Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1927)

Metropolis was filmed in 1927 at the age of machine. Of cause no one know that one day what the put in to the movies will be real, they can only predict and hope. One of the biggest scene at the start of the movie is the workers shifting phrase. We can clearly see the different between those who been working and the freshly workers. The maker predict that we'll use man power till the end, and of cause he's wrong, After the invention of robot and A.I. we tends to use machine to produce work and control the quality which usually have the same standard. Next scene is where we found a hugh city with a air ship floating around, which is another prediction that didn't happen in our life. The airship was prove to be danger by the disaster of Hindenburg airship, which is the main cause that people don't want to have the gas tank floating around their sky. However, the maker did success in predicting some of the future work : Human Robot. Now a day, developers try to make robot as close to human as possible, why?, I believe that if we make it look, talk,eat and sleep like us, then people will likely to accept it as another earthlings, not an alien object.

Second HUGH point is the separation of class. In the movie, we can clearly see the different between two types of people: The middle to upper class and the lower class or the worker. First fact is that workers have no name. The worker in the movie call themselves as a number, which can have a lot of meaning by calling them by number. But I think that to call people by numbers the population have to be big, and by looking at the "condominium" they live in, I think this population is really massive!. On the other hand, the middle class have the name for themselves and tends to fly around having fun all day, which is mostly true. The worker in our time have to work 24/7 to receive the money that is enough for maintaining their life. But us as the middle class or higher, just sit and study,trying hard not to change our status to the worker class. One time in the movie, the assistance was fired and in his thought all he have left is to be worker. It's like to become a worker means no future ... at all, you have to work until you shift is over and the daily routine is the same, It's that scene that really show how bad the worker class is. The next scene,rewind a little, is when the middle class men found out the living quality of worker class. He was shock to see that their life was sitting on the cliff. They didn't know when the machine will blow in to their face, in fact, the only time they know will come with the "boom". And with this quality of life, I'm sure they will have a protest or event a riot for sure. As we can see from the poor country, the crime rate and the amount of riot that happen is quite high compare to the richer country.

In conclusion, I think the maker try to show the bad side of the mass product or machine made. I think that he's an anti-modernism. Why? one thing I found interesting is the way they dress. I'm not sure if he predict the fashion that It'll return to pre-modernist or not, but the way middle class dress is very rich and exotic. Unlike the worker where the cloth pattern is all the same and the house is very modernism. Still It's a very good experience to know what the 1920s people predict the world will be in the next decade or so. The same as we trying to predict the our world in the next decade and the other world.

From Bauhous to Our House

In my opinion, The book is trying to open a new point if view to us. By showing us how modernism transfer from european country to America. It also point out the meaning of modernist and how it interact with time and people. For example, Modernism is happen in the 19th century, as we know that it's the start of machine age. Modern architecture try to use the profit of the machine age as much as possible, as we can see from the rising building, they tends to use whatever that can be reproduce over and over again in a small amount of time, which of cause have to be made by a machine. Later, after the war, it came to a cost problem, modernist architecture have to change his design and adapt to what it's happening in the world. In this case is to reduce the production cost of the building, either decrease the excess decoration, rooms, wall or ceiling, or reduce the cost of materials by using the local materials. All of this is related to our studio work, the house I choose is Herbert Jacob's house by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1936. He reduce the excess decoration, use the locals material and also reduce his own design cost to build this house as cheap as possible. The pure modernism house which will be the prototype of the later usonian project.

The book also mention some thing about purity of architecture,but I'm not sure what they really means. But what I think it trying to tell is that we should be honest to the the people, to the material and shape, by that is mean not to blend the truth. We architect, are the one to build and design the living space for others, if we put and unoccupied space in to that, that'll be a dishonest to the customers. The material is another part, we can't build a house that doesn't have a core for ceiling. We also can't make a wall out of wool and order them to stand a load. This is to be true to what they really are, or what the customers really want, That's what I think purity means to me at the moment.

Test

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