Modern Architecture:
Aesthetics, Relevance, and Creative Shift.
Neeva Dangol
Tom Moore
Rhodes
Final Research Paper IV
May 25, 2005
Outline
I. Introduction of subject
a. Architecture in history
b. The Modern Movement
II. Modern Architecture
a. Thesis: Modern architecture’s main goal and purpose is to enhance the human experience in such a way that the human becomes the subject rather than just an occupant.
III. Architecture and politics
a. Architecture is an important part of any society, and reflects that society’s ethos.
b. Socialism was a major motivating force for Modern Architecture.
c. Introduce the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
IV. The Birth of Modern Architecture
a. Introduce architect Walter Gropius
b. “Form follows function”: no ornamentation, open floor plans, functional furniture.
V. The “holy Trinity”
a. Introduce Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier.
b. Mies van der Rohe: The Barcelona Pavillion and Farnsworth house.
c. Le Corbusier: Villa Savoye, Ronchamp, and Plan Voisin
d. Frank Lloyd Wright: Fallingwater
VI. The cons of Modern Architecture
a. Modern architecture goes against what people find aesthetically pleasing
b. Modern buildings do not fit in the environment.
c. Modern architecture contradicts human nature.
VII. Creativity
a. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s criteria of creativity
b. Modern architecture’s creativity
VIII. Summary
IX. Conclusion
Architecture throughout human history has been a relatively static medium, never really expanding into uncharted waters too often. It seemed doomed to repeat itself over generations, reviving the old styles and techniques in which people are comfortable with. With the advent of the Modern movement, Architecture received its just revolution, inspiring more architects today than any other architectural style. Modern architecture’s main goal and purpose is to enhance the human experience in such a way that the human becomes the subject rather than just an occupant.
Meyer Schapiro, a 20th century art historian, states in a 2002 republishing of some of his articles by Grey Room in “Looking Forward to Looking Backward: a Dossier of Writings on Architecture from the 1930’s” that buildings are more than just designs or spectacles, but that they are a social program and an important part of a new society. Schapiro states that social revolution springs from the intentions of architects, even if they do not realize it. This includes Modern architecture and perhaps the perfect example of a movement inspired by society (45).
Felicity D Scott, a historian of modern and contemporary architecture, in her article “On Architecture under Capitalism”, published in Grey Room in 2002, writes about the 1932 “International Style” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) by looking at the articles of Meyer Schapiro. According to Scott, Schapiro investigates the overlapping of architecture, technology, politics, and capitalism at the exhibit (45). In the dossier already mentioned, Schapiro states that the architects at the exhibit anticipated the style of a Socialist Republic. The architects created a style that remains constantly technical, unsentimental, and workable, which explains why, Schapiro claims, Socialists favor the International Style (67). According to John Peter in his book The Oral History of Modern Architecture: Interviews with the Greatest Architects of the Twentieth Century, published in 1994, the heightened social awareness after World War I gave modern architecture its sense of broad social mission. Socialism was a critical motivating force, and wasn’t just a background towards modern architecture. Being that Modernist architecture was developed in Europe during and after the advent of World War I, Socialism seemed the perfect agenda with which to make people’s lives better. Peter also states that there was a genuine and compelling desire among architects to create a better environment in which to improve the quality of life for the people. Contrasting itself with the Beaux-Arts, this new architecture claimed to be true, healthy, and honest (45). According to the Architecture Glossary on the website About.com, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris was the most powerful art and design school in the Western world at the time and was the dominant force behind most of the architecture that created Europe’s and the United States’ urban centers between 1885 and 1920. According to the site, the design philosophy of the Beaux-Arts style combined classical forms from Greek and Roman architecture with Renaissance ideas (About.com). In Peter’s book, Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman states in an interview that most architectural schools at the time were taught the fundamentals of Beaux-Arts philosophy, which put Greek orders and certain preordained organizational patterns in front of functionality. O’ Gorman goes on to say that many of these architects, including himself, became bored with it and began rallying for a new architecture (13).
Former Head of the Department of Archives and Collections at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany, Margaret Kentgens-Craig states in her book The Bauhaus and America: First Contacts, 1919-1936, published in 2001, that in reaction to the social situation after World War I, particularly in Germany, and the monotony of Beaux-Arts design, a new institution was developed. According to Kentgens-Craig, architect Walter Gropius was appointed in 1919 to head this new institution which would help rebuild Germany and form a new social order. The Bauhaus, which means “house for building” in German, called for a new "rational" social housing for the industrial workers. Kentgens-Craig goes on to say that the Bauhaus architects rejected "bourgeois" details such as cornices, eaves and decorative details. They wanted to use principles of Classical architecture in their most pure form: without ornamentation of any kind (3).
According to the architecture glossary at About.com, characteristics that define Bauhaus design include flat roofs, smooth facades, and cubic shapes. The floor plan is open, and the furniture is functional (About.com). Bauhaus design was perhaps first to use the Modernist battle cry “form follows function”. Schapiro offers two reasons why this new Modern style became successful. First, the design is convenient for the available technology, can be mass-produced, and is made with inexpensive materials. Second, the style reflects the ethos of the “bourgeois culture” (68).
According to Kentgens-Craig, another well known Modernist involved with the Bauhaus was Mies van der Rohe. Both Mies and Gropius fled to the United States during the 1930’s while the Nazi regime dominated in Germany. Gropius began to work for the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, and introduced his Bauhaus concepts to a new generation of American architects. Mies fled to Chicago to direct the school of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and similar to Gropius, introduced the Bauhaus design philosophy to Chicago (12-35). According to Peter, during the early 1930’s, the curator of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Philip Johnson, who later became a born again architect, co-produced an exhibition on the International Style highly influenced by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe in 1932. While it is difficult to pinpoint a precise date when Modern architecture began, Peter states that the general consensus among historians acknowledges this event as the spark that started the revolution (10). The International Style, which focused on reason and materiality above form, was now baptized into the world.
While many architects of the early 20th century were producing work in accordance with the Modern movement, only three come to mind as forming a “holy trinity” of Modern designers: the aforementioned Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and the French artist/architect/designer Le Corbusier. Peter assembled a collection of interviews of eminent modern architects throughout the 20th century. One of the many questions he asked was in regards to whose work the architects find the most influential and inspiring. Peter found that Mies, Wright and Le Corbusier were considered the most influential. (9).
According to Kevin Mathews, a writer for Greatbuildings.com, Mies is perhaps the architect attributed the most to the International Style, because his design aesthetic is purely about structure and simplicity, as seen particularly in his designs for the Barcelona Pavilion, built for the 1929 worlds fair in Barcelona, Spain to represent Germany, and his Farnsworth house, a private residence finished in 1950 in Plano, Illinois (1). Within these two buildings the aesthetics of the International Style can be seen in full force (see appendix). Clean, crisp lines, plenty of glass, and entirely open spaces, only broken up when function is needed. Architectural analyst Peter Carter states in his book Mies van der Rohe at Work published in 1972 by Phaidon Press, that the idea of structure was one of Mies’ driving forces in his creative life (172). In addition to this emphasis on structure in his designs, Carter states that the reliance on reason dictated the development of Mies’ ideas from one building to another (171). Clearly, with the examples discussed above, the inherent reliance on reason and structure to define space as being paramount to Mies can be seen, being that the structures themselves are as clean and logical as possible, which is indicative of the International Style. In a quote by Mies in architectural critic Rafael De Clercq’s article “The Legitimacy of Modern Arcitecture”, Mies states that he wanted to keep everything clear and reasonable; to have an architecture for everyone (137). Mies is perhaps the architect that capitalized most on the architecture’s goal to make the user the subject rather than just an occupant by eliminating all unnecessary forms and only include elements that enhance, not detract from, the human experience.
Richard Padovan, a Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory at the Bath School of Architecture, in his book Towards Universality: Le Corbusier, Mies, and De Stijl, published in 2002, states that Le Corbusier also played a large role in creating and establishing the International Style and the Modern movement in architecture as a whole. According to Padovan, his unique ideas of space and planning helped define how people exist in and think about the built environment, and Le Corbusier was a master at using space to facilitate a response within the user that no other architect dreamed of before. Padovan notes Le Corbusier’s crowning works as the Villa Savoye, finished in 1929 in Poissy, France, and Notre Dame du Haut built in 1955 in Ronchamp, France (20-24).
Padovan also discusses how the weightlessness he alludes to in the Villa Savoye differentiates public and private space. Padovan observes that the public space extends to the parking area underneath the living area, and the private are is right up the stairs. He states that this is perhaps one of Le Corbusier’s best manifestations of his idea of “a machine for the living” in which universalism and functionalism are key (20). In relation to Le Corbusier’s design philosophy, Schapiro states that the factory and the machine were the desired aesthetic and a house was as architecturally important as any other, more important public building, such as a chateau or temple (68). According to architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock in the 2004 article “The Unbearable Lightness of a Building- A Cautionary Tale” by Derek Sawyer, the Villa Savoye is one of the two finest houses of the International Style (10). The villa was granted “National Cultural Monument” status in 1995, as, according to Sawyer, a monument of architectural Modernism, instead of the history of modernity in which it played such a strange part (11). Sawyer refers to the history of the building, which was confiscated by the Gestapo during WWII, then used as a horse stable by the Soviets, followed by a ballet school in 1950, subsequently adapted into a portion of a children’s hospital, then used as a depository for the archives of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, and later as the site of secret negotiations for the split of Czechoslovakia in 1992 (11). The villa is truly representative of the way architecture and history intertwines.
In Ronchamp, Corbusier not only uses space and illusion to his advantage, but also develops a commentary. According to architectural historian Daniele Pauly in her essay “The Chapel of Ronchamp as an Example of Le Corbusier’s Creative Process,” published in 1987 in Le Corbusier: The Garland Essays, Ronchamp is imbued with richness, inventive, and full of poetic dimension (128). Pauly goes on to compare the quality of the building to ancient Roman temples, saying it contains many of the same features, such as the atmosphere, the bulkiness, the thick walls, the deep splays, and the same darkness. Pauly believes that the building expresses an intimacy with the past (135). The sweeping curves of the church are both welcoming and intimidating simultaneously, and the massive forms allude to the power behind religion. But once inside, the viewer is treated to dappled sunlight and sweeping ceilings, creating a feeling of metaphysical peace within the user (see appendix) (136).
In addition to being a radical designer, Corbusier is perhaps even more revolutionary in the world of Urban Planning. Of particular note is his “Plan Voisin” or “Radiant City”, which proposed bulldozing Paris’s Rive Droite near the Seine to build a number of cruciform towers and greenspace in order to maximize efficiency in terms of occupancy, traffic, and the general social experience. In the book Le Corbusier: The Machine for the Living author and architectural critic George Marcus discusses the Radiant City:
In these buildings Le Corbusier extended his earlier model of private dwelling units stacked into high density, high-rise, low-cost housing to include an array of communal functions—commercial establishments, leisure facilities, and basic civic services—that broadened its components and created an integral community, or vertical garden city based on the model of a collective. […] Le Corbusier’s concept was to create a sense of intensely private, family housing within a larger community. (146)
These ideas about urban planning work well in theory, but the designs that resulted out of this idea seem cold and inhuman, the polar opposite of what Corbusier had in mind. However, the plans did influence community developments after 1950, being that Modernism was being embraced worldwide after World War II (Marcus 146).
Frank Lloyd Wright, perhaps the best known architect in the United States, if not the world, pulled a different twist on Modern design. Where Mies and Corbusier were focused on defining structure in terms of concrete, glass, and absolute or abstracted minimalism, Wright was more focused on bringing out the inherent nature of a site. In architecture professor David G. De Long’s essay “Designs for an American Landscape”, published in 1996 in the book Frank Lloyd Wright: Designs for an American Landscape 1922-1932, De Long states that Wright wanted to reveal and enhance the inherent qualities of the land, but did not want to imitate nature (16). In the same book, but in a different essay titled “Architect of Landscape,” by landscape architect Anne Whiston Spirn, the author describes landscape as the material context in which people live, but nature is an idea, not a place. Wright consistently capitalized on Nature but never Landscape. (135-136) In contrast to Mies’s and Corbusier’s dependence upon the universal aesthetic and materials such as concrete, glass, and steel, Wright used more natural materials, such as wood, rough hewn stone, and plaster to give his designs an intimate relationship between site and nature (De Long 12-20). His preference for natural materials can be seen in almost all of his buildings, but of particular note is the Kaufmann house, perhaps better known as Fallingwater (see appendix).
Fallingwater consists of a number of cantilevered forms hanging over a waterfall at the base. According to De Long, not only do the forms provide the building with open space and structure, they also reinforce the relationship between the water, the ground, the forest, and the sky, by gesturing to each within the vertical structure and the cantilevered floors. De Long goes on to say that Wright demonstrated how building, roadway, earth, and water could be combined into one integrated landscape to enhance the qualities of the place (117).
These three architects contributed the most to the school of Modern design. Before Corbusier and Mies, buildings were often seen as objects in which the occupant merely used. The real power belonged to the building itself. But by reinterpreting the importance of space in relation to human needs, the building became subordinate to the user. User became subject, and building became almost irrelevant. In Frank Lloyd Wright’s case, the genesis of Modern sustainable design can be seen, which is the driving force of many architects today. Previous to Wright, the site was seen as a plot of land in which to bulldoze to make room for “real progress”. Wright eschewed these ideas and opted for a more sympathetic method of building, in which nature was a key player. So in Wright’s case, both the site and the user became the subject in his designs.
In the beginning, we stated that Modern architecture’s main goal and purpose is to enhance the human experience in such a way that the human becomes the subject, rather than just an occupant. Designer Elinor Friedman, in her book Modern Style published by Friedman/Fairfax Publishers in 1998 states that even though there are many in the design field who embraced modern design, there are different degrees of the Modern concept. However, underlying them all is a desire to help our environments better fit our needs. Friedman goes on to say that the Modern style’s goal is to provide spaces that are more liberating to balance the psychological and physical demands of our lives (16). Richard Weston, an architecture professor at the Welsh School of Architecture, in his book Modernism published in 1996 by Phaidon Press, quotes Le Corbusier saying that a building must fill two purposes. The first must be that the building must be a machine for the living, providing flexible, efficient support for a variety of human activities. Second, the building must be a place that inspires meditation and comfort; a beautiful place (114). The person remains the most important part of the design, the house remains secondary.
In Rollo May’s book The Courage to Create, published in 1975, May discusses the artist as connected to their world:
What genuine painters do is reveal the underlying psychological and spiritual conditions of their relationship to their world; thus in the works of a great painter we have a reflection of the emotional and spiritual condition of human beings in that period of history. If you wish to understand the psychological and spiritual temper of any historical period, you can do no better than look long and searchingly at its art. (52)
However, May’s idea is not limited to painters. It can be deduced that architecture is just as important in understanding the “psychological and spiritual temper” of an historical period and perhaps even more so, being that architecture’s specific goal is to fulfill needs of the epoch. Panayotis Tournikiotis, Assistant Professor at the National Technical University of Athens School of Architecture, writes in his book The Historiography of Modern Architecture, published by the MIT Press in 1999, about the genesis of the ideas of Modern architecture in his first chapter. He paraphrases art historian Emil Kaufmann saying that each epoch constructs its own relationship between forms and system, reworking the forms of the past, adopting new forms created by new methods of construction, or reinterpreting the forms of nature. The search for new forms can also be the consequence of the pursuit of a new system, but the forms are secondary: it is the system that has primacy. Tournikiotis goes on to say that the new architectural system developed in the early 20th century was based on the French Revolution idea of liberty (38). This idea of the system being primary and the forms being secondary is truly modern in essence and paramount to the modern idea. The Modern architects did not want to compromise functionality for relative beauty, which has been what formal architecture previous to the modern movement was about. To reiterate, Modern architecture’s main goal and purpose is to enhance the human experience in such a way that the human becomes the subject, rather than just an occupant. Previous to the Modern movement, people were only as good as the buildings they lived in, at the mercy of classical, symmetrical patterns that look nice, but rarely worked in accordance to the needs of the user. Tournikiotis paraphrases art historian Nikolaus Pevsner as saying architecture expressed in the first half of the 19th century can be described as “historicism”: the architecture of historical styles and the free economy. Marking the transition to the new architecture is the work of William Morris, still quite traditional, but full of new ideas in his exhibition of 1851 introducing the world to arts and crafts, metal structures, and Art Nouveau. The real beginning, according to Pevsner, of the Modern Architecture we recognize today began in 1914 with the work of Walter Gropius. This architecture represented reason and function: the expression of the twentieth century (27). Modern architecture wanted to grow out of it’s historically based boundaries.
In spite of this, many people still disagree with the Modern aesthetic. Rafael de Clercq, an urban planner from the University of Leuven in the Netherlands, argues against Modern architecture in his 2004 article “The Legitimacy of Modern Architecture”. De Clercq presents three criteria for defining what an architectural work ought to be. First, architecture should be wary of the community’s taste. Second, architectural works should be made to fit the built environment. Third, architectural works should not contradict the biological nature of human beings. De Clercq also adds that these three criteria lead to two more rules that all architectural practices should follow. Rule one, buildings should be designed with a common style in mind, and rule two, within this common style, facades must be set (137-139). De Clercq then discusses how modern architecture goes against all these criteria. Instead of going along with generally accepted standards of taste, modern architecture breaks what the general public finds aesthetically pleasing claims De Clercq. Instead of trying to fit the environment, modern buildings stand isolated and indifferent from what surrounds them. And De Clercq warns that modern architecture contradicts human nature in that it neglects public space and is out of proportion. In addition, modern architects do not possess aesthetic discipline, and modern architectural appears to be more horizontal, rather than vertical as it should be, criticizes De Clercq (139-14).
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, in his book Creativity: Flow and the Psychological Discovery and Invention, published in 1996 by Perennial Publishers, gives three criteria for judging whether something achieves creativity, which requires a meaningful context that expands the domain of human knowledge. The first criterion is the work. What is it about the work that makes it revolutionary? Is it really worthwhile to investigate? The second criterion is the field. The work has to be accepted by experts within a domain (in this case architecture). The third is the person (23-50). Is he or she genuinely interested in expanding a field of knowledge? According to these three criteria, it can be logically deduced that for the most part that Modern architecture is, indeed, a creative shift within the domain. The work was original, with a noble goal and set values which were not seen in architecture previously. Being that experts of the domain were the same people who were either creating Modern architecture or writing about it, it can be said that it passed inspection with the experts in the field. Lastly, the people therein were highly devoted to their domain and the mission it presents, which is required for all creative individuals, according to Csikszentmihalyi.
Just as it seemed that architecture was doomed to repeat itself, Modern Architecture was introduced, which brought a revolution in its domain. This new movement was created to enhance the human experience, and in order to do that needed to reflect the social, economic, and political feel of the time. Socialism was a large motivating force, which is shown in the International Style, the Beaux arts style, and the Bauhaus school. Within these styles, Peter tells us the three architects stand out as the most influential: Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier. These architects designed buildings that were true monuments to the design, each encapsulating what Modern architecture was all about: fulfill the needs of the user. However, some people believe that Modern architecture goes against the aesthetics that have shaped Westerns society thus creating uncomfortable and ugly environments. In spite of that, Modern architecture is and was a creative shift within the architectural domain.
Modern architecture today continues to evolve more rapidly than any time previous to the Modern pioneers. The Modern designers in the early 20th century cracked the ice, allowing future architects to become more creative with their designs, since rigidity towards a classical agenda has no relevance. Needless to say, Modern Designers today are influenced more by Modern architecture than any other style in history. Perhaps this stems from the relatively open ended characteristics of this style. Sawyer sums up the modernist ideal as a neutral, minimal, and flexible organization of space that can serve a multitude of uses while dictating none (27). With this ideal, architects today and in the future can use the ideas of Modernism to meet their own needs and the needs of the people.
Appendix.
Photo and Plan of Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois, Mies van der Rohe.
Photo and Plan of Barcelona Pavilion, Demolished 1930, Mies van der Rohe.
Exterior, Interior, and Plan of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France, Le Corbusier.
Exterior, Interior, and Axonometric Plan of Villa Savoye in Poissy, France, Le Corbusier.
Model for Le Plan Voisin, Le Corbusier.
Exterior, Interior, and Cross-section of Fallingwater, Mill Run, PA, Frank Lloyd Wright.
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