LOOK INSIDE: Twentieth Century Architecture and Modernity

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to my son

If one were to describe the architecture of the 20th century in one word, the first thing that comes to mind is the concept of “modernity.” It is with “modernity” that it has imposed itself on the attention of the masses, very quickly forming their most intimate desires, promising and experimenting with solutions, discussing possible futures, and progressively expanding its influence on the flow of daily life.

But in what terms has “modernity” actually unfolded in the design field and in what way? This is a question that must take into consideration the variety of interpretations with which its character has been identified over time, through intense debates, absolutizations, and sensational misunderstandings (particularly in reference to the experiences of the Modern Movement which consecrated its rise and to the so-called “post-modernity” which ineptly celebrated its unlikely disappearance).

Above all, what were the significant stages and how, in some cases, was the initial effervescence undermined, gradually leading to forms of closure rather than opening to the world? Furthermore, how can we frame the idea of modernity with respect to our present?

To do answer these questions, the book highlights the interpretations of scholars such as Octavio Paz and Marshall Berman who, in not-so-distant times, first of all touched on key aspects of the theme (modernity as tradition, search, criticism, place of contradictions . . .) contributing—after having translated thinking in the design field—to the outline of a sort of identikit of what happened to architecture in relation to the concept of “modernity.” In fact, the same considerations intersect with those of wellknown architects in the field of design and are closely linked to the theses of a historian and critic of architecture such as John Summerson.

In a brilliant essay from 1941, The Mischievous Analogy, the latter had already exhaustively clarified what would happen to architecture in the coming future, in other words the present, by introducing the concept of “architecture tout court.” Several years later, he then went so far as to decree the existence of a “theory of modern architecture” (The Case for a Theory of ‘Modern’ Architecture, 1957) that was linked to the program and therefore to the passage of time according to a concept of architecture that was objectively far from stylistic speculations or other evanescent theories of a “formal” nature that would ignore the “contents” of the present, the needs of man, and the evolution of his identity.

And it is within the very heart of the present that both Paz’s and Berman’s energies are concentrated, in view of a strategic critical acceleration to give it a face, in an attempt to enhance it by recovering the “open” and often “contradictory visions” that characterized “modernity” at the end of the 19th century. It was these visions that could help us grasp the dimension of contemporary life with more ease and awareness, considering the long echo that the questions posed by modernity would leave in the air long after those who asked them and their own answers disappeared from the scene.

This is how, in the second part of the book, in a real relationship of continuity with the present, we get to outline some “contemporary modernisms.” In other words, those manifestations in the design field that more than others characterize the built environment today “in a modern sense,” especially regarding those aspects that further an additional bond with the social, so as to become a valid ally to constantly review the results achieved and offer new possibilities that allow us to adjust to events, including those related to the appearance of a virus that has devasted our way of life.

ARCHITECTURE AND MODERNITY/MODERNITY: A MIRAGE, A BUNDLE OF REFLECTIONS

We pursue modernity in its incessant metamorphoses, yet we never manage to trap her.

-Octavio Paz-

There is no finality in architecture—only continuous change.

-Walter Gropius-

“Modernity” 1 is a recurring theme in the architectural field and, from the mid-19th century, when cities changed their faces whether one liked it or not, it became a sort of obsession and encouraged the most diverse manifestations that have marked the history of architecture until today. Not surprisingly, in 2014, one of the sharpest and most cynical minds of contemporaneity, Rem Koolhaas (1944), entitled one of the sections of the Architecture Biennale Absorbing Modernity: 1914–2014. 2 Here he let us glimpse the repercussions over time, like a red thread that courageously unravels everywhere, changing, taking on new meanings, or more simply camouflaging itself in the bizarre scenario of contemporary urban stratifications. The city, in fact, was—and still is—the mechanism, the hero of modernity, which designed its features to the point of exploding the most intimate reasons for its far-sighted survival; the more the nature of the collective grows through diversification, the more modernity is articulated and developed, leaving the past behind. A cumbersome past that you soon realize you can do without.

In a brilliant essay from 1941,3 John Summerson (1904–1992) stated that

1 Bear in mind that the Latin root of the word “modern” is linked to the adverb “manner” (‘now; recently’), and it is in this broad sense that I will refer to it throughout the text.

2 Fundamentals is the title of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition, directed by Koolhaas (Venice, June 7–November 23, 2014), consisting of three main sections: Absorbing Modernity: 1914–2014/National Participations; Monditalia/Arsenale (a scan of Italy consisting of 82 films, 41 research projects, characterized by the fusion of architecture with the Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema sectors of the Biennale); Elements of Architecture/Central Pavilion (ancient, past, present, and future examples of the main architectural elements compared in rooms each dedicated to a single element). See AA.VV., Fundamentals, catalog of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition (Venice: Marsilio, 2014).

3 John Summerson, “The Mischievous Analogy,” (1941), Domus, no. 702, (February 1989): 17–28.

in the 19th century it was still legitimate to ask whether there was an architecture of one’s time, since at the time the Greek, Roman or Gothic style was still copied. In the 20th century, however, it would no longer make sense as, since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been a number of projects in the world related to “modernity” that allow us to affirm that it is “Modern Architecture,” that is, belonging to its own era exclusively, even starting from generalizations known as an accurate analysis of needs, the affirmation of mechanization, the exploitation of new materials, etc. which closely involve the architect. All these considerations were already evident towards the end of the 19th century, as in the case of Otto Wagner (1841–1918) who dedicated an intense essay to the theme of “modern architecture,” stating that:

All modern creations must correspond to the new materials and demands of the present if they are to suit modern man; they must illustrate our own better, democratic, self-confident, ideal nature and take into account man’s colossal technical and scientific achievements, as well as his thoroughly practical tendency—that is surely self-evident, 4

to the point of declaring that if architecture is not rooted in the life and needs of man, the risk is the loss of immediacy, of the ability to animate, of freshness, to the point of lowering itself to the level of tired reasoning, even ceasing to be art because: “The artist must always bear in mind that art’s calling is to serve man; the public does not live for the sake of art,” 5 but it must be just enough to pave the way for the architect of the future and the increasingly important role assumed within society, far from sterile stylistic diatribes since “we find ourselves in the midst of this movement. This frequent departure from the broad path of imitation and custom.” 6 At a certain point, in addition to being useless, the analogy with the past was harmful since the needs of common living and new functions to be satisfied were now in the foreground, which is why the “Modern Architect” left his or her role and instead became obsessed with the importance not of architecture but of the relationship between architecture

4 Otto Wagner, Modern Architecture. A Guidebook for His Students to This Field of Art (1895) (Santa Monica: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1988), 78.

5 Ibid. 122.

6 Ibid. 79.

and other things. This is how the path of what Summerson defined “architecture tout court” emerged, where monumental architecture would gradually give way to houses, condominiums, schools, libraries, hospitals, offices, ultimately to everything that did not lend itself “in appearance modern” to that grandiose increase in scale which is the essence of monumentality. Summerson notes,

The fact is that the whole idea of formal assembly in public has withered; and with it has gone the need for an architecture reflecting that collective sentiment which goes with the love of formal assembly. Today wherever we go and whatever we do, we go and act as individuals. . . . It is in this direction that we must look for the fruitful development of modern architecture. . . . Architecture is no longer required to give a symbolic cohesion to society. Cohesion is now maintained by new methods of communication. The chief function of architecture now is to bring a sense of dignity, refinement, subtlety, gaiety, to all the places where we live and work—to bring out the values which are latent everywhere in the measured enclosure of space. A beginning has been made in the creation of such an architecture, but only a beginning. 7

So let us take a closer look at why the concept of modernity can be left as a characteristic background of both our era and Summerson’s, navigating on sight, between misunderstandings and opacity, while the architects themselves ended up dissipating its fundamental aspects that the Anglo-Saxon historian went on to outline so well. These aspects were to be resumed later when the debate among experts in the sector be came increasingly heated, fraught with doubts, torn between new theses and proposals, with the advancement of pseudo theories, and repeated about turns. This occurred to such an extent that it actually created a cloud of false problems that have marked the history of 20th-century architecture and that continue to subtly shape its destinies. Modernity, in fact, is an extremely broad and easily declinable concept, so much so that it either risked being inflated or confusing the souls of its most ardent detractors.

7 Summerson, “The Mischievous Analogy,” (1941), cit., 22–23.

Architecture and modernity/Modernity: A mirage, a bundle of reflections

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) argued that modernity was not a doctrine but a “tradition,” which would have allowed it to remain and change at the same time, 8 guaranteeing its own diversity:

each poetic adventure is distinct, and each poet has sown a different plant in the miraculous forest of speaking trees. Yet if the works are diverse and each route is distinct, what is it that unites all these poets? Not an aesthetic, but a search [italics mine]. My search was not fanciful, even though the idea of modernity is a mirage, a bundle of reflections. 9

Such considerations immediately led to debunking even the most wellknown classification of architecture by watertight sectors, often competing with each other, especially starting from the well-known events related to the so-called Modern Movement in architecture. The latter, at the beginning of the last century, had devised a very convincing, therefore contagious, way of designing the idea of “modernity,” up to the vertigo of the soaring skyscrapers of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) whose charm has never ceased to echo on the skyline of the contemporary metropolis. 10 But it was Walter Gropius himself (1883–1969), 11 a key

8 In a philosophical sense, the term “tradition” means the act of transmitting something from person to person. Any social phenomenon that does not end in the space of a generation, is an object of tradition. In this context, what is interesting is the fact that since tradition is an act of men towards other men, it is affected by historical and cultural conditioning: therefore, a sort of dialectical tension continually occurs between the object of tradition, the ways in which it is transmitted and his interpretations.

9 Octavio Paz, “What is Modernity?,” Casabella, no. 664 (February 1999): 50. The text translated into Italian for the magazine constitutes the second part of the conference In Search of the present, which Paz held on December 8, 1990 on the occasion of the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature.

10 The Modern Movement should be understood as a philosophy of thought that developed between the First and Second World War to respond with a new idea of the city, of architecture, and of the domestic environment to the numerous stresses of the historical period characterized by the dominant affirmation of mechanization in material production processes and from unconditional confidence in the beneficial effects of an unlimited and univocal progress of humanity. In this sense, a prolific search for results was formalized, one different from the other, regarding, in particular, the use of new materials, the speed of events, the machine in its essence as a simplifying lever, and dispenser of low cost for all. These are all topics that we will look at more closely in the course of this discussion.

11 The work of Gropius, a German architect, designer, and urban planner, can be culturally and ideologically framed in the climate of the Weimar republic (1919–1933), culminating in the founding of the Staatliches Bauhaus (1919), a unique educational experience of its kind at that historical moment, designed to redesign the figure of the architect and the influence exerted on the social, as we will see later.

man of “modernity” in the design field, who clarified what was meant by “tradition,” stating that: “Whenever man imagined he had found “eternal beauty,” he fell back into imitation and stagnation. True tradition is the result of constant growth; its quality must be dynamic, not static, to serve as an inexhaustible stimulus to man.” 12 And as Paz him-

12 Walter Gropius, “Archaeology or Architecture for Contemporary Buildings?” (1949), in Walter Gropius, Scope of Total Architecture (1955) (New York: Collier Books, 1970), 67–68. The article was published in the New York Times Magazine (October 23, 1949) with the title “Not Gothic but Modern for our Colleges.”

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, Seagram Building, New York, 1958. Photo: Jesse David Harris works.

Contemporary modernisms. Our past, our present

even the most trained minds in the culture of fast food and the smallest fashions. It is as if modernity has collapsed in itself, rotated, and then re-emerged naked in a very successful performance of past and present that coexist, “close” but “distant” (a bit like the rules imposed by the current pandemic . . .) and with the burden of contradictions that the truest modern spirit carries with it, since “to appropriate the modernities of yesterday can be at once a critique of the modernities of today and an act of faith in the modernities—and in the modern men and women— of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.” 121

121 Berman, All That Is Solid Melts into Air. The Experience of Modernity (1982), cit., 36.

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