Solid work from Vancouver based graphic designer Phil Yamada.
March, 2009 Monthly archive
This may look like a re-post but since I found all these information later on today, I really had to make a second post about Otto Neurath.
Looking at the book and at the images related to this exhibition, you will find a lot of similarities with the graphic design work of Neurath and the “New” graphic style of some 2D motion design today…
The exhibition The After Neurath Project focuses on Otto Neurath’s relationship with architecture and his influence on urban development. Especially his ideas about the democratization of public space and how to reconcile the intimacy and tangibility of the ancient polis with the anonymity and diversity of the global metropolis have been very influential to protagonists like Paul Otlet, Cornelis van Eesteren, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky andLe Corbusier and resound in mainstream architectural and urban thinking of today.
The exhibition ‘The Global Polis’ shows the innovative ideas about the modern metropolis of Neurath -and his famous protagonists- based on the social-democratic ideals of the interbellum. Neurath was especially eager to promote participatory forms of democratic exchange (a ‘global polis’), and this exhibition shows his attempts in disciplines as varied as architecture, urbanism, graphic design and planning.
See more pictures of the exhibition here and also you can see an interview with the curator, here.
Freedom on the Fence is a documentary project about the history of Polish posters and their significance to the social, political and cultural life of Poland. Examining the period from WWII through the fall of Communism, Freedom on the Fence captures the paradox of how this unique art form flourished within a Communist regime. The documentary contains interviews with older and younger generations of poster artists, examples of past and current poster work, historic and current film footage of where and how the poster is viewed, and commentaries from both American and Polish scholars and artists on the significance of the Polish poster as a cultural icon.
Andrea Marks, Producer
Glenn Holsten, Director
If you are interesting in hosting a screening for this documentary, you can get in touch with Andrea Marks on her website.
The Austrian sociologist Otto Neurath (1882 – 1945) was one of the seminal figures of the 20th-century Modern Movement. Member of the ‘Vienna Circle’, Founder of the Museum of Society and Economy, inventor of the famous ISOTYPE pictorial system, and champion of the Unity of Science movement, Neurath’s lifelong identification with collectivity and the concept of the ‘global polis’ put him in contact with the leading intellectuals, architects and artists of his time, from Adolf Loos to Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, from Sigfried Giedion to Le Corbusier, from graphic designer Gerd Arntz to architect and urban designer Cornelis van Eesteren.
This book traces Neurath’s global understanding of the modern metropolis as a ‘global polis’, representing an idea about collectivity premised on cultural and linguistic universality. Although much attention has been given to Neurath’s achievements in the field of graphic design and philosophy, he has never been treated in the context of urbanism and architecture. Yet from 1931 onwards, he collaborated with the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) and its chief exponents – Cornelis van Eesteren, Sigfried Giedion, Le Corbusier and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy – on the project of deriving an international language of urban planning and design. And his close relationship with bibliographer Paul Otlet, and the ‘cité mondiale’ project triggered Neurath’s engagement with questions of international communication and understanding.
The book first deals with Neurath’s engagement with the modern metropolis, then turns to his growing fascination with visual media and the rise of the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, and finally focuses on the project of the global polis and the ways in which Neurath attempted to internationalize the aims of his Museum of Society and Economy through collaborations with CIAM and Otlet, and by establishing satellite museums across the world.
Both scholarly and well written, Vossoughian’s text offers a new perspective to one of the most formidable intellectuals of the interwar period, as well as fresh insights in the relation between politics and the polis in the 20th century.
Design: Joseph Plateau Grafisch Ontwerpers
Hardback, Illustrated (colour), 176 pages,
Size: 20 x 27 cm
English edition
€ 47.50
Publisher: Netherlands Architecture Institute
Hot off the presses, it’s the official Objectified “one-sheet” poster, designed by Build and featuring dozens of objects by designers from the film and others. It even won an award already, for excellence in poster design at SxSW! Metallic silver and black, 27″ x 39″, lithograph, $20. Get one.
