The Modern Architectural Research Group , or MARS Group , was a British architectural think tank founded in 1933 by several prominent architects and architectural critics of the time involved in the British modernist movement . The MARS Group came after several previous but unsuccessful attempts at creating an organization to support modernist architects in Britain such as those that had been formed on continental Europe, like the Union des Artistes Modernes in France.
23-462: The group first formed when Sigfried Giedion of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne asked Morton Shand to assemble a group that would represent Britain at their events. Shand, along with Wells Coates , chose Maxwell Fry and F. R. S. Yorke as the founding members. They were also joined by a few members of architectural group Tecton , by Ove Arup and by John Betjeman ,
46-564: A CIAM editor and as an independent author, about his research on modernity, most notably Mechanization Takes Command , a critical history of mechanization seen in its historical and sociological aspects. In 1919, Giedion married Carola Giedion-Welcker , whom he met while they were both students of Wölfflin in Munich. She created a circle of avant-garde artists in Switzerland , which included Hans Arp and Aldo van Eyck . Their daughter Verena married
69-464: A manifesto of the new architectural movement, as well as the founder of Wohnbedarf AG, a construction company close to the modern movement. Through countless interventions in international trade journals, he expressed his support for Le Corbusier's League of Nations project in Geneva , won in 1927 but disqualified because the submission was in the wrong medium. In 1938–39, he taught at Harvard University at
92-566: A mass of colourful images from American magazines through an epidiascope . These images, composed of advertising, comic strips and assorted graphics, were collected when Paolozzi was resident in Paris from 1947-49. Much of the material was assembled as scrapbook collages and formed the basis of his BUNK! series of screenprints (1972) and the Krazy Kat Archives now held at the V & A Museum , London. In fact, Paolozzi's seminal 1947 collage I
115-581: A new kind of historiography . Sigfried Giedion was born in Prague to Swiss-Jewish parents. His father was a textile manufacturer from Zugersee . He graduated from the University of Vienna in 1913 with a degree in engineering. Not wanting to enter the family business, he wrote poems and plays, one of which was staged by Max Reinhardt . He then studied art history in Munich with Heinrich Wölfflin, graduating in 1922 with
138-499: A poet and contributor to Architectural Review . In 1936, Tecton members William Tatton Brown , his wife Aileen and the proprietor of Architectural Press, Hubert de Cronin Hastings , formed a three-strong 'Town Planning Committee' within CIAM exploring ideas related to 'linear cities'; Tatton Brown subsequently presented a paper based on the work, The Theory of Contacts and its Application to
161-608: A precursor of the modern movement. In 1928, he founded, together with Le Corbusier and Helène de Mandrot, the CIAM , of which he was also general secretary. In the same year, he took part in the collective initiative Werkbundsiedlung Neubühl, one of the first residential centers in the style of the modern movement, remaining on the steering committee until 1939. He was also the builder of the Doldertalhäuser in Switzerland, which he saw as
184-577: A show at the New Burlington Galleries , but it also left them in debt. The MARS group proposed a radical plan for the redevelopment of postwar London, the details of which were published the Architectural Review in 1942. At its height there were about 58 members in the group. The group itself began to lose steam along with the movement and many members left as a result of creative differences. The group finally disbanded in 1957. The plan
207-516: A thesis on Romanesque and late Baroque Classicism. This work aroused the interest of A.E. Brinckmann , a well-known art historian, who invited him to Cologne , an offer that Giedion refused because he was not interested in an academic career. Instead, in 1923 he attended the Bauhaus , where he met Walter Gropius . From that meeting he got closer and closer to the Bauhaus and its protagonists, becoming himself
230-705: The Independent Group at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the 1950s. Giedion was a pupil of Heinrich Wölfflin . He was the first secretary-general of the Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne , and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Harvard University , and the ETH-Zurich. In Space, Time & Architecture (1941), Giedion wrote an influential standard history of modern architecture, while Mechanization Takes Command established
253-716: The "as found" or " found object " aesthetic. The subject of renewed interest in a post-disciplinary age, the IG was the topic of a two-day, international conference at the Tate Britain in March 2007. The Independent Group is regarded as the precursor to the Pop Art movement in Britain. The Independent Group had its first meeting in April 1952, which consisted of artist and sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi feeding
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#1732851647668276-464: The 'need for cars will be few'. Korn's initial chairmanship of the plan was interrupted by his 18-month internment in the Isle of Man from 1939, being a German citizen, during which period work on the plan fizzled out. On his release, in 1941, work recommenced, an exhibition of the plan was organised and a 'description and analysis' was published under the joint authorship of Arthur Korn and Felix Samuely in
299-479: The Architectural Association journal in 1942. Sigfried Giedion Sigfried Giedion (also spelled Siegfried Giedion ; 14 April 1888, Prague – 10 April 1968, Zürich ) was a Bohemian -born Swiss historian and critic of architecture . His ideas and books, Space, Time and Architecture , and Mechanization Takes Command , had an important conceptual influence on the members of
322-618: The Future of London , at the CIAM V Congress in Paris in September 1937. However, this work was subsequently regarded as a "a preliminary survey of London by a section of the MARS Group", and a new and larger Town Planning Committee was convened under Arthur Korn 's leadership in December 1937 to produce what turned out to be a heavily revised plan for London. The group's greatest success came in 1938 with
345-631: The Independent Group at this point. The second session focused on American mass culture such as Western movies, science fiction , billboards , car design and popular music. In the course of such discussions, they drew upon Futurist , Surrealist , the Bauhaus , and Dada concepts. John McHale and Lawrence Alloway curated a Collages and Objects exhibition at the ICA in 1954, where McHale exhibited his formative Pop Art collages. Richard Hamilton organised an exhibition, Man, Machine and Motion in late 1955 at
368-572: The Soviet urbanist Miliutin, the plan essentially conceived the centre of the city remaining much the same but with a series of linear forms or tongues extending from the Thames, described as like a herring bone, composed of social units and based around the rail network. Habitation in each social unit was to consist mainly of flats and owed much to Le Corbusier 's notion of the unite d'habitation . Described as 'unworkable' by Dennis Sharp , in his 1971 essay on
391-670: The architect Paffard Keatinge-Clay . In 1968, Giedion suffered a heart attack when walking home from the cinema. He died in Zurich on the 10th of April 1968. Independent Group (art movement) The Independent Group ( IG ) met at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London , England , from 1952 to 1955. The IG consisted of painters, sculptors, architects, writers and critics who wanted to challenge prevailing modernist approaches to culture. They introduced mass culture into debates about high culture, re-evaluated modernism and created
414-579: The highly significant exhibition, Parallel of Life and Art at the ICA in the Autumn of 1953. Reyner Banham stood down as chair of the Independent Group , as he was busy with his PhD thesis at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and in late 1954 Dorothy Morland asked the art critic Lawrence Alloway and fine artist John McHale to reconvene the Independent Group for its second session. The painter Magda Cordell and her husband, music producer Frank Cordell joined
437-633: The instigation of Gropius, where he gave the Charles Eliot Norton Memorial Lectures. These helped form the basis for his work, Space, Time and Architecture , the history of the modern movement published in 1941. In 1946 he became a professor at the ETH-Zürich (Federal Polytechnic School), a post he held until the 1960s, and which he alternated with another at MIT in the United States of America. During this time he wrote busily, both as
460-522: The photographer Nigel Henderson and fine artist John McHale , along with the art critic Lawrence Alloway . The Group did not meet during late 1953 or early 1954, as they were concentrating on delivering a public programme of lectures at the ICA, Aesthetic Problems of Contemporary Art . New members joined the Independent Group for its second full session, including the architects Alison and Peter Smithson . The Smithsons along with Paolozzi, Henderson, Ronald Jenkins, Toni del Renzio, Banham and others staged
483-425: The plan, he concedes it 'was not a concrete scheme but a concept that would by its very nature produce interpretations'. Marmaras and Sutcliffe argue the plan 'saw London almost entirely in terms of movement ...[being] presented primarily as a centre of exchange and communications'. Moughtin and Shirley (1995) note that one of the aims of the plan was to promote public transport, where with railways integral to planning,
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#1732851647668506-511: Was a Rich Man's Plaything was the first such "found object" material to contain the word ″pop″ and is considered the initial standard bearer of “Pop Art”. The rest of the first Independent Group session concentrated on philosophy and technology during September 1952 to June 1953, and was chaired by design critic and historian, Reyner Banham . Key members at this stage included Paolozzi, the artist Richard Hamilton , surrealist and magazine art director Toni del Renzio , sculptor William Turnbull ,
529-432: Was devised by what has been described as a 'small and devoted' group, under the town planning sub committee of MARS, chaired by Korn, and including Arthur Ling, Maxwell Fry , the latter who worked as secretary, and fellow Jewish emigre, engineer Felix Samuely . Arthur Korn is described as having been 'the main spring of the enterprise' and as providing an 'infectious enthusiasm' that drove the project forward. Influenced by
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