# Machine Aesthetic

The term Machine Aesthetic is used in architecture and applied arts to describe designs that either draw the inspiration from industrialization and corresponding mechanized mass production or use elements resembling structures of complex machines (ships, planes, etc.) for the sake of appearance. As an example of the latter, buildings in the International Modernism style frequently used horizontal strips of metal-framed windows crossing the smooth walls to imitate an ocean liner in a deliberate violation of the "truth to materials" principle (as the walls were actually made of bricks).
The Machine Aesthetic style was born in the beginning of the 20th century, when the newly created machines embodied the purity of the function. Architects were fascinated by the possibilities of the clean geometric forms and smooth surfaces enabled by the new construction techniques. The adherents of Machine Aesthetic called for elimination of traditional for architecture (and furniture design) structural distinctions between load and support. For example, in the Red and Blue Chair (1917) the (red) back plays the role of the load (supported by a crossbar underneath the seat) and provides support for the arms at the same time. For buildings even differences between inside and outside became minor: since the walls no longer needed to carry the load (with the support often provided by the steel frame), the inside space can be made almost as open as the outside one.

## Roots

J. J. P. Oud already in the 1919 declared that "the motor car [and the] machine ... correspond more closely to the socio-aesthetic tendencies of our age and the future than do the contemporary manifestations of architecture", the new aesthetical emotions thus ought to be evoked through "the grace of the machine".
Fernand Léger in the 1924 penned a declaration on "The Machine Aesthetic", stating that the humanity is starting to live in the "geometrical order" and called for "the architecture of the mechanical".
Theo van Doesburg in his 1926 manifesto "The End of Art" explicitly argued that aestheticism kills the creativity, and the architects should learn from non-artistic objects:
   Let us refresh ourselves with things that are not Art: the bathroom, the W. C. the bathtub, the telescope, the bicycle, the auto, the subways, the flatiron. There are many people who know how to make such good unartistic things.
Other notable declarations of adoration towards the machines included Filippo Marinetti's "Mechanical and Geometrical Splendor and Sensitivity Toward Numbers" (1914), Gino Severini's "Machinery" (1922), Nikolai Tarabukin's "From the Easel to the Machine" (1923), Kurt Ewald's "The Beauty of Machines" (1925-1926), Walter Gropius' "Where Artists and Technicians Meet" (1925-1926).

### De Stijl

Van Doesburg had founded a De Stijl journal in 1917 and published it together with Piet Mondrian, Oud, Rietveld until 1931. De Stijl was unabashed in its "celebration of the machine" and proclaiming the aesthetic values of the industrial production.
De Stijl community included painters (most notably Mondrian) and sculptors (Constantin Brancusi). Composer George Antheil had created the Ballet mécanique, "the first piece of music that has been composed OUT OF and FOR machines, ON EARTH", that was turned into a film by Léger.
By the 1922 De Stijl exchanged ideas with the art's opposite take on the industrial revolution, Dadaism. Dadaists found chaos and absurdity where machine aesthetic found order and beauty, but both sides agreed on a need for a "new synthesis".

## Examples

Schröder House in Utrecht (Gerrit Rietveld, 1924) is a combination of interlocking planes expanding outside (cantilevered) and movable walls partitioning the open space inside. The architect was trying to avoid an appearance of a monolithic mass.

## Legacy

The modern aesthetics of high technology is to a large degree defined by the Machine Aesthetics. Just like Machine Aesthetics, the high-tech architecture proclaims that the form follows function, yet frequently completely detaches the form from function and resorts instead to the imitation of appearance of a factory or a restaurant kitchen.