^^%«\

William J/ft Curtis

Introduction

We have long come to realize that art is not produced in an empty space, that
no artist is independent of predecessors and models, and that he no less than
the scientist and the philosopher is part of a specific tradition and works in a
structured area of problems.
E. Kris. 1952

The historian who sets out to write a iiistory of modern of the advanced industrial nations of Western Europe
architecture has necessarily to tiegin with a definition and the United States. Ia'cu then there was relatively
of his subject. Many past eras have referred to their little consensus concerning the appearance of a new

own architectures as 'modern' so that the term on its architecture; there were, rather, broadly shared
own is The 'modern archi-
scarcely discriminating. aspirations capable of visual translation in a variety of
tecture' which is the main topic of this book was an ways. 'Modern architecture', it was intimated, should
invention of the late nineteenth and early twentieth be based directly on new means of construction and
centuries and was conceived in reaction to the should be disciplined by the exigencies of function: its
supposed chaos and eclecticism of the various earlier forms should be purged of the paraphernalia of
nineteenth-century revivals of historical forms. Basic historical reminiscence, its meanings attuned to
modern architecture was the notion
to the ideal of a specifically modern myths and experiences: its mor-
that each age in the past had possessed its own alitiesshould imply some vague vision of human
authentic style, expressive of the true tenor of the betterment and its elements should be capable of broad
epoch. According to the same outlook, a break was application to certain unprecedented situations arising
supposed to have occurred somewhere around the from the impact upon human life and culture of the
middle of the eighteenth century, when the machine. Modern architecture, in other words, should
Renaissance tradition had faltered, leaving a vacuum protTer a new set of .symbolic forms more directly
into which had flowed numerous 'inauthentic' adap- reflecting contemporary realities than had the rag-bag
tations and recombinations of past forms. The task, of 'historical styles'.
then, was to redi.scover the true path of architecture, to In actuality a number of styles emerged which
unearth forms suited to the needs and aspirations of claimed 'modernity' as a chief attribute between about
modern industrial societies, and to create images 1890 and the 1920s, until in the latter decade it
capable of embodying the ideals of a supposedly seemed as if a broad consensus had at last been
distinct 'modern age'. achieved. At any rate, this is what some practitioners
Already by the mid-nineteenth century such French and propagandists wished their contemporaries to
theorists as Cesar Daly and Eugene Viollet-le-Duc were believe. They thus invested considerable efTort in
discussing the possibility of a genuine modern style, distinguishing the characteristics of 'the International
but they had little conception of its form. It was not Style' - that expressive language of simple, floating

until just before the turn of this century, with volumes and clear-cut geometries which seemed to be
considerable stimulus from a variety of intervening shared by such diverse architects as Le Corbusier, J. P.
structural inventions, that imaginative leaps were Oud. Clerrit Rietveld. Walter Gropius, Mies van der
made in an attempt at visualizing the forms of a new Rohe. and the rest. This they claimed was the one true
architecture. This pioneer phase, which resulted in architecture for the twentieth century. Other contem-
(among other things) Art Nouveau. was the property porary developments were conveniently overlooked.
 Introduction •
9

and everything was done to plaster over differences growing heap of those 'revisionist' histories intent on
and preserve the facade of a unified front. demonstrating that modern architecture was some
But history did not stand still, and the same creative temporary fall from architectural grace. The historian
individuals who had seemed to be pushing towards a of the present perhaps has a unique and almost
unprecedented opportunity to see his subject (or. at
common aim went their own separate ways; in turn,
any the early stages of with a certain
seminal ideas were transformed by followers. Thus the rate it I

architecture which was supposed (wrongly, it turns dispassionate distance, and this should not be thrown
tradition founded a tradition of away by indulgence propaganda. Each year more
in
out) to have expunged
War. more quarries of evidence on
buildings are created and
its own. In the years after the Second World

many tributaries and transformations were developed developments earlier in the century are unearthed,
around the world. Reactions, critiques, and crises - not and this alone necessitates a revision of the broad
picture. But history involves constant reinterpretation
to mention widely varied circumstances and intentions
- compounded the variety. If a historian were to look as well as the presentation of new facts, and even
and events that seemed once
buildings, personalities,
back in a century's time at the period 1900-1975. he
to have some immutable status must be rescrutinized
would not, therefore, be overwhelmed by some single,
monolithic main line of development running from the and reconsidered. Between the ever-growing collection
modern design' (to use Nikolaus Pevsner's of specialist monographs of quality and the broader but
•pioneers of
somewhat biased surveys, there is little that can stand
phrase up to the architecture of the last quarter of the
I

twentieth century. But he would be struck by the scrutiny as a balanced, readable overall view of the

emergence and domination of new traditions gradu- development of modern architecture from its begin-
nings until the recent past. This book is an attempt at
ally overrunning the inheritance of attitudes and
vocabularies bequeathed by the nineteenth century. bridging the gap.
The earliest historians of modern architecture
Moreover, this insinuation of new ideas might be seen
way by into different (perhaps one should call them 'mythographers')
in global terms, working its bit bit

national and regional traditions, transforming them

tended to isolate their subject, to over-simplify it. to
highlight its uniqueness in order to show how different
and being transformed by them. This book takes such a
long view.
the new creature was from its predecessors. Parallel
Here has to be admitted that there are particular
it
developments, like Art Deco. National Romanticism, or

difficulties of a sort which confront any interpreter

of the continuation of the Classical Beaux-Arts, were

the recent past. The historian who sets out to write a relegated to a sort of limbo, as if to say that a building in

history of modern architecture will be describing and the 'wrong style' could not possibly be of value. This

interpreting traditions which have not yet come to an was both heinous and misleading. It seems to me that

end. There the danger that he may impose too

is
the various strands of modern architecture are best

exclusive a pattern on recent events, so making them understood and evaluated by being set alongside other
architectural developments parallel with them, for
point inevitably to whatever aspects of the architecture
of hisown time he happens to admire. History then only then can one begin to explain what patrons and
social groups used modern forms to express. Moreover,
degenerates into polemic. This is to be expected in the
artistic quality, as always, transcends mere stylistic
fashion-conscious literature which always seems to
follow in the wake of contemporary movements, but
usage.

similar faults are found to lie in the carefully pondered Another myth that the earliest writers on modern
scholarly works which pass as the standard books on architecture tended to maintain - again to distinguish

modern architecture. For all the force and clarity of the new forms from their 'eclectic' predecessors - was
the notion that these forms had emerged somehow
their achievement, such early chroniclers as Sigfried
'untainted' by precedent. Again this married well with
Giedion. Henry-Russell Hitchcock, and Nikolaus
Pevsner tended to share the progressivist fervour of the progressivist bias in their history-writing, but it
Committed in advance to the idea of was scarcely a sensible way of explaining forms. In
their protagonists.
they recognized their eagerness to demonstrate their 'fresh new start",
a unified 'spirit of the age', they felt its

numerous architects between 1900 and 930 certain-

architectural expression in the works of the modern
1

movement of the 1 9 20s. and saw it as their job to write ly played down the influence of earlier architecture
upon them, but this does not mean one should take
books of revelation, charting the unfolding world
their claims at face value. Indeed, the most profound
drama of the 'true architecture of the times'. (See
architects of the past eighty years were steeped in
bibliographical note. p. ^89.)
What they rejected was not so much history
obvious from my earlier remarks that 1 do not
It is
tradition.
per as the and superficial re-use of The past
it.
wish to add some glowing extra chapters to such a se. facile

was not. therefore, rejected, but inherited and

saga: nor. let it be said, do I wish to add to the ever-
 Introduction

understood in new ways. Moreover, modern archi- eclecticism,on the other those 'emergent tendencies'
tecture itself eventually created the basis for a new (many which pointed to a new
of them in engineering)
tradition with its own themes, forms, and motifs. synthesis of form, structure, and cultural probity.
Architecture a complex art embracing form and
is Henry-Russell Hitchcock, who was preoccupied with
function, symbol and social purpose, technique and describing the visual features of the new style,

belief. It would be as inadequate in this case simply to suggested, in The International Stifle (1932, co-author
catalogue the ins and outs of style as it would be to Philip Johnson) that modern architecture synthesized
reduce modern architecture to a piece in a chess game Classical qualities of proportion with Gothic attitudes
of class interests and competing social ideologies. It to structure. However, in his later writings Hitchcock
would be as mistaken to treat technical advances in became less adventurous, preferring to avoid sweeping
isolation as it would be to overstress the role of social theories of origins in favour of a meticulous, en-
changes or the import of individual imagination. It cyclopedic cataloguing ofthe sequence of styles.
may be that facts of biography are most appropriate (as the emphasis of history-writing was
Naturally
in the case of Le Corbusier or Frank Lloyd Wright) or bound change once the modern tradition itself grew
to
that analysis of structure or type is more in order (as longer and more varied. Historians ofthe post-Second
with the American skyscraper between the wars); and World War years, like Colin Rowe and Reyner Banham
while a book of this kind obviously cannot portray the (whose Theory and Design in the First Machine Age
entire cultural setting of twentieth-century archi- appeared in i960), attempted to probe into the ideas
tecture, it can avoid suggesting that buildings come behind the forms and to explain the complex icono-
about in a social vacuum by concentrating on graphy of modern architecture. They were not willing
patronage, political purpose, and ideological ex- to accept the simplistic lineages set up by their
pression insome instances. predecessors, and revealed something ofthe indebted-
Here I must confess to a certain focused interest on ness of modern architects to the nineteenth and earlier
questions of form and meaning. Most ofthe works to be centuries. In this context one must also mention the
discussed in this book are outstanding works of art exemplary intellectual range of Peter Collins's Chang-
which therefore defy simplistic pigeon-holing. They are ing Meals in Modern Architecture (1965), which
neither billboards for political beliefs, nor mere stylized managed to trace so many of the ideological roots of
containers for functions, but rich compounds of ideas modern architecture to the eighteenth century. Other
and forms, which achieve a highly articulate ex- writers like Leonardo Benevelo and Manfrcdo Tafuri
pression. I believe it should be a central aim of any built on these foundations to articulate their own
history of architecture to explain why certain forms versions of a pre-history: in these cases, though, there
were felt appropriate to a particular task, and to probe was a greater awareness than before of the political

into underlying meanings. That simple and

the uses and meanings of architecture.
misleading word 'style' masks a multitude of sins, and Here must emphasize that the stress of this book is
I

when one investigates an artist of any depth one less on the roots of modern architecture than on its
discovers a sort of mythical content which pervades ensuing development. This is quite deliberate. For one
the forms. Ultimately we have to do with the ways in thing, I wish to avoid covering well-known ground; for
which fantasies and ideas are translated into a another, it is the later (rather than the earlier) phases
vocabulary. of modern architecture which have been neglected. It

Next there is the tricky problem of where to begin: is now over half a century since such seminal works as
when does a specifically 'modern architecture' appear .'
the Villa Savoye or the Barcelona Pavilion were
Enough has been said already for it to be clear that created: but the past thirty years are still navigable
there no easy answer to this question. It is interesting
is only with the aid of a few treacherous maps filled with
to note the enormous variety of starting-points of fashionable tags and 'isms', A comprehensive treat-

earlier histories: these naturally reflected the writer's ment of the post-Second World War period is still
various notions of modern architecture. Thus, impossible, but one can at least suggest a scheme
Nikolaus Pevsner, who wished to stress the. social and which is not simply a one-way road towards some
moral basis ofthe new architecture, began his Pioneers tendency or another ofthe very recent past.
of Modern Design (1936) with William Morris and the Moreover, history does not work like a conveyor belt
Arts and Crafts movement of the 1860s. Sigfried moving between one point and another, and each
Giedion. who was obsessed with the spiritual frag- artist has his own complex links to different periods of

mentation of his own time and saw modern archi- (he past. A personal language of architecture may
tecture as a unifying agent, portrayed the nineteenth blend lessons from ancient Greece with references to
century, in his Space. Time and Architecture ( 1 94 1 ). as a modern garages: the individual work of art is
split era on the one hand the 'decayed' forms of embedded in the texture of time on a variety of different
 ; 1

Introduction •
1

'Broadacre City' proposals of Le Corbusier and Wright.

levels. It only misleads to portray buildings as part of
unified 'movements'. The more interesting the indi\- Once a tradition has been founded, it is transformed
as new possibilities of expression are sensed, as
values
idual creation, the more difficult it will be to put it in a

chronological slot.
change, or as new problems are encountered.
Moreover, new individuals inherit the style and extend
Thus the problem of origins is handled in the first
in their own directions. The last part of the book will
part of the book, not through some hapless search for
it

look at the dissemination of prototypes all over the

the first truly modern building (or something of the
world in the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies. Here
kind), but through the more fruitful approach of
to the
tracing the way inherited strands of thought came
we come face to face with problems attached
together in various individual minds in the last decade
phenomena of transplantation (as modern archi-

tecture was grafted onto cultures quite different from

of the nineteenth century and the first two of the
was in this period that forms were those in which it began) and devaluation (as symbolic
twentieth, for it

crystallized to express, simultaneously, a revulsion forms were gradually emptied of their original
polemical content, and absorbed by commercial
against superficial revivalism, and a confidence in the
interests or state bureaucracies). Moreover, crises and
energies and significance of 'modern life'. It was the era
criticisms occurred within the modern movement,
of Art Nouveau, of Horta. Mackintosh, and Hoffmann
and Wright's attempt at creating an suggesting a more overt reliance on the past.
of Sullivan's
'organic' modern architecture in Chicago; of Ferret's As well as the late works of the aging 'masters' of
and Behrens's attempts at employing new methods modern architecture, this part of the book will consider
and materials in the service of sober ideas which such movements as the 'New Brutalism' and such
'abstracted' basic Classical values: it was the era. too.
groups as 'Team X' and the 'New York 5'; themes like
and Futurist experimentation in the arts. regionalism and adaptation to local culture and
of Cubist
justly described as the pioneer phase' of climate in developing countries: building types like the
Pevsner it

high-rise apartment block and the glass-box sky-

modern design, and this seems a fair term so long as
and the emergence of individual architects
one is not then tempted to write off its creations as mere scraper:
like Louis Kahn, Kenzo Tange. James Stirling,
Denys
'anticipations' of what came later.

One does not have to be an advocate of the notion of Lasdun, I0rn Utzon. Aldo Van Eyck, Robert Venturi,
'Classic moments' in art to single out the i<.)20s as a Michael Graves, and Aldo Rossi.
remarkable period of consolidation, especially in Perhaps it is inevitable that, as the book draws
Holland, Germany. France, and Russia. This period has
towards the present, the author will fall into some of
understandably been called the 'heroic age' of modern the pitfalls of his predecessors in championing some

architecture: during it Le Corbusier. Mies van der aspects, and chastising others, of the contemporary
situation. can at least say that it has been my aim to
Rohe. Walter Gropius. Gerrit Rietveld (to mention only
1

present a balanced picture and that I have attempted to

a few) created a series of master-works which had the
effect of dislodging the hold of previous traditions and make the basis of any judgements clear. Modern
architecture at present in another critical phase, in
setting new ground rules for the future. is

The establishment of a tradition requires followers which many of its underlying doctrines are being
and this has to be explained in a questioned and rejected. It remains to be seen whether
as well as leaders,
this amounts to the collapse of a tradition or
another
broader context than a mere internal stylistic 'evol-
the middle part of the book emphasis crisis preceding a new phase of consolidation.
ution'. In
We live in a confused architectural present which
will therefore be placed on the range of personal
views own myths and half-
past through a veil of
approaches and ideological persuasions at work in the its

truths (many them manufactured by historians)

of
period between the wars. This will include discussion
of the problematic relationship between modern
with a mixture of romanticism, horror, and bewilder-
architecture and revolutionary ideology in the Soviet ment. A freedom of choice for the future is best
Union in the twenties, and between modern archi- encouraged by a sensible, accurate, and discriminating
and totalitarian regimes in the thirties. We are understanding of one's place in tradition. This book
tecture
concerned with something far deeper than a battle of was written partly with the idea that a historical bridge
modern architecture was the expression of a might be built across the stream of passing intellectual
styles:
fashions from the distant to the more recent past, and
variety of new social visions challenging the status quo
partly with the hope that this might somehow help
OVERLEAF and suggesting alternative possibilities for a way of life.
of the inter-war years would certainly towards a new integration. But such aims have been
The treatment
Antoni G;uidi, Casa consideration of develop- secondary: the first thing a historian ought to do is to
be incomplete without some
Mila, Barcelona. Spain,
explain what happened and why. whatever people
1905-7. detail of ments in England and Scandinavia and of urban-
roofscape. istic experiments, especially the 'Radiant
City' and may now think of it.
o -0
S=i
Q."
3 5"

a> Q)

C (6
O (/)
I. The Idea of a Modern Architecture
in the Nineteenth Century

Suppose that an architect of the twelfth or thirteenth century were to return

among us, and that he were to be initiated into our modern ideas: if one put
at his disposal the perfections of modern industry, he would not build an
editice of the time of Philip Augustus or St. Louis, because this would be to
falsify the first law of art, which is to conform to the needs and customs of the
times.
E. Viollet-le-Duc, 1863

There is a tidy and misleading analogy between history the nineteenth: the loss of contidence in the
and human life which proposes that architectural Renaissance tradition and the theories which had
movements are born, have youth, mature, and supported it. This erosion was caused (in part) by the
eventually The historical process which led to the
die. growth of an empiricist attitude which undermined the
creation of themodern movement in architecture had Renaissance aesthetics, and by
idealistic structure of

none of this biological inevitability, and had no clear the development of history and archaeology as
beginning which can be pinpointed with precision. disciplines. These brought with them a greater

There were a number of predisposing causes and discrimination of the past and a relativist view of
strands of ideas each with its own pedigree. Although tradition in which various periods could be seen as
the critical synthesis began around the turn of this holding equal value. The notion of a single point of
century, the idea of a modem architecture, in contrast reference. 'Antiquity', thus became increasingly
to a revived style from some earlier period, had been in untenable. |ohn Summerson has characterized this
existence for nearly half a century. development as 'the loss of absolute authority' of
But this notion of a 'modern' architecture was in Renaissance norms. A vacuum of sorts was created
turn rooted in developments of the late eighteenth into which numerous temporary stylistic dictatorships
century, in particular the emphasis on the idea of would step, none of them with the force of conviction,

progress. For basic to the conception was a sense of or with the authority, of their predecessor. A point
history as something which moves forward through would eventually be reached in the nineteenth century
different 'epochs' each with a spiritual core manifest- when a revival of a Greek, a Renaissance, an Egyptian
ing itself directly in the facts of culture. From this or a Gothic prototype might seem equally viable in the
intellectual standpointit was possible to speak of the formulation of a style (fig. 1. 1 ).

way a Greek temple or a Gothic cathedral had Another major force in the creation of the idea of

'expressed their times' and to assyme that modern modern was the Industrial Revolution.
architecture
buildings should do the same. It followed that revivals This supplied new methods of construction (e.g.. in
should be regarded as failures to establish a true iron), allowed new solutions, created new patrons and

expression. Destiny therefore required the creation of problems, and suggested new forms. A split of sorts was
an authentic style 'of the times', unlike past ones, but created between engineering and architecture, with
as incontrovertible, as inevitable-seeming, as they. The the former often appearing the more inventive and
question was: how could the forms of this 'contempor- responsive to contemporary needs. At a deeper level
ary' style be discovered .- still, industrialization transformed the very patterns of

Related to the birth of progressive ideals was another life and led to the proliferation of new building
eighteenth-century development that left its legacy to problems - railway stations, suburban houses, sky-
 The Idea of a Modern Architecture in the Nineteenth Century

I.I Thomas Cole, The scrapers - for which there was no Thus the
precedent. reintensification of the crafts and a reintegration of art
Dream oj the Architect. crisis concerning the use of tradition in was
invention and utility. Their aim was to stem the alienation they
1 .S4(i. Oil on canvas, exacerbated by the creation of novel types with no felt grew automatically from the disruptive effects of
X cS4
S j in.
certain pedigree. Moreover, mechanization disrupted capitalist development. Those who were later to
(I 34.7x213.4 cm.).
the world of crafts and hastened the collapse of formulate the ideologies of modern architecture felt
Toledo Museum of Art.
gift of Florence Scott
vernacular traditions. Machine-work and standardi- that this attitude was too nostalgic and sought instead
Libbey; the nineteenth- zation engendered a split between hand. mind, and eye to face up to the potentials of mechanization by co-
century dilemma of in the creation of utilitarian objects, with a consequent opting them and infusing them with a new sense of
style. loss of vital touch and impulse. Mid-nineteenth- form. This drama was to remain quite basic to the
century moralists John Ruskin and William Morris
like twentieth century: in essence the question was how to
in England felt that mechanization was bound to cause evolve a genuine culture in the face of the more brutish
degradation in all compartments of life, at the smallest aspects of mass production.
and largest scales of design. They therefore advocated a Industrialization also created new economic
i6 •
The Formative Strands of Modern Architecture

structures and centres of power. Where the patronage soundly. There was little admission that even a 'new'
of architecture in eighteenth-century Europe had architecture was likely, ultimately, to be assembled out
relied principally on the church, the state, and the of old elements, albeit highly abstracted ones.
aristocracy, it came increasingly to rely on the wealth. It could at least be said that the notion of a modern
purposes, and aspirations of the new middle classes. As architecture implied a quite different attitude to the
always, elites found in architecture a means for self- genesis of forms than those which had been operative
expression which could authenticate their position. In in the previous few decades. One of these advocated
turn mechanization remoulded the lower orders of revivalism of one or another particular period in the
society and made inroads on the form of the city. Once past, some historical styles being regarded as intrinsi-
again, architecture was alTected. Indeed, a major cally superior to others. By imitating the chosen style it

theme of modern architecture would concern the was lamely hoped that one might also reproduce its

reform of the industrial city and its replacement by a supposed excellences. But, there was the obvious
more harmonic and humane order. The roots of this danger that one might copy the externals without
attitude lay in the numerous critics of an inequable reproducing the core qualities, and so end up with tired
and chaotic social structure who wrote from the early academicism or pastiche. Moreover, the question
nineteenth century onwards. Indeed, another aspect of naturally occurred: if a set of forms had been right for
the progressive mythos behind the conception of one context (be it Greek, Gothic, Egyptian, or
modern architecture was the belief in a just and Renaissance), could it possibly be right for another,'
rational society. One is not therefore surprised to A more catholic view of the past implied that one
discover the influence of Utopian Socialist tendencies should evolve a style by collecting the best features of a
stemming from Charles Fourier and Henri Saint-Simon number and amalgamating them into a
of past styles
on the moral outlook of later modern designers. The new synthesis. This position was known as 'eclect-
search for alternative social and urban structures icism' and did at least have the strength of encouraging
would lie close to the heart of later modern archi- a broad understanding of tradition. However, eclect-
tectural endeavour. icism did not provide any rules for recombination and
Itcan thus be seen that the notion of a modern gave little idea of the essential differences between
architecture was inseparable from profound changes authentic synthesis and a merely bizarre concoction of
in the social and technological realms. The problem of past elements.
architectural style did not exist in isolation, but was Indeed the problem of revival could not be con-
related to deeper currents of thought concerning the sidered apart from the problem of appropriateness in
possibility of creating forms which were not pastiches the present. Here it was hard to avoid arbitrariness
of past styles but genuine expressions of the present. because there were few guiding conventions relating
But then, what were the most important realities of the forms, functions, and meanings. It was all very well for
present.' Underlying numerous nineteenth-century the English architect A. W. Pugin to have argued with
debates concerning the appropriateness of forms, there such deep moral fervour in the 1 830s that Gothic was
was a nagging uncertainty about what the true the most spiritually uplifting and the most rational of
content of architecture should be. Thus there was a styles; but counter-arguments of a similar kind in
tendency to locate the ideal in some compartment or favour of Classical forms could just as easily be made.
other of the past, or else to dream of some hazy, ill- Intellectual gambits were thus often used to post-
defined future as an alternative to a grimy, unconsol- rationalize what were really intuitive preferences. The
ing reality. lure of determinist arguments was strong because they
These, then, were some of the conditions and seemed to bring certainty to a situation of extreme flux.
problems confronting the first theorists of a 'modern If one could claim (and possibly beUeve) that one's

architecture'. Viollet-le-Duc, for example, writing in the forms were ordained by the predestined course of
1860s and iSyos. felt that the nineteenth century history, the national spirit, the laws of nature, the
must try to formulate own style by finding forms
its dictates of science, or some other impressive entity,
'appropriate' to the new social, economic, and then one could temporarily assuage doubts concerning
technical conditions. This was fair enough in theory. arbitrariness in the use of forms.
but the question still remained: where should the Within the confused pluralism of the 'battle of
forms of this new To this there were a
style be found.' styles', it tended to be forgotten that lasting qualities of

number of possible answers. At one extreme were architectural excellence were liable to rely, as ever, on
1.2 Marc Antoine
those who believed in great individual leaps of characteristics which transcended superficial issues of
Laugier. the 'Primitive
invention: at another were those who thought the stylistic clothing. The nineteenth century had its share
Hut', from Essai sur
matter would somehow look after itself if architects of master-works which were not categorizable by rarchitecture, 1753: the
just got on with solving new problems logically and simplistic pigeon-holing. The outstanding archi- quest for beginnings.
SF^r;

*% -'-.; '
 i8 The Formative Strands of Modern Architecture

from functional analysis alone without the inter-

vention of some a priori image, but it was still a weapon
with which to attack the whimsies of the most
arbitrary revivalists.
One of the main inheritors of this 'Rationalist'
viewpoint in the mid-nineteenth century was Eugene
Viollet-le-Duc, a French theorist who gave great force
to the idea of a 'modern' architecture. As was
mentioned, he was disturbed by the inability of the
nineteenth century to find its own style and felt that
the answer must lie in the creation of forms 'true to the
programme and He remained a
true to the structure'.
vague on the nature of this truth and tended to
little

assume (often erroneously) that the conspicuous

excellence of great past works was due mainly to their
capacity for expressing the programmatic and struc-
tural 'truths' of their own time. Thus while he was
committed to an indistinct vision of some new
architecture, he nonetheless believed that the past
could have its uses in discovering this new style; he
even imagined a situation in which one of the
designers of the great Gothic cathedrals had been
resuscitated and confronted with a modern building
problem and modern means of construction. He
argued that the result would not have been an
imitation Gothic building, but an authentically
modern one based on analogous intellectual pro-
cedures. The past must not be raided for its external
effects, then, but for its underlying principles and
processes.
Of course, most architects of note in earlier periods
had always known that the past must be understood
for its principles, but had still had the guidance of a
prevalent style phase, a shared architectural language,
in which to incorporate their findings. Viollet-le-Duc

outlined a probing method

for intellectual analysis but
could still do
supply the essential 'leap to form'.
little to
His imagination was not as strong as his intellect, and
the handful of buildings and projects which he left
behind him were clumsy assemblages of old images
and modern constructional means, usually reflecting
his underlying taste for medieval styles (fig. i ?). There .

was little of that sense of 'inevitable unity' - of part

linking with part inan ordered yet intuitive system -
which distinguishes the true sense of style.
But if Viollet-le-Duc's forms did little to solve the
problem of a modern architecture, his ideas lived on
and were destined to have an enormous infiuence on
the generation who became the 'pioneers' of modern
architecture, especially when they sought to give
architectural expression to new constructional means
like concrete, or lo new building types like skyscrapers:
even the fortnal innovations of Art Nouveau were
kindled in part by his ideals. He supplied a strong
counter-tendency against the worst excesses of Beaux-
 9

The Idea of a Modern Architecture in the Nineteenth Century 1

use of columns or pointed arches, may itself have had

some basis in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-
century tendencies towards simplification. One thinks
particularly of those drastically abstract modes of
reformulating the past implicit in the stripped geo-
metrical visions of Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Etienne-
Louis Boullee. The idea of universal formal values was
given extra weight in the late nineteenth century by
art historians like Heinrich Wolfflin and Adolf von
Hildebrand. who rejected literary values in art in
favour of underlying architectonic qualities, and who
described past styles in terms of abstract, formal
patterns. It is no accident that this way of perceiving
the past should have coincided so closely with the
emergence of abstract art: as we shall see, both this
manner of viewing precedent, and the new language of
space and form visualized by painters and sculptors,
were to have an eventual influence on the creation of
modern architecture.
But other ingredients would also come into play in
the formulation of modern architecture - ingredients
which had been intrinsic to numerous past buildings.
One thinks particularly of analogies with other spheres
of reality than architecture, with nature's forms and
1. 1 (/I'/O Eugene Violiet- Arts teaching, which frequently (though not always) processes, or with the forms of mechanisms, paintings,
le-Duc. project for a erred in the direction of academicism, and gave and sculptures. Peter Collins has revealed the im-
concert hall in iron, currency to the idea that the great style ofmodern portance to the nineteenth century of 'mechanical'
1864. Irom Entreticns and 'biological' analogies in theory and design. At a
c.
times would somehow emerge on the basis of new
sur I'architectwe, 1872:
constructional techniques - not through some merely certain level the forms of architecture may be thought
the attempt to formulate
personal formal experiment - just as the great styles of of as mimetic through a process of abstraction they
a style on the basis of
:

new materials. the past had done. Thus Viollct-le-Duc's historical may incorporate images and references. Time and
parallels supplied further scaffolding to the idea of a again, if we dig beneath the surface of modern
1.4 ((ihinv) Le Corbusier. modern architecture. architects' personal styles, we will find a rich world of
sketch of the primary metaphor and
But the question remained: what should this
still allusion.
geometrical solids
modern From where should its
architecture look like? Thus, informs to fit the pre-existing
finding
alongside a view of
ancient Rome, from Vers forms be derived.' Obviously tradition could not be aspirations towards a modern architecture, the
WW {inhitcctiin'. 1923; jettisoned completely, otherwise there would be no architects of the 1890s and the first decade of the
the abstraction of forms at all the idea of an eutirehi new architecture was
:
twentieth century drew repeatedly on both tradition
fundamental lessons simply illusory. Perhaps, then, it might be possible to and nature in their formulation of a style. But they did
from the past. so in ways that were at variance with their immediate
abstract the es.sential lessons of earlier architecture in
such a manner that a genuinely new combination predecessors, for their method involved a far greater

would be achieved.' Indeed, if one jumps forward to the degree of abstraction. In that respect their quests for
1920s and examines the seminal works of the modern novelty were not unconnected with avant-garde
movement, one Hnds that they relied on tradition in developments in the other arts: it can even be argued
this more universal sense. One is struck by the that some most drastic innovators (one thinks
of the

confidence of men like Le Corbusier and Mies van der particularly of Wright and Pcrret in these two decades)

Rohe that they had. so to say. unearthed the central, were also, in some basic way, traditionalists. While
abstract values of the medium of architecture itself: they certainly hoped to create vocabularies entirely in
that they had created not so much a new style, but the tune with modern circumstances and means, they also
quality of style in general - a quality central to all wished to endow their results with a certain univer-
outstanding works of the past (tig. i .4). sality: they sought to create architectural languages

This abstract view of the history of architecture, this with the depth, rigour, and range of application of the
idea that the important features of past buildings lay in great styles of the past.
their proportions, their arrangement, their articula- So it was not tradition that was jettisoned, but a

tion of formal themes (and the like) rather than in their slavish, superficial, and irrelevant adherence to it. The
20 •
The Formative Strands of Modern Architecture

i.S Charles Gamier, the

Opera. Paris. 1861:
Beaux-Arts Classicism in

the grand manner of a

sort that was rejected in
the early twentieth
century by the avant-
garde.

1.6 'La Recherche du

Style Nouveau'. Revue
des Arts Decoratifs. 1895:
the slow progress
towards a new style.

rogue in all these respects was frequently (and Nouveau and the substantial new developments up to

sometimes unfairly) identified as the Ecole des Beaux- the First World War. writers like VioUet-le-Duc were an
Arts in Paris which was lampooned as the symbol of all immensely powerful catalyst. They had little to stand
that was and retardative (figs. 1.5. i.h). This
tired on in the immediate past except facile revivalism and
caricature of academe aside, it is essential to see the eclecticism, and therefore sought a new direction by

vital developments of the 1890s against a backdrop of going back to basics and forward to new inspirations
confusion and caprice in which the problem of style simultaneously. In sources they were abundant: the
was much discussed but rarely resolved. To the young question was how to forge these sources into a new
architectural minds which were to pioneer Art synthesis appropriate to modern conditions.