8),

12
orly Twentieth-Century
chitecture

.4X

mopean architecture around 1900 showed the Art

Nouveau aesthetic flourishing in a variety of architecforms and contexts, from the idiosyncratic organicism
of Gaudi in Barcelona to Guimard's elegant designs for
Paris MCtro and Horta's masterpieces of residential
and commercial architecture in Brussels (see chapter 5;
figs. 109, 111, 113, 114). While Art Nouveau-"New
Art"-rejected the historicist styles of nineteenth-century
arc:hitecture and embraced modern indusnial materials, it
remained largely concerned with decorative qualities,
whether expressed in the swirling ironwork designed by
or in Mackintosh's more restrained, geometric idiom
(see fig. 95). At the same time, a very different tendency in
advant-garde architecture was gathering momenhlm. From
the late 1890s the Austrian architectAdolfLoos announced
his opposition to the use of ornament in architecture,
vehemently expressed in his 1908 article "Ornament and
Crime." Emphasizing simple cuboid forms, he eschewed
decorative features and even the curved lines so beloved by
Art Nouveau. In contrast to the ethic of fine traditional
craftsmanship and artistic finish that Art Nouveau had
inherited frmn the Arts and Crafts Movement, Laos saw
the industrial skills of the machine age as better fitted to
serve the modern architecture.
Though they shared some of the same sources, and
might be present in works by the same architect, the aims
and values of these two architectural tendencies clearly
diverged significantly. The tensions between them can be
seen particularly clearly in the development of architecture
in Austria and Germany during the decades either side of
World War I. Some of the boldest experiments in architecture of the early twentieth century, however, originated in
America, in the work of Frank Uoyd Wright, the 1nost
important American architect of his time. Wright was a
pioneer of the international modern movement, and his
experiments in architecture as organic space in the form
of abstract design antedate those of most of the early
twentieth-century avant-garde European ardlltects. His
designs were published in Europe in 1910 and 1911, in

two German editions by Ernst Wasmuth, and were studied

by every major architect on the continent. His works were
known and admired by artists and architects of the Dutch
de Stijl group, Robert van 't Hoff, J, J, P. Oud, Thea van
Doesburg, Georges Vantongerloo, and Piet Mondrian.
Wright's design had common denominators not only with
~e classical formalism of these artists but also with the
sl)ifting planes and ambiguous space relationships of
Cubism. On the other hand, Wright's work was influenced
by what he saw during a trip to Europe in 1909-10,
particularly the buildings designed by leading Viermese
architects Joseph Maria Olbrich (see fig. 12.11) and Otto
Wagner (see fig. 12.9).

c'

Modernism in Harmony with

Nature: Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) studied engineering at
the U niversity"''ofWisconsin, where he read the work of the
English critic John Ruskin and was particularly drawn to
rational, structural interpretation in the writings ofEugeneEmmanuel Viollet-le-Duc. In 1887 he was employed by
the Chicago architectural firm of Adler and Sullivan, with
whom he worked until he established his own practice in
1893. There is little doubt that many of the houses built
by tl1e Sullivan firm during tl1e years Wright worked there
represented his ideas. Wright's basic philosophy of architecture was expressed primarily through the house form.
The 1902-6 Larkin Building in Buffalo, New York (see fig.
12.5), was his only large-scale structure prior to Chicago's
Midway Gardens (1914) and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo
(see fig. 12.6) (all three, incidentally, have been destroyed).
Early Hauses
At the age of twenty-two Wright designed his own house
in Oalc Park, Illinois (1889), a quiet community tllirty minutes by uain fiom downtown Chicago. His earliest houses,
including his own, reflect influences from the shingle-style
houses of H. H. Richardson and McKim, Mead & White
219

:~

12.1 Frank Lloyd Wright, Ward Willits Hause, Highland Park, Illinois, 1902-3.

(see fig. 4.7) and developed the open, fiee-flowing floor

plan of the English architects Philip Webb and Richard
Norman Shaw. Wright used the charactetistically Ametican
feanue of the veran_da, open or screened, wrapping around
two sides of the house, to enhan_ce the sense of outside
space that penenated to the main living rooms. The cruciform plan, with space surrounding the central core of fireplace and utility areas (kitchen, landing, etc.), also h~d an
impact on Wright that affected his approach to house
design as well as to more monumental design projects.
In the 1902-3 Ward Willits House in Highland Park,
illinois (fig. 12.1), Wright made one of his first individual
and mature statements of the principles and ideas that he
had been formulating during his apprentice years. The
house demonstrates his growing interest in a Japanese
aesthetic. He was a serious collector of Japan_ese prin_ts
(about which he wrote a book), and before his trip to
Japan in 1905, he probably visited the Japanese pavilions
at the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. In
the Willits House, the Japanese influenc~ is seen in the
dominant wide, low-gabled roof and the vertical striping
on the fayade. The sources, however, are less significant
than the welding together of all the elements of the plan,
interior and exterior, in a single integration of space, mass,
and surface. From the compact, central arrangement of
fireplace and utility units, the space of the interior flows
out in an indefinite expansion carried without transition
to the exterior and beyond. The essence of the design in
the Willits House, and in the series of houses by Wright
and his followers to which the name Prairie Style has been
given, is a predominant horizontal accent of rooflines with

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CHAPTER 12

EARlY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

12.2 Frank Lloyd Wright, Susan Lawrence Dana House,

Springfield, Illinois, 1902-4. Interior perspective, dining room.

Pencil and watercolor on paper, 25 X 20'Ai" (63.5 X

51.7 em). Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia
University, New York.

~:
..

,~

J-~

,1-

'-

12.3 Fronk Lloyd Wright, Robie House, Chicago, 1909_

om_
Jia

horizontally, as opposed to the city, where Victorian town

deep, overhanging eaves echoing the flat prairie landscape
of the Midwest. The earth tones of the typical Prairie house
houses were built on several stories to accommodate narwere intended to blend harmoniously with the surroundrow urban plots.
ings, while the massive central chimney served both to
The masterpiece of Wright's Prairie Style is the 1909
break the horizontal, low-slung line of the roof and to
Robie House in Chicago (figs. 12.3, 12.4). The house is
emphasize the hearth as the spiritual and psychological
centered around the fireplace and arranged in plan as two
center of the house.
,, sliding horizontal sections on one dominant axis. The horThe interior of the Wright Prairie house (see fig. 12.4) . izontal roof cantilevers out on steel beams and is anchored
is characterized by low ceilings, fi:equenrly pitched at
at the center, with the chimneys and top-floor gables set at
unorthodox angles; a sense of intimacy; and constantly
right angles td'the principal axis. Windows are arranged in
changing vistas of one space flowing into another. The
long, symmetrical rows and arc deeply llnbedded into the
interior plastered walls of the Willits House were trimmed
brick masses of the structure. The main, horizontally orisimply in wood, imparting a sense of elegant proportion
ented lines of the house are reiterated and expanded in the
and geometric precision to the whole. Wright also customterraces and walls that transform interior ii1to exterior space
designed architectural ornaments for his houses, such as
light fixtures, leaded glass panels in motifs abstracted fi-om
natural forms, and furniture, both built-in and freestanding
(fig_ 12.2). Though his emphasis on simple design and
the honest expression of the nature of matedals is depe:rident in part on Arts and Crafts ideals (sec chapter 4 ), Wright
fervently supported the role of mechanized production
in architectural design. He regarded the machine as a
metaphor of the modern age but did not believe that buildings should rese1nble machines. Paramount in his house
designs was the creation of a suitable habitat, in harmony
with nature, for the middle-class ni1clear family. Wright
understood the way in which his domestic dwellings
embodied the collective values and identity of a community. These early residences were designed for Chicago's
fast-growing suburbs, where structures could extend
12.4 Frank Lloyd Wright, Dining Room, Robie House.
CHAPTER 12

EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

221

and vice versa. The elements of this house, combining the

outward-flowing space of the interior and the linear and
planar design of exterior roofline and wall areas with a
fortresslike mass of chimneys and corner piers, summarize
other experiments that Wright had carried on earlier in the
Larkin Building (fig. 12.5).

The Larkin Building

The Larkin Building represented radical differences from
the Prairie house in that it was organized as rectangular
masses in which Wright" articulated mass and space into a
single, close unity. The Larkin Building was, on the exterior, a rectangular, flat-roofed structure, whose immense
corner piers protected and supported the window walls
that reflected an open interior well surrounded by balconies. The open plan, filled with prototypes of today's
"work stations," was Wright's solution for a commodious,
light-filled office environment. The Larkin Building literally embodied the architect's belief in the moral value of
labor, for its walls were inscribed with mottos extolling the
virtues of honest work. This was an example of the early
modern industrial structures that embodied tremendous
possibilities for the development of innovative kinds.. of
internal, expressive space in the new tall buildings-~of
America (the economics of industrial building, howe'!er,
soon destroyed these possibilities).

I'

' ' "I'~ I I I '

:;

Mid-Career Crisis
In the years after l9lO,justwhen he was becoming
figure, Wright experienced a period of neglect and
ification in his own conntry. Highly publicized
problems helped to chive him from the successfi.11
western practice he had built up in the early years of
century. These included his decision to leave his wife
six children for another woman, Mamal1 Cheney. In
Cheney was murdered by a servant who also set fire to
home Wright had built for himself in Wisconsin, Talicsin
(the name of a 1nythic Welsh poet meaning "shinin
brow"), which he subsequently rebuilt. Even 1nore signifi~
cant than these personal factors were cultural and soda}
changes that, by 1915, had alienated the patronage for
experimental architecture in the Midwest and increased the
popularity of historical revivalist styles. Large-scale con.
struction of mass housing soon led to vulgarization of
these styles.
About 1915, Wright began increasingly to explore the
art and architecture of ancient cultures, including the
Egyptian, Japanese, and Maya civilizations. The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (fig. 12.6), a luxury hotel designed lor
Western visitors, occupied most of his time between 1912
and 1923 and represents his most ornately complicated
decorative period, filled with suggestions of Far Eastern.
and Pre-Columbian influence. In addition, it embodied his

i'
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12.5 Frank Lloyd Wright, lorkin Building, Buffolo, New York, 1902-6. Demolished 1950.

222

CHAPTER 12

EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

Temples for the Modern City:

American Classicism 190Q-1 5

WOrld
:n vilsonai
mid>fthe
'and
1914
o the
liesin
irting
?;llifi-

;ocial
e for
:I the
conn of

'the
the
lClial
l for
.912
:ated
>tern

:l his

12.6 Frank Lloyd Wright, Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, c. 1912-23.

Demolished 1968.

most daring and intricate structural experiments to that

date-experiments that enabled the building to survive the
wildly destructive Japanese earthquakes of 1923 (only to
be destroyed by the wrecking ball in 1968). For twenty
years after the Imperial Hotel, Wright's international reputation continued to grow; Though he frequently had difficulty earning a living, he was indomitable; he wrote,
lectured, and taught, secure in the knowledge of his own
genius and place in history, and he invented brilliantly
whenever he received commissions.

Aside from Wright, a number of his followers, and a few

isolated architects of talent, American architecture between
1915 and 1940 was largely in the hands of academicians
and builders. Nevertheless, two landmark structures were
erected during this period. New York City's Pennsylvania
Station (see fig. 12.7), built between 1906 and 1910 and
demolished in 1966, represents one of the most tragic
architectural losses of the twentieth century. "Until the first
blow fell," said an editorial in The New York Times, "no one
was convinced that Penn Station really would be demolished or that New York would permit this n1onumental act
of vandalism." Penn Station was designed by the BeauxArts architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, who
designed classically inspired civic buildings throughout
America in the early years of the twentieth century (see figs.
4.7, 4.13). Penn Station was one of the firm's most ambitious undertakings. The exterior (fig. 12.7), a massive
Doric colonnade based on the ancient Roman Baths of
Caracalla, presented a grand modern temple that unders~~xed the power of the railroad as a symbol of progress.
li~side, a visitor's first impression upon arrival was the draf11atically vaulted spaces in the train concourse, its glassand-steel construction recalling the crystal palaces of the
previous century (see fig. 4.3). In 1966 the city responded
to the destruction of Penn Station by establishing the New
York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
At the same time, on the other side of the continent, a
remarkable act of preservation was taldng place. The Palace
of Fine Arts in San Francisco (fig. 12.8), designed by
., the architect Bernard Maybee!< (1862-1957), was origi, nally built in 1915 for the Panama-Pacific International
E>:position. Celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal,
the San FranciSco Exposition was a world's fair that emulated the famous 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (see
fig. 4.13). It was visited by nineteen million people during
ten months in 1915, providing an economic boost to a city

12.7 McKim, Mead &

White, Pennsylvania

Station, New York,

1906-10. Demolished
1966.

CHAPTER 12 : EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

223

1-

(I'

12.8 Bernard Maybeck, Palace of Fine Arts, Panama-Pacific International Exposition,

San Francisco, 1915.

that had experienced the devastating earthquake and fire of

1906. Sited along a lagoon, Maybeclc's popular ensemble
included an open-air rotlmda, a curving Corinthian peristyle, and a large gallery that housed the fair's painting~and
sculptures. The unconventional Maybeck turned classi~ism
into his own personal idiom, violating canonical rules and
covering his structures with richly imagin_ative classical-style
ornament. He sought a mood of melan_choly and past
grandeur, for he envisioned the Palace as "an_ old Roman
ruin, away from civilization , , , overgrown with bushes and
trees." It was a mood somehow appropriate for a world in
tbe midst of tbe carnage ofWorld War L Though it was tbe
only building not torn down after the fair, tbe l)lace of
Fine Arts was never intended as a permanent structUre and
it soon began to show signs of decay. Between 1962 and
1967 it was completely reconstructed out of concrete.
Today it is still used as a city museum.

''.i,i,

,I

,,

.: i

New Simplicity Versus Art Nouveau:

Vienna Before World War I
The capital of the vast, disparate Austro-Hungarian
Empire, which, was dismembered after World War I, prewar Vienna was a cosmopolitan city characterized both
by entrenched official conservatism and by culturally progressive tendencies that were highly influential in many
spheres. In 1899, for example, the Austrian psychotherapist Sigmund Freud published The Interpretation of
Dreams, which was later to be hugely significant for the
international art movements of Dada and Surrealism (see
chapters 13 and 15). In 1897, determined to break away
from the stifling academicism of official art, a group of
artists had formed the Vienna Secession (see chapter 5).
Their new exhibition building, designed in 1898 by
Joseph Maria Olbrich (1867-1908) combined different
strands of Art Nouveau in the geometric lines of its fus;ade

224

CHAPTER 12

EARlY TWENTIETH~CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

and the intertwined foliage of its openwork gilt-bronze

cupola. In early twentieth-century Viennese architecture,
therefore, the relationship between Art Nouveau decmation and modernist geometdc functionalism is far tiam
one of clear-cut opposition. Both elements can be found
in buildings by major Austrian architects of the period,
although the polemical writings of Laos in particular
helped to define the austere simplicity he favored as tbc
hallmark of avant-garde architecture.
The founder of Viennese modernism, Otto Wagner
(1841-1918), was an academic architect during the early
part of his life. His stations for the Vienna subway
(1896-97) were simple, functional buildings dressed with
Baroque details. In his 1894 book on modern architecture,
however, Wagner had already demonstrated his ideas about
a new architecture that used the latest materials and
adapted itself to the requirements of modern life. His
motto, "Necessity alone is the ruler of art," anticipated
later twentieth-century functionalism. In the hall of his
1905 Vienna Post Office Savings Bank (fig, 12.9) Wagner
used unadorned metal and glass to create airy, light-filled,
and unobstructed space. While there is some stylistic similarity here to the auditorium that Victor Horta built in his
Maison du Peuple in Brussels (see chapter 5), Wagner's
design shows typically modernist concern for the increased
elimination of structural elements and the creation of a
single unified and simple space.
Adolf Laos (1870-1933) was active in Vienna from
1896. After studying architecture in Dresden, Loos
worked in the United States for three years fi:om 1893
(when he attended the World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago), talting various odd jobs while learning about
the new concepts of American architecture, particularly the
skyscraper designs of Sullivan and other pioneers of the
Chicago School (see chapter 4). After settling in Vienna,
Laos followed principles established by Wagner and

-bronze
tccture)
decoralr from
:found
period,
rticular
. as the
i'\Tagner

1e early
subway
:d with
:ecture,
s about
us and
fe. His
:ipated
of his
Vagner
:-filled,
c simitin his
1gner's
:reased
n of a
from
Laos
1893
Jsition
about
rly the
of the
"ienna,
r and

12.9 Otto Wagner, Post Office Savings Bank, Vienna, 1905.

Sullivan favoring a pure, functional architecture. His 1910

Zoning rules allowed for only one story above street level,
Steiner Hause in Vienna (fig. 12.10) anticipated the " so Loos employed a barrel-vawted roof on the fiont of the
unadorned cubic forms of the so-termed International
house that was so deep it allowed for two more levels facStyle of architecture th.at was to develop from the concepts
ing the garden, which is the view seen here. The garden
of J. J, P. Oud, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mics van der
fas:ade is syfumetrical; simple, large-paned windows
Rohe, and Le Corbusier in the twenties and thirties.
arranged in horizontal rows are sunk: into the planar surfaces of the rectilinear wade. Reinforced concrete was here
applied . to a private house for almost the first time.
Although the architecture and ideas of Laos never gained
wide dissemination, the Steiner House is a key monument
in the creation of the new style.
Among the Art Nouveau architects attacked by Laos
were Olbrich and Josef Hoffinann (see chapter 5) who,
with the painter Gustav Klimt, were the founders of the
Vienna Secession. Hoffi.naJ.m's masterpiece is the Palais
Stoclet, a luxurious house that he built for the Stoclet family in Brussels (see fig. 5.15). This splendid mansion is
characterized by severe rectangular planning and :fu.s:ades,
and broad, clear, white areas fiamed in dark, linear strips
(under the influence of Charles Rennie Mackintosh). Its
lavish interior design, an expression of the Secessionist
belief in a total decorative environment, offers a marked
contrast to the sobriety of Laos's Steiner House.
Hoffmann is perhaps more important for his part in
Adolf Loos, Garden view, Steiner House, Vienna,
establishing the Wiener WerksUitte (Vienna Workshops)
CHAPTER 12

EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

225

than for his achievement as a pracncmg architect. The

workshops, which originated in 1903, continued the craft
traditions of William Morris and the English Arts and
Crafts movement, with the contradictory new feature that
the machine 'vas now accepted as a basic tool of the
designer. For thirty years the workshops exercised a notable
influence, teaching fine design in handicrafts and industrial
objects.

Tradition and Innovation: The

German Contribution to Modern
Architecture
In Germany before 1930, largely as a result of enlightened
governmental and industrial patronage, architectural
experimentation, instead of depending only on brilliant
individuals, was coordinated an_d directed toward the creation of a ''school" of modern architech1re. In this process,
th_e contributions of certain patrons such as Archduke
Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and the AEG (German General
Electrical Company) were of the greatest importance.
Relations between Austrian and German architecture
were extremely close in the early years of the twentieth

'.< i'

: i!

:if

century. When the Archduke of Hesse wished to effect

revival of the arts by founding an artists' colon,
Darmstadt in Germany, he employed Olbrich to )
most of the buildings, inelucling the 1907 Hctchzeil:stll;".::
(Wedding Tower) (fig. 12.11). The Wedcling
which still dominates Darmstadt, was so named
. t:
it commemorated the archduke's second marriage;
was intended less as a fi.mctional structure than as a
ment and a focal point for the entire project. Although
was inspired by the American concept of the sJcvscran,,,,
its visual impact owes much to the towers of Gerl1lan
medieval churches. Its distinctive five-fingered
symbolizes an outstretched hand. The manner in which
rows of windows below the gable arc grouped within a
common fi.ame and wrapped around a corner of the building was an innovation of particular significance for later
skyscraper design.
At about the same time that Hoffmann set up the
Wiener Werkstatte a German cabinetmalcer, Karl Schmidt
had started to employ architects and artists to dcsigt~
furniture for his shop in Dresden. Out of this grew the
Deutsche Werkstiitte (German Workshops), which similarly
applied the principles of Morris to the larger field ofindustrial design. From these and other experiments, the
Deutscher Werkbund (German Work or Craft Alliance)
emerged in 1907. This was the immediate predecessor of
the Bauhaus, one of the most influential schools in the
development of modern architecture and industrial design.

Behrens and Industrial Design

12.11 joseph Maria Olbrich, Hochzeitsturm (Wedding Tower),

Darmstadt, Germany, 1907.

226

CHAPTER 12

EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

More than any other German architect of the early twentieth century, Peter Behrens (1868-1940) forged a link
between tradition and experiment. He began his career as
a painter, producing Art Nouveau graphics, and then
moved from an interest in crafts to the central problems of
industrial design for machine production. Behrens turned
to architecture as a result of his experience in. the artists'
collaborative at Darn1stadt, where he designed his own
house-the only one in the colony not designed by
Olbrich. In 1903 Behrens was appointed director of the
DUsseldorf School of Art, and in 1907 the AEG company,
one of the world's largest manufacturers of generators,
motors, and lightbulbs, hired him as architect and coordinator of design of everything from products to publications. This unusual appointment by a large industrial
organization of an artist and architect to supervise and
improve the quality of all its products was a landmark in the
history of architecture and design.
One of Behren's first buildings for AEG, a landmark of
modern ardlltecture, is the Turbine Factory in Berlin col11pleted in 1909 (fig. 12.12). Although the building is given
a somewhat traditional appearance of monumentalit)' by
the huge corner masonry piers and the overpowedng \'isual
mass of the roof (despite its actual structural lightness),
it is essentially a glass-and-steel structure. Despite the usc
of certain traditional forms, this building is immense!~

advantages. In the rapidly expanding industrial scene and

the changing political landscape of early twentieth-century
Europe, the public image presented by industry was assuming increasing importance. It was becoming evident that
industry had a powerful role to play in public affairs and
even in promoting a national image. Such ideas may
have influenced Behrens's transformation of his functional
glass-and-steel Turbine Factory into a virtual monument
to the achieveme!lts of modern German industry. Behrens
is important not only as an architet but as a teacher of
a generation that included Gropius, Lc Corbusier, and
Mies van der Rohe-all of whom worked wid1 him early
in their careers.

Expressionism in Architecture

milady
indus-

i11. the
iesign.

wentia link
reer as
then

Between 1910 and 1925 the spmt of Expressionism

12.12 Peter Behrens, AEG Turbine Factory, Berlin, 1908-9.
manifested itself in German architecture, as in painting
and sculpture (see chapter 8). Although this did not result
initially in many important buildings, and although
important in its bold structural engineering, in its fi-ank
Expressionism in architecture was terminated by the rise of
statement of construction, and in the social implications of
Nazism, it did establish the base for a movement that was
later realized in the fifties and sixties, after the austerity
a factory built to provide the maximum of air, space, and
light. It is functional for both the processes of manufacture
'],I'd pristine elegance of the International Style had begun
and the worldng conditions of the employees-concerns
tb pall.
rarely considered in earlier factories.
: Forerunners of Expressionism in architecture include
Gaudi's creations in Barcelona and the 1913-14 Werkbund
The hiring of Behrens by AEG and similar appoint
Theater in Cologne (fig. 12.13) by the Belgian architect
ments by other industdal corporations mark the emergence
Van de Velde (see below), who worked in Germany from
of some sense of social responsibility on the part of largescale industry. The established practice had been one of
1899 to 1914. The building's strongly sculptural exterior,
for which Van de Velde used the molded forms of the
short-sighted and often brutal exploitation of natural and
human resources. Certain enlightened industrialists began
fa<;ades to define the volume of the intedor, has been seen
as the definitive brealc with the essentially linear emphasis
to realize that well-designed working spaces and products
were not necessarily more expensive to produce than badly () of Art Nouveau architecture. Van de Velde's other achievements in Germany include the educational program that
designed ones and had numerous economic and political

:urned
utists'
-,own
of the
1pany,
:ators,
Jorditblicaus trial
o and
in the
ark of
comgiven
ty by
visual
ness),
.e use
:nsely

12.13 Henry Clemens van de Velde, Werkbund Theater, Cologne, 1913-14. Demolished 1920.

CHAPTER 12 ' EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

227

''

he developed at the Weimar School, which he founded in

1906 under the patronage of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar.
This program put its emphasis on creativity, free experiment, and escape from dependence on past traditions.
One of the most startling examples of Expressionist
architecture is the 1919 Grosses Schauspielhaus (Great
Theater) in Berlin (fig. 12.14), created by Hans Poelzig
(1869-1936) for the theatrical impresario Max Reinhardt.
This waB actually a conversion of an old building, originally
an enormous covered market that, after 1874, served as the
Circus Schumann. Using stalactite forms over the entire
ceiling and most of the walls, and filtering light through
them, Poelzig created a vast cavelike arena of mystery and
fantasy appropriate to Reinhardt's spectacular productions.
Of the architects who emerged from German
Expressionism, perhaps the most significant was Erich
Mendelsohn (1887-1953). Mendelsohn began practice
in 1912, but his work was interrupted by World War I.
Following the war, one of his first important buildings
was the Einstein Tower in Potsdam (fig. 12.15). One of
the principal works of Expressionist architecture, the
Einstein Tower was built to study spectroanalytic phenomena, especially Einstein's theory of relativity. Instruments in,
the cupola reflected light vertically through the tower ont/J
a mirror in the underground laboratory. On the exterior;
Mendelsohn emphasized qualities of continuity and flow

'

12.15 Erich Mendelsohn, Einstein Tower, Potsdam, 1920-21.

appropriate to the material of concrete (although the

Einstein Tower was actually built of brick and covered with
cement to look like cast concrete). The windows How
around the rounded corners, while the exterior stairs How
up and into the cavern of the entrance. The entire structure, designed as a monument as well as a functioning
laboratory, has an essentially organic quality, prophetic of
the later works of Le Cmbusier and Eero Saarinen.
Many other architects, particularly in_ Germany and
Holland, were affected by the spidt of Expressionism during the twenties. The educator, philosopher, and occultist
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), although not trained as an
architect, produced ren1arkable examples of utopian architecture in his Goetheamun I and II (fig. 12.16), the latter
of which became a tremendous sculptural monument of
concrete d1at looked back to Gaudi and forward to postWorld War II architecture brut.

.. 1'

12.14 Hans Poelzig, Grosses Schauspielhaus (Great Theater),

Berlin, 1919. Dismantled 1938.

228

CHAPTER 12

EARlY TWENTIETHCENTURY ARCHITECTURE

12.16 Rudolf Steiner, Goetheanum \l, Dornach, Switzerland,

1925-28.

Toward the International Style:

Netherlands and Belgium
Berlage and Van de Velde

I.

.Althcmg;n he considered himself a naditionalist, the Dutch

architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856-1934) was pas.sicna1:eJY devoted to stripping off the ornamental accesof academic architecture and expressing honest
. structure and function. He characteristically used brick as a
buildingm:tteJial, the brick that, in the absence of stone and
materials, has created the architectural face of the Low
Countries. His best-known building, the Amsterdam Stock
;E>:ch:mg;e (fig. 12.17) (now home to the Bcurs van Berlage
and the Dutch Philharmonic Orchestra), is
pnincipally of brick, accented with details of light stone. The
is presented, inside and out, without disguise or
embellishment, as is the steel framework that supports the
glass ceiling. The general effect, with the massive corner
tower and the low arcades of the interior, is obviously
.mspn:ea by Romanesque architecture, in some degree seen
through the eyes of the American architect H. H. Richardson, whose work he knew and admired (see fig. 4.10).

In his writings) Berlage insisted on the primacy of interior space. The walls defining the spaces had to express
both the nature of their materials, and their strength and
bearing function, undisguised by ornament. Above all,
through the use of systematic proportions, Berlage sought
a total effect of unity analogous to that created by the
Greeks of the fifth century B.c.n., whose temples and civic
buildings were constructed with the careful application
of proportional relationships between all parts of a building. He conceived of an interrelationship of architecture,
painting, and sculpture, but with architecture in the
dominant role.
Berlage's approach to architecture was also affected
by Frank Lloyd Wright, whose work he discovered first
through publications and then at first hand on a trip to the
United States in 1911. He was enthusiastic about Wdght
and particularly about the Larkin Building (see fig. 12.5),
with its analogies to his own Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
What appealed to Berlage and his followers about Wright
was his rational approach-his efforts to control and utilize
the machine and to explore new materials and techniques
in the creation of a new society.

JC-

ur-

hi-

st-

12.17 Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Stock Exchange, Amsterdam, 1898-1903.

CHAPTER 12 : EARlY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

229

Nearly every turn-of-the-centmy art or design movement, fi:om Impressionism to Arts and Crafts, nourished
the fertile career of the Belgian Henry Clemens van de
Velde (see also chapter 5). Van de Velde was a painter,
craftsn1an, industrial designer, architect, and critic who had
an extensive influence on German architecture and design.
He was a socialist who wanted to make his designs available
to the working classes through mass production. Trained
as a painter, first in Antwerp and then in Paris, he was
in touch with the Impressionists and was interested in
Symbolist poetry. Back in Antwerp, painting in a maimer
influenced by Seurat, he exhibited with Les XX, the avantgarde Brussels group (see chapter 3). Through them he
discovered Gauguin, Morris, and the English Arts and
Crafts movement. AB a result, he enthusiastically took up
the graphic arts, particularly poster and book design (see
fig. 5.4), and then, in 1894, turned to the design of furniture. All the time, he was writing energetically, preaching
the elimination of traditional ornament, the assertion of
the nature of materials, and the development of new,
rational principles in architecture and design.
After fifteen years in Germany (see above), the outbreak
of World War I forced Van de Velde to leave his post in
H'
Weimar. He recommended the young architect Waltet
Gropius as his successor for the directorship of the Weima
School. It was not until after the war, in 1919, however,
that Gropius assmned his duties and consolidated the
separate schools of fine and applied arts. Under the new
name of Das Staatliche Bauhaus, dlls was to become the
most influential school in the history of architecture and
design (see chapter 16). Van de Velde finally returned to
Brussels in 1925. The later houses and other buildings on
which he worked, notably the Kroller-Milller Mus~um
(1936-38) at Otterlo in the Netherlands, are characterized
by austerity and refinement of details and proportionsevidence, perhaps, of the reciprocal influence of younger
experimental arcllltects who had emerged from his original
educational syste1ns.

:: i

,I

i:

I.

De Stijl
One of the most important legacies of the de Stijl movement (see chapter 11) was its enormous impact on the
development of modern architecture. De Stijl (The Style)
was named for the group's magazine, founded in 1917 and
edited by Theo van Doesburg tmtil his death in 1932.
During World War I, neutral Holland was one of the very
few countries in Europe where building could continue,
with the consequence that the transition from prewar to
postwar architectural experiment can clearly be followed.
Many of the ideas and theories fermenting everywhere in
Europe before 1914 came to their first realization in the
Netherlands at this time. Consequently, the Dutch solutions were studied by artists and architects everyvvhere
when the war ended. The formative influences on de Stijl
architects were HendrikPetrus Berlage (see fig. 12.17) and
Frank Lloyd Wright (sec figs. 12.1, 12.6).
230

CHAPTER 12 EARlY TWENTIETH~CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

J, J, P. Oud, Robert van 't Hoff, and Gerrit Rietveld

three of the principal architects of de Stijl, were a]s 1
acquainted -with the early modernists in Germany at~~
Austria-Behrens, Loos, Hoffmann, and Olbrich-b
their association vvith Mondrian and Van Doesburg
considerable influence on the forms that their architecn.u-c
would take. Another important influence is to be found
in the writings of M. H. J. Schoenmaekers, which also
provided a philosophical base for Mondrian's pain tin 1
and theorizing before 1917. Schoenmaekers propounctc~
a mystical cosmology based on the rectangle. Inspired bv
Theosophy, his Elements of Expressive Mathematics (19!6)
sought to uncover the hidden relationships between natural forms. From such ideas arose an architecture of tlat
roofs, with plain walls arranged according to definite systems that create a functional and harmonious interior
space. This was the beginning of the International Style,
which was to dominate monumental building during the
middle years of the twentieth centmy, especially in the
forms of the skyscraper. However, Dutch arcllltectnre was
traditionally domestic in scale, and de Stijl architects
remained within this tradition. Only later would their ideas
be translated into structures on a monumental scale in the
United States.
In their aesthetic, the architects and artists of de Stijl
were much concerned with the place of the machine and its
function in the creation of a new art and a new architecture. They shared this concern with rl1e Italian Futurists,
with whom Van Doesburg corresponded (Severini was
a regular corresponding member of de Stijl), but they
departed from the qnotional exaltation of the machine in
favor of enlisting its power to create a new collective order.
From this approach arose their importance for subsequent
experimental architecture. Van Doesburg called architecture the "synthesis of all the arts" and said that it would
"sprini'' from hmnan function" rather than from historical
building types that had been developed in a time when
the patterns of domestic life had little in common with
modern lifestyles.
The actual buildings created by these architects before
1921 were not numerous. A house built by Robert van
't Hoff (1852-1911) in Utrecht in 1916 (fig. 12.18)
antedated the formation of de Stijl and was almost entirdy
based on his first-hand observations of Wright's work
in Chicago, as may be seen in the cantilevered cornices,
the grouping of windows, the massing of corners, as well
as tl1e severe rectangularity of the whole. The unrealized
project that J. J, P. Oud (1890-1963) prepared for seaside
housing on the Strand Boulevard at Scheveningen, the
Netherlands, in 1917 displays the future Intemational Style
strategy for housing in a flat-roofed, terraced row of
repeated individual rectangular units. A 1919 project by
Oud for a small Lctory was a combination of cubic masses
alternating effectively with vertical chimney pylons and
horizontal windows in the Wright manner. Instead of
the typical early Wright pitched roof, however, de Stijl

h:

--;:-!

12.18 Robert van 't

Hoff, Huis ter Heide,
Utrecht, the
Netherlands, 1916.

12.19 J.J. P Oud,

Workers' Housing
Estate, Hook of
Holland, 1924-27.

12.20 J. J. P. Oud,
Cafe de Unie,
Rotterdam, 1925.
Destroyed 1940.

ces,
;veil
zed
;ide
the
tyle
of

by
sses
md
of

)tijl

architects, almost from the beginning, opted for a flat roof,

thus demonstrating a relationship to de Stijl painters. In
, the best known and in many ways most influential of his
early buildings, the 1924--27 housing project for workers
at Hook of Holland (fig. 12.19), Oud employed wraparound, curved corners on his far;ades and solidly expressed
brickwork in a manner that suggested a direct line of influence fiom Berlage, despite the rectangularity and openness
of the fenestration and the flat roofs. The workers' houses
had an importance beyond their stylistic influence as an_
early example of enlightened planning for well-designed,
low-cost housing. In the fa~ade design of the Cafe de Unie
in Rotterdam (fig. 12.20), Oud almost literally translated
a 1920s Mondrian painting into architectural terms, at
the same time illustrating the possibilities of de Stijl for
industrial, poster, and typographic design. The cafC was
destroyed in the bombing of Rotrerdam in 1940. Oud
lived until 1963 and, in his later, monumental buildings,
Was once more absorbed into the International Style of
Which he was a somewhat reluctant pioneer.
CHAPTER 12

EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

231

,,,

Van 't Hoff was a more adventurous spirit, at least in

his theories. He was the first member of de Stijl to discover
the Italian architect Sant'Elia, about whose unfulfilled projects (see fig. 12.27) he wrote in de Stijl. The other two
leading architects associated with de Stijl (aside from Van
Does burg himself, who not only was active as an architectural designer and a color consultant but also wrote architectural criticism under various names) were Gerrit
Rietveld (1888-1964) and Cornelis van Eesteren. Both
rose to prominence after the end of World War I, so that
their achievements belong to the period of the international spread of de Stijl.
Rietveld's 1924-25 Schroder House is the most com
plete statement of de Stijl in architecture (fig. 12.21). The
house was a commission from . Mrs. Truus SchrOderSchrader, who collaborated closely with Rietveld on its
design. Mrs. Schroder lived in the house for sixty years and,
toward the end of her life, initiated the Rietveld Sduoder
House Foundation, which oversaw a complete renovation
of the structure between 1974 and 1987. For the house,
Rietveld used detached interloddng planes of rectangular
slabs, joined by unadorned piping, to break up the structure, giving the whole the appearance of a Constructivist

sculpture. The large corner and row windows give am

10
interior light; cantilevered roofs shelter the interior fiop1\]
the sun; and, according to Mrs. SchrOder's requirements
sliding partitions created open-plan spaces for maximun;
flexibility of movement. The rooms are light, airy, and
cool, thus planned to create a close relationship between
the interior spaces and exterior nature.
Trained as a cabinetmaker, Rietveld also designed fi.H"niture, which assumed a role much like functional sculpture
within de Stijl interiors. His 1923 Red and Blue Chair (fig.
12.22) is among the most succinct statements of de Stijl
design. Rietveld first constructed the chair in plain wood in
1917, and painted it in 1923. The seat is blue, the back is
red, and the sections of the frame are black with yellow
ends. The simple, skeleton-like frame clearly discloses its
structure, which, like all of Rietveld's fi.uniture, eschews
any sense of the luxurious or highly crafted object, for it
was intended for mass production (which never took
place). The tilted planes of the seat and back, which have
parallels in the linear structures of some of Van Does burg's
paintings (see figs. 11.35, 11.36), convey less a sense of
classical balance than of dynamic equilibrium. "The construction," the artist vvrote, "is attuned to the parts to

~~},

'i
I

i..
I I

,:,

.,

12.21 Gerrit Rietveld, Living and dining area, SchrOder House, with furniture

232

CHAPTER 12

EARlY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

by Rietveld.

12.22 Gerrit Rietveld,

'ample
Jr fiom
ements,
n..imum
.ry, and

Red and Blue Chair,

1917. Painted wood,
height34W [87.6 em)

The Museum of Modern

Art, New York.

>etween

d furni:ulptme
air (fig.
de Stijl
;vrood in
back is
. yellow
.oses its
:::schews
t, for it
~r took
ch have

~sburg's

:ense of
he conJarts to

insure that no part dominates or is subordinate to the

others. In this way the whole stands freely and clearly in
space, and the form stands out from the material."
Fundamental to de Stijl philosophy was this sense of the
ihtegral relationship between the whole and its constituent
parts. Until his death in 1964, Rietveld remained one of
the masters of Dutch architecture, receiving many major
commissions, of which the last was the Van Gogh Museum
in Amsterdam, begun in 1967.

Cornelis van Eesteren (1897-1988) collaborated with

Van Does burg on a number of architectural designs during
the twenties, including a project for a house that was one
of the most nionumental efforts in de Stijl domestic architecture attempted to that date. In contrast with Rietveld's
approach, the palatial edifice of the projected Rosenberg
House (fig. 12.23) emphasized the pristine rectangular
masses of the building, coordinated as a series of wings
spreading out from a central core, defined by the strong

12.23 Cornelis van Eesteren and Theo van Doesburg, Project for Rosenberg House, 1923.
CHAPTER 12 ' EARLY TWENTIETH~CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

233

!'!'
"'

vertical accent of the chimney pier in the mode of Wright.

In the central mass they opened up the interior space v..rith
cantilevered terraces that anticipated Wright's 1936 house
in Bear Run, Pennsylvania.

New Materials, New Visions: France

and Italy
French architecture during the period 1900-14 was
dominated by the Beaux-Arts tradition, except for the
work of two architects of high ability, Auguste Perret and
Tony Garnier. Both were pioneers in the use of reinforced
concrete. In his 1902-3 apartment building (fig. 12.24)
Auguste Perret (1874-1954) covered a thin reinforcedconcrete skeleton -with glazed terracotta tiles decorated in
an Art Nouveau foliate pattern. The structure is clearly
revealed and allows for large window openings on the
fu1=ade. The architect increased daylight illumination by
folding the fa1=ade aronnd a front wall and then arranging
the principal rooms so that all had outside windows. The
strength and lightness of the material also substantially
increased openness and spatial flow.
Perret's masterpiece in ferroconcrete building is p~oba
bly his Chnrch of Notre Dame at Lc Rainey, near Patis,
built in 1922-23 (fig. 12.25). Here he used the sijnple

I',!

12.25 Auguste Perret, Church of Notre Dame, Le Rainey,

France, 1922-23.

12.24 Auguste Perret, Apartment house, 25 Rue Franklin, Paris,

1902-3.

234

CHAPTER 12

EARlY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

form of the Early Christian basilica-a long rectangle with

only a slightly curving apse, a broad, low-arched nave, and
side' aisles just indicated by comparably low transverse
arches. Construction in reinforced concrete permitted the
complete elimination of strucnual walls. The roof rests
entirely on widely spaced slender columns, and the \:valls
are simply constructed of stained glass (designed by the
painter Maurice Denis) arranged on a pierced screen of
precast-concrete elements. The church at Le Rainey
remains a landmark of modern architecture, not only in the
effective use of f~rroconcrete but also in the beauty and
refinement of its design.
While working in Rome around 1900, Tony Garnier
(1869-1948) developed a radically new approach to urban
planning that overturned the traditional academic
approach based on symmetry and monumentality. In
Garnier's model town, residential areas, industrial sites,
transport infrastructure, and civic facilities are all rationally
interrelated. From 1905, his designs as municipal architect
for his native city of Lyon explored the architectural possibilities of steel and reinforced concrete. His 1913 hall tor
the city's cattle market and abattoirs (fig. 12.26) achieved
a steel span of262 feet (80 m).

12.26 Tony Garnier, Lyons Market Hall, France, 1913.

In Italy, at the First Free Futurist Exhibition, held in

Rome in 1914, the founders of Futurism (sec chapter ll)
were joined by a number of younger artists, including
Giorgio Morandi, Mario Sironi, and Enrico Prampolini.
The most interesting new recruit was the young architect
Antonio Sant'Elia (1888-1916). Sant'Elia's Manifesto
of Futurist Architecture was no doubt written with the
ever-present assistance of Marinetti, who later published
Sant'Elia's text again '\-vith his own modifications. In his
text and drawings, Sant'Elia conceived of cities built of

the newest materials, in terms of the needs of

modern men and women, and as expressions of
the dynamism of the modern spirit. His visionary
ideas remained on the drawing board, for his renderings were not plans for potentially functioning
buildings. They were rather more like dynamic
architectural sculpture. His drav.rings for the Citta
Nuova (New City) (fig. 12.27) gave visual form
to his ideas about a modern metropolis built with
the technology of the future. His city contained
imaginary factories and power stations on multilevel highways and towers of fantastic proportions. Though his buildings never materialized,
Sant'Elia's belief in an authentic architecture based
on industrial mechanization had much in common
with his German and Dutch contemporaries.
like so many artist of promise, Sant'Elia died in World
War I. The war interrupted many experiments in architecture, as well as in painting and sculpture, begun in the first
years of the twentieth century. During the war years a new
generation of architects emerged-Gropius and lvlies van
der Rohe in Germany; Le Corbusier in France; Oud and
~\ietveld in Holland; Eliel Saarinen and Alvar Aalto in
~inland. Together with Fraol( lloyd Wright in the United
~tates, these architects built on the foundations of the pioneers discussed in this chapter to create one of the great
architectural revolutions of history.

12.27 Antonio Sont'Eiio,

Train and plane station for
project "for CitrO Nuova,
1914. Probably block ink
on paper. Musei Civici,

le with
re, and
:1sverse
:ed the
.[ rests
e walls
by the
een of
Rainey
in the
ty and

Como.

arnier
urban
tdemic
.ty. In
l sites,
ionally
:hiteet
possirall for
hieved

CHAPTER 12

EARlY TWENTIETH-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE

235