THE DEVELOPMENT AND DIFFUSION OF ARCHITECTURAL MODELS
nected to the less academic classicism of the seventeenth century, where the overall organization did not imply a similarity of the parts and where several systems were superimposed. The plan of Versailles is a clear demonstration of this flexible way of planning, which did not happen in Haussmann’s projects – the autonomy of the geometrical form of the small woods, which are connected to the monumental layout only by their location and by some perspective views. In Amsterdam this was used to achieve changes of scale and made the division of work between the different architects easy, and in England it allowed for picturesque detailing. The influence of haussmannien models was evident in the town planning at the beginning of the century. In Le Corbusier, for example, we can find, although more abstractly, an aspiration for order that recalls Haussmann’s strategic preoccupations. In the proposals like that for a city of more than 3 million inhabitants or the Plan Voisin, illustrating the first large urban plans, there was a reinterpretation of an axial monumentality, which might not have displeased Napole´on III’s prefect, but this direct reference did not go any further. The Modern Movement was influenced only in an indirect way, mediated through the experiences we have discussed or through a process of historical change. THE TEMPTATION OF THE PICTURESQUE
The nineteenth century was marked by experiences that moved in the opposite direction from the classical tradition, aiming rather towards a spatial reinterpretation of the spontaneous picturesque of vernacular architecture or medieval cities. Initially inspired by theories from the field of literature and art history and supported by painters, a movement strongly established itself in England that referred to the naturalistic experiences of the eighteenth century, to the first garden cities of John Nash and to the working-class cottages of the beginning of the century. In 1859 the Red House, by William Morris and Philip Webb, opened the way for the Arts and Crafts Movement. Godwin, Norman Shaw, Lethaby, Ashby, Voysey, Baillie Scott and Lutyens perpetuated the new ideas and dominated English architecture until the end of the century. Their work was published in Germany by Muthesius120 and had a decisive influence on Germany, Scandinavia and Holland and, to a lesser degree, on France. This movement, notable for having produced buildings, furniture and everyday objects, dealt with the city only on a theoretical level. In the production of spatial models, its influence can curiously be associated with that of Camillo Sitte.121 While British architects usually made reference to rural architecture, Sitte, in his book, 120 The role of the architect Hermann Muthesius (1861–1927) is important with regard to his work in the definition of models for German architecture. After a stay in Japan, he was sent to London as technical attache´ to the German Embassy (1896–1903) and entrusted by the Prussian government with industrial espionage in the field of construction, architecture and design. This mission was followed by the publication in Berlin of three works: Die englische Baukunst der Gegenwart, 1900–1902; Die neue kirchliche Baukunst in England, 1902; Das englische Haus, 1904. Muthesius, with P. Behrens, T. Fischer and others, was the founder of the Deutscher Werkbund in 1907. 121 C. Sitte (1843–1903), architect and director of the Vienna Imperial School of Industrial Arts (1889), Der Sta¨dtebau nach seinen Kunstlerischen Grundsatzen (Vienna); French translation (1902), L’art de baˆtir les villes (Paris); new edition (1996) (Paris: Le Seuil).
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