Bauhaus to Our House” that, “I doubt it seriously. Every child goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse. Not even the school commissioners, who commissioned it and approved the plans, can figure out how it happened. The main thing is to try to avoid having to explain it to the parents.” Wolfe had extend his idea of opposing a modernism theory hilariously. He called building in New York city, a “Glass box”. 

Glass House, connecticut in America, by Philip Johnson

From Bauhaus to Our House started with the Bauhaus and its founder, Walter Gropius, the silver prince that took place in Weimar, Germany capital city in 1919 after World War I. Walter Gropius brought all the arts together. Young architects and artists who came to approached in this school has to “starting from zero”, which the major focus of this school was to create original and innovative ideas, along with theories. Bauhaus also invited technology to form a new unity of “art and technology”. 

Bauhaus were later fleeing Nazi Germany and brought the international style with them to America and accepted major teaching at the nation's most famous academic institution, empower them to manage generations of American architects. So later, american architecture as looking from the view of America, is fulled of “glass box”. 

This book emphasizes the movement of Modernism and the principle of architecture for being “Modern”. It is surprisingly that a 'small' group of people called “Bauhaus” built a theory, and spread it throughout the world and that changed the world, arts of architecture in a completely different way. From the exterior decorative stone or marble building that made buildings look so dense and thick, to a look-like light, soft, airy glass building. It's completely different when we compare and contrast them together.