Reading Comprehension #5

[1] From the Roth, Harwood, and Massey readings, select an ARTIFACT you believe to represent revolution in design. SPECULATE about the type of revolution this artifact symbolizes. Supplement your answer with a beautifully hand rendered image of the artifact you selected, citing source and page on your image. [10 POINTS POSSIBLE]

Architecture and Interior Design Through the 18th Century: Harwood

pg. 313

The kitchen cupboard was an ARTIFACT which was used by the Germans as a form of storage. Typically a cupboard is a cabinet in which food, textiles and such were housed in to protect them from dust and dirt. However the one pictured above is more commonly known as a pewter cupboard because it consists of drawers and cupboards in the lower portion. And among the top there are a series of shelving units. These were used more to display crockery, silverware and general ornaments rather then hiding them away in the cupboard. I believe this piece is a revolution in some ways because before this time people really didn’t have a means by which to organize or display their belongings. In the American Colonial time people start having possessions in which they are now needing a solution to store them with, thus is the reason this product arose.

[2] Using the internet, LOCATE and ANALYZE an image for an ARTIFACT, a SPACE, a BUILDING, and a PLACE, drawing the idea of eastern influences as understood by nineteenth-century minds (China, Japan, India, Middle Eastern) on western design and architecture. Each answer must include an appropriately annotated and cited image in addition to a well-crafted essay to defend your choice of each image and the ways (more than one) that the material item responds to design influences from the east. [20 POINTS POSSIBLE]**

ARTIFACT

[IMAGE]

Porcelain was an artifact that wasn’t necessarily adapted to the western world, it was an object that was literally exported from China and other places. Typically the merchants vessels would deliver their cargo in New York and pieces would include coffeepots, soup tureens and eggcups. From there people would brighten up their houses with these colorful objects and display them for guests they had over. 

SPACE

[IMAGE]

Chinoiserie is a theme that occurred in Europe often which reflects Chinese artistic influences. It features contrasts of scale, asymmetry, and attempts to imitate Chinese porcelain. And no other western interior space exemplifies this more then that of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England.

BUILDING

[IMAGE]

While the interior displays Chinoiserie the exterior speaks a completely different language and that interior takes shape in the Indo-Saracenic style which is mainly prevalent in India. It has common features such as the finial, onion style dome, a drum, arches, and other things as well.  

PLACE

[IMAGE]

Lastly coming full scale to the place of this we have the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park, London. This was the first in a series of World’s Fair exhibitions of culture and industry innovations and creations. The entire event was held and coordinated in the Crystal Palace, and there were 13,000 exhibits total that expanded from Austalia, India, Denmark and many many other countries and places. So of course this because like a jambalaya of design because you had so many different countries and so many ideas under one massive spanned structure.