Page 43 - Studio International - September October 1975

to him a chromatic environment,3 with sensibility were being prepared. It 1922 when he designed the Cabaret del
geometrical effects which recall the comes as no surprise, then, that various Diavolo in the Hotel Elite.6
decorations of the Viennese secession. works of 'environmental' art by Tatlin It was also a café-cabaret-cinema
The intentional kaleidoscope effect, and Rodchenko, Balla, Depero and Van which gave Van Doesburg the
with black and white predominating, Doesburg appeared between 1917 and opportunity of carrying out a totally
reflects the artist's desire to create a 1926 in café-cabarets. neoplastic work between 1926 to 1928
particular kind of 'magic luminism' In 1917, three years after Marinetti's in his design for the Café Aubette in
which endows space with an optical visit to the USSR, Tatlin, Rodchenko and Strasbourg. Of course, we are still at
dynamism. We find a synthesis of Yakulov were commissioned by the the stage of a 'superficial' operation, in
practical and visual functions in Balla's industrialist Filippov to execute the that the architectural field already has a
work, but his particular use of colour interior of the Café Pittoresque. This is structure, and the artist transforms it by
goes beyond a purely practical and how Camilla Gray describes it: 'Their means of colour, optical and perceptual
decorative purpose. Bearing in mind his dynamic constructions in wood, metal use of space. In other words, the
esoteric ideas, we can come to the and cardboard clung to the walls, structural properties of the field
conclusion that the 'iridescent squatted in the corners, hung from the remain the same, and the chromatic
interpenetration' in the Lowenstein ceiling of this tiny interior, destroying transformation serves as a visual
house is used to establish a kind of space the idea of a room as an enclosed space lightening or intensification of the field.
in which certain 'figures' produce with solid walls. Pillared construction- Van Doesburg's aim was to 'break up
sensations of a new order. In this colour- fittings were attached to the lights, all symmetry, not allow the eye to rest
light field, the broadening of the forming rods and shafts of light with their on any point, to obliterate all the
spectator's experience is closely bound cupping intersecting planes, thus further contours of the walls, to establish a
up with his emotional condition which, breaking up and "dynamizing" the systematic, incessant pattern of referring
given the location, is completely private. interior.' 4 Of fundamental importance and cross-referring between the various
As avant-garde Futurism became was the 'construction' of an aesthetic elements." Each part of the building, the
more widespread, it grew increasingly space which would stand as the entrance, the foyer, the staircase, the
important to explore the possibilities of a expression of a 'community,' and no room for dancing, was defined by colour.
public effect, which would involve a longer acknowledged any distinctions, Every surface was painted so as to create
greater number of people. The obvious either of class or idiom. The integration continuity between ceiling and walls,
choice of location was the café-cabaret. of matter and space formed a kind of walls and floor. The choice of geometric
As Marinetti wrote in the Daily Mail shell which was self-sufficient, but it also shapes and of colours was determined by
on 21 November 1913, 'the café-cabaret is interacted with the theatrical and musical the particular functional aspect. The
today the only place where the experiments which took place in the places where people walk along or stop
cinematograph is used; it offers an cafe; it provided scenery composed of only briefly were indicated with
incalculable number of unimaginable voids and volumes to go with sound or continuous coloured stripes and with
visions and spectacles.' He went on to visual effects. The acoustic, the lighting very bright colours, while the room for
say that this was the showcase for and the visual effects mutually dancing, the tea room and the cinema
innumerable creative efforts, the influenced each other, as in the Bal Tic were `dynamized' with networks of
crucible where the ingredients of a new Tac in Rome, which was given visual rectangles and squares. The intention was

Kurt Schwitters Hanover Merzbau c. 1927
treatment by Balla in 1921.5 Here too, to 'do away with the given dimensions of
there is reciprocal influence between the the room, and to re-form its planes in a
visual work and the activity taking place new design.' Van Doesburg, who had the
inside the cabaret. The dancers' lines of collaboration of Jean Arp for the foyer
movement are 'projected' onto the and staircase, aimed at replacing the
walls so as to create a synthesis of colour, static effect of the walls with a total
line and plane. In an attempt to 'join' colour-field. This treatment nullifies the
space and body movement in a single heaviness of architectural support
dynamic, energetic impetus, Balla took structures and creates a casing of visual
Alexander Rodchenko
Line Construction c. 1917 something of the energy and colour of continuity, one which could hold within
Oil on board bodies in movement and transferred itself any life-happening imaginable.
Design for wall-light construction them onto the environment. A similar While the aesthetic `totalization' of a
for the Café Pittoresque experiment was carried out by Depero in public place like a café-cabaret has to

117