'Premodern' Modernism by Sara Prat Soto

'Premodern' Modernism ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. [MA AHTI]

‘Premodern’ Modernism MA AHTI Summer Dissertation SARA PRAT SOTO Professor Colin Davies

London, 2 September 2011

‘Premodern’ Modernism MA AHTI Summer dissertation

Index 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Introduction, 3 A brief point on modernism, 6 Contextualization, 7 Precedents and reasons, 8 Recognition of modernism in classical history of architecture, 10 Domènech I Montaner, 12 'A New Style for a New Country', 13 Analysis of the text, 14 Origin for a new style: Bötticher and Schopenhauer, 16 All about Gothic, 18 All about Europe, 21 Conclusion,22 Bibliography, 24 Illustrations, 26

1, Introduction ‘Nationalism is one ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests’ Encyclopaedia Britannica th

‘Nationalism’ is a modern idea, established during the 18 century as a major sentiment which would develop the aim of life, in a public and in a private way, and had extreme consequences in universal history. It is bizarre to start an essay on architectural analysis defining an extreme political term as 'nationalism’. But the subject of this thesis arises from the notion that it played a central role on various architectural movements in one of the most active periods of theoretical architectural debate, the nineteenth century. The term ‘A New Style for a New Country’ lost its meaning within the text of the founding manifesto of the AA and Domènech I Montaner's treatise in 1 , 1848 because it was belonging to everywhere .Kostof, in his ‘A History of Architecture’ says that ‘Archaeology was pushed aside by a vigorous fancy; dogma, by what mid-Victorians liked to call ‘sensibility’. Most practitioners and theorists agreed that the age must have its own architecture. But modern idiom must be based on what had gone 2 before’ . This natural need of relating architecture to this new political feeling could seem interesting in the context of emerging European nations. However, as I will endeavour to demonstrate, it ceased to be an architectural issue and developed to another form of propaganda. This thesis will focus on the misunderstanding of some of these historical circumstances, so-called nationalist issues, as the key of all the hubbub and quarrels between historicists, new Gothic and classicists among others. From the first manifestations in Pugin’s Catholic ideals, and from Ruskin to Germany’s Judgenstil, a vivid interest has been perpetuated in creating a link to a ‘nation-style’. One of the most obvious cases is Catalan Modernism which, as I will explain later, due to the efforts of the nationalist movement called La Renaixença [Il.1], is claimed to be the most representative element, together with the Catalan language of a society which had lost its origin in the midst of the Middle Ages and struggled to develop a new identity to represent an emerging industrial society towards northern Europe. It is pointless to discuss the real characteristics of this movement within the scope of this thesis but to focus on the subject of the perceived link between nationalism and architecture. In an effort to align Catalonia with European trends of the time, this complex movement cited modernism as a symbol of national identity according to later scholarly research on the subject. However, if some of the principal texts of the time are analysed, we will find no claim for national identity whatsoever. As I will illustrate, the central idea of ‘nationalism’ in these texts on Montaner's 'A New Style for a New Country' is unfounded as Montaner concludes that a universality of styles is more appropriate for a new civilisation. In actuality, the title is misleading and was wrongly referred to by scholars as a basis for Catalan Modernism. Domènech argued against individuality. Likewise, Gaudí, who supposedly strived for natural and indigenous materials, had nothing to do with this nationalist style. Despite being the Catalan president and a well acknowledged politician, I believe that the 'new country' which Domenech refers to, was not Catalonia but a new 3 international entity. 4

So what is left of the architecture? If we set aside nationalist identity, and look at the the roots of the Candem Society in England or the ‘authentic’ traditional brick Germanic style we find a vast number of revival styles in diverse contexts 1 2 3

It was first mentioned by Pere Hereu, former head of Department of Composition Department in Barcelona’s school, in the text ‘Els anys d’apranentatge de Gaudí’ The needed reference to the past is explained by Gideon later as the need of the individual to be set in a wider frame in history and take part of it. 3 Similar circumstances were found in Horta’s or Guimard’s context. With Horta and the flamenco national identity or, retrieving Guimard’s words, when he wrote in 1903: ‘one style of architecture, to be truth, must be from the land where it is and from the time when it is required. The beginning of the Middle ages and of the XIX century, together with my doctrine, should provide the basis on a French Rebirth and a sheer new style. We can leave Belgians, Germans and English develop for themselves a national art’. The need for the self-definition was shared in all European countries even though with different approaches in different places. The Cambridge Camden Society, an architectural society, was founded in 1839 by undergraduates at Cambridge University to “promote the study of Gothic Architecture, and Ecclesiastical Antiques”. During its twenty-year span, the Cambridge Camden Society influenced greatly the Anglican Church and reinvented the architectural design of the parish church. The Society had one goal: to return the churches of England to the religious splendor of the Middle Ages. The Society held tremendous influence in the architectural and ecclesiastical worlds because of the success of this argument: that the corruption and ugliness of the 19th century could be escaped by the earnest attempt to recapture the piety and beauty of the Middle Ages. 3

which have some points in common. They refer to an historical and local manner [which naturally was linked to nationalist sentiment], refer to history [looking for authenticity] and have similar forms developed from many eclectic styles subjectively merged and discussed by the new architectural scholars. I do believe that the style they were looking for was only the natural need of building up a new language for architecture far from the incomprehensible classic style. They wanted to find a language to comprehend the reality which would be much more linked to subjectivity: perception, emotion, feeling… in a society in constant change. Subjectivity was extremely related to ornamentation in a strange point in history when the classic treatises were being questioned. This unpleasant topic was one of Domeneh's more interesting ideas. 5

In 1870, LeDuc wrote L’Art Russe , where it was considered that the constitutive elements of a national style were subdued to the principles of structural rationalism. We will look at Bötticher’s ideas on ornamentation after browsing the first treatises to see why Viollet Le Duc, Semper or Domènech were so concerned about this and to make it one of the pillars of their essential studies on history of architecture. We will try to focus on the particularly overrated view of Gothic in most of the cases all around Europe to see why, for example, the view of Girona’s cathedral by Edmund Street was one of the most praised buildings in Europe and served as a basis of multiple studies for the Candem society. The same Gothic which is clearly the basis of Domènech’s Castell dels tres dragons, Palau de la Música or Gaudí’s Sagrada Família. I will finish this introduction with a personal point. It seems strange to me to write about the broken ties between nationalism and architecture which have already been studied together and considered as a whole in Catalan environments of study. Yet there is this kind of reiteration of the same slogan in ‘non-nationalistic’ places like the original AA manifesto. I feel the need for a 'language' is by far what concerned the intellectuals such as Domènech and not identity. I would dare to say that the politician Domènech had another brain for architecture or at least it is what we can see when analysing his writings on architecture. His references to German countries was more focused on technical issues than nationalism even though some critics have claimed German philosophy as the primordial source of this mutual breading of cultures. I think it is interesting to see what aspects of Semper’s technical ornamental thoughts are more aligned to Domènech’s works than any fantasy of Hegelian philosophical national experience. I would also like to express my sincere apologies for strongly focusing on this particular movement for obvious personal reasons. Yet, after research I feel the need to reveal this uneasy disclosure and also spread this meaning to cover the full range of apparently distorted and isolated art trends generally gathered together and labelled ‘Art Nouveau’. The new subjective language concerned about the issue of ornamentation is the only reasonable language to be expressed as a unique nineteenth century style if one ever existed. Therefore Domènech’s text will be analysed to demonstrate the miscalculated relation to his political life and consequently, I will attempt to explain the reasons why this particular subject was referred to in the critiques of Catalan Modernism during the 1980's. It is astonishing that during the fifties, when all the doctrines on architecture were written, it was completely ignored, demoting it to the division of non-academic regional texts. I will also try to 6 explain the reasons why this happened due to the Spanish dictatorship at the time . And to explain this entire muddle, I will focus first hand on the origins of ‘nationalism’ in theory of architecture. Goethe’s essay on German nationalism 7 and Winckelman’s ideas on the diverse styles for diverse ‘places’ will be used to backup my theory.In the second part, I will focus more on the text itself and will try to define the constants sustained by Montaner’s principles which are far from Hegel’s idea, except for the admiration of the past, turning to more technological doctrines such as Bötticher’s. Under the aesthetics of Schopenhauer and stained with Wagner’s utopias pictures, Domènech might possibly study the position to develop a style totally subdued to modernity: science, technology and new aesthetics. We know that he was influenced by LeDuc’s and Semper’s and this would be the reason why some critiques, such as Manuel de Solà Morales, considered his buildings the footprint of the Spanish version of the International Style. A new modern 5

‘Tout cela ne rappelle en rien l'architecture classique occidentale, mais était parfaitement approprié aux besoins et au climat de la Russie. Les matériaux le plus habituellement employés, la brique, se prêtaient à cette architecture concrète composée de masses, et dans laquelle les détails ne prennent qu'une minime importance. A l'instar des Orientaux, lorsque les édifices sont voûtés, les couvertures métalliques ou de tuiles reposent directement sur les voûtes, disposées de telle sorte que les eaux s'écoulent entre les reins. Le programme touchant la structure est aussi simple que rationnel, car ces voûtes pénétrant les murs se tracent à l'extérieur et forment l'abri des parements.’ Chapter IV ‘Francisco Franco was a Spanish dictator military general and head of state of Spain from October 1936 (as a unified nation from 1939 onwards), and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November 1975. He came to power as a prominent member of the far-right Falange movement.’ According to Wiklipedia ‘Winckelmann was a German art historian and archaeologist who was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art. Many consider him the father of the discipline of art history. His would be the decisive influence on the rise of the neoclassical movement during the late 18th century.’ According to Wikipedia 4

civilisation had to be represented and architects of the late nineteenth century, in a much more Nietzsche narcissistic way than any other individual reasons such as Berlage or Kerr in the origins of the AA. Finally, I will discuss a consequence of this original ‘definitory’ system based on the new material and its new rules on the equilibrium of forces and inertia: iron. And a direct effect of this will be my personal trial to figure out why Gothic was at the forefront of these discourses. And finally, what it has in common with the mother topic of the essay: modernism. Could we also ask how this subject compares to Monet’s ‘Impression, soleil levant’?[Il.2] Nothing far from Impressionism, French, Spanish, German or Catalan. It was only about quick brushstrokes pretending to capture a fading vanquished day…

2, A brief point on Modernism ‘And this is a typical ugliness of Barcelona: this bad taste, from wherever it is from, must not be confused with the bad taste from everywhere else in the world; this is us! Ah! So is there something which is ours? Would you prefer the good taste of a very well copied elegance? No. I do celebrate that there is in us something that bothers our taste’ Joan Martorell

When you study and live in a city with a strong character like Barcelona, you soon realize that signs of identity which strive to be recognised as different in every aspect to all other places. It could be said, in Norberg-Schulz words, the 9 genius loci of this city lies in each Catalan word, the hallmark of this culture, building or persona. Barcelona is a city full of tourists, like any European capital. Long queues of them wait in front of the most popular Modernist buildings which were recovered in the Barcelona of the 80’s for the Olympic Games after the long silence of Franco’s forty years of dicatorship. The Games were the main feature of the revived Renaixença, the era when the nation of Catalonia was revealed. Catalan modernism leaves no one indifferent. ‘One of the most hideous buildings in the world’’ said George Orwell when staring at Sagrada Família. His words, nowadays, seem to be scandalous in a world where even the press starts talking about Gaudímania. You can breathe it when strolling around any street in Barcelona. Misinformed tourists look for any signal of it. Ten years ago ‘The International Gaudi year was proclaimed and Gaudí was even canonized by the Pope last year. Gaudí fever has not finished yet as it is moving from ‘being known’ towards an insane and uncultivated populism. Some research among people’s reactions leave you spellbound. Apart from the common praise for ‘the master’ of Catalan architects [among them Foster, Van Hensenberg, Calatrava and Isosaki] using words like ‘revolutionary’, ‘brilliance’, ‘genuineness’… , others keep on talking about ‘tasteless profusion’ or ‘torture of the imagination, bulbous obscenities…’. And perhaps this wide range of different subjective reactions is, by far, the most interesting part of it. Another example is that of Le Corbusier. He declared to Salvador Dali in 1929 at his home of Roussy de Sale that ‘Gaudí was the manifestation of the disgrace of the city of Barcelona’. However, at the end of his life, he changed his mind and considered him a genius. Dali considered Gaudí the first ‘author imperialist’ in a sheer 10 Nietschezian way. If you continue strolling down Passeig de Gràcia and make your way into the fake Gothic neighbourhood, you can be shocked by the façade of the Palau de la Música Catalana. Still lots of guided maps fill with the view of the main door, ignoring the form of Miquel Blay’s ‘The Catalan Sang’ on the corner. It is exuberant and opens the way to the cramped area called Ribera, still not that damaged by commercial tourism. Confused by the overwhelming lines that hide a LeDuc’s rationalist structure behind, El Palau is considered to be the blue-print of the later overrated Spanish rationalist and fascist architecture of Grupo R: Palau’s walls could be considered as being Coderch’s [Il.08] curtain wall structures in the World Trade Centre in the centre of the business city of Barcelona. Sagrada Família and Casa Milà are Barcelona’s Big Ben or Eiffel Tower and no discussion is necessary, it is a given. Still, what concerns me, is not the building itself and the role it developed because of contemporary tourist needs of a city which became dependant on a new tourist project, the so-called ‘Olympic games’ . The relevant picture of Catalan Modernism remains an intellectual work of its inventors, who together with other artists, picked up the main concerns and theoretical discussions from northern countries and created their own architectonic language. It is interesting to see to what extent they look over these points and how they contribute to the general discussion of the century and how it could develop to the International style, the Spanish ‘Miesian´ version.

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Catalan eighteen century poet Norberg Schulz, Christian:´Genius Loci, Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture´ Rizzoli, New York. 1980 A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "will to power" (der Wille zur Macht), which provides a basis for understanding human behaviour, a more important element than pressure for adaptation or survival as Shopenhouer had suggested before. According to Nietzsche, only in limited situations is the drive for conservation precedent over the will to power. The natural condition of life, according to him, is one of profusion. 6

3, Contextualization ‘Not Morris’ England or Horta’s Belgium or Mackintosh’s Scotland or Wagner’s Autria or Berlage’s Holland had the same density than Modernist Catalonia. In no other country the adventure of the seeking for a new style, the adventure of the first stage of modern architecture, produced so many works and developed to a nearly popular expression’ 11

Oriol Bohigas

Renaixença means literally ‘Rebirth’. It is quite normal for any text on Catalan modernism to start with the contextualization of the Renaixença. To understand this, the origins of the Renaixença must be understood. It was merely a Catalan cultural movement of the nineteenth century. It is based on the concepts of the German Romanticist 12 Herder on language and motherland and it was created by the new social class, the bourgeoisie, who looked to Romanticist culture in the medieval past to create new values and ethics for a totally new society, that one of the Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, Spain remains inside a traditional feudal system of organization, absorbed in constant wars between absolutist supporters and intellectuals closer to French revolutionary society. New Catalan society founded in the European Romanticism mould, looked towards the industrialized northern countries. Normal history books reveal that later movements such as Modernism let the bourgeoisie introduce art in their dreamt society, modern and nationalist. It happened to become a sign of economic power and cosmopolitism and was later superseded by the new movement called Noucentisme, akin to English pre-Raphaelites painters, more rational and less ornamented. They usually accused modernists of being the manifestation of the ‘Romantic chaos’. Original German Romanticism, in a natural reaction against Rationalism and Neoclassicism, and it emphasized the power of the subjectivity and the individual and happened to develop into the so-called Post-romantic movements which involve Modernism and later Surrealism, which is regarded as Romanticism taken to extremes. The language used by this new movement is perfectly depicted in the view of ‘Der Wandere uber dem Nabelmeer’ [Il.10] by Caspar David Friederich. Some have seen the roots of later Nazism in the back of the Wanderer, the direct link it to German nationalism. In order for architecture to express Romanticism, it had to be individualistic, a kind of personal expression. The relation of it to autonomous craftsmen, and later industrial individuals for its relation to the Industrial era developed to organic exuberance using materials such as cast iron. It happened in Germany, in England and also in Catalonia. It was not about the place, it was the architecture of the railway stations, the Eiffel Tower of metal bridges. It was also the architecture of the Brighton pavilion. Iron became the new pencil of the architect and this is the reason why the issue of ornamentation became so important when John Ruskin proclaimed that ‘Ornamentation is the principal part of architecture’.

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Oriol Bohigas is one of the leading Catalans architects from the Spanish Transition in the early 70’s. He is famous for his essays and played an important role over the school of Architecture in Barcelona. Herder was a German philosopher of the end of the eighteenth century very concerned about patriotic ideas. He wrote: ‘"he that has lost his patriotic spirit has lost himself and the whole worlds about himself", and added "in a certain sense every human perfection is national". The nation, however, was individual and separate, distinguished, to Herder, by climate, education, foreign intercourse, tradition and heredity as it is explained on the manuals of general philosophy. He said: "wonderfully separated nationalities not only by woods and mountains, seas and deserts, rivers and climates, but more particularly by languages, inclinations and characters" and adding: "the savage who loves himself, his wife and child with quiet joy and glows with limited activity of his tribe as for his own life is in my opinion a more real being than that cultivated shadow who is enraptured with the shadow of the whole species", isolated since "each nationality contains its centre of happiness within itself, as a bullet the centre of gravity"

4, Precedents and reasons ‘Freedom; it also shews itself as an essential one, in view of the principle of Freedom generally. The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature, it is our business to investigate.’ Hegel in ‘The philosophy of History’ The condition fin de siècle was also found in Glasgow, Brussels, Helsinki and Vienna. It also was a direct response to a superseded antique monarchic regime and an emerging enemy in Madrid. A clear example was the creation in 1875 of the new school of architecture, mirrored in Beaux-Arts école, led by professors such as Rogent, Domènech, Vilaseca or Gallissà, in order to rival the old school in Madrid. Within this new school, all eclectic historicist movements were studied under the same conditions. New generations of professors felt the freedom to establish their own system of education, starting from scratch, so they decided on the basis of the European contemporary context. Historicism was praised and set as a model for the first Modernists but the trends changed radically in the eighties when there was a turn against conservative Romanticism which would not let space for change. The magazine l’Avenç, gathered some of the new characteristics on the new movement later called Noucentisme [Il.09] which reprehended historicism and faced towards a much clearer respect for European style in a Semper like way of positivism towards science and a breaking-off with classical aesthetics. 13

When Joan Martorell , before Montaner, was designing the Justice Palace of Sagnier (1887-1908) from a style which would be considered a kind of Greek revival, he used shadows to impress and the Greek elements were only ornamental. It was a claim for the freedom of eclectically usage as we will discover in Domènech’s later Castell dels Tres Dragons[Il.4]. They wanted to invent a tradition, not from scratch, but from dubious historical platitudes which emerged from a Wagnerian and Nietzscherian hubbub environment. 14

Goethe wrote in 1772: ‘Von deustcher baukunst’: ‘Which surprised me with an unexpected sensation of sight, as I stepped in front. Could a whole, big impression filled my soul that, because he was a thousand discordant details, I taste it and enjoy, but not recognize and explain. They say that it was so with the joys of heaven, and how many times I have returned to enjoy this heavenly-earthly joy, to embrace the spirit of our elder brothers giants in their works…’ This is possibly one of the origins of the lace nationalism-architecture. Why, according to Winckelmann, had art to be developed to manifest ‘the spirit of the country’? Hegel’s Romanticism is probably the origin. The idea of ‘sum’ of ‘good things’ from all the former epochs is the basis of the eclecticism which will fulfil ninetieth century, like when Hope states in his essay ‘An historical essay on architecture’ that every period must be studied, repeated and recovered. Goethe’s text on Gothic architecture was rapidly taken as a basis for ‘national architecture’ in a reaction to Roman classicism. According to Pere Hereu, the origin of this relationship must be set up on Winckelmann, in his ‘History of Ancient Art’. According to him, style means common features in places and times which make a particular point in history different from any other. Style to him is a vehicle to discover the particularity of an entity, a so called people. This national spirit in relation to art, expressivity or language will soon end in the period we are studying, as we will discover later on. To finish with this brief scan and not as a precedent, another text existed which dealt with the problem of style in relation to national identity. It is Berlage’s1909 ‘Thoughts on style’. He stated that his moment lacked culture as there had only been two fully cultural periods in history which were the classical and the medieval. There is only space for individuals in a period like this, the subjectivist architecture. He goes further when he talks about art as a developer of the Marxist period. The style of the epoch must understand that is one of transformation, heading to a new proletarian society and finish saying, that the unavoidable process of changing the model, will end up with a style properly proletarian. When it happens, art will be settled on a religious idea, that of the grandest periods of history and will provoke the same essence of the sublime that happened in such glorious times. It will be the style of worshiping human kind’. Semper’s pupil, who is considered the ‘father of modern architecture in The Netherlands’, considered that Romantic historicism has transformed into Marxist historicism. His aim was more political than the 13

Joan Martorell was a Catalan Gothic revival architect, scholar of Elies Rogent. His oeuvre is vast but not very recognised. It is interesting how he is considered one of the pioneers of pre-modernist Gothic Revival in Catalonia and this is why, at the beginning, it was suggested to write about his possible relation with Edmund Street. He praised LeDuc and had his doctrine 'as a Bible' as said by his students. The author of Faust does not need further presentation as one of the key German writer of all the times. ‘Von deustcher baukunst’ was an early and very influential essay on German architecture. 8

one studied here. Yet, Marxist ideas would be reckoned as a direct consequence of the machine society. His position always ‘in the middle’ between traditionalist and modernists is defined very well.

5, Recognitions of modernism in classical history of architecture 'Domènech i Montaner's article "En busca D'una Arquitectura Nacional" (In search of a national architecture), published 1878 in the journal La Renaixença, reflected the way architects at that time sought to build structures that reflected the Catalan character' Wikipedia Modernism seems to be extremely relevant to Catalan history of architecture, and certainly it is. The main work to broach this subject is that of Alexandre Cirici Pellicer, who strived to re-evaluate the movement. Nevertheless, and as a part of this research, I have found disappointing how the major studies of contemporary architecture have ignored this movement. I reckon that it is not a really known fact in Barcelona but it is certainly revealing. Gideon, in ‘Space, Time and Architecture’ does not even mention Domènech I Montaner or Gaudí. In the chapter regarding the time between 1890 and 1900, he talks about Horta, Berlage and Wagner but there is no word on Catalan Modernism. I think his analysis on the need of the definition of style in relation with the weight of history, though, is very related to the topic explained here. According to him, Ruskin and Burckhardt hated their own age and 'sought in draw the means for its regeneration from other periods'. It is quite obvious that Domênech knew Gideon and his machine-friendly theories, yet the recognition is not mutual. Thorough him, Domènech probably knew about the European discussions. Gideon explains the hypothetical reasons why looking at the past according his personal view of the history of architecture. A view that is relevant in this study because it understands the period analysed 15 here as the transitory time we are describing. What Tschudi-Madsen says about Domènech in his ‘Art-Noveau’, is that he is far away from it. He was a Norwegian art historian and is considered the pioneer of the discovery of Art Noveau in the 50's. His professor, Nikolaus Pevsner, one of the most respected British scholars, who praised Mackintosh and rediscovered him, does not mention him in his book ‘Pioneers of Modern Architecture and Design’, written in 1949. And to conclude this list, Robert Schumtzler in ‘Art-Noveau-Jugendsil’ considers the Palau de la Música [Il.05,06] a sub-version of historicism according to the Maria Lluisa Borràs’ analysis. Spiro Kostof, the influential Californian professor, in his ‘A History of Architecture’ does mention Gaudí, as a subversion of Horta’s Art Noveau, describing only one of his buildings, Casa Milà. Actually, the only thing which seems to interest him about Gaudí is that he does not use the kind of industrial materials which were so linked to this ‘Art and Crafts’ individualistic kind of architecture. Frampton, in his manual, considers Gaudí in the same regard as Horta and Berlage in that they are followers of LeDuc´s theories. Gaudí is considered a scholar of the influence that Arts and Crafts movement had on Glasgow and the rebirth of Celtic Irish culture in this school and it is compared to La Renaixença. He refers to the political situation and Catalan nationalism in his book. 16

Maria Lluisa Borràs says that one of the reasons for the dismissal of Catalan Modernism in general history of architecture may be the political circumstances in Spain during the 50’s, when such studies were starting to be written on architecture. Those particular circumstances are very obvious to me but I think they will require some contextualization. Under the pressure of the decadent post civil war period, Spain was shadowed by the power of the dictator Franco who remained as the leader of the country until his death in 1973. Fifties were more optimistic years because of the improvement in the lives of the post-war poor during the forties. Optimism for a new generation of vanquished people who were still alive and lived under threat, but still had a chance to have a better life. As known, Franco's ideas of ‘The Grand Spain of the lost Empire´ were all about Spanish nationalism and no regional cultural differences were accepted which referred to the historically different nations in the state, such as Catalonia and the Basque Country, which suffered the worst part of the oppression. Any sign of regional identity was forbidden, such as language or artistic expression and this continued until the early 70's. Catalan language, which had to be reformulated and formalized during the eighteenth century, was absolutely eradicated from everywhere and its use happened to prosper in secret. Nothing was written in Catalan and nothing was explained on Catalonia. If any text was published, the unique character of Catalonia could not be highlighted. The architecture which randomly occupied most of the

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Gideon's book was extremely influential on the theories of the fifties and on the first CIAM. Domenech's probably knew very well his 'mechanical' experiences. She is a relevant art historian in Catalonia involved in the creation of organizations such as Fundació Miró or Joan Brossa. She was very influential and undertook an accurate analysis on the repercussion of Catalan Modernism all around the world. 10

parts of the city was simply different. It was also made during a period when Catalanism had become powerful and with a strong, unique identity. I do not think that a link existed between Catalism and architecture at his point. It was purely coincidental that it was different and it was Catalan. If so, this coincidence could be exaggerated by the figure of Domènech, the former president of the Second Republic but I cannot state this. My impression is that it was only the same silence that reigned everywhere in Catalonia. Perhaps Gideon did not really have such interest because he just did not know Domènech that well. He was silenced. The only flag bearer for this movement was Gaudí but his relevance was relative as a real very first praise for an individual but not for its theoretical engagement with the world. If Gaudí was considered a genius, it had nothing to do with the rest of Catalan intellectuals, artists or architects. But what happened afterwards is more stimulating. When Franco died back in 1973 Spain went through a process of transition to democracy, simply called Transición. After prohibition, all nationalist forces from the most oppressed regions in Spain had huge power and a place in a right-wing government which left no place for the communist left wing which some still held responsible for causing too many problems. In the case of Catalonia, the right wing party was called Convergencia I Unio. Jordi Pujol presided over the party for twenty years. He restarted the party from scratch under the flag of being a progressive and nationalist party which would return Catalonia to a nation of power. And they did. There was lots of investment and the promotion of Catalonia within Europe and the common idea was always the 'nation' of Catalonia as a different entity. And obviously it was not only because of economical reasons, but also the need to heal a silenced nation who discovered tourism in order to promote these new aspirations. Barcelona was to be sold to the world using a genuine feature of its people, emotion. And the peak of this process was the largest ever project which happened in the city of Barcelona, the Olympic games in 1992 [Il.07]. Many years of preparation, a vast amount of investment and the need of settling a real stamp as a hallmark for the Olympics were the perfect excuse to make a big pace towards the future, and obviously, it was the stamp of nationalism only which 17 could be used to define a political circumstance like the real which existed by then. Catalan language was allowed again and lots of studies after so many years of silence were to be undertaken. Scholars of the country were possibly paid and everybody had to work for the building up of a new nation, the Catalonia/Barcelona of the Olympics. It had to be modern but had to be extremely different, it had to be extremely Catalan. In those state of affairs a lot of organizations and associations to create that special atmosphere like Fundació Miró, Tàpies or Brossa. Catalan names, and therefore useful for the big project. And also, the period of the Renaixença, as had been unique in the search of the romantic identity of the lost people, was recovered again. And here names such as Maria Lluisa Borràs can be found, very involved with the creation of the above mentioned organizations and one of the closest people to Catalan artists. And, as she did, they needed to talk about the most incredible feature of the city, that of Modernist buildings. They were the most appealing attraction, and were used to suport the big project of introducing Barcelona to the rest of the world. And, it was easy to prepare as one of the most fascinating names of the architects responsible for such creations had played a really important role on Catalan politics and had written a text titled, as repeatedly mentioned, 'A New Style for a New Country'. Still, the persona of Domènech I Montaner, his taughts, acknowledgement of Europe and relations with other architects, happened to be a more difficult topic. As I have already suggested, this text says nothing about a nation but the contrary. And obviously they knew it very well, but still, I think, it was more necessary to express its unauthentic praise for the Catalan nation to make it, to make Catalan modernism, unique and make of Barcelona's modernism a 'best-selling brand' in the world of architecture. Catalonia was reinvented during la Transición and the end of the process, could be the rebirth of 1992. Modernism, I say, was also reinvented, or clumsily eradicated from its original context. Still is currently found in any definition of Modernism by any Catalan scholar the struggle to make it different and separes it from the rest of European trends such as Art Noveaus or Judgenstil. Even, as seen in the head of this chapter, Wikipedia misunderstands Domènech's text on National architecture as we will study in the following chapter.

The phenomenon of the Olympic games still is visible. It is said that Barcelona still lives on the post-Olympic depression and also that the failed project of The Forum of 2004, which also achieved a lot of international investment but scarcely benefits was an attempt to make the second Olympics. Critical voices consider that Barcelona cannot live without the expectation of a big happenning in the near future. I myself was enrolled on the candidature of the Winter Olympics. 11

6, Domènech I Montaner

‘ACT I: As a storm rages, Siegmund the Wälsung, exhausted from pursuit by enemies in the forest, stumbles into an unfamiliar house for shelter. Sieglinde finds the stranger lying by the hearth, and the two feel an immediate attraction. But they are soon interrupted by Sieglinde's husband, Hunding, who asks the stranger who he is…’ ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ by Richard Wagner Barcelona was to grow quickly in the same way Glasgow, Paris, Berlin or Brussels were to. Bohigas said that the restitution of the country was to be done in fifty years instead of five centuries like the other European nations. Between 1870 and 1900 the city’s population doubled and became ‘the Spanish factory’. In this positivism Domènech must be understood far from the classicist conventions but also from the revivals. Domènech has the vision of a new civilisation which means gather together the good things of every single past episode. Domènech’s surroundings were replete of the new Wagnerian cosmopolitan culture which is interested and translate Ruskin, Whitman or Nietzsche’s Zarathustra into Catalan (Cebria de Montonliu and Maragall). Wagner’s utopia was that of the urban individual who has lost its roots in the industrial society, the identity and the nation. In the way Ruskin claimed that only with sacrifice, art is authentic and can save the world, Barcelona’s a sheer Wagnerian society which will find only in its artistic manifestations, the way to survive. Montaner was a politician and a leading writer. He participated in La Renaixença, Revista de Catalunya, El Diluvio, La Veu de Catalunya, Lo Poble Catala and Lo Catalanista. He also was a good political writer with titles like 'Conservation of Catalan Personality' of 1905 or 'Traditional Spanish Politics: how can Catalonia get rid off?. So he was a great Catalanist, and a grand nationalist. At the same time he has lots of technical books on architecture such as 'General History of Art' of 1886 or 'Solar Ilumination of Buildings'. Still, the politician Domènech has been the subject of more studies than the architect Domènech, at least in the writing field. As suggested in the introduction, I consider the politician Montaner to be completely separated from the architect, (the architect being of secondary interest). In his youth and belonging to a wealthy bourgeoisie Catalan family, he rapidly joined the nationalist bourgeoisie party called Lliga Regionalista. Some years later he created another one called Unio Catalanista and laid Les Bases de Manresa, the official claim for the return of the historic rights of the Catalan constitutions. He was elected president and was re-elected but soon decided to leave the political life to devote himself to archaeological and architectural study. His role as a politician is acknowledged and praised but it was his role as a scholar, professor and director of the architecture school in Barcelona that has much more in common with the study of the intellectual environment than with his personal nationalist position in the Spain of the king Alfonso XIII. Probably his studies on German philosophy, as recently suggested and as I will endeavour to explain next, were more concerned about the importance of the expression of the new materiality of architecture than with his personal political reasons. His high innovative constructive solutions in his buildings and his approach to German movements as the moving towards a lighter architecture instead of a more solid one as some other contemporaries did [such as Gaudí] prove that he was more engaged with these intellectual discussions than it has normally been gave for granted. And it also has been somehow suggested by Sola-Morales, who said that Montaner was a follower of Semper’s doctrine. He was concerned about the question of style not only as a primordial problem of first constructive gestures but as a claim for the invention of a new visual expression. The key point is that in this need to represent the contemporary civilisation there was no trace of past Renaixença or nationalism of any kind, but the urge for the expression of the new scientific, technical and metropolitan culture.

7, ‘A New Style for a New Country’ 'Architects have imitated other periods, taken over special shapes and techniques, in the hope of escaping from transitory work and achieving a timeless rightness. And after a short time their buildings have become lifeless masses of stone, in spite of the incorporation into them of details from works of eternal beauty' Gideon [Chapter 'The Historian's relation to this age'] in 'Space, Time, Architecture' There is another similar case to this nineteenth need to find a new language to precede the modern architecture style. According to the way Summerson explains it in his book on ‘Victorian Architecture’, Robert Kerr, who I found had relevant similarities with the case studied in here, founded the AA by 1846. He was only 23 and lead a group of draftsmen who strongly believed that architecture was a fine art and no archaeology, study of old buildings or technical details were to be considered. This purism had some consequences of his stay in America and was a break up 18 with the ‘Vitrubian fuddy-duddies’ of the RIBA . No precedent or copyism were allowed and set up a third group of kind of architecture in one of his famous speeches ‘The battle of the styles’ in 1860. Apart from the copyst old eclectic group and Pugin’s ecclesiological, there was a third one who he himself called ‘Latithudinatrian’. Their vision of a new architecture was essentially the proper ideal of idea, the sheer artistic expression. According to Kerr, Ruskin, who strongly believed in Gothic but reprehended any kind of revival, was a ‘latitudianrian from first to last’. It was in their manifesto where they were looking also for ‘A New Style for a New Country’ but again, not in German nationalistic terms but focusing the future and the new scientific society. In Kerr’s book ‘The Newleafe Discourses’, from 1846, he distinguishes between ‘the impractical artist-dreamer’ and ‘the architect-tradesman’ and started the rift between art and professionalism with lots of consequences for Britain. Lourdes Figueras is one of the most famous scholars of Domènech. She always approaches his nationalist side and gives it the load of his symbolist architecture. She emphasizes his referent to Catalan history, military episodes, music... and this is one of the reasons why he is studied in these terms. She also emphasizes his eclecticism to national terms stating that he 'evokes a glorious and ideal medieval past' as traditionally did in history of architecture. But, as we will see below, Modernism was more a ‘latitudinarian style’ than a national. Gideon in his treatise analyses the reasons for architects to look behind to define their position in the present, and therefore in the future. Whilst I have said he did not consider Domènech in his book, he could have probably forgotten that his ideas were totally akin to his principles. He tries to explain the urge for the self definition of the nineteenth and says:'One of the functions of history is to help us to live in a larger sense […] This does not mean that we should copy the forms and attitudes of bygone periods, as the nineteenth century did, but that we should conduct our lives against a much wider historical background'. He blames the nineteenth century of having lost all its dignity and this was the cause for the sense of lost these people had about being meaningless, of not playing part in history. They were indifferent to their period, or like Ruskin or Buckardt, hated it and had an 'extreme disregard for the immediate past'. Gideon reckons that the role of history was fundamental in this period as for the residual Romantic society, there was the unavoidable concern about success in the long term. This identity was fixed to the role of history in the definition of the individual and the need of being meaningful. Buckhardt, in his famous 'Civilization of the Renaissence' talks also about this need of the man to live in 'glory' to define what is modern architecture. Buckhardt questions 'modernity' either if it a 'true category' or 'a category in history'. He says 'Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family or corporation'. A part of this book is titled 'Glory' mentioning Dante as the first 'famous' man. Maquiavel was the first one to write about 'the desire to perpetuate a name. How many who could distinguish themselves by nothing praiseworthy strove to do so by infamous deeds!' says in his preface in Florentine history.

It is explained in 'The Image of the Architect[. See bibliography, Andrew Saint's. 13

8, Analysis of the text 'In an article entitled “En busca de una arquitectura nacional” (In search of a national architecture), published on 28 February 1878 in La Renaixença, he set forth the guiding principles for a modern, national architecture for Catalonia.' Wikipedia Domènech's text entitled 'En busca de una arquitectura nacional' has always been considered the basis for the sustained theory of Modernism. By the way, its title has simplified a heading essay on quintessential architectonic issues, which generated concerns amongst nineteen European discussions. Apart from the case of the AA which has already been illustrated above, there are several manifestations about this striving for the new style. For example 19 Gautier in L'emulation (Belgium) in 1872, when he claimed 'we are destined to invent a new style', or Daly and Johard Banck in 1849 and of course the 1874 AA's Nietzsche-like manifesto which looked for the individualistic 2021 qualities in architecture of the nineteenth century. Behind all these sort of breaking ideas or needs for diverse individual to undertake these sublime 'inventions' the Nietzsche aesthetics must be considered and the need of the individual to break up with moulds and also the Schopenhauer view of art and architecture as a liberating solution.If we examine the text closely, we will find out that the term 'national' does not mean Catalan nationalism as is supposed to due to the fact that normally art historians include Domènech in the general explanation of what we have previously mentioned as 'Renaixença'. The first term he includes is that of 'modern national architecture'. 'The architectonic monument needs the energy of a producing idea, a moral environment where to come alive and a 22 physical media where to grow up and finally and instrument to formalize the idea, the architectonic form'. The key point on his concern about the need of getting a new language consists of the classic Platonian discussion on the formalization of an idea. For him the idea is the only possible reason for a 'nation' to exist and he browses through political history which gave rise to the Colisseum, the Trajan Column, Karnak or Santa Sofia in Constantinople. But his era was not that one of grandeur and harmony as in the examples below but a period of transition. Domènech knew very well that ideas in his time had to be discussed, examined, seized. These inner fights suffocate new artists or architects who, having a wide range of experience from other grand periods in history, feel the need to please a public who does not have 'taste and asserted ideas'. According to him, the new problem the architect has to face is totally based on the use of a new material which absolutely dominates him rather than the other way around. Domènech, in a very Hegelian attitude, considers that the new architecture will be the most interesting ever because it will take advantage of all former grand architectures together with the improvements of industry and science. It is eclecticism, it is a sum. This architecture will represent a 'civilisation' but not a 'region' in his own words. He says: 'In a word: architecture, due to the current circumstances of modern society, cannot possibly preserve a character clearly national'. In other words, for Domènech, Roman architecture had nothing to do with Rome but with the representation of Roman civilisation. Things like climate and artistic traditions are, according to him, tiny variations of the same big range of ideas. Later in the essay, Domènech makes his judgement on eclecticism, the German country: 'For them, a cemetery must be Egyptian, a museum Greek, a congress Roman, a convent byzantine, a church must be gothic, a university should be in the Renaissance style, and a theatre should be half Baroque half Roman...'. He does not reprehend this behaviour in the way Schinkel felt free from the strong classical conventions when he travelled to Britain. He claims for this attitude in a more than positive way when he says: 'We should admit all the principles taught by past eras, from which, we do need. We should sustain all decorative forms as done in classical epochs. We should surprise ourselves looking at Oriental architectures and their horizontal lines and vast even surfaces...' and keeps on travelling all around diverse civilisations and adds: 'And with those severely proved principles, we can openly create the new forms required by new experiences and needs, and enrich and expressively draw them accompanied with ornamental treasures that the monuments from all former epochs offers us'. In 1877 he published in La Renaixença: 'German peoples take advantage of his inheritance an, through very talented men, like the grand heading Schinkel, struggle to continue the interrupted epoch of authentic classical art (…) Some of them (ouvres) seem certainly ripped off Homer's timer and transplanted to the whitish horizon of northern countries'. The first praise for 19 20 21 22

Gautier, the French poet who was so estimeed by Oscar Wilde. He was a fierce supporter of Romanticism. Buckard was one of the pioneers explaining how important was 'being' in history in his book above mentioned. He talks about Dante's as one of the very first 'famous' who had to live dealing with advantages and disadvantages of fame. All sources suggested by Pere Hereu. All the following quotations will be part of the text. 14

eclecticism can be found in Durand's doctrines, as a part of the idea of the 'eternally architectural’. In other words, it is the past which should be studied and used freely to create the new language based on Modernity. Gideon wrote: 'Architects have imitated other periods, taken over their shapes an techniques, in the hope of escaping from transitory work and achieving a timeless rightness'. Basically Gideon, really well known by Domènech, surported continuity but not imitation. Far from the general title of the text, which is considered one of the quintessential terms on the Renaixença, we can retrieve two key points which are essential for the understanding of Modernism itself. The praise of modernity had eventually two key points: the generation of a big idea to stand for the new civilisation and the technical requirements to achieve this idea which are the most defining term of the civilisation we are talking about. Also the inclusion of everything, this typical eclecticism of the nineteenth century which demonstrates the inwards and total inheritance of the Hegelian idea of history as a result of the new civilisation. This position, even though it could seem likeable at the 23 beginning, seems to be far away from Wickelmann’s ideas on style as the definition of different peoples. Their discussion on styles would, consequently, be contradictory. These thoughts bring us to German philosophy which was profoundly studied by Domènech, not in the nationalistic terms is generally considered and myself did in my essay 'Hübsch and the origins of Modernism' but in the concern of the materialisation of the idea, which according to what this new civilisation meant, was the key point to be called a new period in history. It is also known that he studied and taught scientific and machinery like Gideon ideas. Material was extremely important. It was the idea and the work of the architect to ensure how the material could be subdued to the idea in order to create the manifestation of a people, which is not a nation. On the other hand, the appropriate use of material, as fairly enough Ruskin explained, was achieved mainly in the Gothic era when, far from the different historical discourses and fights, was the reason why Gothic was praised. '… the early Gothic which have not, in the course of time, been gradually thinned and pared away into these skeletons, which sometimes indeed, when their lines truly follow the structure of the original masses, have an interest like that of the fibrous framework of leaves from which the substance has been dissolved...' says Ruskin in 'The Lamps of the Truth'. When he examines the different lines of tracery in the windows, he is stating exactly the right proportion for the material, the stone, to achieve the perfect beauty. It is not that far this view of the window of Rouen in Plate IX as perfect play of masses and physical equilibrium. It is exactly the same idea, except for the fact that he did not move to the change of material towards the new scientific world and decided on relaying of Stone Traditional Inertia masses for the designation of a criteria in architecture. When the stone became ductile, a line of tracery, ceased to be stone and, according to him, ceases to be architecture.

'He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. Called, "[t]he prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology",[2] Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large, systematic basis to the history of art. Many consider him the father of the discipline of art history' according to Wikipedia. 15

9, Origin for a new style: Bötticher and Shopenhouer [Il.11] '...An aesthetic experience occurs when an individual perceives an object and understands by it not the individual object itself, but the Platonic form of the object. The individual is then able to lose himself in the object of contemplation and, for a brief moment, escape the cycle of unfulfilled desire by becoming "the pure subject of will-less knowing." Those who have a high degree of genius can be taught to communicate these aesthetic experiences to others, and objects that communicate these experiences are works of art' Wikipedia How to find the original source of this positivism in relation to the new world was one of my general concerns when writing this thesis. This 'impressionistic like' praise for new materiality has lots of Semper as traditionally studied. The use of iron in the new Gothic of Le Duc is generally considered the basis of movements such as Art Noveau. But what brings it to life when on the other hand we have personas like Ruskin who does not allow iron to be a material worthy for architecture because it is not subject to the traditional physical rules? These ideas bring us directly to Bötticher, the German architect and scholar. He had a strong influence of Schinkel and wrote an important book called 'Holzarchitektur des Mittelalters (1835–40)' on timber-framed medieval buildings. To him, the most important thing was the material and the virtuosity of architecture should be measured by the capacity to dominate different inertias of materials. He also considered Gothic architecture as the highest point when the material was dominated and considers the structure the defining element of any style if ever to be considered one. Any form has two sides: the mechanical one and the artistic which means symbolist of the essence and the activity. 24 The atomic scale of the material, according to him, waits for the human approach to become a 'thing'. Bötticher says that Greek and Medieval styles are not opposites but a sort of evolution in the repeated Hegelian idea which gave birth to Shinckel's kind of eclecticism and defines the new style in the way all architects all over Europe meant to do. His version was that the most essential need was to look for a new structural prototype to be used in relation to a new material, obviously iron. To him, ornamentation functions as a symbol, a precedent of Semper's work. So new language for new civilisation symbolised by the new material, iron conceived as a real materialisation of a new architectonic structure, the new style. As Domènech meant, this was the only reason to be for the new modern world so the only way to be represented by its new architecture. Symbolism of new architecture is related to inherent 25 natural laws in the materials to be built, like in the way Le Duc draws his Enterteinments. There is also another Bötticher’s idea which I find revealing. According to Schopenhouer ‘The World as Will and Idea’: ‘…only when every part bear what its capacity allows it to, it is developed the fight between solidity and gravity which constitute the life of the stone, the manifestation of its will’, the aesthetic understanding of architecture must be settled on the ‘beauty’ of the forces, equilibrium. As we have already seen on the head of this chapter, Shopenhouer's ideas on aesthetics and the inwards truth of the platonic object is the key point of the changing of mind from those, such as Ruskin, who found no urge to understand the material as an individual itself ant its rules as generator of criteria and style for architecture. It could be others than stone, it could be iron. This was the basis of Bötticher’s theory who moved to material as the conception of forces in the generation of space, what he called Kentform. This is a fundamental change due to the fact that allowed him to include iron as a renovator in the new style of architecture. It means that he was the first one to consider the philosophical laces of the new material, which as we have seen, manifests the spirit of the new ‘modern civilisation’. Bötticher gives iron a place because in the conceptual scheme it is not about materials but about forces. He considers that the structural principle determined by iron is a decisive moment in the history of styles, so far regulated by the structural principle of stones. So the essence of the new style must be based on the iron as a way to generate space, which he introduces for the very first time as a key role on the discussion of theoretical architecture. This space is symbolised by Kunstforms, which is to say ornamentation. To him, ornamentation must be directly related to structure and applied on it to give it an artistic character.

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Heideguer's text called 'The Thing' is somehow involved in the same issue. Concreting for Heidegguer, the materialization of the idea ‘ Viollet-le-Duc systematized his approach to architecture and architectural education, in a system radically opposed to that of the Ecole des BeauxArts, which he had avoided in his youth and despised. In Henry Van Brunt's translation, the "Discourses on Architecture" was published in 1875, making it available to an American audience little more than a decade after its initial publication in France.’ According to Wikipedia. 16

After having analysed Domènech’s text on style, we are in a position to state that there is nothing about Goethe’s nationalism or Winckelman’s style prototypes for peoples. The search for a style was concerned about the new modern society and his studies were based on high intellectual architecture discussions such as the materialization of the idea or the representation of a civilisation. New style must be set up on the standards of new materials which are the symbol of the new society and must look up to the highest example of formal expressivity in architecture, which means, the Gothic architecture. These two ideas are gathered, for the first time, by Bötticher and will develop to Semper’s theory, and also Domènech. Le Duc in his rationalist studies of Gothic understands the importance of the material. Domènech had a concept on ornamentation similar to that of Semper as Sola Morales suggested and I stated before. It is something inherent and symbolic, and manifests the essence of the construction structure. Another key fact is the discussion of the space as a generator of the artistic forms which were elemental for Bötticher and Domènech includes in his projects as we can see in El Castell dels tres dragons.

10, All about Gothic ‘The brought forward discovery and revolutionary style that of Domènech had its roots in Catalan gothic, the same which left marvelled Le Corbusier in front of Pedralbes Monastery [Il. 13]. Catalan gothic looked into tacling the interior space in a unite way, including buttresses in the interior of the nave to move back the wall to last end and leave it naked to the exterior space’ Maria Lluisa Borràs Catalan Gothic could be the clue. In my first attempt to approach an extremely particular lace between The Ecclesiologist George Edmund Street and Pre Modernist Catalan architects, I understood that the praise for Catalan Gothic could possibly be the unique real link between both cultures. The similarities suggested when seeing Martorell's buildings on rare kind of English Gothic revival and in an apparently German brick are quite obvious still not probable after having gone through a vast part of London's bibliography on Edmund Street, including the unpublished notes maintained in the RIBA or his son memories on his trips to Spain. But, after reading his Catalan part of the book, I could understand that what he considered the most relevant part and praised because of its spatial and technical achievements was that of Catalan Gothic. Street wrote: '‘The architecture of Catalonia had many particularities and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when most of the great building of Barcelona were being erected, they were so marked as to justify me, I think, in calling the style as completely and exclusively national or provincial, as to take a contemporary English example, was our own Norfolk middle-pointed. The examination of them, will therefore, have much more value an interest than that of even grander buildings erected in a style transplanted from another country, such as we see at Burgos and Toledo; and beside this, there was on great problem which I may venture to say that the Catalan architects satisfactorily solved: the erection of churches of enormous and almost unequalled internal width-which is just that which seems to be looming before us at the work we English architects must even long gaprle with, if we wish to serve the cause of the church thoroughly in our great towns.’ In a similar way, this style that is revealing itself as outstanding was on the source of the principles of quality of space we 26 can find in Montaner's built work. Edmund Street was one of the first foreigners interested in Spanish architecture, particularly in Spanish Gothic and wrote a book, possibly the only existent book for the knowledge of Spanish architecture in English language during the ninetieth. But this was not his only trip to study southern Europe. Like Ruskin and others, Italy was a must to understand architecture and to bring for further appreciation to Britain as a model to be studied. From these journeys, Ruskin developed his own theories on values of Gothic or the Cambridge Candem Society set out the rules to the reinvention of a new architecture based on German and Italian models. Yet, in any particular circumstances, Gothic seemed to be the essential source to be the foundation of the new architectonic style. Pugin and the society seemed to rely on the religious meaning of primordial temples to give it valueless consideration. Street wrote: '‘… but away all of them it is impossible not to award the palm, most decidedly, to the really magnificent works of the Catalan school (…). In Catalonia, on the other hand, there was a more marked character(…) Their value consist mainly in the success with which they meet the problem of placing an enormous congregation on the floor in front of one altar, and within sight and hearing of the preacher (…) The internal effect is magnificent in extreme’ [Chapter XX] or ‘In our towns in England, there is nothing we now want more than something which shall emulate the magnificent scale of there. (…) Catalan churches such as Barcelona cathedral have a special 27 devotion to the altar'. Their aim was that to recapture the piety and the beauty of the Middle Ages to reconstitute the values of a society which seemed lost in between the industrial revolution and the drooping power of antique institutions. In the technical texts of the magazine The Ecclesiogist ant in the construction of Butterfield's model church All Saints Margaret Street, there is this base of the reinvention of the position of the altar such in Catalan Gothic churches which left him, as we have seen, spellbound. I suggest that in the construction of the church those points of had to be taken on a basis for their caught of medieval piety in the construction some years later. Also Lamperez wrote on his book: ‘Two foreigners deserve special place and mention in this survey: the English Street and

26 27

‘For a manufacturing town, his, the Manchester of Spain, is singularly agreeable and whike its prototype’. Through the Ecclesiologist the Society promoted its goals, the abolition of pews and the reintroduction of chancels to churches. At first, it was difficult to incorporate chancel areas because they had no function anymore, but the solution was found in their use for the choir. Soon almost all old churches were dismantling their pews and new ones were being built with chancels. Both issues were major successes and seen as significant steps in the Camden Society’s quest to “medievalise” the English Church.

the French Enlart. Street was an architect, profoundly used in Christian art (…) He visited Spain and before his churches, he sketched and took notes with so sure a vision that his book on Gothic Art in Spain has come to be, if I may say so, classic. It is the greater pity that Street saw of Spain only one very small part. On any account, his work is 28 of exceptional importance…’. And later continues saying: ‘Every Spanish ecclesiologist knows this book by heart. Even those who disclaim all worthy acknowledge of English have the volume on their shelves and the substance of it in their heads. The part which deals with Catalonia has been translated into Catalan and published separatedly.’ Ruskin, on the other hand, appreciated Gothic not for its religiousness but for a more interesting issue: its expressive capacity to show authentic architecture. Himself, as we have already seen, studied the Gothic as the peak of the quality of architectural space. But the reasons were about the brilliance on the use and understanding of the material, the stone, taken to extremes to get the finesse of its capacity and develop the high quality spatial environment of the great old Gothic. It was not about relgiousness like Pugin could have said or mere historicism, but the materiality of the stone, not far, as we have seen, from Shopenhouer doctrine; yet rooted to the classical traditional models, the stone made architecture. On the other hand, when Semper condemned it, he said 'it was complete itself' and offered 'no possibility for further development'. What worried Semper was the difficulty of giving rational explanation for the authentic pleasure we experience in Gothic churches. But it seemed interesting, browsing through Street’s drawings on Spanish churches, how his acknowledge of Gothic 29 was extremely efficient . Street, as we will discover in the following lines, was marvelled at Catalan Gothic in the same way, Domènech used it on the basis to become the foundation of the new modern style. Street travels twice to see Guilles Bofill Girona’s cathedral with its 23m in the nave. He says: ‘This is certainly one of the most noble and interesting churches I have been in Spain’ and continues, in his introduction: ‘After much study of old building in most part of Europe, to afford one of the finest types, from every point of view, that is possible to find'. He also talked about Barcelona emphasizing its character, and said, in the XIV Chapter: ‘The architectural history of Barcelona is much more complete whilst its building are more numerous, than those of any of our own old cities, of which it is in some sort the rival. The power which the Barcelona dealt with in the middle ages was very great. They carried on the greater part of the trade of Spain with Italy, France and the East; they were singularly free, powerful and war-like and finally, they seem to have devoted no small portion of the wealth they earned in trade to the erection of buildings, which even noe 30 testify alike to the prosperity of their city, and to the noble acknowledgment they made for it’. Domènech, who very well acknowledged Catalan Gothic, used the same concept for his Castell dels tres Dragons A as suggested for some of his scholars such as Lluisa Borràs: 'the unique intern space with the structure of a parallepiped and naked walls which leave behind archs, pilaster and capitals. It will happen again in the Palau de la Música where the walls become glass and the border line interior-exterior fades away; or in the terms David Mackay defines it: 'The concert hall of the Palau, which seats about 2,200 people, is the only auditorium in Europe that is illuminated during daylight hours entirely by natural light. The walls on two sides consist primarily of stained-glass panes set in 31 magnificent arches, and overhead is an enormous skylight of stained glass designed by Antoni Rigalt whose centrepiece is an inverted dome in shades of gold surrounded by blue that suggests the sun and the sky.' So finally, even though it could not have been proved the linked suggested at the very beginning of the thesis, disttinctive Catalan Gothic has been found as a worth source for Candem's society ideals of model church, and even 28 29

Lamperez in ‘Historia de la Arquitectura Espanola Cristiana’ Extremely det’ailed deception of the Lock and Smith’s work (…) Yet though their work is of the latest age of gothic, it is never marked by that nauseous redundancy of ornament in which so many of the most active mental-workers of the present day seem to revel’. Some notes on his journeys investigation: From 1856 to 1863 worked in London (22 Sackville Street). He made three trips to Spain between 1861 and 1862 and his book was latterly published in 1865. In the first trip (1861) he went to: 9th September Burgos 14thSeptember Madrid (and says it has the best gallery ever seen) th Toledo 17 September 20th September Valencia 22-25thSeptember Barcelona 27thSeptember Girona And continued to France. In his second trip (not that detailed) he went to Girona and Barcelona (again), Tarragpma. Manresa, Lleida, Huesca, Zaragoza, Tudela, Pamplona and Bayonne. In his third trip: Pamplona, Tudela, Siguenza, Guadalajara, Madrid, Toledo, Segovia, Avila, Salamanca, Zamora, Benavente, Leon, Astorga, Lugo and Santiago de Compostela. So with precise dates on when he was in Catalonia, I could not find any particular contact published with any Catalan architect. A very known Catalan painter and glass master. 19

though it should be studied, possibly having a detailed look at the magazines The Ecceliologist on their idea of the position of the altar and the relation with the public. Like Le Corb or Domènech, the spatial quality of Catalan Gothic seem to be the clue to to development to Bötticher's aesthetics on quality of space to develop a new architecture. And I would like to finish this brief collection with and overview a this turn to past Gothic as rellevant. Some treatises have tried to explain other sources of the move back to Gothic, even though I think they are not that rellevant. Yet worth to mention them in this rough colletion of viewings. Pere Hereu suggests that interest in Gothic architecture was also based on the existence of a vast number of grand buildings everywhere in Europe. These buildings had been being built during many years and Gothic forms had been kept in vernacular architecture. There was also the sublime aesthetics, previous to Romanticism, which boosted the interest in a medieval rooted architecture, which seemed as glorious as the classic past and, the most important thing, autochthon. Burke’s doctrine on the importance of sensitivity, fear and pleasure, hue dimensioning of buildings, power… Medieval culture, also celtic culture, was seen as something inwards northern civilisation and this was also the reason it arose such interest in the context of the new ‘national’ countries.

11, All about Europe

‘National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.’ Schopenhauer Having a close look at how Schopenhauer and Bötticher could affect, roughly, to the rest of European movements, should be another possible study. Still there are some lines which could be traced without being that afraid of beating around the brush. It seems quite obvious that he was on the origins of Semper's docrtine and not far from LeDuc's, even though it is not that easy to think of LeDuc's knowing Bötticher's work directly. Anyway, I reckon that LeDuc's is not that far away of Semper's understanding of ornamentation as the essence of any inwards architectural creations together with the enthusiasm for the new scientific and 'iron' society. Art Nouveau, Jugendstil or Stile Liberty, acording to the country, have all together a very weak relation with each other. If Mucha had ever heard of Bötticher's, being him considered the pioneer of the aesthetics of those movements, we do not know. Rather probably not. Yet there is one common concern in all those movements which is supposed to be a fiercely reaction against the traditions and history which is kind of different in the case of Catalan Modernism. Still, Mackintosh’s ideas of including floral ornamentation on violent right angles or Sezessionists concern on exploring the possibilities of art avoiding the confines of traditionalism and history are much clearly approaching Bötticher's new scale of criteria on architecture, kentforms. Even though I cannot say I acknowledge very well all those theories, it could seem interesting to investigate to what extend his doctrine was influential. To finish with this brief approximation, I feel entitled to mention Posener’ lectures on the evolution of German architecture which I found extremely interesting. He suggests that there is the natural evolution by the Deutsche Werkbund when in 1912, Peter Jensen, stated that he 'respect the Romantic, but looks the present and the future in the eyes' and the struggle for the setting of a standardization (1914) with the creation of developing types, establishing criteria of taste and and a totally forbidden imitation. This turn to set up a new scale of values could possibly be the evolution of the Bötticher's Kentsforms.

12, Conclusion 'Modern art, like modern science, recognizes the fact that observation and what is observed form one complex situation- to observe something is to act upon and alter it' Sigfried Giedion in 'Space, Time and Architecture' It was especially difficult starting with such a particular concept as 'non-nationalistic' Catalan modernism, owing to the fact that is has historically been the quintessential part of the Catalan Post-Olympic culture. At that point, twenty years after the recreation of the new Barcelona of the Olympics, we have reached the moment to revise the main ideas of a doctrine that was purposely directed to the lands of nationalism for economical reasons. I was grown up surrounded by the optimistic atmosphere of the Catalonia of the 90's, and on a review of a new national culture that had been vanquished and compulsory forbidden for the previous four generations. And, therefore, reinforced and enthusiastically recovered once the prohibition was over. The Olympic Games, as explained, were the final stop of the process of transition to democracy and meant the recovery of a culture that looked for investment in Europe with huge projects, like this one, to accelerate the process. 'Barcelona Olímpica', as we call it, was to be breed by the most differential and original thing it had and could be easily assigned to the image of the city, which happened to be be architecture. Those buildings were the historical reference of a period of bursting of Catalanism, that of the eighteenth century, and also provided initiative for the new Spanish architecture previous Olympic Games period. Yet the reasons that moved all those successive facts were obviously political. Definition for a society which still feel different from the rest of the country found on the liberation of the language and the culture the reason to be and to become, and used this issue as and engine to push strongly for itself back to the rest of the country. Again, as in the nineteenth, when Fundació Tàpies, Fundació Miró or Fundació Brossa were created, surrounding names like the Lourdes Figueras, the idea of Nationalism was used as the basis of a culture that had to rebirth again. It was another Renaixença, more real than the first one, the 1992 Reinaxença. Belonging to this generation which is slightly further from the Franquist oppression, but still convinced by the strongly differential idea of Catalonia as a diverse singularity from the rest of Spain [and still in touch with the direct consequences of the dictatorship as the right wing fascist party which still remains in Spain and also the first hand experience from relatives like parents or grandparents], I have found far more interesting the study of the theoretical 32 ideals of a persona like Domènech than this post Olympic need to create icons like 'Cobi ' to introduce Barcelona to the rest of the world. No matter what the political consequences of a praised period of a fleeting Republic of Spain, but the profound understanding of architecture. Taking this overlooking perspective, having gone beyond residual desires of vendetta of residual Franco's reprisal, I would rather say that the real interest of El Palau is its comparison to Coderch's curtain wall, having as a background sound Tristan un Isolde. To summarize the key point of the essay I would suggest three different lines of investigation which I have already set up and I think could be worth to follow if ever the chance does exist. The first point is that of the retrieved above of the essential review of the meaning of Catalan Modernism once democracy is already established and the ghosts of the dictatorship run far away. The idea is that the need for the nationalist definition of the country with the peak during the Olympics was necessary for the launch of a society who had to get involved in the worldwide new business of tourism. And I also suggest that if this language had to be settled, in a wrong way, by saying that the basis on the hallmark of Catalanism, Modernism, was rooted on a text which laid the rules for a Catalan National architecture instead of for a Industrial new civilisation, purposely by outstanding scholars during the eighties, it did not matter the real truthfullness of this statement. This could seem Machiavellic, yet it served a purpose so at the moment it had reason to be. On the second hand, I also suggest that Domènech as architect was much more concerned by the discussions already set in Northern European countries and was much more engaged to those discussions that the 'seeking for a nationalism way of expressing architecture'. The discovery when reading his manifesto which said exactly the 32

The Olympic´s mascot. 22

opposite, as we have seen, as it is supposed to say, confirm that his studies are not related at all to his political life. At this point and having browsed his technical books, he was possibly more interested in that German technical philosophical ideas that of Hübsch, Bötticher, Semper and Schopenhauer [Il.13] than those of Hegel or Goethe. Yet, in him is still very praised the Hegelian idea of history so both cases should be considered. In his architecture, though, the innovative techonological part seems to gain importance with time to become, as Manuel de Solà Morales suggested, the precedent of the Spanish International style. The last point I state is that of having a closer look at the hypothetically original influence of Bötticher's theories on Kentforms with the use of new material and its new code for a new criteria in architecture, and also the first time when the space is found as a matter of definition of a style on the rest of the hubbub of trends found during fin de siècle. And I want to finish this dissertation with the concern of what is the role of the historian on architecture. I am myself trying to review something already stated regarding all the experience and the experience of the time gone-by. Gideon said: 'The historian, like every other man, is the creature of his time and draws from it both his powers and his weaknesses' That one who was side by side with Mariscal's designing Cobi was absolutely 'the creature of his time'.

So I am.

13, Bibliography General Frampton, Keneth: “Historia Critica de la Aarquitectura Moderna”Ed. Gustavo Gili. Barcelona, 1992. Kostof, Spiro: ‘A history of architecture. Settings and rituals’ Oxford University Press, New York, 1985. Gideon, Sigfried: ‘Space, Time and Architecture: the growth of a new tradition’. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, 1963. Pevsner, Nikolaus: ‘Pioners of Modern Design: from William Morris to Walter Gropious’. Yale University Press. New Haven, 2005. Madsen, Tschudi: ‘Art Noveau’. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. London, 1967. Schumtzler, Robert: ‘Art Noveau’ Harry N. Abrams. New York, 1964. Hereu Payet, Pere: ‘Teoria de l’arquitectura: l’ordre I l’ornament’. Edicions UPC. Barcelona, 1998. Le Duc, Viollet: ‘L’art Russe’. Project Gutenberg [www.gutenberg.org]. England Saint, Andrew: ‘The image of the architect’. Yale university press. London, 1983. Muthesius, Stefan:’The High Victorian Movement in Architecture. 1850-1870’. Routledge & Kegan Paul. London,1972. Summerson, John N: ‘Victorian architecture: four studies in evaluation’. Columbia University Press. New York, 1970. Kerr, Robert: ‘The Newleafe discourses on the fine art architecture’ London Weale, 1846. Edmund Street, George: ‘Some account of Gothic Architecture in Spain’ Murray. London, 1914. Edmund Street, Arthur: ‘Memoir of George Edmund Street 1824-1881. Blom. New York, 1972. Ruskin, John: 'The lamp of the Truth' [www.VictorianWeb.com]. Society of Architectural Historians Journal, 1960: ‘George Edmund Street in the 80’s [Pages 145-171] Doumato, Lamia: ‘George Edmund Street’. Vance Bibliographies. Monticello, 1986. Godhart-Rendel: ‘George Edmund Street’. Ecclesiological Society. London, 1983. The Sacre journal. Ed. 25th November 1916. Hispania Society of America: ‘George Edmund Street: unpublished notes and reprinted papers’. New York, 1916. Modernism VVAA: ‘El modernisme a l’entorn de l’arquitectura’. Ed.l’Isard (Vol. 2). Barcelona, 2002. VVAA: ‘Gaudí 2002. Miscel·lània’. Ed. Planeta. Barcelona, 2002. Sola Morales, Ignasi de: ‘Arquitectura Modernista: fi de segle a Barcelona’ Gustavo Gili. Barcelona, 1992. Luisa Borràs, Maria: ‘Domènech i Montaner’. Poligrafa. Barcelona, 1970. Figueras, Lluisa: ‘Lluis Domènech i Montaner: la búsqueda y la consolidación de un estilo’ Ed. La Caixa. Barcelona, 1996. Barey, Andre: ‘Barcelona: de la ciutat pre-industrial al fenomen modernista’ COAC Ed. Paris, 1980. Bohigas, Oriol: ‘Vida y obra de un arquitecto modernista’ Barcelona Lumen. Barcelona, 1968. Bohigas, Oriol: ‘Arte e industria’. Gustavo Gili. Barcelona, 1985. Descharnes Robert; Prevost Clovis: ‘Gaudí the visionary’. Stevens. London, 1971. Domènech i Girbau, Lluís: Domènech i Montaner: aprendre d’una arquitectura. Edicions UPC. Barcelona, 1998. Figueras, Lourdes: Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Santa & Cole Ediciones de Diseño. Barcelona, 1994. Solà-Morales, Ignasi: Eclecticismo y vanguardia y otros escritos. Gustavo Gili. Barcelona, 1980. Yates, Alan and Trenc Ballesta, Eliseu: Alexandre de Riquer (1856-1920). The British connection in Catalan Modernism. Sheffield Maragall, Joan: ‘Antologia poetica’. Barcelona Selecta. Barcelona, 1954 German Goethe: ‘Von deustcher baukunst’ [www.wissen-im-Netz] MacKarney, Joseph: ‘Hegel on history’. Routledge. London, 2000. Watkin, David: ‘German architecture and the Classical Ideal (1740-1840)’. Thames and Hudson, London, 1987. Posener, Julius: ‘From Schinkel to the Bauhaus’. Architectural Association, paper number 5. Lund Humphries. Houlgate: ’An introduction to Hegel’. Freedom, Truth and History. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 24

Hermann, Wolfang: ‘Gottfried Semper. In search of architecture’. The MII Press. Cambridge, Massachussets. London.1984. Francis Mallgrave, Harry: ‘Gottfried Semper. Architect of the nineteenth century’. Yale university press. Hong Kong. 1986. Others Wikipedia Berlage, Hendrik Petrus: ‘Thoughts on Style, 1886-1909’ The Getty Center For The History Of Art, 1996.

www.bartleby.com (Harvard Classics, Vol. 24, Part 2; “A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of The Sublime and Beautiful” by Edmund Burke

14, Illustrations 01 Design for the head of the magazine ‘La Renaixença’ designed by Domènech I Montaner. It was created in 1880 and has the Catalonian herald and the Phoenix bird, Benno in Egyptian mitology, the bird of fire. The Phonenix as a sign of Christinian liberation was used by Catalan Christianity in 1530 for Corpus. It was also used by the recover after surrender for Catalans and also for Sinn Fein.

02 ‘Impresion, Sunrise’ by Monet. 1972. Considered the first work belonging to Impresionism.

03 All Sainst Margaret Street by William Butterfield. It is considered the model church according the rules they set up in the magazine The Ecclesiologist. It recovers the signs of piety of Medieval ages.

04 ‘Castell dels Tres Dragons’ by Domènech I Montaner. It is now the Geology museum and was the practice of all the thecnological innovations he had come across during his professional life. It was the Cafe Restaurant for the International Exhibition.

05, 06 ‘Palau de la Música’ by Domènech I Montaner. It is, together with Sant Pau hospital, the most acknowledged Domènech’s building. It was started in 1905 to be the place of Orfeo Catala (a Músical chore which was the leading institution for the Renaixença. Benton said: ‘ "To eyes unaccustomed to the architecture of Barcelona, the impression of a riot of ornament lacking any logic or control seems overwhelming. And yet the building follows exactly the exhortations of the [architectural] rationalists. The structure, in brick and iron, is clearly expressed."

07 Barcelona Olimpica. Isozaki and Calatrava projects for the Olympic games 1992.

08 27

Coderch’s ‘World Trade Centre’ in Barcelona, Diagonal. Student of Jujol and member of Team X, was one of the principals in the so-called ‘Grupo R’. A moralist and fascist post-war architect who developed and astonish way to bring the International style to Spain.

09 ‘El maset de Sitges’ by Joaquim Sunyer, 1908.

10 ‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog’ by Caspar David Friederich, 1818. Considered one of the hallmarks of German Romanticism.

11 28

Bötticher and Shopenhouer portraits

12 Pedralbes monastery (1326).

13 lau de la Música’ compared with Semper’s drawings on Painted Greek architecture.