01 Historiography of Modern Architecture

Arch 329 History of Architecture II BSU Architecture Dr. Deborah Middleton 08/25/11

Modern Architecture History, Calquhoun

¤  Modern Architecture is an architecture conscious of its own modernity and striving for change, understood to be reformist or ‘avant garde’.

¤  This history of modern architecture spans idealist utopias of the avant gardes and the resistances, and pluralities of capitalist culture. Organized as a chronological sequence ordered around interconnected and related themes.

¤  Calquhoun’s Thesis

¤  Modernism myths surfaced in connection with the Hegalian attitude, that the study of the history of architecture would enable predictions of its future course.

¤  The architect is conceived of as seer, uniquely gifted to discern the spirit of the age and its symbolic forms, predicated on the possibility of projecting the conditions of the past onto the present.

¤  The architecture of the future would embody a true tradition of harmony and organic unity.

¤  The task of the architect was to first uncover and then create the unique forms of the age.

¤  The Modern Movement was both an act of resistance to social modernity and an enthusiastic acceptance of an open technological future.

Modern Architecture – 1900 Curtis

¤  Modern architecture, invention of the late nineteenth – early 20th c. conceived in reaction to the supposed chaos and eclecticism of various earlier 19th c. historical forms.

¤  Ideal of a modern architecture is based on the notion that each age in the past had possessed its own authentic style, expressive of the epoch.

¤  Curtis Thesis: Various strands of modern architecture are best understood and evaluated by being set alongside other architectural developments parallel with them, to understand what they expressed.

¤  Myth of modern architecture: the notion that these forms had emerged somehow ’untainted ‘ by precedent.

¤  Critical of an approaches that insist upon a simplistic formula to connect ideology and forms.

¤  Problem of origins. The first few years of the 20th c. was when forms were invented to express, confidence in modern life, and pose revulsion against superficial revivalism.

¤  What is the intention, purpose, meaning of history?

1 Self-Transformation of art -  Assumes past works represent the ‘material’ to be transformed

by its adaptation in the new work, and new material is absorbed and structured by being connected with the art of the past.

Underlining concepts: ¤  Conception of architecture as the paradigm of art,

¤  Adoption of Herbartian theory of Psychological development as a model of mental life,

¤  Development of art is a manifestation of the free exercise of the underlying characteristics of the human mind and its interest in works of art.

2 Self-Containedness -  Art is understood as initially transforming nature and then as

transforming itself from within, out of purposes which are strictly artistic.

Underlining concepts: ¤  Associated with ancient worlds aesthetic ideals of self-containedness,

where the represented object was to be unconnected with other objects in its context. A continuous unbroken form enclosed within a boundary.

¤  Assumed the isolation of the object from its context and insisted on its separation from the spectator.

¤  Conceived similarly to how we feel our own bodies to be both internally continuous and distinct from things around it and establishes a relationship of a represented object to its context and in relation to the spectator.

Las Meninas 1656 Diego Vela’zquez

3 Participation in the Reflective Subjective Life and Attention - The gaze of a figure is interpreted as attention. Attention implies that the spectator also attends to something not sensibly present. Participation in the reflective life is seen as a central way in which the spectator is engaged by Dutch Painting.

Underlining concepts:

¤  Dutch painting constructs capacity to surround the presented objects with a sense of atmosphere, so that the spaces between objects are felt as part of a homogeneous optical effect.

¤  Objects are represented as having an existence independent of us but in a way which leads us to be aware of an interplay between those objects and our own mental life.

4 Sense of Artistic Intention (Alos Riegl) -  Inner necessity governs artistic performance showing the way in

which the artistic intention is self-generated and not a response to purposes outside itself. i.e. Conveying ideas or imitating nature or serving functions with lie outside the creation and appreciation of the visual forms.

Underlining concepts:

History searches for a continuous development of visual forms throughout the history of art, focusing on the representative stages in the self-transformation of visual style.

Alos Reigl (1858-1905) Kunstwollen Theory of Art

¤  All art possesses intentionality, or purposiveness, while allowing that in each period or culture the artistic purpose may be different.

¤  We need to distinguish the general notion of the Kunstwollen from its manifestations at different times.

¤  The conception of a continuous linear development of art history.

¤  Artistic intention must itself be drawn out of potentialities already latent in the current tradition.

¤  These theses may apply either to a style or genre or to a particular work.

¤  Valuing does not have to be applying norms or grading, it may be simply attaching value to something, appreciating it, endorsing the intention perceived in it.

Heinrich Wolfflin (1864-1945) The Principles of Art History

¤  Analysis of painting by use of objective classifying principles, was instrumental in influencing the development of formal analysis in the theory of art during the 20th c.

¤  Wolfflin adopted a neo-Kantian Philosophical psychology to explain how our minds and our perception led us to see the world the way we do.

¤  Devised a method and procedure to distinguish the development of style over time.

Five pairs of opposed or contrary precepts in the form and style of art

¤  From linear to painterly

¤  From plane to recession

¤  From closed (tectonic)forms to open (a-tectonic) form

¤  From multiplicity to unity

¤  From Absolute clarity to relative clarity of the subject

5  Creativity is the generator of Style “ A bicycle shed is a building. Lincoln cathedral is a piece of architecture…. The term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal.” “Art is separated from non-art not by any concrete, visible features of a particular work but rather by the presence or absence of a presumed idea in the mind of the maker.” Pevsner

Underlining concepts: - The architect is the individual genius endowed with aesthetic idea. - The way a society views the achievements of the past and defines the goals of the present are inevitably interlocked. We are applying the value standards of today and setting goals for tomorrow.

Ecole des Beaux Arts

¤  Concepts of harmony, order, unity, (Italian Renaissance concepts). Focused on gentle rhythm’s, composition as a manifestation of tranquility.

¤  Geometric laws, overall symmetry, multiple axis, harmonious geometric arrangements.

6 Zeitgeist (genius seculi) “guardian spirit of the age”

¤  Originates with German Romanticism and the philosophy of Johann Gottfried Herder. (1769)

¤  In Hegel’s theory of history – Zeitgeist is an imminent Spirit guides the progress of each epoch and place: great works are those in which that Spirit is embodied.

¤  “In the great architectural masterpieces, as in every great work of art, the human shortcomings which every period exhibits so liberally fall away. This is why these works are true monuments of their epochs; with the overlay of recurrent human weaknesses removed. The central drives of the time of their creation show plainly.”

¤  Giedions architect, whose genius consists in his sensitivity to the ‘ central drives’, may be more accountable, less of a free agent, than Pevsener’s, but both of them are distinguished by their ability to impart a certain je ne sais quoi that gives a special essence to architectural design that is absent from vernacular building.

Hero-ization of the architect implied an idealist criticism that is not a modern invention.

7 Functionalism

-  Undifferentiated space, where a great number of activities can take place with a minimal adjustment.

-  Aim is to devise a whole versus the analysis of parts.

8 Type, Categories and Classification of Form

¤  Architectural categorization is seen as a rational parallel to the classification of plants and animals taking place in the 18th c.

¤  Idea that there are building types and that these have discernable morphology.

¤  Form arises from the functions to be performed (associated with a notion of determinism)

¤  Ideas and selection play a crucial role in how we create architecture. (S. Giedon adopted this concept)

¤  Typology favors continuity argues that functionalism favors and may lead to innovation and may degenerate continuity.

¤  Christopher Alexander (1977) A Pattern Language – suggests that the timeless way is to be found in traditional vernacular architecture.

¤  Idea: That continuity rather than change will produce the most relevant architecture for society.

9 Search for Architectural Meaning

¤  The idea of the unconscious pattern that integrates a culture and the individual’s relation emerged in the writings by Marx and Freud.

¤  This idea challenges us to penetrate more deeply into our own motivations as designers, historians, and critics to understand the meaning of architecture of the past.

¤  Architectural meaning – descriptive expressive and with metaphorical references, Suggestive of the development of an architectural message.

Early 19th c. Artists

¤  Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) Impressionist & Neo-impressionist painter.

¤  He studied at Ecole des Beaux-arts and Academie Suisse. Influenced by Carot.

¤  Studied and became friends with Claude Monet, Armand Guillaumin, Paul Cezanne, all held disdain for the Salon.

¤  In 1873 he established a separate collective, Societe Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, scultpteurs et Graveurs which included 15 artists.

Pissaro

Influential German Theorists of Architecture

Schinkel

Glorified the unity of purpose, material and technique by insisting on the intentional practicality of the layout and on the clear articulation of construction which should correspond to the specific conditions of each material and technique.

His idea’s actually represented a clear-cut functionalism hidden behind eclectic classicism.

Semper

Introduced the contrast of tectonic and stereotomic (descriptive geometry) architecture, (an architectural system based on the relation between load and supporting structure, as against an architectural system based on the continuity of volume.

Key concept: The congruity of each artistic phenomenon with its origin and the specific conditions of its evolution.

Style of an architecture is true only if its forms were motivated by construction material and the prevailing socio-economic cultural and climatic conditions.

Semper’s ideas represent the proto-renaissance of later functionalism

Stereotomy, facade of the Great Mosque of Kairouan, Tunisia

Wolfflin

Style is primarily the visual expression of the ‘Lebensqefuehl’ of an epoch. This common denominator in all vital expressions of a period did not enter consciousness of the first generation of 20th c. German Architects.

The early awareness of functionalism considered only the mechanistic behavior patterned and tried to create the most efficient frame and organization for it.

It did not consider as pertinent the emotional reactions of man, referred to by Wolfflin as humanization, which focused on the psychological reactions provoked by the art work.

Developed procedures for the critical evaluation of art and architecture based on dualities.

Schmarsow

Architectural space was seen as the active creation of human ‘Koerpergefuele; (feelings and conscious awareness of the body), and is a reaction of man’s physique based mainly on physiological laws of human nature projected into the outer world.

Movement into depth is seen as an identical problem with the creation of aesthetic space.

The outer skin of a building, the façade must be conceived as merely the shell or frame of this purposeful organized hollow.

The influence of purpose and function on form, influenced the architectural slogan.,

‘ to build from inside to outside from interior to the volume-body’

“ The creation of space is the decisive factor and its purposeful (functional) organization only as a natural symptom of all human activity.”

Von Hildebrand

Space must be conceived as a succession of visual planes confined in depth.

Connected sculptural visual impressions perceived as a chronological succession could also be applied in architecture.

Introduced the element of time into architectural aesthetics.

Leopold Ziegler

“ Nature has form, Architecture and Sculpture is form. “

The accent in architecture shifts from the emphasis on construction to the development of parts which are per se structurally undefined. I.e. facades, ceilings.

“Works of art represent a value, architecture should show only a necessary minimum of structural elements” (an outspoken anti-functional attitude).

Max Unglehrt

Denies any kind of functional causation of architectural form, which for him is a ‘symbol of absolute matter’ necessarily always in abstract form.

Hermann Eicken

Architecture, like any art work must primarily clarify our concept of the world, through a combination of visual and conceptual approaches. Visual approach- conveys visual form in two dimensions only.

Conceptual/cognitive approach conveys three dimensions, the form in volume, while the visual form is the goal of painting and sculpture, the conceptual form is the task of architecture.

Style is a variation of different stages of volume imagination during their respective periods.

Purpose, material etc. have nothing to do with the conceptual form.

Rudolf Metzger

Agrees with Eicken that any work of art is primarily the clarification of our concept of the world.

Architecture achieves this in the identification of architectural forms with human forms and especially with human movements.

Denies categories of space and volume, function, rather the identify of architectural form and dynamic sensation relates to specific architectural forms, Greek columns, gothic pointed arch.

Josef Frank

Architecture is the expression of civilization, with the history of architecture reflecting the history of ideas. Posited that the style of a period is nothing but a totality of its symbols.

He negates functionalistic expression but believes in the autonomy of architecture.

“No new forms of construction or materials but new ideas have produced new architecture.”

Hermann Soergel

Considers space as the actual content of architecture, volume is merely the means for the creation and definition of space. * Negates Semper’s theory.

Distinguishes existential space, the objective real imaginable space, and visual space, the physiological, visually perceivable space, and effectual space, the aesthetically impressive space, the key element created by the architect and to which the beholder reacts.

Distinguishes between architecture as technique and architecture as art. Technique can be molded artistically without loosing its character as technique. Art means liberty, and has technical qualities.

Posited an anti-functional viewpoint. “Architecture as art is autonomous in spite of its rational technical and material data.”

Paul Klopfer

Considers space as the content of architecture. *negates Semper’s theory.

Exclusively creating space are steroform and tectonic architecture, supplemented by the juxtaposition of forms derived from material and technique with forms created by ‘formullen’( Riegl) which is interpreted by Klopfer to mean static persevering or dynamic driving forces.

Differences between the individual historical styles can be traced back to four categories.

Static-tectonic, dynamic tectonic, static-stereotom and Dynamic sterotom.

Excludes the idea of functionalism as a stylistic criterion.

Leo Adler

Architecture is the translation of an a priori purposeless aesthetic space concept into the visual purposeful reality of three-dimensional space.

Asks: “if architecture were only the development of the tectonic structure its history would mean a logical but not aesthetic development. The means of creating architectural space are the surfaces of bloc-volumes.

He denies the existence of pure volume architecture completely.

The technical-functional concept refers to only the individual elements of structure for an intellectually defined purpose. While the real architectural concept mirrors a vision of totality.

Paul Kechter & Otto Schubert

Conceive of architecture merely as a problem of a man-created world of space within an already existing space world (follow Schumacher’s ideas).

Fritz Schumacher

Distinguishes intellectual, sensuous and emotional effects as the decisive ones. Regulates functional considerations to a secondary role.

He conceives of architecture as twofold, creation of space by the limitations of volume.

The interior is perceived only as a projection of concave parts, into an imagined plane behind while exterior, the convex volume is projected into the superior general space.

Architecture represents a threefold relationship:

Interior space, Volume (determining interior as well as exterior space), General exterior space. This threefold relationship can be perceived by visual experience and also by movement, successive action in time.

Stylistic differences are explained as shifts within the threefold relationships.

Fredlich Ostenfdorf

Volume as the content of architecture was conceived of by a small group of architecture theorists.

(1900-1914) was an influential teacher of architecture in Germany. Preached that shaping of mass and volume was to be the aim of architectural endeavors.

“Since space is enclosed by masses, the great task of architecture is the shaping of the external forms. Space is reduced to a mere hollow within the shell.”

The art of designing must be based entirely on the concept of the eventual volume form. Emotions must be excluded as much as any specific expression of purpose or structural technique.

Space in its concavity represents the universal objective and passive elements. It merely envelopes volume, the specific individualistic subjective element. Space by its character remains always neutral, indifferent and there fore it never can become the object of artistic creation, while volume by proportion, direction, isolation, and concentration, can be shaped into a closed and unified form – the ideal architecture.