Purism. A movement in French painting advocating an art of clarity and objectivity in tune with the machine age.
Purism founders were Amedée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, who met in Paris in 1918, and it flourished from then until 1925. Both protagonists seemed to realize that it represented something of a dead end pictorially and moved on to much looser styles. Its main sequel is to be found in the architectural theories and achievements of Le Corbusier
In collaboration with the artist Amédée Ozenfant, he developed a new theory called Purism where architecture would be as efficient as a factory assembly line. The code of purist rules would be to refine and simplify design, dispensing with ornamentation. Many of his ideas were documented in his book Vers une Architecture “Towards a New Architecture“, his radical ideas at the time, still continues to be one of the best-selling architecture books of all time.
Salient feature of purism
- Purism wants to conceive clearly, execute loyally, exactly without deceits; it abandons troubled conceptions, summary or bristling executions. A serious art must banish all techniques not faithful to the real value of the conception.
- Purism fears the bizarre and the original. It seeks the pure element in order to reconstruct organized paintings that seem to be facts from nature herself.
- Purism does not believe that returning to nature signifies the copying of nature.
Examples of purist architecture
This is one of the best examples of purist architecture. It shows its interest in solid form and large simple compositional elements. It aimed at synthesis of pyramidal and circular geometry of cubism with the neo-classical sense for solid form
- The design of an experimental venue for the Liberated Theatre came into existence between 1926-1927 through cooperation of two leading Czech avant-garde artists – architect Josef Chochol and theatre director Jiří Frejka.
- This venue does not use only the floor, but the entire stage area, uses the spatial column above the stage for acting, or above the auditorium as well. Aesthetical satisfaction from the construction will be felt in the moment when we face the project that is conceived perfectly in an economic way.
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