more fraught with consequences. Since the column and the pilaster in the new architecture lose their self-contained decorative significance and remain only as constructive and utilitarian supports and buttresses, clear in their actual function , there arises before the architect in all its purity the problem of the rhythmic organization of these supports or buttresses. And in precisely the same way, utilitarian elements such as window or door openings, freed of their decorative garb, will compel the architect to turn to the more substantive and fundamental problem of finding the proportional relationships, the harmonious formulas, which were lost in the labyrinth of historical accessories. Once a site has been cleared, all its characteristic aspects become more evident. And just as the simplification of architectural elements facilitates their more effective organization, so precisely the loss of the self-contained role that the wall surface had previously assumed leads the architect to a clear understanding of his most important and profound task. The wall surface and its rhythmic articulation, the proportional interdependence of all elements—all this finds its primary purpose in the problem of enveloping space, creating its boundaries, organizing it according to definite principles. The legacy of the old classical system does not at this point appear hopelessly bankrupt. It gives us a guiding theme for further work. Yet it also convinces us of the complexity and significance that the spatial problem has attained in present-day architecture. What emerges as our legacy is neither any one epoch nor any one style, but the quintessence of the whole of mankind's architectural past. We feel equally close to the purposeful clarity of the spatial solutions of the Greco-Italic system and to the desire to exploit the latent dynamic forces revealed in the tension of the Gothic and Baroque. And yet in spite of the completeness of both attributes in the forms of past epochs, their applications at the present time strike us as being both ineffectual and inexpressive. The scale and force of these now-resurrected attributes are being developed to an incredible extent. Certainly the complexity of modern architectural organisms, multifaceted in breadth and height, is very far removed from the clear and unified cella of the Hellenic temple, from the now seemingly too simple and placid Renaissance palaces. To bring a purposeful clarity and an expressive rationality to the housing of our time, which consists of hundreds upon hundreds of units; which has no predilection for longitudinal, latitudinal, or centralized development; which emerges only under the pressure of the multitude of varied and concrete conditions of urban construction; and which for the most part is constrained to develop in a vertical direction—upward—all this compels the architect to be armed from head to toe, to be not just the chosen one endowed with the mark of genius, but also to master to perfection all the methods of architectural creativity. On the other hand, the dynamics of the Gothic or the Baroque cathedral seem to us to be infinitely balanced and ingenuous in comparison with the irrepressible tempo of our time. 115
Testing track on the roof of the Fiat automobile factory in Turin