The dogmatic nature of Piet Mondrian’s neoplasticism manifesto initiated a discourse about translating aesthetic ideals from paintings to 3D structures. Mondrian rarely ventured into architectural design, and his unique interior design of “Salon de Madame B … à Dresden” was not executed. The authors discuss physical constraints and perceptual factors that conflict with neoplastic ideals. Using physical and virtual models of the salon, the authors demonstrate challenges with perspective projections and show how such distortions could be minimized in a cylinder. The paradoxical percept elicited by a “reverspective” Mondrian-like space further highlights the essential role of perceptual processes in reaching neoplastic standards of beauty.

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2020
ISAST
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Supplementary data

The 'Salon' With and Without Black Cardinal Lines

This video shows an animated CG model of the 'Salon' without rectangle outlines as in original drawings, followed by an example of the ‘Salon’ featuring prominent black cardinal lines in the style of Mondrian’s iconic paintings. It demonstrates how presence of prominent black lines promotes conflict with Neoplastic rules. (© 2017 Stevanov Zanker)

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A Cylindrical Mondrian-like 'Salon' With and Without Black Cardinal Lines

This video shows an animated CG model of a cylindrical room with the same overall dimensions and design as the ‘Salon’. In the cylindrical room there are no vertexes, thus the most obvious conflict with Neoplastic composition rules is removed. However, prominent black lines do enhance peripheral distortions of rectangles. (© 2017 Stevanov Zanker)

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Reverspective Mondrian-like Model

This animation shows a model with Mondrian-like patterns in ‘Reverspective’ demonstrating how the conflict between the perspective depth information and motion parallax creates a strong paradoxical illusion of a corridor following the observer sidewise. (© 2017 Stevanov Zanker)

- mp4 file