REJUVENATION OF THE MYSTIC (THE 20th CENTURY)

In 1917 the sociologist Max Weber wrote that the rationalization of Western society has brought about the “disenchantment of the world”.128 He believed that following the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, the power of the church had been questioned and religious ways of thinking had been replaced with scientific methods. He saw a decline in magic, mystery and faith - thus illustrating why there’d been no new theories for Stonehenge, except an objective dating of its construction in the bronze age, throughout the 19th century; Greatly contrasting with the dawn of the 20th century.

Towards the end of the 19th and early 20th century, the Arts and Crafts movement flourished. Developed in Britain and then exported internationally, the style stood for traditional craftsmanship and often used medieval, romantic or folk styles for decoration. It was strongly anti-industrial, evolving as a reaction to the impoverished and ‘servile’ conditions the decorative arts were made in and advocated for economic and social reform. This era of art continued until the First World War ended in 1918, superseding to thriving Modernist art movements such as Surrealism, Cubism and Expressionism. Surrealism emerged from an objection against the ‘rationalist’ mindset, blaming it on events like WW1 and believing it repressed imaginative thoughts. Cubism attempted to move away from traditional methods and perspectives and Expressionism, like Surrealism, emerged as a response to a conflicted world with a loss of spirituality.129

Fig 40. An abstract rendering of Stonehenge called the Circle Of The Monoliths (1937-8) by Paul Nash.

Fig 41. Henry Moore photographed with The Arch at an exhibition of his work in Florence in 1972. He had a particular facinastion with Stonehenge, having travelled there as a young man and creating a series of lithographs when he was older. To him the power and itensity of it set against the land and sky provoked career-long

Fig 42. A photograph of a modern day Druid ceremony at Stonehenge.

At the turn of the century, in 1905, the first Druid ceremony at Stonehenge was held by the AOD to initiate new members in.130 The year later a new theory was presented that attempted to bridge the gap between the scientists and Druidic Romantics. It was proposed by Sir J. Norman Lockyer, a giant in the field of astronomy and who’s credited for determining the orientation of the pyramids correspond with periodic positions of the sun and several important stars.131 In his book, Stonehenge and Other British Monuments Astronomically Considered, he made the controversial claim that prehistoric “astronomer-priests” had been the architects of Stonehenge and were the astronomical equals to the Egyptians. He believed that they’d planned an astronomical calendar, with stones arranged to mark crucial points in cyclical movements of the sun, moon and the stars.132 Although Lockyer was too much a giant in the field of Astronomy to be ignored, the majority of archeologists attacked his conclusions for being too anachronic and for its touches of Druidism. It would be decades later before his work gained more recognition and respect for its merits.133

This process began with the work of astronomer Gerald Hawkins and his 1965 book Stonehenge Decoded. Hawkins drew on the ideas of Lockyer and saw the site as a Neolithic computer for predicting astronomical events. He used a computer to check the movements of heavenly bodies against the positions of the stones and found a ‘total’ correlation with lunar eclipses and planetary alignments.134 The book generated much public discussion with many people siding for or against it and although it may have shocked more orthodox scholars, an even greater shock was to come. Alexander Thom, a Scottish engineer and professor at Oxford University, after studying other British megaliths surveyed Stonehenge and published his findings in the Journal for the History of Astronomy (1975). In it he argued that the early builders were knowledgeable about geometry as well as astronomy. The main thrust of his argument was that megalithic builders throughout Western Europe had constructed their monuments according to certain common standards, the chief being 2.72 foot: the “megalithic yard.”135 Thom’s ideas and previous work were still met with resistance in the archeological community, being gladly welcomed instead by elements of the 1960s counter-culture. However, certain prominent figures in the field, such as the previously biting Atkinson and Dr Euan Mackie, would recant and accept Hawkins and Thom’s findings after looking at the compiled data. “It’s important that non-archaeologists should understand how disturbing to archeologists are the implications of Thom’s work”, Atkinson wrote, “because [his opinions] do not fit the conceptual model of the prehistory of Europe.”136

Archeoastronomy had thus arrived and its partial acceptance by the scientific establishment lent aid and comfort to many nonscientists who would develop their own ideas about Stonehenge and other megaliths.137 One early businessman who would develop an early was Alfred Watkins in The Old Straight Track (1925). His ley line theory reached a new peak in the late sixties with The View over Atlantis written by the counter-culture icon, John Michell who muddled it with ‘Earth energy’ and thought Stonehenge was built to represent a UFO.138 Because of it’s centricity in counter-culture conversations, the monument became an important spot for New Age hippies in the early 70s, who began to join the Neo-Druids for summer solstice there.139

Fig 43. A photograph of New Age hippes at a summer solstice festival.

In the architect Sir James Stirling’s 1957 influential essay on Modern Architecture, he states “Today Stonehenge is more significant than the architecture of Sir Christopher Wren.”140 His motive for such a statement was to highlight that there’d been a return to a “indigenous and usually anonymous” design with Modernism in postwar Britain and worldwide. The Modernist movement first emerged in 1920s Europe as a reaction against the world before the First World War and it was particularly against historical architectural styles. It saw a return to a “direct and primitive” school of thought, preaching function over form, a rejection of ornament and an embrace of minimalism. The advent of reinforced concrete, which could be moulded into any shape and create huge spaces, replaced stone and brick as the dominant material used by modernist architects: particularly in the nativist Brutalist movement.141

Brutalism emerged in the 1950s in the UK and was characterised by exposed, unpainted concrete, angular geometric shapes and an absence of any decorative elements.142 It can indeed be seen that Stonehenge (and other megalithic monuments) share many characteristics with Brutalist buildings; they are both monuments to strength, precisely functional and at their core is a simplicity one gets after the grandeur and awe. They’re both sublime in the way prescribed by Burke too: whilst possessing qualities of beauty, they also strikingly terrify. Furthermore, the repetitive uniformed sarsens are much the same as the dramatic repeated modular elements so favoured by Brutalists. Stonehenge is also ‘transparent’ with its interior workings visible from the exterior143 and, much like the Smithson’s core belief of Brutalism, expresses an adoration for honestly expressed materials.144 Notably as well, Brutalist buildings were mostly built for public institutions, were people work, gather, learn and eat - leaning to the writer, Christopher Beanland, to refer to them as “civic megaliths.”145

Brutalism’s use of concrete is one that is both physically and cerebrally connected to Stonehenge. The cerebral seems to have been understood by the many people who have attempted to recreate it using concrete around the world during the 20th and 21st century, such as Maryhill’s Stonehenge in the US, Stonehenge Aotearoa in New Zealand and Achill-henge in Ireland. Concrete has taken stones place, being used in almost every modernist building,147 as well as being able to mimic the austere and blocky nature of Stonehenge. However, similar to Pearson’s theory where stone is used to represent death, Brutalism also owes some of its founding, according to the writer Jonathan Meades, to the purveyors of death. The Nazi concrete bunkers and gun emplacements of the 30s and 40s were inspired by Bronze Age burial mounds and, to Meades, were the precursor to the Brutalist modernism of the 60s.148 Known as ‘Hitler’s Architect’, Albert Speer’s doctrine of ‘ruin value’ was a concept of designing in such a way that in thousands of years time the ruins of the buildings would still be as impressive and reflect favourably of the time.149 Therefore, the massive concrete bunkers and flak-towers designed by the likes of Friedrich Tamms (who Meades calls “arguably, the first brutalist”)150 were built in part with consideration on how it’d look as a ruin. Although himself and Hitler mostly drew it from Roman Imperial architecture, the archeologist Cornelious Holtorf has suggested the importance prehistoric megaliths had in it aswell.151 For instance, Tamms would also later write about the impressive form of German megaliths and how they wished to connect to that ancient culture.152

Fig 44. ‘Standing Stones’ by Denis Barnes built in 1978 in Livingston, Scotland. Though firstly being left unadorned in grey, it subsequently got graffitied on so had to be painted over. Intrestingly, it looks quite familer to Paul Nash’s Circle Of The Monoliths I mentioned previously, using the same colour scheme

Fig 45. A flak-towers left to ruin in Vienna.

This wasn’t the only country that felt influence across the pond though. Perhaps a sign of an increasingly connected world post-industrial; Modernism and it’s British brutalist form also touched upon France. The idea that Modernists where intent on restoring a sense of higher purpose and ‘enchanting’ the world again came in many more forms then Nazi doctrine; there was the wave of occultism around the turn of the century, communist and socialist revolution and a catholic revival in the 1890s.153 In the world of architecture, Le Corbusier tirelessly promoted his image of the future with slogans, books, conferences and the founding of the hugely influencing CIAM organisation.154 Despite the work of J. K. Birksted in Le Corbusier and the Occult consisting mostly of a cat and mouse game to initiate him into the Freemasons (unsuccessfully), it does reveal his interest in the occult as many artists had during this period.155 With links establishing his works to alchemy, astrology and morphism: it’s no surprise he believed his buildings would bring about a spiritual rebirth and explains his influential 1923 manifesto Towards a New Architecture.

Deborah Gans, in the Le Corbusier Guide, mentions that he was directly influenced by Stonehenge for his design of the Firminy Church.156 Presumably this led to it’s ‘pseudo-ruined state’ using unadorned concrete and an influence on it’s orientation allowing the morning sun to project the constellation of Orion onto the walls. Towards the later part of his life, Corbusier considered it his goal to restore the sacred to every day life and it was in his other church design at Ronchamp that, according to Rykwert, he was inspired by the megalithic standing stones of France.157 His work here, in the refinement of the béton brut concrete style, would greatly influence the Brutalist work of Britain.158 Another of his porto-brutalist buildings and one that’d showcase his interest in heliotherapy, was Firminy Church. His structural elements ranged from tiny stellar openings to large ‘light cannons’, with even the small ones generating remarkable light patterns.159 Le Corbusier expressed his awareness of the cosmic power of light in his 1955 The Poem of the Right Angle, beginning with the remarkable pre-historic maxim “The sun master of our lives”.160

128 Bramble, John. 2015. Modernism and the Occult, 1st edn (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan)

129 Compton, Susan (ed.). 1988. British Art in the Twentieth Century: The Modern Movement (Munich, Germany: Prestel)

130 Piggott, “The Druids and Stonehenge”

131 Mann

132 Lockyer

133 Time-Life

134 Hawkins

135 Heath

136 Time-Life

137 Ibid

138 Michell, John. 1974. Flying Saucer Vision (London, England: Sphere)

139 “Here Comes the Sun! Stonehenge and the Summer Solstice.” [n.d.]. The British Museum <https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/here-comes-sun-stonehenge-and-summer-solstice> [accessed 18 January 2023]

140 Stirling, James. 1957. “Regionalism and Modern Architecture,” Architects’ Year Book, 7: 62–68

141 Tietz, Jurgen. 1999. The Story of Architecture of the 20th Century (Potsdam, Germany: Ullmann Publishing)

142 Jurgen

143 Corbusier, Le. 1985. Towards a New Architecture (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications)

144 Smithson, Peter, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist. 2005. Smithson Time: Peter Smithson. A Dialogue with /Ein Gespräch Mit Hans Ulrich Obrist. Engl. /Dt, ed. by Hans U. Obrist (Köln, Germany: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Konig)

145 Beanland, Christopher. 2014. “Concrete Buildings: Brutalist Beauty,” Independent (The Independent) <https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/ art/features/concrete-buildings-brutalist-beauty-9057223.html> [accessed 18 January 2023]

146 Time-Life

147 Curtis, William J. R. 1996. Modern Architecture Since 1900, 3rd edn (London, England: Phaidon Press)

148 Meades, Jonathan. 2014. Bunkers, Brutalism, Bloodymindedness: Concrete Poetry (England: BBC Four) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03w7b7x>

149 Petropoulos, Jonathan. 2015. Artists under Hitler: Collaboration and Survival in Nazi Germany (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press)

150 ———. 2014b. “The Incredible Hulks: Jonathan Meades’ A-Z of Brutalism,” The Guardian (The Guardian) <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/13/jonathan-meades-brutalism-a-z> [accessed 18 January 2023]

151 Holtorf, Cornelious. 2004. “A Theory of Ruin-Value,” Archive-it.org <http://wayback.archive-it.org/6473/20160819144823/https://tspace.library.utoronto. ca/citd/holtorf/7.4.html> [accessed 18 January 2023]

152 Tamms, Friedrich. 1974. Von Menschen, Städten Und Brücken (Berlin, Germany: Econ)

153 Bramble

154 Choay, Françoise. 2022. “Le Corbusier,” Encyclopedia Britannica

155 Birksted, Jan K. 2009. Le Corbusier and the Occult (London, England: MIT Press)

156 Gans, Deborah. 2006. The Le Corbusier Guide, 3rd edn (New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press)

157 Rykwert, Joseph. 1982. The Necessity of Artifice (New York : Rizzoli)

158 Banham, Reyner. 1966. The New Brutalism (Oxford, England: Architectural Press)

159 Gans

160 Le Corbusier: Le Poème de l’angle Droit. 2012. (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz)