TOWARDS A MONUMENTAL FORMALISM

In this chapter, the rise of the modernism is put in its social and historical context. The vision of the modernist architects is presented in relation to the reconstruction of European cities after the Second World War. The global urban view of the modernists meets the vision for a ‘new man’ in a ‘new society’. The chapter determines the modernist approach to understand how our cities changed during the XXth century.

The Second World War presents itself as a traumatic event in Western Europe from which a real shift in the modernist movement appeared. This move occurs within the architecture style and the urban planning as well. Modernist movement before WWII is an architectural response to the needs of a plot, to the needs of comfort for everyone. After the war, the architect became politically engaged in the urban development and started designing big scale projects in order to redefine the city.

“About 1952 there was a significant shift within Modernism from what had come to be called Functionalism, or the International Style, toward a monumental formalism. There was increasing interest in highly sculptural masses and spaces, as well as in the decorative qualities of diverse building materials and exposed structural systems.”10

The idea of the ‘high-rise building’ became a new concept of the modern society after the War. As the functional modernism brought to the city a significant rise of the sanitary conditions, the after War formalist modernism handled the urban fabric. Formalism appeared as an answer to the yet named concern of ‘the parsimonious use of land’ but moreover to the desire for many cities to build up a new sense of image and identity. With this new ideology, towers played an important role in the urban reconstruction process.11

Indeed, the Second World War has been undoubtably more damaging than the First War, following the technical progress in armament. The destructions could be deliberate, voluntary or even accidental and several monuments disappeared. In 1954, after many procedures by the UNESCO, an intergovernmental conference was organised in La Haye and this was the starting point for the Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. It was the first international document in this field; the convention hedged both movable and non-movable heritage including architectural, archeological and historical heritage. But the cities suffered from the massive destructions and the reconstructions express a high variety in the strategies in terms of urbanism and architecture. Examples of reconstruction following the WWII are innumerable. After several bombing attacks, the city centre of Le Havre was entirely torn down. Entrusted to Auguste Perret Atelier, the reconstruction of the city, between 1945 and 1964, was a real big scale laboratory for the modernists theories.12

The aftermath of the Second World War and the general context of reconstruction encouraged many cities to develop a new urban plan in order to generate a new economical and architectural energy. It is the starting point and almost a pretext to inject a large modernisation process of the city and to develop many urban projects.

“Modernity then is a temporal/historical concept by which we refer to our understanding of the present in its unique historical presentness, that is, in what distinguishes it from the past, from the various relics or survivals of the past, and also in what it promises for the future and its trends, quests and discoveries.”13

The new modernist ensemble, like the high-rise housing estates, were mostly built according to the concept and utopia of reputed architects like Le Corbusier (1887-1965). With the CIAM (Congrès International d’Architecture Moderne), they had an important impact on the conception of housing and more particularly on social housing. According to Le Corbusier, a house needed to function as une machine à habiter and should only, in an optimal way, present the function of a dwelling. The CIAM conference of 1929, in Frankfurt, that was also dealing with the existing industrial city problems, created the response to what will become a big need for housing after WWII. They presented a concept founded on the modernist ideas of the time. For Walter Gropius (1883-1969), this plan was going to be housing for the new ‘urban industrial population’ (1962).

“On the scale of the city, the Modern movement argued against the chaotic ‘growth’ and for a planned approach, which should be guided by a puritan member of the technically skilled elite. […] Orderliness, the strict separation of functions and high-rises within large green and open areas open to the public, are amongst the core elements of the modernistic doctrine.”14

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After WWII, the modernist ideal became much more of an evidence. It appeared like the best solution at the right moment. At the time, the theory behind this architectural movement is the ambitious ‘good city’ and ‘right way of living’. Indeed, it was the intention that through architecture, urban design and global planning, the ‘new man’ and a ‘social transformation’ could be created.15 This vision for the society aided the authorities to legitimise high scale projects for their cities. Moreover, the new construction techniques and materials made those projects possible in a short period of time, in the light of the urgent housing need after the war.

Many European cities suffered from the war, but, in addition to it, the quality of the old XIXth century city started to decrease, some shantytowns even appeared at the fringe of several cities. But a high pressure emerged on housing demand following rural exodus and mass migrations from the colonies.

This vision for the modern urban fabric totally redefined the organisation, on a same plan, of the city’s centralised institutions and its society. The city would be the new image of a modern and functional population. “The city was differentiated according to the following basic function types: Production, administration, consumption, recreation, habitation. For each of these functiontypes (types of social interaction) the Modernist architects and urbanists developed functionally specialised urban typologies, instantiated as distinct, separate, specialised, repetitive zones.”16

The vision for the city also advocate for the separation between the pedestrian and the car traffic routes. The dwellings or administations became high-rise concrete towers with an optimised orientation leaving a wider space on the ground for nature.

Those principles are very well represented by Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin for Paris, with a generic design of an ideal modernist and functionalist city where the concept of separation, specialisation and repetition are manifested and where each zone is frankly distinct and recognisable.

From a general view, the modernist architectural style is defined by a real rise of its adaptability allowed by the formal openness it demonstrates. This openness is reached by the level of abstraction that the architecture gained, in contrast with the previous architectural styles. Supported by the idea that architectural design is a layout organisation of spaces, this new abstraction gives this freedom and innovation on both structural and functional level. But these innovative openness and adaptability of architecture, also appeared at the same time as a sort of formal restriction and compositional concept. The modernist vocabulary released itself from the classical rules dictated by treatise such as the symmetry or the proportions. It is instead directed by orthogonality and hierarchical organisation based on the principles of separation, specialisation or repetition.

15 FITTING Peter, Urban planning/utopian dreaming: Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh today, Utopian Studies, 2002

16 SCHUMACHER Patrik, The Stages of Capitalism and the Styles of Architecture, ASA web-magazine & (forthcoming): UED (Urban Environment Design) Magazine, London, 2016

Those formal constraints and compositional principles are the basis to any kind of purpose and can be easily adapted to different functions such as the industry. Indeed, after the war, the city is deserted by the industries in search for place and relocate them out of the town. The industry sector, that also needed to be rebuild after after the war, becomes a large laboratory for the modernist architects. This period is the era of mass production based on a post-Fordist scheme, but it is also the era of neo-liberalism with the rise of the capitalist economy. If the city lost its industries, it became then the new field for the bureaucratic society. It is in this economic and social context that several trade centres appeared. Several companies started to build their administrative headquarters inside the town and in some cities, some business centres were even created; strongly modifying the skyline of cities. The authorities also had the aim to create a powerful metropole with the modernisation of cultural public equipment and their administration. Finally, the massive arrival of the car trafficking also deeply modified the existing urban fabric where a strong importance was given to the accessibility.

With a view based on the modernist utopia, the second half of the XXth century saw a certain level of societal development and a qualitative proliferation of modernist ensembles. A new monumental formalist modernism arrived then as a solution to the war damages but also as a chance to redefine the society through a global urban planning. This movement reveals thus a true desire for cities to generate a new identity and attractiveness that can unsurprisingly be associated to a sort of city branding.