Modern Motivations I: Form, Function, Narrative, History, Site
Rene Magritte, The Human Condition series, 1935
Zoom-Out: What is modernism?
Cartesian City, proposed redesign of Paris, 1938
Italian Futurism, 1909-1916
MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM 1. 2. 3.
We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt. Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist. 4. We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. 5. We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit. 6. The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements. 7. Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man. 8. We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed. 9. We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman. 10. We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice. 11. We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.
Antonio Sain’ Elia, 1914 I COMBAT AND DESPISE: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
All the pseudo-architecture of the avant-garde, Austrian, Hungarian, German and American; All classical architecture, solemn, hieratic, scenographic, decorative, monumental, pretty and pleasing; The embalming, reconstruction and reproduction of ancient monuments and palaces; Perpendicular and horizontal lines, cubical and pyramidical forms that are static, solemn, aggressive and absolutely excluded from our utterly new sensibility; The use of massive, voluminous, durable, antiquated and costly materials.
AND PROCLAIM: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8.
That Futurist architecture is the architecture of calculation, of audacious temerity and of simplicity; the architecture of reinforced concrete, of steel, glass, cardboard, textile fiber, and of all those substitutes for wood, stone and brick that enable us to obtain maximum elasticity and lightness; That Futurist architecture is not because of this an arid combination of practicality and usefulness, but remains art, i.e. synthesis and expression; That oblique and elliptic lines are dynamic, and by their very nature possess an emotive power a thousand times stronger than perpendiculars and horizontals, and that no integral, dynamic architecture can exist that does not include these; That decoration as an element superimposed on architecture is absurd, and that the decorative value of Futurist architecture depends solely on the use and original arrangement of raw or bare or violently colored materials; That, just as the ancients drew inspiration for their art from the elements of nature, we—who are materially and spiritually artificial—must find that inspiration in the elements of the utterly new mechanical world we have created, and of which architecture must be the most beautiful expression, the most complete synthesis, the most efficacious integration; That architecture as the art of arranging forms according to pre-established criteria is finished; That by the term architecture is meant the endeavor to harmonize the environment with Man with freedom and great audacity, that is to transform the world of things into a direct projection of the world of the spirit; From an architecture conceived in this way no formal or linear habit can grow, since the fundamental characteristics of Futurist architecture will be its impermanence and transience. Things will endure less than us. Every generation must build its own city. This constant renewal of the architectonic environment will contribute to the victory of Futurism which has already been affirmed by words-in-freedom, plastic dynamism, music without quadrature and the art of noises, and for which we fight without respite against traditionalist cowardice.
Computer visualization of Sain’Elia’s drawing
Archival postcard from the International Technology Exhibition in Paris in 1937, shows German (left) and Soviet (right) Pavilions standing opposite each other and perfectly sums up the topic. Years of the 30th was a period of different varieties of totalitarianism. Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini substantially influenced the development of architecture as a field (with the economic and ideological reasons) most dependent on the policy. Different, however, was the fate of architecture under the rule of three dictators. Hitler solved the problem in the simplest way - he denied the architecture and modern art as a whole, recognizing it as a perverse (entartete) result of an international Jewish-communist plot. Hitler had his own vision of architecture (he drew Neoclassical reconstruction projects of Linz), which is treated as an imperial decoration to the 1000-year Reich ceremony, but otherwise using the great architects such as Albert Speer, he created expressionistic version of the Empire, with art-deco decoration. Stalin's Empire was built by the legions of avant-gardist. For example, the so-called Brigade of May (originating from the Bauhaus), rode through Russia in a special train-offices and designed dozens of big industrial cities - eg. Magnitogorsk - in just three years. Stalin subordinated constructivism to Soviet ideology and created the architecture, which combined "architektons" of Malevich with art-deco ornamentation.
Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art Signed: Andre Breton and Diego Rivera Source: greg adargo kga1917@msn.com; HTMLMarkup: Nate Schmolze & David Walters for marxists.org, 2001. It is believed that the Manifesto was written by Trotsky and André Breton, although it was signed by Rivera and Breton. We can say without exaggeration that never has civilization been menaced so seriously as today. The Vandals, with instruments which were barbarous and comparatively ineffective, blotted out the culture of antiquity in one corner of Europe. But today we see world civilization, united in its historic destiny, reeling under the blows of reactionary forces armed with the entire arsenal of modern technology. We are by no means thinking only of the world war that draws near. Even in times of ‘peace’ the position of art and science has become absolutely intolerable. In so far as it originates with an individual, in so far as it brings into play subjective talents to create something which brings about an objective enriching of culture, any philosophical, sociological, scientific or artistic discovery seems to be the fruit of a precious chance; that is to say, the manifestation, more or less spontaneous, of necessity. Such creations cannot be slighted, whether from the standpoint of general knowledge (which interprets the existing world) or of revolutionary knowledge (which, the better to change the world, requires an exact analysis of the laws which govern its movement). Specifically, we cannot remain indifferent to the intellectual conditions under which creative activity takes place; nor should we fail to pay all respect to those particular laws which govern intellectual creation.
Władimir Tatlin, Tower for the The Monument to the Third International 1917-19
In the contemporary world we must recognize the ever more widespread destruction of those conditions under which intellectual creation is possible. From this follows of necessity an increasingly manifest degradation not only of the work of art but also of the specifically ‘artistic’ personality. The regime of Hitler, now that it has rid Germany of all those artists whose work expressed the slightest sympathy for liberty, however superficial, has reduced those who still consent to take up pen or brush to the status of domestic servants of the regime, whose task it is to glorify it on order, according to the worst possible aesthetic conventions. If reports may be believed, it is the same in the Soviet Union, where Thermidorian reaction is now reaching its climax.
Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art Signed: Andre Breton and Diego Rivera It goes without saying that we do not identify ourselves with the currently fashionable catchword, ‘Neither fascism nor communism!’ –a shibboleth which suits the temperament of the philistine, conservative and frightened, clinging to the tattered remnants of the ‘democratic’ past. True art, which is not content to play variations on ready-made models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time –true art is unable not to be revolutionary, not to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society. This it must do, were it only to deliver intellectual creation from the chains which bind it, and to allow all mankind to raise itself to those heights which only isolated geniuses have achieved in the past. We recognize that only the social revolution can sweep clean the path for a new culture. If, however, we reject all solidarity with the bureaucracy now in control of the Soviet Union, it is precisely because, in our eyes, it represents not communism but its most treacherous and dangerous enemy. The totalitarian regime of the USSR, working through the so-called cultural organizations it controls in other countries, has spread over the entire world a deep twilight hostile to every sort of spiritual value; a twilight of filth and blood in which, disguised as intellectuals and artists, those men steep themselves who have made of servility a career, of lying-for-pay a custom, and of the palliation of crime a source of pleasure. The official art of Stalinism, with a blatancy unexampled in history, mirrors their efforts to put a good face on their mercenary profession. The repugnance which this shameful negation of principles of art inspires in the artistic world –a negation which even slave states have never dared to carry so far –should give rise to an active, uncompromising condemnation. The opposition of writers and artists is one of the forces which can usefully contribute to the discrediting and overthrow of regimes that are destroying, along with the right of the proletariat to aspire to a better world, every sentiment of nobility and even of human dignity. The communist revolution is not afraid of art. It realises that the role of the artist in a decadent capitalist society is determined by the conflict between the individual and various social forms which are hostile to him. This fact alone, in so far as he is conscious of it, makes the artist the natural ally of revolution. The process of sublimation, which here comes into play and which psychoanalysis has analysed, tries to restore the broken equilibrium between the integral ‘ego’ and the outside elements it rejects. This restoration works to the advantage of the ‘ideal of self’, which marshals against the unbearable present reality all those powers of the interior world, of the ‘id’, which are common to all men and which are constantly flowering and developing. The need for emancipation felt by the individual spirit has only to follow its natural course to be led to mingle its stream with this primeval necessity –the need for the emancipation of man.
Enlightenment Rationalism and Humanism Naturalism
Romanticism 20th c. Abstraction Mechanicism = Machine Aesthetic Futurism Umberto Boccioni Unique Forms of Continuity in Space 1913
Giacomo Balla Abstract Speed + Sound 1913-1914
De Stilj
Theo van Doesburg, Arithmetische Compositie 1924
Gerrit Rietveld Red and Blue Chair 1917
Piet Mondrian Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red 1937–42,
Theo van Doesburg: Towards a plastic architecture, 1924. Originally published in De Stijl, XII, 6/7, Rotterdam 1924.<> 1. Form. Elimination of all concept of form in the sense of a fixed type is essential to the healthy development of architecture and art as a whole. Instead of using earlier styles as models and imitating them, the problem of architecture must be posed entirely afresh. 2. The new architecture is elemental; that is to say, it develops out of the elements of building in the widest sense. These elements - such as function, mass, surface, time, space, light, colour, material, etc. - are plastic. 3. The new architecture is economic; that is to say, it employs its elemental means as effectively and thriftily as possible and squanders neither these means nor the material. these means nor the material. 4. The new architecture is functional; that is to say, it develops out of the exact determination of the practical demands, which it contains within clear outlines. 5. The new architecture is formless and yet exactly defined; that is to (such as confectioners use) in which it produces the functional surfaces arising out of practical, living demands. In contradistinction to all earlier styles the new architectural methods know The functional space is strictly divided into rectangular surfaces having no individuality of their own. Although each one is fixed on the basis of the others, they may be visualized as extending infinitely. Thus they form a coordinated system in which all points correspond to the same number of points in the universe. It follows from this that the surfaces have a direct connexion to infinite space. 6. The new architecture has rendered the concept monumental independent of large and small (since the word ' monumental ' has become hackneyed it is replaced by the word 'plastic'). It has shown that everything exists on the basis of interrelationships. 7. The new architecture possesses no single passive factor. It has overcome the opening (in the wall). With its openness the window plays an active role in opposition to the closedness of the wall surface. Nowhere does an opening or a gap occupy the foreground; everything is strictly determined by contrast. Compare the various counter constructions in which the elements that architecture consists of surface, line, and mass are placed without constraint in a three-dimensional relationship.
8. The ground-plan. The new architecture has opened the walls and so done away with the separation of inside and outside. The walls themselves no longer support; they merely provide supporting points. The result is a new, open ground-plan entirely different from the classical one, since inside and outside now pass over into one another. 9. The new architecture is open. The whole structure consists of a space that is divided in accordance with the various functional demands. This division is carried out by means of dividing surfaces (in the interior) or protective surfaces (externally). The former, which separate the various functional spaces, may be movable; that is to say, the dividing surfaces (formerly the interior walls) may be replaced by movable intermediate surfaces or panels (the same method may be employed for doors). In architecture's next phase of development the ground-plan must disappear completely. The two-dimensional spatial composition fixed in a ground-plan will be replaced by an exact constructional calculation - a calculation by means of which the supporting capacity is restricted to the simplest but strongest supporting points. For this purpose Euclidean mathematics will be of no further use - but with the aid of calculation that is nonEuclidean and takes into account the four dimensions everything will be very easy. 10. Space and time. The new architecture takes account not only of space but also of the magnitude time. Through the unity of space and time the architectural exterior will acquire a new and completely plastic aspect. (Fourdimensional space-time aspects.) 11. The new architecture is anti-cubic; that is to say, it does not attempt to fit all the functional space cells together into a closed cube, but projects functional space- cells (as well as overhanging surfaces, balconies, etc.) centrifugally from the centre of the cube outwards. Thus height, breadth, and depth plus time gain an entirely new plastic expression. In this way architecture achieves a more or less floating aspect (in so far as this is possible from the constructional standpoint - this is a problem for the engineer!) which operates, as it were, in opposition to natural gravity. 12. Symmetry and repetition. The new architecture has eliminated both monotonous repetition and the stiffe quality of two halves - the mirror image, symmetry. There is no repetition in time, no street front, no standardization. A block of how is just as much a whole as the individual house. The laws that apply to the individual house also apply to the block of houses and to the city. In place of symmetry the new architecture offers a balanced relationship of unequal parts; that is to say, of parts that differ from each other by virtue of their functional characteristics as regards position, size, proportion and situation. The equality of these parts rests upon the balance of their dissimilarity, not upon their similarity. Furthermore, the new architecture has rendered front, back, right, left, top, and bottom, factors of equal value.
13. In contrast to frontalism, which had its origin in a rigid, static way of life, the new architecture offers the plastic richness of an all- sided development in space and time. 14. Colour . The new architecture has done away with painting as a separate and imaginary expression of harmony, secondarily as representation, primarily as coloured surface. The new architecture permits colour organically as a direct means of expressing its relationships within space and time. Without colour these relationships are not real, but invisible. The balance of organic relationships acquires visible reality only by means of colour. The modern painter's task consists in creating with the aid of colour a harmonious whole in the new fourdimensional realm of space- time - not a surface in two dimensions. In a further phase of development colour may also be replaced by a denaturalized material possessing its own specific colour (a problem for the chemist - but only if practical needs demand this material. 15. The new architecture is anti-decorative. Colour (and this is something the colour-shy must try to grasp) is not a decorative part of architecture, but its organic medium of expression. 16. Architecture as a synthesis of Neo- Plasticism. Building is a part of the new architecture which, by combining together all the arts in their elemental manifestation, discloses their true nature. A prerequisite is the ability to think in four dimensions - that is to say: the architects of Plasticism, among whom I also number the painters, must construct within the new realm of space and time. Since the new architecture permits no images (such as paintings or sculptures as separate elements) its purpose of creating a harmonious whole with all essential means is evident from the outset. In this way, every architectural element contributes to the attainment on a practical and logical basis of a maximum of plastic expression, without any disregard of the practical demands.
Rietveld Schröder House, Utrecht,1924
Van Doesburg, Interior of the Café-brasserie of the Aubette. in Strasbourg, 1926
Master Chart of Fashion, Wall Street Journal, 2011
Alfred Barr, Jr. Museum of Modern Art, 1936
http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052748703373404576148553019868810.html? mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_6#project %3DFASHIONWEB0216%26articleTabs%3Dinteractive
Surrealist Architecture?
A rare RenĂŠe Magritte. La Poitrine. 1961
"39GeorgeV" is an urban surrealism manifesto. It sheltered the renovation of an Hausmannian building in Paris, during year 2007. It's a life-size photographic work based on the original building, printed on canvas, enhanced with bas-relief.
Kettle House, Spain.
http://unusual-architecture.com/kettle-house-texas-usa/
The Unbereable Lightness of Building: Amazing photograph of the P&O Building in London getting dismantled bottom up. It reveals how the whole building is actually supported by the structural utility core, and that volume does not equate to weight. [Daily Mail via BLDGBLOG Stone House (Guimar達es, Portugal)
Hua Building, China
Antonio Gaudi, Casa Battlo, 1906
Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater, 1937
National Assembly Building, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1962
Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, 1959