Art Movements to Note

 Futurism

This was an art movement from the early 20th century which came from Italy. There where English and Russian movements similar to this but here I'll concentrate on this one as it was where the movement was largest and had most influence.

The main aspect of futurist design is that futuristic designs and artwork are good when they show aspects of modern technology, such as cars, planes and industrial areas. This movement liked to move away from past uniform structures, such as standard art (like a portrait or a sculpture of a person) and move towards bizarre looking structures which are completely different to what you might expect. Being associated with change, futurists liked the fact that the first World War happened, to incite change over the world. Members of the movement also showed interest in fascism (mainly due to fascist influence in Italy around the time of World War II) but this is no reason to degrade the quality of the art and design of the futurist movement.

Giacomo Balla, Abstract Speed + Sound, 1913–1914

This is a piece of artwork from Giacomo Balla who was a key person in the futurist movement. Their art here shows futurist design to its fullest. There are odd, seemingly random shapes all made up of either straight lines or lines with one single curve to create arcing lines. Colours are quite vibrant and when applied to architecture gets some interesting results.

That is why I like futurist architecture. An example of local futurist architecture is the Manchester Civil Justice Centre. It is nearby the Futureworks New Bailey Campus.

The Manchester Civil Justice Centre

As you can see, the structure of the building is primarily made of straight lines or curves. It also contains elements of new and bizarre as some floors of the building pop-out like a bookcase.