Untitled

The CHARLES ELIOT NORTON LECTURES for 1938-1939

SIGFRIED GIEDION

SPACE, TIME
AND ARCHITECTURE

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
LONDON, ENGLAND
Copyright1941, 1949, 1954,© 1962,1967,1969
by the President and Fellows
of Harvard College.
© 1977 by William J. Callaghan;
© 1982 by Andreas Giedion and Verena C1ay-Giedion.
All rights reserved
First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2008.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-17310

ISBN 978-0-674-83040-0 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-674-03047-3 (pbk.)
Printed in the United States of America
FOREWORD TO THE FIFTH EDITION
In preparing the fifth edition (sixteenth printing) of this work

I have attempted to bring this history of the contemporary
tradition up to date. I have included many new works, such
as Gropius' American Embassy at Athens; Le Corbusier's
Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University and
his Priory of La Tourette; the Bacardi Administration Build-
ing in Mexico by Mies van der Rohe; and several community
centers by Alvar Aalto. A discussion of "The Legacy of Le
Corbusier" has been added together with a presentation of
some of his latest works, including the Le Corbusier Center in
Zurich.
I have added a new chapter on the Danish architect J¢rn
Utzon, "J¢rn Utzon and the Third Generation," as well as a
short chapter on the International Congresses for Modern
Architecture (ClAM).
It was thought necessary to supplement the section on "Space-
Time in City Planning" with a new chapter, " Changing
Notions of the City," in view of various present-day tenden-
cies, such as those manifested in the works of Kenzo Tange
and Fumihiko Maki, and in J. L. Sert's Harvard dormitories
for married students, Peabody Terrace.
I should like to thank Professor Jaqueline Tyrwhitt for
translating the new material and for her invaluable assistance
in preparing this edition for the press.
RoME, AMERICAN AcADEMY, SEPTEMBER 1966 S.G.
v
FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION
Space, Time and Architecture is intended for those who are

alarmed by the present state of our culture and anxious to find
a way out of the apparent chaos of its contradictory tendencies.
I have attempted to establish, both by argument and by objec-
tive evidence, that in spite of the seeming confusion there is nev-
ertheless a true, if hidden, unity, a secret synthesis, in our present
civilization. To point out why this synthesis has not become
a conscious and active reality has been one of my chief aims.
My interest has been particularly concentrated on the growth
of the new tradition in architecture, for the purpose of show-
ing its interrelations with other human activities and the
similarity of methods that are in use today in architecture,
construction, painting, city planning, and science.
T have found it preferable, in order to arrive at a true and
complete understanding of the growth of the new tradition, to
select from the vast body of available historical material only
relatively few facts. History is not a compilation of facts, but
an insight into a moving process of life. Moreover, such insight
is obtained not by the exclusive use of the panoramic survey,
the bird's-eye view, but by isolating and examining certain
specific events intensively, penetrating and exploring them in
the manner of the close-up. This procedure makes it possible
to evaluate a culture from within as well as from without.
In keeping with this approach, the bibliographical apparatus
has been reduced to a minimum. For those interested in
further study and research in the subject, the necessary in-
formation is given in footnotes. No general bibliography has
been provided. Its addition, in view of the theme and design
of the book, would simply have swollen the volume by some
vi
fifty extra pages without at the same time affording scientific
completeness.
Space, Time and Architecture was written in stimulating as-
sociation with young Americans - an outgrowth of lectures
and seminars which I gave as Charles Eliot Norton Professor
at Harvard University. The problem of its composition was
to transmute the spoken word of lecture and discussion into
the quite different medium of the printed page. For the lec-
tures the English version was prepared by Mr. R. Bottomley.
Mr. W. J. Callaghan and Mr. Erwart Matthews made the Eng-
lish translation of the book, which was completed at Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, in the Spring of 1940.
ZuRICH, DoLDERTAL, JuNE 1940 S. G.
vii
FOREWORD TO THE THIRD EDITION
Jacob Burckhardt and Heinrich Woeffiin never touched their

books once they were written; they let others "improve" later
editions. Jacob Burckhardt, in reference to a late printing
of his Cicerone, once remarked to his students, "I can really
recommend this book to you; nine tenths of it have been re-
written by others."
Indeed, books are born of a particular moment; it does no
good to revise them later. For the eighth printing (second
edition) of Space, Time and Architecture we have merely added
some new illustrations, scattered here and there throughout
the book; some pages on "Gustave Eiffel and His Tower";
some additional notes on the works of Robert Maillart; and
a chapter on Alvar Aalto.
Since for the tenth printing (third edition) Space, Time and
Architecture had to be reset, we have had an opportunity to
add some new chapters, particularly in Part II. The chapter
on "Perspective and Urban Planning" outlines the formation
of urban elements during the Renaissance, including some of
the contributions of the great masters, such as Bramante's
Court of the Belvedere in the Vatican, Michelangelo's Capi-
tol, Leonardo's preludes to regional planning. The chapter
on "Sixtus V and the Planning of Baroque Rome" evaluates
the work of the first modern town planner, as it grows out of
Rome's medieval and Renaissance background.
A chapter on "Mies van der Rohe and the Integrity of
Form," one on "Gropius in America," and some indispensable
remarks on "Le Corbusier's Development since 1938" have
been added in Part VI.
ZURICH, DoLDERTAL, JuNE 1953 S. G.
viii
FOREWORD TO THE THIRTEENTH PRINTING
(FOURTH EDITION)
On the occasion of this thirteenth printing the question arose

whether a second volume, concerned with developments dur-
ing the last twenty years should not be added. More than
enough material is available. But I have abstained from
following this suggestion. One reason was that I feel Space,
Time and Architecture is an entity in itself which, with all its
shortcomings, should not be disturbed.
Instead, I have permitted myself to add a short introduction.
I have never ceased to be interested in the formation of the
man of today, nor have I ever lost contact with contemporary
architecture and planning, and from time to time I have
given accounts of it: A Decade of Contemporary Architecture
(Ziirich, 1954), showed- in the form of an anthology-
what happened to architecture during the disturbed years
between 1937 and 1947. In 1954, when Walter Gropius was
awarded the international prize for architecture at the
Biennale of Sao Paolo, Brazilian officials asked me to recount
his life's work. ~Valier Gropius, Work and Teamwork (1954)
is to some extent a record of the beginnings of contemporary
architecture in Germany. Architecture, You and Me (Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, 1958), subtitled "a diary of a develop-
ment" gives an account of my attitude towards evolving
problems since 1937.
To these publications may be added the anonymous activity
of teaching in Ziirich and Harvard where - in addition to
other courses - a long series of seminars on "The Human
Scale'' has been closely connected with contemporary urban
and architectural development.
To gain insight into contemporary man and contemporary
architecture the most direct methods have not always proved
ix
the most rewarding. The frame has had to be constantly en-
larged. I have never had a preconceived plan. I have fol-
lowed problems as they developed. Only when looking back-
wards, can I see how each was foreshadowed by the previous
one. I let myself be led by the evolving problems just as a
sculptor is led by his material.
Space, Time and Architecture was concerned with contem-
porary man's separation between thinking and feeling- with
his split personality - and with the unconscious parallelism
of methods employed in art and science.
In Mechanization Takes Command (New York, 1948) I tried
to show how this break between thinking and feeling came
about, and how every generation has to find its own solution
to the same problem: how to bridge the gap between inner and
outer reality by reestablishing the dynamic equilibrium that
governs their relationships.
This still seemed too small a frame to encompass the psychic
structure of the man of today. The question which at present
comes everywhere to the fore and which cuts increasingly
deeper into the marrow of this century, is the relation between
constancy and change. In other words - as a result of bitter
experiences - we are concerned to know what can be changed
and what can not be changed in human nature without dis-
turbing its equipoise. I have been closely concerned with this
problem for more than a decade. Contemporary art was born
out of an urge to go back to elemental expression. The artist
plunges into the depths of human experience, just like the
psychologist. The artist shows that an inner affinity exists
between the expressions of primeval man and contemporary
man with his longings to become aware of his buried depths.
This led me to the third step of my research, to the problem of
Constancy and Change in primeval art and in the architecture
of the first high civilizations, which is to be issued in two
volumes of the Bollingen Series: The Eternal Present: The
Beginnings of Art and The Eternal Present: The Beginnings
of Architecture.
ZuRicH, DoLDERTAL, DEcEMBER 1961 S.G.
X
CONTENTS
Introduction
ARCHITECTURE OF THE 1960'S: HOPES AND FEARS xxxi
Part I
HISTORY A PART OF LIFE 1
INTRODUCTION . 2
THE HISTORIAN'S RELATION TO HIS AGE 5
THE DEMAND FOR CONTINUITY 7
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY 8
THE IDENTITY OF METHODS . n
TRANSITORY AND CONSTITUENT FACTS 17
ARCHITECTURE AS AN ORGANISM 19
PROCEDURE 23
Part II
OUR ARCHITECTURAL INHERITANCE 29
THE NEW SPACE CONCEPTION: PERSPECTIVE 30
PERSPECTIVE AND URBANISM 41
Prerequisites for the Growth of Cities . . . . . . . 41
The Star-Shaped City . . . . . 42
PERSPECTIVE AND THE CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS OF THE CITY 55
The Wall, the Square, and the Street . . 56
Bramante and the Open Stairway . 59
Michelangelo and the Modeling of Outer Space 64
What Is the Real Significance of the Area Capitolina? 70
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE DAWN OF REGIONAL PLANNING 72
SIXTUS V (1585-1590) AND THE PLANNING OF BAROQUE ROME 75
The Medieval and the Renaissance City 77
Sixtus V and His Pontificate 82
The Master Plan . . . 91
The Social Aspect . . . . . 100
THE LATE BAROQUE 107
THE UNDULATING WALL AND THE FLEXIBLE GROUND PLAN no
Francesco Borromini, 1599-1667 . . no
Guarino Guarini, 1624-1683 . . 121
South Germany: Vierzehnheiligen 127
THE ORGANIZATION OF OUTER SPACE 133
The Residential Group and Nature 133
Single Squares . . . 141
Series of Interrelated Squares . . . 143
xi
Part III
THE EVOLUTION OF NEW POTENTIALITIES 163
Industrialization as a Fundamental Event 165
IRON 167
Early Iron Construction in England . . . 169
The Sunderland Bridge . . . . . . . . 171
Early Iron Construction on the Continent 175
FROM THE IRON COLUMN TO THE STEEL FRAME 181
The Cast-Iron Column 184
TOWARD THE STEEL FRAME 190
James Bogardus 195
The St. Louis River Front 200
Early Skeleton Buildings 204
Elevators . 208
THE SCHISM BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND TECHNOLOGY 211
Discussions . 212
Ecole Polytechnique: the Connection between Science and Life 213
The Demand for a New Architecture 214
The Interrelations of Architecture and Engineering 215
HENRI LABROUSTE, ARCHITECT-CONSTRUCTOR, 1801-1875 218
NEW BUILDING PROBLEMS- NEW SOLUTIONS 229
Market Halls . . . 229
Department Stores . . . 234
THE GREAT EXHIBITIONS 243
The Great Exhibition, London, 1851 249
The Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1855 255
Paris Exhibition of 1867 260
Chicago, 1893 . . . 275
GUSTAVE EIFFEL AND HIS TOWER 277
Part IV
THE DEMAND FOR MORALITY IN ARCHITECTURE 291
THE NINETIES: PRECURSORS OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE 292
Brussels the Center of Contemporary Art, 1880-1890 . . 295
Victor Horta's Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
Berlage's Stock Exchange and the Demand for Morality 308
Otto ·wagner and the Viennese School . . . . . . . 316
FERROCONCRETE AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON ARCHITECTURE 322
A. G. Perret 328
Tony Garnier . . . 332
xii
Part V
AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT . 335
Europe Observes American Production 336
The Structure of American Industry 344
THE BALLOON FRAME AND INDUSTRIALIZATION 347
The Balloon Frame and the Building-up of the West 350
The Invention of the Balloon Frame 351
George Washington Snow, 1797-1870 . . . . . . . . . 352
The Balloon Frame and the Windsor Chair 354
PLANE SURFACES IN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE 355
The Flexible and Informal Ground Plan 363
THE CHICAGO SCHOOL 368
The Apartment House 377
TOWARD PURE FORMS 381
The Leiter Building, 1889 . 382
The Reliance Building, 1894 385
Sullivan: The Carson, Pirie, Scott Store, 1889-1906 388
The Influence of the Chicago World's Fair, 1893 393
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT . 396
Wright and the American Development 396
The Cruciform and the Elongated Plan 400
Plane Surfaces and Structure 405
The Urge toward the Organic . . 414
Office Buildings . . . . . . . . 419
Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright 424
Frank Lloyd Wright's Late Period 427
Part VI
SPACE-TIME IN ART, ARCHITECTURE,
AND CONSTRUCTION 429
THE NEW SPACE CONCEPTION: SPACE-TIME 430
Do We Need Artists? 430
THE RESEARCH INTO SPACE: CUBISM 434
The Ariistic Means 437
THE RESEARCH INTO MOVEMENT: FUTURISM 443
PAINTING TODAY 448
CONSTRUCTION AND AESTHETICS: SLAB AND PLANE 450
The Bridges of Robert Maillart 450
Afterword 475
WALTER GROPIUS AND THE GERMAN DEVELOPMENT 477
Germany in the Nineteenth Century 477
JT'alter Gropius . 482
Germany after the First W'orld IT'ar and the Bauhaus 485
The Bauhaus Buildings at Dessau, 1926 491
xiii
Architectural Aims 497
WALTER GROPIUS IN AMERICA . . . . 499
The Significance of the Post-1930 Emigration 499
Walter Gropius and the American Scene 500
Architectural Activity 502
Gropius as Educator 510
Later Development . 512
American Embassy in Athens, 1956-1961 514
LE CORBUSIER AND THE MEANS OF ARCHITECTONIC EXPRESSION 518
The Villa Savoie, 1928-1930 525
The League of Nations Competition, 1927: Contemporary Architecture
Comes to the Front . . . . . . . . . . . 530
Large Constructions and Architectural Aims 538
Social Imagination . . . . . . . 542
The Unite d'Habitation, 1947-1952 544
Chandigarh 549
Later Work . . . . . . . . . 553
The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1963 556
Le Corbusier and His Clients . . . . . . . . 563
The Priory of Ste. Marie de la Tourette, 1960 569
The Legacy of Le Corbusier . . . . . . . . . 578
MIES VAN DER ROHE AND THE INTEGRITY OF FORM 587
The Elements of Mies van der Rohe's Architecture 588
Country Houses, 1923 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
The Weissenhof Housing Settlement, Stuttgart, 1927 594
The Illinois Institute of Technology, 1939-- 601
High-rise Apartments 603
Office Buildings 607
On the Integrity of Form 615
ALVAR AALTO: IRRATIONALITY AND STANDARDIZATION 618
Union between Life and Architecture . . 618
The Complementarity of the Differentiated and the Primitive 619
Finnish Architecture before 1930 621
Aalto's First Buildings 625
Paimio: The Sanatorium, 1929-1933 629
The Undulating Wall . . . . . . . 632
Sunila: Factory and Landscape, 1937-1939 640
Mairea, 1938-1939 . . . . . 645
Organic Town Planning . . . 648
Civic and Cultural Centers 655
Furniture in Standard Units 661
Aalto as Architect . . . . . 663
The Human Side . . 665
J~RN UTZON AND THE THIRD GENERATION 668
Relations to the Past . . . . 668
J(lrn Utzon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
The Horizontal Plane as a Constituent Element 673
xiv
The Right of Expression: The Vaults of the Sydney Opera House 676
Empathy with the Situation: The Zurich Theater, 1964 688
Sympathy with the Anonymous Client 692
Imagination and Implementation 694
THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES FOR MODERN
ARCHITECTURE (ClAM) AND THE FORMATION
OF CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE 696
Part VII
CITY PLANNING IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 707
Early Nineteenth Century . . . . . . 708
The Rue de Rivoli of Napoleon I . . . 714
THE DOMINANCE OF GREENERY: THE LONDON SQUARES 716
THE GARDEN SQUARES OF BLOOMSBURY . 724
LARGE-SCALE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT: REGENT'S PARK 734
THE STREET BECOMES DOMINANT: THE TRANSFORMATION
OF PARIS, 1853-1868 739
Paris in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century 740
The "Trois Reseaux" of Eugene Haussmann . 744
Squares, Boulevards, Gardens, and Plants . . . . 754
The City as a Technical Problem 762
Haussmann's Use of Modern Methods of Finance 765
The Basic Unit of the Street . . . . . 767
The Scale of the Street 770
Haussmann's Foresight: His Influence 773
Part VIII
CITY PLANNING AS A HUMAN PROBLEM 777
The Late Nineteenth Century . . . . . 778
Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City 782
Patrick Geddes and Arturo Soria y Mata 785
Tony Garnier's Cite Industrielle, 1901-1904 787
AMSTERDAM AND THE REBIRTH OF TOWN PLANNING 793
H. P. Berlage's Plans for Amsterdam South 796
The General Extension Plan of Amsterdam, 1934 . 804
Interrelations of Housing and Activities of Private Life 810
Part IX
SPACE-TIME IN CITY PLANNING .. 815
Contemporary Attitude toward Town Planning 816
DESTRUCTION OR TRANSFORMATION? 818
TRE NEW SCALE IN CITY PLANNING 823
The American Parkway in the Thirties 823
High-rise Buildings in Open Space 833
XV
Freedom for the Pedestrian . . . . . . . . 842
The Civic Center: Rockefeller Center, 1931-1939 845
CHANGING NOTIONS OF THE CITY 856
City and State 856
The City: No Longer an Enclosed Organism 857
Continuity and Change . . 859
The Individual and Collective Spheres 863
Signs of Change and of Constancy 868
Part X
IN CONCLUSION 871
On the Limits of the Organic in Architecture 873
Politics and Architecture . 875
Index .. 884
xvi
ILLUSTRATIONS
I. Jji!RN UTZON. Sydney Opera House, Australia, 1957. The sequence of great
shells from the west . . . . . . . . . . xlii
II. KUNIO MAEKA W A. Festival Hall, Tokyo, 1961. Photo. Shinkenchiku,
Tokyo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xlvi
III. LUCIO COSTA. Plaza of the Three Powers, Brasilia, 1957. From Modulo,
Brazil, February 1958 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xlviii
IV. LUCIO COSTA. Plaza of the Three Powers, Brasilia, 1957-60. Photo. Gau-
therot, from Ministerio das Rela.;Oes Exteriores xlix
V. LE CORBUSIER. Pilgrimage Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps,
1955. Courtesy Dr. H. Girsberger . Iii
VI. KENZO TANGE. Annex to National Indoor Stadium, Tokyo, 1964. Photo.
Tange Iii
VTI. LE CORBUSIER. The Secretariat, Chandigarh, 1952-56. Photo. Tliomas
Larson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . liii
l. MASACCIO. Fresco of the Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, c. 1425.
Photo. Alinari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2. LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI. S. Andrea, Mantua, 1472-1514. Exterior.
Photo. Alinari . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3. BRAMANTE. Illusionistic choir in Santa Maria presso S. Satiro, Milan, 1479-
1514 . . . . . . . . . . 36
4. CARLO MADERNO. Nave of St. Peter's, Rome, 1607-17. Etching, 1831.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Photo. Crown 37
5. BRUNELLESCHI. Pazzi Chapel, Florence, begun in 1430. Photo. Giedion 40
6. FRANCESCO DIGIORGIO. Wedge-shaped bastions from his "Trattatto di
Architettura." From the Codex Magliabecchianus, Florence 43
7. VITTORE CARPACCIO. St. George and the Dragon, between 1502 and 1507.
Photo. Alinari . 44
8. Bagnocavallo, a medieval town of Roman origin. Air photograph, Military
Institute, Rome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
9. FILARETE. The site of the star-shaped city "Sforzinda" about 1460-64.
Codex Magliabecchianus, Florence . . 46
10. FILARETE. Plan of the star-shaped city "Sforzinda." Codex Magliabecchia-
nus, Florence . . 47
11. FILARETE. "Sforzinda," the star-shaped city with its radial road pattern.
After v. Oettingen 47
12. Vigevano: Piazza del Duomo, 1493-95 49
13. Vigevano: Main En tranc<> to the Piazza del Duomo. Photo. Giedion 49
14. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Polygonal city crossed by a river. Codex
Magliabecchianus . . . . . . . 53
15. LEONARDO DA VINCI. The City of Florence changed into an "ideal city."
Drawing, Windsor Castle 53
16. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Piazza and Street of an Ideal City, Detail.
Gallaria delle Marche, Urbino 58
17. GIORGIO DI VASARI. The Uffizi, Florence, 1560-74. 59
18. JACOPO BELLINI. The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, c. 1440.
Silverpoint drawing from Bellini's sketchbook, Cabinet des Dessins, Louvre.
Paris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
19. ETIENNE DU PERAC. Tournament in Bramante's Cortile del Belvedere,
1565. Photo. Oscar Savio . . 61
20. The Cortile del Belvedere after Bramante's death. Detail of a fresco in the
Castello S. Angelo, Rome, 1537-41. attributed to the Mannerist painter,
Perino del Vaga. Courtesy of Professor James S. Ackerman 63
21. Siena: Piazza del Campo. paved in 1413. Air photograph, Military Institute,
R~e . . . . . ~
22. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Piazza of an ideal city. Walters Art Gallery,
Baltimore 66
23. MICHELANGELO. The Capitol, Rome, begun 1536 67
24. LEONARDO DA VINCI. The River Arno and its regulation by a canal. Sepia
pen and ink drawing. Windsor Castle 72
25. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Scheme for draining the Pontine Marshes. 1514.
Drawing, Windsor Castle . . . . 73
xvii
~6. GIOVANNI BATTISTA FALDA. Medieval Rome, from the Castello S.
Angelo to the Bridge of Sixtus IV. Detail from Falda's map, 1676 78
27. The Planning of Baroque Rome by Sixtus V, 1S8S-90 79
28. G. F. BOBDINO. Sketch plan of the streets of Sixtus V, l:l88 82
29. Sixtus V's Master Plan of Rome. l:l89. Fresco at thP Vatican Library 83
30. Borne: The area between the Coliseum and the Lat<:'ran. From the map of Du
Perac Lafrery, 1577 84
31. Borne: The area between the Coliseum and the Lateran. From the map of
Antonio Tempesta, 1593 85
32. S. Maria Maggiore and the Villa Montalto. From the map of Antonio Tempesta,
1~3 ~
33. S. Maria Maggiore and its obelisk, 1587. From thP fresco now in the Collegia
Massimo 87
34. The obelisk today, from the opposite side. Photo. GiPdion 87
3:l. The Villa Montalto in the late seventeenth century. From G. B. Falda. (;iardini
di Roma, Nuremberg, 1695 88
36. DOMENICO FONTANA. The Transportation of the Chapel of the Sacred
Crib 89
37. G. F. BORDINI. The Antonine Column and the beginning of the Piazza
Colonna, 1588 98
38. G. F. BORDINI. The obelisk before St. Peter's shortly after its erection,
1588 . 99
38a. The Piazza Colouna at the time of Sixtus V. Fresco, Vatican Library. Photo.
Alinari 101
39. The Moses Fountain, 1587. Fresco, Vatican Library 102
40. Basins of the Moses Fountain. Photo. Giedion 102
41. Drinking-water fountain. Photo. Giedion 102
42. The Moses Fountain beside the Strada Pia. 1616 103
43. The Moses Fountain today. Photo. Giedion 103
44. The wash house at the Piazza delle Term e. Fresco, Collegia Massimo 104
45. DOMENICO FONTANA. Sixtus V's plan transforming the Coliseum into a
factory for wool sninnine:. 1590. From Domenico Fontana. second edition 105
46. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. San Carlo aile ()uattro Fontane. Rome, 1662-67.
Exterior. Photo. Giedion 107
4-7. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. San Carlo aile Ouattro Fontane. Interior: the
dome, 1634-41 ll2
48. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. Sant' Ivo. Rome, 1642-62. Ground plan ll4
49. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. Sant' Ivo, Rome. Interior of dome. Photo.
Giedion ll6
50. PICASSO. Head. Sculpture, c. 1910. Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, .Jr.
Photo. Soichi Sinami for the Museum of Modern Art 117
51. FRANCESCO BORBOMINI. Sant' Ivo, Rome. Lantern with coupled col-
umns and spiral. Photo. Giedion 118
S2. TATLTN. Pro.iect for a monument in Moscow, 1920 ll9
:>3. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. Sant' Ivo, Rome. Section through interior ll9
54. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. Sant' Ivo, Rome. Detail. Photo. Giedion 120
5C>. GUARINO GUARINI. San Lorenzo, Turin, 1668-87. Section through the
cunola and the lantern, with intersecting binding arches 123
56. GUARINO GUARINI. San Lorenzo, Turin. Cupola with intersecting binding
arches. Photo. Alinari 124
57. GUARINO GUARINI. San Lorenzo, Turin. Ground plan 124
58. Mosque a! Hakem, Cordova, 965. Dome of one of the Mih'rabs. Photo. Arxiu
Ma• 125
S9. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen (Church of the Fourteen
Saints), 1743-72. FaQade. Photo. M arburg 128
60. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen. Detail of the undulating wall
of the faQade 129
61. BALTHASAR N'EUM ANN. Vierzehnhciligen. Horizontal section 129
62. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen. Interior. Photo. Marburg 130
63. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen. Warped-plane binding arches 131
64. LOUIS 1-E VAU. Chilteau Vaux-le-Vicomte. 1655-61. Engraving by Perelle . 136
6:>. LOUIS LE VAU and .JULES HARDOUIN-MANSARD. Vef'ailles. Air view
of the chateau, the garden, and the boulevard. Photo. Compagnie Aerienne
FranQaise 136
66. Versailles. Great court, stables, and highway to Paris. Engraving by Perelle . 139
67. Versailles. View of the gardens, the "Tapis Verts," the Grand Canal, and the
terraces. Ene:raving by Perelle 139
68. LORENZO BERNINI. Piazza Obliqua, St. Peter's, Rome. Lithograph, 1870 142
69. PATTE. Plan of Paris, 1748, with projected and executed squares 144
xviii
70. HERE DE CORNY. Three interrelated squares at Nancy, Place Stanislas,
1752-55 145
71. HERE DE CORNY. Three interrelated squares at Nancy. Plan 145
72. HERE DE CORNY. Palais du Gouvernement with oval colonnades, Nancy 146
73. JOHN WOOD THE YOUNGER. The Circus, 1764, and the Royal Crescent,
1769, Bath. Air view. Photo. Aerofilms Ltd. 147
74. JACQUES-ANGE GABRIEL. Place Louis XV- Place de Ia Concorde, Paris,
1763 . . 148
75. JOHN WOOD THE YOUNGER. The Royal Crescent, Bath, 1769. Air view.
Photo. Aerofilms Ltd. 149
76. Piazza del Popolo, Rome. Engraving by Tempesta, 1593 151
77. Piazza del Popolo, Rome. View toward the twin churches of Rainaldi 151
78. GIUSEPPE VALADIER. Scheme of the Piazza del Popolo, Rome, 1816 153
79. Piazza del Popolo, Rome. Section through the different levels and ramps. Draw-
in~~: by Edward \V. Armstrong, 1924. Reproduced, by permission, from Town
Planning Ret•iew, December 1924 153
80. Piazza del Popolo. Rome. View from the Pincio terrace 154
81. THEO VAN DOESBURG. Relation of horizontal and vertical planes, c. 1920 . 155
82. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. Undulating wall of San Carlo aile Quattro
Fontane, 1662-67. Photo. Giedion . 156
83. Lansdowne Crescent, Bath, 1794. Air view. Photo. Aerofilms Ltd. 157
84. Bath and its crescents. Air view. Photo. Aerofilms Ltd. 158
85. LE COR BUSIER. Scheme for skyscrapers in Algiers, 1931 159
85a. LE CORBUSIER. Plan for the Marine Sector of Algiers, 1938-42. From
Le Corbusier, CE!lvre complete, vol. IV, ed. Willy Boesiger, Verlag fiir Architek-
tur (Artemis), Zurich, Switzerland 161
85b. LE COHBUSIER. Skyscraper for the Marine Sector of Algiers, 1938-42.
Photo. Lucien Herve 162
86. Automaton: writing doll, made by Pierre Jaquet-Droz, Neuchatel, about 1770.
Photo. Giedion 166
87. ABRAHAM DARBY. The first cast-iron bridge over the river Severn, 1775-79.
Photo. Science Museum, London . 170
88. Sunderland Bridge. 1793-96. British Crown copyright. Photo. Science
Museum, London 171
89. HUMPHRY REPTON. Pheasantry for the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1808 172
90. JOHN NASH. Royal Pavilion at Brighton, 1818-21 173
91. VICTOR LOUIS. Theatre-Fran<;;ais. Iron roofing, 1786 174
92. The Granary, Paris, 1811 175
93. MARC SEGUIN. First French suspension bridge, of wire rope, over the Rhone,
near Tournon, 1824. Photo. Giedion 176
94. Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, 1933-37. Photo. Gabriel Moulin 177
95. FONTAINE. Galerie d'Orieans, Palais Royal. Paris, 1829-31 179
96. ROUHAULT. Greenhouses of the Botanical Gardens, Paris, 1833 180
97. Wooden attic of factory, Bolton, England, c. 1800 185
98. Attic story with cast-iron roof framework, c. 1835. British Crown copyright.
Photo. Science Museum, London . 185
99. Early use of cast-iron columns, London bookshop, 1794. Courtesy of Mrs.
Albert C. Koch 186
100. JOHN NASH. Royal Pavilion, Brighton. 1818-21. Red drawing-room 187
101. JOHN NASH. Royal Pavilion, Brighton. The kitchen 188
102. Paris Exhibition, 1867. Oval garden in the center of the main building. From
L'Exposilion Universelle de 1867 Illuslree 189
103. Aquatint of Telford's proposed cast-iron bridge over the Thames, London, 1801.
British Crown copyright. Photo. Science Museum, London 190
104. WATT and BOULTON. Working drawings for the first seven-story mill with
cast-iron beams and columns, Salford, Manchester, 1801. Reproduced from
the Boulton and Watt Collection, Birmingham Reference Library, England . 192
cast-iron beams and columns. Reproduced from the Boulton and Watt Collec-
tion, Birmingham Reference Library, England 193
cast-iron beams and columns. Sections of a cast-iron column. Reproduced
from the Boulton and Watt Collection, Birmingham Reference Library,
England 193
107. WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. English refinery, c. 1845. Cross section 194
108. WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. English refinery, c. 1845. Ceiling construction 194
109. JAMES BOGARDUS. Design for a factory, 1856, showing the resistance of
cast iron 196
llO . .JAVIES BOGARDUS. Harper & Brothers' Building, New York, 1854. Cour-
tesy of Harper & Brothers 197
xix
111. JAMES BOGARDUS. Project for the New York World's Fair, 1853. From
B. Silliman, Jr. and C. R. Goodrich, The World of Science, Art and Industry . 198
112. St. Louis, river front. Cast-iron front of 523-529 North First Street, c. 1870-71.
Courtesy of the United States Department of the Interior 202
113. St. Louis, river front. Cast-iron front of Gantt Building, 219-221 Chestnut
Street, far;ade dating from 1877. Courtesy of the United States Department
of the Interior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
114.. JULES SAULNIER. Menier Chocolate Works, Noisiel-sur-Marne, 1871-72.
Iron skeleton . . . 205
115. JULES SAULNIER. Menier Chocolate Works, Noisiel-sur-Marne, 1871-72.
View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
116. WILLIAM LEBARON JENNEY. Home Insurance Company, Chicago, 1883-
85. Courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society 207
117. ELISHA GRAVES OTIS. The world's first safe elevator, 1853 209
118. ELISHA GRAVES OTIS. Passenger elevator at the time of the Civil War 209
119. Eiffel Tower, elevator to the first platform, 1889 210
120. HENRI LABROUSTE. Library of Sainte-Genevieve, Paris, 1843-50. Section
through the reading room and the wrought-iron framework of the roof 221
121. HENRI LABROUSTE. Library of Sainte-Genevieve, Paris, 1843-50. Plan 221
122. HENRI LABROUSTE. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 1858-68. Reading room 223
123. HENRI LABROUSTE. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 1858-68. Ground plan 223
124. HENRI LABROUSTE. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 1858-68. The stacks.
Photo. Giedion 224
125. HENRI LABROUSTE. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 1858-68. The stacks.
Light pouring through gridiron floor. Photo. Giedion 225
126. HENRI LABROUSTE. Bibliotheque Nationale. The stacks. Detail of grid-
iron floor and banisters. Photo. Giedion 225
127. HENRI LABROUSTE. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 1858-68. Glass wall
between the stacks and reading room. Photo. Giedion 228
128. Glass wall of the Garage Rue Marbreuf, Paris, 1929. Photo. Giedion 228
129. Market Hall of the Madeleine, Paris, 1824 230
130. Hungerford Fish Market, London. Metal roof, 1835 230
131. VICTOR BALTARD. Hailes Centrales, Paris. Interior. Begun 1853 231
132. HECTOR HOREAU. Project for the Grandes Hailes. 1849. 232
133. EUGENE FLACHAT. Project for the Grandes Hailes, 1849 233
134. Washington Stores, New York City, 1845. Courtesy of the Museum of the City
of New York 235
135. Oak Hall, Boston, c. 1850 236
136. Broome Street, New York, 1857 237
137. John Wanamaker Store, Philadelphia, 1876. Courtesy of .John Wanamaker, Inc. 237
138. EIFFEL and BOILEAU. Bon Marcbe, Paris, 1876. Interior, iron bridges.
Photo. Chevojon 240
139. EIFFEL and BOILEAU. Bon Marche, Paris, 1876. Ground plan 240
140. EIFFEL and BOILEAU. Bon March•\ Paris, 1876. Glass roof over skylight.
Photo. Chevojon 241
141. Winter Garden and Assembly Room, Paris, 1847. From L'IIluslration, 1848 242
142. First Industrial Exposition, Champ-de-M ars, Paris, 1798 243
143. Crystal Palace, London, 1851. General view. Lithograph. From "Mighty
London Illustrated" 250
144. Crystal Palace, London, 1851. Plan. From The Illustrated Exhibitor 250
145. Crystal Palace, Sydenham. Interior. Photo. Giedion 252
146. "The Favorites": popular sculpture of 1851 253
147. HECTOR HOREAU. First prize in the competition for the Crystal Palace, 1850 254
148. Crystal Palace, London. Interior. Etching. British Crown Copyright. Photo.
Victoria and Albert Museum, London . 256
149. J. M. W. TURNER. Simplon Pass. Water color, c. 1840. Courtesy of the
Fogg Art Museum . 257
150. International Exhibition, Paris, 1855. Interior of the main building. Litho-
graph by .T. Arnout and Guerard 258
151. International Exhibition, Paris, 1855. Plan 258
152. The Hall of Machines, Paris, 1855. From L'll/uslration, Journal Unirersel 259
153. Popular sculpture, "The Love of the Angels," 1867. From L' Exposition Uni-
verselle de 1867 Illzzstree . 261
154. International Exhibition, Paris, 1867. Air view. From Eugene Rimmel, Recol-
lections of the Paris Exhibition (Philadelphia, 186!!) . 262
155. MANET. "View of the Exhibition of 1867." Oil. Photo. Druet 263
156. International Exhibition, Paris, 1867. Section of the galleries of the main
building. From L' Exposition Unil!erselle de 1867 Illustr.ie 264
157. International Exhibition, Paris, 1867. Galerie des Machines, interior. From
L'Exposition Universelle de 1867 Illuslree 264
XX
158. International Exhibition, Paris, 1878. Main entrance. Photo. Chevojon . . 265
159. International Exhibition, Paris, 1878. Section and perspective of the Galerie
des Machines . 267
160. International Exhibition, Paris, 1889. Galerie des Machines. Photo. Chevojon 269
161. International Exhibition, Paris, 1889. Base of the three-hinged arch 272
162. EDGAR DEGAS. "The Dancer." Formerly in the collection of Samuel
Lewisohn, Esq. Photo. A. Calavas, Paris . . . 273
163. Popular painting: "The Kiss of the Wave," 1889. Tableau de M. Wertheimer.
From Le Courrier de l' Exposition Illustree . 274
164. World's Fair, Chicago, 1893. Venetian gondoliers 276
165. International Exhibition, Paris, 1867. Iron skeleton. Magasin pittoresque, 1866 278
166. G. EIFFEL. Bridge over the Douro, 1875. Original sketch. Photo. Chevojon 280
167. G. EIFFEL. Garabit Viaduct, 1880-84. Photo. Eiffel 282
168. G. EIFFEL. Garabit Viaduct. Detail of abutment. Photo. Eiffel 282
169. G. EIFFEL. Decorative arch of the Eiffel Tower, 1889. Photo. Giedion 283
170. G. EIFFEL. A pier of the Eiffel Tower. Photo. Giedion 283
171. G. EIFFEL. Spiral staircases between first and second floors of the Eiffel Tower.
Photo. Giedion . . . . 286
172. G. EIFFEL. Eiffel Tower. View from the second platform to the first. Photo.
Giedion 286
173. ROBERT DELAUNEY. Eiffel Tower, 1910. Photo. Kunstsammlung, Basel 287
174. ARNODIN. Ferry Bridge in the "Vieux Port" of Marseilles, 1905. Photo.
Giedion 288
175. ARNODIN. Ferry Bridge, Marseilles. View from upper platform to suspended
ferry. Photo. Giedion 288
176. ARNODIN. Ferry Bridge, Marseilles, 1905. Photo. Giedion 289
177. VICTOR HORTA. 12 Rue de Turin, Brussels, 1893 300
178. VICTOR HORTA. 12 Rue de Turin, Brussels. Plan 300
179. St. Louis, river front, 109-111 North First Street, 1849 or 1850. United States
Department of the Interior . . . . . 301
180. VICTOR HORTA. 12 Rue de Turin, Brussels. Iron column and staircase . . 303
181. ALPHONSE BALAT. Strap-iron ornaments on the conservatory, Laeken, 1879 303
182. VICTOR HORTA. Maison du Peuple, Brussels, 1897. Exterior 307
183. VICTOR HORTA. Maison du Peuple, Brussels, 1897. Second- and third-floor
plans 307
184. H. P. BERLAGE. Stock Exchange, Amsterdam, 1898-1903. Wall treatment.
Photo. Giedion 308
185. H. H. RICHARDSON. Sever Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1878 309
186. H. P. BERLAGE. Stock Exchange, Amsterdam, 1898-1903. Drawing 310
187. H. P. BERLAGE.. Stock Exchange, Amsterdam, 1898-1903. Hall; treatment
of wall. Photo. Giedion 312
188. H. P. BERLAGE. Stock Exchange, Amsterdam, 1898-1903. The great hall.
Photo. Giedion 314
189. OTTO WAGNER. Karlsplatz Station, Vienna, 1894. Detail 320
190. OTTO WAGNER. Savings Bank, Vienna. The hall 320
191. OTTO WAGNER. Drawing for bridge, subway, and different street levels,
Vienna, 1906 . . . 321
192. ANTONIO SANT' ELlA. Project for a subway, 1914. Different street levels,
combined with apartment houses and elevators . 321
193. JOHN SMEATON. Eddystone Lighthouse, England, 1774. 323
194. HENNEBIQUE. Residence, Bourg-la-Reine . 324
195. ANATOLE DE BAUDOT. Saint-Jean de Montmartre, Paris. Begun 1894.
Photo. Chevojon . . . . . . 325
196. PFLEGHARD, HAEFELI, and MAILLART. Queen Alexandra Sanatorium,
Davos, 1907. Photo. E. Meerkiimper . 327
197. AUGUSTE PERRET. 25 his Rue Franklin, Paris, 1903. Photo. Chevojon 329
198. AUGUSTE PERRET. On the roof of 25 his Rue Franklin . 329
199. AUGUSTE PERRET. 25 his Rue Franklin. Plan . 329
200. AUGUSTE PERRET. 25 his Rue Franklin. Office on ground floor. Photo.
Giedion ..... 330
201. TONY GARNIER. Central Station, 1901-04. Project 332
202. American clocks, c. 1850 337
203. Standards of American school furniture, 1849 . 338
204 .. Ball-peen machinist's hammer; blacksmith's hammers. Chicago catalogue of
1877. British Crown Copyright. Photo. Victoria and Albert Museum, London 340
205. Yale lock. Chicago catalogue of 1877 341
206. Folding bed, Philadelphia Exhibition, 1876 . 342
207. Grain elevator, Chicago, 1873. From The Land Owner, Chicago, 1873 344
208. Balloon-frame construction. From G. E. Woodward, Woodward's Country
Homes (New York, 1869) 347
xxi
209. St. Mary's Church, Chicago, 1833 347
210. Balloon frame. From W. E. Bell, Carpentry Made Easy (1859) 348
211. Windsor chair. Photo. Giedion 348
212. R. J. NEUTRA. House in Texas, 1937. 349
213. Old Larkin Building, Buffalo, 1837. Courtesy of the Larkin Company, Inc.,
Buffalo 357
214. Longfellow House, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1759. Clapboard wall. Photo.
Giedion 358
215. Stone wall, Union Wharf warehouse, Boston, 1846. Photo. Giedion . 359
216. Shaker Community House, Concord, Vermont, 1832. Photo. Giedion 360
217. Commercial Block, 140 Commercial Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 1856 361
218. Commercial Block, 140 Commercial Street, Boston, Massachusetts. From
Boston Almanac, 1856 361
219. H. H. RICHARDSON. Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Chicago, 1885 362
220. House at 34 Chestnut Street, Salem, Massachusetts, 1824. Photo. Giedion 364
221. E. C. GARDNER. American kitchen, 1882. From Gardner, The House Thai
Jill Buill (New York, 1882) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366
222. E. C. GARDNER. Country house, 1882. From-Gardner, The House That Jill
Buill (New York, 1882) 366
223. E. C. GARDNER. One-room house for an "old maid." From Gardner,
Illustrated Homes (Boston, 1875) 367
224. The architect and his spinster client. From Gardner, Illustrated Homes (Boston,
1875) . 367
225. WILLIAM LE BARON JENNEY. First Leiter Building, Chicago, 1879.
Courtesy of the Art Institute, Chicago 372
226. WILLIAM LE BARON JENNEY. Manhattan Building, Chicago, 1891.
Photo. Giedion 373
227. WILLIAM LEBARON JENNEY. The Fair Building, Chicago, 1891. Photo.
Giedion. 375
228. WILLIAM LE BARON JENNEY. The Fair Building, Chicago, 1891. Skel-
eton 375
229. HOLABIRD and ROCHE. Marquette Building, Chicago, 1R94. Photo. Giedion 376
230. HOLABIRD and ROCHE. Marquette Building, Chicago. 1894. Plan of one
story with undivided offices - 376
231. Chicago in the early nineties: Randolph Street about 1891 379
232. Great Northern Hotel. Chicago, 1891 380
233. WILLIAM LEBARON JENNEY. Leiter Building, Van Buren "\treet, Chieago,
1889. Photo. R. B. Tague . 384
234. LE CORBUSIER. Maison Clarte, Geneva, 1930-32. Photo. Tinsler 385
235. BURNHAM AND COMPANY. Reliance Building, Chicago, 1894. Photo.
Giedion 386
236. MIES VANDER ROHE. Project for a glass tower, 1921 387
237. LOUIS SULLIVAN. Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company, department store,
Chicago, 1899-1904. Photo. Fuermann 389
238. LOUIS SULLIVAN. Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company department store,
Chicago, 1899-1904. Detail. 392
239. WALTER GROPIUS. Project for the competition on the Tribune Tower,
Chicago, 1923. Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune Company 393
240. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Charnley house, Astor Street, Chicago, 1892 398
241. G. E. WOODWARD. Plan of a cruciform country house, 1873. From Wood-
ward, Suburban and Country Houses (New York. c. 1873) 402
242. G. E. WOODWARD. Cruciform country house, exterior, 1873. From Wood-
ward, Suburban and Connfry Honses (New York, c. 1873) 402
243. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Isabel Roberts house, River Forest, Illinios, 1907.
Plan 403
244. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Isabel Roberts house, River Forest, Illinois, 1907.
Photo. Fuermann 403
Two-story living room. Photo. Fuermann 404
246. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Suntop Houses, Ardmore, Pennsylvania, 1939.
Plan. Reproduced, by permission, from Architectural Forum, August 1939 406
Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York 406
248. Central Park Casino, New York City, 1871. Courtesy of the Museum of the
City of New York. Photo. Work Projects Administration 407
249. R. E. SCHMIDT, GARDEN & MARTIN. Warehouse of ferroconcrete for
Montgomery, Ward & Company, Chicago, 1908. Photo. Giedion 408
250. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Robie house, Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, 1908.
Photo. Fuermann 409
xxii
251. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, 1904.
Details of capitals of pillars. Photo. Giedion 412
252. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Tennis Club, River Forest, Illinois, 1906. Bench
of cement slabs. Photo. R. B. Tague . 412
253. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Residence, Taliesin. Photo. Giedion 415
254. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Larkin Administration Building, Buffalo, 1904.
The nave with surrounding galleries. Photo. Giedion . 418
255. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Johnson Wax Company, Administration Building,
Racine, Wisconsin, 1938-39. Interior. Courtesy of S. C. Johnson and Son,
Inc. 419
255a. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Larkin Building, 1904. The first squared-rod
steel office furniture. Photo. Giedion 421
1938-39. Interior of cornice of glass tubing, outer wall. Courtesy of S. C.
Johnson and Son, Inc. .422
257. PICASSO. "Still Life," c. 1914. From the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Walter C.
Arensherg. Photo. Sam Little 438
258. BRAQlJE. Collage, 1913. From Cahiers d'Art, vol. VIII 440
259. MONDRIAN. Composition 440
260. MALEWITSCH. Architectonics, c. 1920 441
261. THEO VAN DOESBURG and C. VAN EESTEREN. Scheme for a villa, 1923 441
262. WALTER GROPIUS. The Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926 441
263. BOCCIONI. "Bottle Evolving in Space," 1911-12 446
264. BALLA. "Swifts: Paths of Movement and Dynamic Sequences," 1913.
Courtesy the Museum of Modern Art, New York 447
265. EDGERTON. Speed photograph of a tennis player, 1939 448
266. PICASSO. "Guernica," 1937. Detail. Photo. Dora Maar 449
267. MAILLART. Warehouse in Zurich, 1910. First mushroom ceiling in Europe 453
268. MAILLART. Tavanasa Bridge over the Rhine, Grisons. 1905 454
269. MAILLART. Salginatobel Bridge, 1929-30. Photo. Giedion 455
270. MAILLART. Schwandbach-Brlicke, Canton Berne, 1933. Air view. Photo.
Giedion 456
271. MAILLART. Schwandbach-Brlicke, Canton Berne, 1933. Slabs. Photo. Giedion 457
272. MAILLART. Schwandbach-Briicke. Detail. Photo. Giedion . 458
273. Rainbow Bridge near Carmel, California. Photo. Giedion 459
274. MAILLART. Bridge over the river Thur near Saint-Gall, Switzerland, 1933.
Photo. Giedion 460
275. MAILLART. Bridge over the river Arve near Geneva, 1936-37. Photo.
Boissonnas-Geneve 463
276. MAILLART. Arve Bridge, 1936-37. Support and reinforcement of the support.
Photo. Giedion . . . . . . . 464
277. MAILLART. Arve Bridge, 1936-37. Supports and two of the box-like arches.
Photo. Giedion 465
278. Dipylon Vase. seventh century B.C. Detail. Reproduced from Buschor,
Griechische Vasenmalerei . 465
279. MOHOLY-NAGY. Painting, 1924. Reproduced by permission of W. W.
Norton and Company, New York, from Moholy-Nagy, The New Vision 466
280. ALVAR AALTO. Armchair ..... 466
281. FREYSSINET. Locomotive sheds at Bagneux, near Paris, 1929. Photo.
Giedion 466
282. MAILLART. Cement Hall, Swiss National Exhibition, Zurich, 1939 466
283. MAILLART. Cement Hall, Swiss National Exhibition. Zurich, 1939. Photo.
Wolf-Bender 469
284. MAILLART. Bridge at Lachen, 1940. Photo. Wolf-Bender 470
285. MAILLART. Bridge at Lachen. The joint of the arch 470
286. MAILLART. Bridge over the Simme, Berner Oberland, 1940 470
287. MAILLART. Bridge at Lachen, 1940. Photo. Wolf-Bender 471
288. MAILLART. Bridge over the Simme, 1940 471
289. Japanese wooden bridge of the eighteenth century. Colour-Print by Hokusai.
Published by the Trustees of the British Museum 474
290. WALTER GROPIUS. Fagus works, 1911-13 ......... . 481
291. WALTER GROPIUS. Fagus works (shoe-last factory), Alfeld a.d. Leine, 1911 483
292. WALTER GROPIUS. Court elevation of the "Fabrik," Werkbund exhibition,
Cologne, 1914. Photo. Schmolz 484
293. WALTER GROPIUS. Spiral staircase on corner of the "Fabrik," Cologne, 1914.
Photo. Schmolz 486
WALTER GROPIUS. Deutsche Werkhund exhibition, Paris, 1930. Club
lounge 488
295. WALTER GROPIUS. Project for an international academy of philosophical
studies, 1924 490
xxiii
296. WALTER GROPIUS. The Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926. Air view 492
297. WALTER GROPIUS The Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926. Plot plan 492
298. PICASSO. "L'Arli)sienne," 1911-12. Oil. Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 494
299. WALTER GROPIUS. The Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926. Corner of the workshop
wing. Photo. Moholy-Dessau 495
300. WALTER GROPIUS and MARCEL BREUER. Gropius' own house in Lin-
coln, Massachusetts, 1938. View from the south and ground plan 503
301. WALTER GROPIUS and MARCEL BREUER. House in Wayland, Massa-
chusetts, ·1940. Photo. Ezra Stoller: Pictor . . . . . . 505
302. Graduate Center, Harvard University 1949-50. Plan of the whole complex,
including the Commons. Courtesy of Walter Gropius . . . . . . 506
303. Graduate Center, Harvard University. The Commons building, with passage-
ways. Photo. Fred Stone . . . . . . 507
304. Graduate Center, Harvard University. View of the Commons with passageway
in the foreground. Photo. Fred Stone . 508
305. Graduate Center, Harvard University. Grill Room, with wooden reliefs by Hans
Arp. Photo. D. H. Wright 509
306. WALTER GROPIUS. Project for ·Back Bay Center, Boston, 1953. Photo.
Robert D. Harvey 513
307. WALTER GROPIUS. American Embassy, Athens, 1956-61. Pedestrian
entrance from the main road. Photo. Greek Photo News 516
308. American Embassy, Athens, 1956-61. Ground plan. Photo. Phokion Karas 516
309. A.merican Embassy, Athens, 1956-61. Automobile entrance 517
310. American Embassy, Athens, 1956-61. The perforated interior court . 517
311. The young Le Cor busier at La Chaux-de-Fonds. Courtesy Estate of Le Cor busier 518
312. LE CORBUSIER. Ferroconcrete skeleton for a dwelling house, 1915 521
313. LE CORBUSIER. "Still Life," 1924. Oil 522
314. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. Settlement houses at Pessac, near
Bordeaux. 1926 . . . . . 523
315. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. Villa Savoie at Poissy, 1928-30 526
316. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. Villa Savoie, 1928-30. Cross section 526
317. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. Villa Savoie, 1928-30. View of
terrace and roof garden, and ground plan . 527
318. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. League of Nations Palace, Geneva,
1927 . . . . . 532
319. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. League of Nations Palace. 1927. Cross
section of the Grande Salle 533
320. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. League of Nations Palace, 1927.
Sheltered, platform-like entrance 533
321. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. League of Nations Palace, 1927.
Administration Building (Secretariat g(meral), rear view . . . . . . 534
322. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. Swiss dormitory in the Cite Universi-
taire, Paris, 1930-32. View and plan 540
323. PICASSO. "Woman in an Armchair," 1938. Detail. Collection of Mrs.
Meric Callery. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York 542
324. LE CORBUSIER. Project for exhibition at Liege, 1937 542
325. LE CORBUSIER. Unite d'Habitation, Marseille, 1947-52. Detail. Photo.
Giedion 546
326. LE CORBUSIER. Unite d'Habitation, Marseille, 1947-52. View, and cross
sections. Cross sections by courtesy of Dr. H. Girsberger 547
327. LE CORBUSIER. The High Court of Justice, Chandigarh, 1956 . . 550
328. LE CORBUSIER. The High Court of Justice, Chandigarh, 1956. Photo.
Dolf Schnebli 551
329. LE CORBUSIER. Pilgrimage Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps,
1955. Photo. Lucien Herve . . . . . . . . . 554
330. LE CORBUSIER. The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University,
1963. General view of the building from Prescott Street . . . . . 556
331. The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1963. General view
from Quincy Street · 557
332. The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1963. Third-floor
plan showing penetration of the ramp. Courtesy Estate of Le Cor busier . . 557
333. The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University, 1963. The studio for
three-dimensional studies . . . . . . 560
two-dimensional studies . . . . . . 561
335. The Carpenter Center for Visual A.rts, Harvard University, 1963. The sculptor's
studio. Photo. Giedion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561
336. Part of a letter from Le Corbusier to S. Giedion, written in Chandigarh, 1952.
Courtesy Estate of Le Cor busier . . . . . . . . . 568
xxiv
337. LE CORBUSIER. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, near Lyons, 1960. Air
view. Photo. Jean Petit . . . . . . . . . . . . 570
338. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. View of the south and west wings of
the monastery. Photo. Bernhard Moosbrugger . . . . . . . . . 571
339. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. Ground plan. Courtesy Anton Henze 571
340. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. East side of the monastery and friars'
promenade. Photo. Giedion . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572
341. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. View into the interior court. Photo.
Bernhard Moosbrugger . . . 573
342. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. The long north side of the church
block. Photo. Bernhard Moosbrugger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574
343. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. The bell tower from the ambulatory
roof terrace. Photo. Giedion . . . . . . 574
344. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. Interior of the crypt. Photo. Bern-
hard Moosbrugger . . . . . . . . . . . 575
344a. Stele at the "Tomb of the Giants," Sardinia. Photo. Hugo Herdeg. . . 577
344b. LE CORBUSIER. Pilgrimage Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps,
1955. View of the tower. Photo. Winkler . . . . . . . . . . . 577
345. Le Cor busier's studio on Cap St. Martin. Courtesy Estate of Le Corbusier . . 579
346. LE CORBUSIER. Le Corbusier Center, Zurich, 1967. From Le Corbusier,
aEuvre complete, vol. VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
347. Le Corbusier Center, Zurich, 1967. Raising the roof. Photo. Jiirg Gasser 582
348. Le Corbusier Center, Zurich, 1967. The roof and its prefabricated supports.
Photo. Jiirg Gasser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
349. LE CORBUSIER. Model of·the Olivetti Electronics Center at Rho-Milan.
designed 1962. From Le Corbusier, aEuvre complete, vol. VII . 584
350. PETER DE HOOCH. Mother and Child, c. 1650. Photo. F. Bruckmann,
Munich . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
351. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Project of a brick country house, 1923. Courtesy
of the Museum of Modern Art, New York 592
352. MIES VANDER ROHE. Brick <".ountry house, 1923. Ground plan. Courtesy
of the Museum of Modern Art, New York . . . . . 592
353. MIES VAN DER ROHE. German pavilion at the International Exhibition,
Barcelona, 1929 . . 592
354. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Project of a concrete house, 1923. Courtesy of the
Museum of Modern Art, New York ....... . 593
355. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Country house for a bachelor, Berlin Building
Exhibition, 1931 . . . . . . . . . . . 593
356. MIES VANDER ROHE. Country house for a bachelor. Ground Plan 593
357. Weissenhof settlement, Stuttgart, 1927. Photo. The Museum of Modern Art,
New York 596
358. Weissenhof settlement, Stuttgart, 1927. Plan 596
359. Weissenhof settlement, Stuttgart, 1927. Photo. Dr. Lassen and Company,
Stuttgart . . 597
360. Ground plan of the second floor . . . 597
361. Steel skeleton of Mies van der Robe's apartment house. Akademischer Verlag 597
362. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Model of the campus of the Illinois Institute of
Technology with its proposed buildings. Photo. George H. Steuer 600
363. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Administration Building, 1944 . 600
364. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Chemical Engineering and Metallurgy Building,
1949. Northwest view. Photo. Illinois Institute of Technology 601
365. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Minerals and Metal Research Building, 1943.
South view. Photo. Hedrich-Blessing 602
366. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Promontory Apartments, Chicago, 1949. East
front. Detail of the en trance side 604
367. Promontory Apartments, 1949. Plan 604
368. Promontory Apartments, 1949. East front. From Architectural Forum. Photo.
Hedrich-Blessing 605
369. Promontory Apartments, 1949. View from the lobby dividing the symmetrically
built wings. Photo. Hedrich-Blessing 606
370. MIES VANDER ROHE. Lake Shore Drive Apartments, 1951. Plan 608
371. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Lake Shore Drive Apartments, 1951. Photo.
Herlrich-Blessing . 609
372. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Federal Center, Chicago, 1963. Court House and
Ferleral Office Building. Photo. Hedrich-Blessing 610
3i3. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Bacardi Office Building, Mexico, 1961. General
view. Photo. Giedion 612
374. Bacardi Office Building. Mexico, 1961. Plan of the upper story 612
375. Bacardi Office Building. Mexico, 1961. Plan of the grounrl floor . 612
XXV
376. Bacardi Office Building, Mexico, 1961. The projecting upper story. Photo.
Giedion ..... 613
377. Bacardi Office Building, Mexico, 1961. Relation of ceiling and floor. Photo.
Giedion 613
378. Bacardi Office Building, Mexico, 1961. Entrance. Photo. Giedion . 613
379. MIES VANDER ROHE. Project for Twentieth Century Gallery, Berlin, 1963.
Photo. Hedrich-Blessing . . . . . . 614
380. Twentieth Century Gallery, Berlin, 1963. East-west section 615
381. Twentieth Century Gallery, Berlin, 1963. Plan of the upper story 615
382. Finland, transportation of wood. Photo. Pictinen 622
383. ALVAR AALTO. Pavilion for an exhibition of forestry and agriculture in the
village of Lapua, North Finland. Exterior . . 624
384. ALV AR AALTO. Pavilion for an exhibition of forestry and agriculture in the
village of Lapua, North Finland. Interior 624
385. ALVAR AALTO. Orchestra platform for the 700-year Jubilee of Turku, 1929 625
386. ALVAR AALTO. Turun-Sanomat building, Turku, Printing room, 1928-30 627
387. ALVAR AALTO. Building for the Turun-Sanomat, Exterior, 1928-30. Photo.
Giedion 627
388. ALVAR AALTO. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Paimio, 1929-33. Rest hall on top
of patients' wing. Photo. Gustaf Velin 628
389. ALVAR AALTO. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Paimio, South Finland, 1929-33.
View of the entrance 630
390. ALVAR AALTO. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Paimio, 1929-33. View of the
patients' rooms and rest hall. Photo. Gustaf Velin 631
391. ALVAR AALTO. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Paimio, 1929-33. Ground plan 631
392. ALVAR AALTO. Viipuri Library, 1927-34. Undulating ceiling of the lecture
hall 633
393. ALVAR AALTO. Finnish Pavilion, World's Fair, New York, 1939. Undulating
wall in the interior. Photo. Ezra Stoller: Pictor 634
394. Finnish lakes and forests, Aulanko 635
395. ALVAR AALTO. Finnish Pavilion, World's Fair, New York, 1939. Ground plan 635
396. ALVAR AALTO. Glass vases. Photo. Artek 635
397. ALVAR AALTO. Dormitory (Baker House), Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology, 1947-49. Air view. Photo. M.I.T. 637
398. ALVAR AALTO. M.T.T. Dormitory, 1947-49. Charles River front, with
projecting lounge and dining hall. Photo. Ezra Stoller: Pictor 638
399. M.I.T. Dormitory. First floor plan, with asymmetrical projection 638
400. M.I.T. Dormitory. Lounge with terrace, and basement dining hall 639
401. M.I.T. Dormitory. Balcony lounge and stairway to dining room 639
402. M.I.T. Dormitory. View from athletic field, showing entrance and projecting
staircases 639
403. ALVAR AALTO. M.I.T. Dormitory. Three-man study, with bunks to save
space 640
404. ALVAR AALTO. Sunila, 1937-39. Conveyors, factory, and granite blocks.
Photo. Giedion 642
405. ALVAR AALTO. Sunila, 1937-39. Warehouse, conveyors. Photo. Roos 642
406. ALVAR AALTO. Sunila, 1937-39. View toward the open sea. Photo. Giedion 643
407. ALVAR AALTO. Sunila, 1937-39. Plan of factory and living quarters 643
408. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39. Exterior. Photo. Welin 644
409. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39. Ground plan 644
410. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39. View toward the Finnish fireplace and
drawing room. Photo. Welin 647
411. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39. Details of the staircase. Photo. Giedion 649
412. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39. Staircase, drawing room 649
413. ALV AR AALTO. Project for an experimental town, 1940. From Aalto, Post-
War Reconstruction: Rehousing Research in Finland, n.p., n.d. 651
414. ALVAR AALTO. Kauttua. Ground plan. From Arkkitehti, no. 1-2, 1948 653
415. ALV AR AAL TO. Kaullua. Terraced houses. Photo. Giedion 653
416. ALVAR AALTO. Kauttua. Terraced houses showing entrances on different
levels 653
417. ALVAR AALTO. Oulu, 1943. ·Model. Photo. Gewerbeschule Ziirich 654
418. ALVAR AALTO. Oulu, 1943. The city with the new civic centers 654
419. ALVAR Ai\.LTO. Sports and Cultural Center, Vienna, 19S3. Model 656
420. Sports and Cultural Center, Vienna, 1953. Section through the large hall 656
421. ALVAR AALTO. Saynatsalo community center. designed 1945, built 1950-52 658
422. ALVAR AALTO. Seiniijoki community center. construction started 1960.
Model 658
423. Seinajoki Council House, construction started 1960. Photo. Stucky 659
424. Seinajoki Council House, construction started 1960. The fa.;ade dominated by
glazed enamel elements 659
xxvi
425. ALVAR AALTO. Helsinki Civic Center, design started in 1958, construction
started 1964 . 660
426. Temple at Uxmal (Yucatan). Photo. Giedion . 671
427. Reconstruction of the temple at Uxmal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671
428. Jy)RN UTZON. Steps rising up to the foyer of the Sydney Opera House . 671
429. Ji/>RN UTZON. Sketch of a Japanese house . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674
430. J¢!RN UTZON. Sketch of clouds over the sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
431. JV/RN UTZON. Preliminary sketch of the vaults of the Sydney Opera House 675
432. Ji/>RN UTZON. Sydney Opera House, 1957. Section through the small hall 680
433. LE CORJ?USIER. Project for the Palace of the Soviets, 1931. From Le
Corbusier, <Ew•re complete. vol. II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680
434. J¢lRN UTZON. Determining the forms of the shell vaults of the Sydney Opera
House on the basis of a sphere. Photo. Mario Tschahold . . . . . . . . . 681
435. J¢lRN UTZON. Wooden ball showing how Utzon cut out the segments of
the vaults. Photo. Klaus Bossard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
436. J¢lRN UTZON. Glass curtain walls in the shell vaults of the Sydney Opera
House 682
437. Skua ~rull in flight. Photo. Emil Schulthess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
438. J¢lRN UTZON. Sydney Opera House, 1957. The sails of the shell vaults meet
at a single point 682
439. Sydney Opera House, 1957. Ground plan . . . 683
440. J~RN UTZON. Zurich Theater, 1964. Model. Photo. Peter Griinert 690
441. Zurich Theater, 1964. Elevational view of model. Photo. Peter Griinert . . 690
442. J¢lRN UTZON. Fredensborg housing near Copenhagen, 1962. Single-family
dwellings. Photo. Skriver . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693
443. Fredensborg housing, 1962. View of a dwelling across the rectangular opening.
Photo. Giedion 693
444. Fredensborg housing, 1962. Plan 693
445. MERCIER. Etching from Tableau de Paris, 1786 711
446. Tuileries, gardens laid out by Lenotre. Engraving by Mariette 712
447. Rue de Rivoli, Paris, c. 1825 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713
448. PERCIER and FONTAINE. Elevation of a house on the Rue de Rivoli, 1806 713
449. Rue de Rivoli, view toward the Louvre, 1840 715
450. WREN. Plan for the reconstruction of London, 1666. Reproduced, by permis-
sion, from Town Planning Rel'iew, May 1923 717
451. Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, 1812. Courtesy of Mrs. Albert C. Koch 718
452. Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, in the early eighteenth century. British Crown
Copyright. Photo. Victoria aud Albert Museum, London 720
453. Square in the Bloomshury district. Photo. Giedion 721
454. Grosvenor Square, London, begun in 1695. Reproduced, by permission, from
Defoe's A Tour through London by Sir Mayson Beeton and E. B. Chancellor
(Batsford: London, 1929) . 723
455. Bloomsbury at the end of the eighteenth century. Part of a map of 1795.
Courtesy of the University of London 725
451i. Bloomsbury in 1828. Map of James Wyld, engraved by N. R. Hewitt. Courtesy
of the University of London 725
457. Bloomsbury; air view of Russell, Bedford, Bloomsbury, and adjacent squares.
Photo. Aerofilms Ltd. 727
458. Bedford Place, from Bloomsbury Square to Russell Square, begun in 1800.
Photo. Giedion 728
459. Bloomsbury district, Woburn Square, row of houses, c. 1825-30. Photo. Giedion 731
460. Kensington, London, 1830-40. Air view. Photo. Aerofilms Ltd. 732
461. JOHN NASH. Park Crescent, London, begun in 1812 735
462. JOHN NASH. Large-scale housing adjacent to Regent's Park. Reproduced,
by permission, from Archileclural Rel'iew, December 1927 736
463. JOHN NASH. A terrace of Regent's Park. Engraving by H. Melvelle 737
464. JOHN NASH. First project of the housing development in Regent's Park, 1812.
Reproduced, by permission of the publishers, Allen and Unwin, Ltd., from John
Summerson, John Nash (London, 1935) 737
465. View of Birmingham, 1850 738
466. Map of Paris by Napoleon III 741
467. The transformation of Paris by Haussmann. Map by Alphand 746
468. Square de Ia Tour Saint-Jacques, 1855 748
469. Place du Chatelet 749
470. Boulevard Saint-Michel, 1869 750
471. Avenue de l'lmperatrice (Avenue Foch), 1862 751
472. Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, 1861-63 752
473. Avenue de !'Opera, from the Opera to the Louvre and the Rue de Rivoli 756
474. Grand staircase of the Tuileries. Imperial Ball, 1860 757
475. Tree-lifting machine for transplanting full-grown trees 758
xxvii
476. Place de la Concorde and Champs-Elysees. Air view, 1855 758
477. Hardy subtropical plants: Wigandia . . . 759
478. Bois de Boulogne, 1853-58 760
479. Bois de Vincennes, from Plateau de Gravelles, 1857-64 . 761
480. Apartments on the Boulevard Sebastopol, Paris, 1860. Fa.;;ade and section . 768
481. Apartment house on the Boulevard Sebastopol, 1860. Plan of second, third, and
fourth floors . 768
482. J. B. PAPWORTH. Scheme for "Rural Town" on the banks of the Ohio River,
"H ygeia," 1827 . . . . . . 779
483. OTTO WAGNER. Scheme for a district center in Vienna, c. 1910 781
484. TONY GARNIER. Cite Industrielle, 1901-04. General map 788
485. TONY GARNIER. Cite Industrielle, 1901-04. Houses and gardens 790
486. TONY GARNIER. Cite Industrielle, 1901-04. Plan of a dwelling unit; terraces 790
487. TONY GARNIER. Cite Industrielle, 1901-04. School, with open terraces and
covered verandah 791
488. TONY GARNIER. Cite Industrielle, 1901-04. Ferroconcrete houses with open
staircases and roof gardens . 792
489. LE CORBUSIER. Settlement at Pessac, near Bordeaux, 1926 793
490. H. P. BERLAGE. Plan of Amsterdam South, 1902 796
491. French landscape gardening, 1869 797
492. H. P. BERLAGE. Final plan for Amsterdam South, 1915 800
493. Amsterdam South, North and South Amstellaan in the thirties. Air view.
Photo. K.L.M .. 801
494. Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, 1861-63 801
495. Amsterdam South, the Amstellaan 802
496. Amsterdam South, the Amstellaan. Apartment houses by de Klerk, 1923 802
497. Master plan for Amsterdam South, 1934 . 805
498. Amsterdam, master plan, district Bosch en Lommer, with detail of model, 1938 809
499. Master plan of Amsterdam West, proposal for "Het Westen" 811
500. MERKELBACH and KARSTEN. Low-cost housing settlement, Amsterdam
West ("Het Westen"), 1937. Photo. Giedion 811
501. Changes of the master plan by the executive architects of "Het Westen" . . 811
502. MERKELBACH and KARSTEN. Low-cost 'housing settlement, "Het
Westen." Apartment with living room, two bedrooms for parents and children,
kitchen, balcony, and shower . 811
503. F. L. OLMSTED. Overpass in Central Park, New York City, 1858. Litho-
graph, Sarony, Major & Knapp 826
504. Merritt Parkway, Connecticut, 1939. Photo. Meyers. Courtesy of the Park
Department, Hartford, Connecticut 827
505. Merritt Parkway, Connecticut, with overpass. Photo. Giedion 827
506. Randall's Island, cloverleaf, with approach to Triborough Bridge, New York
City, 1936. Courtesy of the Park Commission, New York City . 828
:l07. "The Pretzel," intersection of Grand Central Parkway, Grand Central Park-
way Extension, Union Turnpike, Interboro Parkway, and Queens Boulevard,
New York City, 1936-37. Courtesy of the Park Commission, New York City 829
508. West Side development, including Henry Hudson Parkway, 1934-37. Courtesy
of the Park Commission, New York City 830
509. WALTER GROPIUS. Slablike block units, 1930 834
510. WALTER GROPIUS. Model for the settlement "Haselhorst," Berlin, 1929 834
511. W. VAN TIJEN. The Plaslaan, Rotterdam, 1937-38 . . . . . . 835
512. Apartment house at Highpoint, London, by the Tecton group, 1936-38. Photo.
Giedion ....... . 836
513. Skyscraper apartment houses in open space near Lake Michigan, Chicago, c. 1929.
Photo. Tague 838
.114. LE CORBUSIER. Skyscraper amidst greenery; projPct for Buenos Aires, 1929 839
515. LE CORBUSIER. Plan for "Ilot insalubre, no. 6," 1937 . 841
516. LE CORBUSIER. "1lot insalubre, no. 6," zigzag apartment blocks 841
517. LE CORBUSIER. Entry for replanning the center of Berlin, 1961. From
Le Corbusier, tEut•re complete, vol. VII . 842
518. Rockefeller Center, New York City, 1931-39. Air view. Photo. Thomas Airviews 844
519. The slablike skyscraper: R.C.A. Building, Rockefeller Center, New York, 1931-
32. Photo. Wendell MacRae ..... . 847
520. R.C.A. Building, Rockefeller Center. Floor plan 847
521. The towers of Asinelli and Garisenda. Bologna, thirteenth century 851
522. Rockefeller Center. Photomontage 852
523. EDGERTON. Speed photograph of golf stroke 853
524. KENZO TANGE. Project for building over the Tokyo Bay, 1960 860
525. KENZO T ANGE. Detail of Tokyo Bay Project, 1960. Photo. Akio Kawasumi 860
526. FUMIHIKO MAKI. Project for rebuilding a section of Tokyo, 1964. Photo.
Petoria 0. Murai 861
xxviii
527. J. L. SERT and P. L. WIENER. Project for a new mining town at Chimbote.
Peru, 1949 864
528. J. L. SERT. Peabody Terrace, 1964. Air View. Photo. Laurence Lowry 866
529. Peabody Terrace, 1964. Plan . 866
530. Peabody Terrace, 1964. Section through a twenty-one-story tower 866
531. Peabody Terrace. The central plaza. Photo. Phokion Karas 867
xxix
ARCHITECTURE IN THE 1960'S:
INTRODUCTION
HOPES AND FEARS
CONFUSION AND BOREDOM
In the sixties a certain confusion exists in contemporary

architecture, as in painting; a kind of pause, even a kind of
exhaustion. Everyone is aware of it. Fatigue is normally
accompanied by uncertainty, what to do and where to go.
Fatigue is the mother of indecision, opening the door to
escapism, to superficialities of all kinds.
A symposium at the Metropolitan Museum of New York in
the spring of 1961 discussed the question, "Modern Archi-
tecture, Death or Metamorphosis~" As this topic indicates,
contemporary architecture is regarded by some as a fashion
and - as an American architect expressed it - many de-
signers who had adopted the fashionable aspects of the
"International Style," now found the fashion had worn thin
and were engaged in a romantic orgy. This fashion, with
its historical fragments picked at random, unfortunately in-
fected many gifted architects. By the sixties its results
could be seen everywhere: in smallbreasted, gothic-styled
colleges, in a lacework of glittering details inside and outside,
in the toothpick stilts and assembly of isolated buildings of
the largest cultural center.
A kind of playboy-architecture became en vogue: an architec-
ture treated as playboys treat life, jumping from one sensa-
tion to another and quickly bored with everything.
I have no doubt that this fashion born out of an inner un-
certainty will soon be obsolete; but its effects can be rather
dangerous, because of the world-wide influence of the United
States.
We are still in the formation period of a new tradition, still
at its beginning. In Architecture, You and Me I pointed out
the difference between the nineteenth- and twentieth-century
xxxii
approach to architecture. There is a word we should refrain
from using to describe contemporary architecture - "style."
The moment we fence architecture within a notion of "style,"
we open the door to a formalistic approach. The contempo-
rary movement is not a "style" in the nineteenth-century
meaning of form characterization. It is an approach to the
life that slumbers unconsciously within all of us.
In architecture the word "style" has often been combined
with the epithet "international," though this epithet has
never been accepted in Europe. The term "international
style" quickly became harmful, implying something hovering
in mid-air, with no roots anywhere: cardboard architecture.
Contemporary architecture worthy of the name sees its main
task as the interpretation of a way of life valid for our period.
There can be no question of "Death or Metamorphosis,"
there can only be the question of evolving a new tradition,
and many signs show that this is in the doing.
SIGNS OF THE EVOLVING TRADITION
An easy pandering to popular taste in architecture has been

tried several times since the optical revolution around 1910.
These trends came and went. And the play boy attitude of
the sixties will vanish too. There are definite signs that the
process of developing a new tradition is continuing in spite of
temporary disturbances.
A period terrified that mankind may destroy itself at any
moment is simultaneously impelled by a frantic desire to
found new cities such as has not occurred since the thirteenth
century.
Another phenomenon is that contemporary architecture has
become enriched, both in architecture and urbanism, by con-
tributions from countries on the rims of Western civiliza-
tion, first from Finland and Brazil and lately from Japan.
The directions in which architecture will develop have become
increasingly clearer: strengthening of its plastic tendencies
and strengthening of conditions for its further evolution.
xxxiii
There is universal agreement that the values lost to our
period must be restored: the human scale, the rights of the
individual, the most primitive security of movement within
the city. Behind this desire stands the unchanging constancy
of human life which demands fulfillment. In earlier periods
it was relatively simple to create settlements in which man
was not too far removed from his need for contact with the
soil. Today nothing is harder than to fulfill the simplest needs
of life. The heavy weight of mechanization and all that
follows in its train have entailed enormous complications that
make it almost impossible to adopt any simple lines of direc-
tion.
As a result the questions which preoccupy us today tend to
demand a global solution. Large-scale planning has long
since moved from making plans for an individual city or
region to the realm of mass production.
But despite the complicated situation of the present day, the
unchanging values of life remain. Despite obstructions which
impede its fulfillment, the uppermost question is: How do we
wish to live? The present state of urban planning indicates
the current trends.
URBAN DEVELOPMENT
The future way of life consists in the recovery of the intimac-y

of life. An increase in urban population from ten thousand
to ten million gives one an almost physical revulsion. The
enormous heaping up of human beings induces a horror of
mankind. Crowded cities have perforce led to a bankruptcy
of life. An irrepressible desire for more concentration is again
perceptible, despite all decentralization.
Formerly poets and painters retired into isolation. Today
research laboratories and the offices of large organizations or
insurance companies flee from the great metropolitan cities to
barricade themselves with an undisturbed green belt of
pnvacy.
A feeling of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with the urban
situation has crept over the whole earth: schemes to dis plant
XXXIV
urban centers, so that the city can expand without strangling
its ancient compact center, exist for nearly every major city,
from Helsinki to Athens in Europe and in the old and new
capitals of the developing areas ~ Baghdad, Khartoum,
Islamabad, Chandigarh, Brasilia.
Chandigarh is paramount among newly founded capitals for
placing its government center at the head of its urban body
and not in its womb as was the custom in the medieval walled
towns. Brasilia solves the same problem by placing the gov-
ernment center ~ the plaza of "the three powers" (legislative,
executive, and judiciary) ~at the tail of its airplanelike
plan (fig. III).
The idea of placing a government center at the head of a city
is not new, but it had to be re-invented. In another form it
was inherent in the Chateau de Versailles. The constituent
fact embodied in Versailles is the direct confrontation of a
large building complex~ including government ministries~
with nature. Today I would also stress that the city behind
it could have expanded at will. If the urbanists of the nine-
teenth and twer:tieth centuries could have understood early
enough the new message of Versailles, the situation today
would be radically different; but, because of the inertia of
human decisions, the world waited till it stood before a nearly
insoluble situation.
The center within the city is by no means moribund. It is
being renewed or even newly created, depending on the cir-
cumstances. As early as 1953, several university professors
planned a new center over an old railroad yard in Boston
(fig. 306). If built, it would have been a prototype for the
whole country. As far as the placing of volumes in space is
concerned, the much earlier Rockefeller Center still remains
the most impressive, though a farsighted scheme for Penn
Center in Philadelphia was developed as far as circumstances
permitted.
In the fifties nobody would have expected an urban renewal
boom in the United States. A decade later, it is proceding
much more quickly than the knowledge of how to accomplish
it architecturally.
XXXV
New ideas for urban development are coming from Japan.
To diminish the overcrowding and the congestion within
Tokyo, proposals have been made to create new land by
building out over the bay. The horrifying growth of Tokyo
during twenty years to an agglomeration of over ten million
provided the incentive for this idea. Different schemes used
different modern techniques. In one project ferroconcrete
pillars, anchored at the bottom of the sea, were proposed as
foundations for high-rise buildings; another proposed enor-
mous ferroconcrete rafts upon which the buildings would be
placed. Kenzo Tange's plan, 1960 (fig. 524), is the most
comprehensive. His structures, built on stilts, were in the
Venetian tradition and, if one likes, could be traced back even
to primeval lake-dwellings. It is astonishing that it has
taken such a long time for modern construction methods to
be proposed for this purpose.
Everything becomes clearer by comparison. If we confront
the amount of urban exploration of the last twenty years
with what was done in the preceding century, the results are
remarkable.
In the first edition of Space, Time and Architecture we posed
the question: Destruction or transformation of the city~
Frank Lloyd Wright's desire to see the complete destruction
of the city has not been followed up. The city will not dis-
appear. It has been an ineradicable phenomenon since the
very beginning of higher civilization. But its form is chang-
ing. Today all development moves in the direction of making
the aspect of major cities more rural and smaller rural agglom-
erations more urban. \V e now see the way before us, though
it still has to be implemented: the reconquering of intimate
life, the human scale, the planning for growth. There are
many other problems. But we can see the way.
UNIVERSAL ARCHITECTURE
In the last quarter of a century Europe has not been the only
source of breezes freshening the development of contemporary
architecture. A universal civilization is in the making but it
xxxvi
is by no means developing in every country at the same
pace.
It has in common a space conception, which is as much a part
of its emotional as of its spiritual attitude. It is not the
independent unrelated form that is the goal of architecture
today but the organization of forms in space: space conception.
This has been true for all creative periods, including the
present. The present space-time conception- the way vol-
umes are placed in space and relate to one another, the way
interior space is separated from exterior space or is perfo-
rated by it to bring about an interpenetration- is a universal
attribute which is at the basis of all contemporary architec-
ture.
To this can be added another factor which is of no little
importance and which lies at the basis of the best contemporary
architecture. Its emanating force is generated by the respect
it has given to the eternal cosmic and terrestrial conditions
of a particular region. Instead of being regarded as hindrances
these have served as springboards for the artistic imagination.
It has often been remarked that the painting of this century
has again and again driven boreholes into the past, both to
renew contact with spiritual forebears and to draw new
strength from these contacts. As in architecture, this is not
achieved by adopting the forms of the past but by develop-
ing a spiritual bond.
This penetrating into the cosmic and terrestrial elements of a
region I have elsewhere called the "new regionalism." The
contemporary space conception and contemporary means of
expression can reopen a dialogue with these unchanging ele-
ments.
The manner in which the new regionalism is expressed by a
creatively oriented architect depends entirely upon his actual
tasks and their specific needs. These are different in the
Near East and in the Far East, in Finland and in Brazil.
Beneath the general shelter of the contemporary space con-
ception a polyphonic architecture can develop.
Individual differences in architectural structures together
with a similar over-all approach provide hopeful signs for
future development.
xxxvii
UNIVERSAL ARCHITECTURE AND REGIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
Structures imbued with creative force suddenly arose, first in

Finland and then in Brazil. Each country made its own
regional contribution. Strongly democratic Finland showed
how contemporary architecture can be simultaneously re-
laxed, regional, and universal. Brazil, constantly menaced by
Latin American upheavals, introduced a grandeur of line and
form in a series of glittering fac;ades and astonishingly im-
pressive projects.
The entry of Japan into the main stream of contemporary
architecture announced for the first time the voice of the
Far East. Before this moment traditional China and Japan
had provided incentives for the \Vest during the eighteenth
century- Rococo- and, more profoundly, during the nine-
teenth century when Japanese woodcuts helped to release the
imagination of the Impressionists.
But in the sixties the situation is quite different. The Jap-
anese contribution is no longer confined to work in an age-old
tradition. \Vhen, in 1953, I wrote a foreword for the Japanese
translation of Space, Time and Architecture I felt it in some
way a duty to point out that we of the \Vest no longer adhere
to a creed of production for production's sake and that the
civilization which is now in the making may lead to a cross-
fertilization of West and East. The West is again becoming
conscious of something the Japanese civilization never forgot:
the continuity of human experience. The rejuvenation of
Japanese architecture is nurtured by elements which have
persisted throughout its own tradition. The creative impulse
for this rejuvenation came from certain young Japanese archi-
tects who found their inspiration when working in the atelier
of Le Corbusier at 35 Rue de Sevres.
The emergence of contemporary architecture in Japan came
later than one might expect. It might seem that Frank
Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (1917-22) would
have released the new movement. But it was not so. The
Imperial Hotel was not conceived in a contemporary Japanese
xxxviii
spirit. It was closer to the Chinese influence in Japan.
Though this hotel survived so marvelously the earthquake of
1923, it could not -with its lavish ornamentation- give
the necessary impetus for a new move forward.
The means bringing \Vestern and Eastern spirits together
were different. The key lay in the hands of young Japanese
architects - Maekawa, Sakakura and others - who had
found their way to Le Corbusier's atelier. Here they discov-
ered what they needed. Le Corbusier was more closely
connected than others to that Eternal Present which lives in
the creative artifacts of all periods.
Except for a short interlude, the Japanese- in contrast to
Western man - have never severed themselves from times
past. They have had no incentive to imitate former "styles,"
since the past is constantly alive. The simplicity of their
homes, despite all refinements, remains primeval. Their
contemporary use of concrete beams and stilts appears simul-
taneously age-old and new-born.
There are now a number of young Japanese architects, of
whom Kenzo Tange, who once worked in the office of Mae-
kawa, is the best known. Their secret is a close contact with
the living past and an eagerness to reach out into the future.
CONSTRUCTION AND ITS SPATIAL

IMPLICATIONS
In the nineteenth century, structural engineering gave expres-

sion to desires which lay slumbering in the subconscious of the
architecture of that period. In this century things are differ-
ent. Architecture is now in the forefront and often asks more
from the engineer than he can yet accomplish.
Structural engineering grew out of new methods of calculation
and new developments in the manufacture of ferrous metals.
For purposes of calculation, all structural parts were conceived
as linear elements - forces obliged to follow and act in a pre-
scribed direction- so that their behavior could be measured
and controlled in advance. These forces were guided through
xxxix
beams, trusses, and arches as through a pipe line. Prefabrica-
tion and standardization naturally followed this linear pro-
cedure. The Eiffel Tower is the most famous example of its
early application.
A peak of development was reached just before 1890 with
brilliant bridges spun in mid air, the Eiffel Tower, and the
Palais des Machines of 1889. Simultaneously the modern
skyscraper was born in Chicago. Its construction, based on
prefabricated linear elements, has been continually perfected
up to the present day. The highly complicated procedures
for calculating pre-stressed concrete beams also, to some
extent, follow nineteenth-century linear methods.
Twentieth-century structural engineering is moving along a
different path. The tendency to activate every part of a
structural system instead of concentrating the flow of forces
into single lines or channels continues to grow. Such systems
can expand with full liberty in all directions. This results in
certain difficulties. The forces cannot be easily controlled:
often they evade precise calculation. Only tests by means of
models and mock-ups can help. Construction merges with the
irrational and sculptural.
This development required a more flexible material than
straight-line steel trusses. About 1900 reinforced concrete
was sufficiently developed for shell construction to be possible.
In this book we show the bridges of Robert Maillart because
they have a pure beauty to eyes trained by contemporary art.
This beauty was not arbitrary. Maillart was one of the first
to conceive and to develop the idea of using surface tension
in the flat or curved slabs of his bridges and mushroom ceilings,
eliminating all linear elements. Freyssinnet and Maillart
built their eggshell vaults about 1930.
Maillart once said he had got his inspiration from a steam
boiler. The directive of a spatial distribution of forces
throughout an entire structure has now been extended in
many fields. E. Y. Galantay, one of my former ZUrich
students, who has taught architecture at Harvard and Co-
lumbia, has prepared an approximate record of these tenden-
cies: in the design of automobiles and railroad rolling stock,
xl
the chassis and the body have been replaced by a single
stressed-skin structure. A move from open-truss to stressed-
skin bodies in airplane construction presents the most spec-
tacular development, but shell construction also occurs in
shipbuilding. Large-scale thin-shell dams (first developed in
France) are slowly replacing the heavy arch and buttress
types. Even furniture design follows this trend. The single-
legged chairs of Eero Saarinen, who died so prematurely, are
pure shell structures.
Since the death of Maillart in 1941, shell structures and space
frames have continued to develop an astonishing richness and
versatility and to offer more and more possibilities to kindle
architectural imagination.
Shapes formerly possible only with the use of the lightest
materials can now be made in shell concrete. The earliest
forms of shelter reappear: the nomad's tent, the hanging roof
used in prehistoric Russian settlements, the baldachin and
other canopies. Even the principle of the hammock is em-
ployed in a network of concave roofing, and the principle of
the drum appears in pre-stressed concrete.
A bewildering multitude of possibilities can arise from com-
binations of rotational shells with a single or double curvature
or complicated spatial forms such as hyperbolic paraboloids
arising from straight-line generators. Cables- the most
flexible of building materials - acquire symptomatic impor-
tance for prefabricated concrete.
The lightness and great flexibility of form offered by shells
are now, for the first time in the history of vaulting, ac-
companied by no lateral stress. The structural system is
equilibrateu within itself. Shell construction appears ever
more strongly to be the starting point for the solution of the
vaulting problem for our period.
This does not mean that linear structural elements have been
discarded. They continue to be used both in large and in
small constructions. They have been developed further by
great engineers, such as Pier Luigi Nervi, who uses prefabri-
cated linear elements in spanning his large vaults and domes.
In his Turin Exhibition Hall of 1961- one of Nervi's most
xli
daring experiments - he strives for a more complicated
spatial organization by the use of huge free-standing columns
of different heights, which radiate fanlike structural fingers.
A certain dichotomy arises between the form of these individ-
ual structural members and the total boxlike enclosure with
its flat ceiling. It may be that this building represents both
the peak and the end of a long development.
The way ahead lies with a freer use of shell construction
such as has been developed by Candela in Mexico, the archi-
tect-engineer Catalano, now at Massachusetts Institue of
Technology, and, above all, Torroja in Spain. Eduard
Torroja, who died in June 1961, was a profound theoretician
as well as a great artist who sometimes, as in the structure of
the Madrid Racecourse (1943), seemed to reach the point
where construction acquires the organic power of nature.
The Tachira Club of Caracas, Venezuela (1957), one of his
latest works with S. Vivas, has the lightness and overwhelming
grace of a moving sail.
J¢rn Utzon solved the vaulting problem in yet another way in
his use of a sequence of ten great shells, rising up to sixty
meters over the Sydney Opera House (fig. I). The folding
I. J~RN lJTZON. Sydney Opera House, Australia, 1957. View from west. A
sequence of great shells rises from the stepped platform, each growing out from a steel shoe.
wings of each of these giant shells (erected without use of

scaffolding) tilt over a single section of the complex, each closed
by a concave glass wall designed to be spatially sucked up into
the vault (fig. 436). It is clear from the form of these shells
that they have been built up from prefabricated elements of a
heavy material. It is quite otherwise with Kenzo Tange's
xlii
hall for the Olympic games in Tokyo, 1964. In its interior
the primeval form of the tent takes on a fantastic new dimen-
sion, and its exterior has the dynamic tension of a seashell.
Its construction - which presented some difficulties - de-
pends from a single great steel cable (fig. V).
Solutions to the vaulting problem of our period show a mar-
velous symbiosis: they make full use of the most advanced
methods of construction and simultaneously come ever closer
to organic forms.
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE PAST
I have always regarded the past as something not dead but

an integral part of existence, corning to understand more and
more the wisdom of the Bergsonian saying that the past gnaws
incessantly into the future. It all depends on how one
approaches the past. One way is to regard it as a useful
dictionary from which one can select forms and shapes. The
nineteenth century did this, using the past as a means of
escape from its own time by masking itself with the shells of
bygone periods.
The fashion of the sixties is more refined. It only flirts ·with
the past, nibbling at random details - pointed arches,
renaissance porticoes, cupolas - giving them a surrealistic
flavoring, so as to achieve a "poetic" expression.
The creative artists of this period - poets, painters, sculptors,
and architects- have taken another way. In their work,
past, present, and future merge together as the indivisible
wholeness of human destiny.
Early in this century the paintings of the great masters used
means of expression- abstraction, transparency, simulta-
neity -which are close to those of primeval art. This did
not represent a sudden, quickly devaluated, fashion. It was
the outcome of an unconscious parallelism, arising from an
urge to probe into the elemental, the irrational, the sources
of symbolic expression. It was born of a desire to counteract
the damages of mechanization. This can only be noted
xliii
briefly here but is treated extensively in my book The Begin-
nings of Art (The Eternal Present, volume I).
This attitude toward the past emerges in the work of leading
architects, not in the adoption of shapes but in the expression
of inner affinities. In the priory of La Tourette by Le Cor-
busier, 1960 (fig. 337), the customary placement of everything
seems radically changed: the cloister, the church, and the
plastic thrust of the tower are all welded with the monastic
buildings. Yet La Tourette was inspired by French monas-
teries of the twelfth century. In it their spirit continues to
live.
Another example of this approach is the reintroduction of the
patio in contemporary architecture. The patio, the inner
court, the secluded part of a dwelling, has been known since
the private houses of Ur, built around 2000 B.c. Roman
country houses had a whole series of interior courts, serving
specific functions. In 1949 Jose Luis Sert reintroduced the
patio for workers' settlements in Chimbote, Peru, to give the
people some needed privacy and distance from their neighbors
(fig. 527). By this means, Sert- with some memories of
Moorish-Spanish patios - achieved a spatial generosity de-
spite a highly condensed plan. This is perhaps best shown
in his own house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, built in 1958,
where the interior patio gives a spatial magnificence to a
compact house plan.
A new chapter in this edition, "J¢lrn Utzon and the Third
Generation," deals with this changing approach to past his-
tory and the relations of his architectural generation to the
founders of the modern movement.
The approach to the past only becomes creative when the
architect is able to enter into its inner meaning and content.
It degenerates into a dangerous pastime when one is merely
hunting for forms: playboy architecture.
THE PRESENT STATE OF ARCHITECTURE
Many architects are disturbed by the sculptural tendencies

evinced in much of today's architecture: the Ronchamps
xliv
Pilgrimage Chapel (1955) by Le Corbusier; the Sydney Opera
House (1957) by Jorn Utzon; the Tokyo Festival Hall (1961)
by Kunio Maekawa; and the National Indoor Stadium in
Tokyo (1964) by Kenzo Tange. Architecture is approaching
sculpture and sculpture approaches architecture. What do
these symptoms mean?
To recognize and evaluate what is happening today and where
we now stand needs a longer perspective than the immediate
historical past. It may be advisable to project the present
happenings against the large screen of historical developments.
We see them in the light of the prejudices we were born with.
Among these is a belief that architectural space is synonymous
with hollowed-out space, with interior space. This belief is
based on the development of the last two thousand years.
Since the days of Imperial Rome, the formation of interior
space has been the major problem of the art of building. This
experience of architectural space is so familiar that it requires
a very considerable effort for us to become aware of its relative
nature, as I have said in Architecture, You and Me (p. 119)
and elsewhere.
Volumes in Space
But another space conception exists which has an equal right
to recognition. This persisted throughout the first high
civilizations- Egypt, Sumer, and even Greece. In all of
these, the shaping of interior space was not regarded as of
great importance. From the point of view of later times it
could even be said that their builders neglected or disregarded
it. They remained beginners in finding solutions to the
vaulting problem because they never gave it the high symbolic
importance it acquired in later periods.
It was the masters of modern painting who sharpened our
eyes so that we could recognize that these Archaic high
civilizations had their own conception of space. This concep-
tion led them to such supreme achievements as the placement
of the triad of pyramids at Giza and the assemblage of temples
upon the Acropolis at Athens.
xlv
II. KUNIO MAEKAWA. Festival Hall, Tokyo, 1961.
xlvi
At the dawn of history, man's relations with the cosmos had
not yet been severed. One of the expressions of this relation
was a setting of volumes in boundless space. Interior space
received little light. It signified darkness, the motherly
womb of the earth. This situation, basic for what is happen-
ing in architecture today, is developed in The Beginnings of
Architecture (The Eternal Present, volume II).
Forms are not bounded by their physical limits. Forms
emanate and model space. Today we are again becoming
aware that shapes, surfaces and planes do not merely model
interior space. They operate just as strongly, far beyond
the confines of their actual measured dimensions, as constit-
uent elements of volumes standing freely in the open. It is
not just the size of the pyramids or the never-surpassed per-
fection of the Parthenon that is significant. It is the inter-
action between volumes which gives full orchestration to the
first architectural space conception.
Today we have again become sensitive to the space-emanating
powers of volumes, thus awakening to an emotional affinity
with the earliest origins of architecture. vVe again realize
that volumes affect space just as an enclosure gives shape to
an interior space. We can turn to the work of a sculptor for
an expression of this contemporary awareness of the rela-
tions between volumes of different form, height, and position.
For twenty years Alberto Giacometti experimented with the
interplay of primitive forms: from his Pour une Place of 1930
and the Palace at 4 a.m. of 1932 until he designed a small
bronze group, Passers-by on a Square, in 1948. The bodies of
these passers-by are dematerialized to the utmost, yet they
are so formed and placed that they fill the space between and
beyond them.
In contemporary architecture I think the first planned rela-
tions of volumes in space can be found in Le Corbusier's
project for the City Center of Saint Die (1945). Here the
different buildings are designed and placed in such a way that
each emanates and fills its own spatial atmosphere and simul-
taneously each bears an intimate relationship with the whole.
Today architects constantly face the task of placing volumes
of different height and form in mutual relationship. But the
x1vii
III. LUCIO COSTA. Plaza
of the Three Powers, Brasilia,
1957. Sketch from the pilot
plan.
talent to do this has become rare, perhaps because the shaping

of interior space has for so long been regarded as architecture's
supreme task. Even the marvelous urban courts and squares
of the late baroque, with their surrounding walls, were a form
of interior space, roofed by the open sky.
Our situation is fundamentally different. The enclosing
walls have disappeared. High towers must be related with
low buildings. Squares without walls are developing. One
of the first plans of this type is the triangular Plaza of the
Three Powers in Brasilia (1957-60; fig. III), where the domi-
nating complex of senate, congress and administration buildings
enter into a free relation with lower structures- the presi-
dential palace and the high court of justice - at the corners
of the triangle. There are no walls: "le jeu savant des volumes
dans l' espace."
Architecture and Sculpture

That architecture is approaching sculpture and sculpture is
approaching architecture is no deviation from the develop-
ment of contemporary architecture.
One of the features of this evolving tradition is the simul-
taneity of freedom and involvement. Through this volumes
have reacquired the significance they possessed at the dawn
xlviii
IV. LUCIO COSTA. Plaza of the Three Powers, Brasilia, 1957-60.
of civilization. They have again become active emanating

bodies. This is one of the reasons why buildings like the
Ronchamps Chapel, the Tokyo Festival Hall, and the Sydney
Opera House are so strongly modeled. The shaping of Ron-
champs constantly reminds one of the interconnection between
inner and outer space that Le Corbusier calls "acoustic
space."
At the beginning of the present development painting stood
in the foreground. Now it is sculpture.
With good reason, warnings have come from many sides that
a building like Ronchamps could be a disaster in the hands of
a mediocre architect. The secret of Le Corbusier's work is
that he is an architect, a painter, and a sculptor. These gifts
are normally divided today between different personalities.
The average architect rarely knows how to place volumes and
even less how to sculpture them. Sculptors, on the other
xlix
hand, have developed this sensitivity. But there is no
connecting bridge between them and the architects. Normally
it is only when everything about a building has already been
decided that an artist is called in and offered some spot to
"decorate."
Following this principle, even the best and most carefully
selected artists can never achieve more than a museum display.
An integration is impossible. After several such bitter experi-
ences most of the best sculptors have given up hope and re-
turned to their workshops. There is but a faint hope that the
necessary humility will develop so that architect and artist
can work together from the very beginning. Yet this presents
the only way forward.
The Vaulting Problem

During the last two millenia, each period has created its own
form of vaulting interior space: the Roman, Byzantine,
Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque. Each specific
form of vaulting has almost become the symbol of its age.
We are still at the beginning of a period. It is far too early
to make any definite statement in view of the multitude of
different vaulting possibilities offered to architects by the
engineers of our time. It is possible, in contrast to earlier
periods, that many forms may develop simultaneously.
One possibility is that ceiling and floor may mirror one
another like mussel shells, as in Naum Gabo's early design
for the assembly halls of the Palace of the Soviets (1931).
Le Corbusier's outstanding proposal for the assembly hall of
the United Nations in New York (1947), which would have
created one of the most exciting interior spaces of our period,
also moves in this direction.
The greatest possibilities are offered by shell concrete vaults.
Up to now the center of a vaulted ceiling has always been
indicated by its point of highest elevation. But now ceilings
are able to become concave and their center can occur at the
lowest point: Le Corbusier's Ronchamps Chapel (1955), Berlin
Conference Hall (Stubbins and Severud, 1957). This is
I
psychologically significant. The interpenetration of inner and
outer space, fundamental at the beginning of the new tradi-
tion, has become transposed into a more refined form. The
concave ceiling rises to the encompassing walls, indicating
that it does not stop there but extends further. At Ronchamps
a narrow rim of glass separating ceiling and wall underscores
this intention. The ceiling rests upon the walls like a descend-
ing bird.
The hyperparaboloid space frame offers a new starting point
for the spatial imagination. Whether of wood or of shell
concrete its balance is always contained within itself and its
hovering impression derives from its inner constitution.
The Revitalization of the Wall

To become a constituent element of a volume, the wall had
first to be cleansed of all decorative eruptions of the nine-
teenth century. There had to be a rediscovery of the aesthetic
values of the pure surface plane whose expressive power had
been lost since Egyptian times.
In terms of space conception this rediscovery tore the massive
traditional house apart. It was in the early twenties that
Doesburg, van Eesteren, Rietveldt and Mies van der Rohe
achieved this transformation. The house became dissected
into flat rectangular planes.
This rediscovery of the surface plane was fundamental. It
formed the basis on which a second phase could be developed.
This second phase also embodied the plane as an inherent
element. It was diametrically opposed to the use of the wall
as a backdrop for the attachment of reliefs: an attitude which
finds its prototype in late Hellenistic, almost free-standing,
reliefs (Altar at Pergamon). 'Vhat concerns us in this second
phase is the plastic integration of surface and modeling. This
is the hallmark both of reliefs and of architectural-sculptural
treatment of the wall. The nature of primeval reliefs, em-
bedded in the rock, and of the sunken reliefs of Egypt,
embedded in stone, is given new life.
Contemporary interest in sculpture and in the plastic possi-
bilities of architecture results in an increasing interest in mural
li
V. LE CORBUSIER. Pilgrimage Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps, 1955.
VI. KENZO TANGE. Annex to National Indoor Stadium, Tokyo, 1964.
Iii
VII. LE CORBUSlER. The Secretariat, Chandigarh, 1952-56. In the foreground is
the entrance to the Parliament Building.
reliefs on the part of the sculptor and in the revitalization of

the wall on the part of the architect. Artists pioneering in
this field, even before 1920, included Lipschitz, Duchamp-
Villon, Marcel Duchamp. A big impetus was given in the early
fifties by Mirko's beautiful relief portals in the Fosse Ardeatine,
Rome (1953), a monument to murdered prisoners of war; by
Henry Moore's brick reliefs growing out of a brick wall,
Rotterdam (1955); and by the entire work of Etienne Hajdu.
The architectural revitalization of the wall, like Ronchamps,
can be dangerous. It has already thrown a beguiling cloak
over the playboy fashions of the 1960's. One can observe
everywhere a tendency to degrade the wall with new decora-
tive elements. This is not the basic purpose. Architecture
is fundamentally concerned with the revitalization of the wall
from within. Le Corbusier must again be cited as the path-
finder. In his Unite d'Habitation, Marseille (1947-52) , a
plastic modeling of the wall was already accomplished. Its
surfaces are interwoven with large-scale rhythms of horizon-
tality and verticality. The glass walls of the apartments
retire behind a perforated screen.
liii
In his Chandigarh Secretariat (1952-56; fig. VII) the revital-
ization of the wall acquired the strongest expression it had yet
received. This results from a sculptural use of construction
elements, such as vertical parapets and vertical and horizontal
brise-soleils. The delicate vertical expansion joints which
separate the Secretariat's four divisions, subtly articulate
the entire 254-meter building. The section for the Minister
acquires an especial charm through the plastic differentiation
and variation of its massive and perforated elements. But
the most daring feature of this structure is the building
housing the 40-meter high ramp, with its great unbroken
plane surfaces, which shoots forward at a sharp angle, like a
pointing finger. The contrast of a filigree-like articulation
of the walls with the large planes of this slender ramp struc-
ture brings the wall surfaces of this building into an inspirited
tension.
Organic and Geometric

Usually in architecture the organic and the geometric are
strictly separated; they may run parallel to one another but
they never meet. The notion of organic architecture is
closely linked with the work of certain architects: Antoni
Gaudi (1852-1926), Hugo Haring (1882-1958), and Hans
Scharoun (1893--).
Rational geometric forms were characteristic of the early
period of contemporary architecture. They were developed
especially in the Stijl movement and had great influence over
the whole later development.
The trend to the organic again asserted its right in the build-
ings of Alvar Aalto, in the late work of Le Corbusier, in Kenzo
Tange's National Indoor Stadium for the Olympic Games,
1964 (fig. VI), as well as in the work of J¢rn Utzon, to mention
but a few. All faced a common problem of linking a geometric
structure to organic forms.
A very direct confrontation of these opposites - geometric
and organic - can be found in the work of Le Corbusier. It
existed quite early, as in the roof structures of the Villa Savoie,
1928-30 (fig. 315), where curving and rectangular forms stand
side by side. The same principle - the emergence of the
liv
organic next to the geometric - appears on the roof of the
Unite d'Habitation at Marseille, 1947-52 (fig. 326).
In the House of Parliament at Chandigarh (1957) an organic
hyperbolic form is the main element of the entire interior.
It thrusts its mighty curve upward through the roof. In the
Pilgrimage Chapel at Ronchamps, 1955 (fig. V), the organic
principle permeates the whole building. In the crypt of the
church of La Tourette (1960) Le Corbusier achieved an
interplay between progressive geometric elements and an
organically undulating curve (fig. 344).
We have only referred to a few examples, but the synthesis
between the rational-geometric and the mystic-organic princi-
ple runs through all the late work of Le Corbusier. He made
no clear separation between purely geometric and purely
organic forms, as can also be seen in his paintings. It was an
integral part of his being that he knew how to reconcile these
seemingly so divergent realms, and finally he allowed neither
the insistence of the rational nor the insistence of the organic
to prevail.
THREE SPACE CONCEPTIONS
It is easier to understand what is happening in architecture

today when it is set into a wider frame of architectural refer-
ence. To summarize briefly: There are three stages of archi-
tectural development. During the first stage - the first space
conception - space was brought into being by the interplay
between volumes. This stage encompassed the architecture of
Egypt, Sumer, and Greece. Interior space was disregarded.
The second space conception began in the midst of the Roman
period when interior space and with it the vaulting problem
started to become the highest aim of architecture. The
Roman Pantheon with its forerunners marks its beginning.
During the second space conception, the formation of interior
space became synonymous with hollowed-out interior space.
Alois Riegl was the first to recognize this. Despite several
profound differentiations, this second space conception per-
lv
sisted throughout the period from the Roman Pantheon to
the end of the eighteenth century.
The nineteenth century forms an intermediary link. A
spatial analysis of its buildings indicates that elements of all
the different phases of the second stage are simultaneously
intermingled (Paul Frankl). But the earlier spatial unity
vanished more and more. Buildings which most truly repre-
sented the period were ignored by the public.
The third space conception set in at the beginning of this
century with the optical revolution that abolished the single
viewpoint of perspective. This had fundamental conse-
quences for man's conception of architecture and the urban
scene. The space-emanating qualities of free-standing build-
ings could again be appreciated. We recognize an affinity
with the first space conception. Just as at its beginning,
architecture is again approaching sculpture and sculpture is
approaching architecture. At the same time the supreme
preoccupation of the second space conception - the hollowing
out of interior space - is continued, though there is a pro-
foundly different approach to the vaulting problem. New
elements have been introduced: a hitherto unknown inter-
penetration of inner and outer space and an interpenetration
of different levels (largely an effect of the automobile), which
has forced the incorporation of movement as an inseparable
element of architecture. All these have contributed to the
space conception of the present day and underlie its evolving
tradition.
lvi
PART I HISTORY A PART OF LIFE
INTRODUCTION
Unknown in the United States and using a language that is

foreign to me, I must seek the shortest way to direct contact
with an American public. The way of personal contact is
always the shortest route to understanding, not merely in
personal but in general matters. Let me begin then by saying a
few words about where I come from and where I intend to go -
for these facts have a bearing upon the discussion that follows.
Heinrich Wolf- As an art historian I am a disciple of Heinrich WOlffiin. In our
flin: contrasting personal contacts with him as well as through his distinguished
periods
lectures, we, his pupils, learned to grasp the spirit of an epoch.
Wolffiin's incisive analysis made clear to us the true meaning
and significance of a painting or a piece of sculpture.
He delighted in contrasting one period with another. He em-
ployed this method most effectively both in his teaching and
in his books- in his Renaissance and Baroque (1889), in
Classical Art (1899), in which the fifteenth century is opposed
to the sixteenth, and even in his Principles of Art (Kunst-
geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, 1915), which had just appeared
when I studied under him at Munich. Many of his pupils have
tried to emulate this method of contrasting styles, but none
have achieved the same depth and directness.
Late Baroque and In my own first book. Late Baroque and Romantic Classicism
Romantic Classicism (Munich, 1922, written as a thesis), I tried to follow Wolffiin's
method. The periods contrasted were the end of the eighteenth
century and the beginning of the nineteenth, both periods of
classicism. The Louis XVI style formed in shape and structure
the end of late baroque tendencies, with classicism serving as
its framework. The classicism of the beginning of the nine-
teenth century found its most significant outlet in that country
of romantics, Germany. In the architecture of the time the
trend toward an individualistic isolation of rooms from each
other was nowhere so strongly marked as it was in Germany -
in the work of K. F. Schinkel, for example. This was the true
architectural equivalent of the individualism of the romantic
poets.
I called this period one of romantic classicism. Classicism in
both periods was only a coloring - a transitory fact, as I would
2
say now. The essential characteristic of this time was that,
beneath the classic exterior, the baroque inheritance had begun
to disintegrate and nineteenth-century tendencies had begun
to appear.
The problem which fascinated me was how our epoch had been
formed, where the roots of present-day thought lay buried.
This problem has fascinated me from the time I first became
capable of reasoning about it until today.
Heinrich Wolffiin was the pupil of Jakob Burckhardt, and
succeeded him as professor at the University of Basle when he
was only twenty-seven years old. He later taught with great
success at Berlin and Munich. Wolffiin always laid stress on
the wide view taken by Jakob Burckhardt and often quoted
Burckhardt's words not only in his lectures but also in con-
versation. Thus the Swiss historical tradition formed the basis
of our instruction in the science of art. But I am afraid that
many of us did not grasp the significance of Burckhardt- a
significance which reached beyond his metier- until much
later.
Jakob Burckhardt (1818-1897) was the great discoverer of the Jakob Burckhardt:
age of the Renaissance. He first showed how a period should the integral treat-
ment of a period
be treated in its entirety, with regard not only for its painting,
sculpture, and architecture but for the social institutions of its
daily life as well.
I shall mention only one book in this connection, his Civiliza-
tion of the Renaissance, which first appeared in 1860. The
English translation was produced in 1878. An extremely well-
informed review of it appeared in the New York Herald for
October 20, 1880. Burckhardt, who normally shrank from
praise, was so pleased with this review that he wrote "Bravo!"
at the bottom.
In Civilization of the Renaissance Burckhardt emphasized
sources and records rather than his own opinions. He treated
only fragments of the life of the period but treated them so
skillfully that a picture of the whole forms in his readers' minds.
Jakob Burckhardt had no love for his own time: he saw during
the forties an artificially constituted Europe which was on the
verge of being overwhelmed by a flood of brutal forces. The
3
South at that time appeared to have withdrawn from history;
for Burckhardt it had the quiet of a tomb. So it was to the
South, to Italy, that he turned for refuge from all those things
for which he felt hatred and disgust. But Burckhardt was a
man of great vitality, and a man of vitality cannot entirely
desert his own time. His flight to Italy produced the finest
traveler's guide that has ever been written, his Cicerone
(1855) - a book which has opened the eyes of four generations
to the unique qualities of the Italian scene. His Civilization
of the Renaissance aimed at an objective ordering of factual
material, but in it his greatest efforts are devoted to uncovering
the origins of the man of today. John Ruskin, Burckhardt's
immediate contemporary, also hated the age and sought to
draw the means for its regeneration from other periods (though
not those which preoccupied the Swiss historian).
Contemporary But I owe as large a debt to the artists of today as to these
artists: significance guides of my youth. It is they who have taught me to observe
for historical
seriously objects which seemed unworthy of interest, or of
method
interest only to specialists. Modern artists have shown that
mere fragments lifted from the life of a period can reveal its
habits and feelings; that one must have the courage to take
small things and raise them to large dimensions.
These artists have shown in their pictures that the furniture of
daily life, the unnoticed articles that result from mass produc-
tion- spoons, bottles, glasses, all the things we look at hourly
without seeing - have become parts of our natures. They
have welded themselves into our lives without our knowing it.
My activities have brought me into friendly contact with the
architects of our day. We have sat together in small groups
about many tables in Europe, from Stockholm to Athens-
not to discuss problems in art or matters of specialized detail
but to determine as clearly as possiblo what directions housing,
town planning, or regional planning had to take. As secretary
to ClAM (Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne)
during its entire existence (1928~ 1956), I acquired an insight
into the problems of contemporary architecture from its in-
ception.
4
THE HISTORIAN'S RELATION TO HIS AGE
The historian, the historian of architecture especially, must be The historian and
in close contact with contemporary conceptions. contemporary
conceptions
Only when he is permeated by the spirit of his own time is he
prepared to detect those tracts of the past which previous
generations have overlooked.
History is not static but dynamic. No generation is privileged History dynamic
to grasp a work of art from all sides; each actively living rather than static
generation discovers new aspects of it. But these new aspects
will not be discovered unless the historian shows in his field the
courage and energy which artists have displayed in their use of
methods developed in their own epoch.
Architects have imitated other periods, taken over their special History is changed
shapes and techniques, in the hope of escaping from transitory when touched
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. These men possessed the exact contrary of the
"Midas touch"- everything they put their hands on turned
to dust rather than to gold. Today we can see why. History
is not simply the repository of unchanging facts, but a process,
a pattern of living and changing attitudes and interpretations.
As such, it is deeply a part of our own natures. To turn back-
ward to a past age is not just to inspect it, to find a pattern
which will be the same for all comers. The backward look
transforms its object; every spectator at every period -
at every moment, indeed- inevitably transforms the past
according to his own nature. Absolute points of reference are
no more open to the historian than they are to the physicist;
both produce descriptions relative to a particular situation.
Likewise there are no absolute standards in the arts: the nine-
teenth-century painters and architects who thought certain
forms were valid for every age were mistaken. History cannot
be touched without changing it.
The painters of our period have formulated a different
attitude: lo speftatore nel centro del quadro. The observer must
be placed in the middle of the painting, not at some isolated
5
observation point outside. 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.
The historian's Historians quite generally distrust absorption into contempo-
relation to the rary ways of thinking and feeling as a menace to their scientific
present
detachment, dignity, and breadth of outlook. But one can be
thoroughly the creature of one's own period, embued with its
methods, without sacrificing these qualities. Indeed, the
historian in every field must be united with his own time by
as W'idespread a system of roots as possible. The world of
history, like the world of nature, explains itself only to those
Yvho ask the right questions, raise the right problems. The his-
torian must be intimately a part of his own period to know
what questions concerning the past are significant to it.
Apart from this approach, history remains a wilderness of
blanl. happenings in which no creative work is possible.
Only dead chronologies and limited special studies will be
produced. The historian detached from the life of his own time
writes irrelevant history, deals in frozen facts. But it is his
unique and nontransferable task to uncover for his own age its
vital interrelationships with the past.
The historian cannot in actual fact detach himself from the
life about him; he, too, stands in the stream. The ideal his-
torian - out of the press of affairs, au-dessus de la melee, sur-
veying all time and all existence from a lofty pedestal - is a
fiction.
The historian, like every other man, is the creature of his time
and draws from it both his powers and his weaknesses. By
virtue of his calling he may survey a larger circle of events
than his average contemporary, but this does not lift him out of
his own historical setting. It is even to his advantage to be
forced from his academic chair occasionally and made to
participate in the common struggles of the moment. For direct
contact with life and its necessities sharpens his abilities to
penetrate the jungle of printed records to the unfalsified voices
of the real actors.
Unfortunately the historian has often used his office to pro-
claim the eternal right of a static past. Ever since man recog-
nized the impossibility of making objective judgments, such
6
an attitude has been discredited. Today we consciously ex-
amine the past from the point of view of the present to place
the present in a wider dimension of time, so that it can be
enriched by those aspects of the past that are still vital. This
is a matter concerning continuity but not imitation.
THE DEMAND FOR CONTINUITY
For planning of any sort our knowledge must go beyond the The need for a
state of affairs that actually prevails. To plan we must know universal outloo"k
what has gone on in the past and feel what is coming in the
future. This is not an invitation to prophecy but a demand
for a universal outlook upon the world.
At the present time the difficult field of town planning seems
to resist all handling. In times when a universal viewpoint
existed no genius was required to produce urban treatments of
high quality whose influence long outlasted the period of their
creation. Achievements brought about for a specific purpose
and a specific social class proved serviceable in a quite different
period for different purposes and different groups. This was
possible simply because the original creation came out of a
universal point of view.
Today the urge toward such universality is deeply felt by
everyone. It is the reaction against a whole century spent in
living from day to day. What we see around us is the reckon-
ing that this shortsightedness has piled up.
This living from day to day, from hour to hour, with no feeling
for relationships, does not merely lack dignity; it is neither
natural nor human. It leads to a perception of events as
isolated points rather than as parts of a process with dimen-
sions reaching out into history. The demand for a closer con-
tact with history is the natural outcome of this condition.
To have a closer contact with history: in other words, to carry
on our lives in a wider time-dimension. Present-day happen-
ings are simply the most conspicuous sections of a continuum;
they are like that small series of wave lengths between ultra-
violet and infra-red which translate themselves into colors
visible to the humaP- eye.
7
The destructive confusion of events in the world at large today
is so great that the movement toward universality is clearly
visible in the field of science and scholarship. The desire for
similarity of methods in the separate sciences - including the
social sciences - in philosophy, and in art, becomes more and
more definite. Already the demand for a universal outlook
upon the world has made itself felt in the college: intellectual
connections between the various faculties are consciously
being developed.
Everybody knows that we have far more means of bringing
change under farsighted control than any of the peoples of
earlier times. It is the new potentialities at our disposal which
are the key to a new and balanced life for enormous numbers
of men.
The desire for universality is an expression of the need we feel
to master and coordinate these new potentialities.
It is always dangerous to assume that one's own time has an
exceptional importance. Even so, the years through which we
are living seem to constitute a test period for mankind, a test
of man's ability to organize his own life.
CONTEMPORARY HISTORY
The need for A wider survey of the whole domain of human activity is the
a historical unmistakable need of the century. It is in this connection that
background
history can play an important role. One of the functions of
history is to help us to live in a larger sense, in wider dimen-
sions. 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 histori-
cal background.
Consequences In the part of contemporary history we shall be concerned with,
of living from the most important developments are the changes that have
day to day come about in daily life.
The eternal complaint of the nineteenth century was that all
the dignity had gone out of ordinary life. And ordinary life
did lose its dignity from the moment it was put on an exclu-
8
sively day-to-day basis. People lost all sense of playing a part
in history; they were either indifferent to the period in which
they lived or they hated it. When they compared themselves
with the people of other periods their activities seemed unim-
portant and without significance, either good or bad.
The same feeling produced an extreme disregard for the Indifference to
immediate past- for contemporary history, that is. Uncon- the immediate
past; its effects
sciously, in their matter-of-fact constructions, the men of the
nineteenth century were producing the constituent facts from
which the future was to take its structure. They did not see
this, however; indeed, it is sometimes not recognized today.
The result was not merely the neglect of contemporary history
but something still worse- the wanton destruction of the
objects and the records which were essential to its understand-
ing. Later periods will be forced to leave great gaps in their
accounts of the modes of existence of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries and the origin of these.
On every hand we hear the complaint that essential documents On town planning
have been lost through sheer indifference to our own tradition.
The town planner, for example, cannot find the detailed ac-
counts of the evolution of great cities which he needs in his
researches. The virtues and defects of the various types of
cities - governmental centers, sea ports, factory towns - can-
not be compared, simply because there has been no steady and
unified research. The fact that research has been so irregular
means that the historian anxious to complete a survey such as
this one must sometimes fall back on his own investigations.
The danger of overemphasis is, of course, always present.
The history of nineteenth-century industry has suffered On the history of
heavily from our indifference to our own tradit,ion and is full nineteenth-century
industry
of gaps. The extremely interesting development of tools, for
example, can be seen only from the few surviving nineteenth-
century hardware catalogues. For the most part these cata-
logues of the thirties, fifties, and seventies have been lost.
There are only a few places where these irreplaceable docu-
ments have been preserved; the library of the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London is one of them.
The period in America when complicated trades abandoned
handwork and changed over to machine production is a unique
9
one, without counterpart elsewhere in the world. 1 myself
visited a great factory outside Boston where clocks and watches
were first assembled from standardized parts shortly after
1850. (This principle later found its most extensive use in the
manufacture of automobiles.) The early products of this fac-
tory were mentioned by some European observers of the
seventies. I wanted to see examples of them and to study the
early catalogues of the company. There were no old cata-
logues at all - the company destroyed them, on principle,
when they were three years old - and the only old watches
were those which had come in for repairs. There was, on the
other hand, a large, valuable, but historically unimportant
collection of European watches.
The oldest mail-order house in the country, with an annual
business of $500,000,000, is located in Chicago. I went there
to see what changes had been made in articles of daily life
since Civil War times. The company possessed some material-
incomplete, however - and very properly kept it in a safe.
The Otis Elevator Company in New York had comparatively
full records of their products - and the literature dealing with
elevators is none too precise - but even here material dealing
with the earliest beginnings had not been preserved.
On architecture In the 1880's, when European architecture seemed given over
to a future of muddle, indecision, and despair, a new architec-
ture was growing up on the American prairies. From 1880 to
the time of the Columbian Exposition of 1893 the "Loop"
area in Chicago (its business quarter, that is) was the center
of architectural development not merely for the United States
but for the whole world.
It may be that after a few decades the skyscraper automati-
cally becomes a sort of blighted area and must be torn down.
It may be that the Marshall Field wholesale store- one of
Chicago's finest buildings and Henry Hobson Richardson's
best work - had to be destroyed to create a parking lot.
It may be that there was no other direction for a highway
except one that will eventually lead over the site of the Adler
and Sullivan Auditorium, with its unique theater interior.
In 1962 the building was still standing, but several other val-
uable witnesses of this period, such as Sullivan's Garrick
Theater, have been destroyed.
10
It does concern us, however, that there is no particular feeling
for what is being destroyed. Chicago seems quite unaware of
the significance of the Chicago school. I went searching in
Chicago for pictures of the interiors of its great hotels and
apartment houses in the eighties, buildings which in their
whole organization foreshadowed many present-day develop-
ments. One photographer told me that he had destroyed
thousands of plates picturing these interiors; he needed the
space, and was aware of no reason why they should be pre-
served. For the past few years several institutions in Chicago
have been endeavoring to preserve material of this sort. It is
doubtful, however, whether their endeavors are enough to stop
the losses that constantly occur.
These remarks have been made simply to indicate the wide-
spread indifference to the immediate past, to the century out
of which our period grows and derives the basic elements for
its own life. Chicago has been used as an example, but the
fanatical destruction of objects from the past is not limited
to Chicago, or to America. It has descended like an ever-
growing plague upon the old cities of Europe.
THE IDENTITY OF METHODS
Our period is a period of transition. The tangle of different Our period one
tendencies continuing from the past or pointing to the future, of transition
tendencies which mix confusedly and interpenetrate at every
point, makes our period seem to lack any definite line of
advance. To some it presents the appearance of a chaos of
contradictory impulses. An eminent French sociologist wrote
recently that "we see around us nothing save tumult, aimless
agitation, hesitant opinions, vacillating thoughts."
We must not forget, however, that this particular transition
period has lasted for a whole century. It has made itself felt
in each country at the same rate and in the same proportion
as the disorder which the process of industrialization produced
everywhere.
Ever since the opening of this transitional period, our mental
life has been without equilibrium. Our inner being has under-
ll
gone division. This state of the contemporary spirit has been
recognized often enough, but its consequences have not been
drawn.
If chaos had for its only definition the coexistence of tendencies
contradictory to one another, our period would certainly de-
serve to be called chaotic. But we believe that these contra-
dictions are merely surface ones.
There is this remarkable circumstance which we can observe
today: sciences which differ widely in their objects are begin-
ning to resemble each other in their methods. A continued and
extensive search for exact knowledge is at the bottom of this
growing resemblance. It is being recognized in all quarters
that the ideas which we have taken over from the past are both
too complex and too crude.
A transition period may affect two observers in very different
ways. One may see only the chaos of contradictory traits and
mutually destructive principles; the other may see beneath all
this confusion those elements which are working together to
open the way for new solutions. It is not a simple thing to
decide between two such judgments, to determine which has
emphasized the essential marks of the time. We need some
objective guide to what is going on in the depths of the period,
some sign by which we can determine whether or not its dis-
persed energies are being brought into united action. A com-
parison of the methods which govern its major activities, its
thinking and feeling, may afford us such an objective
criterion.
Have science and John Dewey, in his Art as Experience, points out that "com-
art anything in
partmentalization of occupations and interests brings about
common~
separation of that mode of activity commonly called 'practise'
from insight, of imagination from executive doing, of significant
purpose from work, of emotion from thought and doing."
Each of these activities is then assigned "its own place in
which it must abide. Those who write the anatomy of experi-
ence then suppose that these divisions inhere in the very
constitution of human nature."
It is just such an evolution which lies behind the doubt as to
whether science and art have anything in common. The ques-
tion would not be raised except in a period where thinking and
12
feeling proceed on different levels in opposition to each other.
In such a period, people no longer expect a scientific discovery
to have any repercussions in the realm of feeling. It seems
unnatural for a theory in mathematical physics to meet with
an equivalent in the arts. But this is to forget that the two
are formulated by men living in the same period, exposed to
the same general influences, and moved by similar impulses.
Thought and feeling could be entirely separated only by cut-
ting men in two.
We have behind us a period in which thinking and feeling Separation of
were separated. This schism produced individuals whose inner thinking and
feeling
development was uneven, who lacked inner equilibrium: split
personalities. The split personality as a psychopathic case
does not concern us here; we are speaking of the inner dis-
harmony which is found in the structure of the normal person-
ality of this period.
What are the effects of this inner division~ Only very rarely The split
do we encounter a master in one field who is capable of recog- personality
nizing workers of the same stature and tendency in another.
Contemporary artists and scientists have lost contact with
each other; they speak the language of their time in their own
work, but they cannot even understand it as it is expressed
in work of a different character. The great physicist may
lack all understanding of a painting which presents the
artistic equivalent of his own ideas. A great painter may fail
entirely to grasp architecture which has developed out of his
own principles. Men who produce poetry which is purely an
expression of this time are indifferent to the music which is
contemporary in the same sense and to the same degree. This
is our inheritance from the nineteenth century, during which
the different departments of human activity steadily lost touch
with one another. The principles of laissez-jaire and laissez-
aZZer were extended to the life of the spirit.
Throughout the nineteenth century the natural sciences went The split
splendidly ahead, impelled by the great tradition which the civilization
previous two hundred years had established, and sustained
by problems which had a direction and momentum of their
own. The real spirit of the age came out in these researches-
in the realm of thinking, that is. B11t these achievements
13
were regarded as emotionally neutral, as having no relation
to the realm of feeling. Feeling could not keep up with the
swift advances made in science and the tr~chniques. The cen-
tury's genuine strength and special accomplishments remained
largely irrelevant to man's inner life.
This orientation of the vital energies of the period is reflected
in the make-up of the man of today. Scarcely anyone can
escape the unbalanced development which it encourages.
The split personality, the unevenly adjusted man, is sympto-
matic of our period.
Unconscious paral- But behind these disintegrating forces in our period tendencies
lelisms of method leading toward unity can be observed. From the first decade
in science and art
of this century on, we encounter curious parallelisms of method
in the separate realms of thought and feeling, science and art.
Problems whose roots lie entirely in our time are being treated
in similar ways, even when their subject matter is very dif-
ferent and their solutions are arrived at independently.
In 1908 the great mathematician Hermann Minkowski first
conceived a world in four dimensions, with space and time
coming together to form an indivisible continuum. His Space
and Time of that year begins with the celebrated statement,
''Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to
fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the
two will preserve an independent reality." It was just at this
time that in France and in Italy cubist and futurist painters
developed the artistic equivalent of space-time in their search
for means of expressing purely contemporaneous feelings.
Some less spectacular duplications of methods in the fields of
thought and feeling also date from this period. Thus new basic
elements designed to permit the solving of problems that had
just been recognized were introduced in construction and paint-
ing around 1908. The basic identity of.these elements will be
discussed in Part VI, "Space-Time in Art, Architecture, and
Construction.''
Nineteenth-century Only a small part of the full range of the sciences can be
popularization mastered by a single man. Their specialized inquiries and
of the sciences: em-
complicated techniques of research make any far-reaching
phasis on results
competency impossible. But, even apart from this impossibil-
14
ity, we move in a different direction today in seeking to arrive
at a general outlook. It is no longer specific scientific facts and
achievements that call for popularization, as was the case in
the nineteenth century. Then even the greatest scientists felt
it necessary to acquaint the public with what was being done
in their fields. In the thirties of the nineteenth century Michael
Faraday in England and Fran<;ois Arago in France were
greatly concerned with increasing popular knowledge of the
sciences. Faraday's chair during his lifetime was associated
with the Royal Institution in London, a society founded in
1799 for "the promotion and the diffusion and extension of
useful knowledge." To the present day the weekly evening
meetings of this rather exclusive society are attended by mem-
bers only (white ties obligatory) in Faraday's old lecture thea-
ter in Albemarle Street, London. Faraday himself introduced
in 1826 a special course for juvenile auditors which until the
present day has been delivered every year at Christmas time.
Fran<;ois Arago, the well-known physicist who discovered
fundamental laws of electricity and who was a pioneer in the
undulatory theory of light, was most celebrated for his gift for
treating difficult subjects - such as astronomy - in a popular
manner. In his courses at the observatory in Paris, he spoke
to an audience unacquainted with mathematics. The larger
part of the fourteen volumes embracing his work is devoted to
such popularizing.
University extension in the modern sense, introduced in the
seventies of the nineteenth century at Oxford and Cambridge,
grew out of these efforts to popularize scientific results.
Today a leading scientist- a "Secretaire perpetuel de l'Aca-
demie," such as Arago was, for example - would not make
the popularization of scientific research one of his chief con-
cerns. Other problems are more important today. The
methods of science are of more concern to us now than any
of their separate results.
The problem of today is not to popularize science. What our
period needs much more than this is to gain an understanding
and a general view of the dominant methods in different fields
of human activity, recognizing their differences and their
likenesses.
15
The scientific education of our day is designed to produce
extreme specialists. That there is, on the other hand, an urge
toward interrelation cannot be denied. Yet there is no insti-
tution to help us understand the interrelations that exist
between the different sciences or between the sciences and the
realm of feeling.
Knowledge of A general contemporary understanding of scientific method is
scientific method more important for our culture as a whole than widespread
more important
knowledge of scientific facts. It is through their increasing
today
similarity of method that the various activities of our times are
drawing together to constitute one culture. Some grasp of the
way in which different sciences resemble each other in the
employment of similar methods is needed for insight into
contemporary life as a whole.
But science is not an activity which goes on independently
of all others. Each period lives in a realm of feeling as well as
in a realm of thought, and changes in each realm affect the
changes in the other. Each period finds outlets for its emotions
through different means of expression. Emotions and ex-
pressive means vary concomitantly with the concepts that
dominate the epoch. Thus in the Renaissance the dominant
space conceptions found their proper frame in perspective,
while in our period the conception of space-time leads the
artist to adopt very different means.
Economics and politics have been taken as points of departure
for explanations of the structure of a period in all its aspects.
The influence of feeling upon reality, its constant permeation of
all human activities, has been largely disregarded or felt to be
of negligible importance. In tracing the interrelated develop-
ments in art, architecture, and construction through the period
we have selected, it is precisely the influence of feeling which
we shall emphasize.
Cosmological Our culture has a structure different in many of its aspects
background of the from the cultures that grew up in pre-industrial periods. In
baroque period the baroque period, for example, Leibnitz arrived at the dis-
covery of the calculus from a starting point in philosophy. He
moved from a general - one might say a cosmological - out-
look to this particular discovery.
16
With our inheritance from preceding generations, we are Our culture rooted
obliged to adopt a different starting point and follow another in specialization
route. We must take our departure from a large number of
specialized disciplines and go on from there toward a coherent
general outlook on our world. It is beside the point whether or
not this route is more difficult, more precarious, and less certain
to end in success than the path that lay open to Leibnitz. It is
the route that present realities force us to take. Unity, for us,
will have to come about through the unintended parallelisms
in method that are springing up in the specialized sciences and
the equally specialized arts. These are the indications that
we are nearing a spontaneously established harmony of emo-
tional and intellectual activities.
In both contemporary science and contemporary art it is
possible to detect elements of the general pattern which our
culture will embody. The situation is a curious one: our culture
is like an orchestra where the instruments lie ready tuned but
where every musician is cut off from his fellows by a sound-
proof wall. It is impossible to foretell the events that will have
to come before these barriers are broken down. The only serv-
ice the historian can perform is to point out this situation, to
bring it into consciousness.
The degree to which its methods of thinking and of feeling
coincide determines the equilibrium of an epoch. When these
methods move apart from each other there is no possibility of
a culture and a tradition. These are not deliberations remote
from our subject: we shall soon see that it was just this un-
fortunate schism between its thought and feeling which struck
down the magnificent power of the nineteenth century. Out
of such a schism come split personalities and split civilizations.
TRANSITORY AND CONSTITUENT FACTS
It is not the historian's task to tell the public what pleases or Fact and interpre-
displeases him personally. That is a private affair which loses tation in history
all its interest in the telling. The historian is not required to
correct an epoch in the light of his own opinions. He has to
explain it, to show why history took a certain direction. The
17
people who lived in a period can best tell us, out of their own
inner feelings, whether its development was happy or unhappy.
The voices which come to us out of the fortunes or misfortunes
of an age furnish indispensable testimony. No man of a later
time, however great the impartiality which distance from the
events has brought, can approach the direct and certain feeling
for a period which belonged to those in the midst of the strug-
gle- a struggle which involved their destiny. Words uttered
out of the needs of the time are the historian's real guides, and
it is from them that he must draw his explanation of the period.
The true critique of an age can only be taken from the testi-
mony of that age.
Entirely objective judgment with no trace of personal bias is,
on the face of things, quite impossible. Nevertheless, the in-
filtration of the personal must be reduced to a minimum. The
historian is not solely a cataloguer of facts; it is his right, and
indeed his duty, to pass judgment. His judgments must, how-
ever, spring directly from his facts.
The historian cannot speak with the direct authority of a con-
temporary, but he has a breadth of outlook which the con-
temporary inevitably lacks. He sees facts which were hidden
from the people of the time he studies. He can tell more or less
short-lived novelties from genuinely new trends. The facts of
history fall into one or the other of these classes, and it is the
business of the historian to distinguish accurately between
them.
Constituent facts: Constituent facts are those tendencies which, when they are
recurrent and suppressed, inevitably reappear. Their recurrence makes us
cumulative
aware that these are elements which, all together, are produc-
tendencies
ing a new tradition. Constituent facts in architecture, for
example, are the undulation of the wall, the juxtaposition of
nature and the human dwelling, the open ground-plan. Con-
stituent facts in the nineteenth century are the new potentiali-
ties in construction, the use of mass production in industry,
the changed organization of society.
Transitory facts: Facts of the other sort - equally the work of the forces moving
sporadic trends in a period - lack the stuff of permanence and fail to attach
themselves to a new tradition. At first appearance they may
have all the eclat and brilliance of a firework display' but they
18
have no greater durability. Sometimes they are interlaced
with every refinement of fashion - the furniture of the Second
Empire in France is an instance. These we shall call transitory
facts.
Transitory facts in their dash and glitter often succeed in tak-
ing over the center of the stage. This was the case with the
experiments in historical styles that went on - with infinite
changes of direction - throughout the whole nineteenth cen-
tury. The entire output of official painting was a transitory
fact of that period, almost wholly without significance to the
present day.
A period may be dominated by transitory or by constituent
facts; both alternatives are open. There is, however, no doubt
which of these two classes of trends is the more likely to pro-
duce a solution of the real problems of the age.
It is in this field that the historian is not only free to use his
judgment but obliged to. To make the not always obvious
distinction between transitory and constituent facts is his own
personal responsibility.
ARCHITECTURE AS AN ORGANISM
We are looking for the reflection in architecture of the progress Architecture as an

our own period has made toward consciousness of itself- of index to a period
its special limitations and potentialities, needs, and aims.
Architecture can give us an insight into this process just be-
cause it is so bound up with the life of a period as a whole.
Everything in it, from its fondness for certain shapes to the
approaches to specific building problems which it finds most
natural, reflects the conditions of the age from which it springs.
It is the product of all sorts of factors - social, economic,
scientific, technical, ethnological.
However much a period may try to disguise itself, its real
nature will still show through in its architecture, whether this
uses original forms of expression or attempts to copy bygone
epochs. We recognize the character of the age as easily as we
identify a friend's handwriting beneath attempted disguises.
It is as an unmistakable index to what was really going on in
19
a period that architecture is indispensable when we are seek-
ing to evaluate that period.
In the great architectural masterpieces, as in every great work
of art, the human shortcomings which every period exhibits so
liberally fall away. This is why these works are true monu-
ments of their epochs; with the overlay of recurrent human
weaknesses removed, the central drives of the time of their
creation show plainly.
But if architecture is the result of so many conditions, is it
either proper or possible to examine it out of its context, as a
finite organism in its own right?
Architecture as An architecture may be called into being by all sorts of external
an independent conditions, but once it appears it constitutes an organism in
organism itself, with its own character and its own continuing life. Its
value cannot be stated in the sociological or economic terms
by which we explain its origin, and its influence may continue
after its original environment has altered or disappeared.
Architecture can reach out beyond the period of its birth,
beyond the social class that called it into being, beyond the
style to which it belongs.
Continuing When a Roman baroque architect of the late seventeenth cen-
tendencies tury invents the undulating church fa<;ade we can account for
the invention in various ways. This was the time of the
Counter Reformation; means were demanded of focusing all
the attention of the people upon the Church. Or we might
invoke economic factors and attribute the undulation of the
wall to the constricted streets of Rome and the economy of
front which they made necessary.
Both factors were no doubt involved. The undulating wall,
however, was used later on, when these factors were no longer
operative, in the great dwelling complexes of the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. The undulating wall, once
invented, became a constituent fact in architecture, and con-
tinued to work in the realm of architectural knowledge after
the Counter Reformation and Roman late baroque had both
come to an end.
The chateau of Versailles admits of a purely sociological ex-
planation. Or, again, the shapes that compose it and the plan-
20
ning of its rooms can be analyzed in the light of the historical
styles from which they derive. The Italian and Dutch influences
in the great gardens can be disentangled. All these studies
result in a picture of the time, taken from various angles, which
is certainly informative and interesting. They overlook, how-
ever, the constituent facts, the lasting tendencies, which made
their first appearance at Versailles.
In a modern work of art it is the relationships between the Search for historical
elements in the composition that are decisive in determining interrelations
its character. Modern science likewise seeks to fit the objects
of its study into a relational scheme. It is not the qualities
which make these objects unique among others that are of in-
terest but rather the ways in which they function in their
environment. History is always the last of the sciences to
develop a method in harmony with its own period. N everthe-
less, a modern history seems to be taking form which is follow-
ing the direction art and science have already adopted. The
historian nowadays seems more concerned with the links be-
tween periods, the lines of force which persist and develop
through several periods, than with those special aspects which
separate each period from every other.
In the arts, periods are differentiated by the "styles" which
became fixed and definite in each stage of development. And
the study of the history of styles was the special work of nine-
teenth-century historians, a work most skillfully carried
through. But it may be that the links and associations be-
tween periods - the constituent facts - are more important
to us than self-enclosed entities such as styles.
When we consider the chateau of Versailles, for example, what
we find most interesting in it is that here, for the first time, a
great dwelling complex (equal to a small town in size) was
placed in direct contact with nature. This had never been
done before on such a large scale. The juxtaposition of resi-
dences with nature was one of the constituent facts that grew
out of the period of Louis XIV. A century later, this pattern
for living was adopted in town planning for a completely dif-
ferent social class in another country.
The associations and interrelations of events are what matter
most to us. We know that there are no isolated or spontaneous
21
happenings, and we look always for the connections between
them.
Parallel between Even though architecture is inseparable from life as a whole,
the history of art it is still possible to write a history of architecture in which it
and the history
is regarded as an independent organism. The case is no dif-
of science
ferent from that of mathematics or physical science. The
evolution of mathematical knowledge is discussed ordinarily
without reference to the social background against which it
took place - this in spite of the fact that there is a baroque
mathematics, as well as a baroque physics. The integral cal-
culus is a perfectly consistent outgrowth of the baroque univer-
salistic point of view. It is no coincidence that in this period
two investigators hit upon it simultaneously, though the most
promising of previous efforts in this direction invariably
stopped short of a solution. And the two discoverers devel-
oped distinctively baroque schemes in other fields - Newton
in his universally active laws of gravitation, Leibnitz in the
monad's internal relationships to the entire universe. But
it would not occur to anyone to stress the baroque ori-
gin of the integral calculus. It is independently a part of
the whole body of mathematical knowledge, and its most
significant aspect is the role it played in the evolution of
mathematics.
The human factor obviously plays a much larger part in
architecture than it does in science; the two are not entirely
comparable. Nevertheless there is a history of architecture,
and there are developments which are influenced by architec-
tural considerations alone and can be evaluated solely in
architectural terms. This history from baroque to nineteenth-
century times has its stormy moments and its full share of
dramatic episodes.
Lessened impor- If it is the general line of evolution which interests us - the
tance of stylistic development which runs through different periods, social
variation
orders, and races - then the formal and stylistic variations
which mark the separate stages will lose some of their impor-
tance. Our attention will shift to the history of architecture
as an enterprise with a continuous and independent growth of
its own, apart from questions of economics, class interests,
race, or other issues.
22
Architecture is not exclusively an affair of styles and forms,
nor is it completely determined by sociological or economic
conditions. It has a life of its own, grows or dwindles, finds new
potentialities and forgets them again. The view of architecture
as a growing organism is particularly useful in the study of
American architecture. In this field concentration on styles,
on particular outlets or manifestations of the life of architec-
ture, leads us nowhere. The fundamental line of development
that runs through the different periods, ignoring stylistic
fashions, is the only way of escape from complete confusion.
Styles and their variations form a baffiing maze, with all its
alleys stopped.
From the beginning, styles in America were imported. They
were not developed in the country but came here full-grown.
None of them in the nineteenth century -romantic, Victorian,
Tudor, Gothic revival- is representative of the American spirit,
whose adventures and changes went on outside their narrow
limits. The manor houses of the romantics, the Victorian villas,
even the doorways and columns of colonial dwellings - charm-
ing as they are - mislead rather than inform us about that
spirit. The elements of American architecture have their
sources elsewhere.
PROCEDURE
We intend to see how our period has come to consciousness of The architectural
itself in one field, architecture. To do this we must understand inheritance
the architectural inheritance of our period, the knowledge
which had been continuously evolved in the preceding periods.
These periods do not have to be examined in their entirety.
\Ve shall touch lightly on space conception - the enveloping
force of all architecture- and note how the early Renaissance
was absorbed in a passion for the newly discovered optical per-
spective, which in the late baroque led to a new boldness and
flexibility in space conception.
Our next concern will he the ways in which outer space was
organized, first in the South and then (in the seventeenth cen-
tury) in northern countries - France and England. These
23
developments, employing the architectural experience which
had accumulated since the Renaissance, raised town planning
and the organization of space on a large scale to new heights.
Throughout the eighteenth century this tradition in urbanism
spread and developed. All over Europe we encounter examples
of its ability to bring separate and often already existent ele-
ments into splendid, coherent, and surprising unity. At that
time, just before industrialization set in, town planning was
advancing toward solutions which artists of our day are once
more attempting - with the changed approach which new
needs and new knowledge dictate.
Importance of The fact that we are considering architecture as an organism
construction and makes it natural for us to examine both its beginning and its
town planning
end, construction and town planning. And it will be easier
for us to deal with our subject if we can, so to speak, use two
handles to pick it up by. At all events, it will be necessary
for us to give more attention to construction and town planning
than would be the case if we were writing a history of styles.
Construction as the It would be a mistake to look at modern engineering construc-
subconsciousness tions only through the eyes of the engineer or to see in them
of architecture only eflicient adjustments to useful purposes. Their technical
aspects will not concern us so much as the general methods
that appear in them and their content of feeling - prophetic
of architectonic expressions which come later.
In the nineteenth century, as in all periods when methods of
production are changing, construction was particularly im-
portant for the architectural knowledge which lay hidden in
it. The new potentialities of the period are shown much more
clearly in its engineering constructions than in its strictly
architectural works. For a hundred years architecture lay
smothered in a dead, eclectic atmosphere in spite of its con-
tinual attempts at escape. All that while, construction played
the part of architecture's subconsciousness, contained things
which it prophesied and half revealed long before they could
become realities. The constituent facts in the nineteenth
century can often be found in construction when the ruling
architecture gives no clue to them. It is construction and not
architecture which offers the best guideposts through the
century.
24
Architecture has caught up with construction very gradually.
Our own period has been slowly finding the ability to express
in architecture what construction has for a long while been
mutely signifying in its abstract language. This process moved
so slowly that around 1900 on the Continent most of the
buildings from which the modern development stems lacked
all connection with human residence. They were factories,
stock exchanges, warehouses, and the like. The building
schemes which represent the first solutions in the manner of
the present day were set forward in a neutral atmosphere, one
far removed from the range of intimate personal feelings.
Architects today are perfectly aware that the future of archi- Town planning the
tecture is inseparably bound up with town planning. A single index of architec-
beautiful house or a single fine residential development ac- tural knowledge
complishes very little. Everything depends on the unified
organization of life. The interrelations between house, town,
and country, or residence, labor, and leisure, can no longer be
left to chance. Conscious planning is demanded.
In a single building something extraordinary may be sought
after and achieved. The whole body of a city, however, shows
beyond dispute the state of the architectural knowledge of a
period. It shows the extent to which the period was capable of
organizing its own life.
In Europe during the nineties a demand for morality in archi- Demand for
tecture arose in many different countries. As van de Velde morality in archi-
puts it, people saw that the reigning architecture was a "lie," tecture during
the nineties
all posturing and no truth, and that greater purity of expression
was needed. This means that, besides the urge to find new ways
of expression suitable to the times, there was the more general
urge to bring artistic expression into harmony with the new po-
tentialities born of the age. Or we might say that the desire grew
up to reconcile methods of feeling with methods of thinking.
We shall observe the development which the demand for
morality set under way through some close-ups of a few of its
critical stages. The whole process is bound up with the pro-
gressive awakening to the potentialities inherent in modern
construction: with the iron-skeleton building in Belgium of the
nineties, for example, and with the ferroconcrete skeleton in
France around 1900.
25
Significance of the Architecture gradually threw off its confusion and indecision
Chicago school of in the face of the new building tasks of the century. It saw its
the eighties
way clearly first as regards those buildings which stood half-
way between "neutral" industrial constructions and the
human residence, with its inescapable associations of feeling.
Thus the gap between bare construction and architecture in
the grand manner is first bridged in the Chicago business
buildings of the 1880's. The architecture of the Chicago school
shows with astonishing clarity the urge to use constructional
discoveries expressively that is a keynote in this period.
Frank Lloyd It was the Chicago atmosphere that made it possible for a
Wright phenomenon like Frank Lloyd Wright to appear during the
nineties. During his stay in Chicago, Wright reached solu-
tions of the dwelling problem which furnished the basis for
further developments in Europe at the hands of the post-war
generation. These men resumed the problem at the point
where Wright had left off.
The new space Up to 1910 architects tried many ways of arriving at a new
conception in feeling for space - the basis and the strongest impulse for
painting and original architectonic creation. They could never quite break
architecture
through. Only the narrow gates of "fitness for purpose" and
"rejection of historical styles" were open to such endeavors.
Around 1910 an event of decisive importance occurred: the
discovery of a new space conception in the arts. Working in
their studios as though in laboratories, painters and sculptors
investigated the ways in which space, volumes, and materials
existed for feeling.
The speculations of the mathematical physicists seem very far
removed from reality and from practical affairs, but they have
led to profound alterations in the human environment. In the
same way the experiments of the cubists seemed to have little
significance for any kind of practice - even for architecture.
Actually, however, it was just such work which gave the
architects the hints they needed to master reality in their
particular sphere. These discoveries offered architecture the
objective means of organizing space in ways that gave form
to contemporary feelings.
Our interest is confined to the reflection in architecture of
the process by which the period has moved toward self-
26
consciousness. We shall follow the development to that
point when architecture achieves a clear mastery of means of
expression natural to our time. This point was reached before
1930, and we shall attempt to observe its subsequent develop-
ment.
In the field of town planning we shall consider only those Stages in nine-
places where the furthest advance was made at a given period. teenth-century
town planning
The London squares (1800-50) illustrate the continuation into
the nineteenth century of late baroque urban forms. The rue
corridor, an outstanding fact of nineteenth-century urbanism,
has its first large-scale development in Haussmann's transfor-
mation of Paris (1850-70). The evolution to the city of today
is summarized in the step-by-step development of Amsterdam
that has continued from 1900 until the present time.
In town planning we cannot ignore the developments that are Contemporary
still in progress. Town planning, always the last branch of tendencies in
town planning
architecture to reach full growth, has begun to arrive at new
conceptions only quite recently -since about 1925. We shall
try to assemble the fragmentary and dispersed work that has
been done and derive from it some insight into the tendencies
which are still evolving.
The history of architecture could be treated by sketching, in Choice of events
very broad strokes, all the great variety of movements and and figures
the masses of facts connected with them. But in attempting to
determine the extent and the nature of our period's conscious-
ness of itself, it is more helpful to examine rather carefully
cross sections of decisive stages in the history of architecture.
We prefer to deal with fewer events more penetratingly, in
close-up view. A few facts seen clearly enough may lead to a
knowledge of something more important than the isolated facts
themselves: the inner structure of architecture at the stage of
growth which it has reached in our time.
There are some individual artists whom we shall also scrutinize
at close range, men in whom the spirit of an age crystallizes.
In each case we shall examine only those of their works which
are most helpful in understanding the period.
Often we can learn more about the way in which nineteenth-
century life developed from forgotten and unsuccessful figures
27
of the period than we can from its great official celebrities.
Simple utilitarian structures reveal more of its essential spirit
than magnificent edifices intended to have an immortal appeal.
The anonymous products of industry, unpretentious articl~s
of daily use, often show more creative force than luxurious and
immensely expensive furnishings.
Significance for Picasso once wrote, "The artist is a receptacle for emotions,
history of objects regardless of whether they spring from heaven, from earth,
of daily use
from a scrap of paper, from a passing face, or from a spider's
web. That is why he must not distinguish between things.
Quarfiers de noblesse do not exist among objects." The his-
torian has to take the same attitude toward his material: he
wants to know the truth about life, and he must take it where
he finds it. It will not do for him to study only the highest
artistic realizations of a period. Often he can learn more about
the forces that shape its life from the common objects and
utensils which are the undisguised products of its industry.
These considerations formed the stepping stones to my later
investigation of the Janus-headed influence of mechanization,
which I developed in JHechanization Takes Command (Oxford
University Press, 1948).
28
PART II OUR ARCHITECTURAL INHERITANCE
Why a knowledge With no clear perception of the relation in which it stands to
of our architectural the past or of the route by which it must advance into the
inheritance is
future, the life of any period will be lived on an aimless, day-to-
necessary
day basis. Our time has suffered severely from this short-
sighted, laissez-jaire attitude, and from the complete lack of
planning that is its result.
But it is plain that a revolt against this myopic outlook is under
way, in science, art, and industry. There is a growing demand
for a wider survey of all realms of human activity.
It is in this connection that history has an important role to
play. History can reveal to our period the forgotten elements
of its being, just as our parents can recover for us those child-
hood and ancestral peculiarities which continue to determine
our natures though they are not to be found in our memories.
A connection with the past is a prerequisite for the appearance
of a new and self-confident tradition.
THE NEW SPACE CONCEPTION: PERSPECTIVE
Florence as the Jakob Burckhardt in The Civilization of the Renaissance as-

workshop of the serts that "the most elevated political thought and the most
modern spirit varied forms of human development are found united in the
history of Florence, which in this sense deserves the name of
the first modern state in the world. . . . That wondrous Flor-
entine spirit, at once keenly critical and artistically creative,
was incessantly transforming the social and political condition
of the state, and as incessantly describing and judging the
change." But Florence around 1400, at the beginning of the
quattrocento, was important not merely as the home of political
and social experiments; it was also the place where the esprit
nouveau of the Renaissance broke through most strongly. It
was this peculiarly Florentine temper that made it the "unique
city - the most important workshop of the Italian and, in-
deed, of the modern European spirit."
The Renaissance ferment which was working in Florence
showed itself under the widest variety of forms. We shall con-
sider only one of the new developments in which it resulted: a
new conception of space. At the start of the fifteenth century,
30
in Florence, this conception was translated into artistic terms
through the discovery of perspective. Throughout the fol-
lowing five centuries perspective was to be one of the constitu-
ent facts in the history of art, the unchallenged canon to which
every artistic representation had to conform.
In linear "perspective" - etymologically ''clear-seeing" - Linear perspective
objects are depicted upon a plane surface in conformity with and the growth of
the way they are seen, without reference to their absolute modern individu-
alism
shapes or relations. The whole picture or design is calculated
to be valid for one station or observation point only. To the
fifteenth century the principle of perspective came as a com-
plete revolution, involving an extreme and violent break with
the medieval conception of space, and with the flat, floating
arrangements which were its artistic expression.
With the invention of perspective the modern notion of in-
dividualism found its artistic counterpart. Every element in a
perspective representation is related to the unique point of
view of the individual spectator.
This principle came as an entirely new invention, but seldom
has a new invention been so much in harmony with a basic
feeling of an epoch. From the time of its discovery no hesita-
tion can be observed in its application; it was used at once with
complete confidence and sureness. Artists and scientists elab-
orated its secrets with a readily understandable excitement
and pride. Their feeling toward it appears in the enthusiastic
exclamation of the painter Paolo Uccello, "How sweet is
perspective!''
Perspective was not the discovery of any one person; it was the No single
expression of the whole era. We shall encounter a similar situa- inventor of
tion later, when we come to discuss cubism. There, too, we perspective
shall find a whole movement arising in response to the new
space conception developed in our time, rather than a single
inventor. In both cases the significant thing is the mixture of
art with science, but the two worked together far more closely
in the development of perspective. Indeed, one rarely sees so
complete a unity of thinking and feeling - art and science -
as is to be found in the early fifteenth century. There was not
only the important identity of method in these two spheres, but
a complete union of artist and scientist in the same person.
31
Unity of thinking Brunelleschi (1377-1446), one of the great initiators of per-
and feeling in the spective, was just such a figure. He began his career as a gold-
Renaissance:
smith and a student of ancient languages, and went on to be-
Brunelleschi
come at the same time a great architect, sculptor, engineer, and
mathematician. We have no right to say that such extreme
versatility was possible only in earlier times. In a certain sense,
it is possible in any time when specialists do not rule inde-
pendently, but are included within a unified conception of life.
It is, in fact, one of the secrets of the high degree of perfection
of Renaissance work that it was not divided among limited
specialists. Thus Brunelleschi, when he undertook the task of
building the dome of the cathedral at Florence, could set about
it as, simultaneously, a daring architect and a bold constructor.
He projected a cupola which was double-shelled, like earlier
Oriental constructions. The vault was erected without scaf-
folding, built freely up into the air to a height of around ninety
feet. In its boldness as an engineering work this dome is com-
parable to the bridges of the French engineer, Eiffel, which
were constructed straight out into space.
Do we realize, in comparing our own period with this one,
what it means to find a single man uniting the capacities needed
for executing both the most audacious engineering works and
the finest sculpture? Yet such a union of talents is to be seen
in nearly all the great artists of the Renaissance. Leonardo da
Vinci represents a type, not an exception. And the tradition
that the scientist and the creative artist are combined in the
same person persists throughout the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries.
Painting in In the Renaissance the longest step forward was taken during
advance in the the ten years between 1420 and 1430.
expression of
Renaissance Masaccio, the painter, was the youngest of the great Renais-
feeling sance masters, and the most advanced. Born with the new
century- in 1401- he was a true incarnation of the Renais-
sance spirit. The history of painting in this period would cer-
tainly have been different but for his early death at the age of
twenty-seven. Brunelleschi, the architect, was nearly twenty-
five years older than Masaccio, and to a great extent shared
the Gothic spirit of the fourteenth century. Donatello, the
sculptor, was eighteen years older than Masaccio; he too had to
32
break away from Gothic ways of feeling, and succeeded in doing
so through his astonishing naturalistic genius. The fact that,
among these three, the painter was the first to attain to the
new vision of his time is by no means unparalleled. We shall
see, further on, that modern painting anticipated modern
architecture in much the same way.
Masaccio's "Fresco of the Trinity" (fig. 1) in Santa Maria No- Masaccio's
vella at Florence was executed when he was about twenty-five "Fresco of
the Trinity"
years old. Painted during the twenties of the qualtrocento, it was
rediscovered in the late nineteenth century and exists today in
a badly damaged condition. The Trinity fresco has long been
famous for its naturalistic portraits of the founders of the
church that contains it. It is the first example of an endless
series of paintings of this type. But it is of much more sig-
nificance to us that the whole composition is encircled by a
majestic barrel vault. The point of origin from which its per-
spective is calculated is taken very low, so that the vault may
be seen in all its grandeur. This fresco, painted at a time be-
fore any Renaissance interior had been completed, represents
what seems to be the first successful expression, in architectonic
terms, of the Renaissance feeling that underlay the develop-
ment of perspective. It reveals a surprising use of the newly
discovered elements in combination with absolutely circum-
scribed tectonic surroundings. Its impressiveness was un-
deniable; even Vasari - familiar with daring perspective
treatments of space - admired the way in which this painted
vault pierced the flat surface of the wall.
It is possible that Masaccio was taught perspective by Brunel-
leschi; it has even been argued that Brunelleschi himself may
have executed the perspective architecture of the Trinity
fresco. It was quite common in the quattrocento for painters
and sculptors to employ qualified specialists for this part of
their work. But Masaccio's barrel vault is not a part incidental
to the whole composition; it is not a simple background. In-
stead it dominates the entire picture. At the time it was
painted Brunelleschi was occupied with the building of the
portico of the Innocenti and with the sacristy of San Lorenzo.
Not even in his last works did he ever usc the vault in this way;
he always kept some attachment to medieval modes. The
33
34
2. LEON BATTIS-
TA ALBERTI.
S. Andrea, Mantua,
1472-1514. Almost
five decades after the
Trinity fresco, the longi-
tudinal barrel vault was
used in the interior of
this church. Even in
the exterior, the desire to
use the receding barrel
vault fed to its employ-
ment at the most unex-
pected points.
Trinity fresco with its heavy coffered vault has the greatness
of a triumphal arch. The cheerful expression beloved by early
Renaissance taste and present in all the works of Brunelleschi
is absent. In its place there is the Roman gravity of a later age.
The longitudinal barrel vault that Masaccio painted was to The barrel vault
prove the great solution to the vaulting problem that con- from the Trinity
fresco to St.
fronted the architects of the full Renaissance and baroque Peter's
periods. It does not appear in concrete form before the church
of San Andrea at Mantua (fig. 2), in 1472- nearly forty-five
years after Masaccio's death. This church, with its severe
vaulting, is the architectural realization of the ideal prefigured
in Masaccio's painting. It is likewise significant that San An-
drea was designed by a member of Masaccio's generation, by
~
1. MASACCIO. Fresco of the Trinity, Santa Maria Novella, Florence, c. 1425. The
longitudinal barrel vault which Masaccio painted not only fulfilled the aim of perspective
by receding deeply into space but also anticipated the chief vaulting problem of the Renaissance
builders.
35
another man born just as the quattrocento began: the Florentine
humanist and architect, Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472).
Even in the exterior the desire to use the receding barrel vault
led to its employment at the most unexpected points.
Bramante's "illusionistic" choir in Milan- a work of small
size but great influence - is one of the steps leading from
Masaccio's fresco to St. Peter's in Rome. A continuous line
of development connects the Trinity fresco, Bramante's choir,
and the immense baroque nave of St. Peter's- its culminating
point.
Bramante's illusionistic choir (fig. 3) in the church of Santa
Maria presso San Satiro (1479-1514) is actually only a small
niche. It was half built up and half painted, in order to pro-
duce the greatest possible effect of depth with the space at the
artist's disposal. For us it has importance as one of the steps
leading from Masaccio's fresco to St. Peter's.
Carlo Maderno executed the central nave of St. Peter's (jig. 4),
along with its side chapels and fa<;ade, during the ten years
3. BRAMANTE. Illusion-
istic choir in Santa Maria
presso S. Satiro, Milan, 1479-
1514.
36
4. CARLO MADERNO. Nave of St. Peter's, Rome, 1607-17. The most majestic
solution of the Renaissance vaulting problem. Earlier stages leading up to this solution ap-
pear in the San Gesil and man_y other Roman churches.
between 1607 and 1617. Following the orders of a new pope,

he altered Michelangelo's scheme for its ground plan, changing
it from a Greek into a Latin cross. We are told that the
change was made to afford more room for the congregation
and to take up the entire site of the Early Christian basilica
and some additional space as well.
Nevertheless, the scale for this enterprise had already been set
by Michelangelo in the height of the pillars for the central
dome which he had built. Michelangelo had envisaged a con-
centration in one place of all the artistic energies represented
in the cathedral: they came together in his cupola in one great
explosion. The later generation of Maderno and his pope en-
larged this conception longitudinally, in accordance with late
baroque desires for a long and unbroken expanse. The im-
37
pression that the spectator receives on entering St. Peter's
derives from the superhuman dimensions of this new nave.
Its height exceeds a hundred and fifty feet- equal to that of
the early skyscrapers. Its width is relatively small, but
Maderno knew how to keep the onlooker from becoming
conscious of this. The fully developed art of the baroque
period and its control over space appear in the way this is
done: the side chapels, almost imperceptibly, expand the ac-
tual dimensions of the nave and impart a new power to it.
Masaccio's Trinity fresco marks the discovery of the majesty
and strength which can be expressed through simple and
grand elements. Carlo Maderno's nave in St. Peter's differs
from Masaccio's painted vault both in its dimensions and its
complexity. But these differences only sum up the possibilities
that were latent in the vision which had come to the fifteenth-
century master.
The generation which immediately followed Carlo Maderno
carried this unfolding to further and more special results. But
before we deal with these we shall turn to some of the archi-
tectural works already executed in which the spirit of the early
Renaissance first showed through.
The new feeling in The first building in which the Renaissance spirit appears is
early Henaissance
Brunelleschi's loggia on the front of the Spedale degli Innocenti
buildings
at Florence. The Spedale degli Innocenti, or the Foundling
Hospital, was built at the order of the silk-weavers' guild, of
which Brunelleschi, as a goldsmith, was also a member. Be-
tween 1419 and 1424 he constructed the nine arches in the
center of the building.
The Spedale degli Since this first Renaissance building was intended for a practi-
Innocenti cal community service, it did not have to conform in its ap-
pearance to the dignified and impressive standards that held
for edifices of state - buildings which are often found to reflect
the taste of the previous period. Thus Florentine palac~s pre-
served their resemblance to Gothic closed fortresses up to the
middle of the fifteenth century. In the Foundling Hospital
Brunelleschi had an opportunity to open up the closed, fortress-
like block of the house. He did this by means of a round-
arched porch, pleasant in its graceful lightness.
38
The upper wall of the Innocenti is not rusticated, but is kept
a flat surface, with sparsely distributed windows. A Renais-
sance preference is revealed on the outside by the entablature
which bisects the whole surface of the wall horizontally.
But the hospital's chief distinction is the portico, and the most
interesting feature of the latter is the manner in which the
vault is treated. The diagonal Gothic cross ribs have disap-
peared; a light caved vault, resembling wind-filled sails, re-
places them. Binding arches are used for marking distinctly
the boundaries between each vault and the one next it, thereby
enforcing the Renaissance demand for the complete independ-
ence of every section of a design.
There is no direct connection between classical architecture Relation to
and Brunelleschi's Foundling Hospital. It has often been Byzantine
architecture
remarked that the chief features of Brunelleschi's architectural
style are closely related to buildings which he saw every day
in Florence- to the Baptistery, to San Miniato, and to the
Badia of Fiesole. All these are in the tradition of medieval
architecture from the eighth to the twelfth century. The caved
or hemispherical vault which Brunelleschi used with such great
sureness in his churches and in the Innocenti - and which was
always the vaulting motif he preferred - was likewise unusual
in antiquity. It was, however, quite common in Byzantine
architecture, especially for loggias and the entrance halls of
ecclesiastical structures. There was a comparatively close
connection between Florence and Byzantium in Brunelleschi's
time. Recent researches have also made it plain that some
other early Renaissance treatments of the vaulting problem
owe more to the Middle Ages and to Byzantium than they do
to classical antiquity.
Brunelleschi 's Pazzi Chapel (jig. 5) is the first Renaissance struc- The Pazzi Chapel,
ture in which the interior as well as the exterior is of monumental Florence
size and character. It was begun in 1430, some ten years after
the Innocenti, and when Masaccio was already dead. The
chapel itself was finished in 1442; its decoration was not com-
pleted until 1469. Brunelleschi replaced the spherical vaults
used in the Foundling Hospital with barrel vaults arranged
transversely, instead of receding as they do in Masaccio's
Trinity fresco. (Transverse barrel vaults are to be found in
39
5. BRUNELLESCHI. Pazzi
Chapel, Florence, begun in 1430.
The barrel vaults are placed trans-
versely, not receding as in Masac-
cio's Trinity fresco. Bold display
of lhe wall as a flat surface.
Byzantine and Syrian architecture.) These vaults, together

with the dome over their place of intersection in the middle,
produce a flat impression rather than the depth-penetrating
perspective which was sought by Masaccio and the later
Renaissance.
The interior; The interior of the Pazzi Chapel forms the starting point for
difficulty in all Renaissance churches of the centralized type. It is devel-
working with
oped by the addition of compartments whose geometrical form
a new space
conception can readily be grasped, all clearly marked off by stone frame-
work in contrasting colors. It has all the inimitable freshness
of a new birth, but the two small barrel vaults, in their cautious
dimensions, show that confidence in the new vision had not yet
been attained. When contrasted with Masaccio's Trinity
fresco, for example, the handling of the vaulting problem
shows - in all that involves the newly introduced shapes - a
noticeable timidity. It is from cases such as this that we learn
how difficult it is for the human spirit to plunge into a new
conception of space. The Brunelleschi who shows hesitancy
40
here is the same man who, as long as he was working within
the familiar Gothic tradition, threw himself into the most dar-
ing enterprises. A complete confidence appears in his design
for the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, with
its immense dome over a system of radial ribs.
One feature of the exterior of the Pazzi Chapel requires men- The flat surface
tion here: the bold manner of displaying the wall as a flat of the outer wall
surface. (Its present small roof is a later addition.) This
wall, with its delicate subdivisions, has nothing to support:
it is like a screen that masks the end of the barrel vault. The
emancipation of the wall that appears here is important for
the whole future. The wall taken simply as a surface will soon
be the subject of important architectural innovations.
PERSPECTIVE AND URBANISM
Prerequisites for the Growth of Cities

Like plants, human settlements require certain conditions for
growth; but human community life depends upon far more
intricate conditions than the plant. ·what is common to both
is that there are periods which favor growth and other periods
which hinder growth.
A city is the expression of the diversity of social relationships
which have become fused into a single organism.
The conditions that influence its growth can be of a widely
dissimilar nature. Cities have arisen in periods of dictator-
ship, when the despot has power to compel everyone to build
in c<mformity with a single design. They have also arisen in
periods of purposeful communal energy.
The despot has the advantage of his capacity for rapid and
ruthless action; but since his sovereign will is bound to ignore
the imponderable laws which stimulate human cooperation, a
city built under a dictatorship can never acquire the essential
quality of organic diversity.
41
In cities that have been developed by the united efforts of their
citizens, everything - even to the last detail - is permeated
with a wonderful strength. Never since the democratic way
of life first found expression in Greece in the fifth century n.c.
has so much loving care been lavished on the development of
cities, or space been so amply provided for gatherings of the
populace; nor has the spot where the people's decisions were
enunciated and carried into effect ever dominated the town's
physical and moral structure so effectively as did the agora in
these early Greek cities. Perhaps the only later towns which
could sustain comparison with them in such respects are some
of those founded in the midst of Europe in the twelfth to
fourteenth centuries, whose dogged struggles against temporal
or spiritual feudal overlords laid the foundations of modern
democracy.
At the dawn of the Renaissance, the principal city-republics
of Italy - Venice, Siena, and above all Florence - already
had their struggles for democracy behind them. But exalta-
tion of the individual ego now began to supersede the old team
spirit of the Middle Ages, and paved the way for the absolutism
of the seventeenth century. An age so imbued with the su-
preme importance of personality was not likely to be one known
for the building of new towns.
The Star-Shaped City

It is not easy to arrive at a definite conclusion regarding the
nature of urban planning in the Renaissance town. Com-
pared with the immense creative urge manifested in every
other field, city planning seems at first sight strangely devoid
of that vigorous and imaginative grasp of the subject which
is so overwhelmingly evident in painting and sculpture.
How can this be explained~
In contrast to the collective spirit of the Gothic period, the

complex organism of a city with its manifold social indentations
was foreign to the Renaissance - to the period in which per-
spective was invented, where the whole picture is calculated
42
from a single focal point, from the viewpoint of a single static
observer.
The Renaissance was hypnotized by one city type which for a
century and a half- from Filarete to Scamozzi - was im-
pressed upon all utopian schemes: this is the star-shaped city.
From a symmetrical fortified polygon, radial streets lead to a
main center. This is the basic diagram. The central area is
either left open, as in the completed city of Palmanova (1593),
or contains a central tower- a central observation post-
from which the radiating streets are seen in shortened per-
spective.
Certainly the sharply faceted conformation of these six-, eight-, The influence
nine-, and twelve-pointed stars was decisively influenced by of firearms
the introduction of gunpowder. In the Middle Ages a close
circuit of protecting walls with towers rising above the battle-
ments at appropriate intervals had been adequate. Now the
encircling wall is transformed into a series of regularly in-
dented bastions (fig. 6) from which flanking fire can be di-
rected upon the attacker.
6. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Wedge-shaped bastions

from his "Trattatto di Architettura." These bastions, which
enabled the defenders to rake the ranks of the attacking forces
from whatever side they might approach, are said to have been
invented by Francesco di Giorgio.
The centralized The polygon and star shapes of the cilia ideale result from the
building and the fortification system of the Renaissance: but this is not the
star-shaped city
decisive influence. In the background of the star-shaped city
stands the Renaissance theory of the centrally organized
building. This conception dominated Bramante throughout
his life, and it is known that the combination of a domed
structure with radiating chapels was the architectural problem
which more than all others piqued the inten~st of Leonardo
~ + 11
rr- b'Y!,_ ,._,.Y • 1'tr.,J,·

7. VITTORE CARPACCIO. S. George and the Dragon, between 1502 and 1507.
As is so often the case in Venetian pictures, the most important part of the composition is
not the subject matter but the display of a large spatial expanse. The centralized church
in the background is more dominant than the main actors in the foreground. N o p iazza
uf such grandiose conception and dimensions was ever built by Carpaccio's contemporaries.
da Vinci. The central building in the midst of a star-shaped

city fulfills the same role- that of a symbolic observer stand-
ing at the focal point. The central building recurs persistently
in the painting of the period. We need only to mention a
well-known early work of Raphael in the Brera, the " Sposa-
lizio" or " Marriage of the Virgin" (1504), where a polygonal
temple soars right up to the top of the frame and dominates
44
the whole composition, while from the short flights of steps
surrounding the temple wide expanses of dark marble paving
radiate into perspective distance on every side. The drawing
of Vittore Carpaccio (fig. 7) may serve as one of many other
possible examples.
The star-shaped cilia ideale of the Renaissance is really the Medieval origins
rationalization of a medieval type 1 in which the castle, cathe-
dral, or main square forming the core of the town is encirclec;l
by anything from one to four irregular belts. 2 The tree-like
plan of Bagnocavallo in Italy (fig. 8) shows the organic man-
ner in which a similar situation was handled in the Middle
Ages. The difference is that what the Middle Ages brought
about organically in a number of different ways the Renais-
sance proceeded to freeze into a rigid formal pattern from the
outset. The medieval city is characterized by expanding belts
of streets; the Renaissance, by streets that radiate directly
from the center.
The star-shaped town is the creation of the quattrocenio. It Fila rete
was first elaborated soon after the middle of the fifteenth cen- (1400-69)
tury by the Florentine Filarete (Antonio di Pietro Averlino),
who was followed some twenty years later by the Sienese
architect, sculptor, and painter Francesco di Giorgio Martini.
Although that great animater Leone Battista Alberti had dis-
cussed the possibility of building an "ideal city" in the tenth
book of his "De Re Aedificatoria," written about 1450, it was
left to Filarete to fill in the details and work out a definite
scheme. Filarete wrote his "Trattato d' Architettura" 3 be-
tween 1451 and 1464, when he was in the service of Francesco
Sforza and while he was engaged in building the large Ospedale
Maggiore in Milan which was badly damaged in the Second
World War. Since this treatise was intended as propaganda,
1 Information about other still earlier examples of this type of town will be found in
L. Piccinato, "Origini dello Schemo Urbano Circolare nel Medioevo," Palladia, vol. V.
no. 3 (Rome, 1941); and in Urbanistica, XVI (Rome, 1947), 124-136.
2 Various examples are given under "Urbanistica Medioevale" in L. Piccinato's Urbani-
slica dall' Anlichila ad Oggi (Florence, 1943), and on p. 298 and following of the second
edition of G. Giovannoni's Saggi sulla Architetlura del Rinascimento (Milan, 1935).
3 This was first published in Vienna in 1890 by W. von Oettingen, in Quellenschrijten
fur K unslgeschichte und K unsllechnik, under the title "Antonio Averlino Filarete's
Tractat tiber die Baukunst." There is also an illustrated edition published under the
title Filarete, Scultore e Architetto del Secolo XV, edited by M. Lazzaroni and A. Mufioz
(Rome, 1908). See also Peter Tigler, Die Architeklurtheorie des Filarete (Berlin, 1963).
45
10. F I L A R E T E.
Plan of the eight-
pointed-star-s haped
city1" Sforzinda." The
basic form for this city
is developed from two
squares superimposed
diagonally within a cir-
cle to f orm an eight-
pointed star. It recalls
Vitruvius' celebrated hu-
man figure inscribed
upon a square within a
circle which played so
great a part in Renais-
sance thought. ~
8. Bagnocavallo, a medieval town of Roman origin. The streets grow like the annular
rings of a tree and not on the radial system of the ideal cities of the Renaissance. Their
irregularities are caused by the natural formation of ihe ground.
9, FILARETE. The site of the star-shaped city "Sforzinda" about 1460-64. The geometrical pallern for this
city is placed m a mild Italian "valley surrounded by hills through which the river 'I nda' flows," described by Filarete
in his second book.
/
Co,.. d- lo ''""'fhot..-o 'l"'ffo -f'"''"'""'"" tlq..al.-0'.,.,1"...1'''"""
t.....-
to
f'cJ,oU ~'f"""fh om:,J..,.. g;'"'J' fli re-ck/, <MUD 'fomo mOtO
,j,.,
•tnulo d,1u<f" ""r"" - J"l"'""" ~.f'a(<IJ!o 1....Jro k(.- 11. FILARETE.
"Sforzinda," the star-shaped
a/,oJ. .,... -=•a· _....
,;,n,.,
---:;-· -'ic~'l""dro
I . ..-- 'r"~t'O metiP tH' ~ g:"tlttau r '
S,J,e".,..&.,,J.' ••eJ!o.J."'f'"" •fa
lA'CI.tt1"
I
mc .A 0 UftOI
OU.fo(OI (tift!"'5
•·• rad'Ia I roa d pattern.
Its
{;ILY
,
• '
Witt!
•
S.lX t een mam
, ,
.
d....- 1~ _ .. Ju.P- &,..,...., .., fo• ~"""" fk<dq ,_...,0 w~rJ"' ~I"' streets radzate from the central pwzza to the ezght czt}
'!"..,,. b...,.,~ .,.-lo(mdw molup...J..., e. .f"f"''"M '!""'"" .lla "'-aomf, gales and the eight corner towers. Midway, each street
• 'I""""' .J!, t"""'t"' "..,.. Co cop .,H;.mfi"'"' d·'l"~ m'(.-mt~fiU crosses an open square, eight of which have a church in
the center.
it took the form of a dialogue between a Tuscan architect

(Antonio Filarete) and a Renaissance prince (Francesco
Sforza). The building of an ideal city, to be called "Sfor-
zinda," was proposed and described in great detail, from the
prince's palace and the cathedral down to the quarters to be
alloted to merchants and artisans, and not forgetting the pris-
ons. In plan Sforzinda was to be a symmetrical eight-pointed
star: "The outer walls should form a sixteen-sided figure and
their height be four times their depth. The streets should
lead from the gates to the center of the town where I would
place the main square, which ought to be twice as long as it
is wide. In the middle of it I would build a tower high enough
to overlook the whole surrounding district" (figs. 9-11).
The idea of the cilia ideale was probably received by Filarete Francesco di
from Leone Battista Alberti, but it first took on a plastic form Giorgio Martini
in the hands of that consummate all-round artist Francesco di (1439-1502)
47
Giorgio Martini (1439-1502). In the third book of his treatise
on architecture 4 he is preoccupied with thP- development of
the star-shaped city. The original star plan has already be-
come altered to a regular star-shaped polygon with a projecting
bastion at each of its exterior angles. Francesco di Giorgio,
being a Sienese, had been familiar from birth with a town
built on a steep hill, and for that kind of site he suggested a
second plan resembling a clerical skullcap, with spiral roads
corkscrewing up to the summit. In a third and most important
type of plan - a type adopted by most of his successors and
one which influenced Evelyn's plan for rebuilding London after
the Great Fire of 1666 -he compressed a severely rectangular
pattern of streets opening out of a number of big public squares
into yet another polygonal mold. Francesco di Giorgio was at
pains to make plans for the cilia ideale suitable for widely
varied conditions. He was, moreover, quite clear in his own
mind that the city planner need only establish the main lines
of the plan and leave it to life itself to make adjustments where
necessary.
Vigevano: The time at the disposal of Italian despots of the late fifteenth
Piazza Ducale century was far too limited for them to become involved in
(1493-95)
such long-term ventures as the erection of an ideal city. One
of the few cases before 1500 where there is a faint reflection of
Filarete's "Sforzinda" is in the little town of Vigevano, which
lies with its medieval castle twenty miles southwest of Milan.
Here, in 1452, Ludovico Sforza (" il Moro ") was born, the
great Maecenas to whose court came Leonardo da Vinci and
Bramante. Long before he had become Duke of Milan,
Ludovico Sforza decided to embellish his birthplace by mod-
ernizing its towering medieval stronghold into a Renaissance
palace - partly by Bramante himself - and by building a
wide and regular open square, approximately to the dimensions
1:2 advocated by Filarete. In this way Vigevano's Piazza
Ducale came into being, built as it were at one stroke within
the shortest possible time, 1493-95.
4 The Trattato di Architettura Civile e Militare di Giorgio di Martini was first published in
Turin in 1841. See also R. Papini, Francesco di Giorgio, Architetto, 3 vols. (Florence n.d.,
circa 1946). Volume II contains good illustrations from the whole field of his work,
and also an index to the contents of the Trattato.
48
12. Vigevano: Piazza del Duorno, 1493-95. A rare example of an early and rapidly
completed Renaissance square. Tl is surrounded by arcades as in the new towns built in
the thirteenth century. The fourth side is occupied by the baroquefw;ade of the cathedral.
The fall" Tower of Bramanle" overlooks law buildings that surround the square, which was
created by Ludovico il Mora rather as an approach to his castle than as a center of local
activity. It is interesting that, despite the contemporary Renaissance theories of the square
as a focusing point for radial streets, this square looks more like an enclosed courtyard.
13. Vigevano: Main

Entrance to the Piazza
del Duomo. The pic-
lure shows the arches
through which the main
street enters the square
surmounted by a sham
faf<ade to maintain the
continuity of the wall
surfaces. This view is
of the entrance from the
outside looking toward
the cathedral: in the
former illustration the
entrance arches and
shamfai;ade can be seen
in the center.
49
The whole program is certainly reminiscent of Filarete: there
is a tower "high enough to overlook the surrounding district,"
the palace of the prince, and even the rudiments of some radi-
ating streets. But the 180-foot tower and the dominating
palace (now crumbling away as a barracks) stand apart from
the arcaded square, which contains only the medieval church
with a seventeenth-century fa<;ade along its fourth side.
Ludovico expropriated and scrapped, under severe legisla-
tion, 5 the buildings that had formerly occupied this area. It
was a good instinct that obliged him to work so quickly, for
he had little time to enjoy the results of his endeavor. \Vithin
a few years he was defeated by Francis I and became a prisoner
in France, and never returned.
Ludovico Sforza considered the Piazza Ducale as part of a
grandiose access to his palatial castle. Yet the square remains
strictly isolated, and the great tower (the so-called Tower of
Bramante) looms up strangely behind the regular arcaded wall
of the square, only two and a half stories high.
It seems that one of the secrets of a good public square or
gathering place is the simplicity of its architectonic elements.
This simplicity is evident in the stoa, the Wandelhalle, and
the agora as well as in the heavy arcades of medieval cities
such as the thirteenth-century squares of the fortified towns
in Southern France and, here, on the verge of the early Renais-
sance, the lightly swinging arcades of the Piazza Ducale.
Above these distinctly articulated arches the walls are broken
by sparsely distributed, round-headed window openings. At
one time the entire wall surface was overlaid by playful Lom-
bardesque frescoes, but now only a few faded fragments re-
main of this colorful mockery of architecture. The square it-
self still holds its reposeful human dignity even though its
role has become that of a car park, flooded incessantly with
cycles, motor scooters, and tourists.
The many- One of the most convincing explanations of the immense cre-
sidedness of ative energy of the Renaissance is that it consciously developed
Renaissance man
the whole man instead of training him as a specialist in a single
field. Universality is the secret of its wealth of all-round talent
and the glowing fullness of life which confronts us in its works.
'L'Arte, V (1902), 249.
50
Francesco di Giorgio was certainly a man of this sort. In
the treatise on which he worked throughout a generation, while
dealing with the wide scope of his own experience he refers also
to the Greek philosophers. These are not superficial quota-
tions, for he consciously followed the Aristotelian method of
proceeding from the general to the particular.
Francesco di Giorgio was a celebrated fortress engineer; for

the Duke of Urbino alone he built nearly seventy strongholds.
His versatility as an architect is well known. He ended his
career as the master builder of Siena Cathedral. The extent
of his experience is reflected in some of the building schemes in
his treatise which are well in advance of the development of
his time. These designs provide a refreshing contrast both to
the sixty-odd dreary projects which the younger Vasari (Vasari
il giovane) worked into stillborn plans for ideal towns a century
later and to those produced somewhere about the same time
by that otherwise rather interesting architect Bartolomeo
Ammanati. 6
How natural it was for the painter Francesco di Giorgio to

blend imagination and reality is shown by several of his cassone
paintings (paintings on wooden chests) of ideal squares and
streets. These pictures not only express the subtlety of a
Sienese painter but also contain new architectural concepts.
There is a narrow picture of a "Piazza I deale" now in the
\Valters Collection at Baltimore (jig. 22) in which there is a
very interesting treatment of different levels; the surprisingly
modern spatial setting of the plastic elements reveals the ex-
perience of a practiced sculptor. It is to Francesco di Giorgio,
incidentally, that we owe the delicately modeled bronze angels
on the high altar of Siena Cathedral, which rank among the
most distinguished sculptures of the period immediately before
Michelangelo.
" The rich and largely still unstudied collection of architectural drawings in the Uffizi
includes the "Citta I deale del Cavaliere Giorgio Vasari Inventato" as well as Bar-
tolomeo Amrnanati's frigid designs. It is only fair to add that among the latter's endless
repetitions of columned courtyards he at least shows some interest in making provision
for various crafts. No hint can be found in any of these designs that the great develop-
ment of Baroque was close at hand, or that they are the designs of the man who was
at this very tirne huilding the florid Pala7.7.0 Huspoli on the Cot·so in Horne.
51
This Sienese painter of delicate annunciations and madonnas
became a stern rationalist as soon as he took up his T square
and set about the plan of a town. When he presupposed a
special case, such as a town with a river running through the
middle of it, the river would be forced into a straight channel
and crossed by bridges at mathematically regular intervals
(fig. 14). In the Windsor Castle collection there is a very
sketchy plan of Florence drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in
which he remodels Florence upon a chessboard pattern: the
River Arno - as in the Francesco di Giorgio drawings - be-
comes as straight as a bowstring (jig. 15). These two artists
stood close to one another in point of age. They met in 1490
at Milan, where they had been called in to give expert advice
on the construction of the dome of the cathedral. \Ve know
that Leonardo felt that he had much in common with Fran-
cesco di Giorgio and held him in esteem.
The Renaissance did not envisage the complete overall re-
planning of towns, but it took a passionate interest in the de-
velopment of certain urban architectural elements. 7
The origin of Most of the piazzas built during the Renaissance were sur-
Renaissance rounded by arcades. Although of Roman origin (as may be
porticoes seen at Ostia), it is probable that they were reintroduced into
Italy, by way of Venice, from Byzantium, whose streets, often
arcaded on two stories, had long been famous. But, even if
not with historical accuracy, arcaded piazzas have been chiefly
identified with the Renaissance. Michelangelo himself pro-
posed to arcade both the Piazza della Signoria at Florence and
the square in front of St. Peter's.
The stately open squares of the Renaissance often took hun-
dreds of years to complete, and the noblest of all - the Piazza
di San Marco with the Piazzetta in Venice - remained un-
finished for nearly five centuries.
The rigidity of As has already been pointed out, the cilia ideale merely system-
the star-shaped city atized a preexisting medieval type. Both were based on the
exigencies of defense. In Italy, towns with elected municipal-
ities had usually been sovereign city-states, and a wall-girded
city was a symbol of political independence. Since the princi-
7 Volume X of the Enciclopedia ltaliana contains a good selection of illustrations of the
citla ideale on page 490.
52
··. ""~ ..
. ..
)
I -
I(
...
: .
...
• I: •
....
- .;,... •
..\:·· ·
·f. r'
..""('.....•.. '. :. -. \.~; .
I
~·
:..-- --'--·· •
~ ~ \j ~
.
'.
14. FRANCESCO DI GIOHGIO. Polygonal city 15. LEONARDO DA VINCI. The city of Florence
crossed by a river, c. 1490. The river is forced into a changed into an "ideal city." Florence is remodeled
rigidly straight channel crossed by bridges at mathe- upon a chess-board pattern and the River Arno becomes
matically regular intervals. as straight as a bow string.
ple of self-government broke down during the Renaissance, it

is clear that the star-shaped towns were only meant to serve
as fortresses. 8 The frontier stronghold of Palmanova, some
sixty miles northwest of Venice, was famous as the classic
example of regularity until well into the Baroque period: nine-
pointed ground plan, hexagonal central piazza as the meeting
• It is significant that in a rnore northern country Vauban should have adopted a star-
shaped plan for the fortress-town of Saarlouis as late as 1681.
53
place of six radial roads. It was built by Vincenzo Scamozzi,
the architect of the Procuratie on the south side of the Piazza
di San Marco, of which he built several bays. Scamozzi is the
last of the Renaissance theorists, with his Idea dell' Architettura
Universale, published in Venice in 1615, just before his death. 9
The hundred and fifty years which elapsed between Filarete's
Trattato and Scamozzi's Idea saw no notable changes, for the
polygonal town was far too rigid a type to lend itself to pro-
gressive evolution.
Town planning From the particular visual angle of that age the star-shaped
and the concep- town was a perfectly logical concept, for Renaissance per-
tion of space spective is based on a strictly limited range of distance and
demands a measurable point of optical arrest. In Francesco
di Giorgio's Piazza !deale (fig. 22) an arch of one of the town
gates is set in the extreme background as a sort of ultimate
target for the eye. No one gave nobler expression or grander
scale to this sort of design than Michelangelo, in a work of his
later years, the Porta Pia at Rome.
Baroque perspective, on the other hand, was based on a limit-
less field of vision. Hence typical towns of the late Baroque
period, such as Versailles (second half of the seventeenth cen-
tury) and Karlsruhe (about a hundred years later), have noth-
ing to do with the star-shaped plan. The palace of the ruler
stands boldly between town and country, dominating ~ at
least in the optical sense ~ limitless space.
9Scamozzi described his own citta ideale in his second book. Julius von Schlosser's
Materialen zur Quellenkunde der K unslgeschichle- more particularly Part II, "Friih-
renaissance" (Vienna, 1915) and Part VI, "Die Kunstliteratur des Manierisrnus"
(Vienna, 1919)- is an invaluable source of information on the architectural theorists
of this period.
54
PERSPECTIVE AND THE CONSTITUENT ELE-
MENTS OF THE CITY
It would be misleading to judge Renaissance town planning

simply by these successive versions of the cilta ideale. The
idea of the town as an entity in which the interactions of
thousands of separate existences can be coordinated was for-
eign to the temper of that era. None of the great Renaissance
artists has left us a plan for a new kind of town - neither
Bramante, nor Michelangelo, nor even Leonardo, from whose
vision, which so often leapt forward centuries in time, it might
almost have been expected. 1
What was new in Renaissance civic design must be sought else-
where, in the thorough mastery of some of a town's constit-
uent elements. In that field Bramante and Michelangelo
opened up hitherto unknown possibilities. Intermediate be-
tween the fruitful age of Gothic, with its communal ethos,
and the absolutism of Baroque, in the realm of town planning
the Renaissance is a preparatory period. The fifteenth century
in northern countries was still wholly Gothic, but in Italy the
position is complicated. Although perspective was creating a
new attitude of mind, the Gothic tradition lived on in many
ways and influenced the implementation of city improvements,
particularly in the public squares. 2 In a sociological sense
Italy and the northern countries by no means stood in such
marked contrast to one another during this transitional period.
1 In a celebrated lelter to Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, which probably dates from
the plague of 1485-86 in that city, Leonardo da Vinci expressed a desire to see towns
made more sanitary, so that their inhabitants would no longer have to live "packed
together like goats and polluting the air for one another." He proposed building ten
towns for the Duke, each for a population of five thousand. These were to be "situated
on rivers regulated by locks. . . Within them light, air and cleanliness shall prevail."
Among Leonardo's drawings preserved at Windsor Castle there are plans of existing
towns but none of any citta ideale (I Disegni Geografici, conservati nel Castello di Windsor,
edited by M. Baratta (Rome, 1941).
2 Evidence of the persistence of the Gothic tradition in major civic undertakings can be
found in a large number of the many public squares that were laid out in North-Italian
towns during the quatlrocento - the Piazza del Santo in Padua, the Piazza Grande in
Parma, the realignment of the Piazza del Campo in Siena (fig. 21), the Piazza Principale
in Piacenza, and so on. A good selection of these are illustrated on pages 268-280 of
the second edition of G. Giovannoni's Saggi sulla Architettura del Rinascimento (Milan,
1935).
55
The Wall, the Square, and the Street
The modeling of The Renaissance learned to handle large volumes and to shape
large volumes them into new forms. Palaces often thrust aside the home:;;
of the townsfolk, streets, and squares. But their builders dis-
covered how great expanses of wall could be opened on to the
street. This was something antiquity had never achieved,
though here and there it sometimes allowed glimpses of the
street from one or two windows. These Renaissance palaces
gazed wide-eyed upon the world without as if they were seek-
ing to appraise it just as with the new medium of perspective.
Although Gothic elevations are often loopholed by fenestration
to a considerable extent, the windows remain islanded, lost in
a vast expanse of walling, as in the thirteenth-century Palazzo
della Signoria at Florence.
At the zenith of the Renaissance, however, about 1500, we
find windows ranged upon windows, each treated as a separate
feature and accentuated by a pediment, pilasters, or columns,
yet rhythmically articulated to one another.
The Palazzo Now here can the changes undergone by the wall surfaces be
Faroese more plainly perceived than in the Farnese Palace at Rome,
which Cardinal Alessandro Farnese began in 1514. Antonio
Sangallo the younger designed this building and carried it out
up to the roof cornice, but Michelangelo, among others, added
to it after Sangallo's death in 1546- that is to say, at the
very end of the late Renaissance. Sangallo's volumes over-
whelm the capacity of the site, exemplifying the exaggerated
individualism of the Renaissance mind. The incredibly pre-
tentious magnificence of this residence for a single man points
to the imminence of Baroque.
Alessandro Farnese started to build himself a palace as a
cardinal, and finished it as Pope Paul III. He portrays the
transition from individualism to absolutism. Michelangelo
knew how to express this sculpturally. Sangallo had already
emphasized the central window with two concentric arches, 3
but Michelangelo set to work in quite a different manner. In
3 As illustrated by C. de Tolnay in his "Beitrage zu den spa ten architektonischen Pro-
jekten Michelangelos," Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, vol. 51 (1930).
56
salient contrast to the alternating triangular and segmental
pediments over the windows on either side, he placed an
architrave over the dominant central window where the whole
emphasis could be concentrated on a huge shield carved with
the Farnese coat of arms and surmounted by the papal tiara.
This monumental window seems to await the arrival of the
great overlord who is about to show himself to the populace.
On the garden front the Palazzo Farnese faces the Via Giulia,
which Bramante had traced, and the Tiber. Michelangelo felt
there was need for more open space round the huge bulk of
the palace. He proposed a bridge across the river so as to
include the Villa Farnesina and the Trastevere quarter in the
way that was later adopted for the approaches to many French
chateaux.
The Renaissance did not treat the street as a unity even where The street in the
it would have been quite easy to do so. Scenically, the Henaissance
Renaissance street consisted of a number of individual build-
ings set down at random on separate sites; and this holds
good from the late quattrocento up to the sixteenth century.
Francesco di Giorgio's fine paintings of streets and squares
(jigs. 16, 22) show no two houses alike. Even the porticoes of
the houses which so clearly call for uniform treatment are not
continuous; each house has its separate arcade. Even much
later, as can be seen in the frequently reproduced stage set of
Sebastiana Serlio about 1550 -which is not designed simply
to produce a perspective effect - the street is still an agglomer-
ation of heterogeneous buildings.
Thus when Donato Bramante (1444-1514) laid down the align- Bramante's Via
ment for the first new street in Rome, the kilometer-long Via Giulia in Rome
Giulia, 4 at the behest of Pope Julius II, he did not envisage
continuous frontages, for he intended to place his Palace of
Justice, with its massive quoins and corner towers, foursquare
along part of this street. The Palace of Justice was begun in
1506, but after the death of Pope Julius II the work stopped.
A few Cyclopean blocks of stone built into some nearby houses
4 Ceccarius, Strada Giulia (Rome, 1941). Straight and still broader streets were not
uncommon in newly founded twelfth- and thirteenth-century towns north of the Alps,
e.g., Berne.
57
give an idea of the extent to which this building would have
disrupted the Via Giulia. 5
Giorgio Vasari All the more surprising, therefore, is the architectural uni-
and the Uffizi formity of the short street in Florence originally known as the
Piazza degli Uffizi on which Giorgio Vasari erected a lminis-
trative buildings for the Medici between 1560 and 1574. The
continuous, lightly bracketed triple cornice seen with the sym-
16. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Piazza and Street of an Ideal City, Detail. The
Renaissance did not treat the street as an architectural unit, even when it would seem almost
obvious to do so. In Francesco di Giorgio's .fine painting no two adjacent houses are alike.
metrical outline of the roof above make this a masterpiece of

perspective in depth (fig. 17). This regular planning of the
5 Domenico Gnoli, "II Palazzo di Giustizia di Bramante," N uova Anlologia, April 16,
1914.
58
Uffizi would have been almost inconceivable but for the exam-
ple Vasari's master, Michelangelo, had given him in the group
of buildings then under construction on the Capitoline hill in
Rome.
Vasari's indebtedness to Michelangelo appears even in details,
such as the use of alternating piers and pairs of columns, but
instead of being dynamically backed against the piers, as on
the Capitol, Vasari's columns are spaced out at regular inter-
vals. It is known that Vasari showed his designs to his master
in Rome, so Michelangelo had his hand in the design.
Bramante and the Open Stairway

Besides their bold handling of the surfaces of walls facing
streets and squares, Renaissance builders went to great pains
17. GIORGIO DI VASARI The Uffizi, Florence, 1560-74. In the latest development
of the Renaissance, the Mannerist painter Vasari achieved a masterpiece of perspective in
depth in the short street of the Ujfizi by means of continuous horizontal lines: the projecting
roof, the three cornices, the steps. This view is taken from the arch of the loggia which closes
the vista toward the Arno.
to bring horizontal surfaces lying on different planes into spa-

tial relation with one another. This they achieved by the
device of imposing monumental stairways left open to the sky.
59
-.
tl I
<J
... I
~
18. JACOPO BELLINI. The presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, c. 1140.
a
The subject-matter and the figure of the Virgin Mary are only pretext for the artist's real
intentions. From the stone floor in the foreground, where the observer is placed, up to the
immense barrel vault of the spacious church, numerous figures are dotted about at different
levels, in a supreme effort to conquer perspective in depth. The stairway zigzagging back-
ward and forward is the early attempt of a painter to ·convey perspective in depth in terms
of architecture.
60
19. ETIENNE DU PERAC. Tournament in Bramante's Cortile del Belvedere, 1565.
This engraving was executed shortly after Pirro Ligorio had finished the building of the
Belvedere Court by the addition of the Nicchione and left-hand corridors. A few years later,
Bramante's conception, already altered by Ligorio, was annihilated by Sixtus V, whose high
library wing cut the court in two. From then on worldly feasts were forever banished from
the Vatican. In contrast to Jacopo Bellini's drawing, the observer has chosen here an all-
embracing viewpoint high in the air, revealing the High Renaissance control of perspective in
depth and creating a selling particularly suited to worldly pleasures in festivities.
61
Bramante used these flights of steps as a means of incorporat-
ing expanses of outlying space within his composition, and
thereby introduced a new element into urban architecture.
Terraced buildings and monumental stairways go back almost

to the beginning of architecture. The monumental st~irway
appeared for the first time in the ziggurats of Sumer around
2000 B.c. Pyramidal flights of steps which formed the plinths
of temples and processional approaches to sunken courts are
a conspicuous feature of pre-Columbian Mexican architecture.
Renaissance builders, however, used terrace formations and
monumental stairways in an entirely different manner.
Jacopo Bellini A silverpoint drawing in Jacopo Bellini's sketchbook, which
(c. 1440) dates from about 1440, shows the purpose that a stairway was
intended to serve (jig. 18). A barrel-vaulted church crowns
the highest of three successive terraces ascended by a stairway
which zigzags back and forth from one level to another up
to the open church front. These terraces, like the numerous
figures dotted about the foreground and background, reveal
the designer's object: to produce an impression of perspective
in depth.
Bramantc's stair- Donato Bramante ofUrbino was the first architect to introduce
ways in the monumental stairways as a formative element through which
forccourt of
space could, as it were, be embodied in the design of buildings;
the Belvedere
and the place where he first realized this embodiment was the
garden forecourt of the Belvedere at the Vatican (1506~13).
The buildings of Bramante around 1500 display for the first
time the new grandeur which the atmosphere of Rome and the
patronage of the humanist Pope Julius II brought into the
work of the artists. These influences are seen in Raphael, and
even to some extent in the towering genius Michelangelo him-
self. Bramante evinces a new sense of power in his control
of the unprecedented dimensions he was called upon to handle
at St. Peter's after 1506. Though less ambitious, his handling
of the Belvedere's forecourt is no less masterly.
6P. Kelemen, Medieval American Art (New York, 1943 ), vol. II, plates 4 and 7.
7To the best of my belief no investigation into the treatment of stairways in the Middle
Ages (notably in Italy) has yet been undertaken.
62
The Belvedere is a small papal summer residence which stands
on an eminence some three hundred meters distant from the
Vatican Palace. In 1506 Julius II entrusted Bramante with
the task of combining these two buildings in a comprehensive
architectural vista. The Pope had already set up some classi-
cal sculpture in the forecourt. He now directed that the whole
intervening area be remodeled in the new majestic Roman
manner. As the culminating point of his vista at the upper
20. The Cortile del Belvedere after Bramante's death. Detail of a fresco in the Castello
S. Angelo, Rome, 1537- 41, attributed to the Mannerist painter, Perino del Vaga. This
fresco shows the grandeur of Bramanle's modeling of exterior space better than any of the
well-known representations of the Carlile. The nnjinished architeclnre helps one to nnder-
sland how, in Bramanle's hands, the open stairway and ramps, the working with levels on
different planes, became a new element of urban design.
end, on the front of the Belvedere, Bramante erected a monu-

mental screen with a huge niche in the middle after the manner
sometimes adopted in villas under the Caesars; and at the
lower end, in front of the Vatican, a semicircular arena.
Terracing enabled him to establish a formal relation between
the new buildings with their triple tier of loggias.
63
Here we are concerned with this stairway as an agency by
means of which spatial areas have been articulated and woven
into a spatial unit. 8 A wide flight of steps leads from the first
to the second level, where it divides into two branches under
the retaining wall to gain the topmost garden and with it the
Belvedere (jig. 20). As secluded as the garden of an immense
medieval cloister, everything was here devised for courtly
pleasures. Nearly fifty years after Bramante's death, when
the vast ensemble had been finally completed, the marriage
of one of Pius IV's nephews provided a fitting occasion for
inaugurating the Cortile del Belvedere. Etienne du Perac's
engravings have perpetuated the splendor of those sumptuous
feasts and tournaments (fig. 19). But the Cortile was not
destined to remain for long as Bramante had remodeled it.
In 1589, Sixtus V wrecked the unity of the design by building
a new library athwart the middle of its parterres. That great
town planner destroyed many monuments of ancient Rome,
but this was his most destructive act.
Later on, the monumental stairway, of which Bramante's
stately ascent to the platform of the Belvedere had been the
prototype, became the noblest pediment that could be added
to a church (S. Maria Maggiore). Eventually the monumental
stairway became an almost independent structure whose role
was to merge planes lying at different levels into a single field
of space (the Scala di Spagna, 1721-25, which connects
S. Trinita dei Monti with the Piazza di Spagna). In late
Baroque interiors we find large staircases - the symbol of
movement- used to create cavernous voids which have no
parallel in the history of architecture.
Michelangelo and the Modeling of Outer Space

Michelangelo's In the Area Capitolina, the great square in which stood the
"Capitolina" in Roman Capitol, Michelangelo showed how to achieve a balance
Rome
between carefully molded masses - the spatial relationship of
great volumes. When he took this work in hand in 1536,
8There is a good detailed description in M. L. Gothein, A History of Garden Art (London,
1928), I, 227-231. See also James S. Ackerman, "The Belvedere as a Classical Villa,"
Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XIV, Nos. 1-2 (January-June 1951).
I am indebted to Professor Ackerman for fig. 20.
64
toward the end of the Renaissance, he had already reached
the zenith of his fame as a painter and sculptor: the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel, the tomb of Pope Julius, and the Medici
Chapel in Florence all lay behind him. Thus his architecture
is the fruit of his ripest years. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini,
whose colonnade in front of St. Peter's so marvelously com-
pletes Michelangelo's conception and who seldom spoke good
of others, said, "Michelangelo was great both as sculptor and
painter: but divine as an architect." Bernini's closing words
find an eternal echo in the Area Capitolina, where Michel-
angelo's plastic genius created a sublime spatial symphony
out of a jumble of medieval remains.
This square, now called the Piazza del Campidoglio, oc-
cupies the cliff-top site of the ancient Capitol which overhung
the Forum Romanum. It is a complex consisting of three
buildings, the square itself, and a broad-ramped stairway
called "la Cordonata" which leads down to the town. The
whole complex faces toward the medieval city, and closing
the approach is the modest town hall, the Senatorial Palace,
flanked on the right by the Palace of the Conservatori and on
the left by the Capitoline Museum, the world's oldest collection
of antiquities.
Michelangelo lived to see only a part of his great branching
stairway finished in front of the Senatorial Palace. Both the
other buildings were begun after his death. Yet in spite of
certain modifications introduced during the course of their
construction, which continued until well into the seventeenth
century, the plans and dispositions Michelangelo had got out
in 1546 (reproduced in the engravings of Du Perac, 1568 and
1569) were adhered to in essentials.
The great stairway was not yet built when Charles V made his
triumphal entry into Rome in 1536. He had to clamber up
to the Capitol from the other side - from the Forum - to
which the Area Capitolina was oriented in Roman times.
"La Cordonata" is a ramped stairway - an inclined plane
built up of sloping treads. Those mounting the wide, shallow
steps to the platform above are constrained to a slow and
measured ascent. The bronze equestrian statue of Marcus
Aurelius which Michelangelo transferred from the Lateran
65
21. Siena: Piazza del Campo,
paved in 1413. The huge, shell-
shaped public square in the cen-
ter of Siena is set between the
three hills upon which the city is
buill. Admirable use is made of
the natural slope lo give the Pub-
lic Palace its dominating posi-
tion. Eleven streets run out
f rom the square, and the while
marble stripes of the pavement
shoot out like rays from a light-
house a/ the foca l point of the
community.
22. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Piazza of an ideal city. The interesting

treatment of different levels, and the surprisingly modern spatial setting reveal
the experience of a practiced scnlptor. The human figures scattered here and there
show that he saw columns in space, varied planes, and sculptures, all in relation
to moving people. These are problems that in our period are again coming to the
fore, as can be seen in certain aspects of the work of Alberto Giacomelli.
66
...
.! •t ,,, '
.. .., ~
~
'
23. MICHELANGELO. The Capitol, Rome, begun 1536. This photograph, taken
from the height of the Senatorial Palace, gives some idea of Michelangelo's spatial conception:
the sunken oval; the equestrian statue in the center of a twelve-pointed star that explodes like
a firewo rk; the majestic Cordinata , which leads down to the medieval city. The three buildings
that surround the square give evidence of its trapezoidal form, even though they are seen only
as fragments.
67
comes into sight in the center of the square. As an effigy it
is as nobly simple in its disdain of all heroic gesticulations (as
Stendhal remarked) as the unassuming pedestal Michelangelo
designed for it.
None the less its lonely sky-girt position commanding the axis
of the stairway from the very center of the square proves that
the master who confidently handled such unprecedented voids
as the dome of St. Peter's could treat the nicest graduations
in plane with the same unerring sureness.
The wedge-shaped piazza of the Area Capitolina narrows to-
ward the balustrade where the stairway debouches. No parti-
cle of the ground is left unconsidered. Michelangelo places an
oval within the wedge-shaped square. This oval is slightly
recessed and is ringed around by two steps, whose curving
shadows define the formal ambit of the statue's emplacement.
The ground itself swells gently upwards toward the pedestal.
This spot is called the caput mundi, and its curving surface
has been likened to a segment of the terrestrial globe. 9
What an excitement has now infected those quiet stripes of
marble which in the quattrocento used to cover the surfaces of
the most distinguished squares, such as the rounded piazza
at Siena! Now the stripes radiate out in fingerlike beams from
Marcus Aurelius on his pedestal to form a twelve-pointed star
of flattened intersecting curves. 10 Their fantastic pattern en-
flames the whole frenzied interplay of contrasts: oval, trape-
zoid, the background of Roman and medieval tradition, the
subtly shifting interplay of Baroque light and shadow that
models the walls, 11 the grandiose gesture of the great stairway
- all combine to form a single all-embracing harmony, for
the relation of each to each and of the whole to its parts has
9 C. de Tolnay, "Beitrage zu den spa ten architektonischen Projekten Michelangelos,"
Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunslsammlungen, vol. 51 (1930), p. 26. This statement may
be compared with H. Sedlmayr's prompt attack on it which will be found on pages 176-
181 of the same publication for 1931.
10 In 1940, over 400 years after Michelangelo had designed it, the original star-shaped
paving at last replaced the meager pat~ern which was substituted after his death.
11 None of the photographs so far published bring out the extraordinary dynamic quality
of this composition, but the reader may be referred to Plates 50-75 in Armando Schiavo's
Michelangelo Architetlo (Rome, 1949) and to the magnificent volume by Paolo Portoghesi
and Bruno Zevi, Michelangiolo Archilelto (Rome, 1964).
68
been consummately affined. One understands Vasari's state-
ment: ""Whatever he set his hand to, Michelangelo worked
miracles." 12
In the "Last Judgment" and the tomb of Julius II Michel-
angelo had already replaced the static emptiness of quattro-
cenlo space with a dynamic space of his own. This he also
achieved in the Capitol.
Our mental picture of the Renaissance begins to evaporate. Michelangelo as a
That "extremely divergent opinions as to Michelangelo's pre- bridger of styles
cise historic significance" 13 should have prevailed among schol-
ars ever since Jakob Burckhardt is understandable enough,
for Michelangelo was one of those infrequent geniuses who
bridge periods in art which do not necessarily succeed one an-
other chronologically. John Constable and J. M. W. Turner,
if of minor stature, belong to this same exceptional order of
men in that they form the link between the painting of the
late Baroque and that of nineteenth-century France. Michel-
angelo was an admixture of Gothic and Baroque. He con-
nects the worldly universality of the Baroque with the spiritu-
ality of the Gothic. Life and death to him were one and the
same: from the day of his birth every man is doomed to carry
the seed of death hidden within him. In 1555 he wrote to
Vasari, "I have never expressed an idea which was not molded
in the lineaments of death." 14 That is the utterance of a
medieval craftsman, not of a Renaissance artist. Yet he was
always powerfully attracted to the problems of movement,l5
had the urge to experiment with its artistic and physical po-
tentialities, which, being inherent in Western man, permeates
the Gothic just as it does the Baroque.
The architectural significance of the Capitol can be rapidly The architectural
summarized. It is a development of Bramante' s use of terraces significance of the
at the Belvedere into an element of urbanism. It is a compre- Capitol
hensive composition in depth- piazza, stairway, city- and
12 C. de Tolnay, Werk und Wellbild des Michelangelo (Ziirich, 1949), p. 90.
1s C. de Tolnay, "Beitrage zu den spaten architektonischen Projekten Michelangelos,"
p. 47.
14C. de Tolnay, Werk und Weltbild des Michelangelo, p. 59.
15Cf. my Mechanization Takes Command (New York, 1948), pp. 14-30, in the chapter
on Movement.
69
at the same time a preparation for the great axis emanating
from a single building, the Senatorial Palace: something the
ancient world had never sought to realize. In the Area Capi-
tolina, Michelangelo was able to carry out some, though not
all, that he had vainly planned for the Palazzo Farnese. Later,
in the hands of the French, the axial vista was studied with
assiduity and, proudly termed "le culte de 1' axe," became the
vertebrate principle of eighteenth-century town planning.
fVhat Is the Real Significance of the Area Capitol ina?

None of Michelangelo's notes about the Capitol exist, so there
is free scope for conjecture as to what was in his mind when he
planned this proud civic monument to the purely nominal
remnant of autonomy which the citizens of Rome could .still
lay claim to. What could his private feelings have been
when he built it?
In 1530 the city-republic of Florence lost its former inde-
pendence to the Medici despot Cosimo I. Michelangelo had
taken an active part in the defense of his native city against
the Medici Pope Clement VII. Following the death of the
Pope, who was his personal enemy, Michelangelo left Florence
in profound antagonism to the new regime in 1534 and spent
the last thirty years of his life as a voluntary exile in Rome.
After the death of Antonio Sangallo the younger in 1546, he
became the city's master builder. Although he was then over
seventy, every important building was entrusted to him: the
dome of St. Peter's, the Farnese Palace, the whole compre-
hensive layout and design for the Capitol.
Charles De Tolnay, whose lV!ichelangelos politische Anschauun-
gen shows profound insight into the master's political beliefs,
quotes a sonnet 16 which reveals all the gnawing bitterness he
felt even so late as 1545. That sonnet makes his own statue
of Night in the Medici Chapel say:
Non veder, non senlir, m'e gran ventura;
Pero, non mi deslar, deh! parla basso!
(Speak softly that I wake not, for this one sovereign boon I crave: to see and
feel no more!)
16 On page 32.
70
The significance of the Capitol would appear to be analogous
to that of this sonnet. In neither does Michelangelo express
himself directly, but deliberately chooses to speak through a
seemingly impersonalized mouthpiece. Could he really have
raised the Capitol to glorify a shadowy vestige of power~
Should we not rather see in it a passionate longing to retrieve
the lost freedom of his native Florence, a dream wrought out
and made manifest in stone?
The whole of Michelangelo's work reflects his own tragic con- Sociological and
ception of life. Even in planning his layout he knew how to esthetic reality
give succinct expression to the conflicting motives that actuate
every human being and every true democracy - the need to
preserve the rights of the individual while safeguarding those
of the community. What he had derived from his youthful
experience in Florence was brought to reality in the Rome
of the Counter Reformation, a Rome in which there was no
freedom and no democracy. So his Capitol is both a symbol
of the vanished liberties of the medieval city-republics and a
memorial to the tragic dream of its creator.
The supine imagination evinced by our contemporary at-
tempts to devise new features in town planning, such as civic
centers, is invariably condoned on the plea that we no longer
have a manner of life it would be possible to express. What
Michelangelo has mirrored in the Area Capitolina is the baf-
fling irrationality of historical events and the enigmatic omis-
sion of any direct relation between effect and cause. Once
more we realize that a great artist is able to create the artistic
form for a phase of social history long before that phase has
begun to take tangible shape.
71
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE DAWN OF
REGIONAL PLANNING
The sketches Leonardo used to make of his observations,

whether they concern mechanical spinning devices, helicopters,
proposals concerning traffic regulations, or surveys for regional
planning, all appear today as distant glimpses into ages yet
unborn. In a manuscript now m possessiOn of the Institut
24. LEONAHDO DA Vll\CI. The River Arno and its regulation IJy a canal. Bold
proposal to make the Arno navigable by building a broad canal in a curving sweep over all
differences of level, to link Florence with Pistoia. Reproduced by gracious permission of
H.M., The Queen, Windsor Castle.
de France, 1 proposals for separating pedestrian from wheeled

traffic at different levels and a scheme for delivering produce
to householders by barges along canals controlled by locks
have been interpolated between hydrodynamic studies and
drawings of cranes, engines of war, and systems of fortification.
These are flashes of insight into technical possibilities, but
little more; there is no trace of comprehensive town planning
in any of them. The fragmentary scheme for Florence now
1I Manoscritli e i Disegni di Leonardo da Vinci, vol. V, "II Codice B. (2173) nell'
lnstituto di Francia" (Rome, 1941).
72
in the collection at \Vindsor Castle is merely a project for
regularizing the River Arno so as to make it flow in a dead
straight line through the middle of the town- a plan which
treats Florence as if it were yet another citta ideale. No
buildings are shown, and the streets bordering the river are
ruled out into chessboard squares (fig . 15). Leonardo's in-
terests lay in other directions.
25. LEONARDO DA VI N CI. Scheme for draining the Pontine Marshes, 1514. This
project has never been completely carried oullo this day, though, seventy years later, part was
begun by S ixtus V, on the lines planned by Leonardo. Reproduced by gracious permission
of H.M., The Queen, Windsor Castle.
His hydrodynamic studies deal with scientific problems that

for the most part were not solved until ,centuries later. For
instance, he investigated the conditions which cause whirl-
pools; he had realized that water moves faster on the surface
than at lower levels. At eighteen he was already concerned
with representing the whirlpools in the river in the landscape
which he had to paint for his master Verrocchio's picture
"Baptism of Christ." 2 Leonardo always tried to investigate
2L. H. Heydenreich, Leonardo (Berlin, 1943), p. 267. Heydenreich's broad outlook
with its inseparable interrela tion of the artistic and the scientific work of Leonardo
offers perhaps the best introduction to Leonardo's work.
73
the hidden, dynamic, forces in the inorganic and organic
sphere, in the microcosm and in the macrocosm. As no one
else, he could fill his drawings of plants with a feeling of dy-
namic growth.
Of all the natural forces, however, Leonardo was most in-
terested, as he himself expressed it, "in the nature and move-
ment of water," which was the only motive power available
at the time. From his hydrodynamic studies he is led step
by step to formulate definite plans based on a comprehension
of the physical structure of a region - a rationalized stand-
point characteristic of Renaissance enlightenment. To these
belong his accurately surveyed projects for irrigating the Po
valley and for building a network of canals between Milan
and the North I tali an lakes, of which he actually had trial
sections excavated. During the time he lived in Rome under
Pope Leo X and did not paint a single picture (1513-14),
Leonardo drew up an impressive hydrographic plan for drain-
ing the Pontine marshes, an undertaking that was only partly
carried out by Sixtus V at the very end of his reign (fig. 25).
The boldness of another proposal of his to make a river naviga-
ble by building a broad canal in a curving sweep eighty kilome-
ters long over all differences of level is, so far as we know,
unsurpassed even by the canals constructed during the nine-
teenth century. In a sepia pen-and-ink drawing as arresting
as any of his pictures, Leonardo plotted out the line of a canal
that would bypass the Arno, link Florence with Pistoia, and
rejoin the river lower down its course (fig. 24). 3
Regional planning must have an insight into the conditions
of a certain area in order to permit coordinated planning of the
use of land and organization of human activities. The de-
tailed inquiries necessary today are far removed from the
cosmological approach of Leonardo, who tried to survey and
organize the natural forces of a whole region so as to serve
human purposes. Nevertheless, all of Leonardo's plans were
3 Mario Baratta, I Disegni Geografici, pl. 5 on right; Mario Baratta, "Leonardo da

Vinci negli Studi per Ia Navigazione deii'Arno," Bolletino della Societa Geografica
ltaliana, serie V, vol. VI (1905), pp. 739-761 and 893-919; Kenneth M. Clark, A
Catalogue of the Drawings of Leonardo da Vinci in the Collection of His Majesty the King
at Windsor Castle (2 vols., 1935).
74
the fruit of painstaking analysis of each of the various problems
he had to contend with. For all its volcanic turbulence, his
was a zealously inquiring age. Out of its tumultuous urge to
leave no field of knowledge unexplored there emerged the first
conscious attempts at regional planning: seed which, though
foredoomed to fall on stony ground, held more latent promise
than all those geometric plans for ideal new cities that never
looked beyond the immediate orbit of their own day.
SIXTUS V (1585-1590) AND THE PLANNING OF

BAROQUE ROME
Rome, Paris, and London- the most important foci of western Rome: the
civilization - created the prototypes of the large cities of to- unique city
day. Rome, however, is unique. There had been cities in
earlier periods with a million or more inhabitants, focusing
points of vast empires and cultures. But when these fell, their
nerve centers disintegrated completely. They had never a
chance to rise again. Even Rome - after its name had been
given to a world-wide empire- sank for a thousand years
after its overthrow into a languishing decline.
But by 1500 Rome had risen anew, and for the next one and
a half centuries it became the center, first of artistic develop-
ments, then of town planning. It was on Roman soil that the
Renaissance reached its zenith and it was here that the
Baroque means of expression were formulated, which pene-
trated the whole of western culture, halting neither at terri-
torial nor at religious frontiers. 1
To anticipate: In Rome the urban scale of the Renaissance was
shattered once and for all. In place of the limited, wall-
girded, star-shaped city, a new development of great im-
portance was heralded during the five years' reign of Sixtus V.
1 Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral in London (1675-1716) has been shown by
recent research in England to have been based on a good grounding in Baroque archi-
tecture. George Baehr's protestant Frauenkirche in Dresden, which was unfortunately
destroyed by bombs in the Second World War, was one of the finest of the Baroque
churches.
75
It was in Rome that the lines of the traffic web of a modern
city were first formulated, and were carried out with absolute
assurance.
The development There are other reasons also why Rome is unique among cities
of Home by non- - reasons which are perhaps less easily grasped. The Holy
Roman artists
See is supported by no world empire. The Papacy is an inter-
national religious power. The citizens of Rome, being subject
to the papal dictatorship, had little say in the development of
their city. Nevertheless here was created one of the most
sumptuous achievements of civic design, Baroque Rome,
which, even today, dominates the entire face of the City. 2
From the Renaissance onwards, the development of Rome was
almost entirely the work of men who came in from outside -
artists, bankers, merchants and manufacturers. \Vhen the
Popes moved from the Lateran to the Vatican, the district
around the Basilica of St. Peter was gradually built up as the
Bargo Nuovo, and in the middle of the fifteenth century Pope
Nicholas V (1447-1455) was struck with the idea of creating
here a huge isolated and impressive ecclesiastical residence.
This scheme, which was never carried out, was planned by the
Florentine, Leone Battista Alberti.
About 1500, when rebuilding started in earnest and the Popes
became the greatest builders in the world, Julius II, a Rovere
from Urbino, and Leo X, a Medici from Florence, called in
their compatriots- Bramante and Raphael from Urbino and
Michelangelo from Florence - to carry out their grandiose
schemes: and the employment of designers from other cities
continued even in the time of Baroque Rome.
There is no clear reason for this curious state of affairs. It
can only be said that Rome itself did not produce many out-
standing artists either during the Renaissance or during the
Baroque period. But there is no doubt that the atmosphere
of the Eternal City and the vast scale of the Papal undertak-
ings kindled the imagination of the visiting artists and inspired
them to create works of such majesty as exist in no other city
of that period.
2 Naturally this is bound up with the pervading presence of antiquity. Before the
"hollow luxury" (as J.J.P. Oud once described buildings of the late nineteenth century)
it is better simply to close the eyes.
76
Rome, like Paris in recent times, became a gathering place for
contemporary talent. A continual process of interchange took
place. The talent of the outsiders - the foreigners - was
heightened by the atmosphere of the city: in turn their crea-
tions gave the city a new polyphonic expression.
vVithin the Roman phenomenon there lies a hope for a still
intangible future, for a time when it may become indispensable
for the existence of the western world to create a new form of
central administration inspired by spiritual principles. Ba-
roque Rome shows that this does not necessarily result in a
deadening of all achievement to a colorless monotone, a drab
international gray. On the contrary it demonstrates that the
interaction of a diversity of forces can produce a new vitality.
The Medieval and the Renaissance City
It is not possible to see Sixtus V's master plan for Rome in

its true setting without at least a glance at the legacy he had
received from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Sixtus
did not tinker with fragmentary remedies. He left medieval
Rome untouched and concentrated his energy, from the very
first, upon new adventures.
The reawakening of Rome from its lethargy of the Middle
Ages is as much a historic marvel as the rest of its destiny.
In other parts of Europe (and in the north of Italy since the
eleventh century) there had been a remarkable resurgence of
city life. Rome still slept. Though the spiritual might of the
Pope was never more powerful than during the Middle Ages,
the city of Rome led but the existence of a shadow. In
Baroque Rome churches sprang up like mushrooms, but in
Medieval Rome there were no new cathedrals that could stand
even a distant comparison with those of the self-governing
cities of the north. It was the same with the population.
The comparison often made of Rome's thirteenth-century
population- estimated at 17,000- with that of Venice or
London or Paris shows its immense shrinkage.
77
26. GIOVANNI BATTISTA FALDA. Medieval Rome, from the Castello S. Angelo
to the Bridge of Sixtus IV (detail from map, 1676). Fulda's map shows very distinctly
how the principal part of medieval Rome lay cramped within a fold of the Tiber dominated
by the Castello S. Angelo with its new wedge-shaped bastions. Fulda even depicts the sub-
terranean corridor which connected this papal treasure-house, prison, and place of refuge
with the Vatican. The PonteS. Angelo, which since the days of Hadrian had crossed the river
on the axis of the fortress, and the Piazza di Ponte at the bridgehead now became the hub of
the main arteries of the medieval city. The radiating pattern of streets emanating from this
s7uare, which u·as completed under Paul II I (1534 -49), is the first of its kind.
-~
27. The Planning of Baroque Home by Sixtus V. This diagrammatic map attempts to
show the plans of Sixtus V in relation to what existed before his time. Streets laid out for
Sixlus V are marked by heavier lines; the limit of medieval Rome is shown by shading, and
the outline of Rome under Marcus Aurelius by the line of the Aurelian wall. It becomes
obvious that Sixtus V planned his streets as organically as a spine, strengthened by structural
connections wherever these were demanded by the Roman topography.
78
THE PL6NNING OF B~ROOUE ROME BY SIXTUS V
S. S~B INC.
NICOL6US V 1447-55
SIXTUS IV 1471-84
JULIUS II 1503-13
LEO X 1513-21
PL.ULUS Ill 1534-49
JULIUS Ill 1550-55
PIUS IV 1559-65
PIUS V 1566-72
GREGOR XIII 1572-85
SIXTUS V 1585-90
PL.ULUS V 1605-21
79
The work of the The situation changed slowly with the return of the Popes
Renaissance from their exile in Avignon, their new settlement in the Vati ·
Popes
can, and the rise to the papacy of the worldly-wise Medicis and
members of other mercantile families, or of descendants of
condottieri such as Julius II.
The scarcely usable medieval kernel of Rome was a district
wedged into a fold of the Tiber opposite the Castello S. Angelo.
It was noted for its insalubrious climate and, for this reason,
had been left undeveloped throughout the period of the
ancient Roman Empire. Medieval Rome had spread out from
this center slowly and chaotically in the directions of the
Capitol and of the Theater of Marcellus, 3 near the Tiber.
Transformation of the city began outside the medieval kernel
in the Borgo N uovo, the area that connected the Vatican with
the Castello S. Angelo. This castle served the Popes as treasure
house, prison, and place of refuge in times of invasion or revolt.
Its dominating position is obvious in Giovanni Battista Falda's
map (jig. 26), which also shows the parallel Renaissance
streets of the Borgo N uovo.
The Ponte S. Angelo - the bridge on the axis of the castle -
now became the most important entry into the central area
and gave its name to the Renaissance business center. Here
was the papal mint and here assembled the foreign banking
houses and great mercantile organizations such as the Chigi,
the Medici, and the Fuggers from Augsburg. Here, in fact,
was the Wall Street of Renaissance Rome, and in this small
district decisions were made that sometimes affected the mone-
tary, diplomatic, and ecclesiastical fate of the whole of
Europe.
The streets of the From the time of Nicholas V, the Popes were occupied with the
medieval city formation of the piazza at the bridgehead - called the "Forum
Pontis" in Bufalini's map of Rome (1551) and "Piazza di
Ponte" in Falda's map of 1676. 4 At the time of the Renais-
3Piero Tomei, L'Archittetura aRoma nel Quallrocento (Rome, 1942).
4 The best introduction to the study of the development of Rome is afforded by the
excellent reproductions, published by the Vatican Library, of the principal sixteenth-,
seventeenth-, and eighteenth-century maps of the city. These are, for the time of
Julius III, the map by Leonardo Bufalini (1551); for Rome before Sixtus V, Du Perac--
Lafrery (1577); for Rome after Sixtus V, Antonio Tempesta (1593); for Rome during
80
sance this square becomes a focal point from which, directly or
indirectly, radiate the main arteries through the medieval city.
These streets bear proud names. The Via Peregrinorum, 5 by
piecing together a number of short lengths of irregular medieval
lanes, finally led to the Theater of Marcellus. The Via Papalis,
which carries an even more splendid name, makes an equally
tortuous connection with the Capitol and further on with the
Lateran. A third important through connection is the Via
Recta- in part of ancient origin - 6 which, not without some
difficulty, makes a connection with the later-formed Piazza
Colonna and the Corso or Via Lata (fig. 27).
The Via Peregrinorum, Via Papalis, and Via dei Coronari were
all partly of medieval origin and partly composed of fifteenth-
century improvements. In his Papal Edict of 1480, Sixtus IV,
the Restaurator Urbis, commanded that all building projections
and street obstructions be cleared away. This was the most
important single act of improvement in the urban condition
of the city.
It was during the late Renaissance that the Popes, in especial The streets of the
Paul III (1534-1549), successfully completed their work around Renaissance city
the Piazza di Ponte by establishing short and direct connecting
streets from the piazza to the medieval and Renaissance roads
across the city. This pattern of short but radiating streets
is the first of its kind. It included the Via Paolo, leading to
Bramante's Via Giulia, and the Via di Panico, which, a short
way along its route, connects with the Via dei Coronari.
Finally one of the most important through routes of Renais-
sance Rome, the Via Trinitatis, had its source at the Piazza di
the Baroque, Giovanni Maggi (1625) and G. B. Falda (1676); for Papal Rome before
its decline, G. B. Nolli (1748). Bufalini's map, a woodcut, is the first drawn on the
basis of a precise pattern of streets; Tempesta and Falda are outstanding for their
clarity of presentation; N olli, like Bufalini, uses the modern method of depicting streets
and the delightful handicraft of this engraving approaches a work of art. For more'
detailed information see C. Scaccia-Scarafoni, Le Piante di Roma (Rome, 1939).
6 Piero Tomei, "Le Strade di Roma e !'Opera di Sisto Quarto," L'Urbe, II (1937),
July, pp. 12-20.

6 Its most famous section, the Via dei Coronari, named after the sellers of rose wreaths,
is today almost a slum. Anyone who retraces Ludwig von Pastor's walk, after a lapse
of little more than a generation, cannot but be shocked at the speed with which decay
has followed upon neglect and disfigurement of the buildings. See L. von Pastor, Die
Stadt Rom zu Ende der Renaissance, 3rd edition (Freiburg, 1916). This little book
describes in great detail the condition of Rome before the time of Sixtus V.
81
28. G. F. BORDINO. Sketch
plan of the streets of Sixtus V, 1588.
This contemporary sketch plan of the
work of Sixtus V reduces his street
planning to a simple system of con-
nections between holy places.
Ponte by means of the northbound Strada di Tor di Nona.

The Via Trinitatis was begun by Paul III and continued by
Julius III (1550-1555). It is shown on Leonardo Bufalini's
map of 1551 as a long straight line, traversing for the most
part still unbuilt sections of Renaissance Rome, and terminat-
ing near the Renaissance church of S. Trinita dei Monti at
the foot of the Pincio hill, where it enters into the sphere of
activity of Sixtus V.
Sixtus V and his Pontificate

The papal Only members of the nobility and the ruling houses of Italy
throne were usually elected to the papal throne. There were, how-
ever, exceptions, even in a period such as the end of the six-
teenth century, when the steadily increasing privileges of the
nobility had usurped the medieval rights of the populace.
Hence it was possible for Sixtus V, a man from the lowest
stratum of society, to be invested with the highest dignity of
82
29. Sixtus V's Master Plan of Rome, 1589. This fresco in the Vatican Library is oriented
from northwest to southeast. iHedieval Rome and the Vatican are both cut away by the arch
of the Library door, so that the view is concentrated upon the undertakings of Sixtus V.
The picture is dominated by the straight line of the Strada Felice which runs from the Piazza
del Popolo on the left, pastS. Trinita dei Monti to S. Maria Maggiore and then further on
to the Lateran. Obelisks and columns project from their squares, and the fountains of the
Acqua Felice can also be seen in the middle distance to the left, on the Strada Pia.
spiritual and temporal power to which a mortal could aspire.

It says much for the inner strength, vitality, and instinct of
the Catholic Counter Reformation that it had the courage at
this very dangerous moment to elevate a man such as Sixtus V
to this office- a man who, regardless of his ancestry, was
clearly born for action.
Sixtus V, as the Franciscan mendicant friar was known, had
been admitted to the order at the age of twelve. He was the
son of a peasant of Dalmatian stock. His family name is un-
known and he was called after the first name of his cousin,
Peretti. Filled with visions of the future destiny of his son, his
father had christened the boy Felice (Felix). This name,
Sixtus V, in contrast to other Popes, never laid entirely aside.
He bestowed it upon two of the projects that lay nearest his
heart: the Strada Felice, Rome's grandiose northwest-south-
east highway, and the Acqua Felice, the water system which
brought life to the hills of the southeast.
83
30. Rome: The area between the Coliseum and the Lateran, from the map of Du
Perac Lafrery, 1577. The country-like character of the hill districts shortly before the time
of Sixtus Vis clearly shown, as well as the haphazardly winding roads. In the map the
Lateran is to the left and S. Maria Maggiore, in its country setting, can be seen on the right.
It is also clear that the Via Gregoriana, built by Gregory XIII, consisted of one short straight
stretch between the two churches. The difficulties faced by Sixtus V in forming the Strada
Felice between S. Maria Maggiore and the Pincio can be well understood from this map.
The unusual human situation in which a Pope of the Counter

Reformation found himself suited Sixtus V well. For a short
period he was given the highest power over thought and state.
To be spiritual sovereign and worldly sovereign simultaneously
was a tremendous stimulus to him to accomplish things that
could never otherwise be accomplished. However, a Pope
should not reign too long. He should be wise but he should
also be aged. This requirement gave rise to a tragic conflict
for each of the great Popes, between his desire to carry out
his schemes and the limits imposed by death. The life of
Sixtus V illustrates this tragic situation.
84
31. Rome: The area between the Coliseum and the Lateran, from the map of Antonio
Tempesta, 1593. This map, made shortly after the lime of Sixtus V, cannot easily be com-
pared with the other because of their different orientation. Even so, it is at once apparent/hal
immense changes had occurred within these few years. A straight road now leads from
the Coliseum to the obelisk before the Lateran Palace and from there a straight line (the
improved Via Gregoriana) runs right across the map to S . Maria Maggiore (off the map
to the left). This, Sixtus V's favorite church, was also connected by a straight route (part
of the Strada Felice ) to S. Croce (at the lop of the map). Close to the Coliseum great building
activity can be observed as the countryside becomes covered with houses.
Felix Peretti (1521-1590) had to wait long, the most painful Life of Sixtus V
period being the thirteen years when he was coldly ignored by
his papal predecessor, Gregory XIII. At thirty he was called
to Rome as Lenten preacher. At thirty-five he was the
pitiless inquisitor of the Republic of Venice. At forty-eight
he became Cardinal, taking the name of Montalto, a village
close to his birthplace, Grottammare. At sixty-four he was
elevated to the papal throne. At sixty-nine he succumbed to
malaria in his unfinished palace on the Quirinal.
85
32. S. Maria Maggiore and the Villa Montalto, from the map of Antonio Tempesta,
1593. S. Maria Maggiore with its monastic buildings stood alone upon a deserted and
waterless spot on the Esquiline Hill when the Cardinal Montalto (later Sixtus V) purchased
the site for his Villa Montalto in 1581. In Tempesta's map the wall-girdled estate with its
"palazzotlo" and tower and two avenues of cypress trees is clearly shown, as well as the
newly created square and the obelisk before S. Maria Maggiore, while, behind the church,
Sixtus V's new road to S . Lorenzo pierces through the Aurelian wall. The Strada Felice
is not easy to discern, since Tempesta felt obliged to curve it to depict the rugged nature of
the land.
When, as a high dignitary, he was freed from the vow of

poverty, and when, as Cardinal, comparatively large revenues
fell his way, early peasant instincts reawoke in him and he
purchased an estate in an area completely deserted except for
the church of S. Maria Maggiore with its convent. 7 There,
despite financial difficulties and enemies, he built a country
7 A. von Hiibner, The Life and Times of Sixtus V (London, 1872), I, 225 ff.
86
33. S. Maria Maggiore and its obelisk, 1587, from the fresco 34. The obelisk today, from the opposite
now in the Collegia Massimo. This fresco once decorated the build- side. This view of the obelisk, taken from
ings that Sixtus V erected along the outer wall of his estate for his S. Maria Maggiore, looks down the Strada
household staff. In the foreground is an early high-wheeled carriage, Felice toward the Pincio.
and to the left the young trees bordering his estate, in all their lender
fragility, planted by his own hands.
house surmounted by a tower and called it the Palazetto

Felice (jig. 32).
He engaged the young and unknown Domenico Fontana 8 to
build his Palazetto and, what was much more important to
the peasant's son, to lay out his garden. Its interesting plan,
8 Domenico Fontana was one of the first architects who came to Rome from the far
north - from Melide on the Swiss side of the frontier lake of Lugano. It is interesting
to note that Fontana's nephew, Carlo Maderno, builder of the nave of St. Peter's, and
Francesco Borromini, a nephew of Maderno, all came from nearby villages and belonged
to the same clan. See Ugo Donati, Artisti Ticinesi aRoma (Bellinzona, 1942).
87
as well as Fontana's later plan for the renewal of Rome, shows
that Pope and architect, client and constructor, worked to-
gether in a happy and rare cooperation.
In the Villa Montalto, as he named his estate, the cardinal

lived in retirement through the long years when he was in dis-
favor with Gregory XIII. He busied himself with the writings
of the fathers of the church and with new plans; he also awak-
......
., .
S:J§ . C.i. WJ5\'A£e :PA0£:0 5.1'1/U:£.7 9'6A.e'T'.TJ '1Jf.RS<' ·5. J'71 T.1 .'11.1~1. 1 .:tl/. 1':{</:l<ll(.f.
?frclritcttlu·a.,dt.l Cttual:"2Jomelllco70nta.lul . -~"-o i ;;.,,.,.,c ,,,,.,,[ d.P.a/.l::.:_ .;t,.-: ~t•r:.l.· {.:.·•rr
. "I'F'··:.;#' .v· :1•. :.; .. i..O: ,.
35. The Villa Montalto in the late seventeenth century. The gardens with their di-
reclional vistas as they were laid out by Sixtus V, a century ahead of the square parterres
of the Renaissance. The avenues of cypress stood nnlil they were devonred in the railway
age by the growth of the city planned by Sixtns himself.
ened his passion for building. The wrath of Gregory XIII,

who deprived him of the financial support given to poor car-
dinals after seeing the unusually large dimensions of the fune-
rary chapel that Sixtus had started to build as an annex to
S. Maria Maggiore, is perhaps not entirely incomprehensi-
ble. In this chapel Sixtus, bareheaded, without his crown, his
hair combed forward over his forehead, his heavy peasant
hands folded, kneels before the invisible sacred crib that Do-
88
36. DOMENICO FONTANA. The Trans-
portation of the Chapel of the Sacred Crib. The
removal of the entire chapel, which contains the
remains of the Sacred Crib, from its former place
within S. Maria Maggiore to the new chapel that
Sixlus V buill for his own lomb and that of his
benefactor, Pius IV, was a most precarious under-
laking and revealed Fontana's great capacity for
feats of engineering.
menico Fontana, as his first act of bravura, had transported

there and sunk below the floor together with its enclosing
chapel (fig. 36).
Fontana belonged to the artistically mediocre generation of

architects between Michelangelo and the rise of Roman
Baroque. His taste was as flavorless as that of his client.
The Lateran, the Quirinal, and the wing he built of the
Vatican are among the dullest palaces of Rome, but the col-
lective interaction of his work produced an urbanism that had
no parallel at that period.
89
Fontana's Palazetto on the Montalto estate was equally insig-
nificant, but the layout of the garden (fig. 35) with its long
vistas was a century ahead of the square-patterned gardens
of the Renaissance. At Montalto the son of a tenant farmer
had found a piece of land that was entirely his own, and here
his long-suppressed yearning for contact with the soil came to
the fore. As Cardinal and Pope he gave the utmost care to the
cultivation of his property, planting cypress and olive trees
with his own hands. On one of the frescoes, in a new wing that
he added later, now preserved at the Collegio Romano, these
new young trees appear behind a wall in all their fragility
(fig. 33).
Simultaneous Perhaps the most impressive aspect of his activity as Pope is
planning the simultaneity with which Sixtus V carried out his great
works, from the very day of his appointment. The power to
accomplish his master plan in so limited a period was acquired
during the years of contemplation he spent upon the very spot
on which he started. The synchronization of the work was
carried out with the unfailing surety of a general staff plan.
Baron Haussmann effected the transformation of Paris step
by step, reseau by reseau; Sixtus V began everywhere at once,
with an astonishing simultaneity.
Just five years and four months were allotted to this great
organizer for the immense tasks he desired to accomplish -
in politics, in administration, in town planning. Nowhere is
his race with death more apparent than in the incredible
rapidity with which he carried through his building program.
Again and again his architect, Domenico Fontana, remarks
that nothing could be accomplished quickly enough to please
his beloved lord.
At the outset of his reign, Sixtus V completed the Strada Felice
in less than a year (1585-86), and at the end his enormous de-
termination enabled the cupola of St. Peter's (which had
hardly been touched for a quarter of a century) to rise within
twenty-two months (1588-90). Giacomo della Porta and
Domenico Fontana, who were responsible for carrying out
Michelangelo's designs, had eight hundred workmen on the
job, day and night, weekdays and holidays.
90
A scrupulously kept notebook is still preserved recording the
minute transactions of the mendicant friar Felix Peretti. The
Pope Sixtus V determined to introduce the same order into
the social and financial affairs of the Papal State. He was
successful in both. In a short time he had broken up the gangs
of bandits and aristocrats which had worked together to ter-
rorize the people both within and outside the city, 9 and during
his short reign the papal treasury at the Castel S. Angelo
increased twentyfold. The measures he took, in every field,
touched the fringe of cruelty. He combined the rigid morality
of his puritan contemporaries with the pitilessness of the
Catholic inquisitors. In the words of the Grand Duke of
Tuscany, construction was handled as recklessly as men.
At the same time that he was establishing order in the country,
Sixtus V was carrying through his magnanime imprese, his
"grandiose enterprises" as Domenico Fontana called them.
In the first year of his reign, work was started upon the Strada
Felice and completed the same year; the task of moving the
obelisk in front of St. Peter's was begun; a beginning was made
upon the viaducts and canals for the Acqua Felice, the Lateran
Palace and Basilica, the clearing of the Trajan column, and
the drainage of the Pontine marshes (with two thousand
workers). Besides all this, work was proceeding at a frantic
pace on the development of his own estate and of the sumptu-
ous chapel of S. Maria Maggiore. This account may serve as
sufficient illustration of the simultaneity of his urban planning.
The Master Plan

In the domain of town planning, Sixtus V was one of those
rare men who are able to organize, assemble the facts, and
execute the scheme. He allowed nothing to stand in the way
of the realization of his plans. Only death itself could check -
all too soon - his unbridled energy.
Already, before the time of Sixtus, a strange phenomenon had Rome grows from
taken place in Rome. Instead of developing, as most cities do, West to East
from east to west, modern Rome had grown from west to east
9 Hiibner, Sixtus V, gives details of this struggle, I, 275, 284, 293.
91
-or, more exactly, from northwest (the Vatican) toward the
more salubrious hill regions of the southeast.
Between 1503 and 1513, Julius II had laid out two straight
streets on either side of the river Tiber: the Lungara on the
right bank, the Via Giulia on the left. His successor, Leo X
(1513-1521), planned the Strada Leonina (Via Ripetta), the
most easterly of the three streets that radiate from the Piazza
del Popolo. Paul III (1534-1549) was responsible for its coun-
terpart, the Via Babuino; while the central, axial, street, the
Via Lata (today the Corso) was already in existence as the
ancient entry into Rome from the north. It is typical that
two of the few Renaissance churches of Rome that stand here
- S. Maria del Popolo and, on the summit of the Pincio,
S. Trinita dei Monti - were completed under Sixtus V.
Now the development takes an energetic leap toward the
southeast. From the deserted Quirinal hill Pius IV (1559-
1565) shot a straight line across two kilometers to Michel-
angelo's unexcelled Porta Pia (1561). This street was named
after him the Strada Pia. Here we are already amidst the
sphere of Sixtus V's scheme. Lastly, the immediate predeces-
sor (and opponent) of Sixtus V, Gregory XIII (1572-1585),
straightened out rather fragmentarily, the old road that con-
nected S. Maria Maggiore with the basilica of S. Giovanni in
La terano (fig. 30) .
Ecclesiastical im- At his accession to power, the Franciscan Pope, Sixtus V, thus
pulse for Sixtus V's found a series of fragmentary developments extending, in
planning
chronological order, from west to east. He was able to bring
all of them together into a unified scheme - his master plan.
The first impulse for this new transformation was, naturally,
an ecclesiastical one. Road connections should link all the
seven main churches and holy shrines which had to be visited
by the faithful during the course of a day's pilgrimage. Be-
hind this enterprise can be seen the Counter Reformation and
the newly awakened vitality of the Church. The desire of
Sixtus - as expressed by Pastor - was to make the whole of
Rome into " a single holy shrine. "
To the clergy and pilgrims, Sixtus' plan appeared as a simple
street connection between the holy places. There is a poem
92
of praise to the works of Sixtus V, written by the oratory
monk, Bordino, in Latin hexameters (1588) 10 - at a time
when the work was still under way. It is illustrated by a
rudimentary sketch-plan (jig. 23) in which only the main
churches and their connecting streets are shown. These streets
form a star radiating from the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore
to the various churches, in syderis formam. The star-like plan
has given rise to misunderstandings concerning the real pur-
pose of the scheme - which was, in fact, of an entirely dif-
ferent nature from that of the star-shaped city of the Renais-
sance.
Unfortunately our search for the architect's original plans has First observations
been without success. Maybe they never existed. In Do- on the modern lay-
menico Fontana's work on the projects he carried out under out of streets by
Domenico Fon-
Sixtus V, he makes only a few brief remarks "on the streets tana, 1589
opened by our lord." Yet these are the first expressions of
the point of view which has determined the layout of the
streets of a modern city. This is sufficient reason for some
of Fontana's passages 11 to be included here. He begins by
describing the general problem:
"Our lord, now wishing to ease the way for those who, prompted
by devotion or by vows, are accustomed to visit frequently the
most holy places of the City of Rome, and in particular the
seven churches so celebrated for their great indulgences and
relics; opened many most commodious and straight streets in
many places. Thus one can by foot, by horse, or in a carriage,
start from whatever place in Rome one may wish, and con-
tinue virtually in a straight line to the most famous devotions."
The lines of the roads were carried through, regardless of the
many difficulties that were encountered, overcoming all natural
obstacles and tearing down whatever was in the way. At the
same time, Sixtus was well aware of the marvelous diversity
of the Roman topography, and he made use of its "various
and divers perspectives . . . to charm the senses of the body."
10 Giovanni Francesco Bordino, De rebus praeclare geslis a Sixto V (Rome, 1588). This
book is very rare; there are however copies in the Library of the Palazzo Venezia in
Rome, in the British Museum, and in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
11 The following quotations from Della Trasportalione dell' Obelisco Vaticano et delle
Fabriche di Nostro Signore Papa Sisto V, fatlo dal Cav. Domenico Fontana, Architetlo di
Sua Santita, Libro Primo (Rome, 1590), have been kindly translated by Dr. James S.
Ackerman.
93
"Now at a truly incredible cost, and in conformity with the
spirit of so great a prince [Sixtus], has extended these streets
from one end of the city to the other, without concern for
either the hills or the valleys which they crossed; but, causing
the former to be leveled and the latter filled, has reduced them
to most gentle plains, and charming sites, revealing in several
places which they pass, the lowest portions of the city with
various and diverse perspectives; so that, aside from the de-
votions, they also nourish with their charm the senses of the
body."
In a few words Fontana presents the basic intentions of Sixtus.
Two thirds of the city of Rome lay within the Aurelian walls.
Of this portion the hill areas, which had the best climate, were
practically uninhabited, and, indeed, barely habitable. Noth-
ing was there except "some church towers, dating from the
Middle Ages, projecting from among some anciently revered
basilicas. The whole deserted region seemed destined forever
to be the abode of prayers and silence. The only habitations
'¥ere cloisters and a few scattered hovels." 12
It was these hills of ancient Rome, open to the winds of the
Campagna, and stretching from the Pincio in the northeast to
the Esquiline, Quirinal, Viminal, and Caelius, that Sixtus
wanted again to make accessible. To accomplish this, he im-
mediately set to work to change a simple assembly of roads
into a multiple urban transport system.
"The wish is now serving to refill the City, because, these
streets being frequented by the crowd, houses and shops are
being built there in the greatest profusion, where formerly one
was impeded by the many turnings of the road."
Following the practice of the Middle Ages when founding new
cities, Sixtus encouraged building activity. by granting various
privileges. One of his biographers 13 records that Sixtus' own
sister, Donna Camila, who was shrewdly aware of commercial
advantage, built some shops which she rented profitably on a
part of the Esquiline near S. Maria Maggiore.
12 Pastor. Die Stadt Rom zu Ende der Renaissance, p. 102.
13 Hiibner, Sixtus V, II, 137 f.
94
The change in the city was so great and so rapid that a priest
on returning to Rome after the death of Sixtus remarked that
he could hardly recognize it any more: "Everything seems to
be new, edifices, streets, squares, fountains, aqueducts, obe-
lisks." 14
The greatest pride of Fontana was the Strada Felice, which The Strada Felice
bore the name of the Pope, and which was started and com-
pleted within one year, 1585-86. This great street (now the
Via Agostino Depretis and the Via Quattro Fontane) slopes
down hill from the obelisk before S. Maria Maggiore, then
climb.s. up to the summit of the Pincio and the church of
S. ·i'rinita dei Monti, which Sixtus dedicated in 1585, 15 and
which thus becomes linked to S. Maria Maggiore upon the
Esquiline hill. The final stretch, which was never completed,
was intended to lead downwards again to the obelisk in the
Piazza del Popolo. This is clearly shown in the fresco in the
Vatican (fig. 29). The Spanish Steps, planned by Sixtus as a
link between the lofty S. Trinita dei Monti and the heart of
the city- by means of the Via Trinitatis (today Via Con-
dotti) - had to wait until the eighteenth century to be built.
On the far side of S. Maria Maggiore, the Strada Felice con-

tinues in an undeviating straight line to the church of S. Croce
in Gerusalemme. In the second half of the nineteenth century
this stretch of the road was to serve as the backbone of one
of the most wearisomely dull districts of Rome, and various
names were then given to different sections of the road. Fon-
tana speaks of the Strada Felice as follows:
"The most celebrated is the street called Felice, which origi-

nates at the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, passes the
church of Santa Maria Maggiore, and then continues on to
the Trinita dei Monti from where one descends to the Porta
di Popolo: which in all comprises a distance of two miles and
a half, and throughout straight as a plumb line and wide
enough to allow five carriages to ride abreast."
14"Lettere di Angelo Grillo, Venezia, 1612," quoted by Antonio Munoz, Domenico
Ponlana (Home, 1944), p. 39.
15 The obelisk before this church was erected in 1789 by the classistic Pope Pius VII.
95
A road along which five carriages could drive abreast - in
other words, a five-lane road - must have seemed somewhat
extreme to the Romans, for this was at the beginning of the
change-over from horse and sedan chair to coach and car-
riage.16 Sixtus scarcely ever forgets to include in his frescoes
one of the primitive carriages of the period, with open front
and back, as a reminder of the improvements he had brought
about in such a short span of time.
Sixtus' plan not Fond as Sixtus V was of the area around S. Maria Maggiore,
star-shaped he never thought of making the Basilica the center of a star-
shaped street pattern, as in the "ideal cities" of the Renais-
sance. His was no paper plan. Sixtus V had Rome, as it
were, in his bones. He himself trudged the streets the pilgrims
had to follow and experienced the distances between points,
and when, in March 1588, he opened the new road from the
Coliseum to the Lateran, he walked with his cardinals all
the way to the Lateran Palace, then under construction.
Integration of Sixtus V spread out his streets organically, wherever they were
new and old demanded by the topographical structure of Rome. He was
also wise enough to incorporate with great care whatever he
could of the work of his predecessors. Sometimes he improved
upon their work, as in the straightening of Gregory XIII's
Via Gregoriana (fig. 28) or the raising and leveling of the
Strada Pia. He traced his own Strada Felice to form a most
happy conjunction with the Strada Pia. 17 The angle at which
they cross is not quite a right angle, but Domenico Fontana
placed four fountains here, fed by the waters of the Acqua
Felice, so that the deviation disappeared and the importance
of the crossing was emphasized. The spot has added interest
from the vistas afforded in each direction: Michelangelo's Porta
Pi~; the obelisk of S. Maria Maggiore; the giant late-Roman
statues of the Two Horse Tamers at the Quirinal near by; and,
continuing the perspective of the Strada Felice, up hill and
down dale to S. Trinita dei Monti and the Pincio.
16 L. von Pastor, Sisto V, il Crealore della Nuova Roma (Rome, 1922), p. 15.
17This junction proved extremely valuable after 1870, when the buililing up of this
quarter came into full swing following the confinement of the papal authority to the
Vatican and the sequestration of the papal lands.
96
Sixtus V integrated his new web of streets not only with Master-plan fresco
stretches of existing roads, but also with the needs of the city in Vatican Library
itself. The fresco that he had painted on the ceiling of the
Vatican Library in 1589 is far from exact either in scale or
completeness, but, by giving an indication of what Sixtus V
would have done if time had given him the chance, it conveys
the idea of his master plan better than the maps of what was
actually carried out (fig. 29).
On the left-hand side of the fresco is the obelisk at the Piazza
del Popolo. The straight line of the Strada Felice runs up
to the obelisk of S. Maria Maggiore and continues on to
S. Giovanni in Laterano. From here a connection is outlined
to the distant church of S. Paolo fuori le Mura (St. Paul's
Outside the Walls) and, in the opposite direction, to the nearby
S. Croce in Gerusalemme. The stretch connecting the Lateran
and the Coliseum has already been mentioned.
Returning to S. Maria Maggiore, we find another road leading
directly to S. Croce in Gerusalemme, and- particularly in-
teresting for this period - a connection to S. Lorenzo fuori le
Mura which would not have stopped at the old Roman town
wall. Finally, contact with the old city is secured by the Via
Panisperna, leading directly to Trajan's Column and the
Piazza S. Marco (Venezia). A web of cross streets intercon-
nects these main arteries. 18 If time had permitted, Sixtus V
would have redeveloped the whole of Rome with streets,
squares, water supply, and buildings.
Rome had been unable to create proud civic cores expressing Squares and
civic spirit in monumental terms such as were built in Florence, obelisks
Siena, and Venice. The squares of Rome were off back streets,
such as the Piazza N avona which followed the outline of
Domitian's stadium. These squares were used for markets or
carnivals, but they possessed no buildings of social signifi-.
cance. Even the Capitol, for all its architectural grandeur,
occupied a rather isolated site. Sixtus V gave a far more
energetic impulse than any Pope before or since to the creation
18 Excellent information on the realization of some of the work of Sixtus V can be found
in the Avvisi di Roma, some of which were published by L. von Pastor, Geschichte der
Piipste, X (Freiburg, 1926), 591-609, and in I. A. F. Orbaan, Sixtine Rome (London,
1910).
97
-
- .~
__---=--~
__,.::
---~
37. G. F . BORDINO.
The Antonine Column
and the beginning of the
Piazza Colonna, 1588.
Sixtus V placed his obe-
lisks as though with a di-
vining rod at points where
marvelous squares would
later grow up. H ere he
cleared the A ntonine Col-
umn and the space around
it from the debris of cen-
turies, fixing the bound-
aries that achieved their
architectural form only in
the late seventeenth cen-
tury. In Bordino's en-
graving the primitive
character of the contem-
porary buildings can be
seen more clearly than in
the Vatican fresco . Even
at the present day the
Piazza Colonna holds its
position as the center of
Rome.
of squares all over the city. Many of these were related to

churches, but not by any means all.
In front of his buildings - the Lateran and Quirinal -
and wherever his streets joined, Sixtus V made provision
for ample open space, sufficient for much later develop-
ment. An example is the large area he reserved in front of the
Diocletian Thermae and bordering his own estate of Montalto
which developed into the Piazza delle Terme, the square of the
nineteenth-century railway terminal. By clearing around the
Antonine Column and tracing the outline of the Piazza Co-
lonna (1588) he created the present-day center of the cit y (jig.
38a). Trajan's Column near the Coliseum with its enlarged
surrounding square was a link between the old city and the new.
98
38. G. F. BORDINO.
The obelisk before St.
Peter's shortly after its
erection, 1588. The
transportation of this
obelisk, as well as the
removal of the Sacred
Crib inS. Maria Mag-
giore, are typical of lite
virtuosity and great in-
terest shown in difficult
mechanical exploits dur-
ing the late sixteenth
century, andforeshadow
. ·-- ----~
the later work of Cali/eo. ---=
Like a man with a divining rod, Sixtus V placed his obelisks at

points where, during the coming centuries, the most marvelous
squares would develop. Of all his enterprises, the most sensa-
tional and spectacular for more than a century was the dis-
mantling, transportation, and reerection of the obelisk before
St. Peter's (1585- 86). It was the only obelisk that still stood
upright where the Emperor Caligula had placed it at the spina
of Nero's circus. Since Nicholas V, the Popes, and especially
Gregory XIII, had considered moving and reerecting the obe-
lisk, but nobody dared to attack the problem of taking it down
and transporting it.
Italy at the end of the sixteenth century had a highly developed
technology and interest in machines and mechanics, and Six-
99
tus V had the necessary daring. Yet much more important
than the sensational reerection of the obelisk is the new artistic
significance Sixtus V gave to the Egyptian symbol of sun rays
as a space-absorbing medium. The instinct for civic design of
the Pope and his architect is demonstrated again in their selec-
tion of a new site for the obelisk at just the right distance from
the unfinished cathedral: it was as though Bernini himself had
pre-selected it as the magical center for his colonnades.
The last of the four obelisks that Sixtus was able to set up was
given perhaps the most subtle position of all. Placed at the
northern entrance to the city, it marked the confluence of three
main streets (as well as the often projected but never executed
final extension of the Strada Felice). Two centuries later the
Piazza del Popolo crystallized around this spot. The only
other obelisk to occupy such a dominating position is that in
the Place de la Concorde in Paris, set up in 1836. That came
from the temple of Luxor, where, like all other obelisks, it
stood directly against the great pylon walls. No Egyptian
obelisk was ever placed out in the open as a free-standing
sculpture.
The Social Aspect

Sixtus V was the first of the modern town planners. From the
beginning he was aware of the city as a complex organism, and
knew that the beauty of open squares and wide streets had to
be buttressed by social implementation.
The Acqua Felice The very day that he entered the Lateran as master, he made
the decision, we are told by Domenico Fontana, 19 that he would
provide a water supply - the Acqua Felice - for the hill areas
of the city, which had lain deserted since the destruction of
the Roman aqueducts built by Alexander Severus (A.D. 222-
235). Sixtus V intended to conduct water to the very highest
points of the Roman hills - the Esquiline, Caelius, Viminal,
Capitoline, and Pincio. The main difficulty was that there
was only a very small fall from the springs that he had pur-
chased near Palestrina, sixteen miles away; and the topography
19 Munoz. Domenico Fontana. p. 12.
100
38a. The Piazza Colonna at the time of Sixtus V. Fresco in the Vatican Library.
Here one can clearly see how Sixlus V positioned his landmarks, his obelisks and fountains,
as focal points in a chaotic setting.
seemed to make it impossible for the conduit to be laid in a

straight line. The problem was solved by carrying the conduit
for seven miles along a high arched aqueduct and for seven
miles under ground. ·within eighteen months the work was
successfully accomplished. It was an exciting moment for
Sixtus V, wondering whether the flow of water would reach
the Quirinal and other places. But by October 1586 water was
running in the gardens of the Villa Montalto, and in 1589 it
gushed from all the twenty-seven public fountains. 20
Other Popes had restored the aqueducts that served the lower
parts of the city, and Gregory XIII had had the intention of
carrying out the same venture as Sixtus V, but he had been
frightened by the technical difficulties and the high costs and
had never got further than preliminary negotiations.
On the fresco at the Vatican Library, the monumental entry Social
of the Acqua Felice into the city is marked by the three-arched establishments
20Pastor, Piipsle, X, 426- 433; A. D. Tani, Le Acque e le Fontane di Roma (Rome, 1926),
p. 49 fi.
101
40. Basins of the Moses Fountain. Even 41. Drinking-water fountain. The Egyptian lions still
today the basins of the fountain are in constant spit water for the thirsty passers-by.
use by the local inhabitants.
102
39. The Moses Fountain. 1587. This three-arched fountain with Moses in the center
symbolizes the triumphal entry of the Acqua Felice into the hill areas of Rome, which had
been t:Jithout a water supply for more than a thousand years. The lar,qe basins of the fountain
were designed for practical use as a water reservoir for the local people, while a special trough
was provided on the right for the use of animals.
Moses Fountain (1587) which juts out, very white and out of
proportion, on the Strada Pia (jig. 39). Even in the seven-
teenth century this fountain was considered as being in very
bad style (pessimo stile) 21 and it is scarcely conceivable that
such mediocrity was possible only two decades after the death
of Michelangelo. The real purpose of this fountain can be
seen in another of the Vatican Library frescoes (fig. 42) ; it is
not intended as a show piece. It is a reminder that this part
21 See the biography of Domenico Fontana in G. Baglione, Le Vile de' Pillori, Sculiori,
et Archilelti (Rome, 1642).
42. The Moses Fountain beside the Strada Pia, 43. The Moses Fountain toda y. This square, created
1616. llere, loo, Si.rlus V provided a square which, almost entirely by Si.rlus V, retains its original char-
under the special circumstances, served both a practical acter.
and a social function.
103
44. The wash house at the Piazza delle Terme, fresco in the Collegia Massimo. Here
two long basins were installed for the use of all who wished to clean their linen. Covered
wash houses for bad weather and greater privacy were also provided.
of Rome had had no water for over a millennium, but above all
it is a social institution. The Egyptian lions are spitting water
for the use of the passers by; the three large basins serve as
water reservoirs for the local inhabitants; .the marble barriers
are there to protect them from pollution by animals, while to
the right is a special basin for the use of horses and cattle.
Near to the Moses Fountain, on what is now the Piazza delle
Terme, Sixtus V installed a public washing place with two
long basins (fig . 44) "for everbody who wanted to clean dirty
laundry." He further provided an enclosed space containing a
covered wash house "for bad weather and where women could
104
stay without danger of being bothered by anybody (alcuna
sorie di per sane)." 22 This sixteenth-century establishment re-
minds us of the hesitating experiments at erecting public
laundries in England around 1830 and in France under N a-
poleon III.
The largest basin of water that Sixtus offered to the people of
Rome was a basin for the rinsing of wool, planned as an en-
couragement to the woolen industry. It was made over in the
eighteenth century into the theatrical Fontana di Trevi.
·when Sixtus V came to power, he found the treasury exhausted
and the city full of beggars and unemployed. He dealt with
this problem by building poorhouses and by employing thou-
sands of workers upon his program of public works. But these
measures did not prove sufficient, and he decided to develop
export trade by reviving (of course by foreigners) the old
22Fontana, Della Trasportalione dell' Obelisco Vaticano (2d ed., Naples, 1604), pt. I,
fol. 88.
45. DOMENICO FONTAN A. Sixtus V's plan transforming the Coliseum into a
factory for wool spinning, 1.590. During the last year of his reign Sixlus V made plans
lo transform the Coliseum into a colony of workshops for wool spinners, where they could
have their living quarters in the upper stories and working areas on the ground floor .
105
Roman wool and silk industries. He made a law that mul-
berry trees must be planted everywhere, and one of his last
schemes was for the transformation of the Coliseum into a
wool-spinning establishment. There were to be workshops on
the ground floor and dwelling apartments for the workers in the
upper story (fig. 45). "He had already begun to excavate
the earth and to level the street, working with seventy wagons
and a hundred laborers, so that if the Pope had lived only one
year more" 23 the Coliseum would have become the first work-
er's settlement and large-scale unit of manufacture.
The greatness There is no doubt that Sixtus V's extraordinary passion for
of Sixtus V town planning stands out spectacularly from among his other
achievements. In other ways than in the somewhat naive in-
scriptions upon obelisks and slabs of marble his name is deeply
engraved upon the face of Rome.
Sixtus V was clearly aware of the great complexity of modern
urban planning. This is the reason for the striking assurance
with which he attacked the most diverse urban problems at
one and the same moment, but this simultaneity in urban
planning is only one of the facets of this great organizer. There
were not many quiet hours during the pontificate of Sixtus V.
The church was again in danger, and the disturbing political
background could not be ignored. Germany was divided and
in disorder; France was on the verge of becoming Protestant;
Mary, Queen of Scots, had been decapitated, the Spanish
Armada destroyed, and England lost forever to the faith.
Most wearisome of all were the never-ending controversies with
the arrogant and ambitious Philip of Spain, which, Pastor be-
lieved, Sixtus V paid for with his life.
Against this uncertain political background, Sixtus V at-
tempted to fashion Rome as a world capital where the Pope
would reside as eternal arbitrator of the balance of power be-
tween temporal states. This did not happen. Rationalism
forced development into another direction. But the religious
faith of Sixtus V had inspired him with an optimism that
enabled him to accomplish the seemingly impossible. One can-
not plan cities if one does not believe in life.
23 Fontana, Della Trasporlatione . . . (2d ed., Naples, l60t), pt. II, fol. 18.
106
46. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. San Carlo aile Quattro Fontane, Rome, 1662-67.
Exterior. The whole wall translated into undulating movement. The undulating wall- first
used by Borromini in S. Filippo Neri, Rome - is one of the constituent facts in late ba-
roque architecture.
THE LATE BAROQUE
The manner in which Renaissance modes shaded off into Universal outlook
baroque, the way in which the new shapes became more and of the baroque
more evident until they were wholly transformed by the archi- period
tects of the late seventeenth century- all this is quite familiar.
107
In the hands of the baroque builders, the Renaissance shapes
were no more than the primitive elements of architectural com-
position. In just the way that Bach would transpose a simple
melody into a great new harmony, elaborate and subtle, these
architects transmuted the forms developed in the Renaissance.
The interiors they produced are marked by an inseparable
union of two kinds of interests usually encountered separately:
they are at once the products of purely mathematical specula-
tions of a high order of complexity, and completely visionary
or mystical imaginative creations. The same union of two such
different spirits appears in the work of a baroque master of
another medium, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). At sixteen he had
written a classic work on conic sections; he went on to study
the cycloid curve, to develop the theory of probability, and to
do pioneer work in physical science. Pascal's religious mysti-
cism had its roots in such speculations. "The eternal silence of
these infinite spaces terrifies me" comes out of his work on the
mathematical implications of infinity, and leads up to his feel-
ing for the insignificance of man without God.
The last phases of the baroque development are the true in-
heritance of the epoch out of which we grow. We shall have to
consider first the Italian products of the baroque era, and then
go on to see what the north of Europe adds to these results.
"Baroque" indi- It may perhaps be advisable- in view of the history of the
cates a period term - to offer the prefatory comment that "baroque" does
rather than
not apply exclusively to an overdecorated building in Mexico
special shapes
or Spain. For more than fifty years the history of art has used
"baroque" to designate the period beginning with Michel-
angelo and continuing until the eighteenth century, and even
beyond in some fields- town planning, for example. "Late
baroque" would date a work as after 1660. The baroque age
lasted therefore about as long as the Gothic. Its name, curi-
ously enough, has had much the same fate - thus "Gothic"
up to the nineteenth century remained a synonym for the
barbarous or the uncouth. In some contemporary English
histories of architecture, baroque is still taken to mean a
"debased " form of art. But the work of Heinrich Wolffiin had
taught us, even before 1890, to appreciate the early Roman
baroque that begins with Michelangelo. The German archi-
108
teet, Cornelius Gurlitt, soon performed the same service for the
late baroque of nearly all countries. More recently, the ex-
cellent Viennese school of history has covered the late period
with great thoroughness. "Baroque" has by now an accepted
meaning in the field of art history, as referring not to a special
shape hut to a whole period.
The distinguishing mark of the baroque age is the method of
thinking and of feeling that prevails in it; its outstanding
feature is the development of a specific kind of universality.
In our field, this manifests itself as a new power to mold space,
and to produce an astonishing and unified whole from the most
various parts. But it is worthy of note that, in all departments,
baroque methods and ways of feeling survive until the disinte-
gration produced by the industrial age sets in and brings with
it a temporary destruction of the universal point of view.
In the late seventeenth century we find the baroque universal- Perspective and
ity working with the infinite in the field of mathematics as a baroque notions
basis for practical calculations. In painting and in architecture of infinity
the impression of infinity - the infinite in a linear sense, as an
indefinitely extended perspective - is being used as a means
for artistic effect. Thus, early in the century, the Dutch land-
scape painters introduce an "atmospheric infinity" into their
works; somewhat later the Roman architects succeed in realiz-
ing the same mystical feeling of endlessness - often in aston-
ishingly small churches - through a simultaneous exploitation
of all the resources of painting, sculpture, architecture, and
optical theory. With the French landscape architects of the
late seventeenth century there appears the artistic employ-
ment of the infinity of nature (although much the same kind
of thing had been done previously, on a smaller scale, in Italy
and in Holland). For the first time in history their gardens
incorporated great highways as essential parts of an architec-
tonic expression, and were placed by this means in direct ·and
obvious relation with the unending extension of space. Ver-
sailles, with the impressive open road leading from it to Paris,
is the great example of such creations. These gardens, in their
total effect, stood as models of the baroque universe, and
retained its aspect of infinity.
109
THE UNDULATING WALL AND THE FLEXIBLE
GROUND PLAN
Francesco Borromini, 1599-1667 1
Borromini's San There is an interval of nearly two hundred and fifty years be-
Carlo aile tween the flat surface of the entrance wall of the Pazzi Chapel
Quattro Fontane
and the last work of Francesco Borromini: the fa<;ade of San
Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (St. Charles of the Four Foun-
tains) in Rome, 1662-67 (jigs. 46 and 82).
The flat surface of the outer wall of the Pazzi Chapel represents
a clear succession of equal compartments, each of them closed
within itself. The wall of Borromini's San Carlo alle Quattro
Fontane expresses movement. The individual compartments
are no longer marked off from each other; a continuous chain
of interrelations runs through them all and comes to a focus in
the center of the structure to produce the impression of an
upward straining.
The statue of San Carlo Borromeo, to whom the church is
dedicated, stands in a niche above the central porch. An angel
is placed on each side of the statue; their wings arched over
its head help to accentuate the figure's upward gaze. This as-
cending motif is continued through the whole fa<;ade until,
above the vertically elongated medallion, even the surmount-
ing balustrade melts away into a molded gable, which focuses
and concludes the upward-surging impulse.
The undulating Rome at this time was a medieval town, with narrow streets
wall and little space between its buildings. The fa<;ade of San Carlo
alle Quattro Fontane, in its extraordinary concentration, is no
larger than a single pier of St. Peter's. But the fa<;ade of this
church embodies a conception which was of great influence on
the time that followed. Not merely a single form but the
whole wall has been translated into undulating movement; the
wavelike surface that resulted was Borromini's great invention.
It is an invention which did not reappear merely as a means of
---------- ~~~
1The work of Francc~co Borrornini ern braces problems which are among the most com-
plicated in the history of architecture. We treat it only in so far as it concerns our
architectural inheritance.
no
attracting the attention of passers-by in the small Roman
streets. It is present again, in astonishing form, in the English
"crescents" of the late eighteenth century, and it persists, in
a somewhat altered way, in contemporary architecture.
If the intentions behind this undulation of the wall were simply
decorative, they would not demand our attention. Such an
attitude toward it might even justify the opinion of Jakob
Burckhardt, who angrily observed that the fa.:;ade of San
Carlo looked like something that had been dried in an oven.
But our present-day point of view springs out of conditions
very different from those that operated in 1855, 2 when Burck-
hardt wrote his Cicerone- which still remains unexcelled as
a guidebook to Italy. Nowadays it is easy for us to see the
force that appears in the whole structure, in the stressing of
the progression and regression of the wall through the hollow-
ing out of niches and the building up of contradistinguished
parts. There is to be seen here a real molding of space, a swell-
ing and receding that causes the light to leap over the front of
the church. Francesco Borromini succeeded in creating,
through purely architectonic means, and in the open air, some-
thing which is equivalent to the mild chiaroscuro of his con-
temporary, Rembrandt, at work on his own last paintings at
this same time.
Several historians have found sources for Borromini's treat- Does the undulat-
ment of the wall in antiquity. It is possible, but by no means ing wall appear
in antiquity?
certain, that Borromini knew a contemporary etching of the
2The rediscovery of Francesco Borromini began with Cornelius Gurlitt's Geschichle des
Barockslils in llalien (Stuttgart, 1887): "All who have still not lost courage for the in-
vention of new means of expression to meet the new tasks ... in construction will find
a congenial spirit in Borromini" (pp. 365-366).
The systematic study of Borromini was first undertaken by the "Vienna School" after
1900. Its leader, Max Dvorak, published a short article on Borromini's work on the
restoration of St. John Lateran in 1907: "Francesco Borromini als Restaurator,"
Beiblatt zum Kunslgesch., Jahrb. der K. K. Zentralkommission (Vienna, 1907), I, 89ff.
Oscar Pollak, one of Dvorak's circle, published a biographical study of Borromini in
Thieme-Beeker, Allg. Lex. d. bild. K iinstler (Leipzig, 1910), vol. IV. The influence of
Borromini's work was pointed out by A. E. Brinckmann, Die Baukunst des 17. und 18.
Jhdts. in den romanischen Liindern (Berlin, 1915 ). The standard biography is Eber-
hard Hempel's Francesco Borromini (Vienna, 1924), which contains a full bibliography.
Hans Sedlmayr's Die Archileclur Borrominis (Berlin, 1930) contains complicated
"structilral analyses" of his work - sometimes very instructive, sometimes over-
pointed.
Ill
47. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. San
Carlo aile Quattro Fontane. Interior: the
dome, 1634-41.
rock temples at Petra in Asia Minor. 3 But these temples (El

Chasne is the best known) are cut into the stone face of a
mountain, the wall does not undulate, and all of their elements
- the columns, the broken gables, the " sentry boxes" - are
isolated one from the other. It seems much more natural to
suppose that Borromini started with the flat church fa<;ade
used since Alberti's Florentine Santa Maria Novella and
that he molded all its parts into conformity with his vision.
The comparison with the Kuppelsaal of the Piazza d 'Oro at
Hadrian's villa near Tivoli is more interesting. 4 This late
Roman Empire interior has a ground plan determined by
eight segments of a circle, with columna} screens alternately
convex and concave. The entire hall is set down in the middle
of a great square chamber. But here as in other ancient build-
3 Sedlmayr suggests that Borromini knew these second-century temples through this
source, and that he was also familiar with Roman painted wall decorations (op. cit., p. 59).
4 Sedlmayr, op. cit., pp. 56-57.
ll2
ings there is no undulation of the wall in the sense of an un-
broken flow of movement that carries through its length. In
the Piazza d'Oro there is no continuity of movement: there are
breaks where the wall sections meet. Its treatment is the reverse
of that appearing in the Temple of Venus at Baalbek, where
concave entablatures were built onto a circular central part.
The undulating wall of Borromini's invention gave flexibility
to stone, changed the stone wall into an elastic material. The
undulating wall is the natural accompaniment to the flowing
spaces of the flexible ground plan.
San Carlo was built for the Spanish order of Discalced Trini- Treatment of
tarians out of their small means, and was the property of traditional forms:
the court of
their monastery. Borromini does not achieve his effect through San Carlo
ornament and decoration. On the contrary, he is very sparing
with both, as a glance at the small cloister would show. 5 This
court with its severe forms is an example of creation through
purely architectonic means. Its out-curving edges offer an-
other instance of Borromini's power of infusing new life into
all forms, even into the Palladian motif.
Borromini built the cloister and the interior of the church The interior: the
nearly thirty years before he completed the fa<;ade- in the dome
intErval between 1634 and 1641. The interior is thus one of
his earliest productions. It is left almost entirely dark; on this
account the way in which the light bursts into it through the
lantern is all the more effective. The light shimmers over the
curious combination of geometrical forms which are cut into
the underside of the dome. As Borromini handles them, these
forms give the dome an appearance that suggests the cellular
structure of a plant (fig. 47).
Borromini's treatment of an interior space is best shown in Borromini's
Sant' Ivo (fig. 48), the church whichhebuiltforthe Sapienza (the Sant' lvo, Rome
University of Rome). He began work on the church in 1642,
one year after finishing the interior of San Carlo, but it was
not completed until twenty years later. Sant' Ivo is situated
at the back of the Renaissance court of the Sapienza. Bor-
romini knew perfectly how to fuse together into an integral
whole the loggia of the Renaissance court and the receding
6 Cf. Hempel, op. cil., PI. 13.
113
48. FRANCESCO BORHOl\111\J"I. Sant' Ivo, Rome, 1612-62. Ground plan. Built
within the Renaissance court of the Sapienza, San( Iva is fused with it into an integral
whole.
fa<;ade of his own church. His addition to it brings a new and

vital movement into the quiet Renaissance enclosure. Even the
sensation of movement achieved through the unusually formed
cupola, one full of new invention, is not in any way disturbing.
Its union of The interior of Sant' Ivo exhibits in its wall the same flexibility
geometry and that marks the outer wall of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane.
imagination
Every motif that is introduced is continued throughout the
entire building, to the very topmost part of the dome. But the
average onlooker probably notes only the wonderful animation
and movement. The artistic impulse of its creator can be
grasped without analysis of the complica~ed space conception
involved; indeed, the eye cannot pick out the simple mathe-
matical basis of the ground plan. A six-pointed star- Bor-
romini's favorite motif- is the invisible kernel from which the
plan grows. But this governing form is hardly more obvious
on the plan than the skeleton is in a healthy animal: one can
only detect it by a sort of X-ray examination. (The reproduc-
114
tion of Borromini's plan given here has had some of its lines
strengthened to reveal the star basis more distinctly.) 6 The
star is formed by the intersection of two equilateral triangles.
Berlage, the well-known Dutch architect, and some other
investigators have shown that many medieval buildings are
also based on this pattern. The six points where the sides of his
pair of triangles intersect each other are used by Borromini as
the master coordinates in his design. From the ideal hexagon
which they bound he molds the six niches that transfer the
movement of the main elements of his composition upward
into the shell of the golden-starred dome. In this way the dome
is intimately bound up with the whole interior (jig. 49).
Up to that time, domes had always been round or oval. To Flexibility in the
cut out sections along the perfect circle of the dome, to con- modeling of the
tinue the movement of a design by treating it as though it were interior
flexible, must have had the same stunning effect upon Bor-
romini's contemporaries that Picasso's disintegration of the hu-
man face produced around 1910 (fig. 50). A cross section of Sant'
I vo (fig. 53) reveals what such treatment accomplished in its
case: the movement of the whole pattern made up by its design
flows without interruption from the ground to the lantern, with-
out entirely ending even there. Borromini, of course, did not
have at his disposal the means that enabled Eiffel to bring about
the complete interpenetration of inner and outer space achieved
in his great tower at Paris. But Borromini, by leading the
movement which penetrates every division of the building's
inner space on and out through its topmost spiral, is making
an approach to the same problem.
The lantern which surmounts the church/ with its coupled Motion trans-
columns, boldly curved cornice, and the fantastic spiral which mitted to
replaces the usual cupola cap, resembles some organic growth. architecture
The culminating spiral carries a narrow pathway which leads
to its top (jig. 51).
6 The complicated organization of the interior space of Sant' Ivo has received various
explanations. Some authorities hold that the interior was developed out of a simple
prism with an equilateral triangle for its base - other volumes being added on to this
in the manner of Peruzzi's early Renaissance plan. Others hold that it was developed
through the interpenetration of two such prisms, which together would form a six-
pointed star. Cf. Sedlmayr, op. cit., p. 70.
7 It has been compared to the Temple of Venus at Baalbek.
ll5
Now, in our day, when the transition between inner and outer Relation to our
space can be completely effected, it is no wonder that projects period
appear which spring from the same spirit as that toward which
Borromini groped. A clear expression of the same kind of
feeling appears in a monument projected by the Russian con-
structivist painter, Tatlin, in 1920. Like Borromini, he em-
ployed the spiral form, with its inherent movement (fig. 52).
Borromini, like most of the great baroque artists in Rome, Borromiui as
came from the far north of Italy. He began as a stonemason a sculptor
employed in the work on St. Peter's. This was his calling for
many years, and throughout his life he remained in personal
contact with the actual working of materials. But he was also
a sculptor, and one of the greatest of the baroque age, although
he produced neither brilliant portrait busts nor figures of
saints melting away in mystical-erotic ecstasy. Indeed, he did
no sculpture at all in the normal sense of the word. H e ex-
pressed himself - like some modern masters - in abstract
spirals, in the wire sculptures on the tops of his churches. But
he was, above all, a sculptor of buildings, expressing himself
49. FRANCESCO BOR-

R 0 M I N I . Sant' I vo,
Rome. Interior of dome.
The continuous inner
surface of lhe dome is
broken up. ll is made
lo transmit lhe movement
which runs throughout lhe
whole elevat ion.
50. PICASSO. Head.

Sculpture, c. 1910. Borro-
mini's intersection of the
continuous inner surface of
the dome must have had the
same stunning effect upon
his contemporaries thai Pi-
casso's disintegration of the
human face produced.
117
118
53. FRANCESCO BOH-
ROMINI. Sant' Ivo, Horne.
Section through interior.
52. TATUN. Project for

a monument in Moscow,
1920. This, like the Ei.ffel
Tower and some other monu-
ments of our time, is a con-
temporary realization of the
urge toward the interpene-
tration of inner and outer
space.
51. FRANCESCO BOR-

ROMINI. Sant' I vo, Horne.
Lantern with coupled columns
and spiral. Culminating point
for the movement that penetrates
the whole design.
119
most fully through an inseparable union of mathematically
elaborated ground plans with fantastically hollowed spaces, in
structures of which it is hard to say where architecture stops
and sculpture begins.
Borromini's chief interest was always the molding of space. He
worked with wavelike lines and surfaces, with the sphere (fig.
54), with the spiral, and with still more unusual shapes in the
wire sculptures on the points of his towers. In his hands all the
inherited forms took on a new flexibility. He took nothing for
granted, and almost from the beginning of his work he was
accused of cultivating the bizarre and allowing himself too
great liberties.
Significance By his treatment of the wall and the ground plan Borromiui
of the undulat- gave a new flexibility to architecture. He infused movement
ing wall
into the whole body of architecture. The undulating wall, the
sections cut out of the dome of Sant' I vo, the cupola ending in
a spiral toward the sky, are all means working toward the
same end.
54. FRANCESCO BOR-

ROMINI. Sant' lvo, Rome.
Detail. (Pantheon in the
background.) These cement-
like globes are of marble dust
molded over an iron armature.
120
Borromini's influence spread all over Europe and was absorbed
into architectural knowledge even in that part dealing with
town planning- this in spite of its condemnation by French
and English academicians all through the eighteenth century
and far into the nineteenth.
For two centuries Borromini figured as a man who had no feel- Borromini's
ing for the majestic simplicity of antiquity, but in actual fact contact with
he was intimately related to the past. He was not an imitator history
of shapes or fa<;ades and did not use history as a substitute for
imagination. This revolutionary made careful studies of
Gothic frescoes- drawings which still survive. Max Dvorak,
who did some of the earliest research on his restoration of St.
John Lateran, was astonished at the pains Borromini took to
preserve fragments of the old church wherever it was possible,
incorporating them into his own work.
Like every great creator, Borromini preserved connections with
the past. He did not imitate the shapes of bygone epochs; he
made them part of his own creations. Much as we try to do
today, he found in his relations with history a source of power
for further development.
Guarino Guarini, 1624-1683

The last phase of late baroque development appears at Turin Guarini, architect
in the northwest of Italy in the work of Guarino Guarini. and mathematician
Guarini, a Theatine monk and a distinguished savant, was
born at Modena just a quarter-century after Borromini and
Bernini. He first came to Rome at the time Borromini was at
work on the interior of his San Carlo aile Quattro Fontane. The
normal course of his calling as a Theatine monk later brought
him to Messina in Sicily as professor of philosophy. He de-
signed several churches here, all of them destroyed in the last
earthquake. In 1662 he was transferred to Paris, where he
taught theology. He began to build another church in this
city. This effort was even more unfortunate than his Sicilian
enterprises; gutted by fire while it was under construction, the
building was never finished.
121
Guarini's travels brought him into contact with the Gothic
churches of France and the Moorish mosques of Cordova in
Spain. He was a complete cosmopolitan. Although he never
lost touch with his own country and his own time, he had an
awareness of history in all its aesthetic manifestations.
Nothing is more characteristic of this late baroque period than
the frequency with which it displays mathematician, empirical
scientist, and artist combined in one person. There is an as-
tonishing unity subsisting between methods of thought and of
feeling; more precisely, there is a direct connection between
artistic and mathematical knowledge. Whenever a new concep-
tion appears in mathematics it at once finds an artistic counter-
part. Thus the integral calculus, taking definite shape at the
end of the seventeenth century, found its architectural equiva-
lent in the complicated treatments of space that appeared at
the same time. Guarini's own career is a perfect illustration
of the intimate relation between art and mathematics in the
late baroque. He 'vas not only an architect and a scholar; he
was likewise an eminently talented mathematician. His pub-
lished work reveals him as anticipating, to a considerable ex-
tent, the discovery of descriptive geometry made a century
later by Gaspard Monge (17 46-1818).
Palazzo Cari- Guarini's most important work was done at Turin, where he
gnano: undulating lived from 1666 until his death. He was a prepositus or abbot
wall and flexible
of the Theatine order and, at the same time, an engineer in the
ground plan
service of the Duke of Savoy. It was at Turin that he built his
finest churches and palaces. One of the latter, his Palazzo
Carignano (1680), is an example of the way in which his archi-
tectural crc&tions took on a flexibility that was nearly equal to
that of Borromini's work. This palace, with its convoluted
front and the molding of its staircases, certainly influenced
palace architecture of a later period in southern Germany.
The large, vaulted entrance hall, elliptical in shape, forms the
kernel of the design for the Palazzo Carignano. The elliptical
movement of the hall is communicated to the two wings of the
staircases on its right and left, and is carried from them into
all parts of the undulating outer wall. But, in spite of the
architectonic vigor Guarini shows in this work, the arrange-
ment of the interior of the building makes no approach to a
122
55. GUARINO GUARINI. San Lorenzo, Turin, 1668-87. Section through the
cupola and the lantem, with intersecting binding arches.
solution of those strictly residential problems confronting

architects of the time. All the force of Italian architecture in
this period was being expended upon the interiors of churches.
To put it rather more technically, all this unbounded imagina-
tion was given over to the molding of huge interior spaces. The
123
56. GUARINO GUARINI. San Lorenzo, Turin. Cupola with intersecting binJing
arches. Architectural vision pushes to the limit of consiructwnal resources in sirivmg
to produce the impression of infinity.
57. GUARINO GUARINI. San Lorenzo, Turin. Ground plan.
generalization holds true in Guarini's own case; he produced

his masterpiece in the church of San Lorenzo (figs. 55 and 57),
at Turin (1668-87).
San Lorenzo: San Lorenzo was built for Guarini's own order. The basic form
infinity expressed of the church is that of a solidly walled square. The dome is
through archi-
tectural means
circular. Between the ground floor and the cupola there is in-
serted an octagon with its sides b~nt alt~rnat~ly in and out in
124
58. Mosque al Hakem, Cordova, 965.
Dome of one of the Mih'rabs. First use of
the binding arch as a constructional device.
a complicated manner which serves to make the transition to

the upper elements. The intention of Guarini was to satisfy by
architectonic means the baroque feeling for mystery and in-
finity. The baroque period felt strongly attracted to construc-
tions which seemed to defy the force of gravity. All the arts -
including even the use of colored lights - were exploited to
produce this exciting impression. In Bernini's San Andrea on
the Via Flaminia the lantern appears to be raised aloft by an
angel. In San Lorenzo, Guarini uses purely architectonic
means to put gravity at defiance. He proceeds conventionally
until the ring of the cupola is reached ; there he plunges
at once into the realm of fantasy. Intersecting binding
arches are carried from one point to another on the ring like
a network woven by some giant spider. They cross each
other to form a kind of filigree-work star with an octagon-
shaped opening in its center. In this way the impression is
125
produced that the lantern above the arches is magically sus-
pended in mid-air. In reality it rests on the octagon formed by
their intersection (fig. 56).
The impression of unlimited space has been achieved not
through the employment of perspective illusions or of a
painted sky but through exclusively architectural means. The
dazzling light that penetrates the star-shaped filigree has the
effect of dematerializing its surroundings. This is one of the
rare cases where a feeling of infiniteness is produced by archi-
tectonic means alone.
Relation to tenth- It is safe to assume that the dome of San Lorenzo would never
century works: have been conceived had Guarini not seen the domes of the
the mosque at Mih'rab- the praying niche- of the mosque Al Hakem in
Cordova
Cordova (fig. 58). These domes were constructed toward the
end of the tenth century -to be exact, in 965. The same
method of construction was employed in the domes that
Guarini used in San Lorenzo. They, too, were built on a square
base, with a system of binding arches intersecting overhead
to form an eight-pointed star, on which the suspended lan-
tern rests.
The cupolas of the praying niches in the mosque at Cordova
are the earliest known specimens in which the binding arch is
given a constructional function. It has even been asserted by
some French historians that it was this Moorish invention
which suggested to Gothic builders of a century and a half later
the possibility of replacing the solid vault by a framework of
ribs in stone. But the dimensions of these Moorish domes are
humble in comparison with Guarini's daring masterpiece. As
far as I could ascertain, the binding arches of San Lorenzo are
composed of long, massive stone beams, a dangerous and
laborious method. In fact, the architect of San Lorenzo asked
from construction almost more than it was prepared, at that
date, to give. No later architect dared to follow the precedent
Guarini set in this church. With San Lorenzo the technical
possibilities of the age were exhausted, just at the moment
when the vision of further architectural advances was begin-
ning to dawn. We find ourselves quite spontaneously driven
to think how easy the solution of such a problem would be with
the means available to modern construction. But we must
126
reject such reflections as absolutely unhistorical. The dome of
San Lorenzo presents the case of an architectural vision that
goes to the very end of constructional resources. The situation
today is just the reverse. There are available to us construc-
tional possibilities which we have not been able to exploit to
anything like their full extent.
South Germany: V ierzehnheiligen

Of the northern countries, only South Germany and Austria, Belated develop-
including Bohemia, adopted the complicated space concep- ment in Germany
tions of Borromini and Guarini. Germany has always been
known architecturally as the land of late phases - of late
Gothic, late Renaissance, late baroque. In southern Germany
especially, the best examples of these periods are to be found.
The late baroque of South Germany in the eighteenth century 8
does not possess the constituent force which Borromini's work
spread far beyond his own time. It arose in a country cut up
into small principalities, many of them ecclesiastical. It
marks the close of a development reaching back to roots in
Italy and France, to which it gave a new and exciting expres-
sion. It flowered throughout the Catholic lands of South
Germany - Franconia, Baden, Bavaria - Austria, Bohemia,
and parts of Switzerland. Its largest outgrowth is to be found
in Franconia and Bavaria, and also its ripest solutions. These
are like full-grown fruits just before they drop from the tree,
with all the charm and flavor of a perfect maturity, that final
ripening before the beginning of decay. They fulfilled, all
unconsciously, their task of closing the period. Instinct with
the joy of life, finding expression therefore in terms of spatial
imagination, utilizing at the same time the whole orchestra of
the arts, they were ultimate and crowning masterpieces.
8The rediscovery of the German baroque may be credited to Cornelius Gurlitt, whose
Geschichte des Barockstils und des Rokoko in Deutschland (Stuttgart, 1889), prepared the
way for an understanding of this period. The small booklet by Wilhelm Pinder,
Deutscher Barock (Leipzig, 1911), with excellent introduction and choice of illustrative
materials, helped much to popularize it on a large scale (more than 100,000 copies were
sold). That the baroque is not characterized simply by superficial ornament but has its
own spatial and artistic qualities was recognized in England only in. the thirties.
127
59. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen (Church of the Fourteen Saints),
1743- 72. Fac;ade. Influence of secular architecture visible in the rows of windows; con-
tinuation of Borromini's undulating wall.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Franconia had already

shown its artistic power by producing such figures as Albrecht
Diirer and Veit Stoss. At that time the social background was
one of free cities and free citizens, as in Nuremberg. In the
eighteenth century the background was an ecclesiastical one,
the Counts of Schonborn, who at this time were for the most
128
60. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen. Detail of the undulating wall of the
fa~ade.
61. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vier-

zehnheiligen. Horizontal section. The
usual dome has been done away with. Its
place is taken by the space in which the four
variously shaped (spherical and ellipsoidal)
vaultings meet: those of the nave, the choir,
and the two short transepts.
129
62. BALTHASAR NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen. Interior. The altar is pushed fur-
ward into the nave of the church. Light pours in from all sides through great windows of
clear glass.
part the ruling bishops or archbishops of the ecclesiastical

principalities of Mainz, Speyer, Bamberg, and Wi.irzburg,
being throughout the century the influence under which
churches, cloisters, and residences were built.
\Ve shall take from this late period the late work of a late
master- Balthasar Neumann (1687- 1753) and his Pilgrim's
Church of the Fourteen Saints, known as the Vierzehnheiligen. 9
Neumann was in the service of the Schonborns, for whom he
built the castle of Wlirzburg, with the great spatial refinement
of its interior evident in every detail from the wide Italian
staircase to the concentrated chapel like a jewel transmuted
9Richard Teufel, Die Wallfahrlskirche Vierzehnheiligen (Berlin, 1936); Hans Eckstein,
Vierzehnheiligen ( Leipzig, 1939).
130
63. BALTIIASAH NEUMANN. Vierzehnheiligen. Warped-plane binding arches.
into space. He grew up in the German part of Bohemia,

where he became familiar with the Italian baroque churches.
He also traveled in France, and we know that he had in his
library Guarini's Architetlura civile (first edition, Turin, 1686;
second edition, 1737), which contained Guarini's principal
buildings. Late baroque architecture had made its way north
through the work of German, Italian-influenced architects,
such as Lucas von Hildebrandt, who built the Belvedere in
Vienna, and Christoph Dientzenhofer (1655- 1722), the direct
precursor of Balthasar Neumann.
The Church of the Vierzehnheiligen, standing high on a moun- I nf1uence of palace
tain top overlooking the broad valley of the river Main, is the architecture
quintessence of Neumann's architectural experience (jigs. 59-
61). Construction began at the very end of baroque ecclesi-
astical architecture, in l7 43, and was not completed untill772,
131
long after Neumann's death. The church has a comparatively
simple exterior in the shape of a cruciform basilica and a
slender fac;ade with two towers of the sort that are so familiar
in northern countries, though not in Italy. An I tali an visitor
would likewise be astonished to find this front pierced by many
large windows in story formation, testimony to the influence
upon church design of the northern chateaux, both French and
German. Here, in other words, is an instance of a secular
influence upon an ecclesiastical building. The statues in
niches are almost wholly eliminated in this limestone front,
and instead large windows are cut through the undulating wall.
Interior The interior (fig. 62), however, follows more closely the late
Italian baroque. It does not continue the complicated con-
structional treatment of Guarini's domes, nor has it Borro-
mini's plastic intensity. All is lighter and without tragic notes.
Yet there is also the use of intersecting and interpenetrating
spaces. The ground plan (fig. 61) is worked out on a basis of
intersecting circles and ovals. In a church of this cruciform
type, the central crossing is customarily covered by the dome.
Here, however, the dome, the most important part of the
church, has been completely done away with. Its place is
taken by the space in which four variously shaped (spherical
and ellipsoidal) vaultings meet: the nave, the choir, and the two
short transepts. The interpenetration of the complicated vol-
umes of these vaults requires the use of binding arches formed
in warped planes. Their unusual curves reveal the systematic
way in which the different spaces are blended into one another.
No single particle of space remains separable from the others.
The necessity of passing on from each subdivision to the other
parts of the scheme that includes it produces the final impres-
sion that the whole interior is in motion. The warped-plane
binding arches (fig. 63) that establish these relations consist of
curves of the third degree - that is, of curves developed in
three dimensions, not capable of being embraced in a flat sur-
face, as circles are. It is interesting to note that in this period
such three-dimensional curves could be calculated by the aid
of the integral calculus.
In the late baroque churches of Italy, the cupola was often
left in semidarkness, but here, in this white Church of the
132
Fourteen Saints, light is permitted to pour in from all direc-
tions. Certainly in no earlier period had light been allowed to
flow into an ecclesiastical building in such dazzling effulgence.
Plain glass, without any decoration, was used for the large
windows, so that they might carry out their function - the
letting in of light- entirely without hindrance.
The principal force at work in this church is not preeminently

architecture- as in the constructions of Borromini and
Guarini- but rather a magnificent balance between architec-
ture, sculpture, and painting. In the atmosphere in which
Neumann worked, the different arts had grown up in perfect
association. Indeed, the secret of this late eighteenth century
was the production of a most effective unification of all the
arts. The architects of the eighteenth century knew all the
hidden secrets of architectural effect. Despite their letting in
of light as never before, because of this perfect unity of the
arts they kept the mystic power to impress. The forms were
so modeled that the natural light never became dimmed but al-
ways filled the space, like torches in the night.
It should perhaps be remembered that these magnificent
churches were created just at the time when the Protestant
workmen of Birmingham and Manchester were inventing their
first cotton-spinning machine.
THE ORGANIZATION OF OUTER SPACE
The Residential Group and Nature

The work of the baroque architects was both continued and The role of France
supplemented in France during the late seventeenth century.
French contributions appear especially in two fields: in the
development of more highly refined types of human residence,
and in the organization of outer space.
The decisive influence upon developments in France, which Influence of

had just become the leading European country, was the com- secular absolutism
plete supremacy of a secular government. Absolutism was in
133
the saddle, and, as a corollary, the personal life of the monarch
had become the center of all social life.
The feminine But in addition a new power was making itself felt, a power of
influence the greatest importance and one which did not affect the Ro-
man baroque: the feminine influence. The growing demand for
a better organization of human residences, for greater comfort,
commodite, was intensified by the novel importance of women
in French society. These two factors, of course, worked to-
gether. In 1665, for example, Louis XIV asked the Pope to
permit Lorenzo Bernini, his greatest architect, to come to
Paris and draw up a plan for the new Louvre. Bernini's design
was rejected - with all possible politeness, of course, but not
because it was too theatrical, as the usual explanation has it.
An eighteenth-century architect gives us the real reason:
" Bernini ne pouvait se preter a entrer dans tous les details de
ces distributions, de ces commodites qui rendent le service
d'un palais commode." In other words, Bernini failed to show
a grasp of the complicated problems set by a palace building
where women played an important role; he quite lost sight of the
ladies. The part that women play in the development of French
architecture from this period onward is a very important one.
Court ceremonies The elaborate routine of court ceremonies is another major
conditioning circumstance. These changes in French social
life dictated a more complicated arrangement of rooms in
great houses. A new delicacy and refinement appears in their
treatment. At the same time changes are made in the designs
of furniture, especially as concerns such pieces as are intended
for sitting and lying: these become better accommodated to
women, and to love-making.
Hefinements in At this period in France the general type of dwelling was being
residences of transformed; the chateau was replacing the villa of Italian
the nobility style. The town mansions of the nobility and of high state
officials, buildings like the Hotel Lambert which Louis
Le Vau built at Paris in 1650, showed a highly developed
dwelling culture that had arisen out of the special requirements
of French life. But very soon the growth of this culture was to
be impeded. The importance of the great nobles, the wealthy
financiers, and the chief state functionaries alike was eclipsed
by the demands of an absolute king.
134
In keeping with this change, the royal chateau - placed out- Emergence of
side the city - became both the social and the architectural the chateau
center. It dominated the town behind it and the natural ter-
rain that spread out before it. The idea of locating the chateau
midway between town and country had originated in Italy
considerably earlier. Michelangelo, for example, when build-
ing the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, had conceived the fantastic
notion of throwing a bridge across the Tiber as a means of
prolonging the axis of the palace far beyond the other side of
the river.
It was not the French king, however, but Fouquet, the great- Vaux-le-Vicomte
est financier of his time, who was the first to carry this open
style of chateau construction to its logical conclusion, in the
chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte. This chateau was built by the
architect Louis Le Vau just past the middle of the seventeenth
century, 1655-61 (fig. 64). It was comparatively modest in
size, but it faced an immense park, the work of Andre Le
Notre. The chateau is built on the principle of the French
pavilion. The steep roofs with their tall chimneys are reminis-
cent of Gothic tower-caps; they are in abrupt contrast with
the cupola and its lantern of the middle pavilion. We can well
imagine the kind of impression this mixture of building styles
must have made on Lorenzo Bernini, who was in Paris at the
time the chateau was erected. Nevertheless, Vaux-le-Vicomte
was the first instance of a dwelling designed in close unity with
nature, with a park on a grand scale. It embodied this great
experiment years before it was adopted, and carried much
further, at Versailles. But, as is well known, Fouquet paid a
heavy price for his daring. His chateau and park excited the
envy of the King, who would not tolerate rivalry in any direc-
tion. Louis XIV accordingly commanded the architect Le
Vau and the park designer Le Notre to build the palace
at Versailles, in all its vaunting splendor - and he put
Fouquet in prison for the rest of his life. The incident is not
an isolated fact; it represents one stage on the way to abso-
lute rule. The power and prestige of great nobles and the
great financiers had to be broken to make Louis an absolute
monarch.
135
64. LOUIS LE VAU. Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, 1655-61.
65. LOUIS LE VAU and JULES HARDOUIN-MANSARD. Versailles. The chiltean, the garden, and
the boulevard.
136
The chateau of Versailles symbolizes the supplanting of the Versailles
ecclesiastical authority of a pope by the secular absolutism of
a king. It took Louis XIV nearly half a century (1661-1708)
to erect Versailles in all its megnificence. He began the work
when he was twenty-two, firmly rejecting the suggestions of his
minister Colbert, who advised him to complete the residence
of his ancestors, the Louvre in Paris. Of another generation
than Colbert, Louis cared neither for the old palace nor for
his capital city of Paris. Bernini, then nearly seventy years
old, had been brought all the way from Rome to Paris and had
been presented by Colbert with a complete list of the require-
ments for a royal residence. But all this was quite in vain;
Louis XIV had other ideas.
In particular, the notion of mastering nature, forcer la nature, Absolutism's dis-
fascinated the King. Louis XIV detested the narrow streets like of large cities:
of Paris. A dislike of large cities was, indeed, one of the .forcer [a nature
characteristics of baroque absolutism everywhere. Even when
new towns were founded in connection with the new palaces,
they failed to prosper. This was to prove true in the case of
Versailles, as well as in those of Mannheim and Karlsruhe.
But, in any event, Versailles and the idea of creating a new
mode of life that would be unrestricted by the confines of a
city preoccupied Louis intensely for more than thirty years -
this in spite of the fact that it was an unprecedented thing for
a ruling monarch to desert and neglect the capital of his
country.
The Versailles of Louis XIII's day had been a mere hunting- The hunting-seat
seat, built on a low hill which was surrounded by woods. It of Louis XIII the
was at first merely enlarged. But these alterations - carried center of France,
1668-74
through by the architect of Vaux-le-Vicomte, Louis Le Vau-
did not suffice; larger dimensions were necessary. During the
years 1668-74 a new conception took shape, a conception
gigantic in scale (fig. 65). The great U-shaped, central block
faces the park. Jules Hardouin-Mansard elongated the front
of the palace by building a long wing at right angles to each
end of the U. The left wing (1679-82) was built for the royal
princes; the right wing (begun in 1684) was built as an office
building for the various French ministries. (It was in 1683,
when he decided to house the administration of France in his
137
own palace, that Louis XIV proclaimed Versailles as his
official residence. The proclamation almost caused a revolt in
Paris.)
The two long wings combined with the U of the central block
resulted in an open style of construction that had been hitherto
unknown. The whole structure, complex and enormous,
served three functions: it housed the King, the royal family,
and the ministries of France. Building activity on these
immense residential quarters was carried on at its greatest
intensity in the years from 1668 to 168t; thirty thousand men
were employed on the work. The interval in question corre-
sponds exactly to the rise of the absolute monarchy. At the
same time, Roman baroque architecture underwent the last
phase of its development in the work of Borromini and
Guarini.
Juxtaposition What is the significance of Versailles~ What is the important
with nature constituent fact it embodies~ It is the close contact it effects
with nature. An immense complex of buildings, more than two
thousand feet long, has been directly confronted with nature;
the grounds are a real part of the structure itself, and form with
it a whole of great power and grandeur.
The constituent Lorenzo Bernini had not been permitted to carry out his
facts in Versailles project for the Louvre; nevertheless, when Louis XIV began
the new enlargement of Versailles in 1668, Roman grandeur,
grandezza, scored a success. Straight lines and flat roofs
replaced the crabbed medieval silhouette. In the simplicity of
a long straight line, used without deviation, there lies a tre-
mendous courage and self-assertiveness. The whole edifice is
the architectural response to a new sociological demand: the
demand for a new setting for the personal, the ceremonial, and
the governmental life of an absolute king. The major functions
combined under its one roof have already been noted. Less
important ones were likewise provided for; the salons, for
example, for all their mythological names, were actually in-
tended for gambling, dancing, and musical entertainments.
The form for a new But the interesting thing is still the manner in which great
mode of living complex buildings for social, residential, and administrative
purposes have been welded together and closely juxtaposed
with nature (fig. 67). Versailles is important not because of
138
66. Versailles. Great court, stables, and high-
way to Paris. Engraving by Perelle.
67. Versailles. The gardens, the "Tapis verts," the Grand Canal, and the terraces.
Engraving by Perelle.
139
its royal splendor but because it clearly reveals the solution to
a problem of living. Nature had been mastered before by
man's will, but never before had so large a community been
housed under one roof, in open country, away from any big
town.
The highway as an Versailles has a highway linking it with Paris (fig. 66). It
architectonic means starts from between two buildings overlooked by the great
court; it ends in Paris in the Champs-Elysees and the Louvre.
The beautiful curving constructions which give its commence-
ment at Versailles such power and dignity are - almost
incredibly - the royal stables. The accentuation of the high-
way by means of these stables emphasizes the approach to the
chateau. The highway, in other words, has been incorporated
into an architectonic expression, is an essential part of it.
The plan of the The baroque will to master the illimitable is best shown by the
gardens anticipates other side of the palace. The ground slowly declines from the
later town planning
terrace with its ornamental pools. The eye is led by the long
lawns - the tapis verts - to the Grand Canal, cruciform in
shape, with a length of one mile (fig. 67). In the time of Louis
XIV it was graced by gondolas and other luxury craft. Be-
yond the Grand Canal, the view fades into an endless country-
side. The woods and shrubbery of the enormous park - its
area is one-fourth the area of all Paris - spread out to the
right and to the left. Provision was made here for every sort of
leisure activity, for sports, for hunting, for festivals, for love-
making. The woods are dotted with round clearings from
which paths emerge like the rays of a searchlight. These cir-
cular areas with their radiating pathways or roads will find a
place in eighteenth-century town planning.
Louis XIV as " the The extensive and carefully ordered natural setting for the
open-air king" chateau of Versailles was the background not only of these
great new buildings but of the new kind of living that had been
developed there. The old myth that Ver.sailles was a kind of
vast and sumptuous mausoleum in which Louis XIV was con-
fined like a royal mummy has been destroyed by history.
Louis Bertrand, one of his biographers, presents a picture
which contradicts the old, familiar, and inaccurate one. He
calls Louis "the open-air king" and tells us of those hunts on
which he went alone, twice every week, into the forests of
140
Versailles, making hunting his excuse for solitude. From the
windows of his bedchamber in the palace he had an unbroken
vista of forests and green meadows - a view which, of course,
is spoiled today. The constituent facts that are presented by
Versailles, the trends that were to be continued in later periods,
were not bound up in its royal splendor. They lie in the new
ways of living for which it provided a form. An enormous
structure, almost a small town in itself, had- together with
the life that went on within it - been brought into close
contact with nature.
Single Squares
At the time when baroque architecture flourished in Rome, Bernini: the Piazza
cities all over the world were crowded and lacked space within Obliqua, Rome
the walls that surrounded them. The first large open space
within a city - in contrast to the enclosed Renaissance
square- was the Piazza Obliqua (the "Oval Place") of St.
Peter's in Rome (fig. 68). It was built just after the middle of
the seventeenth century. Its graduated areas are embraced
within the fourfold colonnades of St. Peter's as though by a
giant pair of pincers, and linked by them with the portico.
Three elements are combined here: the oval plaza, the rec-
tangular plaza, and the body of the church with the dome that
crowns it. Bernini had intended to close the opening of the
Piazza Obliqua with another colonnade, leaving two narrow
entrances. The plan was never executed, however.
Andre Le Notre had designed Vaux-le-Vicomte five years be-
fore the appearance of Bernini's colonnades for St. Peter's.
The work of both men sprang from an urge to dominate wide
spaces that manifested itself all over Europe at this time. But
Bernini's colonnade is unique in the precision of its modeling,
which is calculated to the last inch. The exactitude involved
can be fully appreciated only during those church festivals
when the Oval Place is filled by the crowds awaiting the papal
benediction. The plaza slopes gently downward to the obelisk
in its center; it then rises, in slightly inclined terraces and long
steps, to the enormous portico. Bernini's architectural mastery
141
68. LORENZO BERNINI. Piazza Obliqua, St. Peter's, Rome. Lithograph, 1870.
Crowds awaiting the papal benediction.
is revealed when the onlooker, awaiting the blessing, discovers

that he can overlook all the great congregation, in addition
to seeing everything that takes place on the terraces immedi-
ately in front of the church.
Paris under Louis What did the north have to offer in comparison with work like
XIV: late start in this~ Paris had the grands boulevards with which Vauban, the
building squares
great engineer of Louis XIV, replaced the city walls when he
tore them down. Grass-covered earthworks, more suited to
"modern" defensive needs, were thrown up .farther outside the
city. The first great square of Paris was the Renaissance
Place des Vosges (1612). Louis XIV did not build his first
square until thirty years after Bernini's colonnades of St.
Peter's, and twenty-five years after the beginning of his reign.
This was the Place des Vi'ctoires (1685-87). It had the form of
a circle flattened on one side, and was quite modest in its
dimensions. But it was the first circular place in Paris intended
as a meeting point for streets.
142
The first really large public square built in the Paris of this The Place
period was the Place Vendome, constructed at the beginning of Vendome
the eighteenth century. It is worthy of note that the Place
Vendome was not built until after the completion of Versailles.
The architect of Versailles, Jules Hardouin-Mansard, now
had time for work on the important places in Paris itself. His
first plan in 1699 provided for a simple rectangle; later its
corners were cut off, and the new sides that were thus developed
were bent outward. Seventy years earlier, Borromini had used
the same treatment in the small cloister-court of San Carlo
aile Quattro Fontane. But the most significant development
in Paris, one which could not be valued truly at the time, was
the highroad that was carried directly across the countryside to
connect the axis of the chateau of Versailles with the axis of
the Chateau du Louvre. To this day, the Champs-Elysees
follow exactly the plan originally laid down by Louis XIV and
continue to provide the only sufficiently broad exit from
Paris.
The eighteenth century is a century remarkable for the laying-
out of squares. Just as the name of Louis XIV is associated
with the building of palaces and gardens, so the name of Louis
XV, who succeeded him, is linked with the construction of new
town squares and public places. The plan of Paris drawn by
Patte in 1748 (fig. 69), which shows all the places of the city,
both those already in existence and those merely projected,
shows at a glance the great amount of such construction under
Louis XV. Probably the best-known single example is the
Place de la Concorde, designed by Jacques-Ange Gabriel and
constructed in 17 63.
Series of Interrelated Squares
In many towns series of squares or plazas were laid out, not as Interrelated
a mere succession of mutually independent units but in such squares character-
ize the mid-eight-
a way that all together they constituted a rhythmical progres- eenth century
sion. A compelling and thoroughly self-conscious desire for
unity governed their location and the manner in which streets
143
69. PATTE. Plan of Paris, 17 48, with projected and executed squares. This plan
clearly demonstrates the mid-eighteenth century endeavor to organize open spaces - squares
-of every shape in all possible locations. Very few of them were ever executed.
were made to radiate from them. Often whole towns were

made to conform to a predetermined scheme of this sort.
Karlsruhe, Germany, which was founded in 1715, is one in-
stance. When whole towns were treated in this fashion as
architectural units, already existing buildings frequently had
additions made to them so that they would fit harmoniously
into the system of relations the new scheme established.
The three places Among all such series of squares, the most pleasing is that
of Nancy formed by the three places of Nancy, the capital of Lorraine.
Nancy was at one time the residence of Louis XV's father-in-
law, the exiled king of Poland, Stanislas Leszinski. Its three
places (fig. 71) were built by Here de Corny between 1752 and
1755, just one century later than Bernini's colonnades. The
first place (Place Stanislas)- with the Hotel de Ville (fig. 70),
which antedates it - is connected through a triumphal arch
with the oblong Place Carriere. The charming rococo wrought-
iron work of Lamour forms a transparent screen between the
144
70. HERE DE CORNY.
Three interrelated squares at
Nancy, Place Stanislas, 1752-55.
View.
71. HERE DE CORNY.

Three interrelated squares at
Nancy. Plan. N ew elements
were used in these squares to bring
already existing f eatures into a
new, inspiring, and vital spatial
unity.
145
72. HI~RE DE CORNY. Palais du Guuvernement with oval colonnades, Nancy.
two. Avenues of trees and symmetrical rows of houses lead on to

the third of these squares, the Place Royale. The Palace of Gov-
ernment which faces the Place Royale is another building that
was already in existence when the plan for these places was be-
ing made. The building was made to fit into the whole new com-
position by the addition of an elegant colonnade to the square.
This colonnade around the place repeated the motif already
present in the arches of the Palace of Government (jig. 72).
Synthesis of An immense fund of architectural knowledge is revealed in
separate elements each one of these squares. It appears equally in the way the
heights and proportions of the buildings are regulated and in
the handling of the materials used. Walls, transparent iron-
work, fountains, trees, colonnades - all these materials are
used with instinctive correctness. It is in this that we find the
146
secret of the architecture of the middle eighteenth century:
each element is coordinated with all the others; isolated phe-
nomena are synthesized to form the most effective whole.
At the same time that the three squares at Nancy were being Bath: new develop-
constructed, a small town existed in England which was the ment of the health
product of an equal wealth of architectural knowledge, al- resort
though it had grown up to meet quite different purposes -
Bath. In eighteenth-century England, to "take the waters"
at Bath's hot springs was a fixed part of social routine; Bath
was "the rallying place of good company and social inter-
course." There was no church or castle to which the town had
to conform. Bath was built for the entertainment of an anony-
mous and mixed society. It attracted the aristocracy, artists,
men of letters, and -as Oliver Goldsmith relates- types
still more various: "Clerks and factors from the East-Indies,
loaded with the spoils of plundered provinces, planters, negro-
drivers from our American Plantations, agents who have
fattened in two successive wars, brokers and jobbers of every
kind, men of low birth." This sketch might have been written
in the late nineteenth century, rather than in the eighteenth.
73. .JOHN WOOD THE YOUNGEH. The Circus, 1761, and the Hoyal Crescent,
1769, Bath. Air view.
147
74. JACQUEs-ANGE GABRIEL. Place Louis XV- Place de Ia Concorde, Paris,
1763. Here nature and an open square are juxtaposed, the same principle as that involved
in the Royal Crescent, Bath.
The Circus and the Bath was built for the new bourgeois society by a man who was
Royal Crescent "at once architect, builder, speculator and an artist"- John
Wood. His son and successor, John Wood the younger, com-
pleted the Circus in 1764, and in 1769 built the famous Royal
Crescent, in which thirty houses are joined together in the
shape of an open el1ipse (fig. 73).
The Royal Crescent is comparable, in many respects, to
Jacques-Ange Gabriel's Place Louis XV (Place de Ia Concorde) ,
completed six years earlier (fig. 74). The latter remains,
despite all changes, the most beautiful of Parisian places. It
owes its charm to the fact that its single boundary wall permits
a country view in the midst of a city: the gardens of the Tuileries
are to the left, the Champs-Elysees lie on the right, and the
Seine is directly in front. Here is the opinion of a contempo-
rary, the Abbe Laugier, who was already capable of discerning
the intention behind this highly developed piece of town plan-
ning: "Entouree de jardins et de bosquets, elle ne presente que
l'image d'une esplanade embellie au milieu d'une campagne
riante .... " Quite simply, this place is made an integral part
of the outlying landscape.
148
75. JOHN WOOD TIIE YOUNGER. The Royal Crescent, Bath, 1769. The broad
lawn in front of the Royal Crescent slopes down tou:ard the floor of a valley.
The single boundary wall of the Place de Ia Concorde is left

open in the center. In this manner the street- the Rue
Royale- which leads from this opening (to· terminate in a
church built at a later date) becomes the axis of the place itself.
The Royal Crescent at Bath (fig. 75) has no axis and no central The Royal
opening leading out to a church or a chateau. Nothing blocks Crescent: a self-
the view from it; there is no building, whether representative sufficient residential
complex
of secular or ecclesiastical authority, to which it stands in a
servile or dependent relationship. There is only a broad lawn
which slopes gently toward the town, and the countryside
beyond lies at its front. A completely open view has been at-
tained through a concentration of many individual lodgings.
Thirty small standardized houses have been fused into a single
unit to produce the Crescent, and its monumental impressive-
ness derives from the fact that these standardized units are
added together without any separations. Not until our own
time do we encounter similar undertakings. For example,
Gropius' 1937 scheme for eight-story apartment houses to be
erected at St. Leonard's Hill- a park near Windsor- tends
in the same direction. The wide expanse of the grounds, with
their trees and meadows, is retained unbroken by concentrat-
149
ing individual apartments into three eight-story buildings. In
this way there is an open view for each tenant. Contrasted
with such schemes as the Royal Crescent and that of Gropius,
the health and holiday resorts of the nineteenth century, with
their rambling hotels and private houses, present the chaotic
appearance of a mining camp.
Building specula- Eighteenth-century Bath was built on speculation; the elder
tors of the John Wood began building there in·1727. The Place Vendome
eighteenth and in Paris (1701) likewise was the work of speculators for the
early nineteenth
centuries
major part, as were the London squares and crescents with their
high architectural standards. Many of the best English archi-
tects in the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the
nineteenth- men like the Adams, John Nash, Soane, and
others - were at one and the same time builders, artists, and
speculators. For all that, this architecture manifests discipline
and the working of a vigorous tradition. There is only a
fragmentary knowledge of the part speculation has played in
the development of architecture. And yet the extent of that
influence would be worth knowing, not merely for architectural
reasons but also for the sake of discovering both the initiative
and the destructive roles of the speculator.
Assured town Nancy and Bath were not the only towns, nor Paris the only
planning in the great city, in which town planning attained such astonishing
eighteenth century:
proficiency. The same expertness was displayed throughout
Piazza del Popolo,
Rome eighteenth-century Europe. Thus the basic principle common
to the Place de la Concorde and the English crescents and
terraces - the blending together of residences with their
natural surroundings -likewise governed Valadier's adapta-
tion of the Piazza del Popolo in Rome. Giuseppe Valadier
(1762~ 1839) was, according to the Enciclopedia italiana, "the
first figure in modern Italian architecture who carried out town
planning, together with the preservation of green spaces, as a
science." Valadier's choice of forms certainly makes him an
architect of the classical revival, but the scheme for this great
square, with regard to the space conception on which it rests,
follows the late baroque tradition in town planning.
Some knowledge of the condition of the Piazza before Valadier
began his alterations is necessary if his work is to be appre-
ciated. The test of the town planner is his ability to instill
150
76. Piazza del Populo,
Rome. Engraving by Tem-
pesta, 1593. The Porta del
Popolo, the Renaissance
church of Santa Maria del
Popolo, the obelisk, and the
gardens of the Pincio.
77. Piazza del Popolo,

Rome. View toward the
twin churches of Rainaldi.
order into the diversified complex that confronts him at the

start.
The Piazza del
Until the age of railroads, the Piazza del Popolo (fig. 76) was Popolo in the
the main entrance to Rome for all visitors coming from the seventeenth and
north. It was here that the stranger received his first impres- eighteenth cen-
sions of the papal city. He entered the square through the turies
151
Porta del Popolo, which had been restored and redecorated
during the seventeenth century on the occasion of the visit of
Queen Christina of Sweden to Rome. Facing him on the far
side of the piazza there appeared - as the first symbols of
Rome's special importance -Carlo Rainaldi's twin churches
of 1662 (fig. 77). With their identical cupolas and porticos,
they were like ecclesiastical sentries guarding the three main
arteries of the city, which since antiquity have radiated from
this spot. Isolated in the center of the piazza stood the Egyp-
tian obelisk which had been placed there at the end of the
sixteenth century. On the left there was only the simple
Renaissance fat;ade of Santa Maria del Popolo, the church
attached to the Augustinian monastery where Martin Luther
once stayed. The gardens of the monastery rose to the heights
of the Pincio. On both sides of the square there was the same
combination of high walls and insignificant buildings. These,
together with the plain drinking troughs for animals that were
placed in it, gave the whole piazza the air of being a suburb.
This was the situation that Valadier faced in 1794 when his
first scheme for the piazza was prepared and published. The
final scheme, however, was actually carried out between 1816
and 1820, the years when building activity in the squares of
Bloomsbury was at its height 10 (fig. 78).
Valadier's scheme Valadier touched none of the monumental buildings in or
(executed 1816-20) around the square; he tore down, however, all walls and build-
ings that had no importance. He transformed the greater part
of the gardens of the Augustinian monastery into a public
park, giving access to the Pincio. Through this park he led
a winding ramp which provided for the passage of vehicular
traffic between the piazza and the Pincio. Upon the heights
of the Pincio itself, Valadier built a terrace, giving it a large
substructure whose proportions were related to his other
buildings lower down (jig. 80). Thus, despite its being on a
much higher level, it fits within and makes a unity of his whole
spatial composition. It is possible to see from figures 79
and 80 how successful Valadier was in bringing together into
a new relationship buildings of quite different styles and
periods.
10An excellent study of the Piazza del Popolo, by Rowland Pierce and Thomas Ashby, is
contained in Town Planning Review, vol. XI, December 1924.
152
78. GIUSEPPE VALADIER. Scheme of the Piazza del Popolo, Rome, 1816. This
is the final scheme followed in the actual rebuilding.
79. Piazza del Popolo, Rome. Section through the different levels and ramps. Draw-
ing by Edward W. Armstrong, 1924.
In addition to these works, Valadier erected a few residential Innovations by

units bordering the piazza and built two elegant hemicycles Valadier: infiltra-
tion of greenery,
which served - as they still do - to guide traffic. Beyond
regulation of
this, he provided very carefully for the introduction of land- traffic, relation of
scaped areas into the whole design. This careful infiltration different levels
of greenery is characteristic of all such work at this time.
He further planned to leave the west side of the square
permanently unenclosed and free of buildings so that the
153
80. Piazza del Po polo, Rome. View from the Pincio terrace, showing the different hori-
zontal levels involved and their relations to the vertical planes in the Piazza. Valadier here
touches upon a fundamental conception of our lime: the relation between horizontal and
vertical planes as a basis for aesthetic response.
view might lead out upon a wide green area as it does

in the Place de la Concorde and in the Royal Crescent at
Bath. Today this area is occupied by broad avenues and tall
houses and defaced by advertising signs.
The Piazza del Popolo has remained to this day one of the most
"modern" in appearance of all the great squares. To a certain
.extent this is due to the thoroughgoing fusion of buildings and
park. Its air of modernity is owing much more, however, to
the way in which different levels are brought within the same
composition. The series of places built at Nancy in the middle
of the eighteenth century had exploited the relations that can
be made to hold among the vertical surfaces of buildings of
different heights. In the Piazza del Popolo, Valadier embodies
154
81. THEO VAN DOESBllRG. Relation of horizontal
and vertical planes. c. 1920.
a hovering sensation in the total effect produced by his design

by bringing into relation with each other two horizontal areas
of different levels: the terrace on the Pincio, and the piazza
proper. A proportion in three dimensions - not merely in
two, as at Nancy -is developed.
We have seen how Borromini, in striving to lead the movement Interrelated
of a design through the space of the interior into outer space, horizontal and
anticipated a concern of modern architecture. Valadier's vertical surfaces
piazza touches upon another fundamental conception of our
time: the relation between horizontal and vertical surfaces as
a basis for aesthetic responses of a special sort. That this is
one of the constituent facts in modern architecture, one of the
tendencies determining its character, cannot be doubted. A
drawing made about 1922 by the Dutch painter, poet, and
architect, Theo van Doesburg, founder of the "Stijl" group,
shows a conscious recognition of this conception (fig. 81). It
depicts the interacting relations of hovering and transparent
vertical and horizontal plane surfaces of a house.
To avoid misunderstanding, it may be worth repeating that
neither Borromini nor Valadier worked with space con-
155
ceptions identical with those of today. The exact ways in
which they differ will be discussed later. But the historian
always finds it both interesting and important to note early
beginnings of movements that only much later come to a full
realization.
82. FRANCESCO BORROMINI. Undulating wall of San Carlo aile Quattro Fon-
tane, 1662-67. This late baroque invention, the undulating wall, reappears in English town
planning toward the end of the eighteenth century.
Previous to the turbulent and overwhelming onset of indus-

trialization, a high standard existed for housing on both simple
and luxurious scales. The principles of town planning were a
matter of common knowledge to everyone connected with
architecture. When a period succeeds in developing its natural
culture, and when this culture is supported by a long tradition,
works of the highest quality can be produced by anonymous
156
artists as well as by distinguished ones. For example, it hap-
pens that we do know the name of the architect who built the
Lansdowne Crescent at Bath toward the beginning of the
nineteenth century, but it is a name of no importance for
history.
83. Lansdowne Crescent, Bath, 1791. Its serpentine windings follow the contours of the
site.
Lansdowne Crescent lies high above the town of Bath (fig. 83). The constituent
Its three serpent-like windings give it an organic aspect which facts in Lans-
downe Crescent,
is strengthened by the way in which they follow the accidental Bath (1794)
rise and fall of ground to catch as much light and sun as pos-
sible. This crescent embodies two of the constituent facts of
the preceding centuries. Borromini's use of undulating walls
(jig. 82) to bring an unexpected movement and flexibility into
157
the narrow Roman streets reappears in the serpentine curves
of its outline. Its second predecessor was Versailles, the first
Relation to the great building to be set at the front of an immense park instead
past of in the midst of a city's narrow streets. The manner in
which this great residential group was placed in direct contact
with nature, and the effect of unhampered freedom that re-
sulted, made it the guide for all later experiments. A similar
freedom characterizes Lansdowne Crescent. The combination
of movement, surprise, and openness makes its houses exactly
84. Bath and its crescents. Air view. Near ihe cenier are the Royal Crescent and ihe
Circus; below and to the left is Lansdowne Crescent.
what every residence should be: the adequate background for

leisure. Lansdowne Crescent was not an isolated phe-
nomenon. Its flexible planning survived into the early nine-
teenth century, though too seldom, and can be found in the
layouts of South Kensington and Edinburgh.
During the last few decades, endeavors have been made to
reconquer and to extend the lost know ledge of town planning
displayed in schemes like Lansdowne Crescent. The task is
difficult, what with all the complications attendant upon new
technical developments. Nevertheless it cannot be evaded.
158
The sort of solution to this problem that is possible to us today
can be seen - to take only one example - in Le Corbusier's
scheme (1930-1934) for the improvement of Algiers ( fig. 85).
Le Corbusier makes use of skyscrapers which have the "or- Relation to the
ganic" outlines of the crescents at Bath. Like the latter, they present : Le
Corbusier's undu-
are adjusted to the rise and fall of the ground, although the lating skyscrapers
variations of level are much more extreme than those encoun-
tered in the English town. The individual apartments in these
skyscrapers each take up two stories, and are so arranged that
85. LE CORBUSIER. Scheme for skyscrapers in Algiers, 1931. Late baroque space
conceptions came very near to contemporary solutions like this one.
their tenants have considerable control over the interior lay-

out. The plan provides for access to terraces and hanging
gardens from every apartment, and all of them would com-
mand a magnificent view of the city, the sea, and the sky.
This plan was an immensely bold project for its time. The
new residential area on a mountainside high above the town
and two distant community centers were linked by a highway
built over the roofs of a continuous apartment house. Al-
though too much dominated by t echnological possibilities, the
urbanistic imagination received a tremendous impetus. In Le
159
Corbusier's later master plan (1942) the massive concentration
of dwelling complexes was greatly loosened.
Late eighteenth- Town planning is always the last department of architecture
century town to reach full development. It frequently attains maturity
planning;
only when a period is nearing its close; this was the case in the
long tradition
late baroque. Late baroque town planning brings together the
artistic inheritance of four centuries, but it was not at once
applied to residences of all classes. Versailles, the first great
experiment in placing a large residential and administrative
block in contiguity with nature, was built for the use of court
society and the ministerial staff. Bath marks the point when a
middle-class development is given the same treatment; Charles
Dickens, for example, lodges Mr. Pickwick in the Royal Cres-
cent at Bath. At the end of the century this type of residential
development had become a general mode of expression in
architecture. By the early nineteenth century the squares and
crescents of London extended the baroque tradition of a juxta-
position of nature and human residences to the housing of still
lower classes, and made it no longer the exclusive privilege of
wealthy people.
Sudden break But just at this time there came a sudden break. The kind of
town planning that was summed up in contemporary architec-
tural knowledge and concretely exemplified in Bath did not
suit the new conditions created by industry. With its demands
for dignity and proportion it represented only an obstacle to
a time of chaotic expansion, when towns and industrial
centers were growing up with uncontrolled speed. Factory
towns like Manchester and Birmingham have been scenes of
architectural disorder from the day of their inception. From
the first onset of the new forces of industry, the knowledge upon
which town planning rests was lost with terrifying rapidity.
This disorganization spread from the industrial towns to the
old capital cities. A new and deadly influence was at work; the
pursuit of wealth through the new increase in the power of
production became an end in itself. This led on the one hand
to the appearance of slums, and on the other to the building of
large and formless mansions. Leisure vanished; no one had the
time to live gracefully; life lost its equilibrium. The result
was a deep spiritual uncertainty - and the more uncertain of
himself man became, the more he tried to bolster up belief in
160
85a. LE CORBUSIEH. Plan for the Marine Sector of Algiers, 1938-1942. The
setting of the skyscraper was above all a forceful space-creating focal point. Equally im-
portant was Le Corbusier's urbanistic, differentiated site planning, which others had not
achieved at that time. The realm of the pedestrian was carefully organized and 11ehic/es
moved on raised and subterranean roads and parked in underground garages, ideas which
only decades later became a general ideal.
the rightness and stability of things through the creation of

buildings in the grand, pseudo-monumental manner. But
there is one branch of architecture where deceit is impossible,
and that is town planning. Town planning can spring only
from the full life; it is possible only when the different levels of
human activity have attained a certain unity and equilibrium.
A sudden rift at the onset of industrialization is a phenemenon
that can be frequently observed in history. Again and again
man lights on a development that is stymied by certain out-
side influences: seeds that fail to grow, but that later, under
quite other conditions, spring up again into consciousness.
So it was that the desire of the artists of our century to re-
discover age-old phenomena long dormant in man brought
their work into an inner relation with prehistoric art.
In the field of architecture something similar can be observed.
Right at the beginni~g, in Sumer, the earliest temples have
an astonishingly well elaborated interior space with several
entrances, to enable the people to make direct contact with the
invisible powers. This situation changed when the first great
conqueror absorbed the small priestly towns into a single em-
pire. Henceforth it was no longer possible either for the great
lord, who had become divine, or for the people, to enter the
cella of the god. At one stroke the development of interior
space was broken off. Only in the Roman period did it rise
again to become the highest expression of architectural skill.
161
85b. LE CORBUSIER. Skyscraper for the Marine Sector of Algiers, 1938-1942.
Again and again Le Corbusier worked on the planning of Algiers, the plans always growing
in ripeness. The Marine Sector, the administrative center of the city, would have been
dominated by this skyscraper, 150 meters high. The skyscraper would have stood on a pro-
jecting spit of land, with its narrow side toward the sea, looking like a huge magnetic needle.
Its vertical surfaces were sculpturally treated, their faces meeting at an obtuse angle. About
a quarter of a century later, this architectural solution arose in several countries in several
buildings. It had first appeared in 1932 in a modest building by Le Corbusier for a Zurich
assurance company (model in the Museum of Modern Art, New York).
162
THE EVOLUTION
PART III OF NEW POTENTIALITIES
Destiny of our cul- We have hardly the right to compare our century with the
ture determines the nineteenth so far as boldness and urge toward the unknown are
evaluation of the
concerned. But what will the final judgment on this period be?
nineteenth century
Here the historian comes up against questions of destiny. The
final judgment on the nineteenth century cannot be passed
today. The main outlines are not settled; transitory and
constituent facts are confusingly intermingled.
Some think that we stand at the beginning of a great tradition.
Others, seeing the disaster around them, think that we are at
the utmost end of an age. The evaluation of the nineteenth
century depends upon which of these is right.
If our culture should be destroyed by brutal forces - or even
if it should continue to be terrorized by them - then the nine-
teenth century will have to be judged as having misused men,
materials, and human thought, as one of the most wretched of
periods. If we prove capable of putting to their right use the
potentialities which were handed down to us, then the nine-
teenth century, in spite of the human disorder it created and
in spite of the consequences which are still developing out of it,
will grow into new and heroic dimensions.
For these reasons the evaluation of the nineteenth century is
inextricably connected with the destiny of our culture - that
is to say, with our own destiny.
Approach to the In treating the nineteenth century we should arrive at unsatis-
nineteenth century factory results if we adopted the approach we used for the
previous period. A sufficiently comprehensive insight into the
period could not be derived from nineteenth-century monu-
mental architecture- which remains, moreover, an incom-
pletely explored subject. The sorting-out of good buildings is
still to be done; the history even of transitory developments is
not understood. We shall concern ourselves instead with the
evolution, during this period, of new architectural potentiali-
ties, an evolution that proceeded anonymously and was born
out of the depths of the age.
164
Industrialization as a Fundamental Event
The Industrial Revolution, the abrupt increase in production Effectofthe Indus-
brought about during the eighteenth century by the introduc- trial Revolution
tion of the factory system and the machine, changed the whole
appearance of the world, far more so than the social revolution
in France. Its effect upon thought and feeling was so profound
that even today we cannot estimate how deeply it has pene-
trated into man's very nature, what great changes it has made
there. Certainly there is no one who has escaped these effects,
for the Industrial Revolution was not a political upheaval,
necessarily limited in its consequences. Rather, it took pos-
session of the whole man and of his whole world. Again,
political revolutions subside, after a certain time, into a new
social equilibrium, but the equilibrium that went out of human
life with the coming of the Industrial Revolution has not been
restored to this day. The destruction of man's inner quiet and
security has remained the most conspicuous effect of the
Industrial Revolution. The individual goes under before the
march of production; he is devoured by it.
The heyday of the machine and of unlimited production is The eighteenth-

heralded in the eighteenth century by the sudden appearance century urge
of a widespread urge toward invention. In the England of toward invention
1760 this urge had gripped people in all strata of society. England
Everyone was inventing, from unemployed weavers, small
hand workers, farmers' and shepherds' sons like the bridge-
builder Telford, to manufacturers like Wedgwood and members
of the nobility such as the Duke of Bridgewater (whose tena-
cious labor was responsible for the creation of the English canal
system). Many of these inventors did not even take the trouble
to protect their discoveries by taking out patents on them.
Many, far from drawing profit from their inventions, were even
persecuted because of them. Profit-making and unfair exploita-
tion belong to a later period.
We must, in fact, take care to avoid the delusion that this

activity had its source only in material ambitions or in the
desire to shine. Its actual source lay much deeper and was one
that had for a long time been artificially denied outlet. But at
this date the urge to invent could no longer be stemmed. When,
165
86. Automaton : writing doll,
made by Pierre Jaquet-Droz,
N euchatel, about 1770.
France as in France, it was kept from entering into important regions

of practical activity, it was only diverted, not destroyed. It
manifested itself then in the creation of odd mechanical con-
trivances and of marvelous automatons, lifelike mechanical
dolls capable of performing the most amazing feats, from walk-
ing to playing musical instruments and drawing pictures.
Some of these automatons, in the ingenuity and precision of
their workmanship, even succeeded in anticipating the prin-
ciple of the modern automatic telephone -for example, the
"writing doll" made at Neuchatel about 1770 by Pierre Jaquet-
Droz. This doll (fig. 86) still exists in a perfectly workable
condition.
Invention, carried on in this way by men of all nations and all
walks of life, led to the industrialization of almost every human
pursuit. But this movement which was to give the nineteenth
century its essential character is scarcely reflected at all in its
official architecture. We should never be able to perceive the
real nature of the period from a study of public buildings, state
residences, or great monuments. We must turn instead to an
166
examination of humbler structures. It was in routine and
entirely practical construction, and not in the Gothic or
classical revivals of the early nineteenth century, that the
decisive events occurred, the events that led to the evolution
of new potentialities.
But life is complex and irrational. When its evolution is Industry and
blocked in one direction it seeks another (and often an entirely private life
unexpected) outlet. The development of modern industry is
essentially material. Nevertheless, in following its material
urge, industry unconsciously creates new powers of expression
and new possibilities of experience. These possibilities at first
remain bound up in quite matter-of-fact enterprises that do
not in any way enter into the intimate and personal lives of
men. But, slowly and gradually, the new potentialities become
a part of private and individual life. Thus a devious line of
development leads from innovations in industrial buildings of
all kinds - mines, warehouses, railroads and factories - to
the private home and personal life. The history of this meta-
morphosis is, in large measure, the history of the nineteenth
century. Finally these potentialities come to be realized for
what they are in themselves, apart from considerations of
utility. The architecture of today stands at the end of such a
process. Consequently, to understand it, we are obliged to
survey in considerable detail developments in regions which
seem far removed from aesthetic feeling.
IRON
Iron, as everyone knows, is far from being a new material; Iron before
its use dates back to prehistoric times. It was employed only industrialization
sparingly, however, in the great buildings of classical antiquity.
Both the Greeks and the Romans preferred bronze, because of
its greater resistance to weather. Neither had the Renaissance
much faith in iron as a building material. Thus we find Leon
Battista Alberti, the Florentine architect and theorist of the
quatlrocento, recommending materials which are ready for use
in their natural state in preference to those which must be
prepared by the hand and art of man - hominum manu et
167
arte. Even the iron rings which Michelangelo used to hold
together the cupola of St. Peter's must be considered merely as
fastenings. Even as late as the Victorian period, iron was still
regarded as suitable only for fastenings by those men who -
like John Ruskin- hated industry. Poor resistance to expo-
sure and lack of classical precedents in its use were not the only
reasons why iron played such a small part in construction of
every kind. There was also the difficulty that it could not be
produced except in relatively small quantities.
Iron as a new The moment its production was industrialized, iron took on
material an entirely new importance. In order to produce the metal
industrially, an understanding of its molecular arrangement
was requisite. But neither the equipment nor the knowledge
essential to the study of the molecular structure of materials
was available before the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
The history of iron as a substance in wide use is accordingly a
part of the history of chemistry, physics, and research into the
comparative strengths of materials. Such studies, in making
the industrial production of iron possible, converted it into
what amounted to a new natural material. And the avail-
ability of iron furthered in turn the sciences responsible for it.
Initial setbacks to England was the birthplace of the whole Industrial Revolution.
industrialization The desire to advance from manual to industrialized produc-
in France tion existed in other countries as well-- in France, for example.
But the preliminary experiments undertaken in these countries
were all singularly unsuccessful, whether they concerned the
building of bridges or the industrialization of silk weaving. An
instance in point is the failure of the attempt that was made in
1755 to build a cast-iron bridge across the Rhone. It was more
than twenty years later that the first cast-iron bridge in Eng-
land was finally erected over the river Severn. The French
effort proved premature and had to be given up simply because
it was impossible to cast iron into members of the requisite
dimensions.
Conditions Conditions in England were quite different from those prevail-
in England ing elsewhere. At the end of the seventeenth century the
wooded areas of England had been seriously diminished. As a
result, attention turned to pit coal as a fuel that might pos-
sibly make up for the increasing scarcity of wood and charcoal.
168
Mineral fuel had already supplanted wood to some extent.
By the end of the seventeenth century it had become the
normal fuel for heating the home, and had even come into
pretty general use by tradespeople, bakers, brewers, sugar
refiners, cloth weavers, and coppersmiths. During the century
its use was increased fourteen-fold. And of course in the
eighteenth century demand for it was still further increased by
its employment in the iron industry. By this time the use of
mineral fuel had come to be regarded by everybody as the
natural and ordinary thing. When Abraham Darby in the
first half of the eighteenth century began experimenting with
the blast furnace in the production of iron, he used coke and
not charcoal.
Early I ron Construction in England

It often happens in England that one family dominates a The production of
certain trade or industry for several generations. The Darbys iron industrialized
occupy this position in the opening stages of the industrialized
production of iron. The first Abraham Darby leased an old
furnace at Coalbrookdale in 1709, and it was here that
the Darby family later succeeded in smelting iron ore with
coke instead of charcoal for fuel. The first printed account of
these operations appeared in 1747. About 17 50 he turned to
the use of coal, employing it to turn out pig iron of a quality
that could be forged into bar iron. Mass production of iron
was now possible, and this advance from manual production of
the metal was to change the face of the whole world.
The new material was at first employed only in making ma-
chines. When John Smeaton, the great engineer who was one
of James Watt's antagonists, used cast-iron utensils for the
first time (in 1755), he spoke of this application of cast iron as
"a totally new subject." But with Abraham Darby the third,
the time had come when cast iron could be used for a variety
of entirely new purposes. In 1767 the first iron rails were cast,
and at the beginning of the third quarter of the century the
first cast-iron bridge was erected over the Severn. 1
1 John L. and Barbara Hammond, The Rise of Modern Industry (London, 1925), p. 136.
169
The Severn Bridge The Severn Bridge (fig. 87) represents one of the boldest experi-
(1775-79) ments in the use of the newly available material. The idea for
it seems to have originated in the year 1773 with John Wilkin-
son, "the ingenious iron-master" (who also invented the
cylinder-boring machine which made it possible for James Watt
to build a really efficient steam engine), and with the third
Abraham Darby. The bridge, executed during the years 1775-
87. ABRAHAM DARBY. The first cast-iron bridge over the river Severn, 1775-79.
Span, one hundred feet; height, forty feel.
79, consists of a single arch, with a span of 100.5 feet and a rise
of 45 feet, made up of five cast-iron ribs. The whole arch is
nearly a semicircle in shape. Since the Severn is subject to
floods, the bridge had to be very strong. It was manufactured
at Darby's Coalbrookdale works, the only plant which was
capable of casting arches of such large dimensions and com-
posed of only two members. 2
2William Fairbairn, On the Application of Cast and Wrought !ron to BUI:ldin.q Purposes
(London, 1854), p. 201.
170
No artistic ambitions were involved in the design of this
bridge, and, as architecture, it represents no very great achieve-
ment. In these respects it admits of no comparison with the
Church of the Fourteen Saints, which had been completed only
a few years earlier. But if the church stands on the highest
level reached by architecture in its period, it also stands at the
end of that architectural tradition. None of its features points
88. Sunderland Bridge, 1793-96. Single arch of 236 feel. This comparatively large span
was achieved by adapting methods of stone construction to work in iron.
ahead into the future. This simply constructed bridge, for all
its lack of interest as a work of art and even as a prob-
lem in architecture, opens a path for developments of great
importance.
The Sunderland Bridge
The Sunderland Bridge (1793-96) was one of the most daring Thomas Paine
experiments in construction of its time (fig. 88). As early as as inventor
171
1786 Thomas Paine, the famous American political writer,
showed Benjamin Franklin the model of a bridge built on a
novel system of his own. Franklin, seeing the difficulty of
carrying out work on such a system in America, where industry
had hardly begun to develop, advised Paine to take it to Eng-
89. HUMPHRY REPTON. Fneasantry for the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1808.
land and provided him with recommendations. 3 But in Eng-

land, as everywhere else, Paine had no luck. His experimental
bridge at Paddington (London) left him badly in debt. His
name fell into disrepute- and no doubt his political opin-
ions contributed something to this process. Finally his patents
3 Richard Blunck, Thomas Paine (Berlin, 1936), p . 115 et seq.
172
were unscrupulously appropriated by a company directed by
Rowland Burdon. Using Paine's plans, Burdon built the
Sunderland Bridge and took to himself all the credit for its
construction. 4
This bridge at Sunderland had a single arch of a span of 236
feet. (The Severn Bridge had been only 100 feet.) The six
ribs forming the arch were composed of cast-iron panels which
acted as voussoirs. A series of 105 such panels made up each
rib. In this manner stone vaulting was adapted to iron con-
struction. To make a continuous girder of this span was beyond
the capabilities of the time.
90. JOHN NAS H. Hoyal Pavilion at Brighton, 181/l- 21.
Robert Stephenson's verdict on this bridge, delivered in 1856, Ilobert Stephenson

is so much to the point that we shall quote it. Stephenson was on the Severn
the constructor of the Britannia Tubular Bridge (1849), the Bridge
most famous bridge of its time and the outcome of three years
of laboratory research. Stephenson has this to say of Paine's
work: " About the year 1790, Thomas Paine proposed to
construct cast iron arches in the form of voussoirs, and with
characteristic energy put his views to the test by constructing
an experimental arch of 88 feet span ... at Paddington ....
His daring in engineering does full justice to the fervour of his
political career - for successful as the result has proved ...
we are led rather to wonder at, than to admire a structure
4 Blunck, p. 22.
173
91. VICTOR LOUIS. Thea.tre-Fran«;ais. Iron roofing, 1786. The form of the girders
reveals an instinctive knowledge of the moment of inertia, which had not as yet been given
scientific formulation.
which, as regards its proportions and the small quantity of

materials employed ... will probably remain unrivalled." 5
The fascination In this period cast iron -like chromium plate around 1930-
of cast iron was a new and fascinating material which could not be em-
ployed too much. Its unexplored possibilities quickened every-
body's imagination. It was such an attitude that led John
Wilkinson to want a cast-iron mausoleum, and even a cast-iron
coffin. The imaginative possibilities in this technical advance
were soon seen to affect architecture also. The association of
the new material with exotic birds that appears in a design for
a pheasantry with a cast-iron frame shows the imaginative
flights that ironwork suggested (jig. 89). Humphry Repton, a
famous English landscape gardener, included this aviary in a
proposed design for the Royal Pavilion of Prince Regent George
at Brighton which he submitted in 1808. It was John Nash, the
architect of Regent's Park and Regent Street in London, who
finally built this royal pavilion in 1818. A fantastic creation in
Indian style, it had a great bulbous cupola over the middle
section. The cupola was built over a cast-iron framework that
weighed sixty tons 6 (fig. 90).
5 Robert Stephenson, in Encyclopaedia Britannica (Boston, 1856).
6 John Summerson, John Nash (London, 1935), p. 162.
174
92. The Granary, Paris, 1811. Bellange and Brunet used methods of wood construction
here, just as the English used methods of stone construction in their first cast-iron bridges.
One of the first buildings in which the architect and the engineer were separate persons.
Early I ron Construction on the Continent

On the Continent iron was first used for building purposes as a Elegance of first
roofing material. The timberwork roofs of theaters and ware- French uses:
houses were continually catching fire and burning like tinder. Theatre-Fram;ais
(1786)
As soon as hand-wrought iron became available in sufficient
quantities, attempts were made to prevent such fires by its
use. An early effort of this kind came in 1786 with the con-
struction of a wrought-iron roof for the Theatre-Frangais
in Paris (fig. 91), by the celebrated theater builder, Victor
Louis. 7 The elegance and boldness required in the use of iron
in a building of this type was to remain continuously character-
istic of iron construction in France. The same qualities are
exhibited by French work for more than a century after, until
iron construction reaches its classic height in the Paris exhibi-
tion of 1889. 8
7 Some years before this, Victor Louis produced the last great theater of the ancien
regime at Bordeaux, one in which spatial relations of the different parts are handled with
masterly skill. Victor Louis had some excellent etchings made of this theater. Cf. S.
Giedion, Spiitbarocker und romantischer Klassisismus (Munich, 1922), p. 184.
8The elegance of this construction has long been admired; cf. Charles L. Eck, Traite
de !'application dufer, dufonte, et de la tole (Paris, 1841), p. 50.
175
The iron roofing of the Theatre-Fran~ais deserves notice for a
more specific reason. The entire construction is counterbal-
anced in such a way that it needs only comparatively thin
walls for its support. As some French theorists have pointed
out, the form of its girders reveals an instinctive knowledge of
93. MARC SEGUIN. First French suspension bridge, of wire rope, over the Hhone,
near Tournon, 1824.
the moment of inertia, which had not as yet been given scien-
tific formulation.
Cast-iron cupola The wooden cupola of the Granary at Paris - covering
of the Granary, the circular court- was destroyed by fire in 1802. In 1811
Paris (1811)
it was replaced by an elaborate construction in iron and copper
(fig. 92). The architect Bellange and the engineer Brunet col-
laborated in its erection. This was one of the first works in
which the architect and the constructor were not the same
person. The building shows little more than an adaptation of
old constructional methods to the new material, a clever sub-
176
stitution of iron ribs for the woodwork normally used. Never-
theless, the Granary was much admired when it was completed.
Napoleon I even found time to assist in its opening. Drasti-
cally altered, it survives as a part of the present Bourse de
Commerce.
94. Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, 1933-37. The longest single-span suspension
bridge. Dimensions: over-all length, 9,200 feel; length of main span, 4,200 feel; width
of roadway, 60 .feel.
It was not until about 1850, in the cast-iron cupola of the Use of the cast-
rotunda of the British Museum, that cast-iron ribs extending iron cupola in
from the ground to the top were used in the construction of a England and the
United States
large building. In this example papier-mache was employed in
covering the interior of the dome. About this same period -
in 1855-63- the old wooden dome of the United States Capitol
in Washington was replaced by a dome with cast-iron ribs.
Its peristyle rests on an octagonal base and was interlaced
with complicated iron constructional members. Truss girders
177
were required in the peristyle and the dome to help support
the intricate marble profiles on the outside of the whole struc-
ture. It is interesting to note how the conventions of the period
led, in the case of this important American building, to a
mantling of the iron construction by the architecture of the
exterior surface.
Seguin's suspension The wire-cable suspension bridge goes back to the early nine-
bridge over the teenth century. The first French example was built over the
Hhone (1824) Rhone, near Tournon, in 1824 (fig. 93). Marc Seguin, its
constructor, was a nephew of Montgolfier and had already
invented the tubular boiler which made long railway runs
possible. The North American suspension bridges provided
models for Seguin's work at Tournon. These bridges were
suspended on hemp or rawhide ropes; Seguin used wire cables
instead. This was the first time wire rope had been employed
for such a purpose in Europe, and Seguin made careful scien-
tific tests of its strength before starting his project. The new
material made possible constructions of an extreme elegance
and lightness. More than four hundred bridges of this type
were eventually erected.
Later examples In America, Seguin's principles were applied on a larger scale
by John Augustus Roebling in his bridges over the Mononga-
hela River at Pittsburgh, 1846, and the Niagara River, 1851-55,
and in the Brooklyn Bridge, on which the preliminary work
was begun in 1868. And this principle - the transmission of
all stresses to a continuous, elastic cable running the length
of the structure - still forms the basis for the most daring
bridges built today. Seguin's bridge, incidentally, is still in
use, although only pedestrian traffic is permitted on it nowa-
days.
The suspension bridge was continuously developed throughout
the nineteenth century as wider spans were demanded and
traffic volumes increased. More elaborate constructional ap-
plications of this apparently limited principle of elastic sus-
pension were made, until fantastic spans were attained and
voids were bridged that had hitherto seemed outside the range
of human powers.
Often these bridges are set amidst landscapes of almost cosmic
dimensions, and constitute with them new wholes on a more
178
95. FONTAINE. Galerie d'Orleans, Palais Royal, Paris, 1829-31. A gathering place
for elegant society and the precursor not only of such large galleries as the Galleria Viliorio
Emmanuele, Milan (1865-67), but also of the glass and iron halls of the great exhibitions.
Destroyed in 1935.
than human scale. The Golden Gate Bridge (jig. 94) , the Golden Gate
longest single-span suspension bridge in the world, crosses San Bridge, San
Francisco Bay against an overwhelming background of sea Francisco
and rock. 9
Iron and glass are the two materials whose conjunction in
nineteenth-century architecture led it to new solutions. They
were first brought together in any considerable structure by
Fontaine, some five years after the wire-cable bridge was
developed. Fontaine (who, with Percier, founded the Empire Galerie d'Orleans
style) in his later years (1829-31) used wrought iron to con- (1829-31)
struct the glass roof of the Galerie d'Orleans, a part of the
Palais Royal in Paris (jig. 95).
9 Erected during the years 1933-37, it has the following dimensions: length over all,
9,200 feet; length of main span, 4,200 feet; width of roadway, 60 feet (accommodating six
auto lanes). The capacity of the two cables is 430,000,000 pounds.
179
96. ROUHAULT. Greenhouses of the Botanical Gardens, Paris, 1833. The prototype
of all the large iron-framed conservatories. In contrast to Paxton's English conservatories of
the period, the rigidity of these high pavilions is derived solely from the use of cast-iron
columns and beams.
Earlier examples of such galleries in London made an alto-

gether different use of glass. The Royal Opera Arcade, built
in 1790 in conjunction with the old Her Majesty's Theatre,
has circular openings cut into the vaulting. The light from the
hidden glass roof pours into the building through these aper-
tures. A distinctly different impression was created by the
Galerie d'Orh~ans, an impression of freedom and openness as
though one were out-of-doors, yet shielded from the elements.
Situated at the end of the inner garden of the Palais Royal, the
Galerie d'Orleans was the gathering place of elegant society.
It was destroyed in 1935, when the Palais wEJs remodeled, and
an open colonnade was put in its place. With its destruction,
one of the most charming specimens of early nineteenth-century
architecture disappeared, the precursor not only of such large
180
galleries as the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, Milan (1865-67),
but also of the glass and iron halls of the great exhibitions.
The first large structure consisting simply of an iron framework Conservatory
and glass panes was a French conservatory, les serres des of the Jardin
des Plantes
jardins du Musee d'histoire naturelle (fig. 96), the greenhouse
of the botanical gardens at Paris. Built by Rouhault in 1833,
this greenhouse was the prototype of all large, iron-framed
conservatories. The unusually large panes of glass, combined
with the unrestricted influx of light that the elimination of
wood made possible, caused this building to be named "the
glass gardens," the jardins de verre. Rouhault's conservatory,
which is still standing, has an interior volume of nine thousand
cubic meters. It is made up of two superimposed quarter-
section barrel vaults (where the lower temperatures are main-
tained), situated between two pavilions fifteen meters high
which house the tropical plants. In an article written in 1849
a contemporary - the architect Gottfried Semper - tells of a
much more ambitious plan for these gardens. Prior to the
overthrow of Louis-Philippe in 1848, there existed a fantastic
scheme for completely covering the Botanical Gardens with
an immense portable glass roof which could be removed during
the summer.
FROM THE IRON COLUMN TO THE STEEL FRAME
Perhaps the most characteristic feature of nineteenth-century "Period pieces" in

architecture is its addiction to "period pieces." All the nineteenth-century
important buildings, all those edifices from which the spectator architecture
imagined himself to gain a serious aesthetic impression,
appeared in elaborate historical dress. The theoretical issues
which received most attention at the time were those raised
by the various "revivals" - now classical, now Gothic. Ad-
vances in building technique seem to have brought with them
only the practical problems involved in using new methods to
produce old effects. But even at that early date there were
people who saw that no genuine and distinctive tradition could
emerge from the medley of inherited forms that overlaid the
architecture of the period. A hundred years ago critics spoke
181
of "the Harlequin dress of architecture," and indicated with
that phrase a disease which is still malignant in our day.
Submerged Nevertheless, beneath all the masquerade, tendencies of lasting
tendencies importance lay hidden and were slowly gathering strength.
The architecture of the present is a continuation of these
tendencies: it is the product of a great stream of development
that has covered a whole century. The common opinion that
contemporary architecture owes its foundation to a few inno-
vators appearing around 1900 is both mistaken and superficial.
The seeds of this new architecture were planted at the moment
when handwork gave place to industrialized production. Like
so many other aspects of our civilization, it owes its distinc-
tive character to influences stemming from the Industrial
Revolution.
Isolation of But why is it that these tendencies, so important to the future,
architecture from are to be discovered almost nowhere except in the utilitarian
technological
structures of the nineteenth century~ Why was their effect
advances
upon its oflicial architecture so slight~ We should of course
expect technological advances to make themselves felt first in
the field of industrial construction, but this is not a complete
explanation. The Industrial Revolution may have begun in
science and technology; that is no reason why it should not
have acted upon the arts as well. We have already seen
how, in baroque days, new scientific discoveries- even the
most abstract and mathematical ones - immediately found
their counterparts in the realm of feeling and were
translated into artistic terms. In the nineteenth century
the paths of science and the arts diverged; the connection
between methods of thinking and methods of feeling was
broken. The mutual isolation of these two kinds of enter-
prise, far from being a consequence of their different
natures, is a phenomenon peculiar to the nineteenth century
and responsible for much about its culture that is otherwise
incomprehensible.
The historical posturing of nineteenth-century architecture is
simply a special case of this separation, manifested in this field
in the schism between the architect and the engineer. The
architects of Gothic times did not merely employ the new
engineering knowledge; they saw in it possibilities for express-
182
ing the aims, emotions, and outlook peculiar to their age.
Similarly, the progress of mathematics brought something
more into baroque architecture than new instruments of cal-
culation. In both cases new inventions were, so to speak,
humanized; emotional and intellectual advances paralleled
each other. The situation with regard to those nineteenth-
century buildings which were expressly meant to symbolize
the spirit of the century is exactly the opposite. Structural
iron, for example, was simply a new tool enabling one to erEct
pseudo-monumental exteriors in the old modes. The new tool,
of course, by its very employment reduced these "revived"
forms to the status of false fronts.
But as long as scientific and technological advances were used

in architecture without being absorbed by it, the engineer
remained subordinate to and detached from the architect.
The architect, on the other hand, was left isolated from the
most important movements going on in the world about him.
Until he succeeded in coming to terms with the changed
environment, until he recognized the architectonic possibilities
in modern constructional methods, no new tradition relevant
to the age could develop. It was out of those technical
innovations which appear only behind the scenes in nineteenth-
century architecture that the architecture of the future had to
grow. Construction was, as it were, the subconsciousness of
architecture; there lay dormant in it impulses that only much
later found explicit theoretical statement.
Hence the interest these apparently trivial developments,
these timid introductions of new materials and new methods,
have for the historian. Tendencies still living and active in our
day, the constituent facts of contemporary architecture, trace
back to just such unpretentious beginnings. The advent of
the structural engineer with speedier, industrialized form-
giving components broke up the artistic bombast and shat-
tered the privileged position of the architect and provided
the basis for present-day developments. The nineteenth-cen-
tury engineer unconsciously assumed the role of guardian of
the new elements he was continually delivering to the archi-
tects. He was developing forms that were both anonymous
and universal.
183
The Cast-Iron Column
Early appearance The cast-iron column was the first structural material pro-
of the cast-iron duced by the new industrial methods to be used in building.
column (c. 1780)
As early as 1780 -even before the introduction of steam
power - such columns replaced wooden posts as roof sup-
ports in the first English cotton mills. The size of the
new machines demanded large rooms with a minimum of
obstructions.
The history of these mills has not yet been thoroughly inves-
tigated. One of the rare reports on such buildings -the source
of the illustration we shall discuss next- confesses that "the
buildings have been treated merely as structures, no attempt
being made to probe into their fascinating history. The
'dates' of the various factories have been reduced to an aver-
age 'period' rather than a conclusive and accurate date of
actual erection." 1 A typical late eighteenth-century factory
at Bolton shows how the attic stories of existent buildings were
converted to house the newly invented cotton-spinning ma-
chines (jig. 97). This factory had been erected with the kind of
heavy wooden framework that had been in use since Gothic
times. At first the machinery was installed only in the attic;
the timber roof trusses - soon to be replaced by trusses of
cast iron -left enough space down the center for the installa-
tion of the long spinning frames. Later on, the use of cast-iron
pillars made it possible to install machinery on all the floors.
These masonry buildings (a type which reappeared in Massa-
chusetts when New England began to be industrialized) had
the wide windows of late baroque structures. Standing amidst
unspoiled rural surroundings near the rivers from which they
drew their power, they present an appearance quite different
from factory districts of the steam age. A factory near Man-
chester, built in 1783, illustrates this stage in the development.
This particular mill was among the first to have iron pillars in
its interior. It is still in operation, and still uses auxiliary water
power.
1Official Record of the Annual Conference of the Textile Institute (Bolton, 1927), pp.
4lff.
184
97. Wooden attic of factory, Bolton, England, c. 1800. The heavy
wooden roof trusses left the whole center line of the allic clear for the long
spinning machines.
98. Attic story with cast-iron roof framework, c. 1835. The cast-iron roof framework
represents a later advance; its invention has been credited to J. B. Papworlh in 1821. We
mention Papworlh later as one of the earliest designers of" garden cities" (about 1827 ).
The attic of a cotton-spinning factory about 1835 (fig. 98), with

its cast-iron roof trusses, shows how room was made for the
newly invented self-acting mule spinning frames. The neces-
sity for rooms of very large dimensions is apparent. In this
185
case the spinning frame had to be set up parallel with the long
axis of the loft.
Combination with Iron pillars were used in combination with stone, brick, and
other materials; timber alike. Somewhat later, the cast-iron girder and the
widespread use brick-arch floor were used in mill construction. But for more
than a century the cast-iron column played a major role in
building of every sort, in all parts of the world. It was used
99. Early use of cast-iron columns, London bookshop, 1794. Lackington's "Temple of
the Muses," Finsbury Square:" The internal arrangement of the building is perfectly novel,
... the capaciousness of which may be readily conceived from the circumstance of the Wey-
mouth mail, with four horses, having actually been driven around il at ... its first opening.
This room ... is supported by pillars of iron." ("Ackerman's Repository of Arts," Apri/1,
1809; courtesy of Mrs. Albert C. Koch, Cambridge, Mass.)
for a countless variety of architectural purposes during the

entire nineteenth century. In the Crystal Palace and in
thoroughly workaday market halls, in libraries and in green-
houses - even in the first skyscrapers built in Chicago - the
cast-iron pillar furnished the principal means of support. To
some extent in England but much more often in America, the
cast-iron column was used, during the forties, to form the
186
faQades of buildings and to erect structures from prefabricated
parts.
As a new material which still had something of the fabulous Use in thP
about it, cast iron even found a place in the Royal Pavilion at Hoyal Pavil-
Brighton. It was used liberally in this extraordinary edifice, ion, Brighton
sometimes for purposes of display. John Nash, the Royal
Architect, was not one to hesitate in delegating to others the
100. JOHN NASH. Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1818- 21. Red drawing-room .
work of designing, but, according to Summerson, he person-

ally designed the "intricate carpentry and ironwork which
supports the ceiling" 2 (fig. 100). This was in 1818. So far as
I know, it was the first time that cast-iron columns had been Undisguised
used in a formal interior. Nash leads these columns freely use by
through the space of the drawing room. Twenty-five years Labrouste
later H enri Labrouste made a similar undisguised use of iron
columns in the small reading room (La Reserve) of the Biblio-
theque Sainte-Genevieve in Paris. When some contemporary
2 John Nash, p. 162.
187
architects- around 1925 -proposed doing the same thing,
they met· with great opposition.
The Royal Pavilion at Brighton was the center of great festi-
vals; in it cast iron as a material for the architect found a set-
ting very remote from labor or affairs. The enormous kitchen
(fig. 101) had in its center four slender cast-iron supporting col-
umns, each fantastically elongated and bearing a palm-leaf
101. JOHN NASH. Royal Pavilion, Brighton. The kitchen.
Use in the oval capital at its top. The unusual slenderness of cast-iron pillars
garden of the Paris and columns opened up the possibility of new and strange pro-
Exhibition of 1867 portions in architecture. Almost fifty years later, in the oval gar-
den in the middle of the main building of the Paris exhibition of
1867, just such exotically slender cast-iron columns were placed
in direct association with the palm trees of the South (fig. 102).
Miscellaneous We can easily find important witnesses to testify that cast
new uses iron soon came to be an approved material for everything from
steam engines to churches. Thus Thomas Tredgold, one of
the first scientists to interest himself in the possibilities of this
188
material, writes in 1823 that "it is used for the principal sup-
ports of churches, theatres, manufacturies, warehouses, and
for the main parts of engines." And Tredgold goes on to give
some of the ref! sons for this popularity: " improvements in the
processes of its manufacture had made it cheap even in com-
parison with timber, and . .. it gave a certain protection
against fire such as wooden beams could not offer." Thus the
reign of cast iron in the nineteenth century was founded upon
its fire-resistant qualities, its cheapness, simplicity of manu-
facture, and resistance to heavy loads. These advantages were
102. Paris Exhibition, 1867. Oval garden in the center of the main building. Cast-iron
columns figure throughout the century, but their use reached its high-water mark around this
period. Catalogues of Paris hardware manufacturers offered them in every imaginable shape
for Haussmann's great works of transformation.
enough to assure the domination of the cast-iron pillar until

the eighties of the last century, when the steel frame was devel-
oped in Chicago.
But there was another reason for the use - and misuse - of Protean character
cast iron: it is a material which can easily be given any desired of cast iron: misuse
shape. The catalogue of a French hardware manufacturer of in mass production
about 1860 has hundreds of pages devoted to cast iron used
for all sorts of purposes. It was even employed in quite
abominable imitations of sculptures by the great masters. The
189
cast-iron pillars, columns, and balustrades for which Hauss-
mann's rebuilding of Paris created a demand were available in
finished condition in every conceivable shape. Indeed, the
cast-iron column - used without precision or restraint -
became one of the symbols of the nineteenth century. As late
as 1889 Vierendeel, the great Belgian engineer, still had reason
to write, referring to the Paris exhibition, that "the enormous
danger of this sort of support lies in its revolting vulgarity."
The charm that lay in the proper use of the material wa.s lost
in a hopelessly misdirected mass production.
If,
'
103. Aquatint of Telford's proposed cast-iron bridge over the Thames, London, 1801.
TOWARD THE STEEL FRAME
Telford's project Two other early examples of the use of cast iron in construc-
for London Bridge tion must be mentioned. Both date from the very beginning
(1801)
of the nineteenth century. The first, the Telford and Douglas
design for London Bridge, was made in 1801 but never exe-
cuted (jig. 103). This elegant and well-known design is for a
really colossal work in cast iron, a bridge with a rise of 65 feet
and a single span of 600 feet. Even five decades later Robert
Stephenson's Britannia bridge fell short of this span. N everthe-
less the design for London Bridge could have been carried out
at the time it was made, since Telford, adopting the system
proposed by Thomas Paine in 1783, suggested building it like
a stone arch out of a number of small wedge-shaped sections.
190
The cotton mill of Philip and Lee, built at Salford, Man- Salford factory by
chester, in 1801, is the second example (fig. 104). This mill sur- Boulton and Watt
(1801): its ad-
passes all others of its time in the boldness of its design. It
vanced construc-
represents the first experiment in the use of iron pillars and tion
beams for the whole interior framework of a building. The
erection of this factory was an event of the first importance in
the history of modern construction. This truly extraordinary
feat for builders of that date - a feat which in time came to
be almost forgotten - was accomplished by Boulton and
Watt's Soho foundry. The inventor of the steam engine was
then concentrating most of his attention upon a machine for
making portrait statuary, and was meditating retirement from
active business.
The original drawings for this mill, which have never before Combination of
been published, are in the Boulton and Watt Collection of iron beams and
the Birmingham Reference Library. The plate shows the iron girders
ground plan and the elevation of the Salford mill. The building
is a large one, about 140 feet long and 42 feet wide; its height
of seven stories is extraordinary for this early date. As the
ground plan shows, there are two ranges of iron pillars set on
each floor. For the first time, iron beams are used in combina-
tion with these iron columns. These beams, the first of the Appearance of
1-section type, extend across the building from wall to wall at the 1-section girder
regular distances. The Scottish engineer, William Fairbairn,
praises this first employment of the I beam as an example of
intuitive recognition of the most efficient shape in advance of
the calculations that would prove it to be such. (A similar in-
stance of the instinctively correct solution of an engineering
problem has already been encountered in the iron roof of the
Theatre-Franc;ais of 1786. Its wrought-iron girders were ad-
justed to the moment of inertia, even though the theoretical
basis for such an adjustment did not exist until much later.)
The drawing also shows how the floors of the mill were built Use of concrete
up from brick arches, brought to a level surface by a layer of
rough concrete.
The second drawing gives a cross-section (fig. 105) of the width
of the building. It shows the special foundations provided for
the iron columns of the ground floor, and the junctions between
the cast-iron columns and beams of the first two floors.
191
Precision of detail The third drawing shows the construction of the hollow cast-
iron pillars, each of which had an outside diameter of nine
inches. This extremely careful treatment reflects the expe-
rience acquired by Boulton and Watt in the making of steam-
engines (fig. 106). The details of the assembly of pillar and
socket (on the right-hand side of the plan) show a precision
that had been learned in machinery construction.
Fairbairn As Fairbairn remarked in 1854, this experiment at Salford was
on the " the pioneer of that system of fireproof structure which now
Salford mill distinguishes the manufacturing districts of this country. For
a quarter of a century this mill was a model for similar build-
ings. From 1801 until 1824 little or no variation took place in
the form of beams." The reason for this was that time was
-·. .. . -
ri.....
~
:-~ ~~
.
(",'
"' - "" _, -,.. ~.
-
-
~
- ·:·-.
~-~ ~-1
~
"#.~''
;
.
·:;;.~
- :/
t.,..·.
c-·
• ""!'
r
.. ~ -~·
----
- ~...."' .. '·
- I-- 1-
::--;- r.:.~
......
'
rf·. .""' - "' 'E
I·
_;~' i' ~
0
·~ ""'.(~ . ···.-·
:\...
- 1--' t--
·t.:l.'-..] ..
~l,"'-~
¥2!
r 1::'7,1. ~
...
,:<.-= . "'"
).
I
-- -- ·-- r-- ·· - -
r.- 1-- -
t- - ----.- '
. ' '
~;; -.~
- "-
:
.... ~ ~.,.:. /1 -u
.--
. r
.11
1 _rl·ll.
It· ll
-~"J
1 ,,
~~ ·:,: .
I
:...:. .
. f~ .
··~
-~
,........ .-<.7'>' · .~
~
-P~-=
. .. . • A
~- . .;..--··
~. ·-f='
... .. . .
. · ;t& ~
.'
- /.J"#I'/~-. 'JC. ~ -
4C J&..r~•,..-L.,.. ~. .A.t., ..._~-
•JI' ' ;. ' ,. .. "' ,I,,. '
:-e·-.
104. WATT and BOULTON . Working drawings for the first seven-story mill with
cast-iron beams and columns, Salford, Manchester, 1801. The first building ever designed
or executed with a metal skeleton - cast-iron columns and beams - enclosed in the outer
masonry walls like the works of a watch in its case.
192
JI'Jt/1J.- ·
'11r
'l '·
1· ,.._,
i·:-·.
~~ ~
I'
:. , I
:' ·,,,
·-,
'
--~----
105. WATT and BOLLTON . Working drawings for the 106. WATT a nd BOULTON. Working
first seven-story mill with cast-iron beams and columns. drawings for the first seven-story mill with
cast-iron beams and columns. Sections of
a cast-iron column.
needed to enable experiment and calculation to overtake

Watt's astonishingly farsighted structure. The type of build-
ing represented by this seven-story mill of 1801 with its cast-
iron skeleton surrounded by outer walls of masonry became the
standard for warehouses throughout the century and was
adopted for some advanced public buildings as well. Watt's
Salford experiment was the first step in the development of the
steel frame which was finally to appear in Chicago during the
eighties.
193
~ In::.
1
t
~
~~~~·~._~i~·~~1~~~1
f--~ -'~·· -·~ ':.,"::: j,_ f--•< i;_.,~ f-.u- ..!.. f-.·~ -~ t--<=
> ~
107. WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. English refin- 108. WILLIAM F ATRBAIRN. English refinery,
ery, c. 1845. Cross section. Developments moved c. 1845. Ceiling construction.
very slowly during the first half of the century, with
no important changes in the methods used by Boul-
ton and Wall. In this Fairbairn refinery there
are simply certain technical refinements.
Fairbairn im- William Fairbairn himself laid a large share of the groundwork
proves on Watt's for further advance. A builder of ships and bridges as well as
construction industrial structures, the experiments with tubular iron which
in the forties
he completed in 1346 at his laboratory in Manchester made
possible the building of the Britannia Tubular Bridge, the
most famous of its time, and encouraged the building of still
larger spans later on. The decisive change in methods of in-
dustrial construction that is to be observed shortly before the
middle of the century owes much to other experiments con-
ducted by this able engineer. Before this time, as he writes,
"we had little or no knowledge of the superior resisting powers
of wrought iron in the shape of beams: ... our knowledge of
[its] properties may be considered as still very imperfect and
confined within exceedingly narrow compass.'' 1
In his attempts to make his buildings fireproof Fairbairn was
led to employ a remarkable principle of construction. The
eight-story, flat-roofed refinery which he built during the mid-
dle forties introduces wrought-iron as well as cast-iron mem-
bers (fig. 107). Wrought-iron !-section girders joined with iron
tie bars are here supported by cast-iron pillars. Instead of the
brick-arch floor, thin wrought-iron plates are used; running
from column to column, they are bent in the segmental form
of an arch and then filled to floor level with concrete (jig. 103).
The jump from such a building to the building of ferroconcrete
1 William Fairbairn, ThP. Application of Cast and Wrought Iron to Building Purposes,
p. 152.
194
is not very great; the time had not yet arrived, however, for
this suggestion to be taken up.
The use of iron as a structural material was further increased Introduction of
by the invention of machinery for producing rolled iron and rolled-iron beams
steel joists. The American railroad builder, Robert Stevens
of Hoboken, went to England in 1830 to buy locomotives.
During his visit he tried to make rolled-iron railroad tracks,
finally succeeding in this endeavor, despite its many difficul-
ties, in a South Wales rolling mill. RoJled-iron I beams did
not come into use until much later, however. The architect
Boileau wrote in 1871 that a combination of exceptional cir-
cumstanc..:s led to the introduction of rolled-iron beams in
France. This was in 1845 at Paris; a strike of masons, the
high price of timber, the fear of fire, and the demand for wider
spans led a foundryman named Zores to roll the first wrought-
iron joist sections produced in France. They did not appear in
England until still later.
Important preliminary work for later construction was car- Show windows lead
ried out in the show windows of stores, where, as industrializa- to larger openings
tion continued, ever-larger glassed surfaces were needed. The in the wall
manuals of iron construction that were published from the
fifties to the nineties are filled with instructions for supporting
the brickwork of the upper stories on iron girders. These iron
columns were the only structural elements of the building
visible behind the wide display windows. In view of the fact
that the set-back pillar is used in so many modern buildings, a
continuous account of the evolution of this practice would be
most interesting. It was from these store windows that we
first learned how to use large glass areas in dwelling houses.
James Bogardus
The beginnings of the skeleton construction of the present day James Bogardus:
are met with as early as 1848 in the home of the skyscraper, the cast-iron
skeleton and
the United States. The decisive step was the substitution of
Renaissance shapes
iron columns for the masonry of the outer walls as a means of (1848)
support for the floors of a building. An early example of this
type of construction is a five-story factory that was erected in
New York in 1848. Its builder was the man who invented this
195
109. JAMES BOGARDUS. Design for a factory, 1856, showing the resistance of
cast iron.
method of construction, James Bogardus (1800-74). Ameri-

can department stores, warehouses, and office buildings of the
period between 1850 and 1880 were based on this system of
building. Using prefabricated parts, Bogardus erected these
buildings in every section of the United States. According to
the New York Herald of April 14, 1874, he even delivered an
immense building to Santa Catalina, near Havana, Cuba.
Excellent examples of these buildings still exist in most Ameri-
can cities. Some particularly fine specimens (warehouses and
office buildings) are to be found in the river-front area of St.
Louis. One of them, located at 7911 North First Street, is
particularly interesting for the uncompromising way in which
large areas of glass are introduced into the front wall. All have
value as monuments not merely for the step forward in con-
struction which they represent but for the restrained and sober
quality of their architecture. This type of building is undoubt-
edly one of the chief sources of a specifically American architec-
tural style. But in spite of its contemporary importance and its
very real merit the work of Bogardus is almost unknown today.
196
James Bogardus' best-known building was executed in Frank- Harper and
lin Square on Pearl Street in New York for the famous pub- Brothers Building
(1854)
lishing house of Harper and Brothers, in 1854 (fig. 110). A
single glance reveals the way in which Bogardus transformed
the outer wall into a surface almost entirely of glass. The
combination of wide expanses of glass with iron columns and
arches in the Venetian Renaissance style is a perfect illustra-
tion of the spirit of his time. Bogardus himself gives a quite
explicit statement of that spirit. In a booklet bearing the title,
Cast I ron Buildings: Their Construction and Adt•anlages, by
James Bogardus, "Architect in Iron" (New York, 1858), he
impersonally relates that "Mr. Bogardus first conceived the
idea of emulating [the rich architectural designs of antiquity]
in modern times, by the aid of cast-iron." This was in the
year 1840. (This small but important publication has fallen
into such obscurity that it is not mentioned in the sketch of
Bogardus in the Dictionary of American Biography.)
Like many of his eighteenth-century precursors, Bogardus Projected cast-iron
believed cast iron to be a material capable of satisfying all the dwelling houses
demands of both the engineer and the artist. He would have
liked to apply his system to the building of dwelling houses
as well as commercial structures (fig. 109). He apparently felt
llO. JAMES BOGARDUS. Harper & Brothers' Building, New York, 1854.
197
Ill. JAMES BOGARDUS. Project for the New York World's Fair, 1853. The amphi-
theater was twelve hundred feet in diameter. The three-hundred-foot tower was intended to
house a passenger elevator. In a circle of this size, straight girders - capable of resale
afterwards - could be employed.
that the exclusion of his methods from the residential field was
due to mere chance. "Mr. Bogardus firmly believes," we read
on page 14 of the booklet, "that had his necessities required
him to construct a dwelling house rather than a factory
[this method] would be now as popular for this purpose,
as it is for stores." And he planned fantastic houses so de-
signed that even "with the greater part of their ironwork
removed . . . or destroyed by violence . . . they will yet
remain firm."
Bogardus' unexe-· James Bogardus' most imaginative work was the project which
cuted scheme for the he submitted for the first of the American world's fairs, held at
New York World's New York in 1853 (fig. Ill). He advanced as the chief recom-
Fair of 1853:
original and
mendation for his scheme its great economy - the total cost
farsighted would be only two hundred thousand dollars - and "ex-
pressed a conviction that the whole structure would be worth
very considerably more when dissected, for ordinary purposes,
than in its present form, owing to the economy in reproducing
so large a number of identical parts from the same pattern."
With future dissections in mind, Bogardus proposed building
a great circular amphitheater twelve hundred feet in diameter.
198
A circle as huge as this could be assembled from straight gird-
ers, easily disposed of afterwards. 2
Bogardus' plan called for an immense coliseum in cast iron.
The exterior wall was sixty feet high, with arches and columns
running in series about it to mark off the separate stories. A
three-hundred-foot tower rose in the center of the enclosure
"to serve the double purpose of a support for the hanging roof
of sheet-iron suspended from it by rods in a catenary curve,
and also as a grand observatory." 3 Such supporting rods of
catenary curvature were standard practice in suspension
bridges. Bogardus planned to install an elevator in this tower
to carry spectators to its top.
The shapes that figure in this design were borrowings from
traditional styles, but the structure as a whole was amazingly
advanced, a daring prevision of future developments. This
building would have been as original a document for the fifties
as the French exhibitions from 1867 on were for their period.
The building actually erected for this fair had no historical
importance, and the other plans entered in the competition
were either undistinguished in quality or inappropriate to the
site. This includes even the scheme submitted by Joseph
Paxton. 4
The career of James Bogardus was a most interesting one. He Bogardus as a type
began his active life as a watchmaker and an inventor of great of inventor
fertility. He had to his credit a new kind of pencil, the lead of
which was always sharp, the engraving machine that produced
the first English postage stamps, a deep-sea sounding machine,
and a variety of other devices. He was, in fact, a classical
exemplar of a type of inventor peculiar to the beginning of the
nineteenth century, when men were trying to invent, in one
great rush, everything that had not been invented in the past.
2 The main building at the Paris exhibition of 1867 had two hemicycles built on at its
ends. When the building was torn down at the close of the exhibition, it was very
difficult to find a market for the curved ironwork used in these hemicycles. The American
foresaw this situation, but his project had been forgotten by that time, and remained so
until the present day.
3 B. Silliman, Jr., and C. R. Goodrich, The World of Science, Art, and Industry (New
York, 1854 ), p. 4.
4 Ibid., pp. 1-3.
199
It was a time when it was common t.o find a single person con-
ducting experiments in the most widely separated departments
of industry. The contrast with the Renaissance is striking.
Then the ideal figure was the "Universal man," the person
who could unite in his own life the greatest number of dif-
ferent kinds of activity, the man who was at once artist,
scientist, engineer. In the early nineteenth century the ideal
was the man who could do all things in one field of industry,
the watchmaker-ironworker-engineer type represented by
Bogardus. 5
The St. Louis Ri11er Front

Anonymous Commercial buildings with cast-iron fronts, and often with
commercial build- cast-iron skeletons as well, sprang up all over the United
ings of the fifties States between 1850 and 1880- the so-called "cast-iron age."
Many similar buildings can be found in England, especially
in Liverpool. Whether Bogardus was the first to introduce
this type of structure cannot be determined at present. The
lack of documents makes even a general survey of these build-
ings impossible - and many of them were astonishingly fresh
and straightforward in their design, showing a direct grasp of
the functions that had to be fulfilled. They were often erected
by the foundries which produced their parts, with no architect
taking a share in the work. The owners of these foundries,
unlike James Bogardus, had no Italian travels behind them
and no desire to inaugurate a Renaissance revival in cast iron.
St. Louis during From this anonymous development we select a complete dis-
the fifties trict comprising about five hundred buildings- the central
river front of St. Louis. For more than a century after its
founding in 1764 as a headquarters for the fur trade, St. Louis
was the leading trading center for the entire trans-Mississippi
West. Its most prosperous decade came in the 1850's: steam-
boat traffic was at its height; the gold rushes to California and
Colorado were under way; and new lands in the Missouri Val-
ley had just been opened. At this time St. Louis is believed to
have been the third steam port of the country, and by 1870 it
Decline after the was the fourth largest city in the United States. The river
Civil War front was the city's old business area, and most of it was built
5 James Watt and the Brummels are other instances of this same type.
200
up during this flourishing period. 6 Building began after the
great fire of 1849 (the year of the California gold rush, for which
St. Louis was one of the crossroads) and continued until the
outbreak of the Civil War. During the post-war years St.
Louis steadily fell off in importance, while Chicago went on to
take its place as the great mid-western market and railroad
junction. Finally, "with the entry of the eastern railroads
over Ead's Bridge in 187 4 and the decline of the steamboat,
the commercial center of the city shifted and left the old river
front in decline. " 7
The half-deserted river front survived as a witness to one of
the most exciting periods in the development of America.
Some of its commercial buildings - fur and china warehouses,
Pony Express offices, ordinary business blocks - exhibited an
architecture far in advance of the ordinary standards at the
time of their erection. 8
6 I owe these data to Mr. Charles E. Peterson, Senior Landscape Architect in the
National Park Service.

7 The Old St. Louis Riverfront, An Exhibition of Architectural Studies in the Historic
Area of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (St. Louis Public Library, 1938), p. 17.
8 The importance of preserving nineteenth-century documents leads us to mention the
history of the St. Louis river front.

Forty blocks of the St. Louis river front were taken over by the United States govern-
ment as the site for a Jefferson National Expansion Memorial which will extend along
the bank of the Mississippi. The first step in the work was the razing of this historic
quarter. In connection with this, research was made into the dates of erection of these
buildings and they were systematically photographed - unusual happenings at this
date.
The National Park Service decided to preserve the fronts of some of the most important
of these buildings. The proposal was made to set up these fa~ades in the courtyard of
a new building. However, the entire section was completely destroyed.
I visited St. Louis in August 1939 on the kind invitation of Mr. Peterson and inspected
the district just before the pickaxes went to work on it. It seemed to me that the building
at 523-529 North First Street at the extreme northern end of the site, could be preserved
intact. (Cf. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Star-Times, St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat,
Aug. 10, 1939.) The best examples from elsewhere in the section could be moved into
this block. All of them could be fitted out as they were when the river front was at its
peak - complete with Pony Express office, stock in the warehouses, and the typical
stuffed animals under glass domes that stood in the windows of the old fur-trading
establishments.
Some one of these buildings could even be used as a museum of the history of the Missis-
sippi region. It would be possible to display its relations with the past and the present,
and with the whole United States - north and south, east and west. George Henri
Riviere of the M usee du Trocadero produced a similar re-creation of a Burgundian village
for the Paris exhibition of 1937. It told the story of a community in a manner which was
full of life. Is it actually so very difficult to realize that commercial buildings of the
nineteenth-century are as important witnesses to a period as any seventeenth-century
chateau?
201
112. St. Louis, river front.
Cast-iron front of 523- 529 North
First Street, c. 1870-71. The
building had been variously a
wholesale boot, dry goods, and
clothing store.
113. St. Louis, river front.

Cast-iron front of Gantt Build-
ing, 219-221 Chestnut Street,
fa~ade dating from 1877. Origi-
nally a lawyer's office, it later be-
came a wholesale stationer's. The
fa~;ade was to be removed by the
N ational Park Service f or future
museum use.
These commercial buildings are of various architectural types,

but even when they adapt motifs of stone architecture to cast
iron they are not without a certain French elegance, as in the
building at 523-529 North First Street (c. 1870-71, fig . 112), at
the very end of the Memorial area. Another fine specimen is
the five-story brick warehouse at 7- 9- 11 North First Street.
Its upper stories are bound together into two pairs by slim
columns. Its flat surfaces are reminiscent of the shapes of the
simplified Romanesque style which later became so celebrated
at the hands of Henry Hobson Richardson. Beyond this there
are such simple constructions as the building at 109-111 North
First Street, which we shall later find occasion to compare with
one of the first modern dwellings in Europe, ·the Horta house in
the Rue de Turin of 1893 (fig. 177). These structures carry
the simplification of the front so far that the iron columns and
lintels become scarcely more than the crosspieces in a great
casement window spread across the whole fac:;ade. For this
treatment, and for its excellent proportions as well, the Gantt
Building (1877) at 219-221 Chestnut Street (jig. 113) deserves
to be known as one of the finest in the whole period. In vain I
202
203
tried to convince the authorities that the best buildings in this
section were forerunners of the Chicago skyscrapers. But the
indifference of the Americans to their own architectural heri-
tage resulted in the complete destructiOn of the entire sec-
tion, which, for nearly twenty years, was used as a parking
lot for trucks until work started in 1964 on Eero Saarinen's
tall, parabolic Jefferson Memorial arch.
Early Skeleton Buildings

First building The first building of true skeleton type was the chocolate works
of skeleton constructed in 1871-72 by Jules Saulnier at Noisiel-sur-Marne,
construction:
near Paris (fig. 114). The factory rests on four piers set into the
France, 1871
bed of the Marne, whose current supplied the power for its
machinery. The building itself is erected upon four hollow
iron girders, each square in section. The building whose base
these girders constitute is the first to employ the principles of
skeleton construction, the first, that is, in which an iron skele-
ton is made to carry the whole weight. This skeleton can he
seen on the surfaces of the walls; the latter, made of hollow
brick, function merely as filling. The diagonal iron stiffeners
show clearly that Saulnier derived a part of his inspiration
from methods used in wood construction.
Plane surfaces and All contemporary buildings intended to have any formal or
the new structural stately character had their wal1s overloaded with decoration.
means coincide
The walls of this chocolate works are plane surfaces. As
Saulnier himself explains, the construction was responsible for
this: "The system of construction used for the fa<;ades pro-
duced a surface entirely plane from top to bottom, with no
projections either horizontal or vertical." 9 European taste
in the early seventies nevertheless required some concessions
on Saulnier's part. Although he preserved the flat surfaces
that followed from the logic of his method, the brickwork
defining them embodies a pattern in varicolored tiles.
\V e can see in this building how the flat and unornamented
surfaces of present-day architecture appeared simultaneously
with the new structural means (fig. ll5). And it is not the case
'r:ncyclopedie d'archilecture, 1877, p. 92.
204
~--
. ~
114. JULES SAULNIER.

Menier Chocolate Works,
Noisiel-sur-Marne, 1871-72. 1ron
skeleton. So jar as we know, the
first skeleton building in the
modern sense of the word, with the
outer walls reduced to functioning
simply as curtains.
115. JULES SAULNIER. Menier Chocolate Works, Noisiel-sur-Marne, 1871-72.

This factory is buill over the river Marne, on four great iron floor girders supported by stone
piers set into the river bed.
205
that a desire to build cheaply was responsible for the simplicity
of the factory at Noisiel. Saulnier's type of construction was
considerably more expensive than any other.
No influence on The plans of this chocolate mill were published several times in
the development of great detail by the best-known French reviews- all of them
the American
available in American libraries. It is very curious, accordingly,
skyscraper
that Saulnier's work should have remained completely un-
known in the United States, as it seems to have done. One
would have expected this first example of skeleton construc-
tion to have played a considerable part in the development of
the skyscraper.
L~ S. Buffington The stages leading up to the American skyscraper are not
as the inventor of known with any exactitude. As E. M. Upjohn remarks, "At
the skyscraper least three cities - New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis -
have sought the honor of being the birthplace of the sky-
scraper, and several architects have laid claim to distinction
as its inventor." 10 The claims of the Minneapolis architect,
Leroy S. Buffington, have been advanced more often than any
others. They were certainly urged quite strongly by Buffing-
ton himself, who claims to have invented the skyscraper in
1880, deriving his inspiration from Viollet-le-Duc's Lectures on
Architecture, which appeared in translation at about that time.
The passage that aroused his interest occurs in volume II of
the Lectures, on pages l-2, where Viollet-le-Duc remarks that
"a practical architect might not unnaturally conceive the
idea of erecting a vast edifice whose frame should be entirely of
iron, . . . preserving [that frame] by means of a casing of
stone." The possibilities of a building with a "frame of iron
... clothed with masonry" having been suggested to him,
Buffington - so he relates - looked through all the material
available in public libraries for an account of such a structure,
but without finding any. That being the case, he was quite
justified in supposing the system of skeleton construction
which he finally developed to be entirely original. 11
10 E. M. Upjohn, "Buffington and the Skyscraper," Art Bulletin, XVII (March 1935),
48-70.
11 The late William B. Mundie's opinion on Buffington's claim may be of interest. Mr.
Mundie was a younger partner of William LeBaron Jenney. I am indebted to Mr. E. C.
Jensen of the architectural firm of Mundie, Jensen, Bourke & Havens for the opportunity
of quoting these excerpts from one of Mundie's unpublished papers:
206
H6. WILLIAM LEBARON
JENNEY. Home Insurance
Company, Chicago, 1883-85 .
The first skyscraper actually
erected upon modern principles
of construction. Ten stories
high and fireproof, it per-
milled the maximum amount
of light in every office.
Nevertheless, although Saulnier's methods differ in several

respects from those which Buffington proposed, the French
constructor had anticipated him in one essential point: he
had erected, almost a decade earlier, a building whose outer
walls were supported exclusively by wrought-iron girders.
The mill at Noisiel was, essentially, an iron frame clothed
in masonry.
"I feel at a loss just how to approach this claim of Mr. Buffington's for himself as
inventor, and the City of Minneapolis as the birthplace of skeleton construction. From
my viewpoint it should be ignored, but it has been given such widespread publicity and
the Patent Oflice did issue letters patent calling it an ' invention,' under the name of
'Iron Building Construction,' Patent No. 383,170. Inventor L. S. Butrington. Date
May 22, 1888. That cannot be ignored , but it can be controverted."
After some details of the legal controversies between Jenney and Bullington, Mr.
Mundie goes on to observe, .. All he patented was the use of said construction (which
was then well-known) in connection with his laminated steel plate column, composed of
plates of steel riveted together side by side, and breaking joints, thus forming a solid
steel column from bottom to top. This column being solid was so extravagant that no
one ever had a desire to use it. Parties who called to interview Mr. Jenney about the
patent, who afterwards proved to be Bullington's attorneys, were told by him that if they
could find anyone using that extravagant column, they certainly could be prosecuted for
using it , but no architect or engineer of any scientific knowledge would be guilty of
using it; in skeleton construction it was worthless."
207
William Le Baron It is well known that the first skyscraper actually built (and
Jenney's Home not merely planned) along modern principles of construction
Insurance Building
was the ten-story building of the Home Insurance Company
(1883)
(fig. 116) of Chicago (1883-85). The commission for its design
was given to William Le Baron Jenney in 1883. The Home
Insurance Company demanded a new type of office building
which would be fireproof and offer the maximum amount of
light for every room.U
To summarize: a period of slightly more than eight decades lies
between James Watt's seven-story cotton factory of 1801 with
its iron columns and iron beams and the first iron-framed sky-
scraper. It is a curious fact that a similar eighty-year interval
between the discovery of an important new principle and its
assimilation into everyday life is to be encountered in other
fields. For example, just this length of time intervened be-
tween Volta's discovery of galvanic electricity in 1800 and the
first transmission of electric power in the eighties.
Elevators
The first elevators At the time when James Bogardus was proclaiming that his
new cast-iron buildings could "be raised to a height vastly
greater than by any other known means ... and the greater
their height, the firmer they would be," 13 the first mechanical
elevators were being invented in Boston and New York. Like
nearly all inventions of this period, elevators were first intended
to serve industrial purposes only.
James Bogardus proposed to install "a mechanism for hoist-
ing observers to the top by steam power," 14 in the three-
hundred-foot central tower of his projected building for the
New York World's Fair of 1853. Though the very word had
12 Its construction is noteworthy for the fact that it includes not only cast-iron columns
but also a few of the first Bessemer steel girders ever used in a building. This was thirty
years after Bessemer had made public the process of making steel which he had invented.
Other branches of industry had adopted it almost at once; thus it came very soon to be
used in the manufacture of railroad tracks and the armor plate for battleships. Further
details of this celebrated building can be found in any history of the skyscraper.
13 James Bogardus, Cast Iron Buildings.
" Silliman and Goodrich, The World of Science, Art, and Industry, p. 4.
208
l !
I'
I '
i I
!
I
I
I
I
I
117. ELISHA GRAVES OTIS. U8. ELISHA GRAVES OTIS. Passenger ele-
The world's first safe elevator, valor at the time of the Civil War.
1853.
not yet come into use, Bogardus here proposed what would
have been the first passenger elevator in the world.
The first completely satisfactory elevator was the work of
Elisha Graves Otis of New York (jig. ll7). The world's first
safe elevator was produced when he attached a safety device
to the ordinary hoisting platform. This elevator received its
initial showing and demonstration at the Crystal Palace Ex-
position in New York in 1853. In each demonstration Mr.
Otis stepped onto the platform, which was then hoisted above
the ground. As the hoisting rope was cut, the elevator
came to a stop, whereupon Mr. Otis made the historical
remark: "All safe, gentlemen!" A recent check of the
archives of the Otis Company revealed that there are no
surviving designs of this first elevator. We know only its
approximate type from sketches of machines of a slightly
later period.
209
119. Eiffel Tower, elevator
to the first platform, 1889.
First passenger What is considered to have been the first passenger elevator
elevator: New was installed by Otis in a department store on the corner of
York, 1857 Broadway and Broome Street, New York, in 1357. 15 The next
passenger elevator was installed in the old Fifth A venue Hotel
in 1359. Its inventor was a Mr. Tufts of Boston, and the device
bore the name of "Vertical Screw Railway." Contemporary
pictures of these " railways" are also lacking; sketches from
about the period of the Civil War survive, however, to give an
idea of the principles employed in their design (fig. ll3).
First European The first European elevator, so far as we know now, was not
elevator: Paris built until 1367, when one was installed at the great Paris
Exposition of 1867 exhibition of that year. A hydraulic elevator exhibiting all the
ungainliness of some primordial monster, it transported visitors
from the grandiose Galerie des Machines to the corrugated iron
roof of that immense hall. From these roof terraces the visitors
saw spread out below them not only the great city of Paris but
a whole new world of glass and iron.
15 I am indebted to Mr. G. C. Bebb, advertising manager of the Otis Elev ator Company,
for this date, which corrects a common error.
210
It is pleasant to relate that the first elevator for a structure of First elevator
modern skyscraper proportions was built to serve no commer- system on a great
scale: Eiffel Tower,
cial or narrowly practical purposes. It was destined for a
1889
structure which sprang out cf the vision rather than the daily
needs of man- the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower, indeed,
falls outside the usual connotations of the word "building":
it might better be regarded as at once the manifesto and the
monument of that Iron Age which embraced the second half
of the nineteenth century. An unusual traffic problem was
solved by constructing a whole system of elevators. Four
large, double-decked elevators ran from the ground to the
first platform (jig. 119), a height equal to that of Notre Dame;
two more ran from the terrace to the second platform, a height
equal to that of the dome of St. Peter's; the rest of the ascent
was made in two stages by means of a pair of hydraulic eleva-
tors operating on a sort of shuttle system. The total ascent to
a height of a thousand feet took only seven minutes, and 2,350
passengers could be transported to the summit every hour. 16
This was achieved in 1889.
THE SCHISM BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND

TECHNOLOGY
We have already spoken in somewhat general terms of the gap

that opened in the course of the nineteenth century between
science and its techniques on the one hand and the arts on the
other, and hence between architecture and construction. The
previous chapter should lend support to the contention we
made then that the seeds of the architecture of our day were
to be found in technical developments little regarded at the
time of their appearance. The present chapter will handle this
topic in more detail. We shall deal with the question of the
time at which this schism became evident, and the manner in
which recognition of its existence led to the demand for a new
architecture. Contemporary utterances will enable us to show
that from this situation developed many questions the answers
16 These details are to be found in a contemporary pamphlet of great interest: Gaston
Tissandier, La Tour Eiffel de 300m. (Paris, 1889), p. 68.
211
to which are still being sought today. Finally, in separating
the constituent facts from the episodic trends of the nineteenth
century, we shall be able to fill in many of the gaps in the
history of our own development, gaps of whose existell(:e we
have often been unconscious.
Effect of the In the year 1806 Napoleon founded the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
revival of the f=cole thereby reviving an institution of the ancien regime. The pro-
des Beaux-Arts gram of the Ecole, covering the whole field of the plastic arts,
(1806)
maintained that unity of architecture with the other arts which
had been both complete and spontaneous during the baroque
period. Unfortunately, the school was administered in such a
way that bad results soon followed. It fostered a constantly
increasing isolation of the arts from the conditions of ordinary
life. From the beginning of the century two opposed attitudes,
each extreme and each represented by an official institute, face
each other in France; the Ecole des Beaux-Arts is confronted
by the Ecole Polytechnique.
Ecole Polytech- The Ecole Polytechnique had been founded during the French
nique (179/l), the Revolution, in 1794 - three years after the Proclamation de la
gathering point
liberle dn travail, the document which abolished the legal hin-
for new forces
drances to the growth of modern industry in France. The
Ecole Polytechnique was an ecole speciale; it offered a uniform
scientific preparation for the higher technical schools -
l' ecole des pants et chanssees' l' ecole des mines' l' ecole de l' artil-
lerie, etc. The great mathematicians, physicists, and chemists
of France acted as instructors, men like Monge, Lagrange,
Berthollet, Chaptal. The Ecole Polytechnique had the im-
portant function of combining theoretical and practics; ,~~ience.
That it directly influenced industry is beyond question In the
first decades of the century it became a center for those in-
terested in political economy and sociology and above all for
the Saint-Simonists, whose membership included the creators
of the large-scale industries and the railroad systems built up
in France around the 1850's.
Discussions
The separate existence of an £cole des Beaux-Arts and an
Ecole Polytechnique in itself points to the schism between
212
architecture and construction. A survey of the architectural
journals of the nineteenth century will reveal that the two
questions most debated at the time grew out of the dissen-
sion between these schools. These questions can be stated as
follows:
1. Along what lines should the training of an architect pro-
ceed?
2. What is the relation of the engineer to the architect?
What special functions are proper to each? Are they one
and the same?
All the other controversies and discussions regarding architec-
tural form are of secondary importance.
Ecole Polytechnique: the Connection between Science and Life

The immense influence of the Ecole Polytechnique in the first The architect and
three decades of the nineteenth century can be attributed to the constructor
the fact that it quite consciously set itself an enormous task;
in it, for the first time, the attempt was made to establish a
connection between science and life, to bring out the practical
applications to industry of discoveries in the mathematical and
physical sciences. Jean-Antoine Chaptal, the great chemist
and industrialist who was minister of the interior under N apo-
leon I, laid down this aim for the Ecole at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. He insisted that science must climb down
from its pedestal and lend a hand in the work of creating a new
world.
It was Rondelet - the theorist whose work on the Pantheon Unconscious
in Paris prevented its collapse - who first insisted that scien- influence of
tific techniques had an important role to play in architecture. construction
His Discours pour l' ouverture du cours de construction a l' ecole
speciale d'architecture (1816) argued that constructional meth-
ods had to be allowed much more influence upon the character
of a building design than had hitherto been given them. From
this time on, the engineer slowly encroaches more and more
upon the province of the architect. All unconsciously, the
constructor during the nineteenth century played the role of
scout for the architect. The new expedients which he kept
pressing upon the architect continually forced the latter to
213
venture upon unexplored paths. He broke down the archi-
tect's ritualistic and artificial formalism, hammered brusquely
upon the door of his ivory tower. And it remains one of the
chief functions of construction to furnish architecture with the
stimulus and incentive for new growth.
The Demand for a New Architecture

Demand for a new With the quickening of the advance of industry in the middle of
architecture in the nineteenth century there becomes evident a feeling on the
contemporary
part of the architect that his privileged position is menaced
utterances
and the traditions of his art outmoded. That anxiety grew in
intensity with the progress of industrialization. But contem-
porary statements of this feeling are of more interest than any
abstract deductions we might make concerning it. Let us first
quote some evidence of the hopes for a new architecture that
the appearance of the new potentialities aroused.
1349: "A new architecture which will take us out of the
sterility of the past and the servility of copying is what every-
body demands, and what the public waits for." 1
1349: "The new architecture is architecture in iron. Architec-
tural revolutions always follow social revolutions. In the
interim periods few changes are to be seen, no matter how long
these periods may be. Men insist upon remolding the old forms
until a radical upset wipes the slate clean of banal schools and
ideas.
"There are great periods in architecture just as there are great
geological periods: a new race of plants or animals only ap-
pears after the disappearance of the old. In architecture it is
the same: The race of old authorities in architecture had to be
superseded- just as the mastodons were superseded- in
order to make room for new kinds of artists who will not
preserve the traditional prejudices of the old schools.
"But, you may say, where shall we find masters clever enough~
We should not tell you to seek these people among old masons
whose hands have been so long occupied with stone and mortar
that it is safe to presume that their brains also moye in an
1 Cesar Daly, Revue generate de I' architecture, 1849, p. 26.
214
equally restricted orbit. To create what is new, you must have
young people.'' 2
1850: "Mankind will produce a completely new architecture
out of its period exactly at the moment when the new methods
created by recently born industry are made use of. The
application of cast iron allows and enforces the use of many
new forms, as can be seen in railway stations, suspension
bridges, and the arches of conservatories." 3
1867: Toward the end of the Second Empire, Cesar Daly once
more laments the continued influence of old traditions: "One
perceives the eclectic atmosphere enveloping the world; all
organs of respiration absorb it and, mixed with our blood, it
acts on heart and brain.'' 4
1889: Two decades later the situation had scarcely improved.
Every time new and unusual constructions appeared to stimu-
late the imagination by their boldness, the old cries went up
again. Even the novelist Octave Mirbeau - not in general
given to urge on the march into the future - realized after
seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Galerie des Machines that
"while art cultivates l' inlimisme or attaches itself to the old
formulas with its gaze still fixed on the past, industry moves
forward and explores the unknown. It is not in the studios of
the painters and sculptors that the revolution so long awaited
is preparing - it is in the factories!" 5
The I nlerrelations of Architecture and Engineering

There grew up before the eyes of the world in the years after Reflection on
1850 the iron constructions of the great exhibitions. In them contemporary
utterances
the methods of engineering entered the field of architecture;
with that entrance the question of the relation between archi-
2 Jobard, "L'Architecture de I'avenir," Revue gfmerale d'architeclure, 1849, p. 27.
Jobard was an engineer, the first director of the Musee de l'Industrie at Brussels, and one
of those scientists most interested in the new processes and materials developed in
industry. Jobard did not confine himself simply to invoking the appearance of a new
architecture of iron and glass. For example, he suggested a type of structure with double
walls filled with glass panes which would permit air-conditioning of the interior. The
space between the panes was to be filled with hot air io the winter, cold air in the summer.
3 The romantic poet Theophile Gautier, in the newspaper La Presse.
4 Revue gfmerale d'archilecture, 1867, p. 6.
5 Octave Mirbeau in Figaro, 1889; cf. also Encyclopedie d'tlrchiteclure, 1889/90, p. 92.
215
teet and engineer was raised and became ever more vexing and
urgent. For more than sixty years that question was agitated
by various theorists.
1852: "Far he it from me to pretend that the style pointed out
by our mechanics is what is sometimes miscalled an economical,
a cheap style. No! It is the dearest of all the styles! It costs
the thought of men, much, very much thought, untiring
investigation, ceaseless experiment. Its simplicity is that of
justness; I had almost said, of justice.
" ... the mechanics of the United States have already out-
stripped the artists. and have, by their bold and unflinching
adaptation, entered the true track and hold up the light for
all who operate for American wants, be they what they will.
"By beauty I mean the promise of function.
''By action I mean the presence of function.
"By character I mean the record of function." 6
1867: "Is it the fate of architecture to give way to the art of

engineering? Will the architect be eclipsed by the engineer?" i
1877: In this year the question entered the AcadC>mie, when a
prize was offered for the best paper discussing "the union or
the separation of engineer and architect." Davioud, one of the
architects of the Trocadrro, won the prize with this answer:
"The accord will never become real, complete, and fruitful
until the day that the engineer, the artist, and the scientist are
fused together in the same person. We have for a long time
lived under the foolish persuasion that art is a kind of activity
distinct from all other forms of human intelligence, having its
sole source and origin in the personality of the artist himself,
and in his capricious fancy.'' 8
1889: "A long time ago the influence of the architect declined,
and the engineer, rJwmme moderne par excellence, is beginning
to replace him .... It will not be [arbitrarily chosen] shapes
6 Horatio Greenough, the American sculptor, in The Trm•els, Obserz•alions. and E.rperi-
ences of a Yankee Sloneculler; cited by Nancy Wynne and Beaurnont 'lew hall." Horatio
Greenough: Herald of Functionalism,'' Magazine of Arl. X:XXIl (January 1939), 15.
7 Cesar Daly, Revue generale d'archileclure, 1867, p. 6.
8 Encyclopedie d'archileclure, 1878, p. 67.
216
which will form the basis of the new architecture: in urban
planning, in the real application of modern construction, the
taking into account of the new situations which must be
reckoned with will lead us to the shapes so long sought in
vain. But, you will say, what you propose are the methods of
engineering today. I do not deny it, for these are correct." 9
1399: Thirty years after Cesar Daly's anxiety with regard to
the future of architecture one of the founders of the art
nouveau sees quite clearly that "there is a class of men from
whom the title of artist can no longer be withheld. These
artists, the creators of new architecture, are the engineers.
"The extraordinary beauty innate in the work of engineers
has its basis in their unconsciousness of its artistic possibilities
- much as the creators of the beauty of the cathedrals were
unaware of the magnificence of their achievements." 10
Van de Velde already recognized that the engineer promised
the regeneration of architecture and not its destruction. It
is still the case - as much so as when van de Velde wrote -
that the latest works of the engineers embody possibilities of
aesthetic experience not as yet exploited, which have still to
find their place in architectonic expression. There are, for
example, those fantastic, single-columned shelters built in
France to protect freight while it is being transshipped, those
curving Swiss bridges which are formed out of thin slabs of
ferroconcrete, and various other strikingly original construc-
tions elsewhere, which embody unexplored potentialities for
architecture.
1924: "The century of the machine awakened the architect.
New tasks and new possibilities produced him. He is at work
now everywhere." 11
Such an opinion - one that is shared by the whole generation
of architects to which Le Corbusier belongs - marks the
solution of the break between the architect and the engineer.
9 Anatole de Baudot, at the first International Congress of Architects in Paris, 1889.

10 Henri van de Velde, "Die Rolle der lngenieure in der modernen Architektur," in
Die Renaissance im modernen Kunstgewerbe (Berlin, 1901).
11 Le Corbusier in L'Esprit nouveau (Paris, 1924), no. 25.
217
On the whole it is true that contemporary architects have
succeeded at the end of a century of struggle in drawing
abreast of construction. New tasks await architecture today.
It must now meet needs other than the strictly rational, other
than those which are pragmatically determined. A living
architecture must also succeed in satisfying those subrational,
emotional demands which are deeply rooted in our age.
HENRI LABROUSTE~ ARCHITECT-CONSTRUCTOR,

1801-1875
Labrouste born Until now we have had to dissect practically anonymous con-
with the new structions to find the first signs of the new developments
century
which life, almost unconsciously, was bringing about. Toward
the middle of the nineteenth century, we encounter for the
first time in this period a man who unites the abilities of both
the engineer and the architect: the architect-constructor Henri
Labrouste. Henri Labrouste was born in Paris in 1801. In
the same year Telford offered his project for London Bridge,
a plan calling for a colossal structure in cast iron. It was also
in 1801 that James Watt's Soho foundry built the first cot-
ton mill to embody cast-iron beams and pillars in its interior
construction.
Wins grand prix Labrouste was educated at the Academie des Beaux-Arts and
de Rome; sees stay was one of its outstanding pupils. When he was twenty-three,
in Italy as an he was awarded the grand prix de Rome, which made it possible
estrangement
from life
for him to spend five years at the Villa Medici in Rome. Dur-
ing those five years he came to see antique Rome as something
more than a monument or an arsenal of beautiful forms on
which a student might draw. He took toward it very nearly
the attitude of an onlooker of today; what astonished him was
the skill in construction everywhere visible in these works.
When, as pensionnaire de l!tcademie in Rome, he was studying
Roman aqueducts and examining the temples at Paestum, he
sought always to grasp the spirit behind each construction,
l' organisme de chaque construction. 1
1Labrouste did not make the usual picturesque reproductions of ancient monuments.
He approached them with the sharp eyes of an engineer or an archaeologist. His draw-
218
For all that, he ended by regarding his stay in Italy- meant
as the highest reward to talent - as a systematic estrangement
from life. He preferred studies dealing with problems arising
out of his own time. Significantly enough, the last project
which he sent to the Academy from Rome was a design for
a bridge, one appropriate to stand on the frontiers of two
friendly countries.
Labrouste, belonging to that generation which arrived at its
maturity around 1830 and seemed to include among its mem-
bers the most vigorous characters in the century, shared its
feeling that social, moral, and intellectual life all alike de-
manded renewal. In the summer of 1830, when he returned to
Paris, he found the routine of the Academy unchanged. He
wrote to his brother Theodore on July 12, 1830: "What
should I say to you about the Ecole? Its programs of courses
are always uninteresting and badly organized; its pupils lack
enthusiasm. And even the master of an atelier would exhaust
himself through futile efforts on programs like these ....
Architecture must not be circumscribed within studies like
those actually pursued at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Reforms
are called for - what master will have the courage to make the
pressing cause of our art his own?" 2
During this same summer he opened his own atelier, a school of
design opposed to the principles of the Academy, in which he
instructed the progressive youth of France. Once again a
letter to his brother (written in November 1830) will give some
insight into his methods of instruction:
"I am working prodigiously and - what is harder - I am
making my pupils work.
"I have drawn up several schedules of study to drill the be-
ginners in something useful: I want them to learn to compose
with very simple means. It is necessary for them from the
ings of the temples at Paestum were the source of much controversy at the French
Academy. He was among the first to discover traces of the colors which had originally
overlaid the buildings and attempted reconstructions of them. During the late fifties the
questions raised by the use of polychromy in ancient art occupied many architects in
various countries- Schinkel, Hittorf, Gottfried Semper, and others.
2 Souvenirs d'Henri Labrouste, Notes recueillies et classees parses enfants (Paris, 1928;
privately printed), p. 24.
219
start to see the direction of their work so that they may arrange
its parts according to the importance which they can reason-
ably be given. Then I explain to them that solidity depends
more on the way materials are put together than upon their
mass, and - as soon as they know the first principles of
construction - I tell them that they must derive from the
construction itself an ornamentation which is reasoned and
expressive.
"I often repeat to them that the arts have the power of making
everything beautiful, but I insist that they understand that in
architecture form must always be appropriate to the function
for which it is intended.
" Finally, I am happy to find myself in the midst of these
young comrades, who are attentive, full of good-will, and
resolved to continue along the path which we are following
together." 3
First large com- The Academy waged a bitter war against the so-called "ra-
mission when he tionalistic school" which Labrouste headed. This official
had passed forty opposition had its consequences. On the occasions when
Labrouste set foot on a building plot it was to inspect the work
of other architects. The winner of the grand prix de Rome had
to wait more than twelve years for a chance to show his talents
in an executed work of importance. It was not until he was
past forty that Labrouste was commissioned to build the
Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve in Paris ( 1843-50).
Bibliotheque In the library of Sainte-Genevieve he made the first attempt
Sainte-Genevieve, to use cast- and wrought-iron construction in an important
Paris public building from the foundations to the roof. Sainte-
Genevieve was, in addition, the first library building in France
designed to be a complete and independent unit. As in the
English mills and warehouses, the iron construction is enclosed
in the stonework of the exterior like the works of a watch in
its case. Thick masonry outer walls still remain, but all
structural members- columns, beams, and roofing- are of
iron (jigs. 120, 121).
Iron skeleton in The framework of the long, double-naved reading room forms,
the interior with that of the roof, a single structure. Labrouste achieved an
3 Ibid.
220
120. JIENni LABROUSTE. Li- 121. HENRI LABROUSTE. Li-
brary of Sainte-Genevieve, Paris, 18· !:~- 1!:-ary of Sainte-(;enevicve, Paris, 1843-
50. Section through the reading room and .iO. Plan.
the wrought-iron framework of the roof.
astonishing thinness in the barrel vaults by extending an iron

network along them; this network at the same time afforded
a base for the plaster covering of the vault. This construction
recalls the eggshell-like reinforced concrete vaults in the dock
buildings at Casablanca which the French architect Perret
constructed in 1916. But Labrouste's chief accomplishment in
this library rests in the manner in which the iron construction
is balanced in itself, so that it puts no stress on the walls. The
achievement of just such a hovering equilibrium became the
chief task for engineers in the second half of the nineteenth
century.
221
The Bibliotheque Labrouste reached his full development with the building of
Nationale, Paris, the Bibliotheque N ationale in Paris, begun in 1858 and com-
his masterpiece pleted after his death. 4 The increase in the production of
books during the nineteenth century made the provision of
sufficient space the main problem in library building. The
stacks took up more and more room. In earlier times, stack
and reading rooms had been identical; now they had to be
separated. There is no library which solved the problem this
situation created so elegantly as Labrouste's Bibliotheque
Nationale.
Difference from In it Labrouste departed from the example set by his English
British Museum contemporary in the same field, Sydney Smirke (1798-1877).
Smirke designed the monumental and frequently imitated
circular reading room in the quadrangle of the British Museum.
But the circular outline of this room left only the remnants of
the quadrangular space whose center it occupied available for
the stack rooms. The inspiration for such an arrangement
came not from the architect but from Sir Anthony Panizzi, the
principal librarian of the British Museum and the creative
force behind much of its development. Panizzi was also re-
sponsible for having the reading desks placed along lines
radiating from a central observation point. The library of the
British Museum is worthy of note in another respect; its cir-
cular dome is constructed from top to bottom of iron and was
the first of its kind.
Sydney Smirke, its designer, remains an interesting figure in
the architecture of the time. Though overshadowed by his
brother, Robert, he did important work in the design and
equipment of club buildings. His work on English club .
interiors is one of the points from which the evolution
of modern furniture proceeds. He also designed those
chairs in the British Museum reading room which are still
unique, in point of comfort, among the great libraries of
the world.
The reading room The reading room (figs. 122, 123) which Labrouste designed
in the Bibliotheque for the Bibliotheque N ationale was square and contained
Nationale
sixteen cast-iron pillars. Immediately behind it was the
4 Cf. Michel Roux-Spitz, "La Bibliothl>que nationale de Paris," L' Architecture d'au-
jourd'hui, vol. IX, no. 3 (March lY38).
222
122. HENRI LABROUSTE. BibliotlH~que Nationale, Paris, 1858-68. Readin{J room.
Sixteen slim cast-iron columns; spherical vaults, each with a round opening at the lop so
that all the desks are equally well-ligltled. It is typically nineteenth-century in the way ils
architectural shapes are borrowed from a variety of earlier periods.
123. HENRI LA-

BROUSTE. Biblio-
theque Nationale,
Paris, 1858-68. Ground
plan.
large stack room known as the magasin central. He thus

set the example of giving the stack room, the real heart
of a modern library, the important position which it de-
serves. The reading room in its construction follows the
line Labrouste had already taken in the library of Sainte-
Genevieve: the iron construction is enclosed by the mas-
sive walls. The tall, slender columns (one foot in diameter
223
~
124. HENRI LABROUSTE.

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.
1858- 68. The slacks (magasin
central). Four stories above ground
and one below, all surmounted by
a glass ceiling. The gridiron floor
plates permit the light to pene-
trate to all paris of the slacks.
125. HENRl LABHOI JSTE.

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris,
1858-68. The slacks (magasin
central). Light pouring through
the gridiron floor. Floor plates of
this open design seem to have been
used first in the engine rooms of
steamships. Here they serve a
purely utilitarian .function, but
at lhe same lime they contain the
germ of new artistic possibilities.
126. HENRI LABROUSTE.

Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris,
1858- 68. The slacks (magasin
central). Detail of gridiron floor
and banisters.
225
and thirty-two feet high) impart an atry lightness to the
room.
Shapes borrowed The columns are connected with each other by means of semi-
from various circular girders which come together to form nine light, covered
periods vaults reminiscent of those in Brunelleschi's Foundling Hos-
pital at Florence. Labrouste's spherical vaults are built up of
thin plates of faience earthenware; there is a round opening in
the top of each after the manner of the Roman Pantheon. In
this way excellent lighting for every reading desk is assured.
These details are mentioned only to show how the space
conceptions of all periods are mixed together in nineteenth-
century architecture.
Manner of using But Labrouste's masterpiece is the grand magasin or stack
the gridiron floor room (fig. 124) built along the same axis. The magasin central
plates has four stories above ground and one below, and was built to
accommodate 900,000 volumes. In the recent renovation of
the library Labrouste's excellent work in its construction was
adjudged to be in perfect condition, and was left completely
undisturbed. The whole area was covered with a glass ceiling.
Cast-iron floor plates in a gridiron pattern permit the daylight
to penetrate the stacks from top to bottom. 5 Floor plates of
this open design (jig. 126) seem to have been used first in the
engine rooms of steamships. No doubt they were introduced
into library buildings with purely practical ends in view.
Nevertheless, o}Jserving them in our day, we recognize in the
manner in which light penetrates the grillwork of the iron floor
the germ of new artistic possibilities (fig. 125). This hovering
play of light and shadow appears as an artistic means in cer-
tain works of modern sculpture as well as in contemporary
architecture.
Labrouste took great care to provide for efficient communica-
tion between all parts of the magasin central. The different
stories are connected by bridges so that one can go from one
section to another by the shortest route. These bridges, quite
apart from their obvious utility, give a certain effect of power
6Labrouste had been anticipated in this feature of his design. Panizzi not only con-
ceived the plan for the circular reading room of the British Museum but also the idea of
using gridiron floor plates in its stack rooms. This was in 1852. Cf. Arundal Esdaile,
National Libraries of the World (London, 1934), pp. 10, 27.
226
to the room. Light stairways with gridiron treads permit easy
access to all the books. Except for the bookshelves, all the
construction is of iron.
In view of the fact that the stack rooms were not open to the Reasons for
general public, Labrouste could proceed quite freely in their uncompromising
development in
design and was not impeded by popular taste. He made good
stacks
use of this freedom. He dispensed with all applied decoration.
There is in its stead an astonishing sureness of expression,
resulting from a perfect fitness for purpose which only the
hand of an artist could achieve. 6
In this room - one never meant for public display - a great
artist unfolded new possibilities for architecture. It is true
that the Crystal Palace of some years before was a much more
spectacular and imaginative structure. In the magasin central,
however, Labrouste had been set a problem in architecture
that was detailed and specific. Using the means possible to an
architect of his day, Labrouste solved it in a manner that bears
the stamp of a timeless rightness. If there is a Pazzi Chapel to
be found anywhere in contemporary architecture, it is here.
The magasin central connects with the main reading room
through a large arched opening (fig. 127). Labrouste had the
audacity that was needed in his day to erect a large glass screen
in this opening, so that the magazine of books stored in the
stacks could be glimpsed from the reading room. This was an
early use on a large scale of the transparent areas so dear to
modern architects (fig. 128). 7 Labrouste, afraid of his own
daring, partially covered his glass screen with heavy red-velvet
drapery, unfortunately "modernized" in later renovations.
Henri Labrouste is without doubt the architect of the middle
nineteenth century whose work possessed the most significance
for the future. His time, of course, dictated the use of Renais-
sance or classical shapes, and he used them with the greatest
artistic distinction.
6The stack rooms behind the circular reading room of the British Museum used similar
gridiron floor plates (as we have just seen), but nothing was achieved by their use beyond
an efficient organization of this part of the library.
7John Nash had used a glass partition to shut off the south end of the principal corridor
of Buckingham Palace. But he interlaced this glass partition with ornaments, in the
baroque manner. Cf. Henry D. Roberts, A History of the Pav£/ion at Brighton (London,
1939), Fig. 25.
227
127. HENRI LABROUSTE. Bibliotheque 128. Glass wall of the Garage Rue Marbceuf,
Nationale, Paris, 1858- 68. Glass wall between Paris, 1929. A f ter Labrouste's early recognition
the stacks (magasin central ) and reading room. of the possibilities of glass, it came increasingly
Early use of large areas of glass in the interior into use throughout the century, ending in im-
of a permanent public building. The heavy mense panes like these whose framework has to
velvet drapery suggests that Labrouste was some- be suspended from overhead bridge girders.
what alarmed by his own daring.
But it was in his methods, in the way he analyzed and executed

a task in building, that he stood far in advance of his times and
of his colleagues. In spite of this, no studies of this architect
have appeared since his death. We have no precise knowledge
of the wearisome struggle with the Academie in which he was
involved after 1830, or of the resistance he encountered that
made a full realization of his ideas impossible. Perhaps the
details still lie buried in the archives of the Academie. Some
years ago I tried to learn more about the planning and develop-
ment of Labrouste's most important work, the Bibliotheque
N ationale. A search of the Building Department of the
Bibliotheque Nationale itself disclosed that Labrouste's plans
had been lost.
228
NEW BUILDING PROBLEMS -NEW SOLUTIONS
In the nineteenth century, buildings which owe nothing to the

past begin to appear. Their new lines originate in the new
demands presented by big towns, multiplied means of com-
munication, and an ever-expanding industry. All these build-
ings have one thing in common: they are intended solely for a
periodic use that involves rapid distribution of large volumes
of merchandise. It is no accident that this type of construction
should embody the solutions to the main architectural prob-
lems of the century. Because these unpretentious buildings
contain the seeds of so much that followed, we must treat them
at considerable length.
Market Halls
One of the new problems that were arising first finds a solution Hall of the
in the great public markets, three examples of which will be Madeleine, Paris,
given. The earliest of such structures to require discussion 1824·
here was the market hall of the Madeleine, built in Paris in
1824 (fig. 129). The grace of its slender cast-iron columns is
reminiscent of Pompeian mural paintings. The lightness of
the construction is unbroken by any purely decorative addi-
tions. This is one of the earliest examples of the attempts
nineteenth-century engineers were making to develop methods
of construction which would combine elegance with economy
of material.
The market which was built in London in 1835 to replace the Hungerford Fish
old Hungerford Fish Market represents a somewhat greater Market, London,
advance, so far as construction alone is concerned. A detailed 1835
description of the new Hungerford Fish Market (fig. 130)
appeared in the Transactions cf the Institute of British Archi-
tects in 1836. 1 On sanitary grounds, the use of lumber in this
building had been forbidden. The cast-iron construction
dictated by this provision is particularly noteworthy for the
wide roof span of thirty-two feet, with its straight line. It has
all the elegance of a much later period. "The chief particular-
ity in the construction," according to the report of 1836, "is
t I ( 1836 ), 44-46.
229
129. Market Hall of the Madeleiue, Paris, 1824. One of the earliest examples of the at-
tempts of nineteenth-century engineers to combine elegance with economy of materials.
130. Hungerford Fish Market, London. Metal roof, 1835. Particularly noteworthy for
its wide roof span (thirty-two feel) with its straight line.
the absence of any tie or lateral abutment." Already we find

the planes of the roof given an inward slope, so that rain water
might be carried away through the central columns.
Les Grandes The Grandes Hailes of Paris, begun in 1853, had both a more
Hailes, Paris, 1855 interesting origin and a greater future influence than either of
the structures we have just discussed. This market, the first
designed to serve a population in the millions, was a part of
Haussmann's great transformation of Paris. The Grandes
Hailes consist of two groups of pavilions connected by covered
passageways. Their designer, Victor Baltard, is not by any
means to be regarded as one of the great architects. His
initial attempt - a stone pavilion that was built in 1851 -
aroused a public disapproval so clamorous that Haussmann,
then newly appointed prefect, ordered it pulled down.
230
131. VICTOR BALTARD. Hailes Centrales, Paris. Interior. Begun 1853. Ballard
had to be forced to use iron in his second attempt (the first - in stone - was a disastrous
failure). "Dufer! Dufer! Rien que dufer!'' Haussmann insisted.
It was only direct commands by Napoleon III and Haussmann

that induced the academic Baltard to turn to iron construction
in his second attempt (fzg.l3l). Napoleon III, greatly impressed
by the recently built Gare de l'Est, had decided that a similar
umbrella-like shelter was all that was required in the projected
market hall. "Ce sont de vastes parapluies qu'il me faut, rien
de plus!" And the prefect Haussmann thundered at Baltard.
"Du fer! Du fer! Rien que du fer!" The final design that
Baltard produced under this pressure was a derivative patch-
work of other men's plans; for all that, it had an important
influence on future work.
The new version, all iron and glass, once again amazed N a-
poleon III when Haussmann brought it to him - this time for
different reasons. "Is it possible," he asked, "that the same
architect designed two such contradictory buildings~" Hauss-
mann replied, "The architect is the same, but the prefect is
different."
The project actually realized in the Grandes Hailes is less Unexecuted
interesting than two designs which were rejected. The first projects:
was the work of Hector Horeau (1801-1872). Hector Horeau Hector Horeau
was one of those architects who never know the satisfaction of
231
132. HECTOR HOREAU. Project for the Grandes Hailes, 1849. Rejected designs
were much more advanced. The three-hundred-fool span in Horeau's project was not prac-
ticable until decades later. The principle used here was employed in the main building allhe
Paris exposition of 1855.
fulfillment. His projects- all on a grand scale - could not

be executed. The theory of statics had not yet progressed to
a point where the calculations required for such buildings could
be carried through; it was still impossible to build spans as
large as those included in his plans without using tie bars, or
to turn out such large iron trusses. His plan for the Grandes
Hailes (1849) shows an immense hall with a span of three hun-
dred feet, calling for enormously thick walls to take the heavy
lateral thrust. It was not until decades later that such an
intention could be achieved. Nevertheless, figures like Horeau
- men who see the right way before it can be trodden - are
not useless; they give the first impulse to what later becomes
reality. 2
Eugene Flachat The second rejected design was the work of Eugene Flachat
(1802-1872), a contemporary of Horeau and of Labrouste.
2A plan submitted in the Crystal Palace competition in 1850 won first prize for H ector
Horeau. It was a sort of basilica with five naves (fig. 147), not to be compared with
Paxton's later design.
232
V lll '' ll du :!~.::~~-~.!.; n ;• · · ·· ~ ~!'•' ! 4~:· !.1 ~:~•~>' •!··,::~:: \ ., . ,
F A.-'... .., •. •:,,.,.,,,.... n./.- ..., .....,
~----------fiL--------~~~
I
133. EUGENE FLACHAT. Project for the Grandes Hailes, 1849. This project, using
the Polonceau lie system in a span of 260 feel, could have been executed allhe lime. It was
a most pleasing and functional solution to the problem.
Flachat belonged to the most forceful generation of the nine-

teenth century, that of 1830, which included De Lesseps, the
builder of the Suez Canal, Victor Hugo, the painter Eugene
Delacroix, and Auguste Comte, the prophet of the scientific
era. It was Flachat who, overcoming widespread resist-
ance, built the first French railroad in 1837. He designed
docks, warehouses, ports and canals, projected transatlantic
steamship companies, and planned a tunnel through the Alps.
That Flachat was a follower of Saint-Simon is by no means
irrelevant to this recital. The Saint-Simonists took it as
axiomatic that "la Societe toute entiere repose sur l'industrie,"
and were almost alone in foreseeing the scale and the extent of
the progress that industry was embarking upon. The Grandes
Hailes (fig. 133), in its magnitude and social function, was a
typical part of that new age the Saint-Simonists felt them-
selves destined to call forth. In submitting a plan for it,
Flachat was animated by the same spirit that stood behind his
other more grandiose proposals.
The design itself, like Horeau's, features a very wide span--
one of 260 feet. It could, nevertheless, have been executed with
the means available at the time. The Polonceau tie system is
employed, and, with its minimum of support and widely
spread horizontal lines, the plan achieves a most pleasing and
functional solution to the problem posed.
233
Department Stores
Products of The department store is a product of the industrial age; it
industrialization results from the development of mass production and from the
loss of direct contact between producer and consumer that was
one of its consequences. The department store has no equally
large forerunner in the past. In this respect it is like the market
halls, railway stations, and exhibition buildings of the nine-
teenth century, and the object it serves is the same: the rapid
handling of business activities involving huge crowds of
pedestrians. Like these other buildings, the department
store arises out of the growth in the population of cities,
the heightened tempo of living, and the demand for cheaper
goods.
The name "store" rather than "shop" points to the condi-
tions of its origin; it is more a storage place in the normal sense
of that word. The early stores in Paris during the sixties, for
example, were known as docks a bon marche; they were simply
places where goods were kept in quantity for cheap retail sale.
To be fit for such a purpose, a department store - like a
library stack room or a market hall - must offer a clear view
of the articles it contains, a maximum of light, and ample
facilities for communication. All these requirements could be
met with the new means open to the builder.
Uncertainty as to The economists tell us that "it is fairly certain that the depart-
their beginnings ment store originated in Europe, probably in Paris, and ante-
dated American department stores by several years. The Bon
Marche has often been credited with being the first department
store in the world." 3 Lack of interest in research work into
the origins of such contemporary institutions makes it impos-
sible to speak more exactly than this. The origins of the
American department store are particularly obscure; no one
has definitely determined when and where the first store of this
kind was opened. We can only outline the general types out of
which this important institution of our economic life has
evolved.
Origin as a Even previous to the forties "commercial buildings," as they
building-type were called, were erected in such business centers as Boston,
3 R. H. Nystrom, Economics of Retailing, 3rd ed. (New York, 1932), pp. 1-7.
234
''J11Ul ifA~ll11'f(}'J1 !JJ.'Y ;;•j•(J]t.1L:.l,
In William S1roe1 between f11l!ou l Joh1 Su. New Yo r k . Ere~ led 1&4~.
134. Washington Store5, N ew York City, 1845. A row of stores all under one roof; sepa-
rate um:ts could be thrown together to house a single establishment.
St. Louis, and New York. These buildings comprised a row of

stores all under one roof and so arranged that two or more
units could be thrown together to house a single establishment.
Most of them were built on speculation, and the builders
rented the individual stores to both retail and wholesale
dealers. The "Boston Commercial Buildings," the St. Louis
river front warehouses and wholesale places, and the "Wash-
ington Stores" (1845) in New York (fig. 134) are all typi-
cal of this stage in the development. The department store as
a building type traces back to these "commercial buildings."
As a business institution the American department store Origin as a business
evolved from those establishments which first made cheap institution: the
ready-made cloth-
ready-to-wear clothing available to the masses. In the forties ing trade
Boston - flourishing trading-center for the New England area
- had one of the largest of these enterprises. This was Oak
Hall (jig. 135), a concern whose annual turnover was about five
hundred thousand dollars.
The American stores which grew up from beginnings like these Difference between
took on a character very different from that of the early Euro- American and
European depart-
pean concerns. European stores specialized in dry goods; they ment stores
did not deal in ready-made clothing.
235
[5) 135. Oak Hall, Bost on, c. 1850.
OAK HALL CLOTHING HOUSE, Ready-made clothing. One of the
ready -made clothing concerns which
were p recursors of the department
store in Amerr:ca.
UNRIVALLED EMPORIUM FOR

GENTLEMEN'S, YOUTHS' AND LITTLE CHILDREN'S
1\llllf.. l!liHM Gt.TIIRII)
FURNISHING GOODS, HATS, CAPS, &C.,
WHOLESALE AND RETAIL. . ,
GEO. W. SllfiJJ.IONS, PIPER k CO.,
OA.E;. :S::A.LL,
32, 34, 36 and 38 North Street,
!B®§'if®fm~ !iJJ~§§o
The majority opinion among economists is that genuine de-

partment stores do not appear before the sixties. 4 It seems to
me likely that they started at an earlier date. We know -
and this is one of the few exact dates available in these matters
- that the first installation of a passenger elevator in a depart-
ment store was made in 1857, in a building on the corner of
Broadway and Broome Street, New York City 5 (fig. 136).
The American department store building derives from the big
seven- or eight-story warehouses which were so common dur-
ing the second half of the nineteenth century. The many-
storied English warehouse which the M anchester engineer,
William Fairbairn, built in 1845 was an early example of such
a building. 6
Somewhat later, James Bogardus used a system of construc-
tion in cast iron which made it possible to erect relatively
4 Nyst rom, op. cit., p. 134.
5 Cf. p. 210.
s cr. p. 194.
236
136. Broome Street, New York, 1857. The first department store to house a passenger
elevator. The building is typical of these early establishments.
137. John Wanamaker

Store, Philadelphia,
1876. A freight shelter
transformed into an im-
mense, single-story dry
goods store.
tall buildings of the warehouse type from prefabricated parts.

The A. T. Stewart store in New York- believed to be the first
large department store - is a structure of this kind. The
original building, now a part of the Wanamaker establishment,
is still in existence. Completed and first occupied in 1863, it
had two stories in the basement, five stories above ground, an
attic, and six elevators.
237
The immense stores erected in Chicago in the late eighties,
with their great unbroken areas of floor space, continued to
follow the warehouse type. Examples from this period in
Chicago are the Leiter Building of 1889 (built originally for
single offices and now owned by Sears, Roebuck & Company)
and "The Fair" of 1891- both by William LeBaron Jenney. 7
A peculiar solution One large store departed from the warehouse pattern- John
in Philadelphia Wanamaker's "Grand Depot" at Thirteenth and Market
(1876)
streets, in Philadelphia - but even this building was another
type of storage place (jig. 137). The Grand Depot, opened as a
department store in 1876 (the year of Eiffel and Boileau's
Magasin au Bon Marche), was originally a freight depot of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. It had served as a freight shelter for
over twenty years before Wanamaker hit upon the daring idea
of transforming it into an immense, single-story dry goods
store. 8
The Grand Depot had more than two acres of floor space. A
circular counter ninety feet around occupied the center of the
building. From this counter there radiated a series of aisles
which were intersected by other aisles and counters that were
concentric with the big counter in the middle. 9 The layout
resembles that used for the Paris exhibition of 1867.
The Magasin au The first modern glass and iron department store with a free
Bon Marche, Paris, influx of natural light throughout was the Magasin au Bon
1876: constructed Marche in Paris. It was in complete contrast to the warehouse
by Eiffel
type with its superimposed, artificially lighted stories. At the
time of its building in 1876, it was regarded as a model of
elegance. 10
The Bon Marche was the work of the engineer Eiffel (later to
construct his famous tower) and the architect L. A. Boileau
(the son of one of the great French pioneers in the use of iron
in architecture).
7 Cf. pp. 370-374.

8 J. H. Appel, "Reminiscences of Retailing," Bulletin of the Business Historical Society,
vol. XII, no. 6 (December 1938).
9 Cf. The Golden Book of the Wanamaker Store (Philadelphia, 1911), p. 52.
10 There were many older department stores in Paris; the Magasin au Bon Marche itself
had been founded a quarter-century earlier, in 1852.
238
Boileau felt that thick walls were unsuited to buildings of this
type; "only pillars of small diameter are permissible." And
he goes on to remark that these pillars "should be no more
than the hors d 'ceuvre of the construction." 11 The ground
floor of the building already shows the use of large glass surfaces
set in unbroken series. A glass shelter is carried in a continu-
ous line along the whole front of the store above the show
windows and reinforces the impression produced by the areas
of glass they contain.
The corner of the store is built out, like a pavilion, reminding Corner of store
one of the round towers of the French chateaux. Later ex- built out like a
pavilion
amples were unable to break away from this precedent. A
similar treatment appears in Paul Sedille's Magasin Printemps,
Paris, of 1881-89. EvEn Louis Sullivan's Carson, Pirie, Scott
store in Chicago, built around 1900, reflects in the shape of its
corner the persistent memory of the pavilion. 12
The mark of the great constructor Eiffel is visible in the treat-
ment of the interior of the Bon Marche. Its area of more than
thirty thousand square feet is divided into a series of courts of
various shapes, each covered by a large glass skylight. The
passage from court to court is simplified by the presence of
lofty iron bridges or passerelles like those Labrouste had used,
nearly two decades earlier, in the stack room of the Biblio-
theque Nationale (fig. 138).
Never before had light flowed into a store in such bright Seriousness and
streams. A true glass architecture had been erected over the simplicity
framework of the building (fig. 140). The creative fantasy of
the nineteenth century can be felt in its combination of glass
skylights, aerial bridges in iron, slim iron columns, and the
curious ornamental shapes so characteristic of the period. For
all this variety, there is a seriousness and simplicity about the
Magasin au Bon Marche taken as a whole. The architeqtonic
pomp and boastfulness later called upon to attract and seduce
the masses is avoided here.
The great masses of light which enter the building through its Helation to con-
refined and even airy construction anticipate one of the chief temporary work
11 L.A. Boileau, fils, "Les Magasins au Bon Marche," Encyclopedie d'architecture, 1880,
p. 184. 12 Cf. pp. 388-390.
239
138. EIFFEL and BOILEAU. Bon Marche, Paris, 1876. Iron bridges in the interior.
The creative fantasy of the nineteenth century can be fell in this combination of glass sky-
lights, aerial bridges in iron, slim iron columns, and the curions ornamental shapes so char-
acteristic of the period.
139. EI FFEL and

BOILEAU. Bon Mar-
c he , Pari s, 1876.
Gronnd plan. A rea,
thirty lhonsand sqnare
feel. The "perforated"
interior space is typical
of French bnildings.
concerns of contemporary architects. Five decades after

Eiffel's construction of the Bon Marche, the same joy in the
play of light through space perforations is to be found in Le
Corbusier's interiors and exteriors and in the way he makes the
two interpenetrate.
240
140. EIFFEL and BOILEAU. Bon Marche, Paris, 1876. Glass roof over skylight.
This glass architecture was invisible from the street. The moment the nineteenth century
feels itself unobserved and has no longer to make a show, then it is truly bold.
Eiffel's imaginative approach to technical problems can be Boldness of the

seen in the exterior forms of the high glass roof which is built nineteenth cen-
over the skylights of the courts. The ordinary spectator never tury where it is
unobserved
sees this part of the building. The communicating passerelles
are fantastically balanced over the inclined planes of this tent-
like glass roof. 13 The moment the nineteenth century feels
itself unobserved and is no longer conscious of any need for
making a show ~ then it is truly bold!
From this time onward the undisguised shapes with their
natural content of feeling that mark the rear and unobserved
portions of railroad stations and factories begin to make them-
selves felt in the front walls of buildings.
13 T he very early photograph made at the time of the erection of the building shows that
even then people felt something unusual had been accomplished here.
241
141. Winter Garden and Assembly Room, Paris, 181i. Joseph Paxton may well have
been inspired for the idea of his Crystal Palace by this once celebrated cross-shaped building,
which, standing between Rand Pont and the present Avenue Marbreuf, changed the simple
glass house into a social meeting place containing ballroom , cafe, reading room, and paintings
on sale along the high glass walls. "The magnificent building," observed Loudon's En-
clopaedia of Gardening in 1850 (pp. 93- 94), "is supposed to be one of the largest and finest
in Europe ... extreme length 300 feel, extreme breadth 180 f eel, extreme height 60 feet."
Different ways Comparing nineteenth-century department stores in France

to solve a new and America we may observe how a new building problem -
building apparently governed solely by practical considerations - is
problem
brought to a different solution in different countries.
In America, as we have just seen, the department store fol-
lowed the warehouse type: one unbroken floor area was built
on top of another. In France the light court and "perforated"
interior space appear even before Eiffel in department stores
of wooden construction (fig. 139). The Eiffel and Boileau
Magasin au Bon Marche reveals very clearly a tendency in-
242
herent in French architecture. The urge to hollow out interior
spaces to the greatest extent possible appears in French build-
ings from Romanesque times onward. It is visible in those
daring Gothic choirs which seem to have been left almost too
fragile to stand, and in the latest works of our own day. The
audacity of French engineering is only a modified expression
of this same trend.
142. First Industrial Exposition, Champ-de-Mars, Paris, 1798.
THE GREAT EXHIBITIONS
In the second half of the nineteenth century, with industry The exhibitions
undergoing its greatest expansion, industrial exhibitions
afforded truly creative architecture its best opportunities.
Toward the end of the century, when industry had come to be
taken as a matter of course and was no longer looked upon
as new and marvelous, they lost their creative force. New
problems had emerged in the meantime which demanded new
solutions.
The exhibitions were born almost simultaneously with modern Facilitated com-
industry; they appeared at the time when the shift from hand- parison of products
work to machine production made itself obvious. Throughout
that period people in many countries were working feverishly
to invent new machines and new processes. The chief purpose
243
of the early exhibitions was to bring together the results of this
work, to display the new discoveries side by side, and thus to
facilitate their comparison and adoption. The development of
industry in all its branches was accelerated by these exhibitions,
in which every sphere of human activity was represented: the
implements, methods, and products of mines, mills, machine
shops, and farms were on display, together with work in the
fine and the applied arts.
The industrial exhibition embodied a synthesis of the as yet
unformulated aims of the nineteenth century. It foretold the
transformation that was to be effected in man as well as in
industry, in human feelings as well as in human surroundings.
The exhibitions were a part of the march of industry and were
bound up in its destiny.
Two periods in The history of the exhibition is divided into two periods.
the history of The earlier of these periods opens and closes in Paris; it begins
the exhibitions with the first industrial exhibition ever held- that of 1798-
and ends with the Paris exhibition of 1849. The exhibitions of
this initial period were made possible ty the collapse of the
guilds in 1791, and were all purely national in character.
The first period, The premiere exposition des produits de l'industrie fram;aise
national exhibi- was opened on the Champ-de-Mars in Paris in September
tions: Paris, 1798 1793 (jig. 142). It inaugurated an exhibition movement which
was t<J lead to some of the outstanding achievements of the
nineteenth century. The start made at Paris in 1798 was a very
modest one. There were some luxury articles displayed, but
the precedent for nearly all future exhibitions was set by the
central position given to articles of daily use: watches, wall
paper, cloth, and cotton yarn- yarn which "was carded and
spun by means of machinery," as the catalogue was careful to
state.
There were only a hundred and ten exhibitors at this first
exposition, but this does not detract from its importance. It
was primarily intended as a sort of people's festival, in celebra-
tion of the freedom from guild restrictions that the Revolution
had brought. This festive motive accounted for its location
in the Champ-de-Mars, the scene of all national celebrations
since the fall of the monarchy. It was the proclamation de
244
la liberie du travail in 1791 that first gave every citizen the
right to follow whatever trade he desired. What was more
important, this proclamation, in according a new liberty to
production, gave official encouragement to a progress of in-
dustry and invention from which everyone expected great
things. "Ces arts n'avaient pas pu encore se developper a
cause des entraves sans nombre. Mais la liberte les vengerait .
a
. . . So us l' egide de la liberte, les arts utiles etaient appeles
un brilliant avenir."
The second period occupies the latter half of the nineteenth The second period,
century and owes its force to the principle of free trade. In international
this period the exhibition takes on a new character; it becomes exhibitions:
motives
international in its scope. The national exhibitions of industry
during the first half of the century had followed upon the
abolition of the legal obligation to belong to a guild. Some-
thing else was demanded for an international exhibition; there
was no reason to bring together products from all over the
world unless there existed at the same time the possibility of
selling to the whole world. An international exhibition could
have value only in a world where trade restrictions of all kinds
had been reduced to a minimum. These great exhibitions were
the product of the liberal conception of economy: free trade,
free communication, and improvement in production and
performance through free competition.
The exhibitions also fostered a spirit of rivalry, a desire to equal
or improve upon the last exhibition. Thus risks were taken in
many departments, not least of all in architecture. Such a
spirit of rivalry, together with the efficiency it promoted, is
visible in the Crystal Palace world exhibition of 1851.
The history of exhibitions during the latter half of the nine- Advances in
teenth century constitutes at the same time a history of iron construction
construction. Exhibition buildings were planned for rapid fostered by
exhibitions
erection and dismantling: both were facilitated by the use of
iron. Again, iron parts for such buildings could be fabricated
in widely separated workshops. Finally, iron was everywhere
regarded at this date as the medium of expression most truly
appropriate to the period. But exhibition buildings did not
simply call for the use of iron; the fact that they appeared at
short intervals and were meant to be only temporary encour-
245
aged the experimental employment of iron in their construction.
The exhibition became the trial ground for new methods. In
all the great international exhibitions- from the first at
Crystal Palace, London, in 1851 to the last at the end of the
century - constructors attempted tasks that had never been
faced before. When their experiments succeeded in this special
field they became a part of standard building practice. It
was in this way that the Eiffel Tower came to be erected in
1889, despite the most doleful prophecies of disaster.
New constructions The history of the exhibition shows not only the developments
demanded new in iron construction during the period but also important
aesthetic responses
changes in habits of aesthetic response. The new structural
treatments of load and support demanded new aesthetic
reactions. In the past people had grown to expect the basis of
the equilibrium between load and support in a building to be
visible at a glance, to lie open to inspection. But with the intro-
duction of new methods of iron construction it became more and
more diflicult to differentiate between load and support: a new
poised equilibrium of all the parts of a structure began to
appear.
What the exhibi- The optimism of the nineteenth century and its faith in the
tions symbolized possibilities of industry are reflected in the great exhibitions.
Industry would "unite the human race" - or so Prince
Consort Albert dreamt in 1850. There seemed no limit to what
industry could achieve at the start of its period of greatest
expansion; people confidently expected it to solve all the
problems of the world.
Unparalleled con- The exhibitions sprang from and symbolize the urge to master
centration of the earth's resources and draw out all its wealth. In a manner
human activities
which is unparalleled in earlier periods they served as a con-
centration point for human activities of every sort, the en1-
phasis always falling on industry and its latest inventions.
These exhibitions mark the points where the nineteenth cen-
tury drew aside from the rush of production in which it was
caught to survey the progress that had been made.
The concentration of the activities of the century in a single
place attracted interested representatives from all over the
world. The exhibitions became, naturally, the scene of all
246
sorts of international congresses- of science, industry, finance,
and labor. Beyond this, they attracted official observers from
all those countries which were anxious to learn of and adopt
the new developments. There are reports by Spanish, Italian,
and Turkish observers which fill many volumes. The report
of the United States Commissioner to the Paris exhibition of
1867 takes up six volumes, each of about three hundred and
fifty pages.
The very complete surveys published by the countries where Official reports:
the exhibitions were held show a contemporary realization of scope, and histor-
their unique importance. They were edited with great care; ical value
later generations will find them the most satisfactory sources
for a knowledge of what actually went on during the nine-
teenth century. These reports were often made under the
supervision of men who posse8sed real foresightedness and
initiative. Henry Cole was responsible for the first of these
large-scale surveys - the Official Descriptive and Illustrative
Catalogue of the Great Exhibition (London, 1851), in four big
blue volumes. The thirteen-volume report on the Paris exhibi-
tion of 1867 was prepared under Michel Chevalier, a former
Saint-Simonist. As an exile, Chevalier had traveled in the
United States during the thirties; after his return to France he
worked continually to promote industry.
Exhibitions grew out of the old fairs, familiar to every century.
The first French exhibition in 1798 was essentially a kind of
people's festival, and all later exhibitions retained this festival
motif.
The nineteenth century marks the point when leisure vanished The great exhibi-
from daily life. The ability to develop an original form for tions, the nine-
teenth century's
festivals vanished with it. During the second half of the nine-
original form for
teenth century the exhibitions remained the great festivals in festivals
the life of nations. Warehouses, department stores, and office
buildings remained closely bound up with immediate practical
needs. The exhibitions had their practical function to fulfill
also, but they operated in an atmosphere far removed from
the rush of everyday life and were able to sustain a festive
character. There was always a sharp contrast between their
festive and their practical or official aspects. The sureness
which appears in the construction of their great halls is not
247
carried over into the social arrangements in the interiors of
the halls, for example. But, even so, they represent the
closest approach of the period to an original form of group
celebration.
Even in the nineteenth century, when architecture was rooted
in the background of industrial development, it was in these
buildings of a certain festive intent that the great solutions of
the period to the vaulting problem were made.
Significance of the From the beginning of architecture the vaulting problem has
vaulting problem always brought forth the highest architectural expressions of
during the Renais-
every epoch. Thus the barrel vault painted by Masaccio dur-
sance, the baroque
period, and the ing the early Renaissance was developed into a ceremonious
nineteenth century expression of the full Renaissance and early baroque world.
In the late baroque, changes in vaulting once again accom-
panied changes in the outlook of the age.
Solutions to the vaulting problem played the same important
role in the nineteenth century. The haul gout of the nine-
teenth-century style in architecture requires - as we have
already noted more than once- more careful study than it has
yet been given. But, whatever results such a study may lead
to, the constituent facts of architectural development will be
found to be those original solutions of the vaulting problem
which first took shape in the large halls of great exhibitions.
New vaulting Objections to this view could readily be advanced. It might
problems of the be said that these exhibition buildings represented nothing but
nineteenth century
the answers to very sober practical needs, while the vaulting
solved in industrial
buildings problem had possessed an almost metaphysical significance in
earlier periods.
These objections cannot be ignored. Furthermore, it is obvious
that such exhibition buildings were out of direct contact with
human needs. But in a certain sense this remark applies to
the period as a whole. Their indifference to human needs
makes these constructions a true - if harsh - expression of
the times. Nevertheless we may succeed in showing that be-
hind this indifference a new feeling lies hidden.
The two most beautiful buildings of the period of the great
exhibitions- the Crystal Palace of 1851 and the Galerie des
248
Machines of 1889 - have disappeared. The first was de-
stroyed by fire in 1937; the second was senselessly torn down
in 1910. Their loss is a typical consequence of the day-to-day
mood that governs our period. Only photographs and etchings
remain as witness that the overcoming of gravity in apparently
floating constructions (which is the essence of any solution to
the problem of vaulting) was achieved in magnificent form
during the nineteenth century.
The Great Exhibition, London, 1851

The Crystal Palace (fig. 143) had the impact of a fairy story on
all those who saw it opened in London in 1851. Industry, after
all the blight and disorder it had brought about, now displayed
another and a gentler side, aroused feelings that seemed to
belong only to the ·world of dreams.
The Crystal Palace housed an exhibition that was the first of The great exhibi-
its kind, one that reflected the courage and enterprise of the tion initiated by the
Prince Consort and
early Victorian period. The Prince Consort, Albert, and Sir
Sir Henry Cole
Henry Cole 1 were its leading spirits, and it was the former
who gave it a central theme. Cole relates a conversation he
had with Prince Albert at Buckingham Palace on June 29,
1849: "I asked the Prince if he had considered [whether] the
exhibition should be a national or an international exhibition.
The French had discussed whether their own exhibition should
be international, and had preferred that it should be national
only. The Prince reflected for a minute and then said, 'It
must embrace foreign productions' - to use his words - and
added emphatically, 'International, certainly .... Where do
you think it should be?' I answered, 'In Hyde Park.'" The
prince's decision was by no means a casual reply. In 1850 he
declared:'' None will doubt that we are living in a most remark-
able period of transition, laboring forcefully toward that great
1 Sir Henry Cole (1808-1882) was an active influence upon English industry from 1845
on. Unlike the members of the movement begun by William Morris in the sixties, Cole
tried to work with industry rather than to revive hand crafts. As he said in 1845, his
aim was to develop "'art manufactures,' meaning fine art or beauty applied to mechan-
ical production." His program included the founding of schools of design intended to
raise the level of popular taste. As a part of this program he founded the first museum of
decorative art, the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington. For further in-
formation seeS. Giedion, M echanizalion Takes Command (Oxford University Press, 1948).
249
143. Crystal Palace, London, 1851. General view. Lithograph.
144. Crystal Palace, London, 1851. Plan. Ground area, eight hundred thousand
square feet. The Crystal Palace made no real contribution to the nineteenth-century prob-
lem of vaulting in iron, but it marks the first use on a grand scale of prefabricated parts, and
it arrives at a new artistic expression through the use of the new material. plate glass.
250
aim indicated everywhere by history: the union of the human
race .... Gentlemen, the exhibition of 1351 shall give a vivid
picture of the stage at which industry has arrived in the solution
of that great task." 2
The Crystal Palace had behind it the highly developed industry Crystal Palace
of England and is an application of the most simple and based on prefab-
ricated parts
rational system of manufacturing - that of serial production.
Its builder, Joseph Paxton, used the "ridge and furrow"
construction employed in the greenhouses which were used
to protect the tropical plants at Chatsworth in 1337. The de-
sign of the whole building was planned around the largest
standard sheet of glass, which was only four feet long.
Larger panes could not be made at this time. The panes
used in the Palace were the work of the Chance Brothers'
Birmingham plant. (The furnace used in this work is still in
service.)
It is astonishing to find Paxton able at this early date to dissect Small span
the whole building into a simple system of small prefabricated
units. There are the wooden ridge and furrow frames for the
glass, the iron lattice girders on which the panes rested, and
the cast-iron supporting pillars - bolted together floor by
floor. The wood and iron structural members were manu-
factured in various shops in Birmingham and fitted together
on the site at London. In this manner a building with a ground
area of some eight hundred thousand square feet- about four
times that of St. Peter's, as contemporaries remarked with
pride- arose within six months. Its length was 1,351 feet-
to correspond with the date of its erection. But for all its
architectural beauty, the Crystal Palace makes no contribu-
tion to the problem of vaulting as it concerns iron construction.
The barrel vault in its transept had a wooden framework, and
its span of seventy-two feet was less than that of many
medieval buildings (jig. 144).
The Crystal Palace was the realization of a new conception of "A revolution in
building, one for which there was no precedent. It was, in architecture"
addition, the first building of such dimensions constructed of
glass, iron, and timber over a framework of cast- and wrought-
2 Sir Henry Cole, Fifty Years of Public Service (London, 1884), I, 124-125.
251
145. Crystal Palace,
Sydenham. Interior.
Photograph of the trans-
planted Crystal Palace,
taken in 1935, shortly
before its destruct ion
by fire.
iron girders accurately bolted together. The possibilities

dormant in modern industrial civilization have never since,
to my knowledge, been so clearly expressed. It was recog-
nized at the time that this combination of wood, glass, and
iron - incidentally a combination resulting in an admirably
practical exhibition technique - had evoked a new kind of
imagination which sprang directly from the spirit of the age.
Only thus can we explain the confident prediction of con-
temporaries, since justified in all essentials, that "the Crystal
Palace is a revolution in architecture from which a new style
will date." 3
3Lothar Bucher, Kullurhistorische Skizzen aus der lndustrieausslellung aller Volker
(Frankfort, 1851), p. 174.
252
Lothar Bucher wrote in 1851 that "the building encountered An opinion
no opposition, and the impression it produced on those who of 1851
saw it was one of such romantic heauty that reproductions of
it were soon hanging on the cottage walls of remote German
villages. In contemplating the first great building which was
not of solid masonry construction spectators were not slow to
realize that here the standards by which architecture had
hitherto been judged no longer held good." 4
Bucher, a democratic political exile who was later to become "AIL materiality
Bismarck's right-hand man in the Wilhelmstrasse, then goes blends into the
on to describe the interior (figs. 145, 148). The description atmosphere "
reads almost exactly like a present-day analysis of architecture:
"We see a delicate network of lines without any clue by means
of which we might judge their distance from the eye or the
real size. The side walls are too far apart to be embraced in a
single glance. Instead of moving from the wall at one end to
146. "The Favorite.;": popular sculpture of 1851. It is important not to lose sight
of what was really admired in the nineteenth century by officials, critics, and the pub-
lic. A contemporary opinion of "The Favorites": " One of the most charming groups
of the British Sculpture Court . .. lifelike, intere:~ting and beautiful . .. "
' Bucher, ibid.
253
that at the other, the eye sweeps along an unending perspective
which fades into the horizon. We cannot tell if this structure
towers a hundred or a thousand feet above us, .or whether the
roof is a flat platform or is built up from a succession of ridges,
for there is no play of shadows to enable our optic nerves to
gauge the measurements.
"If we let our gaze travel downward it encounters the blue-
painted lattice girders. At first these occur only at wide
intervals; then they range closer and closer together until they
are interrupted by a dazzling band of light - the transept -
which dissolves into a distant background where all materiality
is blended into the atmosphere .... It is sober economy of
147. HECTOR HOREAU. First prize in the competition for the Crystal Palace, 1850.
Hector Horeau (whose project for lhe Grandes Hailes we remember) won lhe first prize with
a light iron conslruclion of the basilica type. It may to some extent have influenced lhe com-
mittee's decision nullo erect a monumental edifice, their original intention.
language if I call the spectacle incomparable and fairylike.

It is a Midsummer Night's Dream seen in the clear light of
midday."
Counterparts in Are there counterparts of the Crystal Palace among the
painting: the land- paintings of the period - any paintings, that is, which give
scapes of Turner
"no idea of the actual size or distance involved," and where
"all materiality blends into the atmosphere"~ There are none
to be found outside the orbit of English painting. J. M. \V. Tur-
ner's study of the Simplon Pass, 5 painted c. 1340 (fig. 149),
uses a humid atmosphere to dematerialize landscape and dis-
solve it into infinity. The Crystal Palace realizes the same
intention through the agency of transparent glass surfaces and
iron structural members. In the Turner picture the means
employed are less abstract, but an equivalent insubstantial
and hovering effect is produced. The deep hollows in the
5 In the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
254
mountains - done in gray, brown, and blue - and the yel-
lowish-brown road that winds up to the peaks in the back-
ground combine to eliminate every naturalistic feature: they
seem precisely to make up parts of a dream landscape, "seen
in the clear light of midday."
In the Crystal Palace an artistic conception outdistances the The Crystal
technical possibilities of the era - something which is very Palace: association
rare in the nineteenth century. The whole building reflects the of gentleness with
grandeur
careful hand of its builder, the landscape gardener Joseph
Paxton, who was more accustomed to work with plants than
with machinery. The curious association of an unmistakable
grandeur with a certain gentleness was never again to be
achieved. 6 From now on, development will come for decades
at the hands of the engineer. He will achieve the new solutions.
The Universal Exhibition, Paris, 1855

The exhibition was inaugurated in France as a national festival France the center
in 1798 and continued to develop along such lines throughout of exhibitions
the first half of the nineteenth century. In 1849 the French after 1850
Minister of Commerce proposed making the Paris exhibition
of that year an international one. The French chambers of
commerce, however, lacked suflicient courage to open their
frontiers to foreign industry. It was not until 1855, four years
after the international exhibition at the Crystal Palace, that
the first "exposition universelle des produits de l'industrie"
was held in France. But from 1855 on, all the great exhibitions,
all those that had any historical importance, were held in
France. During this period, as in Gothic times, France was the
scene of the most audacious constructions. Both the public
and the press adopted a certain waiting attitude toward the
exhibition of 1855 which disappears with later French exhibi-
6 During the fifties several attempts were made to construct a building exclusivelY. of
glass and iron- as in the New York exhibition of 1853, for example. The plan executed
at New York in 1853 was a mediocre one which grafted a monumental dome upon
Paxton's ideas. Paxton himself submitted a design, but it was unsatisfactory. The plan
of James Bogardus - an original and genuinely American solution to the problem -
was also rejected (cf. Fig. 111). The beginnings Paxton had made in the Crystal Palace
suffered another setback in the London \Vorld's Fair of 1862. Its pseudo-monumental
dornes and triumphal arches followed in the path of the Palais de l'ludustrie, Paris, 1855,
but without equalling its constructive hardihood. For further details, cf. "Record of
the Great Exhibition," Practical Mechanic's Journal (London, 1862).
255
148. Crystal Palace, Interior. "We see a delicate network of lines without any clue by
means of which we might judge their distance from the eye, or the real size" (Lothar Bucher,
1851).
tions. At first people were anxious not to commit themselves;

finally new applications for exhibition space were made in such
numbers that the area originally fixed upon proved too small.
The exhibition consequently ended by showing numerous
additions.
Scheme for the Ground plan (fig. 151): The Palais de l'Jndustrie was a rec-
exhibition of 1855 tangular structure with a high center aisle which was sur-
rounded by a double row of galleries. The low side aisles were
supported by numerous cast-iron pillars. The center aisle
connected with one of those circular panoramas so popular at
the time and with the twelve-hundred-meter Galerie des
Machines which extended along the Seine. The Galerie des
Machines (fig. 152), in spite of the narrow barrel vault which
seems to link it with Fontaine's gallery in the Palais d'Orleans,
was the starting point for that succession of halles des machines
256
149. J. M. W. TURNER. Simplon Pass. Water color, c. 1840. Fogg Museum, Cam-
bridge, Mass. The unsubstantial and hovering effect of the Crystal Palace is achieved here
through a humid atmosphere which dematerializes the landscape and dissolves it into infinity.
which produced the most daring solutions to the vaulting

problem.
Span: The Palais de l'Industrie had a span of forty-eight Widest vaulting
meters. This was the widest vaulting attempted in the period. of the period
It represents a great advance over what was achieved in the
Crystal Palace, with its span of about twenty-two meters. 7
Wrought-iron lattice girders, partially hand-forged, were used.
It was the first time they had been employed for vaulting.
The enormous areas of glass introduced into the vaulting al-
most blinded contemporary spectators, who were unaccus-
tomed to the amount of light that was admitted. The form of
the vaulting recalls the manner in which great halls and stair-
cases were covered during the first and second empires. Even
7Long before this, Gothic builders had attained a span of twenty-nine meters in the
wooden vaulting of the Salone at Padua.
257
150. International Exhibition, Paris, 1853. I nlerior of the main building. Span of f orty-
eight meters very great for the period. No tie bars were 11sed, but they were avoided artificially,
through the use of heavy buttresses.
151. International Exhibition, Paris, 1855. Plan.
258
152. The Hall of Machines,
Paris, 1855. A gallery twelve
hundred meters long paralleling
the Seine, the starting point for
those Galeries des Machines which
became more and more the pivotal
points of the industrial exhibitions.
at this early stage, the meaning of the new materials had been
grasped; emphasis rests upon the opening-up of space rather
than the walling-in of a volume (jig. 150).
Construction: The round, high-swung arches of the center No tie bars; use of
aisle show how much progress had been made. No tie bars buttresses instead
encroach upon the free space, in spite of the bold span of
nearJy fifty meters. Still, one feels that the construction lacks
a certain lightness which is familiar to us from present-day
work. In order to counteract the lateral stress there was still
no alternative to the imitation of Gothic principles of con-
struction. The immense blocks of lead that were used as abut-
ments were as expensive as they were wasteful of space. Hector
Horeau had used the same principle in his unexecuted design
for the Grandes Hailes (1849). 8
In this exhibition a combination of a wide span with a light Use of stone
construction was attempted before the appropriate methods
had been discovered. But there is also a dangerous retrogres-
s Cf. pp. 231-232.
259
sion from the advance which the Crystal Palace represents.
The main building, the Palais de l'Industrie, was completely
encased in heavy stone walls and included an immense trium-
phal arch. This monumental stonework was unhappily taken
as a pattern for later exhibitions in London (1862) and in
Chicago (1893). 9
The Palais de l'Industrie stood in the Champs-Elysees -
during the whole Second Empire a central point in Hauss-
mann's project for building a new Paris. It was used for society
gatherings and for shows of various kinds until 1897, when it
was pulled down to make room for the exhibition of 1900.
Paris Exhibition of 1867

Ground plan Ground plan: The external contour of the exhibition build-
symbolized the ing was intended to symbolize the globe (fig. 154). When the
globe; director
Champ-de-Mars was chosen as a site it became impossible to
an economist
give the building a circular outline, and it was designed as an
ellipse instead. The long axis was 490 meters (1,608 feet) and
the short axis 386 meters (1,266 feet). Frederic Le Play-
the distinguished engineer, economist, and expert on Euro-
pean labor conditions whom Napoleon III appointed director
of the exhibition - was responsible for the outline of its
ground plan, and for its general program as well. From this
time on, the Champ-de-Mars, the site in 1798 of the first of
the small national exhibitions, was the accepted site for the
great world exhibitions.
With regard to the ground plan, the question arose: How
should the separate sections be arranged so as to give the
spectator an ordered and undisturbed insight into the industry
of all nations~
Organization of Within the elliptical main exhibition building seven concentric
the elliptical galleries were placed, each conforming to the main outline of
exhibition building
the grounds (jig. 156). A garden was laid out inside the central
ellipse of thil'l colisee du travail. The galleries increased in size
as one moved outwards from the center. The outermost
• Cf. pp. 275-277, 380-382.
260
gallery - the Galerie des Machines - was twice the height
and width of the others (fig. 157). Industrial machinery was
exhibited here. Clothing, furniture, and raw materials were
displayed, in that order, in the next three galleries, counting
toward the center. The two innermost and smallest galleries
contained exhibits which concerned, respectively, l'histoire du
travail and the fine arts. A palm garden with statues occupied
the innermost oval (fig. 102). 10
Transverse walks divided this building into separate seg-

ments. From each segment a spectator could trace without
effort the developments within a single country and compare
them with the displays of other countries occupying adjacent
segments. This was an attempt at "living" statistics.
The aim of the exhibition can be gathered from a quotation

taken from an official publication of 1867. "To make the
circuit of this palace, circular, like the equator, is literally to
go around the world. All peoples are here, enemies live in
peace side by side. As in the beginning of things on the globe
of waters, the divine spirit now floats on this globe of iron."
The flowery language, somewhat reminiscent of Second Em-
pire decoration, nevertheless reveals the essential motive. 153. Popular sculpture,
"The Love of the Angels,"
Construction: The iron skeleton of the Galerie des Machines 1867.
-span thirty-five meters, height twenty-five meters- con-
sisted of pillars twenty-eight meters high. The arches of the
vault girders reached twenty-five meters into the air.
The pillars did not stop at the level of the vaulting but were Projecting pillars
allowed to continue straight up into the air. The chief con- replace the bars
structor, J. B. Krantz, did this to avoid the use of tie bars, and
because the lateral stress could only be supported by girders
built out from the pillars to the basket arches. These pillars
extending into the air were considered hideous, and an attempt
was made to disguise them as flag poles.
Hydraulic lifts with all the clumsiness of newborn monsters
afforded communication between the ground floor and the roof,
10Cf. L' Expos ilion universelle de 1867, illuslree, publication inlernalionale aulorisee par la
commission imperiale (Paris, 1867).
261
around which there ran a platform giving a striking view of
this city of galleries in corrugated iron and glass.
Behind the chief constructor stood the young Eiffel, who had
founded his own factory a short time before. It was from him
that the real inspiration for the Galerie des Machines came.
In all sorts of ways - by the extensive use of new materials,
by the employment of new devices like the elevator, by the
provision of walks along the transparent glass surfaces of the
promenoirs - the public was introduced not only to the new
technical achievements but also to completely new aesthetic
values.
155. MANET. View of the Exhibition of 1867.

Oil painting. Manet, whose pictures were denied
entry to this exhibition, showed his whole output on the
Pont de l'Alma. Manet has not only grasped exter-
nally the actuality of this building; he has set it forth
154. International Ex- in an adequate artistic language. The thing that is
hibition, Paris, 1867. Air important here is dynamic relation between the masses
vtew. of color.
263
156. International Exhibition, Paris, 1867. Section of the galleries of the main building.
Seven concentric galleries were placed within the elliptical main building; the Galerie des
Machines was twice the height and width of the others.
157. International Exhibition, P aris, 1867. Ga/erie des Machines. The entire span of
thirty-five meters was achieved without visible lie bars.

Scheme The exhibition of 1878 was intended to show the world that
France had recovered from its defeat in 1870. The success of
the exhibition of 1867 had been so great that in planning its
successor a larger area was fixed upon. The exhibition was
11The Philadelphia exhibition of 1876 is of interest as the first example of the use of the
pavilion system. This system was used again at Chicago in 1893 and at Paris in 1900.
By the end of the century it had become t he accepted method of organizing an exhibition.
The increasing scope and complexity of industry made it necessary t o segregate its
different aspects in separate buildings. But all this falls outside the scope of our re-
search. The Philadelphia exhibition brought no new solutions to the vaulting problem
which was just on the verge of being solved in France.
264
158. International Exhibition, Paris, 1878. The main entrance. The inflated sheet-metal
architecture is of no importance as compared with the glass wall and the marquise vitree.
The latter so intersects the vertical elements that the relation between load and support can no
longer be grasped at sight.
divided into two sections: one devoted to a monumental

building in stone, the other to temporary exhibition struc-
tures. On the far side of the Seine Davioud and Bourdais had
been building the stone palace of the Trocadero since 1876.
The main exhibition building follows the rectangular outline Main building
of the Champ-de-Mars. The ellipsoidal shape was abandoned rectangular
because it had proved very difficult, after an exhibition ended,
to find a use for the curved girders such a shape dictated.
A series of galleries in parallel formation extended over the
length of the site, all of them flanked and dominated by the
265
Galerie des Machines. Along the shorter sides of the grounds
ran two vestibules constructed by Eiffel facing the Seine.
Transitory The inflated sheet-metal architecture of the main entrance
facts conceal (fig. 158) and of the pavilions on both sides is a transitory fact
constituent of little consequence. Even at the time it was regarded as of
phenomena
questionable merit, fort discutable. But if we carry our atten-
tion beyond the temporarily favored shapes it embodied, we
shall find that the building exemplifies many constituent ele-
ments of architecture after 1900. The courage shown by the
glass fa<;ade was an augury of the future. Beside this glass
wall of 1878 we could place the glass walls of the Bauhaus in
Dessau and the Hallieday warehouse in San Francisco (1918). 12
The glass Another constituent fact of later architecture appears in the
wall and the projecting glass canopy, or marquise vitree which is carried
marquise vitree
the length of the glass front wall. This marquise vifree, con-
stitutes a hovering, horizontal plane surface, intersecting the
vertical elements in such a way that the relations between load
and support can no longer be grasped at sightY Next to this
continuous glass skylight of 1878 we could place the skylight
of a 1926 shopping street in Amsterdam which constituted a
similar hovering element.
From the very beginnings of architecture, a visible relation
between load and support had been one of its outstanding facts.
This sort of construction marks the beginning of a different
kind of aesthetic feeling.
Construction: The main building of the exhibition of 1878 was
flanked on both sides by the imposing Galerie des Machines
(fig. 159). The barrel vault had disappeared. The Galerie
resembled in form the hull of an overturned ship. Its frame-
work girders, meeting in the roof, were built up of separate
parts, which showed already that construction was no longer
dependent on rigid continuous supports running right through
the building.
12 An intermediate step is to be found in a ferroconcrete loft building on Sutter Street,
San Francisco where a glass surface, covering the whole front, is suspended, cantilever
fashion, in front of the supporting pillars.
13 Eiffel seems to have been fond of this device. He used another canopy of plain glass
and iron on the front of his Magasin au Bon Marche in Paris (1876). This canopy
remained unchanged until very recently. (Cf. p. 241.)
266
159. International Exhibition, Paris, 1878. Seclion and perspective of the Galerie des
Machines. Span, thirty-five meters; height, twenty-five meters. Thanks to the engineer De
Dion, it had become possible to lead all the forces at work on a building directly into the
foundations, without employing tie bars.
Girders: The girders used are of the De Dion type. The en- Toward new
gineer Henry De Dion was the real creator of girders fit for large solutions of the
vaulting problem
spans. From a careful study of the tensile strength of materials
he arrived at the proper form for a built-up girder capable of
withstanding the various stresses put upon it without the as-
sistance of tie bars. De Dion died shortly before the opening
of the 1878 exhibition, while he was still engaged upon these
calculations. (The arrangement of the framework girders
shows a certain inner elasticity consequent upon the researches
into the essential laws of materials.)
Stepped roof joists ran through the lattice girders and joined Glass walls: an
them into a continuous structure expressing a tranquil pre- "imponderable
fluidity"
cision that had never been possible before. On both sides, from
the halfway point up, the walls were filled in with glass. Such
a union of glass and iron demands by its nature an extensive
dematerialization of a building, which can be felt when one
studies the Galerie des Machines. The contemporary architect
Boileau defines with perfect precision the impression produced
by this union: "The spectator is not aware of the weight of
transparent surfaces. These surfaces are to him air and light,
that is to say, an imponderable fluidity." 14
"Encyclopedic d'architeclure, 1887-88, p. 97.
267
Thanks to the work of De Dion, it had become possible to con-
duct all the forces bound up in a building straight down to the
foundations. However, this foundation was still rigidly con-
nected with the pillars and framework. The pillars are riveted
into U-shaped iron sockets which are sunk in the foundations.
But an iron skeleton is subject to temperature changes and
cannot be rigidly bound together in the manner of a stone
palace. De Dion was a pioneer in the study of the problems
that follow from this fact. The matter was dealt with quite
directly in the 1878 Galerie des Machines. Every sixty meters
along the ridge of the roof where the pairs of lattice columns
met, there was a complicated system of bolts set in oval holes
which automatically provided for the expansion and contrac-
tion of the whole skeleton.
The rigid connection with the ground that is still maintained,
together with the box-section girders and the canopy that
rests on them like a capital, suggests that memory of the an-
cient column and its simple relation of load and support still
lingered. But from this time on, with the rise of the truss
girder, a new system sets in, a system that in the iron skeleton
demands a hovering balance of the forces acting upon it.
Paris Exhibition of 1889

Climax of the The exhibition of 1889 marked at once the climax and the
development conclusion of a long development. In it great engineers like
Eiffel reached the height of their powers. New conceptions in
construction and new advances in industry united to give this
exhibition expressive brilliance and an enormous influence.
The long but humble Galerie des Machines of 1855, the huge
circular Galerie which Krantz and Eiffel built in 1867, and the
two great aisles of De Dion's Halle des Machines of 1878 are
steps in a development which culminates in the Palais des
Machines of 1889.
The exhibition of 1889 centered around the Eiffel Tower,
which Eiffel and his engineers had raised on the bank of the
Seine in the short space of seventeen months. The exhibition
buildings were spread out behind the tower. There were two
268
160. International Exhibition, Paris, 1889. Galerie des Machines. Span, 115 meters;
length, 420 meters. The first time a span of such size had ever been bridged. It embodies con-
structional experience accumulated during almost a whole century. This building was
wantonly destroyed.
wings, one housing the beaux-arts, the other the arts liberaux,
which were joined together by a section devoted to general
exhibits. The immense metal bulk of the Galerie des Ma-
chines rose in the background to dominate the whole complex.
A kind of traveling crane - les pants roulanls - was erected
within the Galerie des Machines (jig. 160). It transported
spectators over the length of the immense hall and enabled
them to inspect all the machinery (much of it in operation)
which was displayed on the floor below. On good days as
many as a hundred thousand passengers rode on this crane.
269
For the last time industry aroused some of the wonder with
which it was viewed at the time of its birth. Four years later
at the Chicago World's Fair a display of machinery on view
from ponts roulants could not have had this degree of success.
But the progress made between 1878 and 1889 was so tremen-
dous that visitors were stirred to the point of excitement by
the boldness of the Galerie des Machines and the Eiffel Tower.
The sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918) wrote of
his impressions as a thirteen-year-old boy: "Public opinion had
so long ignored the art of iron construction [that people were
not prepared to recognize or evaluate a work of the strength
and boldness of the Gal erie des Machines]. I remember very
clearly a hallucinatory passage through the brightness of the
nave in a traveling crane, above whirlpools of twisting rep-
tilean belts, creakings, whistles, sirens, and black caverns
containing circles, pyramids, and cubes." 14a
Unprecedented The constructor of the "Galerie des Machines" (actually

dimensions named the "Palais des Machines") 15 was Cottancin; the
architect, Dutert. The dimensions of the Galerie exceeded
anything previously known. The largest vaulting attempted
up to this time had been that of the St. Pancras Station in
London, 1868: span of 73 meters, height of 25 meters. The
Palais des Machines spanned 115 meters and was 45 meters
high. Its skeleton was composed of twenty trusses. Its
length was 420 meters. Huge glass walls enclosed the sides. 16
The volume of free space included by the 1889 Galerie des

A building not Machines represented an entirely unprecedented conquest of
bounded by matter. There is no earlier example that is comparable to it
its structural
in this respect. But the glass end walls do not, strictly, close
limits
up the building; they constitute only a thin transparent mem-
brane between the interior and outer space. And it is not as
14• "L'Architecture et le fer," in Poeme et Drame (Paris), January-March, 1914.

"This building, one of the high points reached in the evolution of construction, was torn
down in 1910- out of "artistic sadism," as Frantz Jourdain correctly says.
16 Somewhat earlier, and in a more unassuming way, J. W. Schwedler had attempted a
similar Auflagerung in his Central Railway Station, Frankfort on Main (opened in 1888).
This, however, did not break away from the barrel shape, which is ruled out in the
Gal erie des Machines by the very nature of the triply articulated girders used. Dimen-
sions of the Frankfort Station: length 186 m., width 56 m., height 29 m.
270
a building circumscribed within definite limits that the Galerie
des Machines is important. The girders in its skeleton could
have been either more or less numerous without thereby effect-
ing any distinctive alteration. The aesthetic meaning of this hall
is contained in the union and interpenetration of the building and
outer space, out of which there grows a completely new limitless-
ness and movement in keeping with the machines it contains.
Each arched truss is made up of two segments. A pin unites Traditional static
them at a pivotal point high above the center line of the hall. feelings disrupted
Moving downward, the trusses become increasingly atten-
uated until they appear scarcely to touch the ground; moving
upward, they spread and gain weight and power (fig. 161).
The usual proportions seem to be exactly reversed. These
triply articulated arches disturb, or rather disrupt, traditional
static feelings with regard to the rational relations of support
and load. Elongated like immensely drawn-out cantilevers,
the trusses embody movement in all their parts. Nothing
remains of the quiet stone architecture of the barrel vault.
A new sort of movement, penetrating space - as new in kind
as that achieved in Borromini's cupolas- is created here.
There is a further distortion of scale which must be noted:
a section of these trusses would be about five times as deep
as it was wide (three and a half meters deep by seventy-five
centimeters wide). This is felt as a distortion, since the eye
tends to take the dimensions of the stone architrave as its
standard of comparison.
When trusses were enlarged to such proportions there seemed Con temporary
to be a lack of filling material. In addition these girders were criticisms
unusually light, since this was the first time· steel framework
had been used to such an extent. The eye of the contemporary
onlooker was confused by these strange dimensions. Even
Anatole de Baudot, one of the first to open a path for con-
temporary architecture, declares that the proportions are a
failure, and the Belgian constructer Vierendeel complains that
"this lack of proportion produces a bad effect; the girder is
not balanced; it has no base ... it starts too low. . . . The
eye is not reassured. . . . The supports of the Galerie des
Machines show another fault: they are too empty."
271
161. International Exhibition, Paris, 1889. Base of three-hinged arch.
272
162. EDGAR DE-
GAS. "The Dancer."
Degas, the most dar-
ing experimentalist
among the painters of
the period and the ex-
act contemporary of
Ei.ffel, projects his
dancers stripped of
all erotic fat;ade. He
shows their dis-
tended nostrils and
all the tenseness of
straining effort. Max
Liebermann remarks
(in "Pan," the most
"precious" of the Ger-
man avant-garde re-
views, p. 195) that
" he seems to disguise
his models and to see
the nascent prostitute
in the young dancer:
no other painter has
so completely subdued
the novelistic element."
This painting exhibits
in its field the imper-
sonal, precise, and ob-
jective spirit which
produced construe-
lions like the Galerie
des Machines.
It is precisely the features that are criticized which pointed Construction

to later developments. Here construction is unconsciously moves uncon-
moving toward aesthetic feelings which did not find sciously toward
new aesthetic
their equivalents in art and architecture until decades feelings
later.
In this hall the light pouring in from above swallowed up the
thin latticework. So far as the optical impression is concerned.
the vault attains a floating or hovering state.
The last hint of the antique column has disappeared. It IS
impossible to separate load and support.
Bent as though in the act of leaping, the vaulting starts at a
very low level to take up its load. If we wish, we may regard
this vaulting as our equivalent of the caryatid. It does not
273
163. Popular painting, "The Kiss of the Wave," 1889. An immense woodcut filling two
pages in no. 2 of "Le Courrier de /'Exposition," special edition, April 14, 1889. With its
facile histrionics and its full share of erotic fa~ade it met all the demands of its day.
carry its burden with the dignity of the maidens of the Erech-
theum nor does it break down under it like the nude giants on
baroque portals. It springs up against its ]oad to unite with it.
The ends of the girders, narrowing as they approach the floor
(jig. 161), are no longer rigidly connected with the ground but
are ]eft free to move. The girders transmit their own weight,
plus the horizontal stress of 120,000 kilograms, directly
through a hinged joint. With this system of support, even
foundation movements could take place without setting up
internal stresses. 17 This was the only means whereby the play
of forces at all points of the system could be controlled. 18
17 This is an example of the way in which during the nineteenth century important
results followed from the application to building of discoveries made in purely technolog-
ical fields . Hinged joints were used in bridges around 1870 by Eiffel and others. (Cf.
Erving Matheson, Works in Iron , London, 1873, p . 145. ) The outstanding example is
Eiffel's bridge over the Douro, in Portugal.
18 " A single method of construction produced a mathematical determination of the dis-
tribution of the forces in different sections of the arch. This was the articulation at base
and apex. The system ensured a rational and completely exact distribution of the
stresses and of the materials used" (Alphand, p . 46) .
274
The division between load and support which was still indi-
cated in De Dion's halls of 1878 is here obliterated. Iron
vaulting has found its true form. The play of enormous forces
is held in an equilibrium that is floating rather than rigid.
It is the equilibrium of a balance beam daringly poised against
continually varying forces.
A new oscillating harmony is created.
An elastic counterpoise is achieved which absorbs changes in
the interior, the exterior, and the foundation.
This counterpoise adjusts itself to fluctuations of the ground.
An equilibrium is achieved against changes in the molecular
structure of the building itself.
An equilibrium is achieved against external pressure, wind,
and snow.
Construction passes over into expression.
Construction becomes the form giver.
Chicago, 1893
It is a curious illustration of the complex character of the Chicago:
nineteenth century that the great exhibitions should have be- advanced office
gun their decline in Chicago. At this period Chicago was the buildings and
"mercantile
place where the most daring and original work with office classicism"
buildings and apartment houses was being done. \Vhile the
Paris exhibitions - and especially that of 1889 - produced
structures that opened up new ranges of feeling, the World's
Columbian Exhibition at Chicago was the beginning of "mer-
cantile classicism." The influence of its plaster architecture
was widespread and tenacious. This was foreseen at the time
by Louis Sullivan, who in his Autobiography of an Idea pre- Louis Sullivan's
dicted that "the damage wrought to this country by the prediction
Chicago World's Fair will last half a century."
It is true that there were good things at Chicago in 1893: Louis
Sullivan's own Transportation Building (his one contribution
to the fair) and the covered piers that ran out into Lake
Michigan. The contemporary Belgian constructor Vierendeel
275
was nevertheless quite justified in saying that "the construc-
European tions were only imitations of what we have known in Europe
comment for a long time. We expected better, much better, from the
well-known audacity, initiative, and originality of the Ameri-
cans. We have been profoundly deceived." The staff architec-
ture enveloping the metal framework also lacked originality.
"In a new world they dared no innovations. They had doubts
of themselves." 19
It was not the pure curves of the piers extending out into the
lake that delighted the public but rather the gondolas and
gondoliers that had been especially imported from Venice
(fig. 164) . Louis Sullivan's building also failed to achieve a
popular success, which went instead to those "marble"
colonnades that were born out of the spirit of the French acad-
emicians - the very men who had done everything in their
power to prevent the erection of the Eiffel Tower. At the
Chicago World's Fair the architects believed that they were
19 La Construction architecturale en fer el acier (Brussels, 1902), p. 249.
164. World's F air, Chicago,

1893. Venetian gondoliers.
276
reviving the creative spirit of Medicean times and the public
fancied that the radiance of Florence was being recalled for
them to live in. These attitudes are easily understood; they
represent only another one of those frequent and futile at-
tempts to escape from the actual present, which - like fi-
nancial crises - recur constantly throughout the industrial
era.
It would have been very interesting- had space permitted- Decline of the
to deal in some detail with the immense influence of the great exhibitions
"Great Exhibitions" on the industry and life of nations. The
manner in which the "theme" of each exhibition found expres-
sion certainly merits some discussion also. Ultimately, "the
industry of all nations" came to be the inevitable theme for
any great exposition - and also came to be accepted with-
out any of the wonder and excitement that had attached to it
in the beginning. At that moment the exhibition as a problem
in building lost all its creative force. It became simply an
organized show like many others, and its success or failure was
a matter of no historical importance. Since the opening of this
century world fairs have been transitory occurrences that have
fallen ever further into commercial advertising, although here
and there an interesting building has appeared, such as Le
Corbusier's Electricity Pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair in
1958. Today's fairs can give no impetus to such themes as
"A Formulation of the Needs and Desires of Mankind" (Brus-
sels). These can only find their expression in the real world: in
new towns and in the renewal of community life.
GUSTAVE EIFFEL AND HIS TOWER
No other century in the history of the western world devel- Fate of architects
oped such hypertrophic building activity as the nineteenth, and engineers
and none produced such a small number of creative architects.
We do not think that this is due to any lack of talent, but
rather believe the society gradually killed any creative impulse
with the poison of its ruling taste.
277
165. International Exhibition, Paris, 1867. Iron skeleton. Probably the first pure
skeleton construction was the elliptical main exhibition building of this world's fair. Behind
the chief engineer stood the young Ei.ffel, the real inspirer. Ile calculated and verified the
construction of the pillars and the wide span of 35 meters. The modulus of elasticity in a
farge construction was tested for the first lime.
\Vhen revolutionary architects such as Henri Labrouste were

finally admitted to the French Academy, it was already
recognized by their contemporaries that they had left behind
them "Ia passion et I' espoir de confesser leur temps." 1 Archi-
tecture must stand up to wind and weather that it may have
a chance to have its impact on man. Unlike painting, archi-
tecture that never leaves the paper fades away like an old
photograph.
Sheltered in the shadow of industry and protected by the
authority of science, engineers were not hampered in their
development, for they did not have to play up to the ruling
taste. Although their names were unknown in their day,
they are noted in history and will not be forgotten. In the
same way most of their work remained anonymous, like
1 !~mile Trelat, in Encyclopedie d ' Architeclure (Paris), 1880, p. ·i5.
278
Gustave Eiffel's elegant skeleton (1886) that carries the
hammered copper skin of the Statue of Liberty at the entrance
of New York Harbor. That Eiffel's name is familiar to the
public is due only to the fact that the Eiffel Tower bore his
name from the very beginning.
Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) 2 came from Burgundy, the birth- Gustave
place of many great constructors. He got the best training Eiffel
available, at the £cole Polytt~chnique and the £cole Centrale.
We encountered his name earlier in connection with his cal-
culations for the arches of the Galerie des Machines (1867),
the glass walls of the large entrance hall for the international
exhibition of 1878, and the marvelously lit Bon Marche de-
partment store in Paris (1876), now deprived of its original
charm through hopeless "modernization."
In the daring construction of bridges over deep rivers in Eiffel's foremost
Europe and Africa, and also over the enormous streams of interest
Indo-China, he learned to master the elements of weather,
water, and wind. By means of hydraulic pressure the piles
of his first bridge near Bordeaux (1858), were driven twenty-
five meters below the surface of the water. Later, when he
had to span deep gorges, he erected columns (pylons) in the
shape of slender pyramids, tapering toward the traffic-way
they support. The large spans and the lofty heights of these
latticed supports, designed according to the newest methods
and with the greatest elegance, made him and his engineers
familiar with the impact of the wind. Early he was interested
in meteorological research, and in his later days he was one
of the first to found - at his own expense - an aerodynamic
laboratory. From the platform of his tower he dropped an
apparatus he had invented for registering the influence of
wind pressure on plane surfaces. Later, in his laboratory at
Auteuil, he had a large wind tunnel built for experiments in
the field of aviation. The action of moving air on rigid bodies
continuously preoccupied him - an interest carefully reg-
istered in many of his publications.
Gustave Eiffel is the master of elegantly constructed iron Arched bridges
towers - pylons - and airy two-hinged arches, which formed,
connected by horizontal traffic-ways, bridges like that over
2 See Jean Prevost's small biography, Ei.ffel (Paris, 1929).
279
the Douro or the Garabit Viaduct. The grandiose display of
equipoise which they offered had never been surpassed.
The river Douro 3 in northern Portugal, with its strong and
changing currents, its depth varying between forty-five and
sixty feet, in addition to a very unstable soil, made the use
of piles in the river bed not possible. Eiffel bridged it in a
single span of about five hundred feet- 160 meters- the
longest at that time (fig. 166), with exception, of course, of
suspension bridges. Eiffel built the two-hinged arch from the
166. G. EIF F E L . Bridge over the Douro, 1875. Span, 160 meters; height, 61 meters
above the level of the water. In erecting the high pylons and assembling the arches in midair,
Ei.ffel gained the necessary precision and experience to build the thousand-foot tower.
high iron pylons without scaffolding, by means of suspended

cables (1876-77). The Americans in bridging the Mississippi
River at St. Louis used a similar procedure.
The most daring of Eiffel's bridges remains the Garabit
Viaduct (1880-84). 4 Its total length is nearly half a kilo-
3 G. Eiffel, Notice sur le Pont Douro (Clichy, 1879). Good descriptions, drawings and
woodcuts.
4 G. EifTel, Memoire presente a l'appui du projet df!jinitij du Viaduc de Garabit (Paris,
1889). The importance of this bridge is shown in a large portfolio with all stages of
the calculation, the procedures of assembly, and photographs.
280
meter; it crosses the gorge 122.5 meters over the river
Thuyere with an arch span of 165 meters (figs. 167, 168).
He used every pos~ible graphic, analytic, and experimental
means to design his parabolic arches, which touch the ground
in point supports.
It was here that Eiffel and his engineers learned to master the
difficulties of assembling precisely dimensioned parts, so that
later the rivet holes of the factory-made members of the Eiffel
Tower could coincide to the tenth of a millimeter when being
erected on the site.
The one-thousand-foot Eiffel Tower, erected for the Paris The Eiffel Tower
exhibition of 1889, embodied in one single work all his expe-
rience with foundations and supports, against the intricacies
of earth and wind. 5 Even Eiffel himself was at first afraid to
shock the ruling taste with the erection of an uncompromising
bare structure in the heart of Paris, but he was urged on by
the head of his "Bureau d'etudes," the young Swiss engineer
Maurice Koechlin (1856-1946), who had made calculations
for the Garabit Viaduct.
In his artistic taste Eiffel was a true son of his time. His own
residence was filled with "a mess of heteroclite and unbe-
lievably ugly works of art." 6 As is well known, even the
creative personalities of our time still suffer from the split
between the methods of feeling and the methods of thinking.
Eiffel does not differ in this respect from other great con-
structors, like Freyssinet and Maillart.
Viewed from the standpoint of construction, the whole tower
is an adaptation of the lofty supports of iron bridges, in-
creased to cosmic dimensions. It springs in three stages to its
full height. Its large dimensions made it necessary to com-
pose the structure of four members meeting asymptotically
at the top and embracing an enormous space. The four
pylons are anchored to separate foundations, for which
5 In 1900 Eiffel published La Tour de trois cents metres in two monumental folio volumes,
describing the structure which will stand forever as a personification of "!'art de
l'ing{mieur moderne et le siecle d'industrie et de science." These are the words with
which in 1885 he introduced his "Tower in iron" before the Society of Civil Engineers
in Paris.
6 Blaise Cendrars, Aujourd'hui (Paris, 1931), p. 148.
281
167. G. El FFEL. Garabit Viaduct, l88<Hl~. The most daring of Ei.ffel's bridges.
Span, 165 meters; lolallength, almost half a kilometer; hei_qht above the wafer, 122.5 meters.
A perfect example of coordination of vision, calculation, and experiment.
168. G. EH'FEL. Garabit Viaduct. Detail of abut-

men/. In the late nineteenth century, pure forms - as far
as structures are concerned - are found in the works of
the great en_qineers. The plastic form of arch, hinged
joint, and abntment transcend the realm of construction.
282
169. G. EIFFEL. Decorative arch of the Eiffel Tower, 1889. The arch is merely a
decorative link, somehow a distraction for the eye from the heavy horizontal girders which
connect the four pylons.
170. G. EIFFEL. A pier of the Eiffel

Tower. V iewed from the angle of construction
the Eiffel Tower is formed of four immense
pylons, merging asymptotically together.
283
Eiffel used, of course, the hydraulic press, as he had done for
his bridges since 1858. Elevators run in the interior of the
supports as far as the second platform. Another elevator runs
within the core of the structure from the second to the third
platform, 904 feet above the ground. The four arches which
connect the supports (fig. 169) are mainly decorative, remi-
niscent nevertheless of Eiffel's original intention of carrying
the tower on four bridge arches.
The airiness one experiences when at the top of the tower makes
it the terrestrial sister of the aeroplane. It is interesting that
revenue from the entrance fees declined after the enormous
success of the exhibition in 1889, to rise again steadily from
1904/ which corresponds with the time when the interest in
flying machines began to arouse public curiosity. It was no
accident that Santos-Dumont chose to circle about this
tower on his spectacular flight in his airship.
To a previously unknown extent, outer and inner space are
interpenetrating (fig. 171). This effect can only be expe-
rienced in descending the spiral stairs from the top, when the
soaring lines of the structure intersect with the trees, houses,
churches, and the serpentine windings of the Seine. The inter-
penetration of continuously changing viewpoints creates, in
the eyes of the moving spectator, a glimpse into four-
dimensional experience.
Emotional content The emotional content of the tower remained veiled during the
of the tower next decades. The tower, which "stood up from Paris like
a hat pin" for the generation coming to the fore around
1910, was of course for the representatives of the ruling
taste a menace, a disgrace. In February 1887, a month after
Gustave Eiffel had signed the contract with the French gov-
ernment and the city of Paris, the famous protest against
the erection of the tower was handed to the chairman of the
exhibition committee: "We, the writers, painters, sculptors,
and architects come in the name of French good taste and of
this menace to French history to express our deep indig-
nation that there should stand in the heart of our Capital
this unnecessary and monstrous Tour Eiffel." But, fortu-
7 Journal du Credit Public, April 25, 1929.
284
nately, the chairman was the farsighted engineer and land-
scape architect Alphand, the same man who had created,
under Haussmann, the great parks of Paris.
Two decades later, an optical revolution shattered the static
viewpoint of the Renaissance, and suddenly the hidden
emotional content of the tower was revealed. It now became
the symbol of the "Grande Ville." "Such was Paris, with
her great tower from which every night streamed the blue
tresses of the wireless telegraph." 8
It was now that the great tower found its artistic revelation.
The Parisian painter, Robert Delauney (1885-1947), found
in its structure a possibility of showing what was going on
below in the changing apprehension of the outer world (jig.
173). Indeed since 1910 the tower, portrayed in all its
multi-sidedness, accompanied Delauney through all the dif-
ferent stages of his life. The poet Blaise Cendrars in his
Aujourd'hui gives us insight into the new approach of this
young generation.
No longer is the tower a hideous monster. It grows in its
emotional significance, and its contemporary, the Sacre Cmur
of Montmartre, with its white cupolas, becomes degraded to
a sugarplum in the eye of the poet.
"I saw through my window the Eiffel Tower like a flask of
clear water, the domes of the lnvalides and the Pantheon as a
teapot and sugar basin, and the Sacre Cmur a pink and white
sugarplum. Delauney came almost every day to visit me.
He was always haunted by the tower." 9 ·
"At that time there was no artistic formula that could claim
to express the plasticity of the Eiffel Tower. Under the laws
of realism it crumbled, and the laws of Italian perspective
could not catch it .... But Delauney wanted to find a plastic
interpretation. He dismembered the tower so that he might
enter within its frame; he truncated it and inclined it to make
it express the vertigo of its full three hundred meters; he took
ten standpoints, fifteen outlooks; he looked at this part from
8 For this and other quotation~ from contemporary poets, see C. Giedion-Weleker,
"Hobert Delauncy," in Das Werk (Zurich), No.8 (1946).

9 Hlaise Cm1drars, A ujourd' hui, p. 1:~6.
285
171. G. EIFFEL. Spiral staircases between first and second floors of the Eiffel
Tower. Ever-changing viewpoints and interpenetration of inner and outer space were ex-
perienced here decades before architects or painters realized the new conception of space.
173. ROBERT DELAU NEY.

Eiffel Tower, 1910.
172. G. EIFFEL. Eiffel Tower. View from the second platform to the first. The photo
is made in the elevator shaft. Right and left. the elet•alor tracks u:hich penetrate into the
ground floor.
174. ARNODIN. Ferry Bridge in the "Vieux Port" of Marseilles, 1905. Iron struc-
ture and stone architecture blend well together.
176. ARNODIN. Ferry Bridge, Marseilles,

1905. Height, 54 meters; length of carriage-way,
240 meters. ~
175. ARNODIN. Ferry Bridge, Marseilles. View from upper platform to suspended
ferry. Relation between fr:xed and moving parts. Slender steel construction. Observe plat-
forms of staircase, jutting boldly out into space. (Cf. Bauhaus balconies, 1926.)
below, that from above, the surrounding houses from the
right, from the left, from the wings of a bird and from the
bed of the earth." ro
Of the Eiffel Tower, Duchamp-Villon said, "This masterpiece
of mathematical energy rose from its scientific conception
into the unconscious realm of beauty. It is more than a mere
cipher, for it contains a vital element; our spirit surrenders to
it as when it is emotionally moved by the art of sculpture or
architecture." 11
No doubt, in this hovering tower some of the spirit has ma-
terialized of the technical Utopianism of Jules Verne, who
belonged to Eiffel's generation.
The rapid evolution from James Bogardus' unexecuted cast-
iron tower for the New York World's Fair of 1853 (fig. Ill)
to the Eiffel Tower, conceived only three decades later, when
viewed in historic dimension is indeed fantastic. After reaching
this peak, the evolution slowed down and turned in other
directions. During the following half-century the steel skele-
ton of the skyscraper developed in America. In France, near-
est to the airy sensitivity of the Eiffel Tower were the elegant
ferry bridges, especially that of the Vieux Port at Marseille,
1905 (figs. 174, 175, 176), which was heavily damaged toward
the end of the second world war and later destroyed.
The engineer, Arnodin, was a specialist in these elegant struc-
tures, which he knew how to place excellently in French river
ports as in Rouen (1889) or in Nantes, the latest having been
erected in the late twenties in Bordeaux.
The ferry bridge at Marseille, the Pont Transporteur, which
had to transport vehicles across the river without hindering
the passage of tall-masted ships, consisted of two pairs of
slender pylons touching the earth at two points. They sup-
ported at a lofty height a carriage-way for the traveling crane
from which the ferry, hovering over the water, was suspended
by cables.
10 Ibid., pp. 145-148, translated by J.T.
11 "L'Architecture et le fer," in Poeme el Drame (Paris), January-March, 1914.
290
PART IV THE DEMAND FOR MORALITY
IN ARCHITECTURE
THE NINETIES: PRECURSORS OF CONTEMPORARY
ARCHITECTURE
There are whole decades in the second half of the nineteenth

century in which no architectural work of any significance is
encountered. Eclecticism smothered all creative energy. Here
and there - especially as the century wore on - voices were
raised in protest, but they could do nothing to alter conditions.
It was just at this time that an unprecedented wave of building
activity swept over Europe. Its cities took on the shapes from
which we still suffer today.
The painter was able to withdraw from this overpowering
environment. The men who did the important work at this
period gave up all prospects of fame and an audience and
practiced their art in seclusion. Cezanne and Van Gogh, for
example, buried themselves in the solitude of Provence. The
architect had no such course open to him; not a single one
managed to escape from the atmosphere of eclecticism.
Dissatisfaction with this almost universal state of affairs
reached its peak around 1890. Toward the end of the century
H. P. Berlage was to produce a building which would serve to
purify architecture all over Europe, his Amsterdam Stock
Exchange. In the nineties he was already denouncing the
prevailing architecture as "Scheinarchitektur, d.h. Imitation,
d.h. Luge" ("Sham architecture; i.e., imitation; i.e., lying").
"Our parents and grandparents as well as ourselves," Berlage
wrote, "have lived and still live in surroundings more hideous
than any known before.... Lying is the rule, truth is the
exception."
The smoldering hatred of eclecticism came to a head in Europe
with startling suddenness. In the same way, a fish net can be
hauled for a long time quite uneventfully and then, in a single
moment, the whole catch shows up all bunched together. This
moment in the history of architecture did not arrive by acci-
dent: industry had at length reached its full development and
the time was ripe for great changes. In the earlier part of the
century decades go by with nothing achieved in architecture;
toward the close of the century almost every year has impor-
292
tance. Ambition revives and brings with it courage and
strength to oppose those forces which had kept life from finding
its true forms. Developments come in one surge after another.
The diversity of movements with their variety of experimental
gropings indicates the vitality of the period. Individual fail-
ures and the mixture of transitory with constituent facts are of
little importance. These are traits of every transitional period.
Much of what was attempted between 1890 and 1930 remained
fragmentary and incomplete. This period, however, found the
courage to undertake the building up of a tradition of its own.
According to the easy explanation that was advanced later, the Moral demands
movement developed as the application of two principles: the behind the new
abandonment of historical styles, and - consequent upon this movement
- the use of "fitness for purpose" as a criterion. The ex-
planation is correct, inasmuch as both these factors were in-
volved, but it does not go far enough. The movement took its
strength from the moral demands which were its real source.
The cry went up, "Away with this infected atmosphere!"
The young painter Henri van de Velde was among those who Van de Velde:
attacked the "infected atmosphere" most vigorously. In the what drove him
into architecture
late nineties he took the lead in the fight for l' art moderne. He
campaigned for it first in his native Belgium, next in France,
and then in a country which, at the time, lay wide open to any
new movement - Germany. When he showed his furniture
to an art dealer in Paris on his first journey abroad, it was re-
jected; a year later in Germany both the critics and the public
were highly receptive. This was the start of his international
fame. I met van de Velde in 1938 when he had just returned
from laying the cornerstone of the Belgian Pavilion at the New
York World's Fair. Knowing that he had begun his career
as a painter, I asked him how he had come to turn to archi-
tecture. He answered by describing the situation that pre-
vailed around 1890: "The real forms of things were covered
over. In this period the revolt against the falsification of
forms and against the past was a moral revolt." 1
He went on to tell how a nervous breakdown had left him
incapable of work. At this point he met his future wife, who
I "Toutes les formes etaient cachees. Acette epoque Ia revolte contre les mensonges des
formes et le passe etait une r€wolte morale."
293
gave him renewed courage to face life. " I told myself - this
was in 1892 - that I would never allow my wife and family to
find themselves in 'immoral' surroundings." 2 But at that date
everything that one could buy on the open market was smoth-
ered under the mensonge des formes which van de Velde hated.
He had to design for himself everything in his house, from cut-
lery to doorknobs. Then - since these articles demanded a
setting which would "ward off ugliness" - he was led to
build his first house. It showed a remarkable freedom in the
treatment of the roof and in the way in which the windows
were cut out to meet the special requirements of each room.
The revolution this house provoked when it was completed
in 1896 derived from its pronounced simplicity, in strong con-
trast with the over-fanciful fa<;ades to which people were
accustomed. In this respect van de Velde's earliest house in
Uccle, near Brussels, pointed further into the future than
Horta's house in the Rue de Turin, Paris.
Henri van de Velde spent his last years in Switzerland in a
house built by Alfred Roth on the Aegerisee. The interest of
the old master in contemporary problems remained undimin-
ished and he always turned the conversation to the question:
What can actually be realized~ Once he weighed the balance
between the nineties and the present day: "At first, in the rev-
olution against the falsification of forms, we had ourselves to
design every detail, down to the door latches and the table-
ware. Then came the time when interiors had to be designed
by Professor So-and-so. Now we can assemble together com-
pletely anonymous objects. This is definitely an advance."
Parallel case A generation earlier the same disgust with the falsification of
of William forms in all objects of trade had led William Morris to create
Morris (1859)
and equip his "Red House" at Upton in Kent, England. Ac-
cording to one of Morris' biographers, Red House had much
the same history as van de Velde' s house in U ccle: " During
the year 1858, William Morris plodded on as a painter with a
2 "Je me disais- c'etait en 1892- jamais je ne veux pas admettre que rna femme et rna
famille se trouvent dans un milieu qui est immorale."

3 There are some excellent illustrations of this house in a book by van de Velde's biog-
rapher and Maecenas, Karl Ernest Osthaus: Van de Velde (Hagen i. W, 1920) and in
van de Velde's memoirs, Geschichte meines Lebens (published and edited by Hans Curjel,
Munich, 1962), which, in the chapter "Epilog in Oberaegeri, 1947-1957," give an in-
sight into van de Velde's last years.
294
growing dejection over the work accomplished despite the fact
that he sold one picture for £70. But Morris' wedding, in
Aprill859, turned his mind again and more intensely to those
domestic arts which had attracted him at Red Lion Square.
He now set his heart on building a home that should fulfill his
conception of the 'house beautiful,' and secured \Vebb's serv-
ices as architect. . . . The name of the house, which is built
of red brick and tiles, expressed a revolt against the prevailing
and tyrannous formula of stucco walls and slate roofs."' 4
Does this parallel mean that van de Velde simply followed the
example Morris had already set~ \V e do not think so. The
parallel springs from the fact that the disorder introduced into
human life by industry made itself felt in England more than
thirty years earlier than on the Continent. Identical condi-
tions led to identical reactions.
Brussels the Center of Contemporary Arl, 1880-1890

Why was Belgium, rather than some other country on the
Continent, the starting point of the new movement~
The pioneering spirit of Henri van de Velde can only be under-
stood in relation to the background provided for it by Belgium
in the eighties. Belgium was the first country on the Conti-
nent to become heavily industrialized. The problems that grow
out of industrialization thus showed themselves first and most
intensely in Belgium.
But there was another reason- at least as important as this
one -why it was in Belgium that l'art nouveau first began to
affect architecture and the industrial arts. Brussels between
1880 and 1890 was the one city in the entire cultural world
which gave a welcome and a hearing to those creative artists
who were despised or ignored by the great public. Painters
like Seurat, Cezanne, and van Gogh, sculptors like Rodin
and Meunier, musicians like Debussy and Vincent d'Indy,
and poets like V erhaeren were invited to Brussels to present
their work for exhibition and discussion. The courage and
4Montague Weekley, William Morris (London, 1934), p. 53. It was at Red Lion Square
that Morris had established his first workshop, in conjunction with Burne-Jones.
295
artistic instinct required to establish such a policy cannot be
overestimated. These exhibitions, lectures, and concerts repre-
sented the first systematic attack upon a public taste that for
decades had been corrupted by the productions of an art
entirely out of touch with life. The pseudo-monumental
a
fac;ades of the period and its peinture la mode were both alike
examples of the mensonge des formes.
The work of education in Belgium was carried on by two men
who loved the arts, and who themselves wrote, painted, and
composed in the time allowed them by their professions: Octave
Maus (1856-1919) and Edmond Picard (1836-1924). Both
were well-to-do lawyers who entertained extensively. 5
L'Art moderne In 1881 Maus, Picard, and some others founded the weekly
(1881) periodical, L' Art moderne. Each number contained only a few
printed sheets; there were no illustrations, and the articles
published were usually unsigned. One of these anonymous
essays in the first issue of the magazine (dated March 6, 1881)
announces a program directed not only against academic art
but against fixed conceptions of all kinds:
"Art is for us the contrary of every recipe and formula. Art
is the eternally spontaneous and free action of man on his en-
vironment for the purpose of transforming it and making it
conform to a new idea."
L'Art moderne appeared regularly for over thirty years- ex-
traordinary longevity in a review of this type - and served
as a model for many of the later periodicals that took up the
cause of the avant-garde. Its files offer a still unexplored mine
of information to the historian of the period. It was this review
that soon after its foundation brought together the group of
young Belgian artists known as "Les XX" ("The Twenty").
Among its members were Ferdinand Knopf£ and A. W. Finch
(who, according to Henri van de Velde, made the bridge be-
tween Morris and his circle and the Belgian art nouveau).
6 Picard was perhaps the more versatile of the two. In his youth he interrupted his
studies for some time to become a sailor. Later he studied philosophy and law and
became a valued advocate at court. Over and above his professional work he was active
as a critic. In his review, L' Art moderne, he defended the victims of popular disapproval,
the impressionists and all the rest. Octave Maus was an initiator with a great range of
interests. He had both the instinct and the tireless energy needed for organizing en-
deavors on a large scale.
296
Another member was James Ensor. Ensor was already promi-
nent as a painter when the first exhibition in 1884 showed a
large number of his pictures. (Most of these now hang in the
Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts in Brussels.)
Maus was the secretary and the leading spirit of Les XX for as
long as the society existed, from 1884 to 1893. He went on to
found La Libre Esthetique, the association which replaced
Les XX in 1894. The Libre Esthetique showed the work of
William Morris and gave the young Henri van de Velde a
chance to put his ideas before the public. In a lecture on the
"deblaiement d'art" van de Velde told of what had been
done in England and France and pointed to America as the
land of the future.
Maus discerned in all countries the hidden forces that were at Avant-garde
work, quite ignored by the public. He sought to persuade all exhibitions
those artists who - like Cezanne - were unwilling to show
their work to exhibit at Brussels. At the first exhibition in
1884 the Frenchman Rodin (who exhibited his bust of Victor
Hugo), the American Whistler, and the German Max Lieber-
mann were represented. As year followed year, new names
appeared on the list: in 1886 Auguste Renoir, in 1887 Georges
Seurat (who showed one of his principal works, "Un Apres-
midi de Dimanche sur l'ile de la Grande Jatte," now in the
Chicago Art Institute). Pissarro and Berthe Morisot were
also included in the 1887 exhibition.
This huge Seurat picture, arriving fresh from the artist's studio
with its flat treatment of landscape and figures and all its
poesie aerienne, caused a terrific uproar. This picture-
whose value is no longer a subject for controversy -was
attacked with umbrellas at its first showing, so van de Velde
told me.
Ln 1889 van Gogh made his debut at Brussels. His feverish
colors made the greatest impression on the young artists.
Cezanne, who exhibited at the same time, was almost over-
looked.
We have mentioned only one phase of the activity that went on
in Brussels during these years and have noted only the high
297
points in that phase. Even so, there is no need for further
explanation of the sudden emergence there of so many talents.
Henri van de Velde is onP instance; Victor Horta and Paul
Hankar are othf\rs.
The English In Brussels between 1884 and 1894 the works of great con-
arts and crafts temporary painters and sculptors found display. In England
associations of
during the same period a different kind of contribution to the
the eighties
arts was made. It was at this time that the work of Morris
and his circle began to bear fruit, and that a serious attempt
was made to reform public taste in the field of household
furnishings. Meanwhile a younger generation of artists had
grown up -men like Arthur H. Mackmurdo, Cobden-
Sanderson, and C. R. Ashbee- who did not share Morris'
hatred of modern techniques and business methods. The social
point of view of Morris and Ruskin, however, was carried even
further by this younger generation.
Numerous associations, like Mackmurdo's Art \Vorkers' Guild
of 1884, rallied together the artists and architects who were
interested in art and handicrafts. Even the dilettantes joined
together in the same year to form the Home Arts and Indus-
tries Association. The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society
organized great shows intended to prove that the so-called
"minor arts·· occupied as high a level as painting. This
belief was - as is well known - taken up on the Continent
about a decade later by the art nouveau mf'fvement, and vigor-
ously argued by them.
As early as 1892 the Brussels exhibition had included examples
of industrial art, specimen pieces of stained glass and ceramic
work. In 1894, the year La Libre Esthetique was founded,
there appeared the creations of the Morris group, as well as a
typical contribution from a French artist- a studio interior.
So once more it was Brussels which was the starting point
from which the arts and crafts movement spread over the
Continent. Henri van de Velde - tireless both as an artist
and as the evangelist of the art nouveau - carried his version
of the findings arrived at in Brussels first to Paris (1896) and
then to Dresden (1897). The few interiors which he exhibited
created a sensation such as was rarely t~.roused at the time by
298
work of this nature. The demonstration stirred to full con-
sciousness talents in both countries which had hitherto been
uncertain in what direction to turn for an outlet. The impact
of the arts and crafts movement upon the all-too-long dormant
Continent dates from this time.
Victor Horta's Contribution

Considering the receptivity of Brussels to new work in the arts, House in the Rue
it is not surprising that the first really daring Continental de Turin (1893):
a starting point for
residence should have been built there. This was Victor
new developments
Horta's house at 12 Rue de Turin (jig. 177). Completed in
1893, before there were any signs of a new European architec-
ture, the Horta house marked a turning point in the treatment
of the private home. From that time on, new artistic prin-
ciples were to be applied to the problem of the dwelling, and
new human needs were to be allowed to affect its design. This
house roused Continental architecture from its lethargy at one
blow.
Number 12 Rue de Turin stands in a row of conventional Flexible treatment
Brussels residences. Since it had to conform to the same con- of the ground plan
ditions, it resembles them in being long and very narrow: the
front is a bare twenty-three feet across. The ground plan
developed within these predetermined proportions, however,
is entirely original. In the typical Brussels house, Horta tells
me, the whole extent of the ground floor is visible from the
entry. Horta avoided this by breaking the floor up into dif-
ferent levels. Thus the drawing room is half a story higher
than the entrance hall which leads into it. Differences in level
represent only one of the devices which Horta employed to
give new flexibility to the ground plan. He hollowed out the
massive body of the house, introducing light-wells that pro-
vided new and unusual sources of illumination in so narrow an
exterior. The photographs do not reveal the surprising in-
terrelations into which these rooms at their different levels are
brought. And all this was done within the smallest compass
imaginable (jig. 178).
Horta's house was soon famous in every European circle in- Contemporary
terested in restoring the vitality of architecture. Tt was ad- opinion
299
177. VICTOR
HORTA. 12 Rue de
Turin, Brussels,1893.
178. VICTOR
HORTA. 12 Rue
de Turin, Brussels.
Plan. Horta achieves
flexibility and some
independence between
floors through the use
of the internal iron
skeleton.
300
179. St. Louis river front,
109-lll North First Street,
1849 or 1850. An earlier
American combination of
those elements de1Jeloped f or
industrial buildings which
Horta translates into resi-
dential terms.
mired chiefly for two things: its perfect adjustment to its

owner (a Mr. Tassel), and its freedom frotll any trace of his-
torical styles. Five years after it was built, the Austrian critic,
Ludwig Hevesi, published an article which shows the value his
contemporaries placed on Horta's work.
"There lives in Brussels now, in 1898, the most inspired of the
modern architects, Victor Horta. . . . His fame is exactly six
years old, and dat es fro111 the residence of Mr. T assel in the
Rue de Turin. This is the first of these famous modern dwell-
ings which fit their owners like faultlessly cut coats. It houses
the man for whom it was built in the most perfect manner con-
ceivable- as perfectly as the mussel shell does the mussel.
It is most simple and logical . . . altogether new and just as
delightful. But - and note this - there is in it not the faint-
est echo of any of the historical styles. . . . No detail derives
301
from anything at all in existence. It has the pure charm of
lines, curves, and surfaces - and it is quite personal, as per-
sonal as if Horta, instead of simply drawing the parts, had
handed them to the workmen all modeled in advance." 6
John Nash, in the drawing room of the Royal Pavilion at
Brighton (1818), had openly displayed the ornate cast-iron
columns and girders that entered into its construction. No one
before Horta had dared to follow this example and permit con-
struction to intrude upon the intimacy of a private house. In
Horta's house the staircase clearly reveals pillars and girders,
which hold the eye by their shape and ornamentation (fig. 180).
The drawing room is even more notable in this respect; an
1-section support is carried across its free space without any
attempt at disguise.
The visitor receives his first impression of the interior of the
house from the cast-iron column that rises from the elevated
main floor next the staircase. Curved iron tendrils spring out
of its vase-shaped capital. Their forms are partly like those of
primitive plants, partly arbitrary creations. Their lines are
freely continued on the smooth surfaces of the walls and vault-
ing and on the mosaics of the floor in wild and swirling cur-
vilinear patterns.
The house in the Rue de Turin marks the first appearance of
the art nouveau in the field of architecture. It is for this reason
- not merely because of the qualities Hevesi admired in it -
that it finds a place in all histories of art. In Horta's house the
aims of the art nouveau were fully carried out in architectural
terms at the very first attempt. There are no earlier examples
in architecture of this transitional style. Indeed its best
representative, Aubrey Beardsley, did not arrive at his own
artistic language until 1893 - the date of the Rue de Turin
residence. 7
One source of the In Horta's house the point of origin of the art nouveau becomes
art nouveau patent: it is iron construction. What are these lines but the
unrolled curls and rosettes that are to be found under the eaves
of so many Belgian railway stations~ They have simply
stripped off their Gothic or Renaissance clothing (jig. 181).
6 Wiener Tageblalt, November 11, 1898.
7 His drawings were included in the first volume of Studio, 1893.
302
180. VICTOH
I-IOHTA. 12 Rue de
Turin, Brussels. Iron
column and staircase.
At the end of the cast-
iron period, the cast-iron
column is once more
introduced into the
house - and brings the
art nouveau with it.
181. ALPHONSE BALA T. Strap-

iron ornaments on the conservatory,
Laeken, 1879. One source of the art
nouveau.
303
The art nouveau was an interesting intermezzo between the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It would be a digression,
however, to go into the various theories of its origin. 8 In spite
of the revolutionary intentions behind its fight against the use
of historical styles, it succeeded only in matching shape against
shape. It was in truth an" anti-movement." It should how-
ever be noted that the flat, unmodulated surfaces of painters
like Gustav Klimt, and the fantastic sculptural modeling of
the architecture of Antonio Gaudi were important for the
future.
Significance The front of the Tassel house is as original in its modeling as
of the fa<;ade the interior. The bow window- a standard feature of every
house in Brussels - is preserved, but Horta transforms it
into a curved, glassed-in surface. The smoothly treated wall
is blended into this undulating section. For all its fresh model-
ing, the fa<;ade is quite conservative in construction for the
date it was built: it is simply the ordinary type of massive
stone wall. Where a series of windows has been let in, horizon-
tal supporting girders of wrought iron are introduced. These
second-story windows run downward from the supporting
girders to a point level with the floor. They are based on the
principle of the display windows developed in the second half
of the nineteenth century. The rivets in the girders are ac-
centuated with the same fondness Otto \Vagner shows in his
handling of the aluminum bolts on the front of the Vienna
Postal Savings Bank (1904).
The revolutionary aspect of Horta's work consists in this: he
took over elements which had appeared in business and in-
dustrial buildings of the fifties and incorporated them in a
private house. Purely utilitarian structures erected in Amer-
ica between 1850 and 1870 - for example, the St. Louis river
front commercial buildings with their cast-iron fronts- are
based on a principle which Horta uses. There are the same slim
iron columns erected in front of a continuous range of glass
windows. These earlier buildings make an even simpler and
more convincing use of this principle, as in the 109-111 North
First Street establishment of 1849-50 (fig. 179). 9
8 Cf. Fritz Schmalenbach, Jugendslil (Wiirzburg, 1935).
9 Cf. also figs. 112, 113.
304
What remains of importance in the house at 12 Rue de Turin?
From our later point of view, it is neither its perfect adjust-
ment to its owner nor the first appearance in it of the art
nouveau. It is rather the flexible ground plan in which the
consequences of the new materials were drawn- the free dis-
position of the rooms at different levels, and the independ-
ence of the partitions one from another. This is one of the
European beginnings of what Le Corbusier was later to call
le plan libre.
In 1897 Horta built his Maison du Peuple at Brussels. Its The Maison du
curved glass and iron fac;ade is one of the boldest achievements Peuple (1897);
glass and iron
of the period (figs. 182, 183). The youthful freshness of his
front, imaginative
house in the Rue de Turin reappears in it; in this building layout
Horta really is the chercheur that one of his contemporaries
named him. 10
The interior shows all the independence of his earlier work.
Without waste of either space or time, one is brought immedi-
ately into the great dining hall, with its wide opening and its
freely outspread iron structure. Horta did not hesitate to
place the lecture hall - so seldom called into use - in the
upper story. The Maison du Peuple reveals in its every detail
the hand of a trained architect who is at the same time an
ingenious inventor. It is typical that in 1963 this milestone
was threatened with destruction.
Horta (1861-1947) had a brilliant career. He was made head of Horta's later
the Academy at Brussels in 1913; later he became Baron Horta. conservatism
He built many important structures. But comparatively
soon he lost contact with youth and with the movement which
continued his own efforts. This will concern us again when we
speak of the competition for the League of Nations Palace
(1927), 11 in which Horta played a decisive role as a juror.
During the summer of 1938, when I was in Brussels, I asked
Baron Horta how he had come to build such a revolutionary
structure as the house in the Rue de Turin.
When he was a young man, he explained, an architect at the
beginning of his career had three courses open to him: he could
to L'Emulation (Brussels, 1895), p. 187.
11 Cf. pp. 530-531.
305
establish himself as a specialist in Renaissance, classic, or
Gothic modes. Horta found these restrictions illogical. " I
asked myself why architects could not be as independent and
daring as painters were." With that he pointed to a faded
photograph which stood on his table: "This is my teacher,
Balat, a classicist and a revolutionary - as well as the best
Belgian architect of the nineteenth century. 12 I drew my
youthful inspiration from his teaching."
Horta went on to explain the real individuality of Balat's
work. His museum in Brussels was an entirely independent
masterpiece in spite of its classical fac;ade. It was this building
which determined Horta to follow his own bent.
" Its fine ground plan - thoroughly organic and independent
of conventional formulae- was entirely of Balat's creation.
Why then did he have to copy the classic in its fac;ade~ vVhy
not make a modern elevation, too, and be as independent and
individual as the painters were?"
Paul Hankar and Victor Horta did not work alone; he was simply the outstand-
the Belgian ing member of a group. "En Belgique, " as a Parisian critic
movement wrote at the time, "on a toutes les temerites." In the Rue de
Facque, not far from the Rue de Turin, Paul Hankar also
built a house in the year 1893. vVhile he does not show Horta's
imagination, Hankar was working in the same direction. 13
But Hankar's masterpiece was the installation of the colonial
exhibition at Tervueren (1897), where the perfect unity of the
spirit behind the iron construction and the interior aroused
the interest of artistic Europe. Finished two years before the
opening of Horta's Maison du Peuple, the exposition was
entirely the product of the younger generation in Belgium.
At this exposition, intended by Leopold II to render the
Congo problem more attractive (its motto was "New State,
New Woods, and New Shapes"), the young innovators were
12 Alphonse Balat (1818-1905), archilecle du roi. Besides the Brussels museum, he was
famous for his bell-shaped jardin d'hiver of the Hesidence of Laeken (1879). The iron
construction here is exceptionally fine. The strap-iron ornamentsA>n the trusses suggest
Horta's art nouveau ornamentation of his house in the Rue de Turin.
13 Hankar and Horta were among the first Europeans to attack the design and equipment
of department stores as an artistic problem, and Hankar's solutions are sometimes the
purer. Hankar had to his credit the Magasins de Ia Maison Claessen, Rue de I'Ecuyer,
Brussels (1896), and the Maison de Coumerie, Rue Lebeau, Brussels (1895-96).
306
182. VICTOR
HORTA. Maison du
Peuple, Brussels, 1897.
Exterior. The curl!ed
glass and iron facade is
one of the most ad-
vanced productions of
the period.
183. VICTOR
HORTA. Maison du
Peuple, Brussels, 1897.
Second- and third-floor
plans. An interior
organized with great
astuteness and inde-
pendence, the lillie-used
lecture hall relegated to
the upper story.
307
134. H. P. BERLAGE.
Stock Exchange, Amsterdam,
1898- 1903. Wall treatment.
This- the Damrak Streets ide,
which contains the offices of
the Exchange - is one of the
first European fa~;ades to re-
turn to the wall as a plane
surface.
given charge of the equipment of the interior. Even in the

great Paris exhibitions this had remained the work of the
lapissiers. This unity in design of interior and exterior had a
decisive influence upon later developments. 14
Berlage's Stock Exchange and the Demand for Morality

Dutch Dutch painting and architecture in the nineteenth century
architecture in the exhibited considerable moderation. The cities of Holland suc-
nineteenth century
ceeded in escaping much of the disfigurement that other Con-
tinental cities experienced. The Rijks Museum and Cuyper's
railway station are examples of the mild eclecticism that
governed large buildings in Amsterdam.
On the other hand, Holland failed to take effective part in the
developments going on (under French leadership) in painting
and construction, or in the arts and crafts movement which
14 For a more extended discussion of Hankar, cf. Charles Courady and Raymond Thibaut
"Paul Hankar, 1859-1901," Revue la Cite (Brussels, 1923).
308
185. H. H. RICHARDSON.
Sever Hall, Harvard Univer-
sity, Cambridge, Mass., 1878.
grew up in England. The Dutch stood aside from this activity;

they never quite lost sight of the great tradition they had to
preserve. And the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century man-
sions that stood alongside their canals served as quiet and con-
stant reminders of that past.
One man and a single building announced a new vitality in New vitality
Holland- Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856-1934) and his introduced by
Amsterdam Stock Exchange of 1898. Even in his own life- one building
time Berlage's contemporaries recognized what his unique
achievement had been. It was he who first succeeded in
realizing, in an actual building, the demand for a purified
architecture. Others had seen the need for morality in archi-
tecture, but his Amsterdam Exchange actually embodied the
thoroughgoing honesty they had only called for.
Berlage's career as an architect was a curious one. Like
another leader of his generation, Chicago's Louis Sullivan, his
early work in the middle eighties was confined to office build-
ings of various types. They were in the mixed style - half
309
186. H. P. BERLAGE. Stock
Exchange, Amsterdam, 1898-
1903. Drawing.
Romanesque, half Renaissance- which was favored at this

period.
Berlage was always very cautious in the use of new forms. He
received first prize in a competition for the Amsterdam Stock
Exchange as early as 1885. 15 If this plan for a quite conven-
tional structure in Dutch Renaissance style had been fol-
lowed, the Exchange would have failed entirely to influence
later architecture.
In his final version Berlage used forms slightly suggestive of
the Romanesque (jig. 186). The Romanesque fascinated
Berlage, as it had Henry Hobson Richardson some twenty
years earlier. Berlage had carefully examined medieval
buildings and knew their laws of proportion. We shall
soon see, however, that Berlage's approach to the Roman-
esque differs from the transitory imitation of historical
shapes.
Conservative We should not expect to find Berlage's treatment of the
methods of construction of the exchange embodying any revolutionary
construction
advances. Holland did not possess the great tradition in con-
structional matters which stood behind French architects, for
example. It is nevertheless surprising that he did not avoid
visible tie bars in the great hall of his Amsterdam Exchange by
using the triply articulated girder. He is likewise very sparing
He was not awarded the building contract until 1897, however.
15 Cf. Jan Gratama,
Dr. H. P. Berlage (Rotterdam, 1925), p. 28.
310
in his use of glass and iron. All this just before the turn of the
century, when elegance in iron construction had been taken for
granted for several decades. The construction of the Amster-
dam Stock Exchange does not go a significant step beyond
Henri Labrouste's work in the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve
of 1843. There too the iron work had been enclosed in a self-
supporting masonry shell which was quite independent of it
structurally.
Much greater daring in this respect was shown at this time by Comparison
Victor Horta, in his Maison du Peuple at Brussels (1897-99). 16 with Horta's
Maison du Peuple,
Horta broke the fa<;ade wide open, and filled it with glass and
Brussels
iron. It was Berlage's work, however, which had the deeper
and the more widespread effect. By their own testimony, it
acted upon his contemporaries like a revelation.
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is a brick building without
stucco surfacing on either the interior or the exterior. Its
ground plan, which includes three glass-roofed halls, is very
compact. The largest of the halls is occupied by the Com-
modity Exchange and dominates the whole building (fig.
188). Through the open arcades which lead to the brokerage
and committee rooms the actual exchange in the center of the
hall can be seen.
The exterior is the final result of many separate designs. In Flat surfaces
the earliest schemes everything was in a state of turbulence. outstanding in
In the final plan all the sections have been cleanly fused into Berlage's
treatment of
the flat surface of the outer wall; not even the tower is allowed its exterior
to project. It is only at the monumentally treated corner of
the building where the main entrance and the tower come
together that a trace of the restlessness of European architec-
ture appears. There is nothing restless in the treatment of the
side that fronts on Damrak Street (fig. 184)Y This wall of
the Exchange has the aspect of a simple office building - and
that is just what it is on that side. The windows are flush with
the wall, which is held to a flat surface, broken only by the
square fall-pipes and the window sills.
16 Cf. p. 303.
17In the design of this front BerlagL u~ed a~ a module the Egyptian triangle with its
sides in the ratio 5:8.
311
187. H. P. BEBLAGE. Stock Exchange, Amsterdam, 1898-1903. Interior.
The brick walls of the loggias enclosing the Commodity Ex-

change also form a flat surface, from top to bottom (fig. 187).
Berlage, working with great discretion and.smoothness, intro-
duced several different materials into these walls: majolica,
granite (in the square pillars), and various bright stones in the
capitals of the pillars. But these capitals do not protrude in the
312
usual way; they are level with the wall, as though cut off with
a razor.
This feature is by no means a casual one. In a lecture on style
in architecture Berlage explains what he was aiming at:
"Above all we should show the naked wall in all its sleek
beauty .... Pillars and columns should have no projecting capi-
tals: the joint should be fused with the flat surface of the wall. " 18
What is the source of the great influence exerted by the build- Source of Berlage's
ing? The secret lies in the unshakeable consistency with which influence
Berlage strives for sincerity and purity in its architecture.
The granite steps of the staircase are only coarsely chiseled
out; they are still rough today. The brick arches of the ceilings
in the committee rooms are shown entirely without disguise.
The iron girders of the framework are emphasized with paint.
The clean white joints of the brickwork in the unplastered walls
stand out sharply. Used this way- as though for the very
first time - these materials act as unexpected decoration.
As he himself points out, Berlage sought to impart to this The reconquest of
building something of "the quality which distinguishes old the flat surface
monuments from the buildings of today: quiet!" With the
least compromise possible at the time, he gave the wall-
until then either chaotically dismembered or deceptively
patched together- the reconquered unity of the flat surface.
The wall as a flat surface was soon to become the starting
point for new principles in architecture, not merely in Holland
but everywhere.
Berlage's conscious asceticism-- called barbarism by some of
his contemporaries -joined with his fanatical zeal for truth
at any price to produce in the Amsterdam Stock Exchange a
building which served as a guidepost to many. He gave an
example of the honorable treatment of a problem in building.
No other building accords so well with the demand that lay
behind the movement in architecture at that time - the
demand for morality.
In Europe, where the entire previous generation had taken an
altogether different line, the purity of the wall came with the
18 H. P. Berlage, Gedanken ilber Stil in der Baukunst (Leipzig, 1905 ), pp. 52-53.
313
188. H. P. BER-
LAGE. Stock Ex-
change, Amsterdam,
1898- 1903. The great
hall. The Commodity
Exchange, the largest
of the three glass-roofed
halls.
impact of a revelation. It is improbable that it would have had

the same revolutionary effect in America at that time - for
reasons that we shall discuss later in some detail. At this
point, however, some related work by an American architect
may be mentioned.
Berlage and Henry Hobson Richardson was one of the first Americans in
Richardson: their this period consciously to practice architecture as a fine art.
leaning toward
His Sever Hall of 1878 (one of the Harvard College buildings,
Romanesque
forms not mere Cambridge, Massachusetts) has much in common with Ber-
historical imitation lage's work (jig. 185). Berlage and Richardson both tend
toward simplified Romanesque forms, forms which from the
time of their inception have been bound up with the treatment
of the wall as a flat surface.
314
It might seem that these two men, in taking over Romanesque
forms, simply differ from others among their contemporaries in
the direction of their choice. The majority of these eclectics
appropriated classical and Gothic shapes. And certainly their
followers -- those of Richardson particularly - returned to
the familiar path of historical imitation. The rows of little
houses, each like a tiny Romanesque castle, which sprang up
some years later in America and Europe demonstrate this.
But the history of the nineteenth century is complicated. The
new aims derived from their study of Romanesque buildings,
and not the fact that Berlage and Richardson used somewhat
Romanesque shapes, are what matter. The time was not ripe
for the outright invention of new forms derived from a new
space conception, and they turned - very naturally - to
history for help. Romanesque methods started them on the
way toward the new forms their own period still awaited.
The same relation exists between the Romanesque and their
best buildings that links modern painting with primitive art.
Picasso did not copy the patterns of African masks; he learned
from them a new way of looking at his subjects. There was an
affinity between that art and the not fully conscious endeavor
of his own period to compose in terms of planes. To a certain
extent Berlage and Richardson also found in the Romanesque
not simply another transitory fashion but an inner affinity
which aided them in moving toward the still-veiled expressions
of their own period.
When we penetrate to what is significant in the Amsterdam Berlage and the
Stock Exchange we understand why Berlage became the next generation
admirer and the European advocate of American architecture,
particularly that of Frank Lloyd Wright. Berlage came to
America in 1911, after his Stock Exchange had been finished,
on the invitation of George E. Elmslie, Louis Sullivan's part-
ner. He found here in American buildings just those things
he himself had been fighting for so passionately in complete
isolation.
Berlage's influence upon the rising generation was very great.
Even when the younger men took other directions than those
he had indicated, they retained all their reverence for his
315
artistic integrity. In Holland his influence and the image of
the Amsterdam Stock Exchange appear behind an early proj-
ect for a swimming pool by J. J. P. Oud (1915). As one of the
first to introduce Frank Lloyd Wright's work to Europe,
Berlage unconsciously made sure that the generation after
him in Holland would be stimulated to production. 19
In Belgium, too, Berlage made a deep impression on the rising
generation. Victor Bourgeois, the Belgian architect whose
Brussels garden settlement of 1922- La Cite Moderne- gave
the signal for the present-day movement, told me that around
1914, when he was a student at the Brussels Academy, only
two names fascinated young men: those of Berlage and Frank
Lloyd Wright.
Berlage was almost a recluse, so far as personal relations were
concerned, but he valued objective connections. He was the
only representative of the older generation to take part in the
founding of the ClAM (Gong res I nternationaux d' Architec-
ture Moderne) at Chateau de la Sarraz, Switzerland, in June
1928. At this first international rally of contemporary archi-
tects, the younger men discussed nothing except the new
points of departure. But Berlage, who, though he was the
oldest participant, had not hesitated at the long journey from
Holland, was the only one to read a carefully prepared paper,
"The Relations between the State and Architecture." 20
This small man - wearing the inevitable black cravat - sat
in the Gothic chapel at La Sarraz quite isolated in the midst of
a younger generation, and read his essay with imperturbable
earnestness.
Otto Wagner and the Viennese School

Wagner's function In the year 1894 Otto Wagner (1841-1918) was made professor
as an educator of architecture at the Academy of Vienna. The Academy at
the time appeared to have lost its attraction for the younger
generation, and Wagner seemed the man to restore it. He was
19 Curiously enough, Le Corbusier was first directed to Frank Lloyd Wright by a lecture
Berlage delivered in Zurich (published in extenso by the Schweizerische Bauzeilung, vol.
LX, nos. 11-13, 1912).
20 This paper is preserved in the archives of the C.I.A.M., Zurich.
316
then just past fifty. He was a successful and energetic archi-
tect whose buildings in the manner of early Florentine and full
Renaissance work were celebrated for their excellent plans.
The Academy could expect to gain in luster from his presence.
Just at the moment of his election, however, a metamorphosis
which had long been preparing showed itself in his work.
It was in that year- 1894- that he began a small book for
his students with the title Modern Architecture. 21 Soon trans-
lated into many languages, it became the textbook of the new
movement. In it Wagner asserted that "our starting point for
artistic creation is to be found only in modern life." 22 He goes
on to insist that new principles in construction and new ma-
terials are not isolated facts, but that they must lead to new
forms and be brought into harmony with human needs. The
effect of Wagner's writing was increased by the rare mixture of
sarcasm with confidence in the future that marks it. In addi-
tion, his readers felt that mature experience in architecture
stood behind his every word.
In this small book there is condensed the expenence that
every nineteenth-century artist underwent from the moment
he set himself against accepted standards. Wagner makes it
plain that he no longer hopes for help from the state in any new
developments. 23 His disparagement of the layman's judgment,
"which always has been, and is, disastrous in its influence,"
reflects bitter experience of his own. 24 He holds with Goethe's
dictum: the artist must create what the public ought to like,
not what it does like.
This book speedily disillusioned the official circles responsible
for Wagner's appointment. "A fully developed architect has
become a mere experimenter with art- a sensation-monger,
a train-bearer of fashion''- this judgment appears in a
pamphlet of 1897.
In the year of his election to the Academy, Wagner built the
system of elevated and underground railways which encircles
Vienna on its outskirts. The elevated stretches were carried on
21 Moderne Architeklur (Vienna, 1895; 4th edition, 1914). "Architectural education
should educate the architect as an artist and not as a mere specialist."
22 Page llS. 2 3 Pages 133-134. 24 Page ll3.
317
heavy brick arches like a Roman aqueduct. Wagner carried
out all the details involved in this railway, including the
stations along the line. He made separate designs for each of
these; those built earliest show some classical influence, while
the later ones move in the direction of l' art nouveau.
Wagner's isolation In Brussels, as we have seen, untiring efforts were made to
create an atmosphere favorable to new movements. In Vienna
there was no trace of such endeavors. We miss the significance
of Wagner's work if we do not realize what it is to work in
complete isolation. In 1894 no one in Wagner's country was
working along the same lines as he. The Austrians, Josef
Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, and Joseph Olbrich, and the German
Peter Behrens were of the generation of 1870, and at this date
were just starting their activity.
The Karlsplatz station (fig. 189) of the Vienna subway
serves to show that Wagner was moving toward modern
architecture. Its ornamental ironwork and the hemispherical
roof are a prolongation of nineteenth-century usages. They are
a further development of French iron architecture as it ap-
peared in the domes and vaults out of which Eiffel formed the
front for the main building of the Paris Exhibition of 1878. 25
Wagner's contemporaries seem to have recognized this: in one
of the many vicious pamphlets directed against him, we read
that Wagner "is an adherent of the brutal Gallic architectural
materialism."
Wagner did not merely continue the work of the French: he
introduced new elements of his own. In 1894 he prophesied
that "the new architecture will be dominated by slablike,
tabular surfaces and the prominent use of materials in a pure
state.'' 26 In the Karlsplatz station he himself used thin marble
slabs for the outer walls, securing them with angle irons which
are left visible. This treatment shows the wall as simply a
slablike screen, with no load to carry.
Ten years later in the Vienna Postal Savings Building (1904-
06) he stressed still more the function of the wall as a plane
surface. The fac;ade of this bank is covered with marble slabs
26 Cf. Fig. 158.
26 Moderne Archileklur, p. 136.
318
attached by massive aluminum bolts whose heads can be seen
plainly.
The interior of the Postal Savings Building (fig. 190) reveals
an astonishing purity of design. It is without doubt one of the
most uncompromising rooms of the first years of the twentieth
century. It is very characteristic of the work of Wagner (and
of his contemporaries as well) that this purity follows upon the
contact with new materials. Wagner gave this bank a glass-
roofed interior court. Such courts had been common since
the middle of the nineteenth century. Here in the white hall
of the Postal Savings Building, however, the glass and iron
vaulting does not merely fulfill all functional requirements
but also blends into and becomes a part of a whole architectonic
expressiOn.
In the pure and abstract forms of this glass and iron hall the
touch of the architect is no longer apparent; yet his hand is
everywhere present, in its curves, its colors, and the modeling
of its space.
The Continental successes of these architectural pioneers were Wagner and the
won mainly by surprise attacks. \Vagner's experience fol- Vienna school
lowed the same pattern. A reaction against his early work in
the new directions set in, and his later projects - for museums,
public buildings, and towns- exist only on paper. N everthe-
less, \Vagner's influence on the younger generation in Austria
was very strong. Although his students were men of talent,
they never achieved work of his standard. One of his students
was the architect Josef Hoffmann, who was the founder of the
Wiener \Verkstatte for handicrafts. Another, who died quite
young, was Joseph Olbrich. Wagner showed these young men
the direction they should take, but they were all more directly
influenced by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow
group. This was especially true of Hoffmann and the Werk-
sti:itte circle. This meant that in Austria around 1900 the
movement was from handicrafts to architecture and not from
architecture to handicrafts.
It resulted in the sort of overconcentration on decorative aims
which appears also in Joseph Olbrich's "Secession" gallery in
Vienna (1898). This was bitterly denounced by Adolf Loos.
319
189. OTTO WAG-
NER. Karlsplatz Sta-
tion, Vienna, 1894.
Detail. "The new ar-
chitecture will be domi-
nated by slablike tabu-
lar surfaces and the
prominent use of ma-
terials in a pure state"
(Otto Wagner, 1895).
190. OTTO WAGNER. Savings Bank, Vienna. The hall. In this hall glass and iron
vaulting not only fulfills all functional requirements but also blends into and becomes a
part of a unified architectonic expression.
This Viennese architect had lived in England and America,

and had learned to recognize the importance of the anonymous
work being done in those countries in the production of
320
articles of everyday life - from clothing to bathtubs and
trunks. As late as 1914 in Hoffmann's Stoclet house, Brussels,
the influence of the cabinetmaker and of decorative art is still
evident. The flat surfaces of this house are made up of white
marble slabs, but they are treated like framed pictures.
The influence of Wagner and his Austrian school can be de- Wagner and
tected in an entirely unexpected quarter - in the work of Sant' Elia
Antonio Sant' Elia (1888-1916), the young Italian futurist
architect who was killed in the war. Sant' Elia shared the
Italian futurists' delight in the artistic expression of dynamic
movement. Like them he loved the big city and all its man-
ifestations. Short]y before the outbreak of war he designed
~
~{
I ·> ,
r. . r
191. OTTO WAGNEH. Drawing for 192. AN TONIO SANT' ELlA. Proj-
bridge, subway, and different street le vels, ect for a subway, 1914. Different
Vi«mna, 1906. Part of a system of elevated street levels, combined with apartment
and underground railway lines encircling houses and elevators. Sant' Elia's
Vienna along its outskirts. Nuova Cilia reflects the futuristic de-
light in intersecting streams of move-
ment.
321
feverishly his visions of the citta nuova. These sketches were
never carried further; they remained architectura] ideas. Otto
Wagner's drawings for the Vienna railroad station (1894-1906;
fig. 191) show his interest in the architectural integration of
traffic routes, but what was to \Vagner merely an accidental
appendage became for the much younger Sant' Elia a flaming
manifesto. One of his first designs (fig. 192) was a skyscraper
totally integrated with an underground railway, strongly em-
phasized elevator shafts, and roads on different levels, showing
the traffic problem as an actively working ingredient of archi-
tecture.2i These drawings anticipate the present situation,
half a century later, when the cancerous growth of automobiles
forces the city planner to find ways and means to build in
traffic movement as a constituent element of the organism of
the city.
FERROCONCRETE AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON

ARCHITECTURE
Late appearance of The art noveau, in architecture at least, had its roots in the
ferroconcrete tradition of iron construction. At the beginning of the century,
when this movement was spreading from Brussels, there ap-
peared a new building material which achieved a surprisingly
rapid influence upon architecture: ferroconcrete. It was at
this time that architecture tore itself loose from the prejudices
which had held it back for so long, and absorbed the new
methods that had grown out of the period itself. It was
this which promoted the use of ferroconcrete. Hardly had it
been developed to the point where mills, silos, and reservoirs
could be made from it than it was employed for more purely
architectural purposes. Between 1910 and 1920 it became
almost the trademark of the new architecture. Although it
was very late in reaching maturity, this material with its com-
plicated composition has a past that goes very far back. There
is no need to retrace its technical development, since there are
many sources of information on the subject. We shall only
consider a few matters that have a bearing on architecture. 1
27 Design for a "City of the Future," 1913.
1See G. Huberti, Vom Cementum zum Spannbelon (Wiesbaden, 1963) for a concentrated
history of concrete from the Roman rubble concrete to today.
322
193. JOHN SMEATON.
Eddystone Lighthouse, Eng-
land, 1774. Etching from
Smeaton's report on the light-
house.
John Smeaton, one of the great engineers of the eighteenth Early rediscovery
century, attained a triumph in the construction of the Eddy- of concrete;
stone Lighthouse (fig. 193) in England. Previous lighthouses Smeaton, 1774
on this spot had been destroyed by storms, and the site was
exposed to the full strength of the sea. But Smeaton used a
system in the construction of his stonework which bound it
together into an extremely tenacious whole. He locked the
stones into one another, and for the foundations and the bind-
ing material he used a mixture of quicklime, clay, sand, and
crushed iron-slag - concrete, that is. This occurred in 1774,
five years before the first cast-iron bridge - the one over the
Severn - was built. This - so far as we know - is the first
use of concrete since the Roman period. Smeaton's experi-
ments are described in detail in the magnificent volume,
illustrated by etchings, dealing with the lighthouse which he
published. 1a These experiments began in the fifties of the
eighteenth century, when he observed that quicklime
containing day would harden under water. As we have
'" A Narrative of the Building and a Description of lhe Construction of the Eddystone
Lighthouse (London, 1793).
323
194. HENNEBIQUE. Resi-
dence, Bourg-la-Reine. Henne-
bique tries to display in one spot
all the potentialities of ferrocon-
crete but finds no architectural
language available beyond the
common idiom of the late nineties.
already seen, it was Smeaton again who first dared to use the
new material, cast-iron, for pumps and other machinery.
The success of Smeaton's work on the Eddystone light led to
numerous further experiments. In 1824 Joseph Aspdin of
Leeds produced the first " hydraulic" binding material: Port-
land cement. (A hydraulic cement is one which hardens
in water.) Smeaton had used the constituents as they oc-
cur in their natural state; Aspdin regulated the admixture
himself.
Five years later, in 1829, a Dr. Fox developed a method of
making concrete floors by using the concrete as a filling be-
tween iron girders. In 1844 this method came to be protected
by patent. As we have seen, it was used (in a developed form)
throughout the seven- and eight-story warehouses built by the
Manchester engineer, William Fairbairn. This system of con-
struction, using tie bars embedded in concrete, comes very
close to true ferroconcrete construction. Nevertheless, fifty
years went by before scientific analysis revealed the exact
nature of the connections between the two elements in
324
195. ANATOLE DE
BAUDOT. Saint-Jean de
Montmartre, Paris. Begun
1894. The first church to be
built with a ferroconcrete
skeleton closed in by thin
outer walls.
ferroconcrete. During this interval all effort and attention

were devoted to the development of the great iron construc-
tions.
So far as can be discovered, the first extensive use of concrete
was at the Paris Exhibition of 1367, where it was employed
for the floors of the sub-basements of the restaurants in the
great main building.
Ferroconcrete, taking the term in its strict sense, made its
initial appearance in 1363, when the gardener Monnier began
to use wire network for the cores of concrete tubs. This pro-
cedure involved nothing new in itself: Labrouste had made the
vaulting in his Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve of interlaced
wires covered with layers of plaster.
Reinforced concrete did not come into common employment First large-scale
on a large scale until the 1390's, when it was so used in America use of reinforced
by Ernest Leslie Ransome (born in 1344, in Ipswich, England) 2 concrete in the
1890's: Franc;ois
and in France by Franc;ois Hennebique (1342-1921). Hennebique
2The employment of ferroconcrete in America previous to the Leland Stanford Jr.
Museum of about 1890 and the building of the Pacific Borax Company deserves more
325
Fran<;ois Hennebique had as his guiJe preliminary work car-
ried out by a number of constructors. He knew the separate
requirements of the iron and of the compressed concrete, how
to apportion one to the other, and how to dispose the iron rein-
forcing rods- all the relevant laws, in short. But, beyond
this, he was an excellent contractor and had built in every part
of Europe: mills at Nantes, granaries at Genoa, silos at Stras-
bourg, sanatoria in Switzerland.
Use in residences The villa which he built for himself during the nineties at
Bourg-la-Reine (jig. 194) served as a piece of propaganda for
the use of ferroconcrete. The villa makes its possibilities ob-
vious at once to any observer. The octagonal tower rests on
two cantilevers which project four meters. Not content with
this, the tower exhibits other projecting constructions higher
up; these enclose a spiral staircase that leads to the uppermost
roof garden (which is planted with trees). Roof gardens, ter-
races, freely projected building elements: a veritable architec-
tural tightrope dance! Done entirely in the architectonic
idiom of the nineties, it is a fantastic mixture, one calculated to
win the heart of any Surrealist.
Use in a French architecture of the nineties is not to be compared with
church (1894) its forceful Belgian counterpart: after reaching its high point
in the 1889 Galerie des Machines it entered upon a decline.
There are some achievements which are of interest, however,
even if they failed of international influence. In 1894 Anatole
de Baudot began work on the first church to have a ferrocon-
crete skeleton enclosed by thin walls, his Saint-Jean de Mont-
martre in Paris (jig. 195). Anatole de Baudot in his official
capacity was the "Protector of Ancient Monuments"; in his
lectures, delivered over a period of twenty-five years, he stood
for the regeneration of architecture. As soon as the new ma-
terial, ferroconcrete, appeared, he used it for a church- a
marked departure from outworn routine. In his "Architecture
and Reinforced Concrete" 3 he informs us that he was
careful study, directed at the progressive stages of this early development. Shortly
before this, Ransome had built the Academy of Sciences at San Francisco, using rein-
forced concrete floors and iron columns. For more details cf. Ernest L. Ransome and
Alexis Saurbrey, Reinforced Concrete Buildings (New York, 1912), especially the first
chapter, "Personal Reminiscences.''
3 L'Architeclure et le ciment arme (Paris, n.d.).
326
awarded the contract because by using the new material he
was able to underbid all his competitors. The boldness of De
Baudot's work was recognized, but for many reasons it failed
to equal the great effect produced by Victor Horta's house in
the Rue de Turin. 4
By the first decade of the twentieth century reinforced concrete
came into widespread use nearly everywhere. It was used in
the Queen Alexandra Sanatorium, built at Davos, Switzerland,
in 1907 (fig. 196). Robert Maillart was responsible for its con-
struction; the architects were Pfleghard and Haefeli. The
196. PFLEGHARD, HAEFELI, and MAILLART. Queen Alexandra :5anatorium,

Davos, 1907.
Queen Alexandra Sanatorium (today the Thurgauer Health

Center) stands on a wide ledge halfway up a mountainside.
Its three wings with their wide open terraces are carefully
oriented to catch all the available sunlight.
In the same year work was begun in Chicago on a warehouse
designed for Montgomery, Ward and Company. 5 Completed
4 Quiet pioneer work was also done by Louis Bonnier, who was responsible for the con-
struction of a civic building at Pas-de-Calais (devoid of the usual decoration). Dutert,

who had been in charge of the architectonic part of the Galerie des Machines of 1889,
erected a museum of uncovered brick for the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, a building which
likewise honestly displayed the iron in its construction wherever it was used.
' Cf. Fig. 249.
327
in 1908, this warehouse was the work of R. E. Schmidt, Garden,
and Martin- members of the Chicago school's second genera-
tion. Some eight hundred feet long, it has large windows of
the horizontally elongated Chicago type and broad horizontal
bands running without interruption the full extent of its
fac;ade. "It is a huge aggregation of storage lofts, nine stories
high, a repetition of units of a monotony truly appalling. . . .
It is entirely of reinforced concrete construction - founda-
tions, columns, floors, and walls." 6 Contemporary critics
were thoroughly bewildered by this structure, one of the first in
the United States, I believe, to use ferroconcrete with a clear
recognition of its properties. "It is not intended to be an ar-
chitectural monument . . . the qualifications are functional,
structural, and economical . . . in this building architectural
expression was not wanted." But "if it is not in itself beauti-
ful or graceful, it is at least logical." 7 Actually this warehouse
is one of the few late buildings in which the spirit of the Chicago
school still survives.
The further advance in reinforced concrete construction and in
the exploitation of its artistic potentialities took place in
France.
A. G. Perret
Auguste Perret (1874-1955) remained an architecle-ingfmieur
throughout his career. 8 Perret came from Burgundy, from a
town near the great monastery of Cluny. One might discern
connections between the severe engineering art of the Cluniac
monks and this architect who was the first to recognize how to
employ reinforced concrete as a means of architectural expres-
sion.
Rue Franklin Perret built his 25 bis Rue Franklin apartments in Paris in
apartment 1903 (fig. 197), ten years after Horta's Rue de Turin house.
This apartment house by no means embodies the pure forms of
the Chicago office buildings, and it fails to match the strength
of Frank Lloyd Wright's work of the same period. The familiar
European restlessness is still present to a considerable degree.
6 "On American Architecture," Architectural Record, XXII (1908), 115-120.
7 Architectural Record, XXII, 115-120.
8 See Paul Jamot, A.-G. Perret et !'architecture du belon arme (Paris and Brussels, 1927).
328
198. AUGUSTE PERRET on the roof of 25 his
Rue Franklin.
199. AUGUSTE PERRET. 25 his Rue Frank-

lin. Plan. The flexible planning which the fer-
roconcrete skeleton makes possible.
197. AIJGIJSTE PERRET. 25 his Rue Franklin,
Paris, 1903. The ferroconcrete skeleton, instead of being
disguised, is openly presented as a constituent element. 329
Nevertheless, it represents the first employment of ferro-
concrete as a medium for architectonic expression, and many
of its features were to prove seeds for future developments.
The ferroconcrete skeleton is used without disguise; it stands
out plainly as one of the constituent elements of the building.
Earlier buildings in concrete----,- Hennebique's Rue Danton
apartments, for example - made no architectonic use of the
skeleton. But in the Rue Franklin, the use of the fac;ade as a
mere support for ornamentation has been abandoned. It is
200. AUGUSTE PERRET. 25 his Rue Franklin. Office on ground floor. The street
floor has been almost dissolved into pure glass.
hollowed out, recedes in depth, springs forward. Six project-

ing stories are allowed to hover in mid air, the sixth one leav-
ing bare the square supporting columns of the concrete skeleton
(fig. 197). The whole fac;ade is in movement. The upper
part of the building almost seems to float and the ground floor
(which at one time housed Perret's office) is almost dissolved
into glass. It is roofed with thin, narrow concrete slabs (jig.
200), which project to provide an area of shade surmounted
by a balcony
The total efl'ect is reminiscent of some iron structures: every-
thing seems to grow lighter and lighter toward the ground,
until finally only a few thin members connect the building
330
with the earth. This impression of fragility had its financial
consequences. Banks refused to take a mortgage on the apart-
ment house, since the experts predicted its speedy collapse.
The flat roof, like several in Tony Garnier's projected "Cite Interior: novel uses
Industrielle," exhibits a rudimentary roof garden (fig. 198). of materials and
The light-well has been done away with, and the walls for the flexible planning
staircase are executed in glass bricks, which leave it entirely
open to the daylight. Perret told me that he used these bricks
because his neighbors could legally have forbidden the cutting
of windows on this side of the building. This does not at all
detract from Perret's ingenuity in finding a new use for a
familiar material. The same trait appears in his adoption of
simple pipe railings to replace the usual elaborate hand-wrought
affairs and in his opening up the ground floor with glass walls.
But Perret made his most important contribution to the
younger generation of French architects in the flexible treat-
ment of the ground plan (fig. 199). Partitions are set in with
complete freedom to connect separate ferroconcrete pillars.
Perret was working here in the same spirit as Horta and, later
on, Le Corbusier. Each story is planned as an independent
unit.
A short time later Perret built what he himself regards as the Garage in the
"premiere tentative (au monde) de beton arme esthetique." Rue Ponthieu
This was his garage in the Rue Ponthieu. Here the reinforced
concrete skeleton is given full opportunity to determine the
character of the fa<;ade.
There are other fine works of Perret's which, unfortunately, we
shall be unable to discuss: his Theatre des Champs-Elysees
(1911-14), the source of so much controversy between him and
Henri van de Velde; the docks at Casablanca (1916), with
their eggshell-thin vaultings; his churches at Raney (1922)
and elsewhere, which exerted such influence upon contempo-
rary church buildings; his private houses; and his latest works.
Auguste Perret, with his sense for construction, gave Le Cor-
busier a decisive impetus toward his own work.
And the next generation of architects as a whole carried Per-
ret's results still further. Perret's buildings follow the best
nineteenth-century French tradition in construction. Like
331
the earlier architectes-ingenieurs, he drew his inspiration from
his materials. Perret did for ferroconcrete what Henri La-
brouste had done for iron.
Classical Like Tony Garnier, Perret preserved some connections with
reminiscences the classic past. But classical canons remained alive and flex-
ible for the best French architects, just as they had for the
French masters. of baroque days - for Racine, Moliere,
and Descartes. Perhaps later on we shall come to see that
something of the classic spirit is present even in the work of
the men who came after Perret; that they too reflect the
classic urge toward balance, symmetry, and repose.
201. TONY GARNIER. Central Station, 1901-04. Project. At a time when railroad
stations were customarily executed in the style of huge monuments, Garnier returns to actual
functions and exploits the new materials: glass and reinforced concrete.
Tony Garnier
Ferroconcrete The architecte-constructeur Auguste Perret was the first to find
the basic material new architectonic means in the unexplored potentialities of
in Garnier's work
ferroconcrete. This material was, indeed, peculiarly attractive
to French builders. Concrete accorded perfectly with their
traditional penchant for daring and extensively hollowed out
structures.
Tony Garnier (born in 1869) made reinforced concrete the
basis of all his work. In his "Cite Industrielle" (1901- 04) this
new material was used to organize a whole town along original
332
and strikingly farsighted lines. This is a scheme which we
shall discuss in some detail later on. 9 The Cite Industrielle,
planned when Garnier was only thirty, really laid down the
outlines for his whole future output. The "grands travaux
de Lyon," carried out under Edouard Herriot in Garnier's
native city, were practical outgrowths of his youthful project.
These "grands travaux" were very extensive; they included
the Lyons stockyard (1909), the city stadium (1915), twenty-
two pavilions of the Granges-Blanches hospital (begun in 1911,
but erected over a period of some two decades), and part of
a residential district - "Quartier des Etats-U nis" - which
was begun in 1920. Garnier's later work included pavilions at
several French exhibitions, his own house, and a number of
villas along the Riviera. All these buildings can be regarded as
developing out of his first serious work, and it is his foresighted
planning of this Cite lndustrielle which gives Garnier his place
in the history of architecture (jig. 201).
We are approaching the moment when European architecture
could at last attain a mastery of contemporary problems
through the means created by the engineers. By this time
people could see that modern techniques offered the only
means of expression for feelings stemming from modern life.
But we have first to retrace developments in America, whose
influence was to become effective only when this European
architecture had begun to recover from its own maladies.
9 Cf. pp. 787 ff.
333
PART V AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT
Importance of the The colonial and the republican periods were of great impor-
period between tance to American development; they provided a solid foun-
1850 and 1890
dation for future advance. But the period between 1850 and
1890 is more important for American influence on the outside
world. The preparations which made that influence possible
were completed during these decades. The years between 1850
and 1890 produced not only the great surge toward the un-
settled lands in the West but also strong manifestations of a
new and specifically American spirit. This period has particu-
lar significance to foreign eyes. The new forms which grew up
in it had their roots in an organization of labor altogether dif-
ferent from that which prevails in Europe.
The illustrative material published here was often unearthed
with difficulty. Documents from this period are not readily
accessible, just because there is so little interest in it and so
little understanding of its importance. Material showing the
development of the life of the period and the daily habits re-
flected in it is very difficult to find. \Vhat is of more impor-
tance, there is the constant danger that it will be lost forever.
Manufacturers simply laugh when asked for specimens of their
early productions and for old catalogues. There is no time for
and - above all - no interest in the sources of the tradition
which governs the life of the man of today. In the future, his-
torians who examine this period will certainly be more inter-
ested in uncovering the roots of the great anonymous produc-
tions of industry than they will be in the monumental or
official architecture of the time. But what institute tries, out
of a human rather than a technical interest, to collect the
documents dealing with the anonymous beginnings of our
period? \Ve are too unaccustomed to considering interrela-
tions between different realms of human activity to see clearly
the points at which they are connected. The danger is that the
material for reconstructing these relationships may be lost by
the time their importance has been recognized.
Europe Observes American Production

The European public had its initial contact with American
tools and furnishings at the first international exhibition - the
336
202. American clocks. c. 1850.
great London Exhibition of 1851. European observers were

astonished by the simplicity, technical correctness, and sure-
ness of shape revealed in American productions. The astute
Lothar Bucher called attention to "the grandfather clocks
with their excellently contrived works and simple walnut cases;
the chairs -· from simple wooden work benches to easy chairs
- with their freedom from the gingerbread carving which
tears at our hands and clothing, and the absence of the right
angles of those currently popular Gothic chairs which are
hunching everyone's shoulders. All that we see of American
domestic equipment breathes the spirit of comfort and fitness
for purpose " 1 (jig. 202).
Similarly, Count Leon de Laborde, a French observer, saw in
the Americans "une nation industrielle, qui se fait artiste" -
an industrial nation which was becoming artistic. He added
that "America would go her own way." 2
1 Lothar Bucher, K ulturhislorische Skizzen a us der Tnduslrieausslellung aller Volker
( Frankfort, 1851 ), pp. 146 If.

2 Leon de Laborde, De l'union des arts el de l'induslrie, I, 312 If.
337
The height of the lower part of
the top of the desk, is just equal
to the highest part of the back of
the chair, so as to allow it to
pass under.
The front edge of the seat is
in a perpendicular line with the
edge of the top of the desk, so
that the scholar is required to sit
erect, when engaged in writing
or studying, and the same time
that part of his back which re-
quires support is fully in contact
with the chair.
203. Standards of American school furniture, 1849.
Gottfried Semper expressed a similar opinion. Semper was a

German architect who (like Richard Wagner) had been exiled
from his own country for revolutionary activities in Dresden.
He was one of the founders of the first English school of design,
organized at London in this same year- 1851. Semper writes
that "although there is very little evidence of craftsmanship
in America, nevertheless a real national art will spring up
there first.'' 3
American school The Americans showed schoolroom furniture with cast-iron
furniture, c. 1851; supports in which everything was carefully adjusted to the
advanced
pupil's age, occupation, and anatomical structure (fig. 203).
functional design
This furniture - most of it produced in the New England
area, around Boston- was the product of a twenty-year
fight for better school equipment that had begun in 1330 with
W. J. Adams' lecture, "Schoolhouses and School Apparatus,"
before the American Institute of Instruction. In 1333 Henry
Barnard completed one of the pioneer works in this field, his
essay on school architecture, for the Senate's Standing Com-
mittee on Education. Barnard was perfectly clear on the func-
tional demands that such furniture had to satisfy: "Every
pupil, young or old, should be provided with a chair just high
enough to allow, when properly occupied, the feet to rest on the
a Gottfried Semper, Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst (Brunswick, 1852), pp. 73 ff.
338
floor without the muscles of the thigh being pressed hard upon
the front edge of the seat. . . . The seats should be provided
with a support for the muscles of the back, and, as a general
rule, this support should rise above the shoulder blades, and
should in all cases incline back as it rises, one inch in every
foot.'' 4
A quarter of a century later, at the Philadelphia Exposition of
1876, the European observers split into two camps. Those
who expected to find European fashions in the American ex-
hibits were disappointed. They found, as Jakob von Falke
says, "neither furniture nor furniture covers, neither glass-
ware nor fayence ware, which attracted us by reason of its
taste, color-scheme, or beauty." Certain objects of daily use
which, according to von Falke, ought to be richly decorated
- grandfather clocks, for example - "show the sad state of
American taste by their complete absence of ornamentation." 5
In this instance a European observer condemned the charac-
teristic whi_;h gave American industrial art its individuality
and significance for the future: simplicity.
On the other hand, those observers who did not judge on the
basis of preconceived standards were impressed with "the
beauty of form in which the Americans cast their tools and
machinery." F. Reuleaux, the well-known scientist who
headed the German delegation to the exposition, comments on
this in his "Letters from Philadelphia" of 1876: "The axes,
hatchets, hoes, hunting knives, hammers, etc., are executed
with such variety and beauty as cannot but excite admiration
and astonishment. A constraint runs through all of them.
They are designed so well for the purpose to be served that
they seem actually to anticipate our needs." 6
The Victo:r:ia and Albert Museum at South Kensington has
preserved the catalogue of a Chicago hardware firm of the
4 Henry Barnard, School Architecture, or Contributions to the Improvement of School-
houses in the United States, 5th ed. (New York, 1854), p. 342. The Senate committee
refused to publish Barnard's essay, which did not appear unti\1841, and then only- as
he relates - " through the strenuous effort of a few intelligent friends of school improve-
ments," and with the author bearing a part of the expense.
5 Jakob von Falke, "Vorbemerkungen zur Weltausstellung in Philadelphia," Der
Gewerbehalle, XIII (1875), 144 IT.

6 F. Reuleaux, Brieje aus Philadelphia (Brunswick, 1877), pp. 18 ff.
339
1-·------=---~-1
MAYDOLE'S CAST STEEL HAMMERS.
Nos. 81 to 8J.
·~
81 2 n,. $15 00
82 t Jb. 9 o:t. IJ 00
83 I Jb. Z OZ. II 00
One-fourth Dozen in a. Package.
~~--No-, --=~J .• ,-,nd.-,.
91 Engineer's Ha~~ers, E~:ra _c~,st St~el, l lb. 4 07..

92 J fit. 12 oz. 10 so
One-fourth Dozen in a Package.
204. Ball-peen machinist's
I
hammer; blacksmith's ham-
mers. Chicago catalogue of
1877. Reuleaux remarked of
Nos. 6r and 62. tools like these that "they are
3 Jt,, designed so well for the purpose
§1
82 .
Blacksmith,s Hand Hammers, Extra Cast Steel,-
" U U II II 2 Jb, IO oz.
'5
IJ 50
00
to be served that they seem actu-
One-fourth Dozen in a Package.
ally to anticipate our needs"
Tbe Weia:hts given above are for Single Hammer~ without the Handles.
(1876).
seventies. The precise and sensitive forms of the tools illus-

trated in it show why Europeans were so astonished by them
(fig. 204). Such articles as the "engineer's machine hammer"
and the Yale lock were not even introduced into Europe until
comparatively recent years (fig. 205).
Julius Lessing, the first director of the Museum of Industrial
Arts in Berlin, when he saw the exhibit of American tools at
the Paris World's Fair of 1878, experienced -so he says- as
intense an aesthetic pleasure from a display of American axes
as from a real work of art. He remarked the beauty of line
which was achieved without any ornamental embellishment,
"simply by molding the axe to the human hand and to the
movement of the human body as it is used." 7
Lessing goes a step further. He points to the surprising paral-
lelism between these tools and the most beautiful of primitive
stone and bronze instruments. At the same time he regards as
7 Julius Lessing, Berichte von der Pariser Weltausstellung von 1878 (Berlin, 1878), p. 99.
340
a "lamentable retrogression every effort of the Americans to
imitate European art forms."
The official French report on the exposition at Philadelphia in
1876 includes some comment on American furniture. Particu-
lar attention is called to the fact that American furniture, in
contrast with European, is marked by its use of flat surfaces, of
fewer surface planes. "The moldings are simple, with very
little carving. The parts are thus easy to make separately and
are easily assembled." 8 The French report argues that a new
style has appeared on the other side of the Atlantic, a style
which manifests itself in all forms of the industrial arts. To
show how typically American these products were in their eyes,
they called this the "Pullman car style."
Elaborate and costly furniture appeared at the exhibitions. American "patent
Thus the Paris Exposition of 1867 featured a French sideboard, furniture" in the
sixties
valued at twenty thousand dollars, which awed all beholders.
Regarded as a museum piece at the time, it now presents a
somewhat dreadful appearance. American exhibitors - es-
pecially after the seventies - preferred to display what was
known as "patent furniture." A page from the official cata-
205. Yale lock, Chicago

catalogue of 1877. One 1
early instance of the way
machinery came to displace
the skilled craftsman -
here the locksmith.
8 Exposition internalionale el universelle de Philadelphie 1876 (Paris, 1877), pp. 185 ff.
341
206. Folding bed, Philadelphia
Exhibition, 1876. A specimen of
the patent combination furniture
which came into extensive use
about this lime.
Iogue of American exhibits at Paris in 1878, headed "Cheap

and Fancy Furniture, all Series Productions," lists " Per-
forated Veneer Seats," "Automatic Sofa-Spring Beds," "Fold-
ing Chairs" (they folded into a lounge), a " Swing Convertible
Cradle," a "Child's Crib," a "Reclining Chair," etc. (fig. 206). 9
All these things were developed just at the period when Euro-
pean photomontages of historical styles were beginning to in-
fluence American production.
Innate beauty of By the time of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 Lessing found
American tools the Americans awarding all the prizes to heavily ornamented
European articles. "But we who went over with the will to
9 Patent furniture had its origin in the early industrialized England of the beginning
of the nineteenth century. Thomas Sheraton, known to the public for the style that
bears his name, is perhaps more important today as one of the first cabinetmakers to
be interested in producing "patent" furniture. (Cf. Sheraton, Designs for Household
Furniture, third ed., London, 1812: easy and hunting chairs, chairs which may be
converted into beds, tables which may be converted into high desks, movable bookcases,
etc.) American furniture-makers followed this trend, which nearly disappeared in
Europe through the influence of " period" furniture, and consciously developed very
original solutions. In 1939 no research seemed to have been done on this important
branch of American furniture making. In Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford
University Press, 1948) America's patent furniture was presented for the first time as
the constituent furniture of the nineteenth century. Like other constituent elements
of the nineteenth century, such as iron construction, it shows a close similarity to the
trends of the twenties of our century.
342
learn," he writes, "have found other things more important
for future development. We are bringing back to Europe
smooth wooden chairs, polished doorknobs, and gracefully
curved utensils entirely devoid of embellishment.
"Here we saw utensils and tools created in the same spirit as
railroads, ships, and wagons. Here we saw objects of daily
use developed clearly and without any preconception - ob-
jects appealing not so much to the calculating intellect as
directly to the senses. They convey to the eye the satisfying
sensation which only beauty can give." 10
As the last of the European observers, Gropius may be quoted.
In 1913, just after his completion of the Fagus works, he wrote
an essay on the development of modern industrial buildings for
one of the publications of the German W erkbund, which did
so much to introduce contemporary ideas into Germany. For
the first time he gives illustrations and speaks of the uninten-
tional beauty of American industrial architecture:
"In comparison with the other countries of Europe, Germany
seems to have gone far ahead in the field of factory design.
But in America, the motherland of industry, there are great
industrial structures which, in their unconscious majesty, are
superior to even our best German buildings of that type. The
grain elevators of Canada and South America, the coal con-
veyors of great railway lines, and the more modern industrial
plants of North America are almost as impressive in their
monumental power as the buildings of ancient Egypt. They
present an architectural composition of such exactness that to
the observer their meaning is forcefully and unequivocally
clear. The natural integrity of these buildings resides not in
the vastness of their physical proportions - herein the quality
of a monumental work is certainly not to be sought - but in
their designers' independent and clear vision of these grand,
impressive forms. They are not obscured by sentimental
reverence for tradition nor by other intellectual scruples which
prostrate our contemporary European design and bar true
artistic originality" u (fig. 207).
10 J. Lessing, "Neue Wege," Kunstgewerbeblatl, VI ( 1895 ), 1 ff.
Walter Gropius, "Die Kunst in Industrie und Handel," Jahrbuch des Deulschen
11
Werkbundes (Jena, 1913), pp. 21-22.
343
207. Grain elevator, Chicago, 1873.
The Structure of American I nduslry

American industry differs from European industry in its struc-
ture. These differences have to be kept in mind if one is to un-
derstand clearly the process of evolution which American indus-
try has followed. Such structural differences are also the grounds
for the dissimilar attitudes toward the crafts-and later toward
the '"arts and crafts" - which exist in these two areas.
Industrializatiou European industry, springing into existence on English soil in
of complicated the late eighteenth century, substituted the machine for hand
handicrafts labor in the working of some simple raw materials - iron, and
plant and animal fibers. The spinning and weaving machines
which were invented in England at this time served as unsur-
passed trail-breakers in the mechanization of industry.
American industry became robust at a much later period,
around 1850. Naturally, European inventions were adopted
344
and introduced into this country. Divergences appear at the
points where problems inherent in a totally different situation
demanded new solutions.
About 1850, in America, all these complicated crafts based on
skilled labor became industrialized. The change came about
partly through new inventions and partly through new meth-
ods of organization. The major emphasis, indeed, rested on
a new organization. Very early this new organization even
penetrated the household. New tools were introduced to
lighten hand labor in cooking- the apple parer (1868), for
example.
Before 1850 the manufacture of men's and children's clothes
had been largely a household industry, but the invention of
the sewing machine transferred it to the factories. A team of
three to five, or more, persons produced the finished garment. 12
By the 1840's the "Oak Hall" establishment in Boston was
supposed to be the largest clothing store in the United States.
It was housed in a building of the Gothic Revival style which
resembled a medieval tomb.
From an author of the sixties we discover that "few are aware
of the vast extent to which the sale of ready-made clothing is
carried on at the present day. Probably no branch of business
has so rapidly increased.
"But a few years ago it was confined to goods of very inferior
quality, style, and make, worn mostly by laborers and sea-
men." 13
By 1876 Wanamaker was producing ready-made clothing for
men and boys on a great scale, and with all the knowledge of
service, advertising, and price policies best calculated to at-
tract the masses.
In the manufacture of boots and shoes, machinery did not
come into use until nearly the middle of the century. At
12 Walter W. Jennings, A History of Economic Progress in the United States (New York,
1926), p. 430.
13 C. D. Goyer, History of Chicago, Its Commercial and Manufacturing Interests (Chicago,
1862), p. 170.
345
about the same time butchering was converted into the meat-
packing industry, with stockyards, elaborate refrigeration
methods, and the modern, endless-chain system of operation
- including mechanical hog-scraping apparatus. 14 The first
"mechanical bakery" was established in Brooklyn in Decem-
ber 1856. The second mechanical bakery was set up shortly
afterwards in Chicago. It had "one oven passing from the
basement to the third floor and within the oven . . . three
endless chains supporting the cars containing the bread." 15
To summarize: In America materials were plentiful and skilled

labor scarce; in Europe skilled labor was plentiful and ma-
terials scarce. It is this difference which accounts for the dif-
ferences in the structure of American and European industry
from the fifties on. In America just about that date, mechaniza-
tion began to replace skilled labor in all the complicated crafts.
This trend can be observed astonishingly early in the field of

housing; mechanized methods appear even before the fifties.
In this period James Bogardus was producing cast-iron build-
ings assembled from prefabricated parts which were forerun-
ners of the skeleton frame. The encroachment of industrializa-
tion upon skilled hand trades is shown much more plainly,
however, in the introduction of a new type of wooden con-
struction, one used for some 60 to 80 per cent of all the houses
in the United States: the balloon frame. The balloon frame
in its technical aspects has little interest for us, but a study of
its origins may yield us an insight into an important period in
the American development. 16
14Jennings, op. cit., p. 734; H. T. Warschow, Representative Industries in the United

States (New York, 1882), pp. 444 ff.
1• Goyer, op. cit., p. 122.
16Some of the quotations in this section are from Heinrich Waentig, Wirtschaft und
Kunst (Jena, 1909). Waentig, as he remarks in his foreword, "gathered together out
of life and the libraries" the materials for one of the few really penetrating studies of
the arts and crafts movement in the nineteenth century. Anyone who has done similar
research into nineteenth-century developments can understand his remark that he was
more than once on the verge of abandoning the whole enterprise.
Waentig goes directly to the constituent facts of the period. He was not an art historian
but a political economist - that is, he had been trained to concentrate on the problems
of his own age at greater length than a final appendix to a study of some earlier period
permits. His book has great value for anyone interested in the nineteenth century.
346
THE BALLOON FRAME AND INDUSTRIALIZATION
The balloon frame (fig. 208) is closely connected with the level
of industrialization which had been reached in America. Its
invention practically converted building in wood from a com-
plicated craft, practiced by skilled labor, into an industry.
The principle of the balloon frame involves the substitution of
thin plates and studs-running the entire height of the building
and held together only by nails- for the ancient and expensive
method of construction with mortised and tenoned joints. To
put together a house like a box, using only nails - this must
have seemed utterly revolutionary to carpenters. Naturally
enough, the balloon frame met with attack at the start:
"The Balloon Frame has passed through and survived the
theory, ridicule, and abuse of all who have seen fit to attack
it. . . . Its name was given in contempt by those old fogy
mechanics who had been brought up to rob a stick of timber of
all its strength and durability, by cutting it full of mortices,
tenons and auger holds, and then supposing it to be stronger
than a far lighter stick differently applied, and with all its
208. Balloon-frame construction. From G. 209. St. Mary's Church, Chi-

E. Woodward," Woodward's Country Homes" cago, 1833. The first building in
(New York, 1869). balloon frame. Razed and rei!rected
three times during its short life.
347
210. Balloon frame. From
W. E. Bell, "Carpentry Made
Easy" (1859) . "If it had not
been for the knowledge of the
balloon-frame, Chicago and
San Francisco could never have
arisen, as they did, from little
villages to great cities in a
single year" (Solon Robinson,
1855).
211. Windsor chair. Par-

allels the balloon frame both
in its use of thin structural
parts to produce a light and
strong construction, and in its
anonymous development.
348
212. R. J. NEUTRA. House in Texas, 1937. Modern balloon~frame houses like this
one reveal the elegance and lightness which are innate qualities of this lype of .~kPlelon
construction.
capabilities unimpaired. . .. The name of 'Basket Frame'

would convey a better impression, but the name 'Balloon ' has
long ago outlived the derision which suggested it."
The balloon frame marks the point at which industrialization
began to penetrate housing. Just as the trades of the watch-
maker, the butcher, the baker, the tailor were transformed
into industries, so too the balloon frame led to the replacement
of the skilled carpenter by the unskilled laborer.
"A man and a boy can now (1865) attain the same results,
with ease, that twenty men could on an old-fashioned frame.
. . . The principle of Balloon Framing is the true one for
strength, as well as for economy. If a mechanic is employed,
the Balloon Frame can be put up for forty per cent less money
than the mortice and tenon frame." 1
1The quotations are from G. E. Woodward, Woodward's Country Homes (New York,
1869), pp. 152-164.
349
Without machine-made nails the balloon frame would be eco-
nomic nonsense. It was only when machinery had made nails
cheaper, and "cut nails of steel and iron and nails made of
wire could be furnished of excellent quality and at a cost much
less than old-fashioned wrought-iron nails [that] the com-
paratively expensive system of house framing with mortise
and tenon began to be supplanted by a more economic system
dependent entirely upon the efficacy of nailing." 2
The invention of the balloon frame really coincides with the
improvement of sawmill machinery as well as with the mass
production of nails (fig. 210).
Several machines for cutting and heading nails were developed
in both England and the United States toward the end of the
eighteenth century. Thomas Clifford patented such a device
in 1790, and about the sam2 time a similar machine was in-
vented by Jacob Perkins of Newburyport. A machine which
cut, shaped, and headed tacks in a single operation at the rate
of sixty thousand a day was patented by Jesse Reed in
1807. 3
"When the manufacture of cut nails was first undertaken,
wrought nails cost 25c a pound. . . . This made their use for
houses and fences difficult." 4 All this changed with the
introduction of machinery. The price of nails was suddenly
reduced. "In 1828 the production was so brisk that the price
was reduced to 8c a pound. . . . In 1833 the rapidity of pro-
duction had brought prices down to 5c . . . in 1842, 3c." 5
The Balloon Frame and the Building-up of the West

The balloon frame has an established connection with the con-
quest of the West from Chicago to the Pacific Coast.
Contemporaries knew quite well that houses would never have
sprung up with such incredible rapidity- either on the
2 Russell Sturgis, Dictionary of Architecture and Building (New York, 1902), III, 1125.
3 Great Industries of the United Slates (Hartford, 1872), p. 1072.
• William E. Bell, Carpentry Made Easy (Philadelphia, 1859). Bell worked as a car-
penter in Ottawa, Michigan. Writing in 1857 he claims (p. 53) to have had fifteen years'
experience constructing and repairing balloon frame buildings.
• AlbertS. Bolles, Industrial History of the United Stales (Norwich, Conn., 1889), p. 220.
350
pra1nes or within the big cities - had it not been for this
construction.
"With the application of machinery, the labor of house build-
ing has been greatly lessened, and the western prairies are
dotted over with houses which have been shipped there all
made, and the various pieces numbered." 6 Another observer
goes further: "If it had not been for the knowledge of the
balloon-frame, Chicago and San Francisco could never have
arisen, as they did, from little villages to great cities in a single
year." 7
At the period when the West was being built up, contempo-
raries called "the method of construction known as 'balloon
framing' the most important contribution to our domestic
architecture."
To me it seems very characteristic of the negligence with
which contemporary history is treated that no dictionary of
architecture or construction gives a precise answer to the
question of who invented the balloon frame and when it
was invented.
The Invention of the Balloon Frame

Even as far back as the fifties and sixties there seems to have
been no certainty with regard to the invention of the balloon
frame. One early witness, writing in 1872, relates that "when
it was first used is not known with any definiteness, but it
has within the last fifty years replaced the old method of
construction.'' 8
Woodward, in 1869, confesses that "the early history of the
Balloon Frame, is somewhat obscure, there being no well au-
thenticated statements of its origin. It may, however, be
traced back to the early settlement of our prairie countries,
where it was impossible to obtain heavy timber and skillful
mechanics. . . . The Balloon Frame belongs to no one per-
6 CreaL Industries of the United States.
7 Solon Robinson in New York Tribune, January 18, 1855. Quoted in Woodward, op.
cit., p. 151.
8 Great Industries of the United States.
351
son; nobody claims it as an invention, and yet in the art of
construction it is one of the most sensible improvements that
has ever been made." 9
Nevertheless, the balloon frame does seem to have had an in-
ventor and to have emanated from one particular town.
George Washington Snow, 1797-1870

The inventor of the balloon frame was George \V. Snow .10 He
was born at Keene, New Hampshire, September 16, 1797. of
an old American family which traced back to the A1ayflower.
He must have been rather a restless spirit, since he first left
the family homestead for New York and afterwards went to
Detroit with his wife. Under rather primitive conditions he
crossed the state of Michigan, and finally, in a canoe paddled
by an Indian guide, he reached the mouth of the Chicago River,
July 12, 1832. The small community he found there- there
were only two hundred and fifty inhabitants- pleased his
pioneer temperament. He took an active part in its affairs for
many years: in 1833, when Chicago became a city, Snow was
appointed its first assessor and surveyor; he was elected alder-
man in 1849, and made drainage commissioner the same year; he
was at one time chief of the pioneer hook and ladder company.
As one of his descendants remarks in a letter, like many of the
first settlers Snow was something of a jack-of-all-trades. He
was one of the earliest of the Chicago lumber dealers, purchas-
ing "Carver's Lumberyard" in 1835. He owned considerable
land and conducted a real estate business. He was a building
contractor, as well as a general contractor and financier.
Snow was not merely a surveyor; he had been educated as a
civil engineer in his youth. This technical training may have
led him to the invention of the balloon frame. How this came
9 Woodward, op. cit., pp. 151-154.
10Until more exact researches have been made it cannot be taken as certain that no
other men figured in the development of the balloon frame. Solon Robinson (to whom
we have already referred) writes that he was using the balloon frame as early as 1835.
Walter Field in a Harvard thesis, "A Reexamination into the Invention of the Bal-
loon Frame," shows how difficult it is to give George Snow full credit for the inven-
tion of the balloon frame. Further investigation seems to be necessary.
352
about and what his struggles were we do not know. The tag,
"balloon frame,'' was a mere nickname, a jocular reference to
the lightness of this new type of construction.
There are several confirmations of the tradition in Snow's
family that he invented the balloon frame. Its invention is
credited to him by Andreas in his His tory of Chicago, 11 and in
Industrial Chicago, the most important book on the develop-
ment of Chicago, we read that "the balloon frame is the joint
idea of George W. Snow and necessity." 12 Andreas' statement
is based on the words of one of Snow's fellow townsmen, the
architect J. M. Van Osdel, who arrived in Chicago in 1837.
In an article, "The History of Chicago Architecture," pub-
lished in a Chicago monthly of the early eighties, Van Osdel
remarks that "Mr. Snow was the inventor of the 'balloon
frame' method of constructing wooden buildings, which in this
city completely superseded the old style of framing with posts,
girts, beams and braces." 13
George Snow's name is nearly unknown. There is no portrait
of him in any of the local histories, but one was obtained from
a family album which reveals a face at once full of puritan
energy and of human sensitivity.H
The first building in balloon frame was St. Mary's Church in
Chicago, the earliest of the Catholic churches of the city (jig.
209). "In July 1833 a number of men are found erecting a
church on Lake Street near State Street." 15 Old builders
prophesied its collapse. In the short term of its existence this
church was razed and reerected three times.
Until the seventies the balloon frame was called simply
"Chicago construction," as we learn from a report of United
States Commissioner H. Bowen, published in Washington in
11 I (Chicago, 1890), 504.
12 I (Chicago, 1891), 51.
13 Inland Architect and Builder, I, no. 3 (Aprill883), 36. This magazine was the organ of
the developing Chicago school of architects.

14 I am indebted for this biographical material to Miss Marion Rawls, librarian of the
Burnham Library of the Art Institute of Chicago, and to Mrs. George A. Carpenter of
Chicago, Snow's granddaughter, who provided the portrait. I published this portrait
in an article in the annual, New Directions, 1939.
16 Industrial Chicago, I, 51.
353
1869. Bowen speaks of the western farmhouse which was for-
warded in sections to the Paris Universal Exposition of 1867
as being of " Chicago construction."
The balloon frame, then, is associated with Chicago, like the
skyscraper construction which, half a century later, was also
called simply ''Chicago construction.''
The balloon-frame building with its skeleton of thin machine-
cut studs and its covering of clapboards grew out of the seven-
teenth-century farmhouses of the early settlers. Snow was
familiar with such houses in his home state of New Hampshire
and his wife's home, Connecticut, where they were especially
common. In these houses comparatively thin and narrow studs
were used as intermediary framing, with the whole construc-
tion tied together by the clapboard covering. 16
George Snow started with these traditional methods, changing
and adapting them to meet the new possibilities of production
in a way which was as simple as it was ingenious.
The balloon frame has kept its vitality for a whole century and
is still used extensively. This simple and efficient construction
is thoroughly adapted to the requirements of contemporary
architects. Many of Richard J. Neutra's houses in Texas and
southern California reveal the elegance and lightness which are
innate qualities of the balloon-frame skeleton (jig. 212).
The Balloon Frame and the Windsor Chair

The thin two-inch studs of the balloon frame stick up into
the air apparently without weight in comparison with the
traditional timber construction. Even today the European
observer finds their thinness really daring.
The same idea, the use of thin structural members to produce
a most efficient whole construction, had figured a century
earlier in the development of the Windsor chair. The Windsor
chair is as outstandingly important in the history of American
16Cf. J. F. Kelly, The Early Domestic Architecture of Connecticut (New Haven, 1935 ),
p. 40. Here the "studs or intermediary framing members" are described as "generally
measuring about 2! X 3 inches in section." Their height, however, was only equal to
"the distance between the horizontal members of construction."
354
furniture as the balloon frame is in the history of American
housing.
There is a familiar anecdote attached to the name of this piece
of furniture. The Prince of Wales, toward the end of the
seventeenth century, is supposed to have seen the original
specimen in a peasant's cottage near Windsor Castle, and to
have ordered it copied for his own use, though England never
gave the artistic consideration to the \Vindsor chair that
America did. Windsor chairs were the strongest type of chair
made in the colonies and easily movable. Their construction
was of spindles (fig. 211), and the early ones were made by
wheelwrights. It is very seldom that the vogue for furniture
extends over a century, but that of the \Vindsor chair lasted
from 1725 to 1825. No single chair-maker won individual
fame for the design. 17
For the historian it seems worth while to observe the curious

interrelation existing between the development of the balloon
frame and the \Vindsor chair in two different centuries.
There is the same tendency to counteract the American climate
- wet and dry in turn - by assembling thin structural parts
to produce a light type of construction. There is the same
tendency toward anonymous work and tuward serial manu-
facture, with lightness and efficiency achieved by the simplest
means.
PLANE SURFACES IN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE
In speaking earlier of architecture as an organism with its

own continuing life, we remarked that nowadays we are
chiefly interested in those persisting influences which give this
life its continuity. The lines of force which spread and develop
throughout several periods concern us more than the history
of styles, for styles are those special aspects of periods which
mark them off one from the other.
17 See Marta K. Sironen, A History of American Furniture (New York, 1936), p. 18.
355
Historical styles are particularly uninformative with regard to
what was actually going on in America. They arrived here
fully grown and give little insight into the constituent facts of
the native American development.
During the eighties European architecture lost more and more
of its dignity. The closer it clung to historical forms in the
search for security the more insecure it really became. In
barely fifty years the whole architectural inheritance of the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was lost in a welter
of transitory detail. The inner unrest and uncertainty of the
period appears time and again in unbalanced treatments of the
wall and of the ground plan. The whole organism of architec-
ture was riddled by a fatal disease.
American independence of Europe showed itself in the develop-
ment of new and logical forms for tools and furniture, and in
the informal and flexible ground plan of the American house.
In the same way the wall maintained its unity and balance in
America throughout this whole period of European uncer-
tainty and confusion. America produced its share of grotesque
work during these years, but - in contrast to Europe -
attention never entirely strayed from the basic elements of
architecture. These elements always remained dominant in
American work, taken as a whole. It may be that this is why
new architectural solutions were reached in America earlier
than they were abroad.
The plane surface: The plane surface - the flat wall of wood, brick, or stone -
the brick wall has always been a basic element in American architecture.
In part this has been due to the simplicity which a scarcity of
skilled labor enforced; in part it directly continues late eight-
eenth-century tendencies. The Georgian manner of treating
the brick wall has been carried over into the nineteenth cen-
tury; wooden houses have kept to traditions established by the
first settlers.
The brick wall, to be cheap, must be kept flat and simpie.
All opening·s are cut very cleanly into the flat surface of the
wall.
Such undisguised brick walls (fig. 213) are familiar features of
the American scene; they appear in New England mansions
356
213. Old Larkin Building, Buffalo, 1837. Specimen brick building of a type omnipresent
in the United Stales, with flat, undisguised walls and clean-cut openings.
of the late eighteenth century, in small anonymous buildings

on the main streets of all the cities, and in the big factories of
the Civil War period. The plain brick wall was firmly estab-
lished as a basic element in architecture when men like Henry
Hobson Richardson began their work in the seventies. Rich-
ardson's Sever Hall was built in 1878. We found a European
example of such scrupulously level surfaces in Berlage's
Amsterdam Stock Exchange. But the Stock Exchange was
built two decades later; flat brick surfaces, such as Richardson
used, were almost unknown in the Europe of the seventies.
Frank Lloyd Wright, too, was able to use the brick wall, taken
as a simple surface, from the very start. Unlike van de Velde
and Horta, there was no need for him to begin by crusading
against the mutilation and overcrowding of the wall, or to invent
an art nouveau to compete with established modes of ornamenta-
tion. He was able to begin his work on a much higher level.
357
214. Longfellow House, Cambridge, Mass., 1759. Clapboard wall of the sort which has
been used continuously in America for three centuries.
The The wooden wall has been governed by eighteenth-century

wooden wall American traditions to an even greater extent than the brick.
The simple clapboard wall (fig. 214) has remained a constituent
element for three centuries, without any interruption, from the
time of the first colonists to the present. Clapboards had been
used in England, but only for unpretentious farmhouses. In
America they dominated the whole field of wooden building.
We find them everywhere, from the rudest huts to the finest
mansions, churches, and town halls. Such a widespread and
enduring authority for one type of wall treatment covering a
period of three hundred years is entirely unknown on the
other side of the Atlantic.
The use of clapboards automatically tends toward balanced
and simple treatments of the wall. They are ill suited to breaks
or interruptions in its flat expanse, and they discourage the use
of applied ornament.
The stone wall Stone walls were treated with the same simplicity in states
where stone was used as a building material. Excellent work-
manship was displayed in the New England states: in the flat
358
215. Stone wall,
Union Wharf ware-
house, Boston, 1846.
The granite posts and
lintels for windows
and doors were cut
in one piece at the
Quincy quarries.
granite walls of the community houses of the Shakers (jig.

216), in the granite warehouses along the Boston wharves
(jig. 215), and in the commercial buildings of Boston of the
fifties and sixties (figs. 217, 218). 1
1 Many of these buildings were designed by Alexander Parris, who also designed Quincy
Market (the market buildings around Faneuil Hall, c. 1825 ). The earliest of the water-
front buildings date from the middle twenties; the wharf warehouses were built in the
forties; the mercantile blocks on Commercial Street were erected in the fifties; the re-
mainder were mostly completed by 1869, when Franklin Street was opened.
Many of these mercantile buildings are excellent examples of a well-proportioned and
logical pre-Richardson architecture which certainly played a larger part in later develop-
ments than is generally believed.
In a seminar which I conducted during the summer of 1938 on Boston office buildings
between 1830 and 1860 we endeavored to learn more about this work. An account of
one of the earliest of the great commercial architects, Gridley J. Fox Bryant, was dis-
covered in a copy of the New England Magazine ("An Architect of the Old School,"
vol. XXV, n.s. , November, 1901). Between the fifties and the seventies, Bryant built
hundreds of business blocks on the Boston water front, most of them granite buildings.
According to the New England Magazine, he left all his papers to Henry Turner Bailey.
One of rny students, Miss Lydia Jones, wrote to Bailey's widow. This material has ap-
parently disappeared, for Mrs. Bailey replied that her husband had "got rid of it one
day." By 1960 most of these buildings as well as the granite wharfs had disappeared.
359
216. Shaker Community House, Concord, Vermont, 1832. A specimen of the excellent
stonework that was produced by this religious sect.
These commercial buildings with their rusticated walls display

typical plane surfaces and economy of detail. Earlier ware-
houses, dating from the forties, are built of huge plain blocks
of rough-hewn granite, but no reminiscences of Florence are
involved. Their impressive austerity is easily explained: the
granite came from the Quincy quarries near-by, and labor was
saved by cutting out the window or door pillars on the spot, in
one piece.
Richardson was a student at Harvard in the period when these
commercial buildings were erected. Later on he went to Paris
and came under European influences. These new buildings
along the Boston water front must nevertheless have con-
stituted his earliest architectural impressions.
The Marshall Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale Store in Chicago (1885-
Field Store 87) was his best work (fig. 219). This building with its massive
stone walls occupies a rather strange position in the Chicago
development as a whole. For all that, it furnished a strong
incitement to the work of the Chicago school, and something
360
of its character was reflected in other buildings erected in the
Loop during the eighties.
Louis Sullivan's criticisms of the architecture of his time were
as uniquely severe as they were just. The Marshall Field
Store, however, was to him an "oasis" in the midst of a
desert of doubtfully sincere edifices. The "young man" to
217. Commercial Block, 140 Commercial Street, Boston, Mass., 1836. Detail. One
example of the well-proportioned and logical pre-Richardson architecture thai appeared in
Boston during the fifties and sixties.
218. Commercial Block, 140 Commercial Street, Boston, Mass. From Boston Almanac,
1856. A contemporary print of the building from which the detail in Fig. 217 was taken.
361
219. H. H. RICHARDSON. Marshall Field Wholesale Store, Chicago, 1885. Rich-
ardson here continues the American tradition of the plain and massive stone wall.
whom he so describes it in his Kindergarten Chats interrupts

him with ironic astonishment:
" 'You mean there is a good piece of architecture for me to
look at?'
'"No, I mean, here is a man for you to look at .... I mean
that stone and mortar here spring into life and are no more
material and sordid things . . . wholesomeness is there, the
breath of life is there, an elemental urge is there."' 2
We break in upon this poetic vision only to ask, What is this
building? Romanesque? Florentine Renaissance? 3 But need
we go so far back? Would it not be simpler to look for its origin
in the rugged stone walls which gave Richardson his first
2 Kindergarten Chats (Lawrence [n, Kansas, 1934), p. 15.
3 Henry Russell Hitchcock in his biography of Richardson makes a very careful effort
to trace the stages by which Richardson arrived at his Romanesque style. The account
(inevitably) presents large gaps.
362
architectural impressions~ The plain and massive stone wall
had been one of the basic elements in American architecture
from the very beginning, from the fortifications of the Revolu-
tionary period to the commercial buildings contemporaneous
with Richardson's student days at Harvard. The sober im-
pressiveness of this store could be Romanesque and at the
same time thoroughly indigenous, an artistic transmutation of
elements which had grown out of American life.
The Flexible and Informal Ground Plan

American architecture has been marked by one tendency since The American
the arrival of the earliest settlers: the American house is given and the European
farmhouse
a ground plan which can be enlarged whenever new social and
economic conditions make it desirable. This contrasts very
sharply with European procedure. In Europe a farmhouse is
planned as a solid, cubical unit from the very beginning.
Sometimes the interior is left unfinished, to be fitted up by
later generations when they come to need larger living quarters.
The American practice of adding new units to the original one
can be seen in those New England houses which survive from
the seventeenth century. 4 All these heavily timbered houses
began as one and a half or (at most) two-story structures, with
a single room on the ground floor. The next generation, with
improving circumstances, enlarged this ancestral nucleus both
horizontally and vertically. A new roof was spread over all
these additions, quite asymmetrically. But the important
thing was the addition of wings, which was very general.
The L-shaped ground plan, the beginning of the flexible and
informal layout, developed from this sort of planning.
Houses were not invariably enlarged. Sometimes - as in the
William Pepperell house at Kittery, Maine - they proved too
big for a later generation and were cut down. "This family
mansion was then much more imposing than at present, being
10 feet longer at each end and surrounded by a beautiful park.
It was reduced after the American Revolution when the estate
was confiscated in 1779." 5
1 For example, the Hancock house, Lexington, Mass. (1698, enlarged in 1734), the Jack-
son house, Portsmouth, N. H. (c. 16M), and the Whipple house, Ipswich, Mass. (1642).
• The Portsmouth Guide Book (Portsmouth, N. I-1., 1876), pp. 115-146.
363
In the late eighteenth century people did not hesitate to cut
through the solid oak framework of a house and divide it into
several portions. These were then moved to a new site and
reassembled, with whatever changes and enlargements sug-
gested themselves. The house at 34 Chestnut Street, Salem,
Massachusetts (jig. 220), is the product of such methods, al-
though no one would ever suspect it. This charming residence,
which seems to have been conceived as a unified whole, was
really built in three sections. "It is the only house now stand-
ing on the street which was not built in its present location but
220. House at 34 Chestnut Street, Salem, Mass., 1824. The two ends were originally
part of another house and were moved on wheels to the Chestnut Street site; there the center
portion was built.
was moved to the street. . . . It was originally a portion of the

house on the West Farm at Oak Hill, Danvers [miles away],
and was moved on wheels to Chestnut Street, in two parts, about
1824." 6 The architect added the center with its Palladian win-
dow, and changed and adapted it to the so-called Palladian or
academic ground plan which was in favor at this period.
The flexible treatment of the house which has been common
practice in America since colonial days is one of the keys to
6 Richard Hall Wiswall, Noles on the Building of Chestnut Street (Salem, 1939), p. 18.
364
its domestic architecture. Opinions are supposed to change
oftener in America than elsewhere, but this is not true in the
field of housing. Here there has been continuous growth.
American developments show more continuity than we find in
Europe, and more of the power to develop new elements for
the future out of the existing architectural inheritance.
American publications of the sixties and seventies show the American interiors
great variety of foreign influences which were at work in the of the nineties
country. England, Germany, France, Spain, the Orient-
fashions from all these quarters came into favor. They re-
mained, however, only the latest fashions at one season or
another; they did not permanently infect American architec-
ture. 'Vhen 'Vilhelm Bode visited the Chicago World's Fair
of 1893 he remarked that "in contrast to Germany, the
modern American house is built entirely from the inside out.
It not only corresponds to particular individual demands but
above all to the peculiarities, customs, and needs of the Ameri-
cans. That these customs are pronounced and distinctly
marked gives domestic architecture in the United States a
great advantage over our own German architecture." 7
It was precisely the things which still impress European ob-
servers that surprised Bode almost fifty years ago. He notes
that "rooms along the hallway are fitted with sliding doors or
partitions - often half as wide as their walls - and that these
doors are nearly always left open. 8 In this way it is possible
to look into the various rooms of the house." The Continental
apartment houses to which Bode was accustomed, with their
ridiculously high ceilings, dark and overcrowded rooms, and
luxuriant wall-coverings, were in sharp contrast to American
7 Wilhelm Bode, "Moderue Kun~t in der Vereiuigten Staaten," Kunstgewerbeblalt, V
(l8Y4), 115-117.
' To this day the European's hou~e remains, more or less, his castle. Its doors are real
doors, and they are usually kept closed. Sliding partitions never open upon the hall-
ways; they are used only to connect interior rooms. Jn American houses there are not
only these daringly placed partitions but even a lack of keys for half of the doors within
the house, and a lack of locks in the case of closets and wardrobes. European windows
are provided with both shades and curtains, and both - usually neither, in America-
are drawn after nightfall. The American rarely even fences his house, and lately there are
some signs that he rna y abandon the garage and take to leaving his car under a mere
shelter. "A garage is no longer necessary, as cars are made," says Frank Lloyd Wright.
·• A carport will do, with liberal overhead shelter and walls on two sides" (Architectural
/<'orum, January I Y38, p. 7Y).
365
interiors. In America, Bode remarks, "the rooms, according
to our notions, are somewhat low. They are not overcrowded
with furniture, and they have light-colored walls and ceilings." 9
(These are features which contemporary architects have finally
established in Europe, after considerable struggle.)
Functional plan- Bode's report of an advanced American domestic architecture
ning in the is supported by popular literature on home building published
seventies as early as the seventies. Books like Gardner's Illustrated
1\~.cl
2o.o "'!>·
221. E. C. GARDNEH. Kitchen, 222. E. C. GAHD::\IEH. Country house,

1882. 1882.
Homes, Describing Real Houses and Real People (Boston,

1875) 10 did much to propagate sound housing. The way in
which these books of the seventies approach the problem of the
house is surprising, considering the period. Instead of the dis-
cussion of details which one might expect, the house is con-
sidered as a whole- as a unit which must vary in each special
case. Their authors find this attitude so natural that the tone
of the discussions is invariably light and easy and sometimes
actually playful. They deal with houses planned not in some
special style but for some special purpose: with houses for the
newly married, doctors' houses, well-to-do business men's
houses - even one-room houses for "old maids."
9 Op. cit., p. 117.
10 Eugene C. Gardner (1836-1915) was one of the popular authors in this field. He was
principal of the Talmadge Academy, at Talmadge, Ohio, and editor of the Builder from
1885 to 1887.
366
The old maid and her house (figs. 223, 224) are particularly
interesting. This is a lady who knows precisely what she
wants: "I propose to build a house to live in, merely that and
nothing more . . . . My house must have one room and of
closets four; one for a little dressing room; one for my silk
dresses, which will accumulate, as I have no one to give them to
except to home missionaries' wives, and they ought not to
wear silk; one for my china, and one for my umbrella and
223. E. C. GARDNER. One- 224. The architect and his spinster

room house for an "old maid." client. From Gardner, "Illustrated
Homes" (Boston, 1875).
overshoes." 11 The close-knit unity of the ground plan pro-

duced to satisfy these demands and the economy with which
its space is put to use recall one of J. J. P. Oud's low-rental
apartments of 1920.
The functional spirit which dominated Europe in the twenties
is even more clearly apparent in the way the problem of the
kitchen is handled. In another of his books Gardner proposes
a space-saving treatment strikingly similar to the Frankfort
kitchen of about 1920 (jig. 221). The later design was supposed
to derive from the space economies effected in the modern
dining-car. Gardner achieved his solution through a direct
approach to the working problems of the cook and the house-
wife. The kitchen is made long and narrow "so that it may
11 Gardner, op. cit., p. 114.
367
have ample wall space and yet keep the distance between the
range and the pantry as short as possible." It has windows at
opposite sides "to admit plenty of light" and so that "the
summer breezes may sweep through it and keep a river of
fresh air between the cooking range and the dining room." 12
The interior of the typical American house is subdivided as
little as possible. This urge to unite the various rooms and to
open the interior is occasionally reflected in the use of different
floor levels, as in certain large Classical Revival houses of the
nineties.
An anonymous Nineteenth-century Americans who could afford to be stylish
development had houses whose exterior forms reflected the styles in favor at
the time - romantic, Victorian, French Renaissance, Roman-
esque, or classical. The ground plan, however, generally
retained its soundness. The flexible and informal ground plan
which was, on the whole, standard in America grew up without
any great names being attached to it. Like tools and patent
furniture, it remained strictly anonymous. It is the out-
growth both of the urge for comfort in the dwelling and of the
American tendency to tackle problems directly. Frank Lloyd
Wright found the basic elements of the flexible ground plan
ready at hand in its anonymous development. Undoubtedly
Richardson gave a new artistic intensity to this sort of planning
in his houses of the early eighties- particularly those built
around Chicago and in New England. But open planning
itself, the flexible and informal ground plan- this is a product
of the American development as a whole.
THE CHICAGO SCHOOL
Chicago in During the eighties a whole colony of buildings suddenly sprang

the eighties up iu Chicago - to heights of twelve, fourteen, sixteen, and
twenty-three stories. These buildings were erected not in
12 The House that Jill Built (New York, 1882), p. 82. Kitchens with a highly differentiated
organization and highly developed technical installations are first to be found in Eng-
land in the forties. Cf. the interesting description of the great kitchen of the Reform
Club in London (built by Charles Barry in 1837) in the Larousse Dictionnaire du XI X
siecle, heading "Club."
368
isolation, as they were in other cities, but in close proximity to
each other. Each had its own individual appearance and its
own name, and yet the aggregate appearance was not chaotic.
American buildings are commonly so short-lived that in a few
decades, perhaps, these buildings will all have disappeared.
Many of the best specimens have gone already and many more
are destined to go soon.
The strongest growth of the Chicago school is to be found
between 1883 and 1893. 1 Two contemporary voices may in-
form us of the state of development at the beginning and at the
end of this period.
"In no period since 1830 has the city experienced such wonder-
ful development in increase of population, trade and building
up as ... in 1882 .... The character of the buildings are [sic]
monstrous and costly .... There is such a demand for business
and office quarters that the permit to build a block is no sooner
obtained than applications are made for renting apartments,
and before the building is completed it is all rented and the
renters are ready to step in with their implements of trade.
Block after block mount up into the clouds overhanging the
city from every street and avenue." 2
1 The works concerned with the Chicago school in its developmen,t between 1883 and
1893 are for the most part anonymous. The first two volumes of Industrial Chicago, 6
vols. (Chicago, 1891-96), published by the Goodspeed Publishing Company, treat the
building interests. These two volumes, rarely found in American libraries, are the Vasari
of the Chicago school. The volumes of the Inland Architect (Chicago) after 1883 also
give some insight into the development of the school.
The best illustrations and plans (besides those in Industrial Chicago) are to be found in
Prominent Buildings Erected by the George A. Fuller Company, Chicago (Chicago? 1893?)
and Fireproof Building Construction: Prominent Buildings Erected by the Geo. A. Fuller
Company (New York and Chicago, 1904), both published by the George A. Fuller
Company. George A. Fuller (1851-1900), a Massachusetts man, went into business in
Chicago as a builder. He was one of the first building contractors to work with skeleton
construction, and he was connected with the erection of many buildings with which we
shall deal- the Tacoma, the Monadnock, the Pontiac, the Fair, the Reliance, and the
Marquette buildings, the Ashland Block, and the Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company
department store as long as Louis Sullivan worked on it.
Not to be ovenvoked are several guides, such as L. Schick, Chicago and Its Environs: A
Handbook for Travellers (Chicago, 1891). Others will be mentioned later. For illustra-
tions see Pictorial Chicago (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1893).
For the earlier period see T. A. Andreas, History of Chicago (Chicago, 1884), which con-
tains rare statistics and illustrations.
2 Stranger's Guide (Chicago, 1883).
369
In 1893, shortly before a great crisis affected Chicago and its
activities, another contemporary witness traces the end of this
period: "many times has it happened in Chicago that the
morning papers have come out with accounts of the letting of
the contract for the largest office building in the city and
the evening papers of the same day have given news of
other contracts for buildings far surpassing those told in the
morning." 3
In the eighties the Loop- the business center of the city-
became the perfect illustration of American audacity in the
direct assault that was made upon its problems. Whole streets
were developed in a way that had never been seen before.
Walking through the Loop, one is struck by the impression
that Chicago is an outpost for the immense areas which are
spread out behind it. At the time its great buildings went up,
Chicago was the real point of concentration for the products of
the West and Middle West, and not merely an enormous stock
exchange, like New York. The rapid growth of this great
center led to sudden enlargements of its needs. To meet them,
the urge grew up to use the new potentialities of construction,
potentialities which had hitherto been exploited only in bridges
and industrial structures of various kinds.
Large office buildings for business firms and insurance com-
panies were the first to appear. Buildings of equal power soon
appeared to meet other demands - immense hotels for the
travelers who passed through the city and combination office-
theater-hotel buildings like the Adler and Sullivan Auditorium.
At the same time the problem of the modern apartment house
- which still remains unsolved - was attacked with great
consistency and daring.
Office buildings as The Chicago school is bound up with the creation of the
thestartingpointof modern office building- in other words, with the creation of
the Chicago school an administration center (jig. 231). All sorts of engineering
problems entered into the solution reached in the Chicago
buildings, and the founder of the Chicago school, ~William Le
Baron Jenney (1832-1907), 4 was an engineer before he was an
3 World's Fair Souvenirs (Chicago, 1893).
• Cf. Charles B. Jenkins, "W. L. B. Jenney and W. B. Mundie," Architectural Re-

viewer (Chicago), February 1897.
370
architect. He had received a thorough technical grounding
and had been a major in Sherman's corps of engineers. The
future architects of Chicago received their training in Jenney's
office. William Le Baron Jenny played much the same role
in the training of the younger generation of Chicago architects
that Peter Behrens did in Germany around 1910, or Auguste
Perret in France. He gave young architects the preparation
they needed to tackle the new problems for which the schools
could offer no solutions.
Today William Le Baron Jenney's imagination and courage The role of William
are not sufficiently recognized. Even Louis Sullivan describes Le Baron Jenney
him as rather a connoisseur than an architect, and in Chicago
one of Sullivan's collaborators told me that Jenney had no
sense for detail and ornament. Architectonic detail and sty-
listic remnants play, it is true, a negligible part in Jenney's
work. For all that, he was the man whose Leiter Building of
1889 was the earliest solution of the problem of the great build-
ing in skeleton construction, a solution whose clarity and
freedom from compromise were far above the average.
Jenney's background was excellent. He had received the best
technical training available in this period at the Ecole Poly-
technique and the Ecole Centrale in Paris. In Jenney's studio
French engineering combined with the methods of his German
specialists in ornament to produce a curious mixture. In 1873,
as a young beginner, Louis Sullivan worked in this studio and
had his eyes opened to "suppressed functions" in architecture.
Besides Sullivan (who stayed here no longer than he did most
places) Jenney's staff at one time or other included many of
the future builders of Chicago: Martin Roche, Holabird, and
even Daniel Burnham -later the partner of John Root
Jenney's hand first showed itself clearly in a warehouse which
he built at 280 West Monroe Street for Leiter in 1879 (jig. 225).
This building (which is still in existence) has brick pillars on its
outer walls, and wide glass openings similar to the "Chicago
windows" of a later date. The interior has the cast-iron
columns which were standard during this period.
Jenney's first building of a type new both in respect to its
height and its construction was erected for the Home lnsur-
371
225. WILLIAM
LE BARON JEN-
NEY. First Leiter
Building, Chicago,
1879. Brick pillars
on outer walls; cast-
iron columns in the
interior. The wide
glass openings sug-
gest the "r:hicago
windows" of a later
date.
ance Company in 1884-85. 5 In it a complicated construction

was made to produce a thoroughly integrated whole.
Jenney, a leader Richardson planned the Marshall Field Wholesale Store and
in construction Warehouse (jig. 219) while Jenney was at work on his Home
Insurance· Company building. This store showed Chicago
architects how unobtrusively a great volume could be inte-
grated. Richardson injected into this building something of
the vitality of the rising city, in a treatment which was full of
dignity. The dominance of the windows is emphasized, as it
is in Jenney's Home Insurance offices, but the construction is
rather conservative. Richardson's massive stone walls belong
to an earlier period. When Adler and Sullivan came to build
their Auditorium, they used similarly massive outer walls,
even though the interior iron structure was very daring.
Architects did not at once follow Jenney in his adoption of
skeleton construction. In 1889, however, three years after his
6 Cf. p. 207. This building was still sound in 1929 when it was torn down.
372
226. WILLIAM LE
BARON JENNEY. Man-
hattan Building, Chicago,
1891. The bay windows of
many different forms are
intended to catch all the
light available on this nar-
row street. They disappear
entirely in the unobstructed
upper stories.
Home Insurance Company, Holabird and Roche put up the

Tacoma Building, a twelve-story skeleton structure. 6
Meanwhile William LeBaron Jenney kept to his own course.
He erected his second Leiter Building in 1889. His Manhattan
Building (jig. 226)- at this period the highest building of pure
skeleton construction -was finished in 1891. 7 The Manhat-
tan is on Dearborn Street, which is comparatively narrow. In
order to catch as much sunlight as possible, Jenney -like
Holabird and Roche in the Tacoma Building- filled its front
6 In a building of the Tacoma's dimensions, the gain in renting area through the use of
skeleton rather than masonry construction was equivalent to the rent on an additional
floor. It was for this reason that skeleton construction was used. A certain indecision is
still apparent in the design of the Tacoma. The total window area is exceptionally great,
but the individual windows themselves are quite small. The Tacoma was torn down in
1929.
7"The Manhattan, fronting on Dearborn Street, is the pioneer of the sixteen-story and
basement building ... 204 feet high . . . designed May 1890 and completed in the sum-
mer of 1891" (Industrial Chicago, vol. I, 1891, p. 69).
373
with bay windows. 8 But these windows are very carefully
diversified in shape, and they disappear entirely in the unob-
structed upper stories. 9
Jenney built "The Fair," one of Chicago's great department
stores, in 1891. With this nine-story building on Dearborn,
Adams, and State streets, Jenney returned to his principle of
making the skeleton the determining factor in the design. The
first two stories of The Fair are almost pure glass (figs. 227,
228). This feature was demanded by the owners of the store,
who wanted the largest possible amount of display area.
The new poten- The spirit of the Chicago school, its impulsion toward the sim-
tialities change the plest and most self-evident solutions, soon dominated the en-
aspect of the city tire Loop. Its works sprang up one beside another.
Burnham and Root erected their Monadnock Block at the
corner of Dearborn and Jackson streets in 1891. This was the
last of the high buildings with walls of solid masonry. A con-
temporary critic - Montgomery Schuyler - called it "the
best of all tall office-buildings," 10 but it is not too typical of the
Chicago school. Its expression derives more from architectonic
refinements than from the new potentialities.ll And heavy
masonry walls were not the solution to the problem of the
many-storied building. The rather small dimensions of the
windows indicate the extent to which they hampered the
architects.
Diagonally across the street from the Monadnock Block is
another Burnham and Root building, the Great Northern
8 "Light and space are preferred to any definite style" (idem).
9 The Manhattan was reproduced in Inland Architect, vol. XIII (1889), no. 8.
10 Harriet Monroe, John Wellborn Root (New York, 1896), pp. 141-142.
11 At this period the taste of speculators and investment counselors was sometimes more
advanced than that of architects- a rare phenomenon. "The Monadnock- 'Jumbo,'

Root used to call i t - was the last of the tall buildings to show walls of solid masonry.
For this building Mr. Aldis [Owen F. Aldis, of Boston], who controlled the investment,
kept urging upon his architects extreme simplicity, rejecting one or two of Root's
sketches as too ornate. During Root's absence of a fortnight at the seashore, Mr. Burn-
ham ordered from one of the draughtsmen a design of a straight-up-and-down, uncompro-
mising, unornamented fa<;;ade. When Root returned, he was indignant at first over this
project of a brick box. Gradually, however, he threw himself into the spirit of the thing,
and one day he told Mr. Aldis that the heavy sloping lines of an Egyptian pylon had
gotten into his mind as the basis of this design, and that he would 'throw the thing up
without a single ornament"' (Harriet Monroe, op. cit., p. 141).
374
227. WILLIAM LE BARON JENNEY. The Fair Building, Chicago, 1891. The
skeleton is made the determining jaclor in this design.
228. WILLIAM LEBARON JENNEY. The Fair Building, Chicago, 1891. Skeleton.
375
229. HOLABIRD and
ROCHE. Marquette
Building, Chicago,
1894. The front is ex-
ceptionally well-propor-
tioned, imposing in its
simplicity and its wide
expanse of "Chicago
windows."
230. HOLABIRD and

ROCHE. Marquette
Building, Chicago,
1894. Plan of one story
with undivided offices.
In most of these build-
ings large portions of
every. floor were left
without partitions, SQ
that they could be sub-
divided later to suit the
tenants.
376
Hotel (1891; fig. 232). Its clean brick fa<;ades carried over to
the hotel room the "Chicago windows" used for offices. The
Fair, Jenney's department store, was also built around this
time. Three years later, in 1894, Holabird and Roche con-
structed their Marquette Building farther down the street
(jig. 229).
The front of the Marquette is exceptionally well-proportioned,
imposing in its simplicity and its wide expanse of "Chicago
windows." It remains the typical Chicago office building of
the nineties. The demand of the owners that not one inch
of the interior be unlighted is exactly satisfied. From the street
the Marquette looks like a closed block, but actually it is cut
out at the back somewhat like a letter E. The middle bar of
the E - relatively the darkest part of the building - is used
as an elevator hall, with all the elevators massed together in
it. As in most such buildings, large parts of its floor space
were built without partitions so that they could be subdivided
later on to suit the tenants (jig. 230). 12
The Apartment House 13
In Chicago the problems of large-scale housing, of the hotel

and the apartment house, were attacked with the same clear-
headedness that appears in the office buildings of the city.
During the seventies, just after the great fire, a trend away
from the small private home and toward the big many-storied
apartment house set in- this on the authority of the anony-
mous author of Industrial Chicago. As he puts it, "the modern
flat is the palace of those who wish to be relieved of house
owning and its cares.'' 14
The interior organization and the architectonic details of some
of these buildings are astonishingly daring and advanced.
12 J. K. Freitag, Architectural Engineering, with Special Heference to High Building Con-
struction, 3rd ed. (New York, 1912), p. 38. Freitag's book is one of the few technical
publications dating from the most flourishing period of the Chicago school. It contains
the ground plans of many important buildings as well as a wealth of technical details.
13 Cf. Industrial Chicago, vol. I, chap. 7, on modern flats and other residences, and illus-
trations and comments in the following issues of the Inland Architect: August 1884, pp. 8,
15; January 1887, p. 101; December 1890, plate (Ricardi apartments); October 1897,
plate (Cary apartments); March 1887, p. 28 and plate; February 1893, plate (the
"Kenwood"); November 1893, plate (the "Omaha").
377
Solutions which today are still in process of being formulated
appeared in outline in these flats and hotels of a generation
back -just as contemporary business and civic centers were
anticipated by the Chicago office blocks.
The Adler and Sullivan Auditorium marks one of the early
stages in this development. This huge and complicated struc-
ture housed not only the actual auditorium and an office
building but also a large hotel. The hotel is noteworthy in
many respects: the staircase is modeled with an impressive
strength; the great length of the bar is emphasized by a heavy
beam carried along the ceiling parallel to its front edge in a
clear span with no vertical supports; the top-floor dining hall
(since converted to other uses) is developed as a broad barrel
vault, thereby matching the auditorium properY
The Hyde Park Hotel on the south side of the city was built
in 1887-91 by Theodore Starrett and George A. Fuller. Its
site on Fifty-first Street, near the lake shore, was then almost
rural; it has since been heavily developed. "The hotel has 300
rooms, finished in suites of 2 to 5 apartments, ... 50 suites are
furnished with private baths and incandescent lamps ... and
heated by steam." 16 The building was of eight stories, with
broad windows, and - once more according to Industrial
Chicago-'' a very large verandah extending around the
building."
Some of these apartment houses had removable partitions so
that a suite of five rooms could be thrown together into one.
This was the case in the Leander McCormick flats, later the
Virginia Hotel, at the northwest corner of Ohio and Rush
streets. Its architect was Clinton J. Warren, a product of the
Burnham and Root officesY
15 For a detailed description of this theater, the best of the period, with plans, see Hugh
Morrison, Louis Sullivan (New York, 1935).
16 I nduslrial Chicago, I, 460.
" This building was torn down a few years ago; the site is now used as a parking lot. In
its time the Virginia was one of the finest residential hotels in the city, on a par with the
Drake. Cf. the illustration in P. T. Gilbert and C. L. Bryson, Chicago and Its Makers
(Chicago, 1929), p. 529.
231. Chicago in the early nineties: Ran-
dolph Street about 1891. The large build-
ings here are the Ashland offices, buill by
Burnham and Root in 1891. -->
378
232. Great Northern Hotel,
Chicago, 1891. Advances
made in Chicago office build-
ings were taken over to create
the type of hotel and apartment
house suited to the industrial
age.
The Brewster apartments on Pine Grove Avenue, built during

the early nineties, are still in existence. The architect, R. H.
Turnock, had done his early work under \Villiam Le Baron
Jenney. The main staircase has treads of plate glass so that
the light can flow through the entire eight stories of the build-
ing from the skylight on the roof. As is well known, Le Cor-
busier came to a similar solution some forty years later in his
Clarte apartments in Geneva (1932).
We have been able to do no more here than simply point to
a few of the buildings which were included in the field of the
Chicago development. It is a .field whose importance has been
overlooked for too long- so long, in fact, that buildings and
documents alike may have disappeared before any real insight
into what they represent has been gained. These Chicago
apartment houses represent the first steps toward a kind of
large-scale housing which is very different from anything we
find in Europe. Progress in this direction was largely canceled
in the next generation, however. A reaction set in against the
big apartment house and the residential hotel, coupled with a
380
fresh concentration of attention on the private, one-family
dwelling. Frank Lloyd w-right is the outstanding figure m
this later movement. 18
In 1893 this Chicago architecture impressed a French ob-
server- the novelist Paul Bourget- with "the simple force of
need as a principle of beauty . . . . There is so little caprice
and fancy in these monuments and these streets that they
seem to be the work of some impersonal power, irresistible,
unconscious, like a force of nature, in the service of which man
has been but a docile instrument. It is this expression of the
overpowering immensity of modern commerce which gives
to the city something of tragedy, and, to my feeling, a poetry." 19
The Chicago school has many claims to importance. Its mem-
bers made the first expressive use of the new technical poten-
tialities in buildings which were permanent and essential parts
of the structure of Chicago's daily life. They produced not
just a few isolated specimen structures but covered the whole
business district with a new architecture. Their work changed
the entire face of a great modern city.
TOWARD PURE FORMS
The architects of the Chicago school employed a new type of Innovations of the
construction: the iron skeleton. At that time it was called Chicago school
quite simply "Chicago construction."
They invented a new kind of foundation to cope with the prob-
lem of the muddy grou_pd of Chicago: the floating foundation.
They introduced the horizontally elongated window: the
Chicago window.
They created the modern business and administration building.
18 For information concerning its course, cf. Purcell, Feick, and Elmslie, "The Statics
and Dynamics of Architecture," Western Architect, January 1913, p. 1, and the article
on Irving J. Gill's work in California on p. 35 of the issue of April1913. The issue of
August 1913 contains an account by Walter Burley Griffin of some of his own suburban
developments (p. 66).
19 Paul Bourget, Outre Mer, vol. I, chap. V, as quoted in Harriet Monroe, op. cit., pp.
136-137.
381
The importance of the school for the history of architecture
lies in this fact: for the first time in the nineteenth century the
schism between construction and architecture, between the
engineer and the architect, was healed. This schism marked
the whole preceding part of the century. With surprising
boldness, the Chicago school strove to break through to pure
forms, forms which would unite construction and architecture
in an identical expression.
Contemporary These Chicago architects of the eighties were quite conscious
statement of of their own boldness. In 1890 John Root-- the constructor
its aims of the Monadnock Block - said, speaking of modern business
buildings, that "to lavish upon them profusion of delicate
ornament is worse than useless. . . . Rather should they by
their mass and proportion convey in some large elemental
sense an idea of the great, stable, conserving forces of modern
civilization.
"One result of methods such as I have indicated will be the
resolution of our architectural designs into their essential ele-
ments. So vital has the underlying structure of these buildings
become, that it must dictate absolutely the general departure
of external forms; and so imperative are all the commercial and
constructive demands, that all architectural detail employed
in expressing them must become modified by them. Under
these conditions we are compelled to work definitely with
definite aims, permeating ourselves with the full spirit of the
age, that we may give its architecture true art forms." 1
The amount of work which came out of the Chicago school in
the course of its development was very great. We shall take
three buildings, each by a different architect but all showing
clearly the inherent urge of the Chicago school toward purity
of form.
The Leiter Building, 1889

The first building William LeBaron Jenney not only produced the first example
of pure skeleton of Chicago construction in his Home Insurance Building of
type; its aesthetic 1884-85, but he also erected the first building in which there
significance
was not even one self-supporting wall, the Leiter Building.
1From a paper read at the Chicago Art Institute and published in the Inland Archilecl,
June 1890. Quoted in Monroe, op. cit., p. 107.
382
With it purity of constructional methods seemed to find its
equivalent in architecture; the Leiter Building attains to an
expression in which the lingering memories of historical styles
play a negligible part.
The Leiter Building, planned in 1889, fills a whole block at
Van Buren and State streets (fig. 233). 2 Jenney dealt with and
mastered a front four hundred feet long and eight stories high
through the use of great and simple units. The skeleton fur-
nishes the dominating accents of the building, appearing in
the huge squares into which the outer wall is divided. These
panels are filled by plate-glass windows which "are separated
only by fireproofed metal columns." 3
The spirit behind this employment of the skeleton as an ar- Le Corbusier, 1932
chitectonic means has received further development in con-
temporary architecture. Le Corbusier's Maison de Verre, a
Geneva apartment house of 1932, represents a later stage in its
evolution (fig. 234).
Jenney's contemporaries seem to have recognized the signifi- Contemporary
cance of his work. Even the anonymous author of Industrial reaction
Chicago (1891) momentarily discards his accustomed sobriety
in speaking of it: "It has been constructed with the same
science and all the careful inspection that would be used in the
construction of a steel railroad bridge of the first order. The
severely plain exterior is grand in its proportions. The great
corner piers are carried upward to a chaste cornice. Designed
for space, light, ventilation, and security, the Leiter Building
meets the object sought in every particular." \Vith its building,
he goes on to exclaim, "a giant structure ... healthy to look
at, lightsome and airy while substantial, was added to the
great houses of a great city . . . a commercial pile in a style
undreamed of when Buonarroti erected the greatest temple of
Christianity.'' 4
Although the Leiter Building seems to be the first of the high
buildings to exhibit the trend toward the use of pure forms, it
2 "The building will be located on the East side of State Street and will extend from Van
Buren to Congress Street. It will be eight stories; the three street fronts will be of light
gray New England granite, the construction a steel skeleton, the masonry protecting
the external columns. It is intended that the whole building should be one great retail
store" (Inland Architect, vol. XIV, no. l, August 1889, p. 10).
4 Industrial Chicago, I, 204-205.
383
233. WILLIAM LEBARON JENNEY. Leiter Building, Van Buren Street, Chicago,
1889. The skeleton becomes a means of architectonic expression.
384
is today almost unknown, except to a handful of specialists.
Its importance consists not in its height - which happens to
be of eight, rather than twelve or twenty stories- but in the
identity between what is expressed in its construction and in
its architecture. The Leiter Building marks a starting point
for this kind of architectural purity and should not be ignored
in the history of architecture.
·····-- ·· ·----~ ··· .....

..
····~~~ .~ ~--~··· ·,~ ~~·4•
..........., ..,. ........

,. "..
.... - .... ' • .. • • • .. • • • t .. ~" lit ..
.".. ,
.. . ........
. .. .
.............
~--~···· ·······-"~···-·
.... "t6.1&( /'-~ iJ.tl
234. LE CORBUSIER. Maison Clartt\ Geneva, 1930-32. The properll:es of the

skeleton used in lhe service of residential needs.
The Reliance Building, 1894

John Root died in 1891; Daniel Burnham, his part:n,er, swung Experience of the
over into the classical school and took his cues from New Chicago school
York. 5 But in 1894 one more building in the spirit of his dead summed up in
this glass tower
partner emerged from Burnham's office, the Reliance Building
5Pet er B . Wight, "Daniel Hudson Burnham aud His Associates," Architectural Record,
vol. XXXVIII, no. 1 (July 1915).
385
235. BURNHAM and COMPANY. Reliance Building, Chicago,
1894. In its airiness and purity of proportion, this building serves to
symbolize the spirit of the Chicago school, whose swan song it was.
386
236. MIES VAN DER ROHE.
Project for a glass tower, 1921.
A modern excursion into the
realm of fantasy, something of
whose spirit, nevertheless, had
been anticipated in the Reliance
Building.
on State Street - the "swan song" of the Chicago school.6

Speaking in a broader sense, it might perhaps be said to have
grown out of the Chicago soil itself, to be a reflection of the high
architectural level that has been reached in that city.
The Reliance Building is a glass tower fifteen stories high
(fig. 235). The base is formed from some dark and unobtrusive
stone, in sharp contrast to the glass and glazed white tile tower
which springs up from it. The eaves of the flat roof are only
thin slabs, emphasized no more than they must be to serve as
protections. There is no overbearing cornice of stone. 7
Ten years' experience lies behind the understanding treatment
of the horizontally proportioned "Chicago windows." In
6 "The Reliance Building was the 'swan song' to the old traditions, based on independ-
ence of design, for which were noted the works of Burnham and Root. It stands today a
symbol of our inconsistency and an ample proof that no sooner do we approach a com-
mon way of working than the promise of a truly expressive style of American architecture
is broken by the capricious introduction of a new fashion " (A. N. Rebori, "The Work of
Burnham and Root," Architectural Record, vol. XXXVIII, no. 1, July 1915, p. 62.
7 In this respect it differs markedly from Burnham's Flatiron Building in Nevv York
(1902), with its immense cornice and its skeleton cluttered with heavy stonework.
387
earlier office buildings of the Chicago school (the now-de-
stroyed Tacoma Building by Holabird and Roche, for example)
the bow windows tend somewhat to be independent and iso-
lated parts of the design. In the Reliance Building they project
no more than they are required to in order to pick up light.
They are wholly incorporated into the glass body of the
building.
This glass tower is still standing, and, although its glazed white
tiles have become encrusted with dirt, its airiness and pure
proportions make it a symbol of the spirit of the Chicago school.
It is curious that this building too has been left unnoticed in
the history of architecture. It has its place there as a witness
to the best of the spirit of the nineteenth century.
Mies van Mies van der Rohe's scheme for a skyscraper of glass and iron
der Rohe, 1921 is the dream of a European architect in the year 1921 (fig. 236).
The points of departure for dream projects of this sort should
perhaps be sought in works like the Reliance Building of some
three decades earlier. But it may be that this Chicago building
is something more than an incentive for fantasy: an architec-
tonic anticipation of the future.
Sullivan: The Carson, Pirie, Scott Store, 1899-1906

In 1899 Louis Sullivan began to remodel the Schlesinger &
Mayer store at State and Madison streets, on the famous
"World's Busiest Corner." The work was done in three sec-
tions, in 1899, 1903-04, and 1906. 8 In the summer of 1904 the
establishment was taken over by the Carson, Pirie, Scott firm.
The third unit was built for it by Daniel Burnham & Com-
pany, but Louis Sullivan's scheme for the first two sections
was retained, with only a few unimportant changes (fig.
237).
Unsurpassed In spite of its complexity Sullivan's building remains unsur-
strength and passed in its expressive strength. The interior is still of the
precision warehouse type, with continuous, unbroken floor areas. The
8 The first unit was nine stories high and three bays (some 60 feet) in width; the second
was twelve stories high and 150 feet wide, but otherwise identical in design with the first.
The final unit was 105 feet wide. Hugh Morrison (one of the first to recognize the archi-
tectural importance of this store) gives a detailed account of its building in his careful
study, Lottis Sullivan, Prophet of Modern Architecture (New York, 1935), pp. 197 If.
388
237. LOUIS SUL-
LIVAN. Carson, Pi-
rie, Scott and Com-
pany, department
store, Chicago, 1899-
1904. Built in three
units on State and
Madison streets, the
" World's Busiest Cor-
ner." Theroundtower
at the corner was in-
cluded at the insistence
of the owners.
front is designed to fulfill its indispensable function, the ad-

mission of light. Its basic elements are the horizontally elon-
gated "Chicago windows," admirably homogeneous and
treated to coincide with the framework of the skeleton. The
whole front is executed with a strength and precision that is
matched by no other building of the period. The slightest dif-
ferences in proportion can be felt at once against a background
of this definiteness. The windows, with their thin metal frames,
are sharply cut into the fa~;ade (fig. 238). The windows in the
lower stories are connected by a narrow line of ornament
pressed into the terra cotta. Too thin to be visible in the
photograph, this line nevertheless helps to accentuate the
horizontal organization of the front. 9
Even when architects of Sullivan's generation pressed on Intrusion of
toward new solutions they sometimes found themselves held the pavilion
back by nineteenth-century traditions. They suffered from the
9George Elmslie, whom we have already mentioned as one of Sullivan's staunchest
collaborators, was the designer of most of the ornamentation on his buildings. It was
not influenced by the contemporary art nouveau.
389
sort of split personality which we spoke of earlier. The split
personality of the nineteenth-century architect makes itself
felt in Sullivan's Carson, Pirie, Scott building. The round
tower at the corner with its narrow vertical ribs and glass
panes suddenly introduces a motif quite out of character with
the rest of the building. The owners had asked for this cur-
vilinear addition (which we noted as a stylistic remnant in
Eiffel and Boileau's Bon Marche of 1876) as a reminiscence of
the pavilion attached to their old store. But this alone would not
have affected the work of as strong-minded a man as Sullivan.
Around 1900, on its completion, this store appeared old-
fashioned to contemporaries. By this time they had lost their
hearts and heads to the "commercial classicism" of the New
York architects and its distortion of business buildings into
mercantile palaces. For three decades the New York prac-
titioners of the academic architecture ruled the whole country.
Contrast with The Carson, Pirie, Scott store, one of the late productions of
other Sullivan the Chicago school, seems to be molded more by the anony-
buildings mous spirit which ruled the work of that school than by Louis
Sullivan's personal tendencies. In Sullivan's best-known
buildings- from the Wainwright in St. Louis (1890-91) to
the Prudential in Buffalo (1894-95) and the Bayard Building
in New York (1897-98)- he continually increased the stress
upon the vertical elements in the design, emphasizing the piers
at the corners. He uses narrow pillars and gives the whole
building a strictly upward orientation, a movement as marked
as that which we encounter in the Gothic cathedrals.
The skeleton a But the skeleton- whether iron or steel or reinforced con-
neutral network crete - is essentially a neutral spatial network. Its "cage
construction" bounds a certain volume of space with complete
impartiality, and no one intrinsic direction. In his typical
buildings Sullivan picks out and emphasizes the vertical lines
of force in this network. In the Carson, Pirie, Scott store,
however, it is the neutral and impartial equilibrium inherent
in the skeleton construction which Sullivan chooses to project
upon the fac;ade of the building.
The influence of the Chicago school was cut short by the in-
flux of eclecticism. Louis Sullivan - the great architect of
390
the school - did leave his mark upon the next generation of
architects in the Middle West. (Frank Lloyd Wright was to
emerge as the outstanding figure in this generation.) And
during the first decade of our century, the traditions of the
Chicago school survived in works by some of its younger
members: George Elmslie, Hugh Garden, George Maher,
Griffin, Thomas Tallmadge, and a few others. Some of their
buildings might have served as a revelation to the rising gen-
eration in Europe. They failed entirely, however, to influence
the corresponding groups in their own country. A literary
architectural education cut the younger men off from the
principles of the Chicago school and destroyed their individ-
uality as well. Left in isolation, the surviving members of the
Chicago school grew discouraged, and many of them lost the
force which they had shown in a more favorable period.
In the 1922 competition for the Chicago Tribune Building, the The Chicago
plans of a competent American architect - Raymond Hood - Tribune Tower;
nullification of the
won the first prize. By this time, however, the confidence and
Chicago tradition
belief in its own forces which had sustained the Chicago school
had completely disappeared. The school might just as well
have never existed; its principles were crowded out by the
vogue of "Woolworth Gothic." 10
The hundred thousand dollar international competition for the Foreign projects
Tribune Building drew entries from everywhere. The projects closer to the
Chicago school
submitted give an invaluable cross section of the architecture
of this period. 11 One of the foreign entrants was 'Valter Gro-
pius. Both the jury and the public must have considered his
scheme quite unstylish and old-fashioned. There is no doubt,
however, that it was much closer in spirit to the Chicago school
10 Stemming from the Woolworth Building in New York, 1911-13.
11 All these projects, with the exception of K. Lonberg-Holm's entry, were published in
International Competition for a New Administration Building for the Chicago Tribune
(Chicago, 1923), issued by the Tribune Company. The American entries fall tragically
short of the level reached in Chicago during the eighties and nineties. Fashionable
architects submitted typical specimens of the now dominant "Woolworth Gothic," and
all the entries show a secondhand fancifulness instead of a sense for scale and proportion.
The competition chiefly inspired an unhappy excursion into romanticism. An equally
distressing helplessness appears in the European projects, with the exception of a few
entries from the northern countries: Bruno Taut (project # 231), Max Taut (# 229),
Bijvoet and Dujker, K. Lonberg-Holm, Walter Gropius, and Adolph Meyer (# 197).
(The numbers refer to the plans published in The International Competition.) These men
produced schemes which represented endeavors to escape from familiar routines.
391
than the Gothic tower which was executed. When we compare
Gropius' 1922 project and Sullivan's Carson, Pirie, Scott store
they seem like two stages in the development of the same set of
ideas. In both of them the network of the skeleton is the basis
of and inextricable from the architectonic expression. There
are the same hovering and sharply cut surfaces. Gropius even
238. LOUIS SULLIVAN. Carson, Pirie, Scott and Company Department Store,
Chicago, 1899-1904. Detail. Outstanding for strength and purity of expression even in the
work of Louis Sullivan. The neutral and impartial equilibrium inherent in cage construe-
lion is emphasized, rather than its vertical elements.
employs the "Chicago window," with a fixed glass panel in

the middle and narrow ventilating windows at the sides
(jig. 239). The whole plan seems an outgrowth of the Chicago
school, but actually Chicago windows and the Chicago sky-
scraper were unknown in Europe. This coincidence, the way in
which these two men arrived independently at similar solutions,
shows that the Chicago school really was "permeated by the
spirit of the age," in the phrase of one of its best representa-
tives. It could therefore create constituent facts for architec-
392
239. WALTER
GROPIUS. Proj-
ect for the compe-
tition on the Trib-
uneTower, Chicago,
1923. Constituent
facts developed by
the Chicago school
reappear independ-
ently in this Euro-
pean project.
ture, facts that reappeared in later periods just as Borromini's

undulating wall reappeared in English residential quarters. 12
The Influence of the Chicago World's Fair, 1893

At the very moment when the Chicago school gained a mastery The World's
of the new means which it had created, its further development Fair and the
and influence were abruptly choked off. The event which di- Chicago school
12Hood, whose Gothic Tribune Tower was completed in 1925, was himself on the verge
of a change which achieved its full expression about 1930. In that year be built the
McGraw-Hill building in New York, whose architecture recognizes in part the new Eu-
ropean developments. He was to arrive a t far more impressive solutions later on in the
buildings at Rockefeller Center.
393
rectly effected this change was the Chicago World's Fair of
1893 (the World's Columbian Exposition), but influences
working in this direction had set in long before in another
section of the country.
American architecture came under many different influences
during the nineteenth century, but none was so strong or came
at such a critical moment as the rise to power of the mercantile
classicism developed in the East.
Tremendous The 1893 \Vorld's Fair elicited a variety of responses. The
public success public and most of the architects were rapturous in their de-
light. While I was in Chicago, one architect who had worked
on it quoted from memory the rather ironical comment of
William James: "Everyone says one ought to sell all one has
and mortgage one's soul to go there; it is esteemed such a
revelation of beauty. People cast away all sin and baseness,
burst into tears, and grow religious, etc., under the influence."
Some European observers were more sceptical. The extremely
well-informed Belgian constructor Vierendeel found both its
staff architecture and the construction it enveloped timid and
secondhand - as we saw toward the end of our discussion of
the great nineteenth-century exhibitions.
Sullivan's prophecy The lonely American voices raised against the unexampled
seduction of the public taste underlying the Fair's pseudo-
splendor went unheard. Louis Sullivan said bitterly that "the
damage wrought to this country by the Chicago World's Fair
will last half a century." At the time this may have seemed
only the exaggerated expression of an outraged artist; it turned
out to be a precise prophecy of what was actually to follow.
Influence of the Public, artists, and literary people believed. themselves to be
Beaux-Arts witnessing a splendid rebirth of the great traditions of past
ages. The immense appeal of this re-created past in "the
White City'' can only be laid to a quite unnecessary national
inferiority complex. It was the same feeling - reinforced by
the prestige of the Paris exhibition of 1889 - which gave the
French academicians a dominating role at this Chicago fair.
The contemporary biographer of John Root expresses it
quite clearly: "At that time few hoped to rival Paris; the
394
artistic capacity and experience of the French made us dis-
trustful of ourselves. We should have a great American fair,
but in points of grouping and design we must expect inferiority
to French taste." 13 And it was to France that the builders of
the Fair turned in their search for beauty. Its beauties were
taken out of the preserve jars of the Academie des Beaux-Arts
- where they had been laid up during what was certainly its
worst period. Grand prix de Rome fa<;ades were copied, and
men like Burnham (who had assisted in raising the Chicago
school to a level much higher than the Academy's) acted like
docile children in the presence of the French masters. All
this is another instance of the split between thought and feeling
in the nineteenth century. Only Louis Sullivan had sufficient
inner strength to hold fast in the midst of a general surrender.
But his Transportation Building for the Chicago fair marked
the beginning of his unpopularity as an architect.
Mercantile classicism had been developing and gaining strength Eastern mercantile
in New York since the eighties, but it won its country-wide classicism
ascendancy at the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893,14
The spirit behind it had now come to possess authority for
American architecture as a whole. 15 The Fair should, indeed,
have stood in New York; it so thoroughly represented the in-
fluence of that city. But as soon as a Columbian exposition
was proposed, the people of Chicago leaped at the idea. "The
enthusiasm of the city was set on its mettle; an aggressive
campaign was organized, and five million dollars pledged by
private subscription before other cities had begun to act.'' 16
The hypnotic spell which mercantile classicism exerted appears F. L. Wright
from some lines in Frank Lloyd Wright's Autobiography. and the Beaux-Arts
Shortly after the close of the Fair (and after the completion of
Wright's Winslow house), Daniel Burnham called on him.
13 Harriet Monroe, op. cit., p. 218.
14 Immense and thoroughly businesslike New York building firms (McKim, Mead, and
White) carried out the greater part of the Fair.
15 Professor Hamlin observes that "by 1880 there were constantly a dozen or fifteen
Americans in the Ecole of Paris. In all the schools, Paris-trained men were in demand as
instructors .... The Ecole had furnished the model upon which all our American schools
were shaping the teaching of design" ("The Influence of the Ecole des Beaux Arts on
Our Architectural Education," Architectural Record, April 1908, p. 242).
t6 Monroe, op. cit., p. 216.
395
"To be brief, he would take care of my wife and children
if I would go to Paris, four years of the Beaux Arts. Then
Rome - two years. Expenses all paid. A job with him when
I came back . . . .
"'Another year and it will be too late, Frank,' said Uncle
Dan. . . .
"'Yes, too late, Uncle Dan. It's too late now, I'm afraid.
I am spoiled already.
"'I've been too close to Mr. Sullivan. He has helped spoil
the Beaux Arts for me, or spoiled me for the Beaux Arts, I
guess I mean. '
"'. . . The Fair is going to have a great influence in our
country. The American people have seen the "Classics" on a
grand scale for the first time. . . . I can see all America con-
structed along the lines of the Fair, in noble "dignified" classic
style. The great men of the day all feel that way about it- all
of them.' '' 17
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
Wright and the American Development

Preeminence as Of all contemporary architects whose span of work reaches back
an architect into the nineteenth century, Frank Lloyd Wright was without
doubt the most farsighted, a genius of inexplicably rich and
continuing vitality. He ranged the wide expanse of historical
interrelations, drawing particularly upon the architecture of
the Far East - not, however, in the manner of the last cen-
tury, as a substitute for creative impulse, but, like Matisse
with Negro or Persian art, from an inner sympathetic relation-
ship. At the same time he sprang out of the American soil and
the American tradition more directly perhaps than any other
of the great American architects. True insight into his work
demands a somewhat subtle approach, for Wright's dominat-
ing personality, present in every touch of what he did, was
not at all simple. He bore in himself the marks of the late
17 F. L. Wright, An Autobiography (New York, 1932), pp. 123-124.
396
nineteenth century; yet isolated and singlehanded, without
aid from his contemporaries among painters and sculptors, he
introduced the beginnings of a new conception.
When he began work in 1337, he was - in Chicago - at the American
very center, the fountainhead, of architectural development. background
He was apprentice in the atelier of two of the best men, Louis
Sullivan, "Iieber Meister," he called him, and Dank mar Adler,
"the grand old chief," at the very time when they were on the
ascendant creatively, working on the Auditorium Building.
He had as the principal influence of his youth the culmination
of the Chicago renascence. And yet when he began to work
independently, Wright did not continue directly in the Chicago
school; he did not carry over the use of the new materials -
the iron skeleton and the great glass surfaces of the office
buildings- into his own sphere: housing. Instead he was
rather conservative; in many respects he followed Richardson
more than Sullivan. It was not until as late as the thirties,
when European architects were already utilizing the inherent
possibilities of ferroconcrete to the fullest, that \V right, as he
said himself, used it for the first time to any great extent for
one of his houses. 1 This was due not to any lack of technical
ability but to his own will and character.
In Europe Wright was quickly accepted and understood by the
generation which was responsible for the modern movement.
In 1908 he was visited by Kuno Francke, then a German ex-
change professor lecturing at Harvard University on aesthetics.
The result of this visit was the publication in Germany in
1910 of a monumental work on Wright's architecture. 2 This
was supplemented in 1911 by a smaller work on the same sub-
ject, which enjoyed a very wide circulation. 3 These two books
marked the beginning of Wright's foreign influence; the book
published in 1910 has not since been approached in compre-
hensiveness.
What is the explanation of the fact that Wright was the only
architect so far ahead of his own generation, a man who built
1 The Kaufman house, "Falling Water," Bear Run, Pennsylvania, 1937.
2 Frank Lloyd Wright, ausgefilhrte Bauten und Entwilrfe (Berlin, 1910), with a preface in
German by Wright.
3 Frank Lloyd Wright, ausgefilhrte Baulen (Berlin, 1911); foreword by C. R. Ashbee.
397
240. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Charnley house, Astor Street, Chicago, 1892. The
Charnley house is from Wright's earliest period, designed while he was still an employee of
Adler and Sullivan. (The extension of the right wing is of a later date.) In it he uses the
flat surfaces of the American tradition, culling in the windows sharply as if with an axe.
works of great influence right up to his life's endP The answer

is rather simple: he had less debris to clear away than the
Europeans. He had been born in the Middle West, within the
shadow of the place possessing the greatest architectural vi-
tality of the period: Chicago.
Devotion to From the outset Wright devoted himself to the problem which
housing was to be his life interest- the house as a shelter. He had at
his disposal the anonymous American tradition, the example of
Sullivan, and the conscious artistry which Richardson had
cultivated in home building. The secret of Wright's work is
that he saw in the tradition of the American house those ele-
ments which could be used as a basis for the future. He took
these basic elements and added new ones, enlarging - with
all the force of genius - the structure of the house delivered
to him.
The objection may be advanced that the English had been
working on the problem of the dwelling house since 1860. But
the English at this time had no architects of the stature of
Sullivan or Richardson. Philip Webb and Norman Shaw are
398
not to be compared with the two Americans. The crux of the
difference between the English and American architects lies
in their point of departure: the Englishmen began with a re-
form, through handicraft, of furniture, rugs, wallpaper, and
other small household objects which had been debased by
industrial production. The Americans, on the other hand,
started from the house as a whole, and were not seduced by an
overemphasis upon handicraft.
It would not be without interest to make a comparative study Wright and
of Frank Lloyd 'Vright and his Scotch contemporary, Charles the English
Rennie Mackintosh, 4 who was born in the same year - to development
remark their differences and the traits they possess in com-
mon; to consider the way in which they treat wall surfaces, how
they use and expose wooden posts and beams, and how they
conceive their furniture. They both began by working in
terms of their own generation, Mackintosh in Glasgow, Wright
on this side of the Atlantic. Some of Wright's early peculiari-
ties, especially in his furnishings, persisted until the last phase
of his work.
The Charnley house on Astor Street, Chicago (jig. 240),
with its projecting wings (executed in 1892 while Wright was
still in the employ of Adler and Sullivan, and usually attributed
to that firm) is not very different from the Mary Ward Settle-
ment in the Bloomsbury district of London. 5 In the final
analysis the fa<;ades of European buildings cannot avoid rest-
lessness and are to a certain extent split into details. Their
architects never dare to use rigorously, as Wright did in the
Charnley house, the flat surfaces of the American tradition,
cutting in the windows sharply and clearly as if with an axe
4 The Scottish architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1869-1928), noted for his art
school in Glasgow and especially for his country houses (e.g., the house of Dr. Blackie,
Helensborough, 1902). Mackintosh had a direct influence on the art decoratifmovement
in Vienna, the Wiener W erkstiitte. The founder of this institution took his artists to
Scotland to show them how household furnishings and architecture should be designed.
The influence was a complete one for the moment, but restricted to matters of taste. No
new architectural vision came out of it. Nikolaus Pevsner, in his Pioneers of the Modem
Movement (London and New York, 1937), gives an excellent survey of Mackintosh's
work, with a bibliography (pp. 221-222). Pevsner may be consulted also on other ques-
tions concerning the British development. A sharply unfavorable attitude toward
Mackintosh is taken by his close compatriot, P. M. Shand, in "Glasgow Interlude,"
Architectural Review, LXXVII (January 1935), 23.
5 Cf. Pevsner, op. cit., p. 157.
399
and molding the house with few but persistent accents. 6 Yet
as a whole ·wright's earliest houses, even the first built on his
own account, are not fundamentally different from the best
English examples. The change, however, was not to be long
in coming. England produced nothing more. Europe was
adrift, seeking solutions. Frank Lloyd \Vright went ahead.
The Cruciform and the Elongated Plan

Ground plan and Before I had seen any of \Vright's houses, I stopped once for a
interior space rest in a hunting lodge in the Vermont hills. It had an immense
stone chimney which stood massively in its center, rising the
entire height from the ground up through the roof. The in-
terior space was undivided, except for a partition which cut
off the kitchen and the sleeping room. There was no ceiling,
but simply open rafters from which hung fox and bear skins.
At that moment I began to understand the way \Vright con-
ceived his interior spaces. He worked fundamentally and as
far as possible with the house as one room. Its inner space is
differentiated to meet special needs. As he pointed out, he
"declared the whole ... floor as one room, cutting off the
kitchen as a laboratory, putting servants' sleeping and living
quarters next to it, semi-detached, on the ground floor, screen-
ing various portions in the big room, for certain domestic pur-
poses -like dining or reading, or receiving a formal caller." 7
Cruciform plan In organizing his plans \V right went back to the seventeenth
century in the use of the large chimney in the center of the
house as starting point for the whole layout. He spread out
the different rooms from this massive kernel. \Vhat first im-
pressed European architects was his "windmill" plan, so
called because of the way the rooms were extended outward
from the center like the vanes of a windmill (fig. 243). This
"windmill" plan is really cruciform, an interpenetration of
two parts of the house, which cut each other transversely to
6 Speaking of the Charnley house, Hugh Morrison, in his Louis Sulli71an (New York.
1935), says that it was "broader in conception than any of Sullivan's other residences,
with more feeling for the organization of plane surfaces, skillfully punctuated by window
voids" (pp. 132-133).
7 Modern Architecture (Princeton, 1931), Princeton Monographs in Art and Archae-
ology, p. 72.
400
form a cross. Often they are of different heights; then the
effect is of one crossbar superimposed upon and penetrating
the other.
This early American practice of using a central chimney as the

core of the house, as the point about which the whole is or-
ganized, was kept alive also through the nineteenth century
(jig. 241). Again we may cite as evidence one of those unknown
writers who reflect the common taste. In one of the smal1
popular books on suburban and country houses in the early
seventies, there is proposed a country house built completely
around a fourfold, four-sided chimney, with rooms leading off
in wings from each of the four sides. The author's reason for
this cruciform arrangement is very close to \Vright's own
intention, both in the stress placed upon light- \Vright em-
emphasized the fact that rooms in his layout get light from
three sides- and in the urge to treat the several rooms as a
unit: "The design of this house was made for the purpose of
giving each room a sunny southern exposure, and out of ten
rooms nine have at least one lookout to the southeast. The
principal floor is so managed that the spacious hall with wind-
ing staircase presents an attractive feature on entering. The
chimney is in the center of the house and sliding doors connect
each of the principal rooms so that when occasion requires, hall,
parlor, library, and dining room may be thrown together, the
octagon form of these rooms adding much to their beauty." 8
As always in this period, the exterior of the house has nothing
of the precision of the plan (fig. 242). Nevertheless, there are
suggestions of the interpenetration of two volumes, for which
in his Chicago period Wright was to find artistic solutions.
Most of Wright's houses, especially the smaller ones, are based

on the cruciform plan issuing out of and produced by this in-
terpenetration of two volumes of different heights. Such are
the Hickox house, Kankakee, Illinois, 1901; the Ward house,
Willett Park, Illinois, 1901; the Willitts house, Highland Park,
Illinois, 1901; the small country house of Charles Ross at Lake
Delavan, ·wisconsin, 1902; the Robert Evans house in Long-
"Ueorge E. Woodward, Suburban and Country Houses (New York, copr. 1873), pp.
15-16.
401
DINING R.
ISXI7.
LI9RAR\'.
15X/8,
241. G.E.WOODWARD. Plan 242. G. E. WOODWARD. Cruciform country house, 1873.

of a cruciform country house. As always in this period, the exterior has nothing of the precision
1873. From Woodward," Subur- of I he plan. One of Wright's great accomplishments was to find an
ban and Country Houses" (New eqnivalentfor the ground plan in spatial and exterior lrealmenl.
York, c. 1873). Built around a
fourfold, fonr-sided chimney wilh
diagonally sliding doors to con-
tJert the house, to a certain extent,
info a single room.
wood, Illinois, 1904; the Isabel Roberts house, 1907; the Hor-
ner house, Birchwood, 1908.
Of these, the Isabel Roberts house in River Forest, Illinois
(figs. 243, 244), one of the most charming of \Vright's smaller
houses, shows an interesting employment of the interpenetra-
tion of two volumes of different heights, in which Wright used
the higher volume to mold, not the Hallway, but the space of
the living room from the ground up through the whole height
to the inner planes of the roof (fig. 245). It represents an effort
to satisfy the feeling of a need for the full height as living
space. This feeling finds expression not only in the houses of
American settlers of the seventeenth century but in many
early civilizations, and it has reappeared in our own period.
Wright was one of the first to recognize this feeling, to for-
mulate it and give it expression. In the Isabel Roberts house
the living room dominates, rising up to the gently sloping roof,
402
243. FRANK LLOYD
WRIGHT. Isabel Roberts
house, River Forest, Illinois,
1907. Plan. Buill late in the
Chicago period, when Wright
had found freedom of expres-
sion.
The slab roof and the low horizontal extension of the wings are interesting. This exterior
shows Wright's clarification and purification of standard material.
403
245. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Isabel Roberts house. River Forest , Illinois, 1907.
Two-story ll:ving room. Wright uses the higher volume to mold the space of the living room
.from the ground up through the entire height to the inner planes of the roof.
and divided in height by a gallery, so that there are recessed

spaces both above and below. This gives an unaccustomed
and new plasticity to the whole room, which is enhanced by the
use of various planes in different materials-the brick face of the
chimney, the several wall surfaces, and the slope of the roof.
Mies van de Rohe, the German architect - one of the few
whose early work reflects Wright's influence without either
being absorbed by it or reducing it to a merely decorative use
- developed the "windmill" plan in several of his schemes. 9
\V right himself never abandoned the idea of the house spread
out from a central core. When in 1939 he built a low-cost four-
family housing unit (Suntop Houses, Ardmore, Pa.; figs. 246,
247), 10 he separated the different apartments by brick walls
9 Project for a brick house in 1922.
10 See Architectural Forum, August 1939.
404
crossing at right angles. At the central core he put not a chim-
ney but all the utilities- plumbing, heating, electricity, and
ventilation - so that they were concentrated in the darkest
spot in the building.
·when possible, ·wright liked to spread his structures out freely Flexible and infor-
over the ground. In the introduction to the study of his mal ground plan
work published in Berlin in 1910, he points out that the first
floor was often built principally as a cellar. The main living
quarters lie in the upper story on one floor, as in the Coonley
house (1911), where only the entrance hall and the game room
are on the ground floor; in Taliesin, his own house, they are
set into and connected with the ground. This led him to the
flexible and informal ground plan so deeply embedded in the
American architectural development from its beginning. As a
consequence of this development \Vright now let the different
rooms flow out horizontally, just as, in houses like the Isabel
Roberts house, he had molded them vertically.
By 1910 Wright had achieved a flexibility of open planning
unapproached hitherto. In other countries at that time the
flexible ground plan and the flexibly molded interior and ex-
terior were almost unknown. \Vright's realization of a flexible
treatment of the inner space of a building is probably his
greatest service to architecture. It brought life, movement,
freedom into the whole rigid and benumbed body of modern
architecture.
Plane Surfaces and Structure

The Japanese house impressed Frank Lloyd Wright as "a Use of native
supreme study in elimination - not only of dirt, but the elements
elimination, too, of the insignificant." For the American house
he accomplished just such an elimination, a rejection of the
confused and the trivial. But he did more than this. He took
up those elements lying about everywhere unobserved - ele-
ments arising from purely utilitarian solutions - and dis-
covered in this raw material its hidden expressiveness, just as
the following generation was to discover the hidden expressive-
ness in engineering and construction. \Vright brought forward
these elements and changed them, opened our eyes to their
405
PENTHOUSE MEZZANINE
SUN
TERRACE
BALC
ScaLe uu<eee
5. 5 10 15
FOUNDATION
246. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Suntop Houses, Ardmore, Pennsylvania, 193<1.
Plan. In this low-cost, four-family housing unit, Wright separates the different apart-
ments by brick walls crossing at right angles. At the central core he has put all the utilities-
plumbing, heating, electricity, and ventilation, so that they are concentrated in the darl:est
spot in the building.
406
secret potentialities and their inherent beauty, revealing their
symbolic strength as a poet does in showing forth what inner
content of feeling the trees and mountains, the rivers and
lakes, of his native land hold for him and for us.U
In the treatment of the house as a spatial unit he seized upon The porch
these elements wherever he could find them. He also sought
to shape the whole house in terms of its own period. The
earliest American houses - those of the settlers along the fron-
248. Central Park Casino, New York City, 1871.
tier - had to afford protection against attack, and conse-

quently were meagerly supplied with openings on the first
floor, being without rows of windows and open galleries like
those that have given the peasant houses of Switzerland and
southern Germany - at any rate since the early seventeenth
century- so distinctive an exterior. Much later, with the
11Joseph Hudnut, in the foreword to the catalogue of Wright's first exhibition in New
England (Institute of Modern Art, Boston, January-February 1940), emphasizes the
fact that to understand Wright "we mwot think of him ... as a poet."
407
appearance of the porch on the houses of southern rice and
cotton planters, there was a corresponding opening up of the
American house in the southern part of the country. In nine-
teenth-century America the porch was used much more exten-
sively as the recreation area of the home than the veranda of
the European peasant house, even becoming a decisive ele-
ment in the appearance of suburban and country houses.
Sometimes it stretched out in long, unbroken horizontal lines,
249. R. E. SCHMIDT, GARDEN & MARTIN. Warehouse of ferroconcrete for-

Montgomery, Ward & Co., Chicago, 1908. Immense warehouse buill in the same year as
the Robie house. With unbroken horizontal lines.
covered with a slightly sloping roof. The appearance of the

Central Park Casino, New York, 1871 (fig. 248)- one of
many anonymous examples- is due to an extension of this
peculiarly American employment of the porch. Apparently
Americans like a strong and unbroken horizontal line equally
in their houses and in the Pullman car.
Wright adopted the porch for his houses- not, however, en-
circling his buildings with it, but pushing it forward, in keep-
408
ing with his cruciform or elongated plans, as an extension of
the wings. Very often it thrusts out into space as a pure canti-
lever hovering above the earth. Such a treatment had never
been attempted before. True, it is the old element of the porch,
but it is not simply something attached to the house; rather it
is an essential part of the structure, molded as an inseparable
part of it. For several reasons, explained in his writings,
Wright used overhanging eaves. He treated them, too, as
250. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Robie house, Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, 1908.
In this house, which has had far-reaching influence, Wright has used plane surfaces at dif-
ferent depths, advancing and receding. The Robie house, a town villa, is in close relation
to the aims of the Chicago school.
horizontal planes - "broad protecting roof shelters, " as he

called them- just as Burnham, before he turned classicist,
roofed his Reliance Building (1894) with a thin slab (fig. 235).
To these hovering horizontal elements Wright added the plane Treatment of
of vertical surfaces. When he built the Charnley house in the walls
1892 (fig. 240), he used the clean-cut level surfaces of the
American tradition. But soon he became more daring, espe-
409
cially in his elongated schemes, such as the D. D. Martin house
in Buffalo (1904), and in the house which has had perhaps the
most far-reaching influence of all his works, the Robie house, a
town villa on Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago (fig. 250). It is a
sad example of the misunderstanding of architectural merit
that the University of Chicago wished to pull it down to make
room for a student dormitory. It was only saved from de-
struction at the last minute by a New York realtor. In the
nineteenth century the exterior of the American house was not
up to the level of the floor plan in quality and artistic expres-
sion. Wright brought about a change. He took the plane
surfaces presented to him and organized them variously, mul-
tiplying them, intersecting them or placing them in different
depths one behind another, incorporating the plane of the
garden wall with the different advancing and receding planes
of the house itself so that often its solid volume is not at all
apparent. To speak of these houses as in the "prairie style,"
as inspired by the long lines of the prairie, does not go to the
root of the matter. The forms of the Robie house, the long
horizontal bands, the series of windows, the garden walls, are
sharply cut as if by a machine. These houses are a pure
artistic expression which is deeply connected with the anony-
mous aims of their period. This handling is not without
relation to what was being explored at that time in space
conceptions in France.
Chicagoans who did not like the Robie house, who were of-
fended by the novelty of its appearance and its long stretched-
out horizontal lines, sought to deride it by comparing it to a
steamship, just as later Le Corbusier's critics were to refer
similarly to his buildings. Without knowing it, they were im-
plying that the house was built in the spirit of the age out of
which it came, that, like the steamship, it had been born
naturally out of its period. What is decisive in it is not a super-
ficial and misunderstood similarity to a steamship but its inner
relationship with the aims of its time. The warehouse of Mont-
gomery, Ward and Company (fig. 249), with its unbroken
front of eight hundred feet and the undisguised expression of
its structural body,t 2 was built in the same year (1908) as the
Robie house.
Cf. the section on Ferroconcrete. The warehouse was built by Richard E. Schmidt,
12
Garden, and Martin.
410
From the beginning 'Vright treated the inner as well as the Inner space
outer wall as a plane surface. It never occurred to him to do
what European architects did about 1896 - replace rococo
decoration with the serpentine lines of the art nouveau. In his
interiors, too, there is a constant endeavor to find interrela-
tions between the various separate elements - walls, ceilings,
windows, and door openings. Different ceiling heights are some-
times introduced into the same room, a treatment which paral-
lels Wright's use of horizontal planes at different heights, such
as cantilevered porches, overhanging eaves, and levels varying
according to the grades of the site.
Correlative with the use of abstract plane surfaces is the use of Use of different
various materials and contrasting structures. The broad brick structures
wall of a chimney and light-colored walls with wooden parti-
tions are often juxtaposed. Very early Wright introduced the
rough structure of a rusticated wall into the house, bringing it
unbroken from the outside, as in primitive times. In this feel-
ing for different materials and the search to find a new quality
of lighting, Wright developed an even greater refinement
as he grew older. The buildings of the Johnson Wax Company
at Racine, Wisconsin (1937-39), are lighted by means of
Pyrex glass tubes (fig. 255). In the winter home of the
Taliesin fellowship in the Arizona desert (1939) many con-
trasting materials are used - desert stone, walls of rubble
concrete, wooden trusses, and inclined canvas planes forming
in one surface windows and ceilings, creating, as in the Johnson
Wax Company buildings, a specific quality in accordance with
the existing circumstances.
To use plane surfaces, on the one hand, and to give them force
and expression by the frank use of undisguised materials, on
the other, is to employ, as we shall soon see, one of the means
of painting, which at this time in France was opening the way
for our new spatial conceptions.
Wright had around him no painters and sculptors who were Aestheticdirections
inspired by the same spirit. He was one of those rare exceptions,
the architect who is in advance of the contemporary painter in
his optical vision. In Europe, where the new spatial concep-
tions flowered about 1910, the case was just the opposite; there
4ll
251. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Larkin Administra-
tion Building, Buffalo, 1904. Details of capitals of pillars.
These straight-edged, sharp-cornered forms appear at the lop
of great piers, occupying the place usually taken by capitals.
Though they are decorative, nevertheless, like all Wright's
work, they have another impact than the purely ornamental.
252. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Tennis Club, River

Forest, Illinois, 1906. Bench of concrete slabs. Wright's
way of working with slabs and interpenetration of volumes
may be observed even in small details, such as this bench, in
which concrete slabs are used lo elongate one level, pushing
through the wall and hovering above the ground.
412
Lhe painter showed the way. But Wright had to do his work
alone, design his own stained-glass windows, architectural
details, and pictorial ornamentation. He did the capitals of the
Larkin Building (fig. 251) as "straight-edged and sharp-
cornered groups of ornaments at the top of the great piers and
directly below the skylights ... strange masses of square-
edge patterning." 13 The fresco of the Midway Gardens, a
restaurant in Chicago, now lost with the tearing down of the
building, he designed out of interpenetrating circles of differ-
ent sizes and different colors. In its pictorial intention this
fresco stands midway between the designs of the English
group around Mackintosh and the new spatial treatments
which W assily Kandinsky was undertaking in Munich at
about the same time.
In his houses ·wright takes the traditional flat surfaces and
dissects them in strips horizontally organized and in a juxta-
posed play with solid volumes, his vertical chimneys pene-
trating the roof in opposition to the horizontal planes of the
cantilevered porches and overhanging eaves, thus giving the
exterior of the American house an expression synonymous with
its plan. He dissects the wall and puts it together again with
an unprecedented - after all, we are in the first decade of the
twentieth century - keenness of imagination. He is impelled
unconsciously by the same forces that worked in Europe about
ten years later; there, however, the concern was to explore
new penetrations of inner and outer space rather than, as with
Wright, to treat the house as an enclosed spatial unit.
Wright often used the same elements as the Dutch architects
of the "Stijl" group, Mondrian and Doesburg, or the Russian
constructivists like Malewitsch - for example, the abstract
quadrangle, which remains the hallmark of Wright's work.
Malewitsch, however, used it as an absolute form, as a protest
against academic trompe l' reil. The Dutch organized geometri-
cal forms not for ornamentation but for the expression of pure
and undisguised interrelations between surfaces and colors.
Behind the European research lies, to a certain extent, another
will and another spatial conception.
13 Russell Sturgis, "The Larkin Building, Buffalo, N. Y.," Architectural Record, XXII
(1908), 320.
413
The Urge toward the Organic
Throughout history there persist two distinct trends - the
one toward the rational and the geometrical, the other toward
the irrational and the organic: two different ways of dealing
with or of mastering the environment. These contrasting ap-
proaches to the problem have been evident in all cultures,
both early and late. Since the beginning of civilization there
have been cities planned according to regular schemes and
cities which have grown up organically like trees. The ancient
Greeks put their mathematically proportioned temples on the
top of rocky acropolises, outlined against their southern skies;
the villages of the Greek islands, whitewashed on the crests of
hills, are easily distinguishable far out at sea because of their
clearly marked and periodically rewhitened walls.
The difference between organic and geometrical perceptions
is present even today in contemporary painting and contem-
porary architecture. They are constantly recurrent ways of
approach; one cannot be considered superior to the other. The
artist has the right of choice, of saying according to his own
point of view which pleases him and which he will follow.
From the beginning Frank Lloyd \Vright faced toward an or-
ganic perception of the world.
\Vright's whole career was an endeavor to express himself
in what he called "organic architecture," whatever that may
be. He liked to work within the shadow of this feeling. When,
on January 25, 1940, he lectured in Jackson Hall, Boston,
he devoted his entire discussion to this problem of his life. He
tried by a sort of Socratic dialogue, a give-and-take between
himself and his audience, to define and explain it. But his
effort was futile. It was clear, finally, that no explanation was
possible in words, that what he meant by organic architecture
could be revealed only in his work.
Around 1900 Louis Sullivan, in his Kindergarten Chats, 14 sought
to arrive at "the true meaning of the words 'Organic Architec-
14Kindergarten Chats, first published in 1901-02 in Interstate Architect and Builder, is
the testament of Louis Sullivan to American youth. It is full of prophecies, some of
which have already been fulfilled. Others, I believe, will be. The quotations are from
the revised edition published in book form by Claude Bragdon (Lawrence[?], Kansas,
1934), pp. 46-49.
414
ture'" through contrast, by exploring "what the word 'or-
ganic' doesn't mean." Organic, he said, means living, means
development, and not, as in the reigning American architec-
ture of 1900, "pitiful in its folly, ... functions without
forms, forms without functions; details unrelated to masses,
and masses unrelated to anything but folly .... " Of this he
adds: "Organic it is not. Inorganic it is becoming." "Or-
ganic" means~ for him the "searching for realities, - a word
253. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Residence, Taliesin.
I love because I love the sense of life it stands for, the ten-
fingered grasp of things it implies. . . . " "Organic," in the
sense of Sullivan and of \Vright, is a protest against the spiit
personality, against a split culture. It is identical with "the
ten-fingered grasp of reality" or with that development in
which thinking and feeling approach coincidence.
On a deep blue day in July 1939 we stood on the top of the hill \Vright's organic
on which is built \Vright's own home, Taliesin (jig. 253). The treatment
dome of the hill was so precise in shape, especially the hill-
415
crown which became a low-walled garden above the surround-
ing courts, reached by stone steps walled into the slopes, 15
that I asked if it had been built up in artificial regularity from
below. "No, it is the natural soil," Wright said. "I never
build houses on the top of a hill. I build them around it, like
an eyebrow." And I saw that it was indeed the house itself
which brought into consciousness the pure curve of the ground,
that in a certain sense its many-layered and unobtrusive forms
gave meaning and definition to the contours out of which it
rose.
At the time when he was isolated in his profession and without
public support, when America had turned against him, Wright
even built houses in the folds of the earth, so that they seem to
grow into nature and out of it. But even in his earlier houses,
like the Coonley house of 1911, with its projecting eaves and
its plants growing along and spreading over wooden cantile-
vers, we may see this tendency of the house to melt into its
surroundings, so that it is often impossible to say where it
begins. There are also contemporary sculptors, like Hans Arp,
who would prefer to set their works in the midst of the forest
so that, like a part of nature, they cannot be distinguished
from other stones.
This urge toward the organic may partly explain why Wright
preferred to use materials taken directly from nature, rugged
stone walls, rough granite floors, and heavy unfinished timbers.
Throughout his Chicago period he made no use of the skeleton
either of iron or ferroconcrete; 16 he was most reticent in the use
of glass and of white, and so cautious with openings that it is
sometimes difficult even to find the entrance door. Likewise
his urge toward the organic accounts for his developing his
flexible, open plan - in the age of central heating - from the
huge chimneys of the early colonial house.
15See Wright, Autobiography.

16When he did employ concrete, it was, as in the Oak Park Temple, in the form of con-
crete walls without glass surfaces. For his walls and porch pillars Wright preferred brick
or small Roman brick such as was used by Mcintire in the early and Richardson in the
late nineteenth century. He avoided even clapboards and used them- so far as I
know - only in a single house in Chicago, designed when he was still working with
Sullivan.
416
The usual criticism of the houses of his Chicago period - the
Martin house in Buffalo (1904), for example, and even the
Robie house (1908)- is that they are rather dark. They have
overhanging eaves and deep, low rooms. It is not completely
clear what he was trying to express with them, nor what his
real motives were. It may be that, having grown up in Chi-
cago's most vigorous period, he reacted against the big city
and its heavily glassed-in areas. In his houses and even his
administration buildings he sought to make a spatial unit of the
structure, but to seal it rather than to open it up.
Behind this cautiousness in the use of new materials and this
hesitation about opening up the house with glass walls, as was
done in the Chicago office buildings of the eighties and the
European houses of the twenties, seems to lie a special concep-
tion of the needs of human nature. Wright bound the human
dwelling to the earth as intimately as possible, introducing thP
earth into the house in the form of rough walls, and attached
to it as if, in the words of Louis Sullivan, by "the ten-fingered
grasp of reality." For Wright the house was a shelter, a covert
into which the human animal can retire as into a cave, pro-
tected from rain and wind and - light. There he may crouch,
as it were, in complete security and relaxation, like an animal
in its lair. Is there back of this the desire for shadowed dim-
ness that prevailed in the late nineteenth century, or is it an
urge toward primitive eternal instincts which sooner or later
must be satisfied? This we do not know. Always in the study
of Wright's personality a distinction must be made between
his use of elements belonging to his generation, on the one
hand, and, on the other, his own genius, overleaping its natu-
ral frontiers.
The European development based on constructive means and
the new visual approach had first to clear the atmosphere by
pure functionalism. This was necessary, unavoidable, and
healthful, but the moment the means of expression had been
found, the clearing up accomplished, then again the urge to the
organic could be felt. On another level and by other ways than
Wright's it is moving toward the organic. In the northern coun-
tries the work of the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto indicates
this- and not only there.
417
418
Office Buildings
Frank Lloyd Wright's distinctively individual feeling for the
house as a shelter and his handling of it as an enclosed spatial
unit are reflected in his two office buildings- the Larkin Soap
255. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT.

Johnson Wax Company, Administra-
tion Building, Racine, Wisconsin, 1938-
39. Interi~r.
254. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT.
Larkin Administration Building, Buf-
falo, 1904. Nave with surrounding
galleries.
+-
419
Company administratinn building in Buffalo (1904; fig. 254)
and the Johnson Wax Company administration building in
Racine, Wisconsin (1939; fig. 255). Though they were erected
more than thirty years apart and are very different in appear-
ance, they show the same spirit and give an equal insight into
Wright's architectural treatment. Both are treated primarily
as one room; both are separated from the outdoors; both are
enclosed by massive walls and receive their light through sky-
lights and high-placed windows or glass tubing. They are
shells shutting out the outer world, isolated and self-contained
units, and thus in the strongest contrast, on the one hand, to
the buildings of the Chicago school of the eighties with their
wide open glass areas and, on the other, to the designs of the
European movement of the twenties.
Larkin Building The Larkin Building stands a resolutely independent mass
embraced by the extended wings of the much larger factory
building of the company. There is an interplay between the
volume of its spatial unit and the square towers at either end
and flanking the entrance. These towers, which encase the
stairways and rise starkly without interruption upward over a
hundred feet, were the despair of contemporary critics, who
protested that they thrust up so strongly that there was no
play of light and shadow, and who thought that they should
be relieved by moldings or softened by glazed tiles in a variety
of color patterns. 17 The building itself had for these critics a
grimness of aspect which repelled them. It was for them an
"accumulation of strange sharp-edged solids, offering no
modulation of surface," its features "the square corner, the
right angle, the straight edge, the sharp arris, the firm vertical
and horizontal lines, unbroken, unmodified, uncompromising
in their geometrical precision." 18 Curiously, this is much the
same attack which ·wright later made upon the right angles,
.flat surfaces, and triangles of the European architects of the
twenties. This uncompromising precision was taken further in
1960 by Louis Kahn's science laboratories for the University of
Philadelphia, which seem closely related to the Larkin Building.
11 Cf. Russell Sturgis, "The Larkin Building, Buffalo, N. Y ., " Architectural Record,
XXIII (1908), 319, 321. It is interesting to note how an earnest critic who appreciates
the high quality of the plan and organization of the building cannot, however hard he
tries, accept it emotionally.
18 Ibid., p. 319.
420
255a. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT. Larkin Building, 1904. The first
squared-rod steel office furniture. Desks and chairs for the whole organization
were designed by Wright especially for this building. They were completed
in 1939, only len years before the inexcusable destruction of the building.
It is doubtful whether any of these chairs or desks were saved for a museum.
No skeleton was used in the Larkin Building. Just as in his

small dwelling-houses, Wright employed brick; the towers are
square brick shafts; the walls are a massive brick shell closed
above by a flat roof pierced by skylights. The architect him-
self characterized the structure thus: "Building sealed ....
Furnishing and filing systems built-in of steel. ... First air
conditioned office building. 19 • • • First metal bound plate
glass doors and windows. . . . '' (fig. 255a). 20 Its inner core
is a large space five stories high surrounded by galleries, form-
19 Buffalo was the birthplace of air-conditioning.
20 Architectural Forum, LXVIII (January 1938), 88.
421
1938-39. Interior of cornice of glass tubing, outer wall.
ing a great nave open to the skylight. Square, sand-colored

brick piers, rising with a Gothic strength, divide the nave from
the galleries. That the owners later on placed an organ in this
vast room is an indication of the serenity of the whole. Stand-
ing on the uppermost floor and looking down into the nave and
the galleries, we can observe how the light falls upon the metal
desk tops from high-placed windows. It is hardly believable
that this masterpiece of American craftsmanship no longer
exists. In 1949 the same firm that built it ordered its destruc-
tion.
Johnson Wax The administration building of the Johnson Wax Company
Company Building (1937-39) is also treated as a spatial unit, but primarily in one
story. It soon became famous on account of its unusually
formed columns. But the accent here again is on the manner
in which the lighting is achieved. I had occasion to see the
building just before it was completed, and I should ]ike to give
here my first impressions:
"We come to Racine, thirty miles north of Chicago, one of
those places which have neither an end nor a beginning. In
422
the middle of the town is the Building Office for which we are
looking, and in front of us there is a curved brick wall with
strange, long glass strips let into the top, just visible in the
winter light. . . . From a dark entrance, we arrive in a big
hall filled with mushroom pillars. All the engineers have
shaken their heads over these pillars which taper toward their
bases and are fitted into steel shoes. 21 At the top there are
widespreading circular discs which seem to float like leaves of
the Victoria regia among the tubes of heat-resisting (Pyrex)
glass. Most of the pillars carry nothing but the air above them.
This glass is manufactured in small lengths, and it is very
difficult to fix. But it does not discolor, and that is what
Wright wanted. The pillars are a luxury, and so is the special
glass, but why should not an administrative building, which is
a work building, for once be based on poetry? The light that
shimmers through the tubes is of a marvelous quality. The
impression of the hall is magic. We look up into the light,
like fish from the bottom of a pond, and the plates seem to
swim in the flowing glass. The hall is the most fantastic thing
that has been conceived in the architectural imagination for a
long time. Its apparent pointlessness irritates many people 22
- one could have spanned the whole space with a single truss.
But the magic effect would have been lost.
"This building is said to have cost double the amount orig-
inally contemplated, but the firm is able and willing to afford
this luxury. There have always existed buildings which satis-
fied this need for luxury, and they will exist again. The point
that matters is what we are to understand by luxury. Luxury
21 This type of column was challenged by the authorities. It "was 22ft. high, carried
about 12 tons, had a base 9 in. in diameter, flagrantly disregarding the code which called
for a 30 inch thickness on a column of this height. To demonstrate the soundness of his
design Wright poured a test column, let it stand seven days, and watched workmen load
it with 60 tons of material. Convinced, doubters piled on no more, pulled it down. On
the basis of the test the column would be good for a minimum of 80 tons at 28 days.
Secret of its amazing strength is wire mesh, welded into a cone." ("Frank Lloyd Wright
Tests a Column," Architectural Forum, vol. LXVII, August 1937, p. 10.)
22 The Johnson Wax Company building has been harshly attacked by the younger
architects not only for its streamlined exterior, but also because they say it lacks response
to function and is theatrical in effect. Certainly, as in every one of Wright's buildings,
there are to be found in the details many reminiscences of a bygone generation, but over
against all these objections it seems to us necessary to set into relief the fact that the
importance of this building lies in its experimentation with plastic forms and a new
quality of light, a new technical means, for broadening the emotional scale. Like a
baroque church, the building cannot be judged without being seen, gone through, ex-
perienced.
423
does not simply mean waste of material, but only makes sense
when it broadens emotional experience by means of new discovery.
Only a few can fulfill this. Frank Lloyd \Vright achieves in this
building by means of silver light and plasticity of form, a new
spatial sensation without which it is not possible to think of
architecture. He shows us here, after half a century of build-
ing, how luxury can still be creative in architecture" (fig.
256). 23 The building for the Johnson Wax Company intro-
duced the last twenty years of Wright's work, in which he
departed from the right angle and with increasing vigor em-
phasized circles and curves.
Influence of Frank Lloyd Wright

Wright, the Frank Lloyd Wright was not only an architect. He belongs
preacher among the great preachers of his country; he had by nature
the will and the courage to protest, to revolt, and to persevere.
He carried on in architecture that tradition of sturdy indi-
vidualism of which in the middle of the last century Walt
Whitman and Henry Thoreau were the literary spokesmen.
He regarded this tradition as part of himself. As prophet,
preacher, and agrarian individualist, he preached hatred of
the city and return to the soil and to the productive, self-
sufficient community- in a land where man's relation to the
soil is too often remote and impersonal; where at the same
moment, according to the varying demands of the economic
trend, forests are being changed into farms and acres of grow-
ing grain changed back into forests; and where food to a great
extent comes to the table out of tins.
American reaction Frank Lloyd Wright belongs, in one sense of the word, to a
sacrificed generation. When he began building, he had every
prospect of commercial success; he built more houses in his
early period than any of his European precursors. But what he
built was only for the individual client. Not that his houses-
all of them erected in the Middle West and the West 24 - are
purely local, limited by the region and the personal tastes and
23 S. Giedion, "The Dangers and Advantages of Luxury," Focus (London), no. 3,
Spring 1939, pp. 34-39.
24 Not one house was built by Wright in the country's financial center, New York;
not one in Boston.
424
requirements of the single client; like any work of art, they
embody something that overreaches all restrictions of place
and personal ownership. But they have had no influence on
the country; they have not become an impelling creative force.
The reason is that ·wright began work at the very moment
when American architecture was undermined by the most dan-
gerous reaction since the time of its origin. The classic and
Gothic fashions which in those years overwhelmed the con-
stituent facts of American architecture had, of course, nothing
to do with tradition. They meant nothing more than the giving
of an artificial backbone to people who were weak in their emo-
tional structure. Behind the screens of their houses- minia-
ture Versailles, Tuscan villa, or medieval manor - or their
skyscrapers in sacred Gothic shapes, these people could hide
their inner uncertainty. This had its deplorable consequences
for the business of architecture. The architect who wished to
live by his profession had to conform to the vogue or give up.
During this dominance of classic and Gothic imitations, which
became stronger and stronger between 1910 and 1925, Wright
and Louis Sullivan had to live almost as exiles in their own
country. In the last year of his life, so an older Chicago ar-
chitect has told me, Sullivan received monetary assistance
monthly from some of his colleagues. And Wright in 1940,
speaking at his exhibition in Boston, summed it up when he
said simply:" They killed Sullivan, and they nearly killed me!"
In this period he and Sullivan became, in the eyes of their
contemporaries, the representatives of a lost cause. But ac-
tually it was not they who had lost the cause. Rather it was
the country which had lost, for later on it was the country, and
not \Vright, which had to change. At this time, when Europe
was beginning to purify architectural means, when the demand
for truth appeared in architecture, America had no organ with
which to hear what was going on. All that was being expressed
abroad was cut off like a silenced radio. The effects are still
to be felt today.
The foundation bearing Wright's work is a strong tripod: the Nature of
American tradition, his urge toward the organic, and his power Wright's influence
to find an artistic language for bis own period. By the time
425
the definitive publication of his buildings appeared in Berlin in
1910, all this had been realized. At forty years of age Wright
had already achieved a body of work great enough and in-
fluential enough to assure him his place in history.
\Vhat is to be grasped, what can be observed of his direct in-
fluence, is often only superficial and leads to misunderstanding.
Whoever as an architect has tried to imitate or even to follow
him, whether in Europe or America, has misused his work and
misinterpreted his spirit. Much more important perhaps than
Wright's direct influence was his significance as an index, as a
sort of signpost of new directions, for no equivalent could be
found for his work in Europe between 1900 and 1910.
Influence in After 1910 the best brains of Europe began to understand what
Europe he had achieved in America. One of the finest, H. P. Berlage,
introduced Wright's work extensively into Europe through his
own exhibitions and lectures. By his moral authority he en-
sured the next Dutch generation a stimulus to their own devel-
opment.25 The Dutch people were best prepared to receive
help from ·wright's impulse. In this connection we are not
thinking so much of the work of Dudok in Hilversum, who in
the early twenties had a great success with his sentimentalized
buildings, but rather with such a sensitive and fine-spirited
architect as Robert van t'Hoff, who built two massive concrete
houses at Huisterheide in 1914-15. These houses, the only
ones van t'Hoff ever built, were a direct reflection of \Vright's
ideas. Although they stood alone and isolated in Europe,
nevertheless they performed a clarifying function there. They
were made known to the European advance guard in 1919 by
an article of Theo van Doesburg in his review, Style.
In the early work of several Dutch architects, and also in some
projects of J. J. P. Oud, it was undoubtedly the stimulus that
was to be found in ·wright's work which helped them to clear a
way to self-realization. But it would be completely super-
ficial and wrong to try to find detailed evidence of his influence
on them, to refer in their case to models and pictures for simi-
larities to his designs. For there are other elements in European
25Curiously enough, Le Corbusier was also directed to Wright through an article which
appeared in the Schweizerische Bauzeilung in 1912, and which was an extensive resume by
Berlage himself of a lecture he had given in Zurich.
426
architecture- as we shall soon see- which formed their
specific character. No. Wright's real influence, his great and
educative influence, cannot be shown in a few poor photographs;
his real influence is that of his methods and ideas, as they are
reflected in his work. We shall see how later on Wright's
conception of space, coming into contact with the European
movement, was developed and changed in the hands of its
leading figures. \Vright had always- up to the last- the
inspiration of a genius that reached far beyond his own genera-
tion.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Late Period

Wright died in 1959. Never before had he had so many com-
missions and so much adulation. The American press, which
ten years earlier had found no space for him, now sometimes
overreached itself and labeled him a towering genius and the
greatest architect of all time. And all this after he had had for
decades to endure great humiliation that would have crushed a
less strong nature. In the twenties and early thirties he was
pursued by creditors, menaced by legal proceedings, mixed up
in scandals (that in a country of puritan opinion usually finish
off a man), and almost without work. He was excluded from
society and all important activities as a moral outlaw and a
man far removed from the ruling taste. The fate of Wright
was neither unique to the United States nor limited to his per-
son. All pioneers in our period have met with a similar fate.
The richness of his vision was expressed in immense projects
that sometimes got lost in fantasy and eccentricity, such as
his scheme for the " Golden Triangle" area in downtown Pitts-
burgh or his opera house for Baghdad. Both of these, probably
to Wright's advantage, were never constructed. At the same
time he was busy designing a circular building with spiral
ramps inside or outside it. The Morris store in San Francisco
(1950) was the first interior space of this kind to be created.
The circle and the spiral appear in monumental form in the
Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue in New York. The ex-
hibition spaces run alongside the spiral ramp bounded by
circular walls that slope together towards the bottom. The
427
difficulties these walls present in mounting an exhibition were
apparent in the exhibition of sculpture shown at the Museum's
opening shortly after Wright's death.
Frank Lloyd Wright always had the public in mind. Archi-
tecturally speaking this meant: the human habitat, the mini-
mum apartment, the single family house, even the mile-high
skyscrapers that he designed toward the end of his life. In the
single family houses of the Chicago period he had laid the
foundations for contemporary architecture. Even in his dark-
est period, in the twenties, when he was building a few houses
of reinforced concrete, the human habitat was his dominant
preoccupation. In the final period of his life he was one of the
first to abandon the rectangular living room, though, as I stated
in Architecture, You and Me, "Each of us carries in his mind
the results of five thousand years of tradition: a room is a space
bounded by four rectangular planes.'' 26
Frank Lloyd Wright acknowledged a Japanese influence, and
eastern art was the only art he collected and displayed in his
home. In his last decade, however, he unconsciously carm~
near to primeval memories. The forms of his houses took on
rounded curves following his no longer rectangular living
rooms. In them the rounded oval houses of Minoan Crete from
around 1500 B.C. or the Mesopotamian houses from the fourth
or third millenium B.C. reappear. Wright's house plans in his
late years finally took on a sickle-shaped outline (house in Vir-
ginia, 1953) with an external surrounding ramp and an internal
patio. Wright was probably the first to reincorporate into the
house that quiet focal point - the patio - which since then
has become more and more an accepted part of a modern dwel-
ling.
25 Harvard University Press, 1958, p. 150.
428
PART VI SPACE-TIME IN ART, ARCHITECTURE,
AND CONSTRUCTION
THE NEW SPACE CONCEPTION: SPACE-TIME
Social, economic, and functional influences play a vital part

in all human activities, from the sciences to the arts. But there
are other factors which also have to be taken into account -
our feelings and emotions. These factors are often dismissed
as trivial, but actually their effect upon men's actions is im-
mense. A good share of the misfortunes of the past century
came out of its belief that industry and techniques had only a
functional import, with no emotional content. The arts were
exiled to an isolated realm of their own, completely insulated
from everyday realities. As a result, life lost unity and bal-
ance; science and industry made steady advances, but in the
now detached realm of feeling there was nothing but a vacil-
lation from one extreme to the other.
The scope and strength of the emotions are both greater than
we sometimes suppose. Emotion or feeling enters into all our
affairs - speculation is never completely "pure," just as
action is never entirely practical. And, of course, we are far
from having free choice in this matter of feeling. Large tracts
of our emotional life are determined by circumstances over
which we have no control: by the fact that we happen to be
men, of such or such a kind, living at this or that period. Thus
a thoroughly integrated culture produces a marked unity of
feeling among its representatives. For example, a recognizable
common spirit runs through the whole baroque period. It
makes itself felt in activities as distinct from each other as
painting and philosophy or architecture and mathematics.
This is not particularly surprising. Techniques, sciences, the
arts - all these are carried on by men who have grown up
together in the same period, exposed to its characteristic in-
fluences. The feelings which it is the special concern of the
artist to express are also at work within the engineer and the
mathematician. This emotional background shared by such
otherwise divergent pursuits is what we must try to discover.
Do We Need Artists?
Some people question whether any pervasive unity of feeling is
possible in a period like ours. They regard science and industry
430
as inimical to art and feeling: where the former prosper, the
latter decline. Or they see science taking over the arts, opening
up new means of self-expression which make us independent of
them. There is some basis for views like these. Do we, then,
really need artists any longer?
In any civilization, feeling continues to filter through every
activity and situation. An environment whose chief aspects
remain opaque to feeling is as unsatisfying as one which resists
practical or intellectual control. But just this sort of emotional
frustration has prevailed for a long time past. An official art
has turned its back upon the contemporary world and given up
the attempt to interpret it emotionally. The feelings which
that world elicits have remained formless, have never met with
those objects which are at once their symbols and their satis-
faction.
Such symbols, however, are vital necessities. Feelings build
up within us and form systems; they cannot be discharged
through instantaneous animal outcries or grimaces. We need
to discover harmonies between our own inner states and our
surroundings. And no level of development can be maintained
if it remains detached from our emotional life. The whole
machinery runs down.
This is the reason why the most familiar and ordinary things
have importance for the genuinely creative artists of our gen-
eration. Painters like Picasso, Juan Gris, the lyricist of cub-
ism, and Le Corbusier have devoted themselves to the common
objects of daily use: bowls, pipes, bottles, glasses, guitars.
Nat ural materials have received the same attention: stones
hollowed out by the sea, roots, bits of bark - even weather-
bleached bones. Anonymous and unpretentious things like
these scarcely figure at all in our normal consciousness, but
they attain their true stature and significance under the artist's
hand. They become revealed as objets a reaction poetiques,
to borrow Le Corbusier's phrase. Or, to put it somewhat
differently, new parts of the world are made accessible to
feeling.
The opening up of such new realms of feeling has always been
the artist's chief mission. A great deal of our world would lack
431
all emotional significance if it were not for his work. As re-
cently as the eighteenth century, mountain scenery was felt to
exhibit nothing except a formless and alarming confusion.
Winckelmann, the discoverer of Greek art, could not bear to
look out the windows of his carriage when he crossed the Alps
into Italy, around 1760. He found the jumbled granite masses
of the St. Gotthard so frightful that he pulled down the blinds
and sat back to await the smooth outlines of the Italian coun-
tryside. A century later, Ruskin was seeking out the moun-
tains of Chamonix as a refuge from an industrial world that
made no kind of aesthetic sense. Ships, bridges, iron con-
structions- the new artistic potentialities of his period, in
short-- these were the things Ruskin pulled down the blinds
on. Right now there are great areas of our experience which
are still waiting to be claimed by feeling. Thus we are no
longer limited to seeing objects from the distances normal
for earth-bound animals. The bird's-eye view has opened
up to us whole new aspects of the world. Such new modes of
perception carry with them new feelings which the artist must
formulate.
The artist, in fact, functions a great deal like an inventor or a

scientific discoverer: all three seek new relations between
man and his world. In the artist's case these relations are
emotional instead of practical or cognitive. The creative art-
ist does not want to copy his surroundings, on the one hand, or
to make us see them through his eyes, on the other. He is a
specialist who shows us in his work as if in a mirror some-
thing we have not realized for ourselves: the state of our own
souls. He finds the outer symbols for the feelings which really
possess us but which for us are only chaotic and - therefore
-disquieting, obsessive stirrings. This is why we still need
artists, however difficult it may be for them to hold their place
in the modern world.
Artist and public: But if the artist is so necessary to us, how is it that he seems to
how they have have lost contact with all but a small number of his contem-
lost contact poraries? Ordinary people make it almost a point of pride to
insist that, so far as they are concerned, his vocabulary of
forms is totally incomprehensible.
432
This is often said to be a consequence of the revolt against
naturalism. Actually, however, it dates from quite another
event: the proclamation de la liberte du travail of March 17,
1791, which dissolved the guild system. The abolition of all
legal restraints upon the choice of a trade was the starting
point for the tremendous growth of modern industry and the
isolation of the artist.
Cut off from the crafts, the artist was faced with the serious
problem of competing with the factory system for his living.
One solution was to set himself up in the luxury trades, to
cater, quite unashamed, to the lowest common denominator of
public taste. Art-to-public-order flooded the world, filled the
salons, and won the gold medals of all the academies. \Vith no
serious aims and no standards of its own, the most such an art
could hope for was a financial success, and this it often achieved.
The most favored of these cultivated drudges - a Meisso-
nier, for example -sometimes saw their canvases sold at a
thousand francs the square inch.
As far as the public and the critics were concerned, this was
art - and this the work the artist was meant to do. The half-
dozen painters who carried on the artist's real work of invention
and research were absolutely ignored. The constituent facts
in the painting of our period were developed against the will
of the public and almost in secret. And this from the begin-
ning to the end of the century, from Ingres to Cezanne.
The same situation held for architecture. Here too the ad-
vances were made surreptitiously, in the department of con-
struction. The architect and the painter were faced with the
same long struggle against trompe l' ceil. Both had to combat
entrenched styles by returning to the pure means of expression.
For some four decades painter after painter makes the effort
to reconquer the plane surface. We have seen how the same
struggle arose in architecture as a consequence of the demand
for morality. Painters very different in type but sharing a
common isolation from the public worked steadily toward a
new conception of space. And no one can understand con-
temporary architecture, become aware of the feelings hidden be-
hind it, unless he has grasped the spirit animating this painting.
433
The fact that modern painting bewilders the public is not
strange: for a full century the public ignored all the develop-
ments which led up to it. It would be very surprising if the
public had been able to read at sight an artistic language
elaborated while its attention was elsewhere, absorbed by the
pseudo art of the salons.
THE RESEARCH INTO SPACE: CUBISM
In many places, about 1910, a consciousness that the painter's

means of expression had lost contact with modern life was
beginning to emerge. But it was in Paris, with cubism, that
these efforts first attained a visible result. The method of
presenting spatial relationships which the cubists developed
led up to the form-giving principles of the new space concep-
tion.1
The half-century previous to the rise of cubism had seen paint-
ing flourish almost nowhere outside of France. It was the high
culture of painting that grew up in France during this period
which formed the fostering soil for our contemporary art.
Young people of talent - whether Spanish like Picasso, or
Swiss like Le Corbusier - found their inspiration in Paris, in
the union of their powers with the artistic tradition of that
city. The vitality of French culture served to the advantage of
the whole world. Among the general public, however, there
was no sympathetic response to this achievement. It was from
a form of art which the public despised that nineteenth-century
painting drew its positive strength. Cubism, growing up in
this soil, absorbed all its vigor.
1 We shall treat contemporary movements in art here only so far as their methods are
directly related to the space conceptions of our period, and in order to understand the
common background of art, architecture, and construction. For an understanding of
these movements the elaborate catalogues of the Museum of Modern Art, New York,
are very useful. See Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Cubism and Abstract Art (New York, 1936),
and Robert Rosenblaum, Cubism and Twentieth Century Art (New York, 1960). For a
short survey with emphasis on historical relations, see J. J. Sweeney, Plastic Redi-
rections of the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 1935); for the relation of contemporary art
to education, industrial design, and daily life, see L. Moholy-Nagy, The New Vision
(New York, 1938). The close relation of contemporary sculpture to primitive art, on the
one hand, and, on the other, to an enlargement of our outlook into nature is stressed in
C. Giedion-Welcker, Contemporary Sculpture (New York, 1955).
434
Picasso has been called the inventor of cubism, but cubism
is not the invention of any individual. It is rather the expres-
sion of a collective and almost unconscious attitude. A painter
who participated in the movement says of its beginnings:
"There was no invention. Still more, there could not be one.
Soon it was twitching in everybody's fingers. There was a
presentiment of what should come, and experiments were made.
We avoided one another; a discovery was on the point of being
made, and each of us distrusted his neighbors. We were stand-
ing at the end of a decadent epoch."
From the Renaissance to the first decade of the present cen- The dissolution of
tury perspective had been one of the most important constit- perspective
uent facts in painting. It had remained a constant element
through all changes of style. The four-century-old habit of
seeing the outer world in the Renaissance manner - that is,
in terms of three dimensions- rooted itself so deeply in the
human mind that no other form of perception could be imag-
ined. This in spite of the fact that the art of different previous
cultures had been two-dimensional. ~When earlier periods es-
tablished perspective as a constituent fact they were always
able to find new expressions for it. In the nineteenth century
perspective was misused. This led to its dissolution.
The three-dimensional space of the Renaissance is the space
of Euclidean geometry. But about 1830 a new sort of geometry
was created, one which differed from that of Euclid in employ-
ing more than three dimensions. Such geometries have con-
tinued to be developed, until now a stage has been reached
where mathematicians deal with figures and dimensions that
cannot be grasped by the imagination.
These considerations interest us only in so far as they affect

the sense of space. Like the scientist, the artist has come to
recognize that classic conceptions of space and volumes are
limited and one-sided. In particular, it has become plain that
the aesthetic qualities of space are not limited to its infinity
for sight, as in the gardens of Versailles. The essence of space
as it is conceived today is its many-sidedness, the infinite poten-
tiality for relations within it. Exhaustive description of an
area from one point of reference is, accordingly, impossible; its
435
character changes with the point from which it is viewed. In
order to grasp the true nature of space the observer must pro-
ject himself through it. The stairways in the upper levels of
the Eiffel Tower are among the earliest architectural expres-
sion of the continuous interpenetration of outer and inner
space.
Space in modern physics is conceived of as relative to a moving
point of reference, not as the absolute and static entity of the
baroque system of Newton. And in modern art, for the first
time since the Renaissance, a new conception of space leads to
a self-conscious enlargement of our ways of perceiving space.
It was in cubism that this was most fully achieved.
Space-Time The cubists did not seek to reproduce the appearance of objects
from one vantage point; they went round them, tried to lay
hold of their internal constitution. They sought to extend the
scale of feeling, just as contemporary science extends its de-
scriptions to cover new levels of material phenomena.
Cubism breaks with Renaissance perspective. It views objects

relatively: that is, from several points of view, no one of which
has exclusive authority. And in so dissecting objects it sees
them simultaneously from all sides- from above and below,
from inside and outside. It goes around and into its objects.
Thus, to the three dimensions of the Renaissance which have
held good as constituent facts throughout so many centuries,
there is added a fourth one - time. The poet Guillaume
Apollinaire was the first to recognize and express this change,
around 1911. The same year saw the first cubist exhibition in
the Salon des Independants. Considering the history of the
principles from which they broke, it can well be understood
that the paintings should have been thought a menace to the
public peace, and have become the subject of remarks in the
Chamber of Deputies.
The presentation of objects from several points of view intro-

duces a principle which is intimately bound up with modern
life- simultaneity. It is a temporal coincidence that Einstein
should have begun his famous work, Eleklrodynamik bewegler
Korper, in 1905 with a careful definition of simultaneity.
436
The Artistic Afeans
"Abstract art" is as misleading a term for the different move-
ments which depart from the spatial approach as "cubism"
is for the beginnings of the contemporary image. It is not the
"abstract," it is not the "cubical," which are significant in
their content. What is decisive is the invention of a new ap-
proach, of a new spatial representation, and the means by
which it is attained.
This new representation of space was accomplished step by
step, much as laboratory research gradually arrives at its con-
clusions through long experimentation; and yet, as always
with real art and great science, the results came up out of the
subconscious suddenly.
The cubists dissect the object, try to lay hold of its inner com-
position. They seek to extend the scale of optical vision as
contemporary science extends the law of matter. Therefore
contemporary spatial approach has to get away from the single
point of reference. During the first period (shortly before
1910) this dissection of objects was accomplished, as Alfred
Barr expresses it, by breaking up "the surfaces of the natural
forms into angular facets." Concentration was entirely upon
research into a new representation of space - thus the extreme
scarcity of colors in this early period. The pictures are gray-
toned or earthen, like the grisaille of the Renaissance or the
photographs of the nineteenth century. Fragments of lines
hover over the surface, often forming open angles which be-
come the gathering places of darker tones. These angles and
lines began to grow, to be extended, and suddenly out of them
developed one of the constituent facts of space-time represen-
tation- the plane (fig. 257).
The advancing and retreating planes of cubism, interpenetrat- The planes
ing, hovering, often transparent, without anything to fix them
in realistic position, are in fundamental contrast to the lines of
perspective, which converge to a single focal point.
Hitherto planes in themselves, without naturalistic features,
had lacked emotional content. Now they came to the fore as
an artistic means, employed in various and very different ways,
at times representing fragments of identifiable objects, at
437
257. PICASSO. " Still Life,"
c. 1914.
others such things as bottles or pipes flattened out so that

interior and exterior could be seen simultaneously, at still
others completely irrational forms equivalent only to psychic
responses.
Around 1912 new elements entered; the planes were accen-
tuated, assumed strength and dominance, and were given an
additional appeal - to the tactile sense - by means of new
materials (scraps of paper, sawdust, glass, sand, etc.) . And
when, though always meagerly, color was employed, it was
often corrugated and roughened in order to strengthen the pig-
ment. In such collages fragments of newspapers, fabrics, or
handwriting, sometimes even single words, achieved the force
of new symbols.
The process continued, from the grayish background of the
first period through the collage, to the reappearance of color,
which gradually became stronger and more varied, until its
brilliant culmination in Picasso's and Braque's still-lifes to-
ward and at the beginning of the twenties. In this period, per-
438
haps cubism's happiest, color was used in pure strength. At
the same time curvilinear forms were introduced, taken from
such everyday objects as bowls and guitars, or simply invented.
Color no longer had the exclusive function of naturalistic
reproduction. Used in a spatial pattern, it was often divorced
from any object, asserting a right to existence in itself.
Cubism originated among artists belonging to the oldest cul-
tures of the western world, the French and the Spanish. More
and more clearly it appears that this new conception of space
was nourished by the elements of bygone periods. Its symbols
were not rational, were not to be utilized directly in architec-
ture and the applied arts, but they did give force and direction
to artistic imagination in other fields. Following upon the first
efforts of the cubists, there came, as has already been said, an
awakening in various countries. In France appeared Le Cor-
busier and Ozenfant; in Russia, Malewitsch; in Hungary,
Moholy-Nagy; in Holland, Mondrian and van Doesburg.
Common to them was an attempt to rationalize cubism or, as
they felt was necessary, to correct its aberrations. The pro-
cedure was sometimes very different in different groups, but all
moved toward rationalization and into architecture.
\Vhen Ozenfant and Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) came together Purism
as young painters in 1917, they called their painting Purisme
(fig. 313). In comparison with the movements preceding it
(constructivism in Russia or neo-plasticism in Holland), pur-
ism, coming out of French soil, was the closest of all to the aim
of cubism and, at the same time, to architecture.
Two years after the exhibition of the cubists in the Salon des Constructivism
Independants, there appeared in Russia an abstract-art move-
ment, fostered by Kasimir Malewitsch, which completely
eliminated the object. It was a flight from and a protest
against the naturalistic object, with painting reduced to a few
signs of symbolic intensity. What its paintings achieve are
fundamentally only pure interrelationships. Flatly extended
rectangles and strips float in continuous interrelation in space
for which there is no true human measure.
Interrelation, hovering, and penetration form the basis of
Malewitsch's half-plastic architectural studies, which he calls
439
258. BRAQUE. Collage, 1913.
259. MONDR1AN.
Composition .
"architectonen." These objects are not intended for a par-

ticular purpose but are to be understood simply as spatial
research. Interrelations are created between these prisms,
slabs, and surfaces when they penetrate or dislodge each other
(fig. 260). They come close in spirit to the so-called megastruc-
tures of around 1960.
440
260. MALEWITSCH. Architect onics, c. 1920.
261. THEO VAN DOESB URG and C. VAN EESTEREN.

Scheme for a villa, 1923.
262. WALTER GROPIUS. The Bauhaus, 1926.
441
Neo-plasticism N eo-plasticism, an expression used by the Dutch painter
Mondrian, signifies that three-dimensional volume is reduced
to the new element of plasticity, the plane. Mondrian sacri-
fices every contact with illusionistic reproduction, going back
to the fundamental elements of pure color, of planes, their
equipoise and interrelations.
The small circle of young artists who gathered around Theo van
Doesburg and his periodical, Stijl, after 1917 progressed much
more radically than the French painters and architects. Van
Doesburg and Mondrian sought ''pure art'' not in any way de-
flected by external motives. \Vith them everything rests on
the distribution and juxtaposition of planes of pure color: blue,
red, yellow. To these are added black and various tones of
white, all being placed in a network of panels.
The Belgian V antongerloo, who also belongs to this circle,
demonstrated with the prisms, slabs, and hollows of his plastic
of 1918 that contemporary sculpture, like painting, was not to
be limited to a single point of view.
Van Doesburg, the moving spirit of the circle, was painter, man
of letters, and architect. Although he executed few buildings,
he cannot be omitted from the history of architecture, since,
like Malewitsch, he possessed the gift of recognizing the new
extension of the space sense and the ability to present and
explain it as though by laboratory experiments.
One of van Doesburg's drawings in which an attempt is made
to present "the elementary forms of architecture" (lines, sur-
face, volume, space, time) may very well have appeared to
many at that time as so much disjointed nonsense (fig. 81).
The present-day observer, who has the advantage of being
able to look back upon intervening developments, has a very
different attitude toward these mutually penetrating flat sur-
faces. He sees how the enormous amount of contemporary
architecture which has since appeared acknowledges this vision
of space.
In 1923 van Doesburg, together with van Eesteren (fig. 261),
who later became a town planner of Amsterdam, produced a
house that is bolder than any other building executed during
the period. The breaking-up of the compact mass of the house,
442
the accessibility of the roof, the horizontal rows of windows -
in fact, all the features that were later to be realized in numer-
ous examples were indicated in it. If a collage by Georges
Braque (fig. 258), produced ten years earlier, consisting of
different papers, scraps of newspaper and fragments of planes,
is placed alongside a reproduction of this house, no words are
necessary to indicate the identity of artistic expression. An
architectonic study of Malewitsch might be likened to it
equally well. The effect is as if the blind surfaces of the Male-
witsch sculpture had suddenly received sight. It is obvious
that in the second decade of this century the same spirit
emerged in different forms, in different spheres, and in totally
different countries.
THE RESEARCH INTO MOVEMENT: FUTURISM
In the first decade of this century the physical sciences were The notion of
profoundly shaken by an inner change, the most revolutionary time
perhaps since Aristotle and the Pythagoreans. It concerned,
above all, the notion of time. Previously time had been re-
garded in one of two ways: either realistically, as something
going on and existing without an observer, independent of the
existence of other objects and without any necessary relation
to other phenomena; or subjectively, as something having no
existence apart from an observer and present only in sense
experience. Now came another and new way of regarding
time, one involving implications of the greatest significance,
the consequences of which cannot today be minimized or
ignored.
As was stated at the beginning of this book, it was in 1908
that Hermann Minkowski, the great mathematician, speaking
before the N aturforschenden Gesellschaft, proclaimed for the
first time with full certainty and precision this fundamental
change of conception. "Henceforth," he said, "space alone
or time alone is doomed to fade into a mere shadow; only a
kind of union of both will preserve their existence."
Concurrently the arts were concerned with the same problem.
Artistic movements with inherent constituent facts, such as
443
cubism and futurism, tried to enlarge our optical vision by
introducing the new unit of space-time into the language of
art. It is one of the indications of a common culture that the
same problems should have arisen simultaneously and inde-
pendently in both the methods of thinking and the methods of
feeling.
Beginnings of During the Renaissance the common artistic perception, per-
futurism spective, was expressed by one group of artists primarily
through lines, and by another primarily through colors. So in
our own day the common background of space-time has been
explored by the cubists through spatial representation and by
the futurists through research into movement.
For Jakob Burckhardt there reigned in Italy "the quiet of the
tomb." The futurists were a reaction against this quietness;
they felt ashamed that Italy had become simply a refuge for
those seeking to escape from the demands and realities of the
present. They called upon art to come forth from the twilit
caves of the museums, to assert itself in the fullness of modern
thought and feeling, to speak out in authentic terms of the
moment. Life was their cry - explosive life, movement, ac-
tion, heroism - in every phase of human life, in politics, in
war, in art: the discovery of new beauties and a new sensibility
through the forces of our period. Not without right did they
claim to be "the first Italian youth in centuries." 1
So, from the beginning, they plunged into the full struggle,
and carried their cause militantly to the public. The poet
Marinetti, whose apartment in Rome even to this day bears
the escutcheon of the "Movimento futurista," proclaimed in
the Parisian Figaro of February 20, 1909, "vVe affirm that the
splendor of t11e world has been enriched by a new beauty:
the beauty of speed." And later, in 1912, in the "Second
Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting," the futurists de-
veloped their principal discovery, that "objects in motion
multiply and distort themselves, just as do vibrations, which
indeed they are, in passing through space." The most exciting
of their paintings realize this artistic principle.
1 For the literary intentions of futurism cf. the article of its founder, F. T. Marinetti,
in Enciclopedia italiana, vol. XVI, 1932.
444
The productions of futurist painting, sculpture, and architec-
ture are based on the representation of movement and its corre-
lates: interpenetration and simultaneity. One of the futur-
ists' best minds and without any doubt their best sculptor,
Umberto Boccioni, who died much too early, in 1916, has most
clearly defined their purposes. In an effort to penetrate more
deeply into the very essence of painting, he sought terms for his
art, terms which, now obscurely felt, now shining clear and im-
mediate in his increasing creative experience, anticipated those
that later appeared in the atomic theory. "We should start,"
he said, "from the central nucleus of the object wanting to
create itself, in order to discover those new forms which con-
nect the object invisibly with the infinite of the apparent
plasticity and the infinite of the inner plasticity."
Boccioni tried in these words to circumscribe the sense of a new Futurism and
plasticity which conceives objects (as they are in reality) in a cubism-
state of movement. This was reflected directly in his sculpture, common traits
and differences
"Bottle Evolving in Space," 1911-12, with its intersecting
spatial planes. One of the few sculptural masterpieces of the
epoch, this sculpture expresses the inherent significance of an
object of daily use by treating it with new artistic invention.
Sometimes, as in this instance, cubistic and futuristic works
are closely bound together on a common basis of the same spa-
tial conception.
The French painter, Marcel Duchamp, who belonged neither
to the futurists nor to the cubists, painted at the same time
(1912) his "Nude Descending the Staircase," in which the
movement is dissected mathematically and yet fully sur-
rounded by the multi-significance of irrational art.
Usually the futurists present movement as such, as subject
matter ("Elasticity," Boccioni, 1911; "Dynamisme mus-
culaire, Simultaneite," Carra, 1912; "Speed," Balla, 1913), or
show objects and bodies in motion (Gino Severini's study of
the dance as a movement in mass, "The Dance Pan-Pan,"
1911; "Walking Dog," Balla, 1913; "Rattling Cab," Carra,
1913). 2
2For illustrations of this first and most important futuristic development cf. Boccioni,
Pittura, scultura fulurisle (Milan, 1914), a volume of over 400 pages, with bibliography
of exhibitions, manifestoes, etc.
445
263. BOCCIONT. "Bottle Evolving in Space," 1911-12.
In boi.h futurism and cubism this enlargement uf the optical

was achieved before 1914, before the first world war. The
cubists were the more passive and less vocal. Not fighters in
the futuristic sense, more purely research men in their work,
they kept to their ateliers, preparing quietly and without fan-
fare the symbols of our artistic language. Braque and Picasso
wrote no ponderous tomes expounding their theories. Even
the name "cubist" was a label fixed upon them by outsiders.
They did not try to paint "movement" itself, or the dyna-
mism of muscles, or the automobile, but through their stilllifes
of things of daily use sought to find artistic means for our
spatial conceptions. This is the reason cubism found exten-
sion into so many ramifications. This is why laboratory paint-
ers, who had no thought beyond their own artistic problems,
could also give an impulse to the expression of the new spatial
conceptions in architecture.
Architecture To try to introduce the principle of movement directly into
architecture did not touch the fundamental problem. In his
projects for his "Citta N uova," in his skyscraper apartment
houses connected with subways, elevators, and traffic lanes at
446
different levels, Antonio Sant' Elia tried to introduce the fu-
turistic love of movement as an artistic element in the contem-
porary city (fig. 192). Sant' Elia's "Citta Nuova," as well as
Malewitsch's sculptural studies of the same period, expressed
trends that were first implemented in the 1960's when move-
ment in cities came to be recognized as a problem of urban
form and obliged different levels to be created for pedestrians
and vehicles. We do not know if Sant' Elia's talent would have
developed. He died in 1916, at a time when his contemporary,
Le Cor busier, was still far from self-realization. Although
Sant' Elia's prophetic vision did not direct the way architec-
ture then followed, it did present a new viewpoint in a period
when everyone was looking for a signpost. In his manifesto
of July 14, 1914, which he published in connection with the
exhibition of his schemes in Milan, he demanded an architec-
ture imbued with the utmost elasticity and lightness, utilizing
all the newly developed elements of construction from iron
and ferroconcrete to composite materials made by chemical
processes, including textile fiber and paper. Behind these
technical demands loomed his artistic aim: mobility and
change. What he wanted to realize he condensed into the
few words: "Every generation its own house!"
There are times when the man of the laboratory is compelled Difficulties
to go forth into the street to fight for his work. On occasion
264. BALLA. "Swifts: Paths of Movement and Dynamic SequencP,s," 1913.
447
this may be advisable. But normally he endangers his work
by so doing. The futurists were perhaps too much bound up
in trying to apply their ideas to all kinds of human activities;
the result was that their movement - which our period cannot
ignore - had a comparatively short span of volcanic produc-
tivity. It was unfortunate in that some of its ablest exponents
died too early and that others lapsed into regrettable routine
work, bequeathing nothing to the future except the few years
of their youth.
265. EDGERTON. Speed photograph of a tennis player, 1939.
Futurism did not have the opportunity of the cubist move-

ment: to accumulate, through all the many-sided stages of
modern development, the results of artistic research, until
they should appear united and in full power in a single great
work - Guernica.
PAINTING TODAY
Picasso's Since the first decade of this century the research into space has
" Guernica" broadened through various successive stages, never losing, how-
448
ever, its original and primary concern with the new conception.
What it had arrived at in the late thirties may be compre-
hended in a single painting which in itself sums up the entire
experience of three decades - the "Guernica" of Picasso. In
it are embodied the principle of simultaneity, the penetration
of inner and outer space, the working with curved planes and
different textures. 1 Nevertheless, this mural of the Spanish war
seems to be the first real historical painting since the beginning
of the Renaissance and the work of Paolo Uccello. It is the
266. PICASSO. "Guernica." 1937. Detail.
tragedy of a country distilled to its full strength by an artist

able to transmute physical suffering and destruction into
powerful symbols - a mother with her dead child, a woman
falling in a burning house, a spear-transfixed horse, fragments
of a mutilated warrior, one severed hand clutching a broken
sword, all triumphantly surveyed by a great bull and lit by a
lamp held in an outstretched hand. Above the carnage shines
1 A connection with earlier periods is likewise evident, the figure of the woman falling
in the burning house being comparable, as Le Corbusier once remarked, to Raphael's

"Fire of Borgo. "
449
"the radiant eye of day with the electric bulb of night for a
pupil." The picture went through many variations and pre-
liminary studies, but one detail remained almost unchanged -
the rush of flight condensed into a symbol of two elongated
human heads, hair streaming back, chin and neck in one
sweeping line, faces enclosed in spherical triangles (fig. 266).
How charged with inner truth this symbol of Picasso's is is re-
vealed by Edgerton's stroboscope, which photographically
dissects movement into parts which the human eye is un-
able to grasp. A study of one of these stroboscopic pho-
tographs (fig. 265) makes clear how closely connected are
the realizations of the creative artist and those of the scientist.
Out of the unknown, an artist like Picasso can produce intui-
tively symbols for a reality which, as in this instance, is
afterwards confirmed by scientific techniques. It should not
be forgotten that "Guernica" hung in the pavilion of the legal
Spanish government at the Paris World's Fair. Its presence
there was largely due to the efforts of Jose Luis Sert, architect
of the pavilion, and a friend of Picasso.
CONSTRUCTION AND AESTHETICS: SLAB AND

PLANE
The Bridges of Robert Maillart

We spoke earlier 1 of the way in which the methods of science
and the methods of art came unconsciously to parallel each
other about 1903. Among other more spectacular instances, we
noted that construction and painting arrived at similar basic
elements in their search for solutions to problems that had not
previously been attempted. With the bridges of the Swiss
engineer Robert Maillart we are brought back to this topic.
They offer us the chance to compare these basic elements and
to investigate the way in which the aesthetic effect produced
by a new type of construction arises. 2
1Page 443.
2This investigation appeared in its original form in Circle, International Survey of
Constructive Art, edited by J. L. Martin, Ben Nicholson. and N. Gaho (London, 1937),
pp. 220-236. It was published there under the title "Construction and Aesthetics"
(English version by P. Morton Shand).
450
Those whose aesthetic sense has been formed or developed by
the art of the present age can hardly fail to be stirred by Mail-
lart's bridges, for their appearance may be trusted to arrest
such observers before they can even ask themselves why.
Maillart's surprising designs, which attract some as much as
they repel others, 3 are the product of the uncompromising
application of a new method of construction. They have almost
as little in common with the solid arches, stout piers, and
monumentally emphasized abutments of the usual "massive"
type of bridge as an airplane has with a mail coach.
\Vhat, then, is the peculiarity of Maillart's methods of Maillart's struc-
building~ tural principles
In the early days of reinforced concrete the same methods of

construction were used as were employed with timber and iron.
Timber, being the trunks of trees, has length, just as iron has
when rolled into long girders. One dimension always domi-
nates, which is the one that transmits the load. As Maillart
himself puts it: "The engineer was so accustomed to using those
basic materials which provide only one-dimensional support
that they became second nature to him, and restrained him
from exploiting other possibilities. This was the state of affairs
when reinforced concrete was introduced, and at first no
change ensued."
Maillart was a pupil of Hennebique; 4 and Hennebique's rein-
forced concrete structures had beams and columns like timber-
framed buildings. Following the model of timber construction,
3 Although the first of his bridges have stood firmly up to the present day, and their
adequacy for their purpose has long since ceased to he questioned, they still continue to
arouse antagonism among local bodies, many of which regard them as positively hid-
eous. It happened that most were built across remote Alpine valleys, where they were
considerably cheaper to erect than other types and (an equally important consideration)
where comparatively few people would see them. The st<J.rk, lean assurance of their
construction belies the aesthetic lights of a wide section of the public through its elimina-
tion of emphasis on means of support and through the taut, wehlike appearance of the
arch-spans which results. "I am sick of these puff-pastry bridges" was the way the
chairman of one of these local bodies expressed his aversion. This remark is worth
mentioning, since it shows what an influence aesthetic feelings exercise alike on those
who commission the building of bridges and those who merely chance to look at them,
and how often these feelings are the secret determining factor of decisions apparently
dictated solely by questions of cost and efficiency.
4 Early in his career Maillart was the engineer in charge of the construction of a san-
atorium in ferroconcrete at Davos for which Hennebique was the contractor.
451
his beams reached from wall to wall and from column to col-
umn, the roof stretching across them in the form of a flat, inert
slab.
In designing a bridge Maillart began by eliminating all that
was nonfunctional; thus everything that remained was an im-
mediate part of the structure. He hid this by improving the
reinforced concrete slab until he had turned it into a new
structural element. What Maillart achieved after that was
based on one idea: that it is possible to reinforce a flat or
curved concrete slab in such a manner as to dispense with the
need for beams in flooring or solid arches in bridges. It is very
difficult to determine the forces present in slabs of this nature
by calculation alone. To obtain positive results entails a
complicated process which cannot be entered into here, except
to say that it is based partly on calculation and partly on
experiment. The engineer's adoption of systems incapable of
exact calculation is typical of the present day (as in shell con-
crete structures) and contrasts with the absolute, checked and
proven calculations typical of Maillart's period.
Slabs had hitherto played a neutral or passive part in con-
struction. Maillart transformed them into active bearing
surfaces capable of absorbing all forms of stress, and he subse-
quently developed this principle into a comprehensive system
of support able to be employed for tasks previously considered
impossible for reinforced concrete. ~Whether engaged in per-
fecting a new form of flooring or in striking out new principles
in bridge construction, he has always adhered to the same basic
method of using reinforced concrete slabs as active structural
elements.
Mushroom flooring Maillart's 'experiments with beamless flooring date from 1908.
He treated a floor as a concrete slab, converting it into an
actively cooperative structural member by distributing the
reinforcement throughout its whole area (fig. 267). Since every
paA of the surface now became self-supporting, beams dis-
appeared, their function being resolved into the floor itself.
The heavier the load this homogeneous type of flooring is called
upon to bear, the greater the practical inducement to adopt it.
Consequently it is usually found in warehouses, factories, and
other large, many-storied buildings.
452
267. MAILLART. Warehouse in Zurich, 1910. First mushroom ceiling in Europe.
The important innovation is the disappearance of the beams: the whole floor is treated like a
slab. A new element is the reinforced slab which supports the same amount of weight at each
point of its surface.
The appearance of the branching columns which support this

type of flooring somewhat recalls certain traditional styles, for
in the basements of warehouses they resemble the heavy pillars
of a Romanesque crypt and in the upper stories they suggest
the slender palmlike columns of late Gothic. In point of fact,
however, mushroom-headed columns have nothing beyond
these superficial resemblances in common with either, since
the peculiarity of the system resides neither in the formation
of the shafts nor in the extruded corbeling of the capitals that.
crown them, but wholly in forces in the ceiling above, which
do not meet the eye.
As floors of this type provide a uniform bearing surface
throughout their length and breadth, their ends can be can-
tilevered out to carry supplementary loads. They are there-
fore ideal in combination with nonsupporting walls, such as
continuous expanses of horizontal fenestration. It is hard to
453
268. MAJLLART. Tavanasa Bridge over the Rhine, Grisons, 1905. Span, 51 meters;
width , 3.60 meters; cost, 28,000 Swiss francs; system, three-hinged arch. Maillarl for the
first lime achieved here a monolithic construction by integrating arch and roadway into a
structural unit, and the creation of new aesthetic values -transparency and hovering
lightness- by stripping the construction of all disguise. The bridge was destroyed in 1927
by a landslide.
realize this in the obscurity of a warehouse, for the latent pos-

sibilities of mushroom slab construction can only find architec-
tural vindication in buildings which are flooded with the light
of day from all sides. 5
The American engineer C. A. P. Turner had been experiment-

ing with the mushroom system a year before Maillart, but the
Swiss engineer had employed slabs as basic elements in bridges
since the beginning of the century. 6 Amer~can designers have
~ The first specifically architectural endorsements of this principle did not occur until
twenty years after Maillart's initial experiments. Brinckmann and van der Vlugt's
splendid van Nelle factory in Rotterdam (1927-28) is the outstanding example, although
it embodies the ponderous American type of mushroom-headed columns.
& Cf. C. A. P. Turner, Concrete Steel Construction (Minneapolis, 1909). Turner's article,
"The Mushroom System of Construction" (Western Architect, 1908, p. 51), gives an
454
269. MAILLART. Salginatobel Bridge, 1929-30. Span, 92 meters.
not rid themselves of the idea that a slab is subject to stress

in separate directions, and they embed their rods diagonally
across the floor like intersecting beams. American practice
has not fully grasped the structural role of the slab; conse-
quently the forms of its mushroom-headed columns manifest a
certain characteristic heavyhandedness. They can be recog-
nized at the first glance by the presence of an intermediate
slab introduced between the head of the pillar and the ceiling,
as in the Greek Doric order. To the best of my knowledge,
the Americans have not even yet thought of using the slab as
a basic element in bridge construction.
earlier account of his invention: "It was first used in the construction of the Bovey
Building in Minneapolis.... The essential feature of this new construction is the forma-
tion of a so-called mushroom at the top of each column, by extending its reinforcing rods
laterally, some four feet or more out into the slab in a radial direction and supporting on
these ring rods, which in turn carry the lighter reinforcement for the slab construction.
The top of the column is enlarged, forming a neat capital, which assists in taking the
additional stress, and is advantageous from the fact that there are no ribs to interfere
with light or to reduce the clear story height of the building."
455
270. MAILLART. Schwandbach-Briicke, Canton Berne, 1933. Air view. Maillart
resolved bridge-building intv a system of flat and curved slabs. In Maillarl's hands the
rigidity of the slab, hitherto an incalculable factor in construction, became an active bearing
surface. The torsional strain thai would have to be allowed for in a concrete bridge buill on
a curving alignment can be utilized only by this method of construction.
456
271. MAILLART. Schwandbach-Briicke, Canton Berne, 1933. Slabs.
457
272. MAILLART.
Schwandbach-
Briicke. Detail.
The slab as a Maillart had embodied this principle in a bridge as early as

basic element for 1900; and in that over the Tavanasa (1905) he dared to strip
bridge-building his construction of all disguise. The Tavanasa bridge (span,
51 m.) represented a wholly unprecedented form, for in it
Maillart discarded massive beams just as he was also shortly
to eliminate the beams from floors. Instead, he employed a
shallow, curved, reinforced concrete slab for the arch, which,
with the horizontal slab of the platform and a series of stif-
fened vertical slabs used as ties to articulate them, constituted
a monolith.
Thus Maillart resolved bridge-building into a system of flat and
curved slabs so juxtaposed as to achieve a positively uncanny
counterbalance of all stresses and strains arising between them.
The first realization of a stiffened elliptical concrete bridge with
458
273. Rainbow Bridge near Carmel, California. The same problem - a narrow gorge -
as in the Swiss valley. Using the normal construction, the approach had to be built in stag-
gered sections; the alignment of the bridge could not be curved.
an arch of eggshell thickness (his Valtschiel-Briicke) followed

in 1925.
The elimination of all nonfunctional members has led Maillart
during the last few years to dispense with the usual separate
decking slab. In these later bridges trains and motor cars run
directly upon their naked structural framework: that is to say.
on the longitudinal slab of the platform itself.
In Maillart's hands the rigidity of the slab, hitherto an in··
calculable factor in construction, became an active bearing
surface, which, being under initial tension, opened up possi-
bilities that had remained a closed book for reinforced concrete
engineering. Thus the torsional strains that would have to be
allowed for in a concrete bridge built on a curving alignment
had previously been deemed to defy calculation.; Maillart"s
Schwandbach-Briicke in the Canton of Berne, opened in 1933
(jigs. 270, 271), is the most beautiful example of a road bridge
carried out in that material with a sickle-shaped platform.
7 The problem of bridging mountain gorges with curved spans occurs in every moun-
tainous country. When girders and arches are used in the ordinary fashion the bridge
must be held to a rigidly straight line. At most, a curve can be produced by building the
approaches in staggered sections, as in the Rainbow Bridge near Carmel, California (fig.
273).
459
One of the few large bridges which could pass an inimical jury
carries the recently reconstructed main road between Zurich
and Saint-Gall over the river Thur (fig. 274) at a point where
it traverses broken country with a flat-topped hill in the back-
ground. A single arch spans the river bed, flanked on each side
by a short approach viaduct supported by remarkably slender
pillars.
To appreciate the full plastic beauty of the form of this bridge
- the flattened curves of the twin hollow ribs, and the manner
274. MAILLART. Bridge over the river Thur near Saint-Gall, Switzerland, 1933.
Single span, seventy-two meters; cost, $42,000.
in which they are yoked together; their three-pin articulation

on a level with the crown and at the abutments (the slightly
ogival pointing of the summit of the arch which results should
be noted); the upright slabs that act as vertical ties between
the ribs of the arch and the platform, as also the interplay of
the pattern of these members with that produced by the un-
usual section of the columns of the viaducts- it is necessary
not only to go and see it, but to clamber down the shingle to
the river bank so as to gain a view of the structure from be-
neath. There are few contemporary buildings in which the
460
solution of the structural problem approaches so closely to
pure plastic expression.
Before I throw out the question which underlies this analysis,
one or two striking features of Maillart's bridges may be
touched on without entering into the technique of his struc-
tural methods.
One of the problems in art in which research has not yet made Sculpture and
much headway is the relation between sculpture and nature - nature
and, beyond this, the interrelations between sculpture, paint-
ing, and architecture. It is easier for the constructor to find a
convincing solution than the artist, because physical factors
(like the width of the interval to be spanned, the nature of the
foundations, etc.) dictate its conditions. All the same, there is
something altogether out of the ordinary in the way Maillart
succeeds both in expressing and in sublimating the breadth
of a chasm cleft between two walls of rock (i.e., in his Sal-
ginatobel-Briicke, 1929-30; fig. 268). His shapely bridges
spring out of shapeless crags with the serene inevitability of
Greek temples. The lithe, elastic resilience with which they
leap their chasms, the attenuation of their dimensions, merges
into the coordinated rhythms of arch, platform, and the
upended slabs between them.
A bridge designed of slabs of various shapes no longer resem- New forms
bles the ordinary kind of bridge either in its form or in its enforced by the
proportions. To eyes that are blind to the vision of our own use of the slab
day, slanting columns with grotesquely splayed-out heads,
like those of the approach viaducts of the Thur bridge - a
form imposed by purely structural considerations that enabled
Maillart to make two columns do the work of four - are
bound to appear somewhat ugly; whereas eyes schooled by con-
temporary art recognize in these shapes an echo of those with
which modern painting has already familiarized them. 8
\Vhen Picasso paints half-geometric, half-organic plastic
images on canvas - forms which in spite of their apparently
capricious projection somehow achieve a singular degree of
equipoise- and the constructor (proceeding from purely
technical premises) arrives at similar absolute forms by sub-
8 Cf. the strangely formed pillars of the Arve bridge (fig. 275 ).
461
stituting two vertical supports for four, there is a clear infer-
ence that mechanical shapes and the shapes evolved by art
as the mirror of a higher reality rank pari passu in terms of
development.
Parallel methods It is, of course, easy enough to retort that this is simply the
in painting and result of chance, and that such resemblances are purely super-
construction
ficial. But we cannot afford to leave the matter there, for
what concerns us is the question which must serve as our point
of departure: Are the methods which underlie the artist's work
related to those of the modern structural engineer~ Is there in
fact a direct affinity between the principles now current in
painting and construction~
\Ve know the great importance which surface has acquired in
the composition of a picture, and the long road that had to be
traversed ~ starting with Manet's light-fusion of paint, ad-
vancing by way of Cezanne's flat coloration and the work of
Matisse, and ending with cubism~ before this was finally
recognized.
Surface, which was formerly held to possess no intrinsic capac-
ity for expression, and so at best could only find decorative
utilization, has now become the basis of composition, thereby
supplanting perspective, which had triumphed over each suc-
cessive change of style ever since the Renaissance.
\Vith the cubist's conquest of space, and the abandonment of
one predetermined angle of vision which went hand in hand
with it, surface acquired a significance it had never known
before. Our powers of perception became widened and sharp-
ened in consequence. \Ve discovered the interplay of im-
ponderably floating elements irrationally penetrating or fusing
with each other, as also the optical tensions which arise from
the contrasts between various textural effects (the handling of
color qua color, or the use of other media, such as sand, bits of
dress fabrics, and scraps of paper, to supplement pigments).
The human eye awoke to the spectacle of form, line, and color
~that is, the whole grammar of composition~ reacting to one
another within an orbit of hovering planes, or, as J. J. Sweeney
calls it, "the plastic organization of forms suggested by line
and colour on a flat surface."
462
If Maillart, speaking as an engineer, could claim to have de-
veloped the slab into a basic element of construction, modern
painters can answer with equal justice that they have made
surface an essential factor in the compostion of a picture.
The slab long remained unheeded and unmastered: an inert
inadaptable thing which defied calculation and so utilization.
275. MAILLART. Bridge over the river Arve near Geneva, 19:36-:n. Span, fifty-six
meters; width, len meters; cost, 80,000 Swiss francs. This bridge on the outskirts of Geneva
was buill mainly by the private means of the landed proprietors. It had to serve for heavy
loads and yet be built at minimum oost. This was a case where Maillart could realize un-
precedented construction ideas. The triple box-like arches as well as the rows of elastic sup-
ports are evident here.
But just as a great constructor transformed it into a mediutr

for solving structural problems that had always been consid-
ered insuperable, so the development of surface into a basic
principle of composition in painting resulted in opening up
untapped fields of optical expression.
This is no longer a fortuitous optical coincidence, as might be
objected, but a definite parallelism of methods. By what mental
463
processes the constructor and the painter arrived at it defies
analysis. We can only authenticate a particular phenomenon
in a particular case: a new method of construction found its
simultaneous echo in a parallel method in art. But this
proves that underlying the special power of visualization im-
..... -···-·1,90 ··-· ···-· -- -- -~ ·····•····•···•·· 6,00
276. MAILLART. Arve Bridge, 1936- 37. Support and reinforcement of the support.
Instead of steel joints, Maillart shaped the cross-like elastic slab support to take up the
changing loads and stresses. By tapering it in the middle and inserting an ingenious
armament, he gave the rigid slab the properties of a flexible joint and approached organic form.
plicit in each of these fields similar elements have emerged

which provide a creative impetus for both of them.
If the constructor, who necessarily proceeds from quite dif-
ferent considerations, finds he has to adopt· substantially the
same basic elements as the artist in order to solve his own
technical problems, this signifies that in each case similar meth-
ods have informed optical imagination.
Contemporary artists continually reiterate the claim that their
work forms part of Nature. This they explain as follows:
"Modern art has reached the same results as modern science
464
by entirely independent, intuitive steps. Like science it has
resolved the shape of things into their basic elements with the
object of reconstituting them in consonance with the universal
laws of Nature." Now those forms in concrete which ignore
former conventions in design are likewise the product of a
process of " resolution into basic elements" (for a slab is an
277. MAILLART. Arve Bridge, 1936-37. Sup- 278. Dipylon Vase, seventh century B.C. Detail.
ports and two of the box-like arches. Like archaic Greek On archaic Dipy/on vases the geometric abbreviations of
idols, they stand in rows under the platform of the human bodies are characterized by the triangular artic-
bridge. ulation of the hip joint. Mail/art, on the other hand,
is conceiving structural elements in approaching or-
ganic growth.
irreducible element) that uses reconstruction as a means of

attaining a more rational synthesis.
In this connection mention should be made of the "eggshell"
concrete vaulting which Freyssinet used for some locomotive
sheds he built at Bagneux, outside Paris, in 1929, though since
then that particular branch of reinforced concrete engineering
has produced forms of almost fantastic daring. On the same
principle of using the slab as an active structural member, the
465
279. MOHOLY-NAGY. Painting, 1924. 280. ALVAR AALTO. Armchair.
281. FREYSSINET. Locomotive sheds at Bagneux, near Paris, 1929. Eggshell-thin reinforced slabs
which can be bent like cardboard, change the former straight shed into a vault, providing excellent lighting.
282. MAILLART. Cement Hall, Swiss

National Exhibition, Zurich, 1939. Two
stiffening ribs end in two pairs of supports.
A connecting gangway- as in Ma illarl's
bridges - is an active part of the structure.
466
Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto, has struck out an entirely new
line in furniture design. He uses thin sheets of plywood, which,
like the concrete slab, was formerly regarded as useless for
purposes of structural support (fig. 280).
In the community of method which now prevails in so many
departments of human activity we may read a presage of far-
reaching developments. The growth of this spontaneous iden-
tity of approach and its repercussions on society are being
separately studied in every branch of knowledge. That there
is a remarkable analogy between recent departures in philoso-
phy, physics, literature, art, and music is a fact which has fre-
quently been commented on. In the light of the particular case
we have just examined, it is worth considering whether the
field of structural engineering cannot be included as well.
New methods are new tools for the creation of new types of
reality. The greater the degree of identity in respect to what
is fundamental to each of the creative spheres, and the closer
the extent of their approximation to one another in terms of
achievement, the sooner will the requisites for a new phase of
culture be forthcoming.
A bridge is like a house. Each bridge and each house is a Systems of
special case; each must be constructed and shaped according bridges
to the environment with which it must cope and the function
it is to have.
As we have seen, Maillart conceived different systems for the
construction of bridges. The stiffened arch, which is nowhere
more beautifully realized than in the curved Schwandbach-
Brlicke (figs. 270, 271) led to almost eggshell-thin members.
Unfortunately, none of his later projects employing the stif-
fened arch ever saw execution. It is the most daring of his
constructions, the least verifiable by calculation and the most
opposed to the ruling taste.
Another system which he used for narrow and long spans
with heavy loads is based on the principle of the continuous
beam. This he further enhanced by hollowing out the heavy
structure so that it gave an aspect of astonishing lightness. He
built several very interesting smaller bridges in this way (for
instance, the oblique river crossing at Glindlischwand, Berner
467
Oberland, 1937) but reached highest perfection in the bridge
over the Rhone at Aire-la-Ville-Peney in 1937. Here the
slablike column supports merge with the platform and the
arches, which seem to be imbued with the elasticity of a steel
spring and the suppleness of a willow branch. This bridge
was never executed. A jury incapable of judgment rejected it.
From his early beginnings- about 1901- to his last bridges,
he developed the three-hinged arch with hollowed-out boxlike
sections. He gave an elasticity to this type such as was pre-
viously known only in iron bridges. The Tavanasa bridge of
1905 (fig. 268) was the first conceived out of a pure form.
The Salginatobel bridge built in 1929-30 (fig. 269) uses this
system under daring conditions.
The section of the arch takes on a more and more precise
U-sectioned form. In the bridge over the Thur, 1933 (fig.
273), two arches are placed parallel to one another. The Arve
bridge, 1936-37 (fig. 275) uses three parallel U-sectioned
arches, combining them with utmost skill and sensitivity with
the elastic supports. The repetitive use of standardized ele-
ments is of great economical advantage, for the same scaf-
folding and shuttering can be used several times. From the
viewpoint of aesthetics, the reemployment of identical ele-
ments is even more decisive.
In Maillart's last bridges, the problems to be solved become
more complicated but conversely the solutions more simple.
The bridge over the Simme built in 1940 (figs. 286, 288) and the
bridge near Lachen (fig. 284) completed in 1940 after his
death are his solution to the problem of an oblique crossing.
The bridge near Lachen with its twin arches forms a highway
overpass on the Zurich-Arlberg railway line where highway
and tracks intersect at an acute angle. Maillart used parallel
U-shaped girders here as in the Thur and Arve bridges. Ac-
cording to the needs of this situation, the abutments and the
arches start at different levels and one behind the other.
Maillart was awarded this last contract because he was able
to produce a design for this unusual situation within a few
days, faster than any of his competitors.
In the Simme bridge, 1940 (fig. 288) Maillart reaches his
highest degree of simplification. The girders meet in the
468
283. MAILLART. Cement Hall, Swiss National Exhibition, Zurich, 1939. Parabolic
barrel vault of extreme thinness (six centimeters) touches the unsolved vaulting problem of our
period. A sturdy construction and yet hovering over the earth like a silken balloon ready to
rise. Span of the vault, sixteen meters; height of the vault, twelve meters.
center like a pair of knives. The question cannot be wholly dis-

missed: Was this the limit~ What would the next step have
been~
Some hints, if only very fragmentary, should be given on the

relation of Maillart's constructional methods with practical
achievements and their aesthetic impact.
469
284. MAILLART. Bridge at Lachen,
1940. Span, 40 meters; width, 8 meters;
system, three-h inged arch. The bridge forms
a highway crossing over the railway line
from Zurich to Arlberg. Highway and
tracks cross at acute angles. The inde-
pendently constructed box-sectioned arches
start at different levels and one behind the
other, thus solving the problem of the oblique
crossing. This bridge was finished after
Mail/art's death.
285. MAILLAHT-. Bridge at Lacheu.

The joint of the arch.
286. MAlLLART. Bridge over the

Simme, Berner Oberland, 1940. Span,
32 meters; width, 7.9 meters; system,
three-hinged arch of two hollow rib girders.
This bridge shows the highest degree of
simplification. A straight line of enormous
strength springs from the abutment up to the
center pin. The girders meet in the center
like a pair of knives. Nothing is left of the
traditional arch. (Compare the girders of
the Galerie des Machines, p . 26.9. )
470
287. MAILLART. Bridge at Lachen, 1940.
288. MAILLART. Bridge over the Simrne, 19/to.
471
Arches and Together with the lowering of the height of the arch between
supports center pin and abutment goes the new shaping of the arch.
The bridge over the Salginatobel (1929-30) still clings to the
continuous masonry arch (fig. 269) even if the construction
is completely revolutionized. The bridge over the Thur (1933)
shows how reinforcement of this type leads from the curved
masonry arch to the pointed arch (fig. 273). In the bridge
over the Simme (1940), a straight line of enormous strength
springs from the abutment to the center hinge (fig. 288). It
is as if one could see the unbent reinforcing rods embedded in
the concrete. Nothing is left of the traditional arch; the ul-
timate simplification seems to have been reached.
Maillart had a particular sensitivity, an almost intuitive un-
derstanding of the forces which act upon a structure. He
felt, like a dowser discovering the course of subterranean
waters, movements and forces running through it and tried
to form it as the artist tries to reveal emotions through irra-
tional curves. Steel rods and concrete were not dead ma-
terials to him.
What he formed out of an artifact - ferroconcrete - was an
organism in which every particle throbs with life. He never
permitted dead masses or excess weight where shrinkage-
cracks easily develop. He hollowed out his girders, reduced
the dimensions of supports to the utmost.
This requires an imaginative, flexible mind in close contact
with nature, and not the bookeeper's mentality of the mere
calculator. Against such as these and their academic repre-
sentatives, Maillart waged a lifelong struggle.
Every part of a construction had its active role. Even an
aqueduct crossing a valley (Chatelard, Canton Valais, 1925-
26) assumes under his hand an astonishing shape that strikes
the senses immediately without the explanation that in this
case the water conduit is formed like the box girders of his
bridges and the inclined supports are so conceived that they
form with the bottom of the conduit the active parts of a
vault.
Maillart's almost organic formations can be best understood
by means of the various ways he treats supports and the
472
changes they undergo in accordance with the conditions
with which they must cope. We only direct attention to the
unusual form of the articulated supports of the triple arch
of the Arve bridge of 1936 (fig. 274). Maillart simply said he
did not employ steel joints as elastic supports for reasons of
economy. Using only ferroconcrete, he shaped the cross-like
elastic slab supports (fig. 275) which stand, like archaic
Greek idols (figs. 277, 278), in double rows of three under the
platform of the bridge. By tapering the supports in the middle
and inserting an ingenious armament, he gave the rigid slab
the properties of a flexible joint (fig. 276).
The system of these bridges, in which all parts are active,
keeps them in a state of continual tension. The inexplicable
urge of this period to impart the highest tension to people,
material, and things is symbolized in Maillart's work.
Toward the end of his life, Maillart was at last given an oppor- The Cement
tunity of expressing himself, without the constricting ne- Hall, 1939
cessity of solving practical problems, in the pavilion of the
Swiss Portland Cement Company at the Swiss national ex-
hibition of 1939 (fig. 283). Here he could reveal the art and
elegance that a ferroconcrete structure can display. This hall
was destined from the outset to be destroyed for the sake of
experiments in tensile strength. And yet this mere "test-
tube building" became a part of history.
A parabolic barrel vault of extreme thinness (six centimeters)
- the back part of it slightly conical - touches the earth by
two pairs of slender supports in the middle (fig. 284). Ascend-
ing and encompassing the vault, they form two stiffening ribs
which, together with the connecting gangway spanning the
interval between them, are all that Maillart needed to produce
a sturdy construction hovering over the earth like a silken
balloon about to rise.
Kurt Schwitters, the Dadaist poet and painter, once remarked:
"When an artist spits, it is art." In the hands of a great en-
gineer, this pavilion, conceived only to combine strength and
the utmost lightness, became at once a work of art.
This light and solid barrel vault could easily be thought of as
a part of a civic center. Maillart touches unconsciously on
473
289. Japanese wooden bridge of the eighteenth century.
the unsolved vaulting problem of our period. \Vith a very

few exceptions- Le Corbusier, Aalto, and some others - the
contemporary architect is rather hesitant as soon as he touches
on the sphere of the ceiling, where he can let loose his imagi-
nation. The nineteenth-century genius gave form to the
airy spans of the great exhibition buildings. But iron lattice
girders are ephemeral in nature. The most brilliant halls
have disappeared, and the Eiffel Tower will only stand as
long as its rivets are continually checked and its structural
members safeguarded from rust.
\Vhat will be the vault of our period in the great public build-
ings to come? Reinforced concrete and especially eggshell-thin
slabs which can be bent like cardboard have both the buoyancy
we like and the permanence we like. The slab with mesh re-
inforcement was used by Maillart and by Freyssinet (jigs.
281, 282) in the form of eggshells curved in one direction. It
was employed in circular form in flattened domes for market
halls in Algeciras, water tanks in the United States, and gam-
bling casinos in Brazil. 9 The engineer Ove Arup, together
9 "Shell Concrete Construction," Dr. K. Hajnal-Kfmyi, in Architects' Yearbook, vol.
II (London, 1917).
474
with the Architects' Cooperative Partnership, roofed an
English factory building (1947-48) with nine concrete shells,
nineteen thirty-seconds of an inch thick and curved in two
directions.
All that is needed are architects who know how to stir the
imagination of the engineer. The engineer is capable of ful-
filling emotional needs just as he is capable of solving the most
intricate practical problems. Maillart's Cement Hall points
in this direction. He, as the humble servant of architects,
constructed a very large number of buildings which do not
reveal that he had anything to do with them. He never en-
countered an architect who fully knew how to integrate his
genius. \Vhere he was great, he was alone. Maillart is not an
isolated case. It belongs to the unhappy constitution of this
period that engineers like Maillart, sculptors like Brancusi,
Arp, or Pevsner, painters like Picasso or Leger, had to create
their works in isolation. Therefore this period produced
fragments, worthy entities in themselves, but an orchestration
in an encompassing whole was denied it. 10
Afterword
Maillart's life was a continuous fight against economic pres-
sures and public apathy. In 1912 he was called to Russia,
where he constructed large factories and warehouses - most
of which were Swiss investments - in Kharkov, Riga, Len-
ingrad. After the revolution of 1917, he returned to his own
country, penniless and heavily in debt to Swiss banks. In
consequence he was never again able to have his own inde-
pendent contracting firm.
Robert Maillart was born in 1872 and died in April 1940. He
died at the age of sixty-eight; nevertheless one feels that it
was too early and that his life work was not accomplished.
His bridges, immaterially spun in space, belong through their
supreme sensitiveness to the purest expression that our period
has been able to achieve.
10 Since the death of Maillart much progress has been made in attempts to solve the
contemporary vaulting problem, especially in the field of shell concrete: see the Intro-
duction and Architecture, You and Me (Harvard University Press, 1958), the chapter on
spatial imagination.
475
During his lifetime his country did not recognize his signifi-
cance. He was often hampered and his intentions misunder-
stood, so that he did not give all that he might have given:
a result of the difference between the advanced intellectual
and the undeveloped emotional perception that most effec-
tively prevents the organic development of our culture.
Like Brancusi, Maillart limited himself to a few forms and
fundamental ideas which he never abandoned and which de-
manded a lifetime to be developed to their last crystalline
shape. His main inventions, the bridge conceived as a single
structural unit and the building conceived as a unit, were
achieved before he was forty.
"Maillart's development in thirty years of research unfolds
organically, springing from that inner power which enables
every great artist or scientist to transcend the existing tech-
nical knowledge through his vision. One had only to talk
with Maillart to realize at once that he was a man who had
absolute confidence in his imagination. He often designed
his bridges with a single curve on a scrap of paper while en
route from his Zurich office to his Bern office. The specialist's
simple calculations would have been too insufficient a guide
toward new solutions where invention, in the fullest sense of
the word, plays a more decisive part than calculation. It is
significant of Maillart that he made calculation a servant
and not a master. His bridges satisfy the feeling by the poetic
expression which pervades them, and the mind by their deli-
cate equipoise." 11
Maillart's most important works, however, were nearly all
accomplished during the last ten years of his life. As he ad-
vanced in age, his bridges became more daring in their aspect
and more imbued with the vigor of youth.
11Since these lines were written in 1934 and two pages were devoted to a simple foot-
bridge over a creek near Zurich (S. Giedion, "Nouveaux Ponts de.Maillart," Cahiers
d'Art, vol. IX, 1934, nos. 1-4), Maillart's name has acquired the weight denied him
during his life and in his own country. The general public was introduced to his works
through an exhibition initiated by the Museum of Modern Art, which commissioned
us to assemble the material in Switzerland. For the first article on Maillart, see S.
Giedion, "Maillart, Constructeurs des Planchers a Champignons," Cahiers d'Art,
vol. V (1930), no. 3. For further information, see Max Bill, Robert Mail/art (Zurich,
1949), a compilation of his work with pictures and drawings. Specialists may be di-
rected to the excellent monographs of Professor M. Ros, Federal Institute of Tech-
nology, Zurich, for research on text reports of some of Maillart's bridges.
476
WALTER GROPIUS AND THE GERMAN DEVELOP-
MENT
Germany in the Nineteenth Century
Manual production methods are deeply rooted in the German

temperament.
Hardly any European country has been subject to so rapid a

sequence of disasters and successes as Germany, wedged as
it is between East and \Vest. Germany's high culture of the
late medieval period was followed by a slow decline. In the
seventeenth century the Thirty Years' War wrecked her
material and political potential for more than a century. In
the early nineteenth century Germany as a whole was per-
vaded by a depressing political reaction which expressed
itself in bitter opposition to economic freedom in the develop-
ment of commerce and industry.
Industrial liberty, proclaimed in France in 1791, was not Belated

adopted in Prussia until 1846. It did not come to the south industrialization
of Germany until 1862. There was a great crisis in England of Germany
during the second decade of the nineteenth century as a
consequence of the change from hand to mechanized produc-
tion. In France in 1835 hand weavers were declared to
be "in the last spasms of agony." Gustav Schmoller, the
economist, notes that this period in Germany witnessed an
increase in the percentage of manual workers and a marked
trend toward production by small artisans.
During the nineteenth century the number of power spindles

in a country was an accurate index of its degree of industrializa-
tion. In the year 1865 there was one such spindle in Germany
to three in France and eight in England. Other branches of
industry showed parallel stages of development, including the
steamship and the railroad, which, as Sombart says, entered
Germany "on the crutches of English industry."
American industry was only in the first stages of its develop-

:.nent in the first half of the nineteenth century. But, as later
developments indicate, there was a fundamental difference
477
between the two countries. From the start, the American
spirit was orientated toward mechanized production.
Violent But around 1870 a rapid transformation sets in and steadily
industrialization gains speed. Germany, the country of the hand worker and the
from 1870 on
farmer, drives on with the aim of becoming not only an indus-
trialized state but the leader of the industrial age.
This early indifference to the machine and the factory followed
by a headlong acceptance had serious human and psychological
consequences. The deep uncertainty that prevailed at this
period in Germany is reflected in its architecture. Other coun-
tries were expanding, but their architecture shows nothing like
so complete a loss of inner equilibrium and confusion with
regard to fundamental principles as was seen in Germany.
There was nothing that resembled William Morris' work in
England during the sixties, nothing comparable to the Chicago
school of 1880 or the Belgian movement in the nineties.
Increased efforts About 1900 there was another sudden change in Germany of
in applied arts quite a different kind. In the seventies there had been a great
after 1900 drive to catch up with the advance of industry; now there was
the same kind of violent effort to overtake the developments
in the realm of human feeling. It was at this time that Morris
and Ruskin aroused the greatest admiration in Germany.
Henri van de Velde was invited to exhibit there in 1897 and
created a huge sensation. New movements sprang up in both
Germany and Austria. For the next three decades Germany
remained the country most hospitable to foreign ideas. The
magnificent German edition of Frank Lloyd Wright's works
that appeared in 1910 is only one among many instances of
this receptivity. There were exhibitions by the advanced
painters like those held in Brussels between 1880 and 1890,
and the outstanding foreign architects were invited to build
on an equal footing with their German colleagues.
New movements In the late nineties the impulse for new movements in architec-
in architecture ture came first from Austria, from Otto Wagner and even from
Adolf Loos (1870-1933), whose work held more for the future
than that of the overestimated Alfred Messel (1853-1909),
whose huge Berlin department store - built at the same time
as Berlage's Amsterdam Stock Exchange- had only local
influence.
478
Peter Behrens (1868-1940) epitomizes German architecture Peter Behrens:
at the start of the twentieth century. He rapidly became industrial
architecture
famous as a result of approaching the industrial plant as an
architectonic problem. Behrens consciously transformed the
factory into a dignified place of work. Despite the classical
severity and the Cyclopean walls of his buildings, Behrens
trained the eye to grasp the expressive forces concealed in
such new materials as steel and glass, as his Berlin turbine
factory of 1909 shows. The atelier of Peter Behrens was the
most important in Germany. Mies van der Rohe, Gropius,
and even Le Corbusier worked there, the latter for five
months. 1
When a freshly industrialized Germany set out to make up The Maecenas of
lost ground in the realm of feeling, the effort produced several the movement
minor Renaissances in the courts of the small principalities.
At Darmstadt, for example, in 1899 the Grossherzog Ludwig
von Hessen attempted to revive the spirit of artistic creation
by forming a colony of artists and fine craftsmen. 2 In 1920
the Grand Duke of Sachsen-Weimar called Henri van de Velde
to his court. Numerous German Maecenases appeared. There
was K. E. Osthaus, who gave van de Velde his first chance to
build in Germany and commissioned sculptors like Georges
Minne and Aristide Maillol to execute work for his gardens
and his museum. Then there were leading industrialists like
Emil Rathenau, the president of the A.E.G. (the General
Electric Company), who in 1907 engaged Peter Behrens as
artistic supervisor of everything from the trade-mark of the
company to the design of street lamps and the erection of
new plants. With this appointment the architect at last
found his position recognized beside that of the engineer. The
meaning of this should not be underestimated.
All these endeavors of a country which had grown rich and Deutsche
self-consciously progressive during the past three decades Werkbund, 1907
1 Le Corbusier's first, and now very rare, book is called, Etude sur le mouvement d'art
decoratif en Allemagne (Chaux-de-Fonds, 1912). It was one of the first criticisms of the
German movement.
2 The houses which they produced for themselves (Peter Behrens' first house was one of
them), together with their interior equipment and specimen works in the arts and crafts,
were exhibited at the Mathildenhohe, Darmstadt, in 1901. This was the first of those
cooperative enterprises by German artists which were to prove so important in the
future.
479
found their natural center in the Deutsche W erkbund, estab-
lished in 1907.3 Its chief aim was "the refinement of work-
manship and the enhancement of the quality of production."
Artist, workman, and industrialist were to collaborate in pro-
ducing honest goods of artistic value.
The idea behind the W erkbund was not in itself a new one.
Sir Henry Cole, one of the early English industrial reformers,
founded "Art Manufacturers" in 184 7 to "promote public
taste" through "beauty applied to mechanical production."
It was his efforts that led to the Great London Exhibition of
1851 and the Crystal Palace. 3a The generation that followed
William Morris made peace with industry and returned to
Cole's line of attack with the formation of the arts and crafts
guilds. In 1907, sixty years after the Art Manufacturers, the
ground seemed to have been prepared for a final reconciliation:
it seemed quite possible to bring art and industry into full
collaboration.
The Werkbund; The clash of opposed opinions marked the vVerkbund almost
outlet for youthful from its inception. Throughout these controversies, however,
talents in its
the group worked steadily to create openings for youthful
exhibitions
talents and found responsible roles for them at just the right
moments. Both the rising generation and the generation that
was at its height were represented in the Deutsche Werk-
bund's 1914 exhibition at Cologne. Next to works by Peter
Behrens, Josef Hoffmann, and Henri van de Velde stood
Bruno Taut's glass house and the office building by Walter
Gropius, which was the work most discussed at the exhibition,
and embodied the most seeds for future development.
Even after the war years and the period of inflation, the Werk-
bund was capable of actions that ensure it a place in history.
The Weissenhof settlement of 1927 is evidence of the group's
steady efforts to bring the creative forces of the period to reali-
zation. Germany was impoverished, and there was a shortage
of materials, when the magnificent gesture was made of invit-
ing creative artists from every country to erect buildings at
Stuttgart.
a There is an excellent account of its founding in Heinrich Waentig's Wirlschafl und
Kunst (Jena, 1909), pp. 292 If.
""For fuller treatment see Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford t:niversity Press,
1948).
480
At about the same time the architect Ernst May was called in Housing
to organize the housing development on the outskirts of Frank- development
fort-on-Main. May worked with Haussmannean speed and
energy; he was not fortunate enough, however, to be granted
a seventeen-year period for his operations. After a few years
the whole enterprise was cut short - a familiar happening in
German history. vVhile the work continued, May showed the
open-mindedness which marked the Deutsche Werkbund by
employing foreign architects, several Austrians and a Dutch-
man, Mart Starn.
In 1929 the government- through the Deutsche Werkbund- New prestige of
gave Mies van der Rohe full charge of the German pavilion at the architect
the Barcelona exhibition. In 1930 vValter Gropius was chosen
to organize the first German exhibition at the Paris Salon since
the war.
The \Verkbund period witnessed a complete change in the
status of the architect in Germany. In this period he ceased to
be subservient to clients and contractors, as he is in so many
countries even now. It was recognized that the architect had a
part in forming the spirit of his times.
290. WALTEH GROPIUS. Fagus works, 19ll-13.
481
Walter Gropius
vValter Gropius 3b entered upon his career in the Germany of
the \Verkbund period. After finishing his studies he worked in
the office of Peter Behrens. This was from 1907 to 1910, when
Behrens was engaged on the turbine plant of the General Elec-
tric Company in Berlin. Gropius at the same time took part
in discussions at the newly founded Deutsche \Verkbund,
which helped to crystallize his ideas "as to what the essential
nature of building ought to be." 4
The Fagus works: The first large commission which Gropius received after open-
a new architec- ing his own offices was from the Fagus works. The shoe-last
tonic language factory which he built for them at Alfeld a.d. Leine in 1911
was a sudden and unexpected statement of a new architec-
tonic language. \Vhile he was with Behrens, Gropius had seen
his turbine plant - at that time "the modern building par
excellence" - take form. The moment he set to work for
himself he dropped his master's classical solemnity entirely
and made the new aims of architecture clearly apparent. In the
Fagus works, Gropius brought together the accomplishments
of the past fifteen years, and in doing so he furnished an incen-
tive for that "honesty of thought and feeling" which he himself
values. 5 The break between thinking and feeling which had
been the bone-sickness of European architecture was healed.
Plane surfaces predominate in this factory. The glass and iron
walls are joined cleanly at the corners without the intervention
of piers (fig. 291). Behrens bounded the glass walls of his
famous Turbine Hall right and left with monumental cyclopean
walls. These have disappeared with Gropius. His walls show
that they are no longer supporters of the building, but simple
curtains, protection against inclement weather, as Gropius put
it. "The role of the walls [is] restricted to that of mere
screens stretched between the upright columns of the frame-
work to keep out rain, cold, and noise." It is "as a direct
result of the growing preponderance of voids over solids" that
"glass is assuming an ever greater structural importance." 6
3h For a fuller treatment see S. Giedion, Walter Gropius: Work and Teamwork (New
York, 1954).
4 Walter Gropius, The New Archileclure and the Bauhaus (London, 1937), p. 33.
5 Ibid., p. 17. 6 Ibid., pp. 22-23.
482
291. WALTER GROPlUS.
Fagus works (shoe-last factory),
Alfeld a.d. Leine, l<Jll. The
glass and iron walls are cleanly
joined at the corners, without the
intervention of piers. "The role
of the walls [is] restricted to thai
of mere screens stretched between
the upright columns of the frame-
work."
The American critic, Henry-Russell Hitchcock, is not likely Balance between

to be challenged when he calls it "the most advanced piece of architectural and
architecture built before the war." 7 The hint of the theatrical constructional
means
in Behrens' work has disappeared. The new potentialities of
iron, glass, and concrete, the cleaner treatment of the wall,
the organic illumination of the interior are brought into a
clearly thought-out balance. Regarded simply as a structure,
the building is part of a tradition that reaches back to Eiffel's
iron constructions of the late nineteenth century. The duality
that marked that period has been overcome, however; archi-
tectonic and constructional means contribute equally to a
unified expression. The walls are developed as planes, and
conceived as sheer curtains between inner and outer space.
This view of their function "naturally leads to a progressively
bolder (i.e., wider) opening up of the wall surfaces, which allows
rooms to be much better lit." 8 The pillars are set behind the
fa<;ade so that its curtain character is fully realized. It is un-
deniable that the way in which the volumes of the various
7 Catalogue of the Museum of Modern Art, Modern Archileclure (New York, 1932),
p. 57. 8 Gropius, The New Architecture, p. 22.
483
buildings are freely juxtaposed foreshadows the scheme for
the 1925 Bauhaus at Dessau. It is not only the facade which
gives the factory its novel brightness; glass walls instead of
the normal closed partitions are used in the offices. Behrens
made a factory which was like a monument; Gropius gave it
a simple and more humane interpretation.
New elements in The "Fabrik," Gropius' model factory and office building at
the Gropius model the \Verkbund's Cologne exhibition of 1914 (fig. 292), had a
factory, Cologne,
covered terrace for dancing on the roof, a hall of machinery
1914
and open garages at the rear. It has, however, some architec-
292. WALTER GROPIUS. Court elevation of the "Fabrik," Werkbund exhibition,

Cologne, 1914. Glass-walled offices and the covered terrace on the roof.
tonic features which give it a new character. Before this, in

the Fagus works, Gropius had discarded the normal stone en-
closure of the staircase and replaced it by a shell of glass and
iron. He repeated this practice in his Cologne building but
handled it in an entirely new way. Here there were spiral
staircases entirely encased in glass. They seem like a move-
ment seized and immobilized in space (fig. 293).
Our senses- slaves to habits built up during the centuries-
automatically seek for the supports of projecting parts such
as these staircases. The new conception of space, with its urge
484
toward freely hovering parts and surfaces, leads one in exactly
the contrary direction. It seeks the kind of aesthetic sensation
that results when the relation between load and support is no
longer traditionally obvious.
In the Gropius building at the Cologne exhibition (unfor-
tunately destroyed by fire during the war years) it is notable
that the roof was treated with the same care and skill that was
devoted to other integral parts of the structure. The upper
terraces provided space for the elevator and for dancing, with
the whole area unified by a covered garden. Such details are
never casual or accidental results; just because they outrun
contemporary developments, they can only be created by
minds unconsciously touched by the future. 9
Germany after the First World War and the Bauhaus

All the vigorous efforts of the decade before the war ended in
disillusionment. The arts and crafts movement was seen to
have worked itself out. It had, indeed, done much to elimi-
nate fashions that were carry-overs from the previous period,
but improvements in furniture and reforms in household taste
opened up no real outlet for continued future development.
In the German movement, architecture was swallowed up by
the applied arts. This in itself shows that the movement pro-
duced reforms but no new positive conceptions, since without
a new conception there can be no new architecture. Solutions
such as the Fagus works (1911-14) were isolated exceptions
that could not make their influence felt at the moment.
A state of widespread uncertainty once more prevailed. This Expressionism
uncertainty was, so to speak, the working-capital - not the
object of attack- of the expressionist movement. German
expressionism had its beginnings previous to the war, con-
tinued to develop while the war lasted, and reached its height
in the years immediately after the war. The movement elo-
quently states the grievances of mishandled humanity and
indicts a tragic situation. But there is a fundamental dif-
9Contemporaries were rather undecided about the "Fabrik." Cf. the critique of Walter
Gropius by Theodor Heuss in Die Hilfe (Berlin), July 2, 1914.
485
293. WALTER GROPIUS. Spi-
ral staircase on corner of t he
" Fabrik," Cologne, 1914. These
staircases entirely enclosed in
glass seem like movements seized
and immobilized in space.
ference between expressionism and other movements we have

encountered - cubism, futurism, and the rest. Faustean
outbursts against an inimical world and the cries of outraged
humanity cannot create new levels of achievement. They re-
main transitory facts - however moving they may be - and
not constituent ones.
The expressionist influence could not perform any service for
architecture. Nevertheless it touched almost every German
worker in the arts. Men who were later to do grimly serious
work in housing developments abandoned themselves to a
romantic mysticism, dreamed of fairy castles to stand on the
peak of Monte Rosa. Others built concrete towers as flaccid
as jellyfish.
This was the situation into which the Bauhaus came at its
birth. The surviving ideals of the W erkbund proved its sal-
vation: from the very beginning it set itself to unite art and
industrial life and to find the keynote for a sound contempo-
rary architecture. But even here, in the early productions of
486
the Bauhaus and in works by \Valter Gropius, traces of the
literary, expressionistic approach appear. Expressionism in-
filtrated all German art.
Gropius was instinctively aware of the inadequacy of expres- Founding of the
sionism and of the need to escape from it. The war had left Bauhaus, 1919
some vacancies on the staffs of the two schools at \V eimar,
the school of design and the school of applied arts. \Vhen
Gropius united these schools to form the Bauhaus he tried to
find teachers who had not worked in the field of applied arts.
On the recommendation of Alma Mahler, he gave the basic
design course- the first of its kind- to the young Swiss
painter, Johannes ltten. ltten, while teaching in Vienna, had
developed a completely new method for educating the tactile
sense, the sense of color, and the sense of space and composi-
tion. It was this method of approach that balled the public
all through the Bauhaus period. The German sculptor Ger-
hard Marcks and the American-born Lyonel Feininger also
came in with I tten at the beginning. Feininger was one of the
few expressionists interested in problems of space.
The Swiss-German Paul Klee joined the staff in 1921. After Second stage in
this more and more men were recruited from the abstrac- its evolution
tionist groups: first Oskar Schlemmer, in 1921; then, in 1922,
\Vassily Kandinsky (who had been working on abstract compo-
sitions since 1911), and in 1923, L. Moholy-Nagy. The suc-
cessive appointments of these men mark an ever stronger
tendency toward the abstract movements and reflect the
stages through which the Bauhaus passed.
Moholy-Nagy, a young Hungarian, was linked with the whole
abstractionist movement by personal associations as well as
through his own productions. His role in the Bauhaus has
often been misunderstood. As editor of the Bauhaus books 10
he actively defended its ideas and gave the initiators of new
movements in many countries the chance to address the Ger-
1° Cf. The Bauhaus, 1919-1928 (New York, 1938), pp. 222-223, edited by Herbert
Bayer, Walter Gropius, and Ise Gropius. The bibliography by Beaumont Newhall
embraces all the relevant literature on the subject. The book as a whole gives such an
excellent account of the details of the Bauhaus development that there is no need in this
discussion to retrace the same ground. Since then several documented histories of the
Bauhaus have been brought out, for instance by H. Winkler (Cologne, 1962).
487
294. WALTER GROPIUS. Deutsche Werkbund exhibition, Paris, 1930. Club
lounge shown in cut-away section of a slablike many-storied apartment house.
man public directly. Besides this, he helped through his own

activities to overcome the lingering remnants of romantic
mysticism.
'
Third stage The third stage in the development of the Bauhaus, bringing
it into closer contact with industry, came about when it moved
from Weimar to Dessau. At that time the Bauhaus showed its
powers of self-renewal by adding to its staff from the groups of
its former students. Among those who became masters in the
school were Josef Albers, Herbert Bayer (typography), and
Marcel Breuer.
The Bauhaus was soon well known all over Europe in those
circles where the elements of a contemporary art were being
sought - the Dutch "Stijl" group, for example. Theo van
Doesburg himself came to Weimar in 1922 but, for various
reasons, never acted as one of the Bauhaus teachers. The
Stijl group's influence on the Bauhaus - underrated and
overrated with about equal frequency - was on the side of
488
the formal approach to aesthetic problems, of their accent on
basic elements and basic relations.
As far as public opinion was concerned, all the Bauhaus lead- Opposition
ers were taken, in spite of their actual differences, as advocates
of one artistic doctrine, a doctrine which was as cordially
detested by the expressionists as it was by the conventional
and the academic. Political divisions were likewise forgotten:
Gropius and the Bauhaus came under attack by Left and
Right wing elements equally. According to Leftist critics," no
art school, however good, could be anything but an anachro-
nism at this time" (1928). Critics of the Right, seeing the
Bauhaus program of education as only so many unrelated
activities, and judging them from either the academic or the
arts and crafts point of view, could see no sense at all to the
venture.
The work of the Bauhaus can be grasped only when the con-
ception behind modern painting has been understood. With-
out an understanding of the feeling which has developed out
of the new sense for space and the new interest in textures and
plain surfaces, the studies of the Bauhaus fall to pieces.
The Ecole Polytechnique of 1797 was dedicated to the fusion Role of the
of science and life. At the Bauhaus under Gropius the effort Bauhaus
was made to unite art and industry, art and daily life, using
architecture as the intermediary. Now that it is possible to
see the whole Bauhaus institution in its historical relationships,
we recognize what an important outlet it was for the German
gift of teaching and organizing. The principles of contempo~
rary art were there for the first time translated into the field of
education. Dispersed tendencies were brought together and
concentrated.n This treatment of the Bauhaus has been lim-
11Very early in his career Gropius saw that the exhibition could serve as an instrument
for just such a coordination of new tendencies and conceptions. He wanted to use the
exhibition systematically as a means for presenting ideas- that is, with all its features
adjusted to one general point of view. He worked in this direction until 1928 at the
Bauhaus and, later, again with his old associates at the Bauhaus -Moholy-Nagy,
Breuer, Bayer, and others. Their collaborative efforts developed a new type of exhi-
bition in which every modern technique of display was called into service.
At the 1930 exhibition of the Salon des Artistes Decorateurs in Paris, the Werkbund was
invited to participate. This was the first official foreign exhibition since the war to admit
489
295. WALTER GROPIUS. Project for an international academy of philosophical
studies, 1924. This advanced scheme was produced two years before the Bauhaus, which is
foreshadowed in its open planning. Meant .for the university town of Erlangen, it would have
combined dormitories and common rooms. The idea of such an academy was typical of the
internationalist spirit which prevailed in Germany during this period.
ited to those of its aspects which have a bearing on our constant

concern: the way in which this period has moved toward con-
sciousness of itself. The vital and difficult development of
the Bauhaus reflects that process in the circumscribed realm
of education as no other institution of the period does.
The establishment of practical connections between industry
and the Bauhaus and the manner in which these relations
functioned fall outside our subject. We can only note how a
system of education based upon fundamental conceptions of
our period and conducted by genuinely creative artists sup-
plied industry with a variety of models for its products. Ex-
perimental handiwork in the Bauhaus shops led to articles of
German entries. Gropius and Breuer showed a club lounge interior mounted in a sec-
tion of a slablike modern apartment block (fig. 294) designed by Gropius. By this time
the old animosities had subsided, and the French critics greeted the display with sur-
prise and admiration. For many of them it was the first revelation of what had been
accomplished in Germany during the post-war years.
Exhibitions in which Gropius participated are: World's Exhibition, Antwerp, 1912
(interior); Wcrkbund Exhibition, Cologne, 1914 (the" Fabrik," series of interior rooms;
officers' quarters for warships, automobile bodies); Werkbund Exhibitiou, Pari», 1930,
Building Exhibition, Berlin, 1931 (scheme for a many-storied apartment block, with
Schawinsky); Berlin Exhibition, 1933 (display in nonferrow; metals, with Joost Schmidt).
490
industry which were reproduced all over the world: lighting
fixtures, carpets, fabrics, and the famous tubular steel furni-
ture by Marcel Breuer. Foreign manufacturers began to seek
Bauhaus-trained supervisors of their productions.
The Bauhaus Buildings at Dessau, 1926

The building program for the new school at Dessau had to The building
meet many different requirements. There was first the Bau- program
haus- the School of Design- itself; then the school of the
city of Dessau for continuation courses in the trades; finally,
combination studio and dwelling quarters for the students
had to be provided. A dining hall, a stage, administration
rooms, and a private studio for Gropius were also necessary.
The instructors were given houses, also designed by Gropius, in
a small pine wood. The architect's chief aim was to produce a
clear separation of each of these functions from the others, at
the same time not isolating them but bringing them together
into efficient interrelation.
The chief accents fall on the Bauhaus, the nucleus of the whole
school (fig. 296). The Bauhaus combines "laboratories of de-
sign" with exhibition spaces, classrooms, and lecture halls.
The laboratories of design were devoted to such various ac-
tivities as cabinetmaking, theatrical crafts, dyeing, weaving,
printing, wall coverings, and metalworking. On the third
floor the lecture halls and the laboratories for metalworking
and wall painting could be thrown together to make a single
room. The Bauhaus is enclosed by the famous glass curtains.
The section containing the pupils' studio-dormitory rooms
rises six stories. The twenty-eight rooms it contains require
the hyphenated title because each is intended not only for the
student's residence but for his private work as well. Each has
a small balcony, a concrete slab which juts out into open
space. These slabs, hovering close to the massive wall, give
the building its singular and exciting aspect. The students'
building connects directly with the School of Design through
a one-story wing. The wing ingeniously combines an assembly
hall, the dining hall, and the stage of the school. These rooms
can be thrown open to form a single hall accessible from the
"aula," or main entrance hall of the whole school.
491
296. WALTEH. GHO-
PTUS. The Bauhaus,
Dessau, 1926. Air view.
This air view shows how
the different units blend
together. The eye cannot
sum up such a complex
at one glance.
297. WALTER GRO-

PIUS. The Bauhaus,
Dessau,l926. Plot plan.
This complex reaches
out over the ground and
expands into a kind of
pinwheel with three
hooked arms.
492
A separate wing was reserved for the Dessau trade school.
A short two-story bridge, supported by four pillars and cross-
ing an intervening street, connects it with the School of Design.
This passerelle or connecting bridge was reserved for adminis-
tration rooms, meeting places for the masters' and students'
councils, the architectural department, and the private atelier
of Gropius.
The Bauhaus has a skeleton of reinforced concrete. Because Significance of
of the German building ordinances, the supporting pillars are the glass curtain
much heavier than they would have been in France or Swit-
zerland. The continuous glass curtain is brought into abrupt
juxtaposition with the horizontal ribbons of white curtain wall
at the top and bottom of the building. An aerial photograph
shows them plainly for what they are: mere ribbons, support-
ing nothing. In a bird's-eye view the whole cube seems like two
immense horizontal planes floating over the ground.
The glass curtain is not the limited and marked-off transparent
area which Eiffel had already exploited in the 1378 exhibition:
it flows smoothly around the building, the corners showing no
vertical supporting or binding members. As in the Fagus
works, the pillars from which it hangs are set behind the glass,
making the curtain a specimen of pure cantilever construc-
tion. The glass curtain is simply folded about the corners of
the building; in other words, the glass walls blend into each
other at just the point where the human eye expects to en-
counter guaranteed support for the load of the building
(jig. 299).
Two major endeavors of modern architecture are fulfilled here, Picasso and
not as unconscious outgrowths of advances in engineering but Gropius
as the conscious realization of an artist's intent; there is the
hovering, vertical grouping of planes which satisfies our feel-
ing for a relational space, and there is the extensive transpar-
ency that permits interior and exterior to be seen simulta-
neously, en face and en profile, like Picasso's" L' Arlesienne" of
1911-12 (fig. 298): variety of levels of reference, or of points
of reference, and simultaneity - the conception of space-
time, in short. In this building Gropius goes far beyond
anything that might be regarded as an achievement in con-
struction alone.
493
298. PICASSO. "L' Arlesienne," 1911- 12. Oil. "In the head may be seen the whist device of simultaneity-
showing two aspects of a single object at the same time, in th is case the profile and the f ull face. The transpar-
ency of overlapping planes is also characteristic" (Catalogue of the Picasso Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art,
New York, 1939, p. 77).
494
299. WALTER GROPTUS. The Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926. Corner of the workshop wing. In this case it is
lite interior and the exterior o.f a building which are presented simultaneously. The extensive transparent areas,
by dematerializing the corners, permit the hovering relations of planes and the kind of" overlapping" which ap-
pears in contemporary painting.
495
The new space The glass curtain wall is famous, but the really important
conception function of the Bauhaus was fulfilled by it as a unit. When it
was erected in 1926 it showed how the new space conception
could be used to organize a great building complex; nothing
comparable to this had until then been achieved in contempo-
rary architecture.
Frank Lloyd There is no doubt that Frank Lloyd Wright, in the first
Wright and decades of this century, worked with hovering vertical and
Gropius
horizontal planes in his houses. In this Chicago period he also
realized open planning in some of his large houses- the
Martin house in Buffalo (1904), for example, and the Coonley
house at River Forest (1908). Their ground plans are extended
and ceJmplkated, and the different parts are sometimes con-
nected by bridges. But these wings are strongly attached to
the ground, reach out over the plot like the exploratory
tentacles of some earth-bound animal. They do not hover over
the ground, and they embody no wish to do so. The whole
treatment of the walls- their sudden structural changes, their
overhanging eaves, their complicated relief- indicates this.
This may explain why Wright is somewhat repelled by what
has been done in Europe since his appearance.
A different By 1926 a new generation had set to work in architecture.
feeling for space They were in contact both with the artistic discoveries that
had been made since 1910 and with the new methods and
materials of construction. They brought these two formerly
separate realms together and out of their conjunction de-
veloped what we know as contemporary architecture. The
generation of Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and
the others knew the work of the artistic explorers and the new
spatial feelings which they had discovered. Finally they were
able to select from the accumulated developments in engineer-
ing just the means that were needed to give architectonic
expression to this new space sense.
The Bauhaus complex is an arrangement of cubes, one jux-
taposed against another - cubes differing in size, material,
and location. The aim is not to anchor them to the ground but
to have them float or hover upon the site. This is the reason
for the winglike connecting bridges and the liberal use of glass.
The glass was called in for its dematerializing quality; the
496
previous generation had used it either for practical purposes or
(in private houses) had stained or painted it.
These cubes are juxtaposed and interrelated. Indeed, they New organization
interpenetrate each other so subtly and intimately that the of volumes
boundaries of the various volumes cannot be sharply picked
out. The views from the air show how thoroughly each is
blended into a unified composition. The eye cannot sum up
this complex at one view; it is necessary to go around it on all
sides, to see it from above as well as from below. This means
new dimensions for the artistic imagination, an unprecedented
many-sidedness.
The ground plan lacks all tendency to contract inward upon

itself; it expands, on the contrary, and reaches out over the
ground. In outline it resembles one of those fireworks called
"pinwheels," with three hooked arms extending from a
center (jig. 297). The impression one receives from it is similar
to that produced by the glassed staircase in Gropius' exhibi-
tion building of 1914: it suggests a movement in space that
has been seized and held.
The Bauhaus was the only large building of its date which was
so complete a crystallization of the new space conception. Its
appearance is in a way testimony to the irrational course of
history. Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century
showed a greater loss of architectonic honesty than any
other country. But it was in this very country, after less than
thirty years of effort, that the way was opened to new levels of
accomplishment in architecture.
Architectural Aims
Gropius is happiest when he is planning on a large scale; he is Buildings for
the architect of buildings for whole social groups - factories, social groups
offices, schools, theaters of new types. 12 It was natural that he
12 His Tolalfheafer. for example, is eornpietply adjusted to the new space conceptions.
The stage is no longer a fixed foeal point fm evPry perspeetive in the body of the theater
as it had been since H(maissanee and Baroque times. It is placed in the middle of the
building and fitted for eireular and vertical movement, so that a many-sided spectacle
is presented. Cf. W. Gropius. Thealerbau (Horne, 1931).
497
should take part in the building that went on in the twenties,
when Germany set out to make up its shortage of middle- and
working-class dwellings. Gropius built a large number of such
apartments and housing colonies - in Berlin, Dessau, Frank-
fort-on-Main, Karlsruhe, and elsewhere. His most interesting
work in this field was a scheme for a government institute for
housing research. 13 The colony was eventually built, but not as
Gropius had proposed. vVe shall discuss later on, in dealing
with the new scale in city planning, the sort of slablike block
unit which Gropius worked with in this scheme.
Designs in other The fact that so many of his works - even those of his youth
fields: their -have retail}ed all their original freshness is evidence of
advanced character
Gropius' creative force. This holds true not only for his
architectural productions - the Fagus works, for example -
but for his work in other fields as well. Gropius designed a
Diesel locomotive as far back as 1913. On a carefully studied
functional basis he arrived at an artistic solution that was
astonishingly advanced. He produced, in fact, a design which
two decades later would have been recognized as "stream-
lined." 14 His 1932 memorial at Jena to those who fell in the
Revolution - a composition of cement planes and prisms -
was completely contemporary in design. Unfortunately it
was destroyed by the Nazis when they came into power.
The fact that a man's work had kept its contemporaneous

character for two or three decades would have required no
special comment in a period where thought and feeling
moved in parallel channels. It is far from being a matter of
course in periods like ours, however. Among us such sureness
of production is - unfortunately - possessed by few artists.
Gropius, like many German artists, has a strong and solid

rather than a quick imagination. But, working very quietly,
he arrives at new and startling conclusions. Albrecht Durer's
ponderous figures lack the grace of the Venetian school; never-
theless, Durer's conceptions are characterized by an inherent
depth.
13 The Reichsforschungsgesellschaft.
14 Illustrated by S. Giedion, Walter Gropius (Paris, 1931).
498
WALTER GROPIUS IN AMERICA
What effect have his American surroundings had on Gropius,

and how has Gropius influenced his American environment?
There are delicate mutual reactions which obviously can only
be very imperfectly gauged. Before attempting even the most
summary analysis we shall have to consider a more general
question: the significance of the post-1930 emigration from
Europe to America.
The Significance of the Post-1930 Emigration

This emigration was the outcome of political pressure, but it
was of an entirely different nature either from that of the
European intellectuals driven into exile after 1848 or the mass
exodus of peasants and artisans about 1860. At those periods
America was still an only half-formed country. \Vide stretches
of its territory and many professional fields were just being
opened up. Whoever went to America in those days became
an American citizen almost automatically, and could acquire
land either as a free gift or for a purely nominal price. But
those who migrated in the 1930's were confronted with quite
another situation; America was now believed to be settled and
was defended by entry quotas; newcomers were regarded as
aliens, whether they became American citizens or not. All the
same, the influence of this emigration may in the long run
prove to be deeper and more far-reaching than those of 1848
and the 1860's. For this did not consist of representatives of
politics, business, or unskilled labor, but of representatives of
cultural life - the most advanced scientists, humanists, and
artists, who during the thirties had a direct impact in every
domain of science and culture, from modern aesthetics to nu-
clear physics.
There are moments in the lives of nations when, like certain
plants, they require extraneous fertilization in order to achieve
a further phase of their cultural evolution. Just as, after the
artistic exhaustion which followed the Gothic development,
Italian artists of the Renaissance were called to France to
incite a new development, so America, after a preponderant
499
role of business, needed a new spiritual orientation. The laws
of chance made this need coincide with the exodus of many of
the best European minds during the 1930's.
State of American After the structural forthrightness of the first Chicago School
architecture during the eighties, after Louis Sullivan's outstanding purity
around 1930 of architectonic expression and Frank Lloyd Wright's exciting
example around 1900, the spirit of American architecture had
degenerated into a mercantile classicism. The impulse to
shake free from this disastrous development had to be initiated
from outside. The time came in the late thirties.
As early as the 1920's a few modern-minded European archi-
tects had settled in the United States. It was at this time that
Richard J. N eutra, for example, started his hard fight for
contemporary architecture in Southern California, after earlier
endeavors of Frank Lloyd Wright, Greene & Greene, and others
had been submerged by sham Spanish imitations. In the
twenties, American universities and similar institutions were
all in the hands of representatives of the Academie des Beaux
Arts. The modern spirit was excluded everywhere. But in
the late thirties some far-sighted men in leading institutions
felt the necessity of inviting men such as \Valter Gropius, Mar-
cel Breuer, Mies van der Rohe, Moholy-Nagy, and later on,
Alvar Aalto, to teach in America.
That the United States, unlike certain other countries, should
have decided to employ some of Europe's most creative archi-
tects says much for that nation's intuitive sagacity. These
appointments provided the rather devious retrospective means
by which Americans were at last enabled to recognize their
own pioneers. Even the American Institute of Architects
began to reconsider its attitude toward Frank Lloyd Wright
and awarded him its gold medal on his eightieth birthday in
1948. This recalls inevitably the honors with which the French
Academy eventually loaded Ingres after havingembittered his
whole active career as a painter.
Walter Gropius and the American Scene

What did America do for Gropius and what has Gropius done
for America~ To begin with, there are definite points of re-
500
semblance to the functional type of American architecture in
Gropius' own work, evidence of which can be found as far
back in his career as the international competition for the
Chicago Tribune Building in 1922. Though at that time
Gropius did not know of the work of the Chicago School of
1890, the project he submitted was imbued with the selfsame
spirit. Had his project been carried out instead of the pseudo-
Gothic design that was chosen, it would be regarded today as
a natural continuation of the Chicago School.
As it was, every rational design was laughed out of court, al-
though there were names such as Duiker, Lonberg-Holm, and
Bruno Taut among the other European architects who took
part. In the library of Harvard University's Graduate School
of Design there is a satirical pamphlet, issued by the" Celestial
Jury" (1923), in which Gropius' design is referred to as that of
"the man who invented the mouse-trap."
There were other points, too, in which, quite early, Gropius had Standardized
shown a certain affinity with American building technique and component
its large-scale production and assembly. In 1909- during parts
the time he worked in the office of Peter Behrens - he laid
before the German industrialist Emil Rathenau "A Plan for
Forming a Company to Undertake the Construction of Dwell-
ings with Standardized Component Parts." Gropius said at
the end of this unpublished twenty-eight-page proposal, "It
becomes today economically and technically possible to satisfy
the justified demands of the client for individualized treatment
of his dwelling by the use of the infinite possibilities for combi-
nation of these variable parts."
Thus in 1910 Walter Gropius perceived the pivotal problem,
which forty years later has not yet been completely solved,
of the part mechanization has to play in the mass production
of houses. This problem consists in the reconciliation of indi-
vidual needs with mechanical production to produce a solution
that can satisfy varying human requirements.
As is well known, industry, trying first to mass-produce identi-
cal houses, like automobiles, had to learn the hard way that
houses, unlike automobiles, demand respect for individual flexi-
bility and that all that industry can do is to find out the best
501
means of creating parts to be assembled in such ways that the
necessary diversity may be guaranteed.
Since 1942, Konrad Wachsmann in collaboration with Gropius
developed a new system of prefabricated houses (the" general
panel system") based on Gropius' work with prefabricated
corrugated-copper houses for Hirsch Kupfer, near Berlin, in
1931. The beveled edges of the frame were done there first
and then taken over for General Panel. Its standardized
wooden slabs or panels combine individual planning and
architectural freedom with modern industrial methods.
Architectural Activity
Gropius' house At the same time as he inaugurated his architectural teaching
in Lincoln, 1938 in America, Walter Gropius started to build himself a home
at Lincoln, some twenty miles from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
When I was staying with him in the autumn of 1938 crowds
of visitors used to come over every weekend, and often on week-
days as well, to see the newly finished "modern house" (jig.
300); for up till then not a single example could be found with-
in a radius of upwards of a hundred miles.
Yet neither its flat roof, its screened porch (though here de-
signed as an extension of the dining room, protruding from
the house to catch eastern and western breezes during the
hot and humid summers), its vernacular weather-boarding (in
which, however, the boards were laid vertically instead of in
the traditional horizontal manner), nor its large windows could
be said to mark any notable divergence from the local New
England building idiom.
Several country houses in the same area followed, all of which,
like Gropius' own home, were designed in partnership with
Marcel Breuer. Breuer's hand can be felt in the particularly
charming one-room Wayland cottage (1940) which hovers over
the ground like a butterfly (jig. 301). There were larger
houses, too, less successful in design, which had to be planned
for clients with exaggerated personal requirements.
The defense housing colony of New Kensington, near Pitts-
burgh, built in 1941 for the employees of an aluminum factory,
caused quite a belated commotion in the Pennsylvania news-
papers. The attacks in the local press must have reminded
502
300. WALTER GROPIUS and MARCEL BREUER. Gropius' own house in
Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1938. View from the south and ground plan. This was the .first
modern house to be buill in the vicinity of Boston.
\
"
Scale in feet
1015202~
503
Gropius of those aroused by his Torten Siedlung at Dessau
more than two decades earlier.
Differing European European architects who emigrate to the United States are
and American surprised that important jobs are nearly always placed in the
views on academic
hands of large firms with staffs running into hundreds; and
teaching
that small architects' offices, such as they were accustomed to
at home, have a hard struggle to keep going at all.
Another difference they find is that in Europe a teacher of
architecture usually has to acquire a reputation in the field
before being called to a chair, while in America a professor of
architecture has been regarded until lately as someone es-
tranged from reality, and best kept away from actual building
activity, the teaching of architecture being regarded as a career
in itself.
That Mies van der Rohe and Gropius did not accept this frus-
trating role was not the least of their accomplishments in bet-
tering the standard of architectural training in America. All
of us are convinced that an academic teacher can have a real
influence on his students only as long as he is creative himself.
To young people who are in a state of spiritual flux the close
contact with a personality who is himself in a creative mood
is the best means to liberate their own creative capacities.
When Gropius and Marcel Breuer entered the competition for
Wheaton College in 1938- their first contribution to Amer-
ican college architecture - conditions were not ripe for them.
No trustee could have been persuaded to vote the necessary
funds. The consuming itch for representationalism still pre-
vailed in the design of university dormitories. Yet this was
just the time when it began to break down and a year later, in
1939, it was possible for Mies van der Rohe to be commissioned
to design the new campus buildings for the Illinois Institute of
Technology. In 1947 Aalto was able to persuade the trustees
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to allow him to
carry out his revolutionary design for his dormitory on the
Charles River, and in 1949 Gropius was entrusted with the
building of the Harvard Graduate Center for "America's old-
est and most respected educational institution." 1
1 "Harvard Builds a Graduate Yard," Architectural Forum. the Magazine of Building,
December 1950, pp. 62-71.
504
301. WALTER GROPWS and MARCEL BH.EUER. House in Wayland, Massa-
chusetts, 1940. This little house for an elderly couple is embedded in old pine trees.
1!
• r:m
I.:.:JjJ ____ ....'
505
302. Graduate Center, Harvard University, 1919- 50. Plan of the whole complex, in-
clrtding the Commons .
Although it was customary for undergraduate students to live

in university-built dormitories, it was unusual, at that time,
for the university to provide shelter for the graduate students.
The Harvard Graduate Center and Aalto's building for the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology were, however, dor-
mitories for graduates; and in 1962-63, Harvard built a large
housing complex for 500 married students, designed by Jose
Luis Sert as three 28-story towers in combination with lower
buildings that, for the first time, created an interlocking urban-
istic entity (fig. 528).
All his life, Gropius felt the need to work closely with others.
In 1945 he formed an association with several young American
architects called The Architects' Collaborative. 2 His early
2The Architects' Collaborative in 1945: Jean Bodman Fletcher, Norman Fletcher,
Walter Gropius, John C. Harkness, Sarah Harkness, Robert S. McMillan, Louis A.
McMillen, Benjamin Thompson.
506
303. Graduate Center, Harvard University . The Harkness Commons building, with
passageways. In the background are some of the dormitory buildings.
works, like the Fagus Factory (1911), or the factory for the
Cologne Werkbund exhibition (1914), also bore the names of
his collaborators: Adolph Meyer, who died early, then- in
America - Marcel Breuer, and, after their parting, the work-
ing team of TAC.
The Harvard Graduate Center was built in an extremely short
time, 1949-50, by TAC (The Architects' Collaborative). The
funds available were rather limited compared to those used
for former students' quarters or even for Aalto's new M.I.T.
dormitory. This is not the only reason for the disappearance
of a palatial type of building; it is also because another aspect
of life is developing. Greater simplicity and deeper spiritual
demands are to be found in the post-war generation.
The dormitories for 575 students are spread informally. No
enclosures separate them from the outside. All of the three-
507
304. Graduate Center, Harvard University. View of the Harkness Commons, with a
passageu:ay to one of the dormitories in the foreground.
and four-story buildings are of reinforced concrete. Yellow-

ish bricks, such as Gropius has liked ever since his Fagus
works of 1911, form their curtain walls. Covered passageways
connect the different buildings. Their long horizontals and
slim, widely separated columns impart movement and smooth-
ness. There is also a certain interplay with different horizontal
planes: the flat-roofed three- and four-story dormitories, the
two-story Commons, and the sunken garden before it.
Commons The Commons Building forms the social center for graduate
Building student life at Harvard. Two-story structure, steel frame,
limestone facing, large glass areas. It is delightful to observe
how the carefully planned organization of this building gives
an architectonic impetus to the whole structure.
Unusually placed on the second floor are the dining rooms and
kitchen, which serves 1200 meals at a time. A cantilevered
ferroconcrete ramp, forming a kind of backbone within the
structure, leads directly to the cafeteria counters. The dining
area is divided into four units to avoid the impression of mass
feeding.
508
305. Graduate Center, Harvard University . Interior of Harkness Commons, with
wooden reliefs by Hans Arp. It was a courageous experiment to invite creative artists -
Hans A.rp, Joan Mir6, Josef Albers, and others - to reenforce the emotional content of the
Commons building. Contacts between planner and artist are as important for future de-
velopment as air conditioning,
The ground floor, with its wide glass areas, serves as a social
gathering place and the larger of its two lounges can easily be
converted into a meeting hall.
One thing should not be forgotten, that in spite of the rather Commons Build-
limited means at their disposal, Gropius insisted that contem- ing and contem-
porary art
porary art should be present in the Commons Building. It
was not an easy problem to solve.
For one and a half centuries contemporary art and the public
have lost contact. Belatedly and only after generations, the
public responded. The banishment of creative art from public
life had another effect: it estranged artists and architects from
the habit of working together. This is the situation today.
It needed courage around 1920 to invite the most advanced
painters to join the staff of a state institution like the Bauhaus.
And the same intrepidity was necessary in 1949 to introduce
509
the work of modern artists 3 within a university; not in the
form of an exhibition, but as a daily companion to the student's
life.
At the Sixth ClAM Congress, at Bridgewater, England, in
1947, in which Gropius took part, the problem of aesthetics
came to the fore and especially the question, is mutual co-
operation between architect, painter, and sculptor possible?
Everybody knew that this cooperation was not easy to ac-
complish because artists and architects had so long been sepa-
rated by the circumstances. In the Commons Building it can
sometimes be felt that the two did not work together from the
beginning. In order to strengthen the emotional and symbolic
content of community buildings the integration of art and
architecture has again become an urgent demand. The Com-
mons Building is a bold step toward this goal.
The TAC Harvard Graduate Center and the Aalto M.I.T.
Dormitory are very different, just as lngres and Delacroix are
different in their means of expression. Which is to be pre-
ferred depends on the personal approach and the personal likes
and dislikes of the individual; but one thing can be regarded as
certain; the future will not forget that two distinguished in-
stitutions in the same city gave contemporary architecture a
chance to mold itself into upgrowing generations.
Gropius as Educator
What predestined Gropius to become a teacher is that trait in
his nature which makes him ready to listen to others and give
them their full due. He might not have the temperament, or
the eruptive inventiveness of other leading figures, but no one
in the architectural movement possesses the far-sighted philo-
sophical approach which enables him to perceive problems at
a distance and correlate them within a broad framework.
Born teacher and organizer though Gropius is, much of his
success in both capacities lies in his power to see his problems
3 Mural paintings for the dining hall by Joan Mir6, later replaced by a new one, also
by Mir6, on enameled tiles; wood reliefs by Hans Arp; tile mural accompanying the
ramp by Herbert Bayer; a brick relief by Josef Albers; steel pylon by Richard Lippold
in front of the Commons; world maps by Gyorgy Kepes in the dormitory lounges.
510
from every side. There is another quality he possesses: his
mind is the reverse of rigid. It has nothing in common with
the hidebound inflexibility of those sterile natures whose dim
instinct of self-protection invariably makes them negate any-
thing that might disturb the even tenor of their lives. Gropius
is always prepared to consult and learn from others when he
feels they have something of value to impart. He allows him-
self much time for his fellow man. His willingness to under-
stand the minds of others liberates the creative capacity of his
students and wins him friends.
He knows and likes the human side of life. This is the secret
of his ability as a coordinator of diverging minds; it was quite
the same whether he was dealing with the manifold personal-
ities of his Bauhaus period, in the ClAM (Congres Interna-
tionaux d' Architecture Moderne), where there is also no lack
of individual opinions, with the Harvard students, or finally
with the team of architects with whom he works.
That the Bauhaus managed to survive from 1919 until 1928
under his direction, during what were the most crucial years
for the development of the new architecture, can only be
ascribed to an act of faith which might be compared to build-
ing a house while one raging storm after another kept blowing
away the mortar before it had time to set. And this miracle of
tenacity was accomplished in a Germany crippled by inflation,
where, under the mask of resurgent nationalism, the advent
of the future Nazi state was ominously heralded.
It has often been said that the Bauhaus rationalized the teach-
ing of modern art by a pedantic bottling of its various mani-
festations into neatly labeled compartments. But Gropius had
something completely different in mind when he founded the
Bauhaus in 1919. His leading idea then was: "The Bauhaus
strives to coordinate all creative efforts in art into a new
unity." In 1923 in its first large publication, Staatliches
Bauhaus in lVeimar 1919~1923, the idea was further evolved:
"The guiding principle of the Bauhaus was the idea of creating
a new unity of the welding together of many 'arts' and move-
ments: a unity having its basis in Man himself and significant
only as a living organism."
511
In autumn 1947, speaking at the Sixth ClAM Congress at
Bridgewater, England, after ten years of having directed the
work for the master's degree in architecture at Harvard,
Gropius summed up his experience in this field, and what he
had to say was the natural outgrowth of the concepts of his
youth. And it was not only relevant for the training of the
architect but for the reform of educational methods as a whole:
"In architectural education the teaching of a method of ap-
proach is more important than the teaching of skills. . . .
The integration of the whole range of knowledge and ex-
perience is of the greatest importance right from the start;
only then will the totality of aspect make sense in the student's
mind. . . . Such an educational approach would draw the
student into a creative effort to integrate simultaneously de-
sign, construction, and economy of any given task with its
social ends. "
There are certain highly skilled mechanics in the Detroit auto-
mobile factories who work behind protective glass screens. It
is their job to make the jigs and tooling which later on will
be used for turning out millions of component parts needed
for next year's models. In much the same way, a little body
of picked architectural students is now being trained in some
of the leading American universities and technical institutes
to leave its impress on the life of the nation in the immediate
future.
Later Development
When Walter Gropius was seventy he said, " I am still build-
ing practically nothing." When he was eighty, he saw himself
laden with prizes, honors, and so many commissions that they
could scarcely be accomplished. The same fate has befallen
almost all pioneers of contemporary architecture.
Frequently our period has allowed itself to be overtaken by
reality. Its decision makers are seldom prepared for eventual-
ities. Usually they are incapable of recognizing early enough
which solutions bear within them the seeds of future develop-
ment. In the United States since the fifties a wholly unex-
pected urge developed for urban renewal, without anyone dar-
512
306. WALTER GROPIUS. Project for Back Bay Center, Boston, 1953. A well
organized complex dominated by the high-rise office block; balanced relationships between
buildings of different heights with different functions. A wide pedestrian bridge links the
Center with a convention hall. lf this project had been implemented it would have been
the finest American urban center.
ing to say that this would require new solutions. Prototypes

that could give three-dimensional reality to new ideas were not
fully developed. They existed only on paper and in small
models that remained unrealized.
One project that, had it been realized, could have served as Boston Back Bay
prototype for a new city center was the Back Bay Center for Center, 1953
Boston, 1953 (jig. 306). It was designed by a group of univer-
sity professors including Gropius. It is a sign of Gropius'
temperament that he can work on a project as part of a team
and yet in the final design the hand of the master can be felt.
513
The Back Bay Center is a well articulated complex. The larg-
est office building dominates the grouping but does not op-
press it. Its fac;ades meet at an obtuse angle to mitigate its
volume and massivity, as in Le Corbusier's design for a tall
office building for Algiers (1934) and in Gropius' later Pan
American Building in New York. But in New York this im-
mense high-rise building stands alone, flanked by haphazard
structures. In Boston the office building stands as the dom-
inant structure of a well coordinated complex of buildings with
different functions. A wide pedestrian bridge links the Center
to a large convention hall. In the middle of a congested,
traffic-ridden metropolis, this center would have been a pedes-
trian's paradise.
The Boston Back Bay Center falls into the category of projects
whose importance was recognized too late. Short-sighted pol-
iticians prevented its realization with the threat of impossibly
heavy taxation. Then, on the same site over the freight yards
of the Boston and Albany railroad - a site whose potential
was first recognized by a class of Harvard architectural stu-
dents in a project that provided the impetus for this urbanistic
leap forward- rose the Prudential Center, a purely profit-
making structure of no urbanistic interest.
Since its inception in 1945, the work ofTAC has grown greatly.
In 1957 it undertook the tremendous project of Baghdad
University, beset by local difficulties in building construction
and dramatic shifts in the political structure of the country.
There was also the Pan American Building (1958~63) rising
high over Grand Central Station in New York. Though its
size gave rise to heated controversy, its structural sensitivity
cannot be denied. In 1962 Gropius was asked to prepare a
master plan for a sector for fifty thousand people in West
Berlin: a commission such as the struggling, combative Gro-
pius of 1930 could never have dreamt of. This sector bears
his name - Gropiustown.
American Embassy in Athens, 1956~61
Only one building from the 1953~64 period is selected here for
detailed comment: the American Embassy in Athens. In it
514
Walter Gropius' hand is particularly evident. In the Fagus
factory (1911), Walter Gropius had introduced several de-
finitive elements of contemporary architecture and presented
the first uncompromising manifestation of the non-bearing
glass curtain wall. Transparency was raised to monumentality
in the upper stories of the Dessau Bauhaus (1926). In the
embassy in Athens this approach, passed over for half a
century, is again followed. Both transparency and the glass
walls are retained but they are integrated with the organiza-
tion of the whole building. Around the square embassy run
free-standing, marble-clad columns. The cornice projects
hoveringly, casting a shadow, but leaving a wide slit open as
an air vent, so that the accumulated heat can escape upward.
What can be seen at first sight is that an embassy, whose
business obliges it to house many secrets, here presents a
friendly and welcoming appearance. One is drawn through the
open colonnade to an inner court also surrounded by columns
like those outside (fig. 310). This inner court is a patio perfo-
rated on two sides and thus directly linked to the outer
space.
The embassy is placed on a rise beside a main thoroughfare.
Steps, landings, and low railings direct one into the inner court
and up to a glass wall through which one enters the embassy.
The cube-shaped structure has no specially emphasized fa<;ade.
The same elements occur on all four sides: the surrounding
columns, the projecting cornice and wide air vent, and there-
cessive glass walls. The two main entrances are only spatially
emphasized: one, the pedestrian entrance from the main thor-
oughfare, by steps and landings (fig. 307); the other, the official
driveway entrance (fig. 309), by its high level and by a large
hovering canopy which runs inward under the building.
This building expresses the outcome of a general development
since 1911 which is not confined to Walter Gropius. It is ex-
pressed not in a negative approach but in pressing forward
solutions to once-opened problems: the relation between enclo-
sure and perforation, between differentiation and a more dis-
tinct repetition of single parts, and the ability of the architect
to integrate all these elements into a spiritual entity.
515
307. WALTER GROPIUS. American Embassy, Athens, 1956- 61. The building is
raised on a platform. The pedestrian entrance from the main road leads directly up a
flight of steps into the interior court. A line of while marble above the black marble of the
supporting wall shows the level of the court and of the rwlomobile entrance.
308. American Embassy, Athens, 1956- 61. Ground plan.
516
309. American Embassy, Athens, 1956- 61. Automobile entrance above which hovers a
long projecting canopy.
310. American Embassy, Athens, 1956- 61. The perforated interior court. The archi-
tectural structure, interior and exterior, is identical on all four sides: continuous squared
columns, projecting cornice, wide air vent, set-back glass walls. The photograph shows the
degree to which the interior court is opened up and the direct relationship between the in-
terior and the exterior.
517
311. The young Le Corbusier at
La Chaux-de-Fonds.
LE CORBUSIER AND THE MEANS OF ARCHITEC-

TONIC EXPRESSION
Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret) was born in 1887 in

the watchmaking town of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Swiss
Jura Mountains. 1 The Jeannerets had lived there since the
fourteenth century. The family trace their descent from the
1It was in this region that the astonishing automaton- the writing doll (fig. 86) -
was produced.
518
Albigenses, that heretical sect from the south of France that
was hunted down and forcibly expelled from the country.
Just as Le Corbusier's handwriting appears even in the stained-
glass windows of the chapel at Ronchamps, so Le Corbusier
from very early days inserted his personal life and experiences
in his writings. In his book L' Art decoratij d' aujourd' hui
(Paris, 1925) is a chapter entitled" Confession" which gives an
intimate insight into his youth. He describes how his father,
an enthusiastic mountain climber, took him up to a summit of
the Jura Mountains: " We were frequently on the peaks. The
immense horizon was a customary experience" (p. 197). Much
later he reasserted this impression when he demanded: the
horizon must be captured. In connection with Ronchamps,
not very far from the Jura Mountains, he spoke of an architec-
ture acoustique. Here one may note that his mother was a
pianist. Le Corbusier was very close to her, as is touchingly
witnessed in his charming little book, Une petite maison (Zu-
rich, 1954).
Le Corbusier's father was a designer of watch dials. Le Cor-
busier also learned this trade. He always wore a watch whose
face he had engraved himself. When he was thirteen and a half
he entered the trade school of La Chaux-de-Fonds. There he
found a teacher, L'Eplatenier, who opened his eyes. Le Cor-
busier never forgot that it was this man who awoke in him a
recognition of masterpieces in art, who brought him close to
architecture, who led him to the direct observation of life, and
who aroused in him the impulse to make sketches everywhere
and of everything.
In his work, Le Corbusier showed the instinctive prescience of Relations to his
genius by turning up wherever new things were being done, or contemporaries
wherever a stimulating relationship to a bygone era could be
established. From 1909 to 1910 he was in Paris, learning to use
ferroconcrete in Perret's atelier. At Berlin he worked in the
studio of Peter Behrens. His first published book - an ex-
amination and criticism of the German industrial art move-
ment- was a product of this experience. 2 He saw Vienna
and the Wiener Werkstatte, but made his excuses when Josef
2 Elude sur le mouvement d'art decoratij en Allemagne (Chaux-de-Fonds, 1912).
519
Hoffman (Otto \Vagner's best-known pupil) asked him to
come and work with him.
Relation to the Instead Le Corbusier set out ~ with empty pockets ~ on a
past long voyage, le voyage utile, as he called it. From Paris he
journeyed through the Balkans to Asia Minor and Greece,
then on to Rome and back to Paris. From the white houses
indigenous to Mediterranean culture, from the Acropolis of
Athens, from the city of Istanbul, and from St. Peter's in
Rome, he derived just the assistance he needed for his later
development. It was in effect a voyage of discovery~ a
grand tour ~ through the source countries of western civiliza-
tion.
Relation to This immersion in past periods and cultures exerted a deci-

painting sive influence on Le Corbusier's entire work. He was able to
see the relation of the structures of a specific period to the
period's contemporary life, both seen and unseen, openly
expressed and striving for expression.
Yet another influence must be mentioned: Le Corbusier's

contact with (and share in) modern painting. Contemporary
painting was at the high point of its development in 1917, the
year Le Corbusier finally returned to Paris. He had the advan-
tage not merely of living there at this time but of being himself
a painter.
Le Corbusier recorded in his "Confessions" how he wandered

through the museums and what he was searching for. He was
not so much interested in works of the old masters as in works
of primitive and prehistoric art ~ woven carpets and carved
idols~ such as the objects Andre Malraux presented ten
years later in his Musee imaginaire.
Our specialized period rarely produces a combination of

painter and architect in the same person. Le Corbusier was
one of the exceptions; in his scheme of daily work the morning
was devoted to painting, the afternoon to architecture. Archi-
tectural creations came easily to him, but he continued always
to struggle with painting. The foundation of his work in both
520
312. LE CORBU-
SJER. Ferroconcrete
skeleton for a dwelling
house, 1915. Le Cor-
busier was able to trans-
mute the concrete skele-
ton developed by the
engineer into an archi-
tectural means.
fields was his conception of space. Architecture and painting

were merely two different instruments through which he ex-
pressed the same conception.
The spirit of Le Corbusier's houses shows an absolute identity Interrelations
with the spirit that animates modern painting. The floating between his
architecture and
transparency achieved in the works of modern painters finds
modern painting
its echo in Le Corbusier's own paintings (fig. 313). He himself
assured us in his Peinture moderne 3 that he had deliberately
chosen the most uninteresting of objects - bottles, drinking
glasses, and the like - so that attention would not stray away
from the actual painting. A historian is not likely to view this
choice as an accident, however. He sees in it a preference for
floating, transparent objects whose mass and outlines flow into
each other in a mariage des contours that leads us from Le Cor-
busier's pictures to his architecture (fig. 314).
Around 1910 Picasso and Braque, as the consequence of a new

conception of space, exhibited the interiors and exteriors of
objects simultaneously. In architecture Le Corbusier devel-
oped, on the same principle, the interpenetration of inner and
outer space. We have already observed gropings toward such
an interpenetration in the seventeenth-century buildings of
Francesco Borromini. But this interpenetration of space at
large and space-particles could have further development only
in an age whose science and art both perceived space as essen-
tially many-sided and dynamic.
3 Amedee Ozenfant and Le Corbusier (Paris, 1925).
521
The concrete Le Corbusier took ferroconcrete as the instrument for the
skeleton as an expression in architecture of his ideas. 4 In this he joined the
artistic means French tradition, continuing the work of Auguste Perret and
Tony Garnier. It was only in France that architects could use
ferroconcrete unrestrictedly and without hesitation. Building
legislators in Germany and England distrusted elegant con-
structions in reinforced concrete and insisted upon an unneces-
sary bulkiness. The French had always sought for lightness
and precision in their buildings, and they made corresponding
laws.
313. LE CORBUSIER. "Still Life," 1924. Oil. Like the cubists, Le Corbusier and
Ozenfant were greatly interested in commonplace objects and in the problems of transparency.
The "mariage des contours" between the different objects and outlines in this painting points
ahead to the interpenetrations of inner and outer space which L e Corbusier achieved later in
his buildings.
The real starting point of LeCorbusier's career was a drawing

dated 1915 (fig. 312). It shows nothing but six reinforced
• Thanks to the early initiative of the Zurich publisher Dr. Hans Girsberger, and to
the loyal care taken by the architect Willy Boesiger, Le Corbusier's works since 1910
have been set out in Le Corbusier, CEuvre complete. seven volumes (with slight varia-
tions in title), published in Zurich in 1929, 1934, 1938, 1949, 1953, 1957, and 1965.
522
concrete pillars and three horizontal slabs which are connected
by a mere hint of a staircase. Le Corbusier was able - as no
one before him had been - to transmute the concrete skeleton
developed by the engineer into a means of architectonic expres-
sion. He knew how to bring out the secret affinity that existed
between ferroconcrete construction and the human needs and
cravings that were just coming to the surface.
To create houses of unprecedented lightness and to carry still
further the kind of" open planning" which Frank Lloyd Wright
314. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. Settlement houses at Pessac, near

Bordeaux, 1926. In this early experimental work, Le Corbusier played with screens, vol-
umes, light, shadow, and color. Soon to be followed by solutions of great plastic sureness.
had begun, Le Corbusier used those properties of the sup-

porting framework of reinforced concrete which make the
disposition of the inner walls a matter of choice.
The problem of the dwelling was the unequivocal center of Le
Corbusier's early work, both theoretical and practical. His
first house, built in the Swiss Jura in 1916, was externally of
conventional form. It already showed, however, the reinforced
523
concrete skeleton which appeared in all its successors. The
skeleton was actually turned to the purposes of housing.
Le Corbusier's Le Corbusier laid down five points of liaison between con-
five points temporary architecture and contemporary construction:
1. The pillar, which is to be left free to rise through the open
space of a dwelling.
Such a use of the pillar had been made early in the nineteenth
century by John Nash. Henri Labrouste in 1843 had also used
a free-standing cast-iron pillar in one of the rooms of his
Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve. Le Corbusier used the free
pillar with a difference, however: through the girders of the
framework it takes up all the load in the structure and leaves
the walls with nothing to support. 5 This leads directly to Le
Corbusier's second principle.
2. The functional independence of skeleton and wall, in the case
not only of the outer walls but of the inner partitions also.
William Le Baron Jenney, in the first true· skeleton construc-
tion, his Leiter Building of 1889 (Chicago), also took advantage
of the complete freedom this type of framework building per-
mitted in the disposition of the nonsupporting inner walls.
Victor Horta, in his house in the Rue de Turin (1893), and
Perret, in his house in the Rue Franklin (1903), gave impetus
to the flexible treatment of the ground plan which the mutual
independence of the separate stories made possible.
3. Le plan libre. Le Corbusier converted the ferroconcrete
skeleton from a technical device into an aesthetic means. Le
Corbusier used the partition walls to model the interior space
of the house in the most varied manner, employing curved
staircases and curving or flat partition walls for both func-
tional and expressive purposes. The same means allowed him
to hollow out large portions of the house, and to bring about in-
terpenetrations of outer and inner space which are unfamiliar
and daring.
This whole treatment, the completely free and individualized
organization of separate stories, is what is meant by "open
5The machine shop which Walter Gropius built at the Fagus works in l9H also placed
the steel columns behind the outer wall.
524
planning" or le plan libre. By now the difference between the
open planning of Frank Lloyd Wright and that of European
architects should be apparent. The work of the latter was
based upon the new conception of space as essentially many-
sided which grew out of cubism.
4. The free fa~ade, which is a direct consequence of skeleton
construction.
5. The roof terrace. Frank Lloyd Wright's houses demand that
we go around them if we wish to understand their formation.
Now a house can be looked at from above or below; in a
sense it presents a surface that opens on the sky. The flat roof
is a recognition of a spatial extension of the house. It was used
by Le Corbusier for single family houses in his early period, in
the twenties and thirties. It was later developed more widely,
as in the plastically modeled roof top of the Unite d'Habitation
in Marseille, 1947-52 (jig. 326).
The Villa Savoie, 1928-30

Since 1922, when he first began to build regularly, Le Corbusier
made use of and developed these five principles. 6 The ex-
perience gained in the construction of several private homes
enabled him to use them in his work in more and more clarified
form. They appear at their purest, perhaps, in his Villa
Savoie, built at Poissy in 1928-30.
All Le Corbusier's houses attack the same problem. He was
always endeavoring to open up the house, to create new possi-
bilities for connections between its interior and exterior and
within the interior itself. We want rooms which can be
thrown open or enclosed at will, rooms whose outer partitions
fall away when we wish. Briefly, it is a question of achieving
dwellings of a sort which, up to then, had been beyond the
reach of conception and execution alike. The armature
construction was here in secret alliance with our half-realized
desires; it anticipated them, in fact.
Previously, Le Corbusier's houses had been built on rather The site
cramped plots, in more or less close proximity to their neigh-
6 Cf. S. Giedion, "Le Corbusier et !'architecture contemporaine," Cahiers d'art, V
(Paris, 1930), 205-215.
525
315. LE CORB USIER and P. JEANNERET. Villa Savoie at Poissy, 1928-30.
316. LE CORBUSIER and P . JEANNERET. Villa Savoie, 1928- 30. Cross section.
The hollowing out of the house from above and from below is accomplished with astonishing
sureness.
526
...-. -
317. LE CORBU-
SIER and P. JEAN-
NERET. Villa Savoie,
1928-30. View of ter-
race and roof garden,
and ground plan. Large
glass areas of the living
room are directed toward
the great terrace, which
gives the landscape as
well as the sky only in
silhouette. The ramp
leads from the first to
the second floor inside
the house and from the
second floor to the roof
garden outside.
527
bors. The site of the Savoie house, on the contrary, was
completely isolated (fig. 315).
This attempt to renew our connections with nature raises the
same fundamental questions wherever we build, by the sea-
shore, in the mountains, or - as in this case - on the undu-
lating expanses of the Seine valley just outside Paris.
At one period in his development Frank Lloyd Wright used to
employ the smallest crevices in the rocks to help bind his
houses still more closely to the earth. In the Savoie house Le
Corbusier did exactly the opposite. The city-dweller for whom
it was designed wanted to look out over the countryside rather
than to be set down among trees and meadows. He wanted to
enjoy the view, the breezes, and the sun - to experience that un-
hurried natural freedom which his work deprived him of. This
is another instance of two eternally opposed responses to na-
ture: a contemporary reflection of the difference between the
Greek temple, sharply outlined against its background, and
the medieval town, attached like a plant to the site on which
it stands.
The structure This house is a cube elevated on pillars. The cube part is not
a solid mass; it is hollowed out on both the southeast and
southwest sides so that when the sun comes up the light floods
the whole interior instead of merely skimming the outer wall.
The entrance hall is on the northwest, but in coming in from
the road one has to go all around the south side of the house to
reach it. Of course there is really no fagade and no back or
front, since the house is open on every side.
The living room - five meters by fourteen - has horizon-
tally sliding windows on two sides. The third wall (facing onto
the terrace) is glass from floor to ceiling for some two-thirds
of its length (fig. 317). Half of this glass partition can be
slid back by an easily manipulated lever. As a result, the
room can be arranged quite freely, while the occupant is
brought into connection with both the interior and the out-
doors. The surrounding landscape, however, never appears in
its full sweep. It is always shown in segments - framed, as it
were - not only in the interior rooms but also on the terrace.
528
The ramp in the Savoie house is in two sections (fig. 316): one Use of ramps
wing is inside; the other wing continues along an outer wall to
the roof garden. Besides the ramp, there is a spiral staircase
which leads from the ground to the roof.
The use of a ramp as a means of linking different horizontal
levels with interior and exterior spaces can be followed in Le
Corbusier's work up to his latest buildings. In the Capitol of
Chandigarh it appears in both the High Court of Justice and
the Secretariat. In the Visual Arts Center of Harvard Univer-
sity (1963) the ramp perforates straight through the building
(fig. 330).
It is impossible to comprehend the Savoie house by a view
from a single point; quite literally, it is a construction in space-
tip:le. The body of the house has been hollowed out in every
direction: from above and below, within and without. A cross
section at any point shows inner and outer space penetrating
each other inextricably.
Borromini had been on the verge of achieving the interpenetra-
tion of inner and outer space in some of his late baroque
churches. This interpenetration was first realized in our period,
through the methods of modern engineering, with the Eiffel
Tower of 1889. Then, in the late twenties, it became pos-
sible to achieve it in a dwelling. This possibility was latent
in the skeleton system of construction, but the skeleton had to
be used as Le Corbusier used it: in the service of a new concep-
tion of space. That is what he meant when he defined architec-
ture as construction spirituelle.
The neglect of the Villa Savoie is unfortunately typical of the
fate of many of Le Corbusier's buildings, and not only of his.
One has only to remember the fate of the Dessau Bauhaus,
which was treated disgracefully by both the Nazis and the
Communists, and the Frank Lloyd ~Wright Robie house. The
Villa Savoie was used as a hayloft during the German occupa-
tion and was severely damaged. In 1959 it was taken over by
the municipality of Poissy, which planned to demolish it and
erect a school in its place. At the last moment it was saved by
the Minister Andre Malraux and placed under protection as a
scheduled monument. Like the Maison La Roche, it is now
529
part of the Fondation Le Corbusier, which receives all proceeds
from the sale of Le Corbusier' s writings and paintings.
The League of Nations Competition, 1927: Contemporary Archi-

tecture Comes to the Front
The 1927 international competition for the League of Nations
Palace at Geneva is one of the most illuminating episodes in
the history of contemporary architecture. For the first time
present-day architects challenged the routine of the Academy
in a field which it had dominated for generations, the design of
monumentally impressive state buildings. The Academy won
this particular engagement, but its victory injured the prestige
of its methods.
The conventional routines showed themselves incapable of
producing architectonic solutions to problems of modern
organization. The proof of that helplessness did much to
break down popular resistance to modern treatments.
It was plain from the start that, among the 337 projects sub-
mitted, one - the work of Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret
- was peculiarly important and significant. Later develop-
ments verified this first judgment.
What made it important~ It unexpectedly forced high officials
from everywhere in Europe to consider seriously a kind of
architecture which they had always dismissed as aesthetic
trifling. For decades there had been an established style for
the stately official building- an international style that
hardly varied from country to country. Custom had made its
validity seem guaranteed for all time, and the official element
automatically turned to it when the matter of their Geneva
setting came up. The scheme that came to the forefront, how-
ever, shockingly disregarded the stylistic approach in order to
tackle specific problems.
Program The idea of a league of nations is one which we encounter time
and again in history. Its realization, however - the actual
establishment of a neutral center where representatives of
every country might meet to maintain the equilibrium of the
world - was a completely new thing and brought a highly
530
complex institution into being. Its varied functions required a
division of its headquarters into three main parts: a secretariat,
where the daily work of its administration could be carried on;
a meeting place for committees of various sorts whose sessions
occurred intermittently (the Conseil and the Grandes Commis-
sions); and a hall for the yearly sitting of the Assemblee generale.
Besides this, a great library was needed in the whole complex.
The outstanding fact about the scheme submitted by Le Le Corbusier's
Corbusier and Jeanneret 7 is that they found the most com- scheme
pact and best-conceived solution to these needs (fig. 318). 8
The Secretariat (fig. 321), the great administration building
near the entrance to the grounds, was given a slender wing
which paralleled the lake. The rows of horizontally sliding
windows gave every clerk or typist an unimpeded view over
water and mountains. A roof garden was available for rest
periods. The building had a ferroconcrete skeleton and
seemed to hover above its site on supporting pillars set back
of the curtain walls. Le Corbusier had used the same treat-
ment, a short time before and on a smaller scale, in his Villa
Cook at Boulogne-sur-Seine.
The great Assembly Building was moved forward to the lake
front. Two huge expanses of glass made up its side walls. The
Grande Salle des AssembU~es (fig. 319), meant for twenty-six
hundred auditors, was designed with the needs of a large audi-
ence as the determining factors. It had to be possible to hear
and see perfectly from every one of its seats. To ensure this,
the ceiling was given a nearly parabolic curvature. This was
on the advice of the specialist, Gustave Lyon. 9 But the ceiling
is not simply introduced into the design as an acoustical aid:
7 Cf. Le Corbusier, Une Maison, un palais (Paris, 1928). Here the architect himself
explains what he was aiming at in this scheme.
8 At the suggestion of the Friends of Modern Architecture- an association connected
with the International Congress for Modern Architecture (ClAM) - Le Corbusier's

plans for the palace of the League of Nations were saved and purchased by the Uni-
versity of Zurich in 1939. The great view of the palace (fig. 318) hangs near the mathe-
matics seminar of the University of Zurich. The other seventeen plans are preserved in
the archives and are always available for study.
9 Lyon had already constructed the Salle Pleyel at Paris. Le Corbusier's hall was de-
signed before the loud-speaker came into use and simplified the problem of hearing.
Such methods may be called for again in the future, however. We can reasonably expect
a revived demand on the part of the public for the natural tones of the human voice,
unaltered by electrical transmission.
531
it is taken up into and influences the whole form of the hall.
Le Corbusier converts what was offered simply as a technical
expedient into aesthetic means. Le Corbusier went a step fur-
ther in his project for the United Nations building in New
York, 1947. There he included the floor in the total curvature
of the space. This would have been the most inspiring interior
space of our period if its realization had not been made impos-
sible by certain political interests. The later development of
the hall by others shows no trace of Le Corbusier's inspired
sketch; it is merely an enormous igloo.
318. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. League of Nations Palace, Geneva,

1927. The first contemporary project for a monumental state building to gain serious at-
tention from the public and the official element. Open planning in ferroconcrete achieved an
efficient solution to a complex and variegated set of demands.
In the treatment of the ceiling Le Corbusier unconsciously

followed the example of earlier men. Thus Davioud in the
seventies used a parabolic ceiling in a project for a theater of a
capacity of five thousand. The Adler and Sullivan Auditorium
532
319. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. League of Nations Palace, 1927. Cross
section of the Grande Salle. The ceiling has the form of an acoustic shell with polished sur-
faces; it is hung from bridge girders in the roof. (The same problem was met and solved by
Adler and Sullivan in their Chicago Auditorium of 1887.) Le Corbusier takes a technical de-
vice and converts it into an aesthetic expression.
------
320. LE CORBUSIER and P.

JEANNERET. League of Nations
Palace, 1927. Sheltered, platform-like
entrance. The loading platform has been
purified in line and transformed into
architecture with a classic sureness, just
as the traffic ramp was in the Villa Savoie.
533
of 1887 in Chicago - the finest assembly hall of its period -
is similarly modeled by considerations of acoustics.
Le Corbusier's plans show a thoroughly considered treatment

of the traffic problem. The problem was acute when the
General Assembly was in session, and it had to be possible to
move great streams of cars in short order. The rear entrance
of the Assembly Building accordingly took its form from an
everyday solution to the same difficulty - the sheltered load-
321. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEANNERET. League of Nations Palace, 1927. Ad-

ministration Building (Secretarial general) , rear view.
ing platform set between two transit lines (fig. 320). But once
again a purely utilitarian development is transmuted into an
expressive means. The development of such a means of ex-
pression can be seen thirty years later in the transformation
of the architectonic articulation of the flat platform roof of the
League of Nations project into the upward curving concave
shell that rises majestically above the fa~ade of the Secretariat
Building at Chandigarh (fig. VII).
534
In the requirements of the Secretariat simply as an office
building, in the need for making it possible to hear from every
bench in the Grand Salle, in the traffic problems that arose
at general sessions - in the needs of life, that is - Le
Corbusier and Jeanneret found incentives to artistic creation.
But it was exactly those requirements which proved stum- Program evaded
bling blocks to the architects who adopted the familiar monu- academic solution
mental routine. The requirements of a complex new social
organism like the League of Nations could not be met by
schemes whose general outline was determined in advance
by the need for a certain type of impressive external appear-
ance. Everything was smothered by the ostentatious ex-
terior, as unsuitable here as plate armor for a man driving
a car. And an architecture which cannot mold itself to the
needs of its own time has lost its vital force.
The conventionally monumental schemes broke down in an-

other respect. At Versailles, where a great building complex
was first juxtaposed to nature, unlimited space was available,
and the absolute will behind this endeavor stamped its own
imprint upon the surrounding landscape. At Geneva the site
was strictly limited. Moreover, in this period we no longer
desire to forcer la nature: we seek to preserve it intact and to
bring it and our buildings into harmonious unity. This the
academic schemes were unable to do; they found no way of
avoiding extensive terracing of the site, which destroyed its
natural contours and left the huge bulk of the Palace perched
upon a ridiculously small pediment of lawn.
The Le Corbusier-J eanneret project would have preserved the

integrity of the plot. The flexibly arranged Assembly Building,
the narrow Secretariat, the Library, and the elevated passage-
ways connecting all three achieved a perfect adjustment to
the actual site.
Means developed during previous years are here brought to-

gether in the solution of a purely contemporary social prob-
lem. The plane surfaces which a long period of development
had brought to a position of dominance are joined with
the new lightness and charm achieved by construction. The
535
result is a kind of informality and flexibility such as had been
attained years earlier in the ground plan of the house. A build-
ing complex is evolved which goes beyond Renaissance concep-
tions of space and cannot be grasped by a view from any one
point. In its entirety the Palace realizes the new conception of
space-time.
A confusion of The projects that were entered in the 1927 international com-
architectural petition permit an exceptionally wide survey of the state of
languages
architecture at that time. All the architectural fashions of the
late nineteenth century are represented, together with all the
experimental developments in contemporary architecture.
The adherents of the Academy submitted beautifully executed
schemes which treated the Palace as if it were a prix de Rome
problem worked out in the quiet of the Villa Medici. From
the northern countries and from Germany there came either
smooth and placidly decorative projects or Faustean expres-
sionistic sketches in soft charcoal. The work from Italy and
from eastern Europe featured cupolas or mosque-like edifices
- one of which had no fewer than twenty interior light wells.
And from various countries the most radical experimentalists
sent plans - not always ripe for execution - of structures im-
bued with Russian constructivism or of dream fantasies in glass.
Although no other designs for the League of Nations building
had the clear-sighted rightness of Le Corbusier's plans, there
were other very considerable entries, such as those submitted
by Hannes Meyer and Hans ~Wittwer, R. J. Neutra, E. Men-
delsohn, and the Polish group Prezens. The catalogue of the
projects published by the awarders is even more instructive
than the catalogue of the competition for the Chicago Tribune
mentioned earlier. It demonstrates that the lowest mass stan-
dards guided the judgment of designs. The jury had to thread
its way through a confusion of crosscurrents, a confusion that
was reflected in its own composition.
Divisions among In fact, the state of architecture in each of the European
the jurors countries appeared in its choice of a distinguished man to
represent it on the jury. Those countries which had witnessed
genuine struggles for a new architecture sent men who had
stood in the midst of the fighting. The Dutch sent H. P. Ber-
536
lage; the Austrians, Josef Hoffmann; the Belgians, Victor
Horta. Switzerland was represented by Karl Moser, the man
whose efforts brought about the present high standard of
architectural education in that country.
The opposition, not only on the jury but in political circles,
came from countries which the thirty-year war for a new
architecture had scarcely touched - countries like England
and France, where the new movements had no influence upon
the public or upon state functionaries. The English juror was
Sir John Burnett; the French was M. Lemaresquier, one of the
heads of the Academie. He was the most active and influential
member of the academic party. It was he who prevented the
consideration of Le Corbusier's project on the trivial ground
that he had submitted blueprints instead of original drawings.
Lemaresquier was supported by Aristide Briand, the French
president of the Council of the League of Nations, and an in-
flexible opponent of contemporary architecture.
Berlage, Hoffmann, and Moser made up the group favoring
the choice of a work in the modern spirit; with the support of
Horta they would have constituted a clear majority. And
there was an intimate connection between Baron Horta's
early productions and the work of the younger architects.
His house in the Rue de Turin of 1893 and his Maison du
Peuple of 1897 had signaled the whole of Europe to abandon
methods that were in opposition to the times. For all that,
Horta joined the advocates of the conventions and made it
impossible for a nonacademic project to be selected for execu-
tion. Le Corbusier's project was one of these. The task
of making the final choice was passed on to the diplomatic
arm.
The jury finally reached a verdict by awarding nine first prizes
ex aequo. Not unreasonably, some of the diplomats regarded
this action as an evasion of duty on the part of the jury. As
a last compromise, the creators of four schemes in the estab-
lished international monumental style were selected to collab-
orate in a final version. 10
1° Further complications arose when a new and larger site was made available for the
Palace. In the effort to satisfy the daily needs of the League while at the same time re-
taining a majestic interior, several plans were drawn up. In the end it was found that
537
A new type of social organization, such as the League of
Nations, could not acquire a meaningful physical setting by
incorporating elements borrowed from Le Corbusier's project
in a formally academic architectural complex. In consequence
the Palace of the League of Nations has proved almost un-
usable. This principle holds good for architecture, and per-
haps also for politics. In 1927 the following comment appeared
under my name in the Berlin journal Bauwelt (p. 1096): "A
League of Nations building that ties itself to the ghosts of
history is likely to become a haunt of ghosts. "
We have paid particular attention to the League of Nations
Palace because it served as the general public's first introduc-
tion to contemporary architecture. The same year also marked
its introduction to modern solutions of the housing problem.
It was in 1927 that the Deutsche \Verkbund put Mies van der
Rohe in complete charge of the W eissenhof settlement at Stutt-
gart. Mies van der Rohe entrusted the design of the houses to
those architects from all over Europe who had been most active
in the new developments. The elimination of Le Corbusier's
project for the League of Nations was one of the reasons for
founding the ClAM in 1928.
The Centrosoyus, Le Corbusier's Geneva plan remained a project, but the prin-
Moscow ciples embodied in it were partially realized in the Centrosoyus
at Moscow (1928-34). The erection of the Centrosoyus-
now the Ministry of Light Industry - was retarded partly by
the requirements of the Five-Year Plan and partly by the
emergence of an architectural reaction. It was one of the last
modern structures erected in Russia.
Le Corbusier's design for the Palace of the Soviets (1931) fell
within the period of Stalinist reaction. \Vith the ceiling of the
great hall suspended on wire cables from a parabolic curve
(fig. 433), it was Le Corbusier's boldest accomplishment up to
that time. In 1931 the realization of this project or any of the
other contemporary schemes, such as those by Gropius and
the only possible solution was to follow Le Corbusier's general layout. This general
arrangement the architects treated in a spirit of routine that shows in their use of color-
less academic shapes to produce a formal exterior appearance. In 1937, ten years after
the competition was held, the building was opened and put into service. Everyone, from
typists to diplomats, agreed that it was a failure.
538
Breuer and by the sculptor Gabo, was no longer conceivable in
the U.S.S.R.
Large Constructions and Architectural Aims

In Paris, at about the same time, two large constructions by
Le Corbusier appeared in quick succession: the Salvation Army
hospice (1929-33) and the Swiss Pavilion of the University
City (1931-33). Both show additions toLe Corbusier's equip-
ment .of aesthetic means.
The pavilion of the Swiss dormitory is one of Le Corbusier's
freest and most imaginative creations. The whole building is
supported by immense ferroconcrete pillars which run deep
into the soil to the underlying rock. One side of the building
consists of the glass curtain wall of the studios; the other is
modeled carefully in a curved wall of rugged stone. , To the
best of our knowledge this was the first time that the curved
wall again came into use in modern architecture (fig. 322).U
But what strikes one from the very first as extraordinary is the
molding of volumes and space in the entrance hall. Although
the room at his disposal was relatively limited, the imagina-
tion of the architect has created a space that is living, free,
and vast. In the inventiveness it displays it is comparable
to the work of the great periods. It is significant that the
means employed are apparently very simple: the exact place-
ment of the staircase and the unexpected undulations in the
walls (the principle of the plan libre).
Le Corbusier's writings- ranging in subject from painting to Le Corbusier
city planning - have had as much influence as his buildings, as a writer
not only in Europe and the United States but in Latin Amer-
ica as well. Le Corbusier's literary connections were not even
restricted to the arts. The articles in the periodical L' Esprit
nouveau which Jeanneret (Le Corbusier) and Ozenfant pub-
lished during the years 1919-25 deal with developments in ev-
ery field which had a formative influence upon the thought of
the period.
11For further illustrations see Le Corbusier, (Euvre complete, 1929-1934, vol. II (Zurich,
1931), with introduction by Sigfried Giedion.
539
0
Le Corbusier had two great gifts: he could reduce a compli-
cated problem to astonishingly simple basic elements, and he
could summarize those results in formulas of lapidary clearness.
But however summary the manner of treatment might be,
basic concepts and principles were never lost sight of. The
first three chapters of Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture 12
cannot be ignored in any study of our time. In turning "les
yeux qui ne voient pas" to the beauty of "les autos, les avions,
les paquebots '' he pointed out the bridge between the engineer
and the architect. At the same time he found enchanting words
for the beauty of the Parthenon.
On what does Le Corbusier's achievement rest~ His construc-
tions do not show Auguste Perret's precise engineering, and
his houses do not match J. J. P. Oud's infinitely painstaking
attention to detail. Le Corbusier approached the house with
a seismographic delicacy of perception and freed it from its
inherited ponderousness. It was his aim to incorporate in
the house the floating counterbalance of forces, the lightness
and openness, which nineteenth-century iron construction
succeeded in expressing in abstract terms. He showed us
how to model all the surfaces of a house - above and below
as well as at the sides, a tendency that approaches the sculp-
tural modeling of a volume on all sides around 1960.
The elements Le Corbusier used are often to be found ready to
hand in industry. The pillars on which his houses are poised
occur in many warehouses; the elongated window - fenetre en
longueur - is a familiar consequence of methods of construc-
tion used in factories. The loading platform which he in-
corporated in state buildings and the ramps he employed in
some of his houses for an interpenetration of inner and outer
space are used in many French railway stations (for example,
the Gare Montparnasse).
Le Corbusier lifted these elements out of their everyday exist-
ence and changed them as the painters changed scraps of
12 Originally published in L'Esprit nouveau, 1920.
"1'--
322. LE CORBUSIER and P. JEAN-

NEH.ET. Swiss dormitory in the Cite Uni-
versitaire, Paris, 1930-32.
541
323. PICASSO. "Woman in 324. LE CORBUSIER. Project for
an Armchair," 1938. Detail. exhibition at Liege, 1937.
paper into art. He fused these elements on the basis of our

spatial conception into a new architectonic language.
Social Imagination
Between 1938 and 1953 small structures and one-family houses
played no important role in Le Corbusier's development:
during this period he became more and more the creator of
large-scale designs. 13
These projects coincided with general signs of a new humani-
zation of urban life on the horizon. Man is no longer satisfied
to remain a mere onlooker, whether at a football game or a
television screen. His spontaneous reactions can be seen in
every part of the world during moments in which the passive
spectator has become transformed into an active participant. 14
There is a world-wide trend toward creating centers of social
activity, and this calls for far more from the architect than
just technical capacity. His task today is infinitely more
complicated than that of his predecessors at the time when
Versailles was built. They had but to give concrete form to
an exact program placed before them by a clearly stratified
13 For detailed information see Le Corbusier, CEuvre complete, vol. IV (Zurich, 1949) and
vol. V (Zurich, 1953).
14 S. Giedion, "The Humanisation of Urban Life," in ClAM, The Heart of the City,
edited by Tyrwhitt, Rogers, Sert (New York, 1952).
542
society. Today the architect has to anticipate needs and to
solve problems that exist only half consciously in the crowd.
This involves a great responsibility. The architect has to
have the rare gift of a peculiar sensitivity that we would like
to term social imagination.
This is the aspect of Le Corbusier's work between 1938 and
1953 which will here be evaluated.
Le Corbusier cast the net of his vision over the chaos of
the contemporary metropolis. 15 In his plans he cut thor-
oughfares through vested interests, demolishing whole quarters
and raising them anew. Reality does not easily permit the
realization of such radical operations, yet many of these plans
-such as the second master plan for Algiers, 1942 16 - will
have more significance for future planners than the usual
piecemeal rehabilitation.
Three landmarks stand out from Le Corbusier's work between
1938 and 1952. All of them are related to farsighted plans:
The Core of St. Die, 1945, the Unite d'Habitation, Marseille,
1947-52, and the Capitol of Chandigarh, India, since 1951.
The civic center of St. Die 17 displays in a masterly way a new St. Die
kind of spatial relationship. The different buildings are de-
signed and placed in such a way that each emanates its own
spatial atmosphere and yet bears a close relationship to the
whole core. The area is perforated by volumes of widely
different shape that continually fill in or hollow out the space
like contemporary sculptures.
People walking around or sitting in the cafe that forms a
corner of the square would have a continuously changing
spatial experience. Theater, museum, administration center,
all are freely placed in space, and the eye can even glimpse the
distant old cathedral and on the opposite bank of the river
green-girdled factories, les usines vertes, as Le Corbusier called
15 S. Giedion, A Decade of Contemporary Architecture (Zurich, 1951), p. 201; e.g. Buenos
Aires, 1938, and pilot plan for Bogota with J. L. Sert and P. L. Wiener, 1949-50; Le
Corbusier, CEuvre complete, V, 142-147.
16 See Le Corbusier, CEuvre complete, IV, 44-65. The story of this scheme has been told
by Le Corbusier himself in a small booklet Poesie sur Alger (Paris, 1950), with most
charming sketches.
17 Le Corbusier, CEuvre complete, IV, 132-139.
543
them. Medieval Italy knew how to place volumes in space:
in the Piazza del Duomo in Pisa the cathedral, baptistry,
campanile, and camposanto give an exciting display of volumes
in space. The modest unrealized scheme of St. Die develops
a different spatial conception. The relationship in the medie-
val period was the relationship of formally closed volumes.
Today we are moving toward a more dynamic conception of
space, created by solids and voids.
The whole area of the core of St. Die is reserved exclusively
for pedestrians and this, but not only this, relates it to the
Greek Agora. St. Die, for the first time in our period, would
have presented a crystallization of community life which
could have equaled the Greek meeting place. All political
parties of the small French city of St. Die, including those of
the extreme left, incited by the academicians, shouted so
effectively against the scheme that Le Corbusier's core was
condemned to remain on paper.
Architecture cannot be confined to those buildings that have
been erected. Architecture is a part of life and architecture
is a part of art. As a part of life it is more dependent than any
other form of art upon the will of the public; upon their desire
to see or not to see a scheme come into being. In architecture
the standard of values of the client is as important as the
standards of the builder.
If in the time of the Parthenon, the Pantheon, Chartres, or
St. Peter's the taste of those who had power to order the
erection of public buildings had been as weak and debased as
it is today, none of them would ever have been built. They
were daring experiments, all of them.
The Unite d'Habitation, 1947-52

One of the few instances where social imagination has been
given three dimensional expression is the "Unite d'Habita-
tion," 1947-52- the residential unit- on the Boulevard
Michelet in the outskirts of Marseille. The Marseillais call
it simply "Maison Le Corbusier." That this daring building
could be successfully completed during five difficult postwar
years is due to the courage of M. Claudius Petit, the French
544
Minister of Reconstruction, who defended it to the very last
against violent attacks, and who on the opening day in October
1952 decorated Le Corbusier with the Legion of Honor upon
the roof of the Unite d 'Habitation.
The housing problem begins to take on a wider meaning.

Both architect and planner are now working to rebuild the
broken relationship between the individual and the collective
spheres.
The boldness of the Unite d'Habitation does not consist in
housing some 1600 people under one roof or even in providing
twenty-three different types for its 337 apartments varying
from one room up to dwellings for "families with eight chil-
dren." Its boldness consists in its social implementation.
The most interesting experiment in this residential unit was
to take the shopping center from the ground and from the
street and to place it on the central floor of the building itself.
From outside, this central shopping street - la rue marchande
- can be immediately identified by its two-story louvers.
These, together with the vertical rows of square staircase
windows in the middle of the block, vitalize and give scale
to the whole front. The shopping street includes shops for
groceries, vegetables, meat and fish, laundry and cleaning
services, hairdresser and beauty shop, newspaper stand, post-
office, cafeteria, and hotel rooms. On the seventeenth floor
is placed the nursery for 150 children. A ramp leads directly
to the roof terrace with its rest room on pilotis, its shallow
pool, and some charming installations for the children, who
are encouraged to decorate the walls with their own murals.
The other part of the 24 X 165 meter roof terrace is designed

for social activities of the adults. There is an area for gym-
nastics, partly open and partly covered, and, at the north end
of the building, a large slab which acts as a protection against
the strong north wind- the JY!islral- and also as a back-
ground for open-air theatrical performances. On July 26th
1953, when ClAM celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary on
the roof terrace of the Unite d'Habitation, it looked like a
painting of Paolo V eronese, for all the different levels were
filled with people, and architecture was vibrant with life.
545
325. LE CORB USIER. Unite d'Habitation, Marseille, 1947-52. Detail.
The features that make the Unite d'Habitation so rare an

architectural spectacle are its plastic qualities. In the hands
of Robert Maillart, reinforced concrete lost its rigidity and
became almost an organic skeleton, where every particle
throbbed with life. In the hands of Le Corbusier the amor-
phous material of crude concrete - beton brut - assumed the
features of natural rock. He did not smooth away the marks
and hazards of the form work and the defects of bad craftsman-
ship which, as Le Corbusier stated in his opening address,
"shout at one from all parts of the structure. " The use of the
546
326. LE CORBlJSIER. Unite d'Habitation, Marseille, 1947-52. View, and cross
sections.
natural imprints of wooden boards to vitalize a concrete sur-

face was far from new, yet it had never been used so consistent-
ly to give ferroconcrete the properties of " a natural material
of the same rank as stone, wood or terra cotta. " Le Corbusier
continued: " It seems to be really possible to consider concrete
as a reconstructed stone worthy of being exposed in its natural
state." 18 In England, a few years later, there arose an archi-
tectural trend calling itself" the new brutalism" that took this
approach as its starting point.
18 Le Corbusier, <Euvre complete, V, 191.
547
The rough concrete surface is employed wherever it can
strengthen plastic intentions, as in the herring-bone pattern
of the huge supporting pilotis, left by the narrow boards that
composed their wooden form work. On the roof the rough
surfaces of the ventilator shafts and elevator tower, on which
every change in the strong Mediterranean light plays with a
peculiar intensity, help to transform these utilitarian objects
into exciting plastic elements.
Strong, pure colors are used in this building, but Le Corbusier,
the painter, refrained from using any colors directly upon
the fa<;ade. He painted the side walls of the balconies red,
green, yellow, but not the front. In this way they are made to
gleam like vivid colors through gauze. Bright color is also
used in all the artificially lit rue-interieures and serves to
lighten the dimness of these long corridors.
Site The Unite d'Habitation rises beside the road which leads to
the Riviera and faces east and west. Each two-story apart-
ment looks to both sides. To the east their view embraces an
arena of the limestone mountains that can be found every-
where in Provence. To the west lie the blue waters of the
Mediterranean; while directly below the eye can rest on tree
tops interspersed with red-tiled southern roofs. If Cezanne
was able to seize the soul of Provence in his pictures, Le
Corbusier knew how to capture it within an architectural
frame.
Le Corbusier, as well as everybody else, knew that the Unite
d'Habitation was a daring experiment both in the plastic
sense and even more in the sphere of social imagination. Even
after its successful opening in the fall of 1952 the French
government remained skeptical and dared not even to take the
risk of renting the apartments and shops but demanded that
they be sold outright, loading any risk upon the shoulders of
the inhabitants and shopkeepers.
Yet there is no longer any doubt that this building has had an
enormous influence in shaping the mind of the younger genera-
tion. It has also helped to liberate the mind of the architect
and planner from the conception of housing as a simple addi-
tion of single units and to expand it to the wider frame of the
human habitat.
548
Chandigarh
The foundation of new towns is a sign of vitality and of an
enterprising courage. New towns are often related to higher
living standards or to the promise of them. This was the case
during the Gothic period, when new towns suddenly sprang
up in central and western Europe. The same phenomenon
occurred during the last century in the United States, fore-
shadowing its industrial hegemony.
Toward the middle of the twentieth century we are witnessing
the decentralization of western culture. New energy radiates
from its former fringes: Finland, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela,
Canada, to name only some areas of the centers of a new
vitality. Countries which have long been slumbering begin to
awake and to become active participants in an evolution which
is encompassing the entire world. In this process spirits of
East and vV est are meeting together.
In the foreword to the Japanese translation of this book we
tried to give some hint of this development: "Western civiliza-
tion is actually in a state of transition. Experience is slowly
showing us that the rationalist and exclusively materialistic
attitude upon which the latest phase of western civilization
has been grounded is insufficient. Full realization of this fact
leads us slowly towards a new hybrid development."
This meeting of East and vV est may explain why India - New regional ap-
through the understanding of its leader Pandit Nehru - proach
could choose a western architect for the new Capitol of
Chandigarh. Yet there is also another reason. This is an
inherent trend in contemporary architecture toward satisfying
cosmic and terrestrial conditions and the habits which have
developed naturally out of them. This explains why the forms
of Brazilian architecture and Aalto's work in Finland, though
so different, are both imbued with the spirit of the age. Both
are regional contributions to a universal architectural con-
ception. This attempt to meet cosmic, terrestrial and re-
gional conditions may be termed the new regional approach.
This is the method of the best contemporary architects and is
fully developed in Le Corbusier's boldest architectural ad-
venture: the Capitol of Chandigarh.
549
327. LE CORBUSIER. The High Court of Justice, Chandigarh, completed in
March 1956.
~When the Punjab was divided in 1947 between Pakistan and

India, the ancient capital Lahore was attached to Pakistan.
A new capital became necessary for the East Punjab with
its twelve and a half million inhabitants. On a sloping pla-
teau at the foot of the Himalayas a superb site was dis-
covered in 1950 through airplane reconnaissance by E. L.
Varma, an eminent Indian government engineer.
The new capital city was called Chandigarh after a village on

the site. When complete, it will house half a million people.
The first section is for a population of 150,000. Le Cor-
busier made the operative master plan of the city, with its
many walled units, each 800 X 1,200 meters. 19 The develop-
ment of these units, each surrounded by major traffic streets,
was directed by Pierre Jeanneret, who continued to work in
Chandigarh until his death. For the first years he was joined
by Jane Drew and Maxwell Fry. The plans were carried out
by a staff of Indian architects and engineers.
19See Le Corbusier, ffiuvre complete, V, 128-159. The first master plan, less regular
in form, was designed by Albert Mayer and Matthew Nowiczky, 1949-50. See Otto
Konigsberger, "New Towns in India," Town Planning Review, XXIII, 116 (1952).
550
328. LE CORBUSlER. The High Court of Justice, Chandigarh, completed in 1956.
The building is reflected in a large pool. The arcade below the butterfly roof gives the whole
building something of the delicacy of Indian architecture. The perforated wall of the arcade
and the downward slope of the roof serve as a natural ventilating system, permitting air to
pass freely through the building, and also serve to express contemporary tendencies.
A town planner, an architect, an artist, a sculptor, and a man

with the grasp of a poet surveyed a wide empty space at
the foot of the Himalayas. These five were united in one
person. This is the spot where the Capitol of Chandigarh now
stands. There is nothing more thrilling for the truly creative
mind than to turn a dream into reality here on this myth-
soaked soil. To achieve this, it may be worthwhile to have
accepted a lifetime of humiliations.
We can follow line by line in Le Corbusier's sketch-book how
the vision of the new Capitol crystallized, how it became a
mighty monument in which, for the first time, eastern and
western thought flowed into each other without a break.
Western calculation, shell concrete vaulting and a butterfly
roof of huge size which are normally associated with locomotive
551
sheds and station platforms, here change under our very eyes
into some dream-building of the East (fig. 328).
The program for the Capitol consists of a House of Parliament,
a building for the Ministries (the Secretariat), and the High
Court of Justice. The Governor's Palace, in which a huge up-
ward-curving concrete roof was used for the first time, unfor-
tunately remains unbuilt. 20 The Secretariat (fig. VII) was
completed in 1956. It was followed by the Parliament Build-
ing, whose assembly hall takes the form of an upright hyper-
boloid, its upper part projecting far beyond the horizontal roof.
The entry to the Parliament Building, on the south side, is
formed by a mighty free-standing, upward-curving shell sup-
ported on pillars (fig. VII). The High Court of Justice, with
its seven chambers, was completed in 1956. Its enormous
butterfly roof provides an umbrella of reinforced concrete
against tropical sun and monsoon rains, which last from July to
October. The huge sloping eaves stretch far out from the
building. Parabolic shell vaults stiffen the structure and span
the wide open entrance hall, which reaches up to the full height
of the building. In this strange Palace of Justice modern tech-
niques comply with cosmic conditions, with the country and
with the habits of its people.
What astonishes the European eye is the large distances be-
tween the buildings. But there will be no dead surfaces be-
tween them. The sculptor in Le Corbusier took the opportu-
nity to mold the enormous surface by varying levels, large
pools, green lawns, single trees, artificial hills made of surplus
material; and also by symbolic representations of the harmonic
spiral, the daily path of the sun and other such. A dominant
symbol will be the "open hand," planned to be seen from every-
where and to "turn on ball bearings like a weathercock." 21
The impress of the human hand placed upon the rock was the
first artistic utterance of man. This symbol is still alive in
India, and at the marriage feast friends leave the red stamp of
their hands - red is the color of good luck - on the white
walls of the bridal pair.
20 Le Corbusier, CEuvre complete, V, 154.

21 See Le Corbusier, CEuvre complete, V, 150, 151.
552
A monument in the form of an enormous hand can be found
earlier in the work of Le Corbusier. It was then an aggressive
and menacing hand. Now under an eastern sky it has qui-
eted down like the hand of Buddha.
E. L. Varma, who discovered the site of Chandigarh, has given
the Indian response to this symbol in a letter to Le Corbusier:
"We have a word, Ram Bharosa, which indicates deep faith
in the ultimate - faith born of the surrender of the will to
the Ultimate Source of Knowledge, service without reward
and much more. I live in that faith and feel happy in the
vision of the new city which is so safe and so secure in its
creation in your hands.
"We are humble people. No guns to brandish, no atomic
energy to kill. Your philosophy of 'Open Hand' will appeal
to India in its entirety. What you are giving to India and
what we are taking from your open hand, I pray, may become
a source of new inspiration in our architectural and city
planning. We may on our side, when you come here next,
be able to show you the spiritual heights to which some of the
individuals have attained. Ours is a philosophy of open hand.
Maybe Chandigarh becomes the center of new thought."
Later Work
The 1953-64 period brought Le Corbusier recognition and the
realization of many of his large schemes. It had taken a
long time before he could build his first project, the Unite
d'Habitation in Marseille. He had to wait till he was sixty
years old. Then commissions multiplied, just as with the other
pioneers. He had to refuse commissions that during the years
of his ripe manhood he would have pursued in vain.
One of the principal reasons for this is that Le Corbusier never
relinquished holding in his own hand the entire development of
a project- just like a painter or a sculptor. It was for him
quite unthinkable to operate an "architectural factory" with
a hundred or more assistants. Like Picasso he remained a
Bohemian and lived frugally. He continued to use the same
drab studio he had had since his early days (at 35 Rue de
Sevres), with its cramped drafting room and four or five as-
553
329. LE CORBUSIER. Pilgrimage Chapel of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps,
1955. The aspirations of contemporary architecture are concentrated in this single build-
ing: a restrengthening of the sculptural approach to the handling of volumes is linked to
the hollowing out of space, within and without.
sistants. Often the working drawings for projects had to be

made elsewhere.
We have to wait before it is possible to evaluate the complete
significance of Le Corbusier's work. We need historical per-
spective in order to make a final assessment of his buildings.
However, the unity of his work is already clear, even though
the outward appearances of his early and late work seem so
different. A cubist painting by Picasso around 1912 is very
different from his "Guernica" (1937), a painting that gave
lasting form to a moment in time (fig. 266) - and also very
different from his later female figures. The same is true of Le
Corbusier's early and late work. Like Picasso, Le Corbusier
had antennae that sensed coming changes. The Pilgrimage
Chapel at Ronchamps, 1955 (fig. 329), is outwardly very dif-
ferent from the Villa Savoie, 1928-30; and the Dominican
Priory of LaTourette near Lyons, 1960, is very different from
the La Roche house in Auteuil, 1923- 24.
554
What does this mean?
Le Corbusier's development mirrors the unfolding of our period
-an unfolding that first centered on an awareness of the
possibilities that lay dormant in the new sources of strength.
Le Corbusier, like Gropius and Mies van der Rohe, each in his
own way, found this development led to a desire for the inter-
penetration of interior and exterior space. HowLe Corbusier's
development coincides with that of contemporary architecture
is discussed in the introduction to this book: volumes in space,
sculptural tendencies, architecture and sculpture, the vaulting
problem, the revitalization of the wall.
The Villa Savoie, 1928-30 (figs. 315-317), represents the peak
of Le Corbusier's early period, and at the same time contains
elements of the period to come. It is a cube standing on a wide
plain. But the cube has been hollowed out, made transparent,
and raised aloft on supports. These supports are a prelude to
the huge reinforced concrete pillars of the Swiss student dor-
mitory in the Cite Universitaire of Paris, which stand in the
open, supporting the whole building mass. The free-standing
concrete walls on the roof terrace of the Villa Savoie, with their
lightness and curvature, are an introduction to the play of
volumes on the roof of the Unite d'Habitation at Marseille
(1947-52).
The Philips Pavilion at the Brussels Worlds Fair (1958) was a
hyperbolic-parabolic sheath. Upon the curving walls of the
dark, cave-like interior a film was projected every twenty
minutes, a poem of mankind by Le Corbusier accompanied by
electronic music by V arese. There were other hyperbolic-
parabolic constructions at the Brussels exhibition, but they
lacked the inner tension of the Philips Pavilion. It was a
source of inspiration for other buildings such as Kenzo Tange's
bold steel wire stadium for the Olympic Games in Tokyo, 1964
(fig. VI).
In addition came buildings such as the Pilgrimage Chapel of
Ronchamps, 1955 (figs. V, 329) 22 and the Dominican Priory of
La Tourette near Lyons (1960), that outwardly completely
changed the conventional plans of a pilgrimage church and a
pnory.
22For a description of its inauguration on June 25, 1955, see S. Giedion, Architecture,
You and Me.
555
330. LE CORBUSIER. The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University,
1963. General view of the building from Prescott Street. The ramp starts at the height of the
second floor from a platform that roofs over the library book slacks of the neighboring Fogg
Museum of Fine Arts.
The Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard University,

1963
The Visual Arts Center, which would be better called the
Center for Visual Education, is designed for students whose
normal courses - law, economics, medicine, chemistry, theol-
ogy, philosophy and so forth- have nothing to do with the
creative arts. At the beginning of their studies, in their first
years in college, the Center should open their eyes and teach
them to see. This is an electronic age, when visual under-
standing is constantly growing in strength in comparison to the
written word. Seeing cannot be understood merely from the
aspect of optics. It is more of a psychic manifestation. This is
332. Third floor plan showing penetra-
tion of the ramp: above, Quincy Street;
below, Prescott Street. ~
556
331. General view from Quincy Street. The ramp. To the right, the elevator tower. To
the left, the pro.iecling studio .for two-dimensional studies .
where the function of art and its means of expression come to
the fore.
The Arts Center is squeezed between the University's Fogg
Art Museum and the Faculty Club. The search to obtain a
more open site to give the building greater room to breathe was
fruitless. Thus the Center lies between two buildings and be-
tween two streets, Prescott Street and Quincy Street, with
no possibility to radiate its sculptural strength.
The building consists of a central cube with curving bays that
reach out to the two streets. The elevator shaft projects above
the building. An outstanding feature is the S-shaped ramp
which begins at both streets and tunnels through the third
story of the building (jig. 330). It presents a symbol of the
bridge to the outer world that the Center is intended to create.
In Le Corbusier's work, ramps appear early as links between
two levels, as in the marvelous interpenetration of inner and
outer space of the Villa Savoie, 1928-30 (jig. 316). The imme-
diate predecessor of the Carpenter Center is the ramp of an in-
dustrial office building in Ahmedabad, 1954. As at Harvard
the entry ramp is for pedestrians only, but at Ahmedabad it
runs straight into the building, without curving and without
penetrating through it.
The origin of Some years ago the design of an art center was given as a thesis
the Center problem in the Harvard Graduate School of Design. A student
named Alfred H. Carpenter was particularly impressed by the
problem. A year later he appeared at Harvard and presented
the dean of the Graduate School of Design, Jose Luis Sert, with
a check for one and a half million dollars, in the name of
his father, to build a Harvard Art Center. The dean recom-
mended that Le Corbusier be commissioned as the architect.
It was the first and last commission that Le Corbusier received
from the United States after his disappointing experiences with
the United Nations building in New York.
Le Corbusier came only once to Harvard to examine the site
and situation before he started to sketch out a design. The
exact time of his arrival had not been announced; nevertheless,
the entire school of architecture was at the airport to greet him.
The students objected to the secrecy of the visit and took a
558
friendly revenge. All around the walls of Robinson Hall, the
center of the Graduate School of Design, rough charcoal draw-
ings appeared, depicting a group of American Indians on the
warpath tracking down signs of Le Corbusier's presence. Fi-
nally, they showed him discovered in the form of the famous
Modular man, with upraised hand and a large hole through his
navel; the form that Le Corbusier had used to establish his
system of proportions. This was the start.
The creation of an institute for visual studies within the frame- Purpose of
work of a great university presented many difficult problems in visual studies
its planning and still more in its implementation, since it dealt
with the creation of a prototype. These difficulties arise from
the structure of our society, from the cutting off of relations
between the intellectual and emotional spheres of life - be-
tween scholarly development and artistic expression - a sep-
aration that has existed for more than a century and a half.
This disastrous rift between thinking and feeling now has to be
overcome.
We have no example of how to operate an institution that has
set itself the goal of reinstating an uninterrupted relationship
between thinking and feeling. Without the active participa-
tion of the most important representatives of different faculties
this is not possible. The basic question is the same for all
faculties: "What relations exist between my discipline and
art?" We can be sure that the basis of these relationships
given by the different disciplines would certainly not be the
same, especially as the structures of the various sciences are
so very different.
The term "Visual Arts" can easily be misunderstood. The
goal is by no means to practice dilettantish painting or sculp-
ture. All efforts should be bent to developing an emotional
sensitivity and powers of artistic judgment.
A routine program, such as can fairly easily be proposed for a The plan
physics or chemical institute, does not exist for this kind of
center. Thus, Le Corbusier was given no detailed instructions
about programing of spaces. He was simply asked to create
the maximum amount of flexible space. This involved the
danger of designing the interior like a warehouse. Both the
559
three-dimensional studies projects forward (see plan, fig . 332). The ramp is visible in the
distance, below it on the right.
sunlit and shadow sides of the resulting space were clear to me

when in the spring of 1964 I held lectures and seminars in the
Center.
The basement of the building was designed to be used as a
luxurious setting for photographic and cinematic research,
naturally including a projection room, which must now also be
used as a lecture hall. The absence of a real lecture hall is very
noticeable.
The second and third floors, with their curving walls, are used
as studios (fig. 334). The fourth floor, in my view, has not yet
acquired its final form. If the relationship with other faculties
is to be brought to life, many more seminar rooms must be
created as well as a small specialized library, and also space
where students and professors can talk together. Indeed, if the
560
334. The studio for two-dimensional studies.
Center is to achieve its goal it must fulfill an intellectual and

scientific function. On the fifth floor is a magnificent sculptor's
studio (fig. 335).
Somehow Le Corbusier was aware of the understandable in-
completeness of the program. Below the sculptural forward
thrust of the working studios, under the pilotis, is a hollow
space that can be vitalized only with difficulty. Had a lecture
hall been included in the program, Le Corbusier, the master of
335. The studio of the sculptor

Mirko. artistic head of the Center.
561
shaping interior space, would doubtless have found a mar-
velous way to incorporate it into the volume of the building.
Behind us lies the tragic history of the nineteenth century,
when art ceased to be the key to reality. Only when the best
representatives of the faculties are convinced that a close rela-
tion between art - between psychic seeing - and science is
today vitally necessary can a center of this kind succeed in its
aim to educate - or just to bring an awareness to - future
leaders for their later functions in life.
Bridge between The problem is anchored deep in the heart of our period. It is
thinking and a long way from the specialization of today to the reinstate-
feeling
ment of a universal viewpoint, in the absence of which any true
culture is unthinkable. It lies in the incorporation into science
of the realm of emotion as it is expressed in art. Happily, this
need is strongly advocated not only by historians and philos-
ophers but also by scientists. In his book Der Mensch und die
Naturwissenschajtliche Erkenntnis (Man and the Knowledge of
Natural Sciences) Professor Heitler, atomic physicist at the
University of Zurich, attacks his own discipline. He affirms
that the qualitative must enter alongside purely quantitative
research in physics. In other words, the human factor must be
included. Werner Heisenberg and the British biologist C. H.
Waddington are also not afraid of including findings from the
realm of art in their scholarly views of the world.
The humanization of scientific research desired by a modern
physicist is just what the new Carpenter Center should move
toward. It is the task of this new institution to throw a bridge
across the chasm between methods of thinking and methods of
feeling.
To prepare for this, a seminar of professors from different
faculties was proposed, to be attended by major personalities
such as Kenneth Galbraith (economics), Arthur Maass (gov-
ernment), David Riesman (behavioral sciences), I. A. Richards
(poet and critic), Jose Luis Sert (architect and planner),
Gyorgy Kepes (an artist who has studied optical phenomena
since Bauhaus days), as well as a philosopher, a pathologist,
an anatomist, a musicologist, and the faculty of the Carpenter
Center.
562
At a meeting on April 30, 1964, I presented two themes for
their discussion: "How can a relationship be established be-
tween the different faculties and the Carpenter Center~ " and
"How can the aesthetic judgment of the students be sharp-
ened~" Everyone recognized the possibilities as well as the
practical difficulties. To give one example, the anatomist
pointed out that students found it very difficult to distinguish
longitudinal from transverse sections under the electron micro-
scope.
The Carpenter Center is an attempt to penetrate the unknown.
If this attempt is to succeed, it needs the active and interested
cooperation of the different faculties and a head for whom
modern art is a living part of his being, and who also possesses
intellectual and scientific insight.
Le Corbusier and His Clients

Le Corbusier epitomizes why we have again and again to re-
iterate what a heavy burden we have inherited from the nine-
teenth century, a period when the real specialists in the realm
of feeling- painters, architects, sculptors- were banished
from the stage of life. Their clients - people who held power
- proved incapable of recognizing those who possessed the cre-
ativity and imagination to give form to the eternally changing
stream of life and thus to find an answer to the inner needs of
the contemporary situation. The reason for this inability lies
in the discrepancy between the clients' highly developed meth-
ods of thinking and their retarded methods of feeling. The
mistaken views of clients are certainly not always owing to bad
will or the interests of particular cliques. Clients are unable to
recognize instinctively those who carry the germs of the future
and are thus able to solve new problems because their judg-
ment often remains generations behind.
The tragic note that sounded throughout the life of Le Cor-
busier was the note of obstruction. He was a man who bore a
message and cried it aloud only to be pushed aside again and
agam. He was obliged to see others achieve what he had pro-
posed.
563
The exploration of a synthesis of the elements of co.11plex prob-
lems was in his blood: from the problem of proportions to the
urbanistic assembly of complex structures for world organiza-
tions- the League of Nations, the United Nations, UNESCO.
In the case of the League of Nations building in Geneva (1927),
it was French political intrigues that annihilated his scheme
though, in the end, his rivals were obliged to imitate the or-
ganization of his site plan (see pp. 537-538).
In the case of the United Nations building in New York (1947),
twenty years after the Geneva competition, the situation was
completely different. The United Nations had learned some-
thing from the maneuvers of its predecessors. It abstained
from an international competition and selected ten architects
from different countries, of which Le Corbusier from France,
Sven Markelius from Sweden, and Oscar Niemeyer from Brazil
-all long-time members of ClAM -were the best known. The
summer of 1947 saw them all amicably working at their draw-
ing boards in the same room. Each contributed his part to the
whole: thus Markelius designed a large housing settlement for
the United Nations staff on the far side of the East River,
which bordered the United Nations site. Finally, they singled
out Project 23A, Le Corbusier's project, as the one to rec-
ommend for execution.
It was natural that an American had been appointed chairman
of the ten- the architect Wallace K. Harrison. He had
worked on the Rockefeller Center and was known as a good
administrator and a reliable architect: in addition he was re-
lated to the Rockefeller family. What more could one want~
What happened~ Harrison alone was named Planning Direc-
tor of Project 23A. In the eyes of the client the ten had ful-
filled their contract, and Harrison opened his own "UN Head-
quarters Planning Office." This marked the end of the happy
period of the affair, which had had such a friendly and hopeful
beginning.
In the twenty years since the unhappy League of Nations
competition, the power of the French Academie des Beaux
Arts had declined and Harrison was himself close to modern
artists and architects. It was thus certainly not artistic op-
564
position, but more personal ambition on the part of Harrison to
build the United Nations Headquarters alone and have it
associated with his name. It would have been a farsighted act
if Harrison had followed objective principles and had had the
modesty to make Le Corbusier a partner in the architectural
office after the ten had singled out Project 23A as the one to be
followed in structure and in plan. He did this in the case of the
Rockefeller Center with Raymond Hood, who stood head and
shoulders above the other partners and whose features the
Center undoubtedly bears.
Nothing of the sort occurred. The erection of a building that
should be the symbol of a future world government required
the hand of a genius. Harrison put his feet in the shoes of a
genius- that is, he took the outer form of Le Corbusier's
sketch - but the shoes proved far too big for him: he was not
able to fill them.
'Vhen the building was nearing its completion, the editor of a
New York architectural journal asked for my opinion of it.
I went through the whole complex with him and Harrison.
But I declined to publish my opinion at that time. Among
other things, I wanted first to see the building in action. How-
ever, my judgment then was no different than it is today. The
great assembly hall presents a shattering helplessness as to how
to handle the great space. I was further astonished, when I
stood on the roof of the slab-like Secretariat block with its
technical apparatus, to see that the architect could not find
another way to organize it than to hide it behind an ornamen-
tal concrete screen seven stories high. It is not necessary to go
into further detail to show that the United Nations building
did not become the masterpiece conceived by Le Corbusier.
When things went wrong, Le Corbusier had neither the stoical
calm of Mies van der Rohe nor the friendly attitude of Alvar
Aalto. Le Corbusier, obsessed by his message, did his utmost
to combat the injustice inflicted on him by those in power, but
his efforts only made matters worse.
The third and most bitter blow was the political handling of the
UNESCO building, the cultural center of the United Nations
in Paris. No one would have been so qualified as Le Corbusier
565
to design an international cultural center in the city of Paris
that he loved: a structure that would spring directly from the
stones of Paris and possess at the same time a universal char-
acter. This time Le Corbusier was put aside by the client in
the most abrupt way. At the first meeting to deal with the
choice of architects for the UNESCO building, Brazil's per-
manent delegate to UNESCO, Carnero, rose and emphasized
that Le Corbusier was the only architect that came into ques-
tion. On that, Jacobs, the representative of the United States
State Department, sprang up and issued a veto with the one
word: "Impossible." Unfortunately, Brazil's voice had not
much influence in this case and Le Corbusier was ruled out.
One must not forget that the United States paid the lion's
share of the costs of the building.
To neutralize him completely, Le Corbusier was elected a
member of the committee of five to choose the architect for the
UNESCO building. The other members were Gropius, Mar-
kelius, Ernesto N. Rogers, and Eero Saarinen, all friends and
long-time participants in ClAM. Undoubtedly Le Corbusier
made their lives somewhat difficult by his hopeless endeavors
somehow to take part in the building. With the best will his
friends could do nothing to help him.
Le Corbusier's voice was often not listened to. Nothing hurt
him so deeply as this diplomatic precaution to obviate from the
beginning any risk that he might undertake the UNESCO
building. Paris was the city in which he had battled through-
out a lifetime. But the Academie des Beaux Arts and shrewd
academic architects still ruled in the official circles of Paris.
To them, Le Corbusier was just as nonexistent as modern art,
the glory of France. In Le Corbusier's hands a building far
surpassing the limited imagination of French officialdom could
at last have risen in the heart of Paris.
It is further depressing to note that Switzerland determinedly
overlooked the only architectural genius ever to arise from
Swiss soil.
The client, it seems, is as important as the architect. He pos-
sesses the power. He decides. But what can one do when his
ideals and emotional outlook are generations behind~ The
566
average politician, fully absorbed in his specialized aims, has
only very exceptionally an interest or even an awareness of
architecture.
All his friends and colleagues knew that it wasn't easy to work
with Le Corbusier. As soon as he encountered opposition or
intrigue in the outside world, he lost both tactics and psychol-
ogy. And yet, among the circle of his friends he was never
rigid. I had plenty of experience of this during the many years
of our collaboration in ClAM. He came to the first congress at
the Chateau of La Sarraz in 1928 with his proposal for our
manifesto already in print. This was plucked apart, sentence
by sentence (particularly by the young Swiss and Dutch),
until finally with the agreement of everyone - including Le
Corbusier - the document that became the Manifesto of La
Sarraz was produced.
None of the really great buildings- the Parthenon; the mor-

tuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut (that marvel of cooperation
between client and architect); and St. Peter's in its various
stages with Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo - would
ever have been built if client and architect had not been on the
same level of emotional development; nor would the buildings
have arisen if second or third rate talents had been chosen to
design them, as has been the rule in both the nineteenth and
the twentieth centuries.
It was certainly not easy to work with Le Corbusier. But as

soon as he had a client who understood him (because the client
experienced parallel feelings within himself), Le Corbusier was
able to work hand in hand with him and come to a remarkable
result. This was so with the Unite d'Habitation at .Marseille,
whose implementation was supported by Claudius Petit.
Claudius Petit, then Minister of Reconstruction, and a former
leader of the French Resistance, was by profession a cabinet-
maker, who showed his visitors with pride the model of a sin-
uous miniature commode that had marked the end of his
apprenticeship. He had always the courage to back Le Cor-
busier against furious attacks from the press, architectural
organizations, and others.
567
336. Part of a letter from Le Corbusier to S. Giedion written in Chandigarh 011 De-
cember 9, 1952.
The Pilgrimage Chapel of Ronchamps came into being thanks

to the Dominican Father Couturier. In his own fashion he
knew how to dispel the grave doubts of the Church.
The great problem of today's clients in the Western World--
their shortsightedness, their lack of confidence and inner se-
568
curity - becomes clear when we turn to Chandigarh. Neither
Paris nor New York brought itself to give Le Corbusier a major
commission. This came from a technically under-developed
and poor country, and it required a first-ranking statesman
such as Nehru to give Le Corbusier a commission that could
kindle his genius and keep him from being pushed aside by the
ambitions of smaller rivals.
In the life of Le Corbusier it was not the architect but the
client who failed. It is no wonder that the problem of the
client dogged him constantly. This, like everything else with
him, demanded graphic expression. From Chandigarh he sent
me a letter (December 9, 1952) with a drawing (fig. 336). It
reported a talk with Ernesto N. Rogers, the well-known Italian
architect: Rogers stated "that I am a genius and I asserted
that I am an ass. I have therefore posed the question by this
drawing." Beneath the drawing he wrote, "Does the genius
support the ass or does the ass support the genius~"
The Priory of Ste. Marie de la Tourette, 1960

Long before Le Corbusier undertook the Pilgrimage Chapel of
Ronchamps or the Priory of La Tourette he was deeply pre-
occupied with the problem of the church and the mystic quality
of its space. Once, years before he ever had a commission to
build a church, I asked him how he imagined a modern, sacred
space, and he told me he would let a tall tower rise from the
center and erect a series of cruciform concrete beams, one
above the other, so that the upward-looking eye would appear
to reach out into infinity.
By the time he became entrusted with the construction of
church buildings, he felt his position was strong enough for him
to design them on the basis of his own personal architectural
vocabulary. Three structures bear witness to this: the Pil-
grimage Chapel of Ronchamps, 1955; the Priory of La Tou-
rette, 1960; and the projected church for Firminy, designed
1963. Each differs greatly in its structure, yet each is per-
meated with the same artistic spirit. This spirit is perhaps
most pronounced in the Priory of LaTourette at Eveux-sur-
1' Arbesle near Lyons, where he considered the church and the
569
complex of monastic buildings as two distinct elements. The
three-sided monastic complex is spatially separated from its
fourth side - the church. 23
At the suggestion of the Dominican Father Couturier, Le

Corbusier visited the Cistercian abbey of Le Thoronet in Pro-
vence, which had been abandoned since the French Revolution.
This abbey of the end of the twelfth century has as concen-
trated a ground plan as LaTourette, with a three-sided monas-
tic building confronting its church. The monastic buildings of
Le Thoronet have also a roof promenade, which no doubt
strengthened Le Corbusier's idea of incorporating an ambula-
tory roof terrace in the Priory of LaTourette (fig. 337).
Le Corbusier ends his preface to a publication on the monastery

of Le Thoronet by voicing his respect for the past, "Light and
23 Jean Petit's publication Un couvent de Le Corbusier (Paris, 1964) contains letters
from the actual instigator of the project, Father Couturier, and from Le Corbusier, as
well as extracts from the building records which give one an insight into the building's
gradual formation.
337. LE COHBllSIER. Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 1960. Air view. The
church and the horseshoe-shaped monastery complex are spatially separated.
570
338. La Tourette. View of the south and west wings of the monastery. On the lower
two stories the common room and refectory; on the third story, studies. The bollom three
floors have 1•ertically organized glass surfaces, as in Chandigarh, but not so strongly empha-
sized. Abot•e them are two floors of the friars' cells. On the left is the rear wall of the church
with the projecting housing for the organ.
15
:l39. La Tourette. Ground plan.
57L
shade are the loudspeakers of this architecture of truth, tran-
quillity, and strength. Nothing further could add to it. In
these days of 'crude concrete' let us greet, bless and salute, as
we go on our way, so wonderful an encounter. " 24
An extensive property had been presented to the Dominicans
and Le Corbusier was free to decide the exact position for the
priory. He chose a site beside a wood, with a wide view down
the slope and across the river valley: an old manor house still
stands near the entrance, shielded by trees.
The monastic Seldom did Le Corbusier employ such force of expression and
buildings such a range of variety in every detail as in La Tourette.
There is a continuous interplay of strictly geometrical and
24 Rayner Heppenstall, Architecture of Truth (London, 1957).
340. La Tourette. East side of the monastery and the .friars' promenade. The unosten-
tatious main entrance to the monastery can be seen. From it one look.~ directly into the
interior court.
572
341. LaTourette. View into the interior court. The pyramid covers the square oratory,
which seems to hover above two thin cross walls. A light vent projects from the left of the
pyramid. In the background, pilotis (as in the Villa Savoie, 1928- 30) free the building
from the ground. Atop the pilolis are rectangular glass u;alls of different colors, above them
two stories of cells, and finally the wall higher than a man that surrounds the ambulatory
roof terrace.
organically curving lines. In the monastic complex, rigid

verticals divide the large windows of the community room but
the spaces between them change constantly. The projecting
loggias of the two upper stories have specially treated surface
texture on the exterior and horizontal window slits in the in-
terior. Below these slits are three rows of rectangular window
openings, differently arranged on each story. Le Corbusier's
adventurous imagination is well shown in the church block,
where two sloping walls rise at one end of its flat roof, and
support an asymmetrically projecting box that constitutes the
bell tower.
573
342. La Tourette. The long north side of the
church block. Its asymmetrical bell lower is com-
posed of a box poised on two tilted slabs. In the
foreground is the low crypt with its variously organ-
ized light funnels. Shadows are cast on the crypt
walls by ro1md projections that contain the ends of
slruclural reinforcing rods.
343. LaTourette. The bel/lower from the ambu-

latory roof entrance.
574
344. La Tourette. Interior of the crypt. The floor is stepped. A series of rectangular
walls of different colors, at different heights and at different angles to one another, confronts
a continuous curving wall surface: a juxtapo.~ition of geometric and organic elements. The
altars stand on steps next to one another, without separating walls.
575
Within the court, an oratory for private prayers, standing on
two cross walls, is placed in direct relationship to the library
(fig. 341). Its helm is an elongated pyramid, reminiscent of the
funerary monument of Cestius in Rome, which Le Corbusier
had sketched on his early journey through Italy. Light enters
through narrow vertical slits near the corners of the walls of the
oratory itself and a lighting funnel projects from the rear wall
of the sloping pyramid.
Externally, the monastic building is held together by the two

projecting upper stories which house one hundred cells for the
friars. As was Le Corbusier's later custom, the building's
austerity is relaxed and enlivened in the lower stories by the
narrowing and widening of the intervals between the uprights
of its continuous glass wall.
This is but a brief summary of the building. It says nothing

of the special qualities of an architecture intended for a monas-
tic community, concentrated upon the inner life. In seeming
contrast to this, the whole building breathes a fervent vitality.
Everyone must be astonished that the customarily indispen-

sable cloister is absent from the court of LaTourette; instead,
the court is occupied by sculpturally roofed passages and stair-
ways. The cloister is absent because the complex is mostly
raised upon pilotis, which prevent the austere enclosure de-
manded by a cloister. The use of these pilotis, which are of dif-
ferent heights on each of the sides, made it possible to leave the
slope of the hillside untouched. The hillside, on its original
level, rises right into the courtyard. Its steep slope is evened
out by building three stories on the hillside and four on the
valley side, so that the two projecting upper stories are on the
same level.
Undoubtedly Le Corbusier intended the continuous flat roof,

bounded by walls higher than a man, to serve instead of the
customary ground floor cloister as an area for ambulatory
meditation (fig. 337). The view here is concentrated on the
infinity of the heavens. But this direct confrontation with the
sky, to which Le Corbusier continually returned, seems not to
have found favor with the friars, for one seldom finds them on
576
344a. Stele at the neolithic monumental" Tomb of the 344b. LE CORBUSIER. Pilgrimage Chapel
Giants" in Sardinia. of Notre Dame du Haut, Ronchamps, 1955.
View from the west. A Mexican architect, R. Bar-
ragan, pointed out the secret affinity of the tower
of Ronchamps with a prehistoric cult structure in
Sardinia.
the roof. They prefer to meditate in the woods. Grass al-

ready grows upon the roof of LaTourette (jig. 343).
Three large round openings, blue, red, and white, give light The priory church
from above to the low crypt adjacent to the main church. The
three funnels on the roof which provide this light (fig. 342) are
tilted in different directions, so that the intensity of each of the
three colors varies throught the hours of the day. The side
altars for reading mass stand next to one another, raised on
steps but without intervening partitions. The walls behind the
577
altars do not extend up to the ceiling, and the colored light
from the circular openings hovers over them, partly extending
into the main church. These walls are of different heights,
are placed at different angles to one another, and are painted
red, blue, and yellow. Opposite them stands a curving wall,
again showing an interplay of geometric and organic forms
(fig. 344).
For Le Corbusier an organic form has a mythic connotation
which cannot be confined within a logical analogy. He always
looked for the experiences of former times in his travels and he
was equally interested in crystalline Greek forms and in the
forms of Roman vaults or Islamic and Gothic architecture.
His search for inner similarities had nothing to do with art
history: it embraced the experiences of the entire architectural
development. It is no accident that the tower of Ronchamps
has been compared with a primitive cult structure (figs. 344a,
344b).
The interior of the main church of La Tourette is a pure and
crystalline space. Down the center of the floor a slender black
line (of asphalt) runs from the steps of the high altar to the
layman's altar. The organ projects outward from the rear
wall (fig. 337); within there is only a square black cloth, which
hides it from all eyes. In contrast to the colored light that
enters from low horizontal windows along both sides of the
church, white light streams through a narrow horizontal slit
at the very top of the end wall, which rises unbroken almost
to the ceiling. \Vhite light also pours from a square opening
in the roof.
The Legacy of Le Corbusier

The end: True creative force can never be suppressed. It is a natural
August 27, 1965 force, stronger than the personal ego. But there is also the
human being, the man who suffers when not permitted to
realize the powers he feels within himself. A profound bitter-
ness was etched into Le Corbusier's features, and his insistence
on self-defense and solitude bear witness to it. It was his fate
to be obstructed and misunderstood in the realization of his
work, always to be mistrusted and pushed aside.
578
In his last years, Le Corbusier was constantly preoccupied with
thoughts of death. This was the reason for his many meticu-
lous written statements regarding the Fondation Le Cor-
busier. His words in his last publication give an insight into
345. Le Corbusier's studio on Cap St. Martin. In a letter dated April 15, 1954, Le
Corbusier wrote," 15 meters from my cabin, I have built myself a site-worker's hut [baraque
de chantier] 4 meters by 2 meters. I live like a happy monk . .. "
the bitterness in his heart: "When I have re-entered some

celestial sphere . . . the No-men wiil still be in the ascendant:
always against! " 2s
In the summer of 1965, Le Corbusier was in Venice to receive
the commission for his hospital there. He had always been
happy to communicate with young people, and I recall the
gaiety with which he had responded to the students at Harvard
University a few years earlier. But here in Venice (as reported
in Time) he almost thrust the students from him, asking,
"Qu'est ce que vous voulez vous d'une ruine~"
25Mise au point (Editions Forces-Vives, 1966), p. 14: "Lorsque j'aurai rejoint quelques
zones celestes . . . Messieurs les Non, vous serez toujours a l'affut, toujours contre."
579
At the moment of Le Corbusier's death, the Fondation Le
Corbusier was set up in Paris to look after the future of his
projects, and to maintain the Villa Savoie and the Maison La
Roche in Auteuil. Unfortunately the opportunity was not
taken to include his studio at 35 Rue de Sevres, the place with
which his work was most personally connected.
The Le Corbusier Le Corbusier's last building (designed 1964, construction start-
Center in Zurich, ed l966) stands in Zurich. Thanks to private initiative, this
1967 city was given a fine site on the lake of Zurich for the erection
of a building to house Le Corbusier's works of art: paintings,
sculptures, tapestries and also, one hopes, his architectural
plans and models, since one cannot leave out the most im-
portant works of a genius like Le Corbusier. It is essentially
the synthesis of the arts that was expressed so strongly in every-
thing he created. "So far as I can see, Le Corbusier is the only
architect of our time for whom there are sufficient grounds to
say that he had an all-embracing genius: as architect, painter
and urbanist with the vision of a poet. In earlier times,
painters were occasionally creators of architectural forms:
Raphael's name is also known as an architect, Michelangelo
was the conceiver of the dome of St. Peter's, Bramante, fore-
most an architect, was also an interesting painter. Each
possessed an all-embracing genius which is renewed in Le Cor-
busier. " 26 Like the men of the Renaissance, Le Corbusier
mastered all three media.
This century has been a period of great timidity in the col-
laboration of architects and painters. Le Corbusier did not
allow his friend, Fernand Leger, to paint one of the walls of the
Unite d'Habitation at Marseille. This refusal grew from an
earlier incident. When he himself was offered a contract to
paint a permanent mural on the wall of his Swiss Pavilion in
the University City of Paris, he declined it and, instead,
mounted a large photo-montage on the wall. It was only
many years later, when the photo-montage had become faded,
that Le Corbusier took up his original contract and consented
to paint a large mural on the wall. Apart from this he painted
murals only on the walls of a few of his friends' houses in the
26S. Giedion, Foreword to the "Catalogue of the Exhibition" of Le Cor busier's work
(Zurich Art Gallery, 1957), p. 6.
580
country, such as the Badovici house at Cap St. Martin. He
permitted no murals in the Esprit Nouveau exhibition in Paris,
1925, but only a few framed pictures by Fernand Leger and
himself, as well as some sculptures by Jacques Lipchitz.
The Le Corbusier Center on the lake of Zurich was deliberately
designed to include a small dwelling for the donor as well as the
Le Corbusier collection. Although Le Corbusier planned it
entirely of prefabricated parts, the ground plan is completely
free because of the nature of the prefabricated parts. The roof
consists of two similar funnel-shaped elements juxtaposed, one
pointing downward, the other upward (fig. 346). The roof was
brought to the building site in parts and assembled there
(jig. 347). Its weight rests on four rectangular steel supports,
and slender rods keep the ends in equilibrium (fig. 348). The
interior is a single space which can be divided at will, indepen-
dent of the construction. This idea had lain in Le Corbusier's
mind ever since he devised a pavilion for the Liege Exhibition,
1937 (jig. 324), consisting of two square roofs supported from
the outside so that the interior was entirely free.
The Zurich pavilion was built only after Le Corbusier's
death. Its use of prefabricated elements to form a completely
free ground plan is especially significant in this late work; here
Le Corbusier used standardized parts to create individual
forms instead of uniform repetitions. Le Corbusier did not
stand apart from his period. Younger architects, such as
J~rn Utzon, were also grappling with the problem of the free
and imaginative use of prefabricated elements.
The pencil was snatched from Le Corbusier's hand. One Unfinished work
glance in the seventh volume of his CEuvre complete (1957-
65) gives some idea of the many projects in widely different
stages that were waiting to be realized: the tragedy of work
left incomplete. Almost all these projects show a much looser
disposition of the individual buildings of each complex, but
the planning achieves a close interaction of the buildings with
the organism of the city. This interaction in the relation of the
building volumes to one another has been apparent in Le Cor-
busier's work ever since his unrealized project for the center of
St. Die in 1945. However, in these new plans there is an even
581
stronger integration of the project with the total art form.
The rhythm of every road is related to the whole highway
system; the usual rigidly curving traffic lanes are given a new
vitality and their curves have a sensuous allure. This is not
unimportant since the highway, despite its two-dimensionality,
binds the whole complex together like mortar in a wall.
346. LE CORBUSIER. Le Corbusier Center, Zurich, 1967. From this sketch, it

is clear that a fully free interior space is envisaged. This idea had lain in Le Corbusier's
mind since the Liege Exhibition of 1937 (fig. 324).
347. Le Corbusier Center, Zurich, 1967. Raising the roof. The roof was
brought to the site in prefabricated parts and assembled there. It consists of
two identical parts, one with the center thrusting upward, the other with it
sinking downward. In this picture half of the roof is being raised; the other
half still lies on the ground.
582
348. Le Corbusier Center, Zurich, 1967. The roof and its prefabricated supports. The
slender end supports lake only the vertical stress of the roof. Wind thrusts are absorbed by
the larger box-shaped columns.
The Electronic Center for Olivetti (designed 1962) is one of the

most typical of Le Corbusier's last projects (fig. 349). It is on
the highway from Milan to Turin and consists of a marvelous
mingling of tall, rectangular buildings (housing the research
center); low, organic, kidney-shaped structures; and the curv-
ing outlines of the parking places. Everywhere one observes a
desire to move toward the organic - the desire that has re-
cently suddenly erupted everywhere like a clarion call - but
here it is always held in check by the discipline of architectural
form. The whole is a bolder interplay of open and closed
forms than had yet been attempted and shows how someone
like Le Corbusier, saturated with the insight of a painter, was
able to sense instinctively the wavelength of his period, aml
with the greatest sensitivity interpret it in his own work.
There are other projects that kindle the imagination, such as

his plans for the center of Berlin (fig. 517) or for a great
Museum of the Twentieth Century in Paris, among others.
583
349. LE CORBUSIER. Model of the Olivetti Electronic Center at Rho-Milan,
designed in 1962.
A project that will be realized is his Venice hospital, designed

1964-65. The Academy of Architecture in Venice has taken
over the responsibility for this, working with two of Le Cor-
busier's collaborators. At no point does this hospital overtop
the dwellings surrounding it. Le Corbusier had the instinct to
enter into the character of a specific region - a sensitivity
that never descended to imitation. On the limited building
site of the project Le Corbusier combined his abiding interest
in concentration with the tendencies of the youngest genera-
tion of architects.
Paul Rudolph, the American architect, expressed the signifi-
cance of Le Corbusier in a single sentence: "Le Corbusier was
the only 20th Century revolutionary who grew beyond his own
revolution to expand the art of architecture to such dimensions
that there is a clear direction for the foreseeable future." 27
In Le Corbusier, architecture lost a great leader.
27 Progressive Architecture, November 1965, p. 199.
584
What will be the influence of Le Corbusier on the coming Le Corbusier
generation~ and the coming
generation
From the beginning to the end of his life Le Corbusier had a
double role: as an inventive artist and as a fighter. The rea-
son for his double role is today apparent. His position as a
fighter was the direct outcome of the nineteenth century's
tragic rift between its advanced scientific thinking and a re-
actionary romantic feeling that continued to live on in the
mind of the people and the authorities. Le Corbusier was
forced to be simultaneously a creative artist and a protagonist
for his ideas.
Le Corbusier's strength lies in his architectural force. This
grew out of a common emotional background in painting and
sculpture. One of Le Corbusier's main functions was to inau-
gurate once again the role of contemporary expression in archi-
tecture. Yet it would be completely wrong to regard Le
Corbusier as an isolated figure. The creation of contemporary
architecture had its roots in many other personalities such as
Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, the Stijl Group in Holland. But
Le Corbusier's unique historical function lies in the fact that
he was simultaneously a painter, an architect, and a poet.
The architect of today has to open his eyes more widely than
the architect of the Renaissance. He has to fulfill both the
human and artistic demands of a much wider circle, extending
from the private home to agglomerations of people, while
making use of new materials, taking advantage of standardiza-
tion, and considering even such matters as the general control
of traffic. Just as important as the solution of structural
problems is the creation of breathing spaces. The human
habitat needs more and more breathing space for the private
life of its inhabitants since the business areas outside the home
are becoming more and more congested.
Architects from Frank Lloyd Wright to Le Corbusier contin-
ually demanded more breathing space for the people. Wright
always spoke about "organic architecture," combining freely
organized buildings with the surrounding nature. Le Cor-
busier gave no direct name to what he wanted but expressed it
by cosmic symbols, representations of the course of the sun
585
(such as he wanted to do in the monument for Chandigarh).
Perhaps the strongest architectural expression of this feeling is
the roof terrace of his monastery at La Tourette, bordered on
both sides by walls about two meters high, so that one cannot
see the landscape but only the sky. We are not accustomed to
this kind of cosmic orientation.
Le Corbusier's spirit as a creative artist and a protagonist is
still alive today. I see Le Corbusier more and more as an
opponent of certain developments in the architecture of the
generation (especially in France and England) that is forming
big clusters of houses pinched together into a compact whole,
which come more and more to resemble machines that do not
need breathing spaces, and which completely neglect the needs
of a human habitat. These architects disregard the close
relationship between man and nature stressed from Wright to
Le Corbusier - a relationship which demands continuation I
Le Corbusier's influence on leading architects all over the
world is inestimable. Though these each follow their own
line, they have developed Le Corbusier's fundamental drive to
unite architectural and plastic expression. At the same time,
Le Corbusier has often been simply imitated by others who
have copied his pilotis, his houses, his churches. Thus we can
understand why many young architects reject the work of
all their predecessors and want to start from something abso-
lutely different to express their own right of existence.
This leads us to a final question regarding Le Corbusier's work.
Will architecture pursue a completely mechanical development
or will it respond to the continuity of human demand common
to all the high civilizations since antiquity, and recognized in
our period by all the great architects from Frank Lloyd Wright
to Le Corbusier~ This demand was always to link man and
nature and to do this always with the help of the newly in-
vented technical possibilities of each age.
586
MIES VAN DER ROHE AND THE
INTEGRITY OF FORM
350. PETER DE
HOOCH. Mother and
Child, c. 1650. Dutch
interiors with their crys-
tal-clear atmosphere have
an inner affinity with
Piet Mondrian as well
as with M ies van der
Rohe's balancing of
plane surfaces.
Mies van der Rohe grew up in Aachen, a residence of Charle-

magne, the oldest center of German civilization. The town
lies close to the Dutch border, and many of its inhabitants
possess the calm, phlegmatic nature of the Netherlanders.
This is not obtuseness, but rather a shield against the outer
world - a withdrawal into an inner concentration. At least
this is the way it is with Mies van der Rohe.
At all events, his work is closer akin to the Dutch than that of
any other German architect. How these qualities are reflected
in his buildings will be traced in the following pages. The
spirit of Dutch seventeenth-century "interiors" with their
crystal-clear atmosphere and precisely framed walls and open-
587
ings (fig. 350), have an inner affinity with Mies van der Rohe's
balancing of plane surfaces.
The correct placing of brick upon brick and stone upon stone
was known to Mies van der Rohe from childhood in his father's
workshop. His fanaticism for pure form and the great care
with which he uses materials are probably derived from these
early experiences. 1
But these are merely general preliminary conditions. How does
Mies van der Rohe's work stand in relation to his own period?
The Elements of Mies van der Rohe's Architecture

The secret of every creative architectural development is based
mainly on three factors: a elient with an instinct for quality;
a master who, by his own work and personality, knows how
to awaken the creative possibilities of a younger generation;
and the existence of a rising generation, able to select the best
place to provide the right nourishment for their needs.
Peter Behrens In this instance, the client was Emil Rathenau, president of
and Mies van the General Electric Company of Berlin; the master was Peter
der Rohe
Behrens; and the rising generation that found their way to
Peter Behrens at this important moment included Mies van
der Rohe, Gropius, and - for a short time as a visitor - Le
Corbusier. Peter Behrens' atelier was the only one in Germany
where this younger generation could find what it needed.
Peter Behrens' turbine factory of 1909 showed that materials
such as glass and iron possessed within them a secret strength
of expression that could be brought out as soon as an artist
understood how to develop their means and possibilities.
Between this building of 1909 and the buildings of the forties
lies the gulf created by the new conception of space. N everthe-
less, the factories of Peter Behrens provided firmer foundations
for Mies van der Rohe's means of expression than the country
h0uses of the romantic German classicist Karl Friedrich Schin-
kel (1781-1840) or of Berlage, who, around 1900, brought the
smooth wall surface back into European architecture.
1 For further details see Philip C. Johnson, Mies van der Rohe (New York: Museum of
Modern Art, 1947), with passages from the artist's writing and bibliography.
588
In 1910 Frank Lloyd Wright came into the European field of Frank Lloyd
VISIOn. During the time that Walter Gropius and Mies van Wright in
der Rohe were working with Peter Behrens, the exhibition of Berlin, 1910
Frank Lloyd Wright's work was shown in Berlin. "We young
architects found ourselves in painful inner discord. The work
of this great master presented an architectural world of unex-
pected force, clarity of language and disconcerting richness of
form," Mies van der Rohe wrote much later.
The openness of the Wright ground plan, which grew out in all
directions like a spreading plant (fig. 243), and Wright's tend-
ency to conceive the entire house as one flowing space brought
the European architects to a sudden realization of their own
stiffness. The man from the prairie taught them to return to
living forms.
Among the elements of Mies van der Rohe's later work we can
recognize the care in handling new materials that Peter Beh-
rens had shown, and also the free ground plan of Frank Lloyd
Wright's houses. The Fagus factory that Gropius was to build
in the following year (1911) gives evidence of the altered out-
look of the younger generation. Glass and iron were no longer
enclosed by massive walls. They joined directly together at
the corners, with effortless ease (fig. 291).
Just as in Mies van der Rohe's well-known studies for glass

skyscrapers between 1919 and 1921 2 and in his scheme for a
large office building in 1922, 3 artistic expression was given to
the fact that the skeleton lies within the building or, as Mies
2 These studies began in 1919 with a competition scheme for an office building in the
Friedrichstrasse of Berlin. They should not be considered in isolation. In the office
building for the Friedrichstrasse, while Mies van der Rohe's treatment of materials and
the pureness of his form is far ahead of his competitors, his indented ground plan still
reflects the expressionistic tendency of German architecture in the twenties. In the
Dutch journal Wendingen, volume III, Series 5 (Amsterdam, 1923), there is an interest-
ing article by II. Th. Wijdeveld and Dr. A. Behne on the romanticism of the skyscraper
motif that was then sweeping through Europe. Here one becomes aware of the relation-
ship as well as the difference between Mies van der Robe's scheme and those by Hans
Poelzig, Hugo Haring, and others.
3 Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, p. 31.
589
van der Rohe puts it: "Columns and girders eliminate bearing
walls. This is skin and bone construction. "
The Stijl A third impetus for Mies van der Rohe's creative development
movement came from Holland. Around 1920 no other country was pro-
ducing as many interesting developments in the field of hous-
ing as the Netherlands. The decisive outlet for expressing
the new architectural vocabulary was neither in factories nor
in retail stores, but in the human domain of the dwelling house
and the housing group. 4
It is therefore understandable that, following upon all the
good work that was realized as well as some misguided efforts
of the so-called Amsterdam school, Theo van Doesburg set
forward an ideal clearing and purification program in his
journal Stijl (1917). 5 The exhibition of the Stijl Group (paint-
ing, sculpture, and architecture) that was designed by Theo
van Doesburg together with C. van Eesteren and G. Rietveld
at Leonce Rosenberg's gallery in Paris (October 1923) exerted
a great influence upon the leading talents such as Le Corbusier
and Mies van der Rohe, particularly through its models and
presentation of architectural material. This exhibition showed
that the steps toward Frank Lloyd Wright's perception of the
house as a flowing space bounded by vertical and horizontal
planes had been fully taken and understood (fig. 81).
Country Houses, 1923

Mies van der Rohe's studies for two country houses (1923),
one in brick and one in concrete (figs. 351, 352, 354) 6 are of
4 No other country in 1920 could parallel J. J. P. Oud's workers' housing project in
Rotterdam, Ir. J. B. van Loghem's Rosehaghe settlement in Haarlem (1920) and his
concrete Watergraafsmeer houses in Amsterdam (1922), Jan Wil's Papaverhof dwell-
ings in the Hague (1919-21), or, with reservations, M. de Klerk's apartment houses in
Amsterdam between 1914 and 1923 (fig. 432) and W. M. Dudock's work in Hilversum
around 1920. The sole forerunner was Robert van t'Hoff's concrete single-family
houses in Huisterheide (1914-15).
5 See above, pp. 442-443, and also J. J.P. Oud, Hollandische Architektur, Bauhausbiicher
Nr. 10, ed. by Walter Gropius and L. Moholy-Nagy (Munich, 1925); Jr. J. B. van
Loghem, Holland Built To Live In (Amsterdam, 1932). Both books are written by lead-
ing architects and therefore particularly interesting in their selection of materials.
s Published first in G, Number II (Berlin, September 1923). This is a journal edited by
Mies van der Robe, Richter, and Graff, of which three numbers appeared. Its contents
come near to Stijl and Esprit Nouveau.
590
inestimable importance for the development of modern archi-
tecture. The analytical spirit of Theo van Doesburg had
enabled him to show by means of his transparent architectural
drawings that the conception of the house as a self-contained
cube had lost its meaning. In these two studies, Mies van der
Rohe gives this conception a clear and concentrated artistic
expressiOn.
Under Mies van der Robe's orderly hand the planes become
assembly points for material and structure - plate glass, ferro-
concrete, and, soon afterward, marble. Even more clearly
than in the Stijl studies, these country houses of Mies van der
Rohe give a realizable form to the floating character of the ele-
ments that make up the house. This is the period during
which Le Corbusier built his La Roche house at Auteuil and
G. Rietveld his stylized house at Utrecht (1924). Planes pro-
truding from within the house do not halt at the outer walls,
as with van Doesburg, but spread out into the landscape like
the sails of a windmill. At the same time, the surface elements
have become assembly points for the structural elements.
Transparency is achieved by penetration through long window
strips surmounted by a hovering roof slab (fig. 354). All these
elements, which are not individual inventions, are brought
together with a masterly artistic control.7
In the houses Mies van der Rohe actually built about this
time, he was unable to realize the daring that he had developed
in his paper studies. His visions became a reality for the first
time in his exhibition pavilion in Barcelona in 1929 (fig. 353).
With unsurpassed precision he used pure surfaces of precious
materials as elements of the new space conception. Perhaps
his most famous house is the Tugendhat House 8 in Brno,
Czechoslovakia (1930), which achieves extreme generosity in
its flowing interpenetration of space. Even so, one does not
get away from the feeling of being exposed to an aquarium-
like existence.
1 In the introduction to R. J. Neutra's Buildings and Projects (Zurich, 1951), we have

attempted to develop further the great influence which the unrealized schemes of both
the Stijl Group and Mies van der Robe had upon R. J. Neutra's own development.
s Johnson, pp. 76-86.
591
351. MIES VAN DEH ROBE. Project of a brick country house, 1923.
352. MIES VANDER ROHE.

Brick country house, 1923.
Ground plan. Planes protruding
from within the house do not halt
at the outer wall$, but spread out
into the landscape like the sails of
a windmill.
353. MIES VAN DER ROHE. German pavilion at the International Exhibition,
Barcelona, 1929. Here his visions became a reality for the first time. With unsurpassed
precision he used pure surfaces of precious materials as elements of the new space con-
ception.
592
'
.. '
~ ' ~· ':' .
354. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Project of a concrete house, 1923. The plane sur-
faces have become assembly points for the structural elements. Transparency is achieved
by penetration through long windowstrips, surmounted by a hovering roof slab.
355. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Country house for a bachelor, Berlin Building Exhi-
bition, 1931. In the center of the great exhibition hall, Mies van der Rohe erected one of his
glass-walled single-story houses. One of the last modern manifestations before the collapse of
German culture.
o.o
~
~i ~~
I'
().~ 7 110 f-<~~~

v.
I
. 00
IZI•
•
IDO ;,:
•I
CJ
. jJ ~·:
:!rf -/~
·<::
I)
., .
h!1t
356. MIES VAN DER ROUE. Country house for a bachelor. Ground plan. The
same trends are shown as in the brick country house, 1923. Planes protruding from within
the house, as well as the flowing space of the interior, become reality.
593
Berlin, 1931 In 1931, when the Brownshirts were already filling the streets
of Berlin and the country was in a state of crisis- five million
unemployed, breakdown of industry in all fields, market diffi-
culties of all kinds - a building exhibition on a grand scale
was opened. In it the creative forces of Germany worked to-
gether. It was the last time. Walter Gropius, L. Moholy-
N agy, and Herbert Bayer of the Bauhaus, who were com-
missioned by the Cooperative Housing Society, attempted to
show the public, with all the power of modern display tech-
niques and artistic eloquence, what should be done to achieve
a human approach to the housing problem.
In the center of the great exhibition hall, undisturbed by all
the excitement, Mies van der Rohe erected a glass-walled
single-story house with fine interiors, apparently for a bache-
lor, in which without any compromise he proceeded to develop
the unity of space, plane, and structure which lay so near to
his heart (figs. 355, 356). 9
Neither the propaganda appeal to the masses nor architectural
achievement was able to have the slightest effect, however.
Developments had to move in another direction.
In Germany, the architectural contribution was made in a ter-
ribly short time. The opportunity existed for only a very few
years. No one who was present at the opening of the W eissen-
hofsiedlung in Stuttgart in 1927 could have foreseen that only
five years later all would be over.
The Weissenhof Housing Settlement, Stuttgart, 1927

There was a moment in the middle of the twenties when the
clear primary colors used by Picasso, Braque, Leger, and other
modern painters seemed to radiate an optimism that had not
been present before and was not to occur again. Once the war
and the inflation had been overcome, it seemed that a new
period was about to dawn in which the upsurge of a new way
9 There were also family houses by the Berlin architects Luckhardt and Marcel Breuer,
and a hall by Walter Gropius for one of his multi-story apartment houses. See Peiro
Bottoni, "Berlin 1931," Rassegna d'Archileltura, 15 September 1931.
594
of life, new art, and a new architecture could no longer be
held under.
Germany was at this time more aware of the outside world
than ever before. The Avantgarde were dragged out from their
seclusion and plunged into active life. This explains the found-
ing of the Bauhaus by Walter Gropius (1919) together with
painters such as Paul Klee, W. Kandinsky, and Moholy-Nagy,
as well as the appointment of Mies van der Rohe as first vice-
president of the Deutscher W erkbund. 10
The Weissenhof Housing Settlement at Stuttgart (figs. 357,
358), which the Werkbund had entrusted to Mies van der
Rohe, is perhaps the clearest indication of the change that
had taken place within the all-too-thin layer of the elite.
Invitations were issued, in the most generous manner, to young
architects from other nations to execute their own buildings.
From Holland came J. J. P. Oud and Mart Starn, both of whom
built row houses following the custom of their own country.
From France came Le Corbusier, who erected his two most-
discussed houses on pillars. From Belgium came Victor Bour-
geois. The young Swiss architects were given one of the flats
in Mies van der Rohe's apartment home. At one end of the
settlement, Peter Behrens, the veteran German architect,
built his fortress-like apartment block; and around and be-
tween, the German and Austrian architects established their
single-family dwellings - Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, Scha-
roun, Rading, Hilbersheimer, Doecker, J. Frank, and others.
No one who lived through these opening days will forget the
optimism and the moral support produced by this event -
achieved against apparently inflexible opposition.
A few paragraphs written in 1927 11 may convey a more im-
mediate impression:
"The exhibition certainly gave us an insight into actual life.
We believe that it has extraordinary significance because it has
brought new methods of construction out from the secluded
10 See pp. 479-480.

11S. Giedion, "L'Exposition du Werkbund aStuttgart 1927," and" La Cite du Weissen-
hof," in Architecture Vivante (Paris, 1928).
595
357. Wci""nhof """'""nt. Stu"""'· 1927. In the f"'"'"'und. I.e C"'/m,i_,•, lw,
hou,., with <oof """-"'; lo lh, left. J. J . P. Oud", 'Ow hou,, and Mi., "'n d" Roh,•,
row houses hoo,.,;
apa,fmenJ in front w
of th,
it are by Mart
'''"· P,t,Slam.
B,h,,.,· aparlment hou, with Ww.,; th, tw..,wry
··4 *''••VOttct.,._.
s.p 1.u.ow '0 ...... ,._,,,,
IO V"~Cfot &owg..,, If ·'1 ~ord Oacl.,
II. JJ Adoll 0, SdvteQ ll· -'4 Mu fout
IJ.J.s Le COtbwier • IS A.dotl lodlrll
)f., lO..I,,of'll
J6- 11 Wolter Cro,ol..,. 21-.to. Morr Slo,.
,, .....,.,...,
II ludwig Hillt.,tetm.,
'•'•' ~.
,,"·U ..............
s'""""'· "'""''i" n,, '"'"""n1 """"

~w
358. Wei""'•ho£ '""'"'"''· 1927. Plan. th, - · " '
wh,n •ont""-ary a"hikd, from diffmnJ hod an opflorlunUy to •how f"' flu
to the housing
fi,.,tt;,,. n.J problem
by ""''"'had
hoibeen developed.
by building tou•th,, upon lh• "''"' •it•. lhot a app•noch
596
359. Weissenhof
settlement, Stutt-
gart, 1927. Mies
van der Rohe's spe-
cial contribution was
the first adaptation
of the steel skeleton
to meet new needs in
the housing prob-
lem. His large Chi-
cago apartments are
here foreshadowed.
360. Ground plan

of the second floor.
Each floor had a
different plan. The
apartment to the left
leaves the steel col-
umns passing freely
through the room.
361. Steel skeleton

of Mies van der
Robe's a partment
house.
597
laboratory of the Avantgarde and caused them to be put into
operation on a broad scale. The new architecture . . . can
never develop soundly without the active participation of the
masses. Of course, the problems that have to be solved are
not posed by any conscious expression of the masses. For
many reasons their conscious mind is always ready to say 'No'
to new artistic experiences. But if the unconscious mind is
once directed into a new path, then the laboratory product will
be broadened and adapted to meet the needs of real life. The
Stuttgart exhibition appears to us as the nucleus of such a
process, and herein lies its importance.
"The \V eissenhof Housing Settlement gives evidence of two
great changes: the change from handicraft methods of con-
struction to industrialization, and the premonition of a new
way of life.
"Mies van der Rohe's original plan was to interlock the house-
plots so that a unified relationship could be created and the
green areas would flow into one another. This plan unfortu-
nately could not be realized for commercial reasons. Even
so it is possible to experience how relationship and order are
created by the level unassertive surfaces of flat roofs in places
that would otherwise have been utterly chaotic. In flat towns,
such as the Hague, one can observe how the flat roofs create
wide interconnecting bands.
Mies van der "The W eissenhof Housing Settlement is dominated by Mies
Rohe's steel- van der Rohe's steel-framed apartment house (figs. 359, 360,
framed
apartment
361). Even the apartment house, which today usually takes
house the form of a palace or a castle, is here transformed into a
more loosely articulated structure. The steel. frame permits
one to eliminate all rigid inner and outer walls. For the out-
side, an insulated filling wall with a half-brick thickness is
sufficient, and the inner walls can be disposed according to
the liking of the tenants, in whatever manner they choose.
The wide and continuous window strips are the only limiting
factors. These window strips are wide and continuous in order
to enable good light to penetrate as deeply as possible into the
building. The problem of the apartment house is today (1927)
even further from solution than that of the single-family house.
598
Mies van der Rohe's steel skeleton shows a possible way of
unraveling this problem.
"Many architectural critics found the continuous steel sup-
ports that ran freely through the houses of Mies van der Rohe
and Le Corbusier very unsightly. It seems that it is especially
difficult for the architect to free himself from the appearance
of traditional structural methods in which the walls were the
bearing members of the house. It is fundamentally organic to
our present-day conceptions of space that complete expression
is given to the inner construction of our houses. The continu-
ous steel support is definitely not an aesthetic focal point. It
may be allowed to run quietly through the space. Just as the
columns of ancient architecture give the onlooker a feeling of
security by means of their ordered play of load and support,
so the continuous steel or concrete shaft gives today's onlooker
an impression of a powerful energy that flows uniformly
through the house. The free-standing visible column is thus
given a new expressive quality apart from its constructive ob-
jectivity. Here is continuous energy at work: nothing in our
life remains an isolated experience; everything stands in a
many-sided interrelationship- within, without, above, below I
"Mies van der Rohe has followed the possibilities of his build-
ing through to the utmost detail. Plywood walls that can be
screwed onto the ceilings enable the occupier to alter the dis-
position of his space at will. Doorless connections between
rooms. One is continually amazed at the amount of space
that this method makes possible within an area of 70 square
meters (750 square feet). It acts upon us as a necessary
stimulant- an impetus that can set industry into motion.''
The W eissenhof Housing Settlement was, at the same time, a

living manifesto of rational planning and organization of the
house interior. We have described elsewhere how the general
public was here, for the first time, introduced to the organiza-
tion of work and space within the kitchen as well as to the
cantilever tubular chair as developed by Mies van der Rohe
and at the same time by Mart Stam. 12
12 Mechanization Takes Command, pp. 523-526, 493-503.
599
362. MIES VANDER ROHE. Model of the campus of Jllinois Institute of Tech-
nology, showing all proposed buildings. (1) Athletic field; (2) Gymnasium and swim-
ming pool; (3) Field house; (4) Alumni Memorial Hall; (5) Metallurgical and chemical
engineering; (6) AAR research building; (7) Library and administration; (8) Chemistry;
(9) Liberal studies; (10) Mechanical engineering; (11) Civil engineering and mechanics;
(12) Laboratory building; (13) Laboratory building; (14) Electrical engineering and physics;
(15) Student Union and auditorium; (16) Architecture and applied arts; (17) ARF research
and administration; (18) Institute of Gas Technology; (19) Research laboratory; (20) Research
laboratory; (21) Metal research; (22) ARF engineering research; (23) ARF engineering
research; (24) Heating and power plant; (25) ARF engineering research.
363. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Administration Building, 1944. The pureness of
form, juxtaposition of different structures, sensitivity of proportion, and discipline of out-
line - all previously indicated in his country house of 1923- are here fully developed.
II I
600
364. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Chemical Engineering and Metallurgy Building,
1949. Northwest view.
The Illinois Institute of Technology, 1939--

Scarcely anything is so much wasted today as creative energy
in the field of the arts. This waste is aggravated by the fact
that the dictatorships of our time - themselves without any
awareness of contemporary art- detest everything which is
not strictly reactionary in its means of expression.
If Mies van der Rohe, who - as we noted at the start - is
well endowed with patience and tranquillity, had not been in-
vited to Chicago in 1938, what would have become of him~
The subsequent fate of German architects and architecture -
one of the most depressing spectacles of our time - gives
sufficient answer.
Now his tall apartment houses spring up in the most beautiful
parts of Chicago and he has been working since 1939 on the
buildings for the Illinois Institute of Technology. 13 Usually an
"For details see Hugo Weber, "Mies van der Rohe in Chicago," Rauen und Wohnen,
No. 9 (Zurich, 1951), an excellent survey of the work of Mies van der Robe.
601
365. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Minerals and Metal Research Building, 1943. South
view. The module of twenty-four feel as a basis for the planning of the whole campus, to-
gether with a careful balance within the plane surfaces, is evident in the south-front view of
this laboratory.
American building is completely amortised within this period.

It would seem thus that Mies van der Rohe has somehow been
able to transfer his own inborn patience to the American board
of trustees.
The spatial disposition of the twenty-four buildings can be best
understood when one looks back upon Mies van der Rohe's
design for a country house in 1923. There the new relation-
ship between the different fragments of the walls induced a
feeling of an all-penetrating oneness of space. The same is
true of the buildings for the Chicago campus. The twenty-four
buildings stand in a rectilinear relationship to one another like
that of the walls of the earlier project. At the same time,
602
they are so disposed that an all-embracing space is created
though not visible at one glance - a space that can only be
slowly perceived by including the dimension of time, that is,
by movement (fig. 362).
Like an Egyptian sculptor working on a bas-relief, Mies van
der Rohe stretches a network of squared coordinates across all
the buildings on his campus. His module is 24 feet (fig. 365).
Without one's realizing it, this module is imprinted upon the
spectator at every step.
Mies van der Rohe, with Le Corbusier, is among the very few Proportions
architects who are again deliberately cultivating proportional
relationships in their work. Both do this in the Pythagorean
sense in which measurements are not merely measurements
but possess qualitative as well as quantitative properties.
Care in handling proportions is allied with care in handling
materials. The buildings for the Illinois Institute of Technol-
ogy display none of the walls of onyx and columns of chromium
of Mies van der Rohe's earlier period. But proportion, struc-
ture, and material are here related to one another with an
even greater finesse.
The side walls of a laboratory or a factory, with their exposed
skeletons of steelwork and brick infilling, are usually disre-
garded secondary factors, but with Mies van der Rohe they
are transformed into elements of the highest artistic value.
This may not all be apparent to the casual observer. All the
same, it is certain that- even without one's knowledge- an
ordered environment of this sort has its effect upon one. Just
as the vVeissenhof housing settlement in 1927 was a manifesto
which greatly influenced subsequent development, so the build-
ings of this Chicago campus make an appeal for greater artistic
integrity in architecture.
High-rise Apartments
In 1949, thirty years after his early skyscraper studies, Mies Promontory
van der Rohe was building tall apartment blocks along Lake Apartments, 1949
Michigan. One of these, the Promontory Apartments, stands
in South Chicago, not far from the buildings shown in figure
513. The view from the great glass windows over the limitless
603
366. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Promontory Apartments, Chicago, 1949. East front.
Detail of the entrance side. Great care has been given to incorporate the f erroconcrete
skeleton into the artistic expression of thefarade. The photograph shows the distinct setback
of the joists which grow slimmer as they gain height. This accentuation of the pillars to-
gether with the well-calculated setback of the window areas and filling walls is typical of Mies
van der Rohe's integrating h'and.
367. Promontory
Apartments, 1949. The
U-shaped ground plan
together with the free
planning of each floor
was first used in Chi-
cago offrce buildings
(compare fig. 176); then
for housing in the twen-
ties, and toward 1950
for large apartment
houses.
604
L-:·
368. Promontory Apartments, 1949. East front. This apartment house is situated in
the South Side of Chicago, very near those in fig. 513. The windows overlook the broad
expanse of Lake Michigan and the occupants enjoy a feeling of individual existence and
contact with air and nature much greater than they can have in row houses on a side street.
lake is overwhelming. Twenty-two stories. Ferroconcrete

skeleton. U-shaped ground plan, as in Holabird and Roche's
Marquette Building, Chicago, 1894 (fig. 230). The Promon-
tory Apartments actually consist of two units joined as one,
each containing its own elevators and stairway. The detailing
is monastic in its austerity (figs. 366, 369).
605
369. Promontory Apartments, 1949. View from the lobby dividing the symmetrically
built wings. Here too, the treatment of detail and proportion has a very stimulating
effect.
The hand of Mies van der Rohe can be felt in the ground plan
of each of the apartments (fig. 367) and particularly in the
treatment of the fa<;ade (fig. 368). These soaring ferroconcrete
verticals, set back four times in their height, are handled with
an extraordinary sensitivity and give a musical articulation to
the whole fa<;ade. 14 A comparison of this fa<;ade with the im-
mense columns that hold up Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation
at Marseille, 1947-52 (fig. 325), demonstrates the widely dif-
ferent ways in which ferroconcrete was then being used.
Lake Shore None of Mies van der Rohe's buildings has had such an im-
Apartments, 1951 mediate influence upon his American contemporaries as his
two largest and most radical apartment houses at 860 Lake
Shore Drive, Chicago (1951; figs. 370, 371). The Lake Shore
Apartments consist of two volumes- two high-rise buildings
14The following were connected with the Promontory Apartments: Associated Archi-
tects, Pace Associates and Mies van der Rohe; Consulting Architects, Holsman and
Klekamp; Engineer, Frank J. Kornacker.
606
- placed in a reciprocal relation such as Mies often repeated
later, for example, in the Commonwealth Apartments, 1956.
Since then such "twin buildings" have become fashionable in
the United States- even to a point of distortion (for instance,
Yamasaki's International Trade Center in New York). In
the 'Lake Shore Apartments - as in his Farnsworth House at
Plano, Illinois (1950)- integrity of form has become the
supreme law to which everything else is subordinated. With
uncompromising strength the architect permits not the slight-
est deviation from the clear-cut plane surfaces of the glass
parallelepipeds. Each detail seems to remind the spectator:
Architecture is discipline; architecture is an artifact I
Mies van der Robe's skyscraper apartments revive- after a Art and high
dismal interval - the tradition of the Chicago School of the mechanization
1880's. In them a strange symbiosis has come about: an under-
standing between the creative powers of an artist and the gi-
gantic organization of modern building industrialization.
Around 1880 Adler and Sullivan could themselves assume

complete responsibility for erecting their buildings as could,
naturally, the engineer and building contractor, William Le
Baron Jenney. Today this is no longer possible. The list of
those responsible for the erection of a major building is even
longer than the list of those collaborating in a major film. But,
just as whether the movie is good or bad depends on the
intensity of the chief director, so the quality of a building
depends on the capabilities of its form-giving architect. He
has to give it that imponderable quality that can be called its
architectural expression. That the American building industry
- in rare cases - has put its trust in an artist and not just a
stereotyped architect is a sign that a synthesis between art and
high mechanization is possible. Once the creative architect
knows how to play upon the stupendous keyboard of mechani-
zation we need not feel troubled about the future of archi-
tecture.
Office Buildings
Mies van der Robe's work in America increased greatly from
the early fifties on. In particular, he designed several impor-
607
tant office buildings. It took another decade for his work to
become recognized in Germany, but by the early sixties he was
accepted by all sides: by German industrial barons (the
Friedrich Krupp office building in Essen) and by German
officialdom (the project for the Twentieth Century Gallery in
Berlin).
Among the New York skyscrapers, the dignified bronze Sea-
gram Office Building (1958) on Park Avenue with its generous
forecourt holds a special position of dignity.
During the sixties Chicago fell much less into the trend of
playboy architecture than New York. Several large office
buildings were erected for the state and the city in this period.
It was almost as though the local genius of the earlier Chicago
School had been resurrected.
The Federal Mies van der Rohe designed the large Federal Center complex
Center in situated in the Chicago Loop, right in the heart of the city.
Chicago, 1963 It includes the Court House, the Federal Office Building,
designed by one of his students, and the Central Post Office
(jig. 372). The space available for this Center, which was
:
r r
1- <!I 1-"'
gz ~ 6~
~
0
370. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Lake Shore Drive Apartments, 1951. Plan. One
of the most advanced examples of building by assembling prefabricated parts.
608
371. MIES VAN DEB. ROHE. Lake Shore Drive Apartments, 1951. The use of
glass may here hm;e reached its zenith, unless industry creates the technical means for
adju.~ting the different qualities of light without the use of curtains.
609
372. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Federal Center, Chicago, 1963. Model. Left,
30-slory Court House; center, 45-slory Federal Office Building. Each building has one floor
reserved for a sluff restaurant. The single-story Central Post Office on the right is a typical
undivided interior space, 60 meters square. Despite the narrow checkerboard of the street
system that reduced the available space to the minimum, the architect has succeeded in creat-
ing an interplay of volumes within the limitations of the site.
610
reduced to the minimum by the narrow checkerboard of Chi-
cago's street system, permitted no interplay of large volumes
in space. However, one can observe from the model how, even
under these conditions, Mies van der Robe was able to bring
about an interrelation of the three structures: Court House,
Federal Office Building and the lower Central Post Office.
Of all Mies van der Rohe's later buildings, the office building Bacardi
Office Building
for the Bacardi rum factory in Mexico (1961) possesses the
near :\I exico
most sublime architectonic instrumentation. It lies in open City, 1961
country on the way from Mexico City to Teotihuacan, the
holy city of the Aztecs (fig. 373).
Here Mies van der Rohe developed his methods of approach
still further. The exterior: emphasized columns, glass surfaces
to the front and to the set-back ground floor (fig. 378). The
interior: one single flowing space. This was achieved by an
extremely subtle knowledge of how to arrive at perfection
through the smallest alterations of position and proportion.
One thing is most striking: the conscious emphasis on the re-
lation between horizontal planes, an emphasis which often
appears in Mies van der Robe's later work (fig. 376).
The forerunner of this Mexican building was a single-story
office for the same firm in Cuba (1958), whose heavily coffered
concrete ceiling hovers above the floor. Its eight tapering
concrete columns make their junction with the ceiling about
fifteen meters from the corners, so that the projecting horizon-
tal plane seems to float in space. A similar relation between
horizontal planes appears in this two-story Bacardi building
in Mexico, where stress is laid on the wide encircling travertine
floor that in one place reaches out from the building (fig. 378).
The hovering relation between the horizontal planes of ceiling
and floor is strengthened by one, seemingly simple, device:
there are no columns at the corners. Instead they are set far
back from the short end walls, so that - in its own way - the
ceiling projects freely forward (fig. 376). Thus the relation
between the plane surface of the floor and the ceiling is given
full strength of expression. In J9'rn Utzon's work the horizon-
tal plane comes even more strongly into the foreground as a
constituent element of contemporary architecture.
611
373. MlES VAN
DER ROllE. Bacardi
Office Building, Mex-
ico, 1961. General view
of the building with its
set-back columns and
projecting upper floor.
f--· ' ' '

1-1-- +- Hf+---1- -.t--+-+_,
374. Bacardi Office

Building, Mexico, 1961.
Plan of the upper story.
The working rooms are
along the long sides.
Two cross walls of cedar-
wood stand freely in
space, separating the
meeting rooms from the
main space.
375. Bacardi Office
D D
·--1- f -
Building, Mexico, l96l. ~ t= - f.- !-- ~ --1--1--+-bi'~Sl
: rnJ ----
Ground floor plan. The
patio-/ike character of
the large open room in
-f.-- mm:
the center .~trenglhens - -+ - -1- -1-· ----1--f-- --· l--l--
~-+-4---lf.-~-+-+-4~f--1--~-
the flow of the "single
space." The set-back
col1imns show the pro-
jecting roof at either end.
612
..
376. Bacardi Office Building, Mexico, 1961. The 377. Bacardi Office Building, Mexico, 1961. Re-
J'loating relation between ceiling and floor is empha- lation between the surfaces of floor and ceiling. Un-
sized by setting back the columns so that the upper fortunately, planting has been concentrated at the
story projects foru:ard. corners and will, in a few years, diminish the crystal
clarity of the building.
378. Bacardi Office Building, Mexico, 1961. The hovering relation of the horizontal
surfaces of floor and ceiling is stressed at the entrance where the travertine floor flows out-
ward in a wide stream.
613
379. MIES VAN DER ROHE. Project for Twentieth Century Gallery, Berlin, 1963.
Model. In this museum the relation between horizontal surfaces is carried further by in-
troducing three levels: roof, raised platform, and street. As in the Bacardi Office Building,
Cuba , 1958, the columns are placed far from the corners and the glass walls are set back.
The tinted glass of the upper story makes it appear opaque

from the outside and transparent from within. This strength-
ens the interplay of the strong black steel verticals with the
lightness of the whole building.
In the interior Mies van der Rohe again follows the principle
of forming a single flowing space as he had done from the
Tugendhat house at Brno (1930) to the Farnsworth House
near Chicago (1950). The glass enclosed space, although
roofed, operates like a patio (fig. 375). The space for the
secretarial staff is organized along both sides of the surrounding
gallery. At the narrow ends the meeting rooms are demarcated
by walls of cedarwood. Light stairways lead from the open
ground floor to the work spaces on the upper story (fig. 374).
Closely related to the Bacardi Building in Cuba is Mies van
der Rohe's project for the Twentieth Century Gallery in
Berlin, 1963 (fig. 379). Here too the columns are placed far
back from the corners; this, together with setting back the
614
380. Twentieth Century Gallery, Berlin, 1963. East-west section. To the far left,
the sculpture court. The permanent collection was to have been housed below the raised
platform and temporary exhibitions shown on the ground floor.
\
~
~~- 'It
-~
' ~"' ~
'I"" """Nf
,+·"'
1
'
' ...II
'
·-'-
+- '1:
'),
""'\;
~
.J"''
IIIIII
~~
I! bw. ~~ u
~~
381. Twentieth Century Gallery, Berlin, 1963. Plan of the upper story for temporary
exhibitions.
glass walls, strengthens the hovering relation between the

different levels of roof, platform, and street. The building was
designed to stand on a raised level (fig. 379), which as the
section shows (fig. 380), contains a basement housing the main
collection. The glazed hall on the entry level would hold only
temporary exhibitions (fig. 381).
On the I nlegrily of Form
There exist different types of creative spirits. Some conceive

what they we destined to contribute to human culture once
and for all at an early stage. Descartes perceived his philo-
615
sophie system, as he has said himself, during the course of a
sinrle night. He elaborated it, but he never changed its
structure.
There are other creative spirits who cannot be pinned down to
what they thought in their youth, but who are continuously
developing, continually in movement, throughout the span of
their lives. Goethe is the prototype for this kind of eternally
changing and developing spirit.
Mies van der Confining our outlook to contemporary architecture, similar
Rohe and Le differences appear: Le Corbusier's development, for instance,
Cor busier
undoubtedly reflects the second type; Le Corbusier pushed the
sculptural approach still further, while, at the same time (in
the sense of the third space conception) he sought to bring
about a new balance between interior and exterior space. Mies
van der Rohe belongs to those who, at an early stage, conceive
what their temperaments will elaborate throughout their lives.
The conquest From the moment in the early twenties when Mies van der
of pure form Rohe realized the possibilities of artistic expression in the
combination of glass walls and a steel skeleton, he felt impelled
to develop this approach further, using continually more re-
fined methods. \Vithout the touch of a magic wand, these
two industrially produced materials- steel and glass- sink
back into their natural state: an amorphous mass. Their
transformation to an acme of artistic refinement comes about
from a hypersensitive adjustment of details: the most minute
changes in proportions. Mies van der Rohe has always held
"an organic principle" in mind: "We desire an order which
gives everything its rightful place and we desire everything to
have what is right for it according to its own nature."
It is understandable that he has required wooden models of the
details of supports and their connections to be built in his
studio to a scale of 1: l. The linkage of flat surfaces with the
skeleton must be examined for the first hint of a reduction in
intensity. In Mies van der Rohe's studio, in April1964, I saw
on a drawing board the squared modular grid of the Berlin
Twentieth Century Gallery at a scale of 1: 5 and a three-di-
mensional model of one of the supports with a cross-like sec-
tion.
616
His persistent desire to vitalize space drove him to an ever
more intensive architectonic expression. He did not rest till
he had subdued all forms to the utmost purity. He holds
ever more strongly to one of the constituent elements of
contemporary architecture, the plane surface, which he likes
to use in its smoothest and most transparent form- the glass
sheet. This continuous pressure for the conquest of pure
form has been accompanied by an ever stricter renunciation
of all that seemed to the architect hampering or nonessential.
It is this demand for the absolute that lies behind Mies van
der Rohe's often deliberately misinterpreted saying: "Less
is more." Mies van der Rohe's exclusiveness has had the
greatest influence upon American architecture, although he is
as impossible to imitate as Piet Mondrian.
He makes no distinction between his approach to a single-
story dwelling, two-story buildings, or multi-story apartments.
The attitude of the perfectionist controls the dimensioning of
all surfaces, outlines, and details. Volumes are reduced to
their simplest form. An increasing architectonic refinement
can be observed from his Promontory Apartments, 1949, to
the black skeleton of the Lake Shore Apartments, 1951, and
the light, almost immaterial, aluminum ribs of the Common-
wealth Apartments, 1956.
Mies van der Rohe's strict discipline has had a deep moral
influence upon contemporary American architecture. ·with-
out it, it is possible that Eero Saarinen's delicately organized
complex for the General Motors Technical Center (Detroit,
1951), would never have arisen in its present form; nor one of
New York's purest skyscrapers, the twenty-four-story Lever
House (Park Avenue, 1952). To create the socially welcoming
plaza of the Lever House, Gordon Bunschaft of the firm of
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill removed an area of exceedingly
valuable urban land from the money market and made it freely
available for the use of New York pedestrians.
If later an investigation is made as to which of the architects of
our period have best understood how to link a continuously
flowing interior space with the shaping of precisely limited
forms, Mies van der Rohe will appear as the clearest exponent
of the inherent volition of our period.
617
ALVAR AALTO:
IRRATIONALITY AND STANDARDIZATION
Aalto is the strongest exponent of the combination of stan-

dardization with irrationality, so that standardization is no
longer master but servant. The moral force behind the de-
velopment of architecture in recent decades has had one
supreme concern: to reestablish a union between life and
architecture. Aalto is the youngest of those architects who
have created the present-day vocabulary.
Union between Life and Architecture

Earlier, Frank Lloyd ~Wright evolved a language of forms,
direct, as it would seem, from the prairie. His private houses
of about 1900 emphasized the human aspect and stood in
complete contrast to the skyscrapers the young \Vright had
watched as they grew.
The road that Europe had to take to free itself from the deval-
uated architectural language of the ruling taste proved to be
a much 1nore difficult one. There architectural expression had
become so debased that it could no longer follow any direct
path. The curative process could only succeed if one pruned
mvay everything so that there remained only the healthy base
hearing the insignia of the period - a steel and concrete skel-
eton.
Another factor in the cleansing process was the elimination of

the pseudo-individuality admired so much by the wealthy
classes around the turn of the century. This work demanded
a firm program and an emphasis on function. When Walter
Gropius put forward a new means of architectural expression
in Europe about 1913, he could not begin directly with the
horne; he had to begin by confining himself to frame structures,
factories, and exhibition buildings.
Around 1920 Le Corbusier shaped the house on the basis of

a new space conception. His points of departure were the
618
ferroconcrete skeleton and the means of artistic expression
that had developed since cubism. A sensitive understanding
of construction techniques and an unerring functional analysis
of problems were essential for the health of the new move-
ment.
At the same time, through the work of the Stijl group, Hol-
land contributed theories of artistic fundamentals as well as
practical solptions. This movement centered around Thea van
Doesburg, Mondrian, Rietveld, van Eesteren, and others.
J. J. P. Oud expressed its social concepts in the workers'
quarters that he built from 1919 onwards, in which the
marriage of function and aesthetics is handled in a masterly
fashion.
These means of expression and their elements - standardiza-

tion, new methods of construction, and, above all, a new
space conception- had developed so far by 1930 that an
architectural language already lay at the disposal of anyone
capable of using it.
The Complementarity of the Differentiated and the Primitive
About 1930 Alvar Aalto's name began to be known outside

Finland. \Vhat part was he to play?
At this time, painters like Joan Mir6 and Paul Klee, whose
work is closely bound to the organic and the irrational, were
coming to the fore. A similar event was about to happen in
architecture.
As early as 1925, in Le Corbusier's Pavillon de l'Esprit Nou-

veau in Paris, natural objects- stones, shells, and grotesque
roots - lay alongside mechanically formed objects which have
acquired a perfect standard type through man's long experi-
ence with them, such as everyday drinking glasses, wine bottles,
or laboratory equipment. It seems today to be requisite that
we should live both with objects shaped by man and with
objects of organic growth.
619
\V e have seen how the new architecture had first to develop
out of those elements that had remained sound: iron con-
struction and ferroconcrete. But by about 1930 the new
means of expression had been attained. Now it was possible
to strive for further development and to dare the leap from the
rational-functional to the irrational-organic. This need al-
ready lay concealed within the functional conception. To
avoid misunderstanding, let it be stated that this development
toward the organic in no way approximates the German re-
action of the 1930's that carried on the ruling taste of the
nineteenth century under the sign of the swastika. The feel-
ing for mass production and for standardization has not been
discarded at all, only now we have at hand not only the nec-
essary techniques but also perhaps an insight into the use of
these from a human standpoint.
Alongside iron and ferroconcrete construction, the ancient ma-
terial, wood, came again to the fore. By 1930 it appeared
that wood had been squeezed by manufacturers of all its po-
tentialities. It seemed as though the constellation under which
Aalto was born predestined him to look with new eyes upon
this material which has become so closely linked with his name.
He is as near to organic chemistry as he is to the artistic
principles of our period.
Finland is with Aalto wherever he goes. It provides him with
that inner source of energy which always flows through his
work. It is as Spain is to Picasso or Ireland to James Joyce.
Part of the essence of present-day art is that its true repre-
sentatives originate in a definite human environment and their
work is not created in a vacuum. But it is also part of its
essence that barriers between space and time, barriers be-
tween countries, and barriers between future and past are torn
down, and with a bold sweep our own period, the whole world,
and the whole of history are embraced. Georges Braque ex-
presses this in a Bergsonian manner in his sketchbook: "L'ave-
nir est la projection du passe, conditionee par le present." 1
Perhaps later periods will observe that one of our good qual-
ities was our endeavor to combine the technical with the
1 Cahier de Georges Braque 1917-1947 (Paris, 1948).
620
primeval. This same phenomenon appears in all the arts: out
of forgotten strata of consciousness the elements of primitive
man which are dormant in us are again brought to light, and
at the same time unity is sought with the present day.
Aalto is restless. He does not always remain in the pine and

birch forests of Finland. First he made contact with the
continent; since 1939 he has stood with one foot in America.
His nature leads him to come into contact with whatever
the place and the period have to offer for the forces of artistic
development. In addition, he has had personal friendships
with such artists as Fernand Leger, Hans Arp, and Brancusi.
He recognizes modern art as a great reservoir which, though
often invisible, provides the decisive power for his own crea-
tiveness. One senses this in his sanatorium, in his factories,
in his Viipuri Library, as well as in the simplest schemes that
he sketches on the wall.
\Vhen Aalto was in the United States in 1939, building the

Finnish Pavilion for the New York ~W odd's Fair, he and I
were once sitting together with Brancusi, the sculptor. Bran-
cusi had been telling of some work that he had done for an
Indian Maharajah when Aalto suddenly exclaimed, "I see
now, Brancusi l You stand at the crossroads of Asia and
Europe l" Finland is also at the crossroads of East and \Vest,
but for the moment we would only stress the fact that many
remnants of primeval and medieval times still remain alive
there and intermingle with modern civilization. This double
nature is instilled in Aalto too, and gives creative tension
to his work.
Finnish Architecture before 1930
Finland is one of the countries that were longest covered with

glaciers. Civilization, as it traveled over the earth, always
reached this country very late - from the neolithic period
.onward to this century. Often eastern and western influences
have intermingled here.
Of all the countries of Europe, Finland is in many respects one

of the most peculiar. Its people have never risen to imperial-
621
382. Finland, trans-
portation of wood.
After drying in the
forests, the logs start
a year-long journey
over lakes and rivers
down to the sea, where
they are converted into
pulp at cellulose
plants.
istic power and splendor, like the Vikings of Norway in early

days, the Danes in medieval times, or the Swedes in the seven-
teenth century. For hundreds of years, Finland formed a part
of Sweden, till Napoleon delivered it, in a moment of rage,
to the Russians. Each of the rulers left his imprint on the
country; but not one of the invaders could really curb the
people. The only way to get along with the Finns was to
treat them in a friendly manner and, as far as possible, to leave
them undisturbed. This has remained true throughout Fin-
land's whole history. It is a unique mixture of smoothness and
friendliness, with an imperturbable firmness in the depths of
their soul, that makes up the strength of these people.
Finland, covered with its network of lakes and forests, sug-
gests in its structure the days of the Creation, when water
and earth were first separated. It is a country of vast dim en-
622
sions and solitudes: although ten times the size of Switzerland,
it contains only the same number of inhabitants. Copper,
timber, water- these are its principal resources. Finland is
favored in that its ten thousands of lakes are connected in four
or five systems and have outlets to the sea, not to the frozen
north as in Russia, but to the west and to the south.
Finland's chief raw material is wood. The trees are felled in
the north during the summer season. After drying in the
forests for six months, they start a year-long journey over
lakes and rivers, hundreds of miles, down to the sea. There
in large cellulose plants at the rivers' mouths they are con-
verted into pulp (fig. 382).
Shortly before the first world war, Central Europe and Scan-
dinavia, including Finland, all experienced a period of pros-
perity. It was the result of long years of peace. The efforts
that Finland made at this time to establish a strong archi-
tectural expression of its own were immediately noticeable. 2
Lars Sonck, a man of over eighty when I met him in the autumn
of 1948 at a luncheon in the Liberal Club of Helsinki, was
doubtless the strongest personality among the older Finnish
architects. Himself resembling a block of unhewn granite, he
built the best churches of the whole Art Nouveau movement in
the first decade of this century. Their expressive directness
and the manner in which granite, concrete, and space are
treated still immediately capture the onlooker of today. 3
Long before Eliel Saarinen left Finland for America, he was
known outside his own country for his railway station in
Helsinki (1906-14). In this celebrated building it is very easy
to be reminded of South German influences; but, just like its
architect, it is more elegant and flexible than its prototypes.
J. S. Siren's House of Parliament in Helsinki, built in the late
twenties, is an example of Swedish classicism (especially that
of Ivar Tengboom and his circle); yet from this building there
does not emanate that over-perfumed flavor which makes
2 Architecture in Finland (Helsinki, 1932), published by the Finlands Architektfoerbund,
is the only book which gives an insight into Finnish development up to that time.
3 Perhaps we are considering his rough granite church in Tampere, the Finnish Man-
chester, more than the Kallio Kirk (1908), a kind of landmark in Helsinki.
623
village of Lapua, North Finland. Exterior. This structure of unhewn logs seems rather a
palisade fortress against Indians than an exhibition building for forestry and agriculture.
Built in 1938 in a Northern Finnish forest, it shows in its roughness that A alto had not
become conventional through his contact with Western Europe. More delicate versions of
this kind of vertical articulation appear frequently in Aalto's work (International Exhibi-
tions at Paris, 1937, and New York, 1939).
village of Lapua, North Finland. Interior.
624
385. ALVAR AALTO. Orchestra platform for the 700-year Jubilee of Turku, 1929.
Oestberg's Town Hall in Stockholm unsupportable after a

time.
A alto's First Buildings

Alvar Aalto's active life coincides with the most consistently
agitated period of Finland's existence. First came liberation,
followed by only a short span of undisturbed freedom, and
then two wars. By normal reasoning, either of these should
have been sufficient to wipe out Finland once and for all.
After these catastrophes very little money remained for the
rebuilding of the damaged instruments of production. Hous-
ing had to be reduced to the utmost, and there were no funds
at all for town halls, museums, civic centers, and other such
signs of financial prosperity. Great public buildings will not
be found in Aalto's early work, and such schemes as the
sanatorium at Paimio, the factory complex of Sunila, the
luxury of Mairea, were created during the short period before
Finland's two great fights for its very existence.
625
In Finland, architects and foresters have a much higher social
standing than in other countries, and they form a kind of
aristocracy, to which Alvar Aalto's forebears (who were for-
esters) belonged. Aalto himself was brought up in a village,
Alajarvi, close to the northwestern end of the most densely
populated region of Finland. He had an early start in his
career, and while still a student at the Institute of Technology
in Helsinki he built his first house, for his parents, in Alajarvi.
He built his first church in 1922 near Jyvaskyla.
In these early days, Aalto had much to do with several

Finnish exhibitions, but only one of these temporary buildings
shall be mentioned here: the Orchestra Platform in the ex-
hibition that celebrated the 700-year Jubilee of the founding
of Finland's old capital of Turku (.Abo). This slightly curved
wooden sound box (fig. 385), reduced to the utmost in all its
parts and delicately outlined, works, together with the in-
clined orchestra floor, to assure perfect sound transmission,
and reveals simultaneously its plastic flexibility. It was con-
ceived at the same time that Aalto was marrying ceiling and
wall in his Viipuri lecture hall.
In the mid-twenties, three young Finnish architects began
work: Aalto, Bryggman, and Huttunen. They all used the
ferroconcrete skeleton in the way that had been developed in
France and elsewhere. It is difficult to distinguish their ar-
tistic handwriting at the time when Huttunen built his excel-
lent flour mills, Bryggman his hotels, chapels, and insurance
offices, and Aalto his first large block for an Agricultural Co-
operative, containing offices, flats, and a theater for 600
persons. This was in 1928, in Turku, where Aalto had opened
his own office.
Then, in 1928-30, came the office building for the Turun-
Sanomat in Turku, the first of Aalto's buildings to become
known outside Finland. Here can already be seen a coalition
of western technique with an artistic language all his own:
the ferroconcrete skeleton, bands of horizontal windows, roof
terrace, and, especially, the mushroom ceiling of the sub-
terranean hall that houses the printing press. The tapered
columns of this skylight-illuminated hall, with their sensuous
626
--
-
386. ALVAR AALTO. Turun-Sanomal building, Turku, Printing room, 1928- 30.
387. ALVAR AALTO . Building for

the Turun-Sanomal, Exterior, 1928-30.
627
388. ALVAR AALTO. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Paimio, South Finland, 1929-33.
Rest hall on top of patients' wing.
one-sided mushroom capitals, show Aalto's hand at its best

(figs. 386, 387).
Before Aalto was thirty he had been commissioned to execute

the Agricultural Cooperative, the Turun-Sanomat building, the
Viipuri Library, the sanatorium at Paimio - all of them as a
result of winning competitions. These facts are mentioned
more to give an insight into Finland's atmosphere than to give
proof of Aalto's genius. Had Aalto grown up in one of the
other democratic countries, Switzerland for example, or the
United States, he could never, as early as 1929, have been
given first prize for a scheme such as the sanatorium at Paimio.
His wings would have been broken before he had flown, or would
have been crushed by compromises. Nothing reveals more
clearly the spiritual leadership of a country than the capacity
of its administration to recognize the best talents right from
the start, and to trust them.
628
Paimio: The Sanatorium, 1929-33
As far as we can see, there are three institutional buildings in-
separably linked to the rise of contemporary architecture: the
Bauhaus at Dessau by Walter Gropius (1926); the project for
the League of Nations Palace at Geneva by Le Corbusier
(1927); and Alvar Aalto's sanatorium at Paimio (1929-33) in
the southwest part of Finland, not far from the former capital
Turku.
This institution is a medium-sized tuberculosis sanatorium
with accommodation for about 290 patients. The main build-
ing, an unbroken line of six stories, is oriented to the south-
southwest; the solarium with its cantilevered balconies ad-
joins it at a slight angle (fig. 389). At the end of 1928, when
Aalto won the competition for this public sanatorium, courage
was needed to rest the solarium on a single row of ferroconcrete
pillars, to close it at the back with one flat wall, and to let
seven rows of balconies protrude in an unbroken line. In a
sanatorium we have been accustomed to conceive room and
balcony as a single unit, to allow the patient direct access to
the open air. There are no balconies connected with the
rooms at Paimio. But this separation between room and
balcony is intentional. Physicians considered it as a very im-
portant factor in the rest cure that patients be brought
together in small groups - according to their own choice, their
own preference. To avoid the impression of endless rows of
patients, small partition walls have been introduced so that
the patients can be divided up into these small groups (fig.
390). The top floor is used as a rest hall and runs the whole
length of the building (fig. 388). At the point where the
main building and the rest hall intersect, Aalto links them
together by giving the shelter an undulating curve. From the
lounge chairs one can look into the tops of near-by fir trees and
see the forests beyond them. But Aalto also planted pine
trees in tubs along the balconies, to soften the concrete planes.
The human side also comes into consideration in the basic

layout of the individual rooms. This is made clearly evident
by the position of the electric light near the bed, by the oval-
shaped plywood doors of the small closet, by the simple ar-
629
389. ALVAR AALTO. Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Paimio, 1929-33. View of the
entrance.
rangement at the window to provide fresh air without causing

drafts, by the specially designed wash basins which permit a
noiseless flow of water, and by the early use of ceiling heat-
ing. These illustrate the minute elaboration of details.
Set at a right angle to the main building which houses the
patients is a short wing with staircases and elevators which
630
390. ALVAR AALTO. Tuber-
culosis Sanatorium, Paimio, 1929-
33. View of the patients' rooms and
rest hall.
391. ALVAR AALTO. Tuber-

culosis Sanatorium, Paimio, 1929-
33. Ground plan.
forms the link to the dining and social rooms. Slightly lower
wings for clinic and administration and still lower sections for
kitchen, laundry, and power station radiate therefrom (fig.
391). Farther off and separated from the complex are houses
for the doctors and resident staff (fig. 391). Aalto's town-
planning principles can already be recognized in the loose-knit
layout of this whole complex.
631
Wherever you stand, new aspects enrich the space-time con-
ception of this complex. Each of the walls has its own ex-
istence and is formed according to the function of the rooms
behind it, but all are modeled and related to each other by a
strong plastic vision. At the time of its construction no
building in the northern countries could compare with the
sanatorium at Paimio in its purity of form and boldness of
conception. As in Le Corbusier's League of Nations Palace,
as in the Bauhaus, the various parts are fully integrated -
like the organs of a body - each having its distinct functions
and yet being inseparable from the others. Only by encom-
passing the whole compound can one perceive its space-time
planning and its relation with earth and woods.
The Undulating Wall

Viipuri Library One of the few buildings in which Aalto could freely express
himself was the Viipuri Library, built with difficulty between
1927 and 1934. It was damaged in the first Russo-Finnish
war and almost razed to the ground in the following conflict.
It consisted of the library proper, which had carefully con-
structed circular overhead lights, and an unusually shaped
lecture hall with a spacious connecting vestibule. 4
Aalto's treatment of the undulating wooden ceiling of the
lecture hall is of great historical importance. The architect
today appears nowhere so hesitant as in the region of the
ceiling, above the reach of everyday functions. Here, to a
large extent, the architect has freedom of expression. Since
the Roman Pantheon, the vault - the ceiling - has always
been the place for the expression of the symbolic power of the
period.
Alvar Aalto is, like Le Corbusier, one of the few architects
who in our times has tried anew to attack the vaulting problem
in a way peculiar to this period. 5 In the intimate hall of the
4For a complete description see Alfred Roth, The New Architecture (Zurich, 1940),
pp. 181-19,1.
5 E.g., Le Corbusier's original plan for the large assembly hall of the United Nations
building (New York, 1947), which linked ceiling, wall, and floor by consecutive yet
segmented parts.
632
392. ALVAR AALTO. Viipuri Library, 1927-34. Undulating ceiling of the lecture
hall.
Viipuri Library the irrational curves of the ceiling glide

through space like the serpentine lines of a Mir6 painting
(fig. 392). From the floor behind the speaker, narrow strips
of redwood sweep upward, curving irrationally along the glass
wall. Of course, the architect himself can prove, with metic-
ulous acoustic diagrams, that the undulating form he gave the
ceiling enables sound to reach the human ear more perfectly.
Here, therefore, scientific reasoning and artistic imagination
have merged to free architecture from that rigidity which is
today an ever-present menace.
Aalto treated the walls of his Finnish Pavilion with even Finnish Pavilion
greater freedom. This was without doubt the most daring New York, 1939
piece of architecture in the New York World's Fair of 1939:
an inclined wooden screen three stories high embraces the
interior space in a freely drawn curve. The screen consists of
three sections, each cantilevered over the other; at the same
time the whole structure leans forward, intensifying thereby
the impression of continuous movement. A series of vertical
ribs and the rhythm of their changing shadows animate the
surface of the huge screen (fig. 393).
633
393. ALVAR AALTO. Finnish Pavilion, World's Fair, N ew York, 1939. Undulating wall in the interior.
634
394. Finnish lakes and
forests, Aulenko.
395. ALVAR AALTO.

Finnish Pavilion, World's
Fair, New York, 1939.
Ground plan.
396. ALVAR AALTO.

Glass vases.
635
Each detail has a well-reasoned explanation. In the tech-
nique of poster display, the undulating surface provides more
space for large photographs; the forward tilting brings the
uppermost pictures closer to the angle of vision; the series of
vertical ribs thrusts the photographs forward; the cantilever of
the upper stories, which so intensifies the impression of hov-
ering movement, provides room for a concentrated display of
objects.
The outstanding feature is the new modeling of inner space
that is involved in this experiment, which to many still ap-
pears rude and almost barbaric (fig. 395). But there is no
doubt that the Finnish Pavilion stood in the main line of
development and, like every integral work, displayed elements
of both the past and the future.
Dormitory Having given flexibility to the ceiling and to partition walls,
M.I.T., 1947 Aalto then attacks the outer wall in his Dormitory for the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, 1947).
The sober program of a dormitory is given a new interpreta-
tion. All means are employed in the attempt to avoid the
ant-hill atmosphere often emanated by such buildings. Aalto
gives the individual his personal rights through a great va-
riety of means: by the way he arranges the staircases, by the
blending of spaces, by alternating the capacity, form, and
arrangement of the bedrooms. He dares to free the fa~ade in
an undulating wall so that, as he explains, every student has
a clear view of the Charles River without being made aware
of the large expanse of the building (fig. 397).
The large student dormitories of Harvard along the Charles
River were mostly built in the style of English country houses
of the eighteenth century. One lives well in them even though
they perhaps impose upon the college students too much of a
feudal manner of behavior that is in strong contrast to the con-
temporary way of life to which most of them are accustomed.
Aalto's dormitory changes this approach. Inside, its un-
plastered brick walls are rough and the bedrooms and work-
rooms of the students are as small as possible without destroy-
ing the vitality of the atmosphere. The same goes for the
common rooms. It is interesting how Aalto equips the almost
636
397. ALVAR AALTO. Dormitory (Baker House), Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1947-49. Air view.
square dining room with his typical circular skylights. He is

not afraid simply to attach the dining room to the undulating
fa<;ade of the building. The space itself has the two levels
that are characteristic of Aalto (fig. 401), as in the Viipuri
Library and other, later buildings. The unconventional way
in which he lets the long lines of the staircase structure project
plastically from the rear fa<;ade shows Aalto's independent
attitude (jig. 402). As soon as one steps into the entrance one
sees through the whole transparent building.
The Harkness Center built by Walter Gropius for the graduate
students of Harvard University overcomes the weightiness of
the early student dormitories in quite a different way. Gropius
kept the complex low so as to organize it around an open court.
Jose Luis Sert adopted yet another way in his large complex on
the Charles River for five hundred married Harvard students,
1963-64. Here there is an interplay between three strongly
articulated 22-story towers and other differentiated low and
higher buildings.
Aalto's attempt to free architecture from the threat of rigidity
continues what Le Corbusier had attempted in the curved
walls of the Swiss Pavilion in the Cite Universitaire (Paris,
1930- 32), and in his project for Algiers (1931). As we have
pointed out earlier, these continue the tradition of the undulat-
637
398. ALVAR AALTO.
M.I.T. Dormitory,
1947-49. Charles River
front, with projecting
lounge and dining
hall.
·r ~J
L~
0
638
400. M.I.T. Dormitory. Lounge with 401. M.I.T. Dormitory. Balcony lounge
terrace, and basement dining hall. and stairway to dining room. Note the cir-
cular skylights- a typical A alto detail.
402. M.I.T. Dormitory. View from athletic field, showing entrance and projecting stair-
cases.
639
ing wall as a means of modulating space from Francesco Bor-
romini's fa~ade of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1662-67
(jig. 82), to the serpentine windings of English crescents in the
late eighteenth century (jig. 83).
Aalto's endeavor to imbue things with an almost organic flex-
ibility has another source: the nature of his country. As Joan
403. ALVAR AALTO.

M.I.T. Dormitor)'. Three-man
study, with bunks to save space.
Unplastered brick walls.
Mir6 is rooted in the Catalan landscape, as the cubists trans-

mitted the experiences - tables, glasses, bottles, newspapers
- of a Parisian cafe into a new conception of space, so Aalto
found a direct incentive in the curved contours of the Finnish
lakes, shaped with astonishing smoothness by nature itself and
set in high relief by forest masses pressing on all sides down
to the water's edge (jigs. 394, 396).
Sunila: Factory and Landscape, 1937-39

One of Aalto's main activities in Finland is industrial planning,
from the factory itself to the resettlement of whole industrial
areas. This was the case in the Vuoksi river valley develop-
ment (1947), where the left bank, annexed by the Russians,
had to be abandoned, and all industry, settlements, and com-
munity centers transplanted and a new road system laid out.
640
Aalto has built several cellulose factories 6 and sawmills. 7
Theirs are not the grand dimensions of American industrial
plants, nor the elegant luxury of the van Nelle factory in
Rotterdam (1927). Yet Aalto knows how to raise a plant from
a purely professional instrument up to a piece of architecture
in which the site, the use of different materials, and the organ-
ization of volumes in space are given as much attention as the
production line. Nowhere is this more apparent than in
Sunila (1937-39).
Sunila, with a yearly output of 80,000 tons of cellulose sheets,
was built jointly by five Finnish wood concerns. Good fac-
tories are taken for granted today. But Sunila is not merely
a factory. It is a complex of homogeneous living zones and
production areas. The living quarters were started before
the factory itself and are strewn around in the fir forest, to-
gether with their saunas and laundries (fig. 407).
Sunila stands on an island in a small bay. Its aspect is defined
by the long horizontality of the warehouse, extending along
the seashore (fig. 405), and the vertical accents of the dif-
ferent coordinated buildings of the plant. The inclined diag-
onals of the conveyors, leading to and from the storage
towers, aggressively penetrate the whole complex.
Aalto took care that the rounded granite rocks on which the
factory stands were not blasted to the level of the shore
(fig. 404). He knew how to use the contrast between the
massiveness of these granite rocks on the one hand and the
delicate steel structure of the row of pylons which support the
conveyor and the different texture of the flat brick walls on
the other.
Sunila has a most perfect production line. In the interior there
are immense containers, boilers and digesters. There are pipe
tunnels through which fluids and wood pulp flow, and a large
machine for drying cellulose standing isolated in a spacious
6 For instance, the Toppila pulp mills at Oulu (1933), where the suggestive form of the
flake bins is not completely mastered.

7 Sawmills, with their flat boarded walls, generally recall the lifelessness of barracks.
In Aalto's Warkhaus sawmill (1947), the usual dreariness of a sawmill is imbued with
vitality just by the use of carefully profiled round timber and by giving the wall a
lively contour.
641
404. ALVAR AALTO. Sunila, 1937-
39. Conveyors, factory , and granite
blocks.
405. ALVAH AALTO. Sunila, 1937-39. Warehouse, conveyors.
642
406. ALVAR AALTO. Sunila, 1937-39. View toward the open sea.
407. ALVAR AALTO.

Sunila, 1937-39. Plan of
.factory and living quarters.
643
408. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39. Exterior.
409. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39.

Ground plan.
644
hall. But no men are visible. Only forty-five men are re-
quired to supervise the daily transformation of 30,000 logs
into wood pulp; but more than three thousand men work in
the forests to keep the plant supplied. No one is to be seen
on the stairways connecting the different levels or in the
numerous halls. There is an atmosphere like that in Captain
Nemo's Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea.
The problem of the production line here reaches a perfect
solution. Here no human being is misused to become an
adjunct to a machine.
One stands finally on the top level, on the flat roof-terrace of
the high brick-clad storage building, from which the material,
obeying the law of gravity, is conducted into the production
process. Below radiates the organism of the factory, the large
covered flake conveyor mounts almost to the terrace, and the
eye passing over the granite rocks meets the Finnish land-
scape (fig. 406): water, water, trees, and a vast expanse
of space.
Close to the shore is an island of logs which have been floated
down the river from distances of hundreds of miles. A cable
crane picks them out to feed the machines. Ships wait in the
bay to carry the brown cellulose sheets overseas. It is a
Faustian prospect.
Mairea, 1938-39
Aalto's genius cannot be apprehended in a single piece of fur-
niture, a living room, or a house. These must be seen together
with his large-scale planning and the structure of the country.
In Finland in these unsettled times there has been no oppor-
tunity for one-family houses and luxury villas. Aalto built a
small house for himself and a larger one for his friend Gul-
lichsen, president of one of the Finnish wood concerns.
Gullichsen's house, named "Mairea" in honor of his wife,
was built in 1938-39 in a clearing hewn out of the pine forest
on the crown of a hill not far from the coast. Behind the
house are a garden and a swimming pool with a group of gray
silver willows in the background. It is a large mansion, yet
it is intimate.
645
Mairea is a house poured, as it were, from a single crucible,
for architect and client worked together, as in the eighteenth
century. They had the same will and the same inclinations,
a rather rare coincidence in this period when the architect has
to spend most of his energy convincing a hesitating client in
whom the last century still lingers. Moreover, nothing leads
the modern architect farther astray than building for a client
of large financial means, whose main concern it is to invent
extravagant needs and an endless series of superfluous gadgets.
Even one accustomed to judge immediately the qualities of a
building will not easily comprehend the architectural instru-
mentation of Mairea. It is architectural chamber music which
demands the strictest attention to perceive the subtleties in
the resolution of its motifs and intentions - and especially to
grasp fully the handling of space and the extraordinary han-
dling of materials. The broad windows permit the interpene-
tration of inner and outer space; the forest seems to enter the
house and find its concomitant echo ia the slender wooden
poles employed there.
The use of The spatial organization can perhaps be experienced to a cer-
textures tain extent from illustrations. It is otherwise with the use of
the many materials and the lyricism which results from their
juxtaposition. This is already apparent from the outside.
The rough-hewn slabs of black slate beneath the window -
whose texture it is impossible to recognize in the illustration
(fig. 408)- are combined with the warm brown of the teak-
wood shutters and the yellow band of birch of the parapet
running above.
The interior has a more delicate use of texture. In conjunction
with the spatial accentuation, the vestibule has large tiles of a
curious brown, set diagonally- tiles used normally for the
restoration of churches. In contrast to these, smaller reddish
tiles cover the floor of the drawing room with the heavy Finnish
fireplace and continue into the dining room, placed at right
angles in the other wing. The four steps leading from the ves-
tibule to the slightly raised level of the rooms opening from it
are of a wood with a strikingly lucid quality. I asked Aalto
later what kind of wood he had used here. It is rather rarely
used, he said- a kind of white beech, the same as that used
646
410. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 1938-39. View toward the Finnish fireplace and
drawing room.
for the small strip which runs around the hull of a yacht. To
indicate that the different parts of the main living room blend
into each other, the tile zones merge with the wooden floor in
an undulating curve.
A subtle juxtaposition of materials appears everywhere. The
shiny twin columns of the living quarters are of an ebony black
which is relieved by small bands of wickerwork, placed at
varying heights around the columns, sometimes individually
wrapped, sometimes bound together (fig. 410). The large
Finnish fireplace (Finnish because it follows the old tradition
of the country of building the hearth about on table level) has
cantilevered granite shelves above the floor level so that one
may stretch out along them. In contrast to the American
custom, the granite blocks are not continued in the surround-
ing wall, which is left white and smooth. One has to observe
very precisely to apprehend the textual effect of the contig-
uous wall of roughly whitewashed brick.
647
This use of different textures has the same meaning as the use
of the rocaille in the eighteenth century; it helps to modulate
spaces in flux.
Spatial It is the spatial organization which interests us most here.
organization You enter the vestibule. The undulating wall of eye-level
height that faces you gives a hint of other rooms to the right.
Four steps lead to the level of the main living room, which un-
folds in different directions. Diagonally in the background ex-
pands the area of the fireplace, and, on stepping toward it, you
are drawn, diagonally again, into the depth of the large music
room with its black wicker-clad columns and generously di-
mensioned windows. Only the library is granted complete
pnvacy.
The moment you are on the level of the main living room, the
slender poles arranged at irregular intervals on both sides of
the wooden staircase captivate you by the way they sep-
arate it and yet permit space to penetrate. Incidentally, it is
often the manner in which the staircase is integrated into the
spatial organization of a house that betrays the architect's
capacity for handling space. In this case, the light wooden
staircase flows into the main room, announces the existence
of other rooms and yet preserves its own identity. It is treated
like a transparent sculpture (figs. 411, 412).
In this house a rare thing has been achieved; the feeling of an
uninterrupted flow of space throughout the house is never lost,
and yet the feeling of intimacy is preserved, wherever you are.
Organic Town Planning

Town planning is only another term for integration. In this
heyday of narrow-minded specialization, nothing is more dif-
ficult than to conceive or to build up a whole from a number
of different parts.
The ability to integrate is normally developed toward the end
of a period, when it is at its cultural peak. This is particularly
true in relation to town planning.
We are now at the beginning of a period; yet, it is already
necessary for us to possess those qualities that normally de-
648
velop much later. As far as I know, this situation is unique.
But it exists, and we must act accordingly. \Ve are confronted
here and now with the necessity of finding a solution to the
complex problems of the city, although specialists are still
sharply discussing what kind of city it should be. Let us not
forget the present situation: that our imagination begins to
freeze as soon as problems of integration are involved.
What is Aalto's contribution in the field of town planning~
The same qualities which enliven his buildings are even more
411. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea, 412. ALVAR AALTO. Mairea,

1938-39. Details of the staircase. 1938-39. Staircase, drawing room.
obvious in his planning schemes. \Vith the same freedom that

he has employed to loosen up the structure of walls and ceil-
ings, he loosens up the rigid framework of the human settle-
ment. Rows of houses scattered in all directions seem to have
been strewn by the wind, and yet they are held together by an
invisible force, like filings in a magnetic field.
In the layout of Sunila, 1937- 39 (fig. 407), Alvar Aalto's Sunila, 1937-39
approach to town planning is already manifest. The whole
sequence of his later schemes will reflect the same principles.
649
These may be briefly described as establishing an equipoise
between the primary demands for a human environment: an
equipoise between the living area, the center of production,
and nature.
To secure the right of the individual to privacy, to a simple
community life, and to the most intimate contact with the
earth is today the preoccupation of every planner. This aim
is no longer original. Today these demands have become a
matter of course. What is still lacking is their realization.
We will not easily find, as early as 1937, many achievements
like Sunila, where both the production area and the living
area have been conceived in such a way that each has been
given its necessary rights without disturbing the other. The
grasp of a town planner can be felt in the layout of one-family
houses upon the narrowest strip of the available land; in the
grouping of row houses freely in the forest; in the slight varia-
tions of the engineers' row houses, which lie nearer to the
waterfront and are arranged in a slight curve, to ensure the
utmost privacy for each dwelling. It goes without saying that
the necessary social facilities (especially several saunas -
communal bathing houses) are located at strategic intervals.
Aalto's integrated approach enables him to have the struc-
tural completion of the whole community in his mind, even
when he begins with only the first few cells. For some years
after 1944 he worked with other architects on the solution of
the large-scale problem of the reconstruction of Rovaniemi, the
principal town of Finnish Lapland, which was completely de-
stroyed at the end of the second Russo-Finnish war. This plan
was never implemented. The time was not ripe.
Experimental In his scheme for "An Experimental Town" which Aalto
town, 1940 published in 1940, he had already indicated how he would
synchronize, from the very beginning, the simultaneous
growth of the single house, the town, and the processes of pro-
duction (fig. 413). Taking an area of hilly woodland scat-
tered with lakes, so typical of the Finnish landscape, he laid
out the various types of dwellings in the freest possible way.
The terraced houses (f) circle about the hilltops in amoebic
spirals, so that the structure of the landscape breaks through;
650
413. AL VAR AAL TO. Project for an experimental town, 1940.
the apartment houses (e) are turned at a slight angle one to

another and sited at right angles to the slope of the hillside;
the wood infiltrates into the area of the one-family houses (d);
public buildings, schools, and sports grounds (b, c) are close
to every part of the town, though each is laid out to its own
advantage. The standardized and the irrational here flow
together, as in all Aalto's works.
In 1940, this scheme was only a scrap of paper, designed for the
students of M.I.T. When I was in Finland in the fall of
1948, the Finnish government had just granted the necessary
funds for the erection of several such experimental towns in
Finland but their implementation was delayed.
But by 1938, Aalto had already planned Kauttua. Well Kauttua, 1938
hidden, in a narrow valley cut by a creek and about three to
four hours' drive from Turku, lies a paper mill called Kauttua.
On the opposite side of the valley, Aalto built, amidst the
forest, a row of workers' houses. These climb the steep hill-
side in four great steps (fig. 415). The flat roof-terrace of
651
one house forms the large veranda of the next. It may well
be that Aalto remembered the peasant houses on the Greek
isles. Here, too, the children play on their neighbor's roof-
something that is only possible in countries where people do
not immediately become anxious if they have to share some-
thing. As on the Greek island of Santorin, the houses of
Kauttua use the natural slope to avoid the expense of stair-
cases (fig. 416). In their form and shape they express man's
relation to the soil from which he springs.
Only one row of houses has been built, owing to lack of money
and materials. The matter of real importance here is not this
single row of houses, but the realization of the whole plan, one
of the best proposals for the shaping of a rural settlement (fig.
414). Four rows of these terraced houses had been planned,
each placed so that the natural forms of the slope are perfectly
utilized. The brow of the hill is, as Frank Lloyd Wright liked
to see it, untouched. Connected with these units, there are a
school and a small community center, and, further down the
slope, close to the river, a steam bath, the sauna, built as
usual together with the communal laundry- the first fa-
cility to be erected. This corresponds to an old habit of the
Finns, to start the small bath hut before building the dwelling.
This early plan of continuous houses following the slope of a
hill carne into general use in the next decade with increasingly
complicated forms.
Oulu, 1943 Rapids rush through the city of Oulu, situated at the mouth
of the river Oulu in northwestern Finland. An architectural
problem here had to be solved: How could one make full use
of the water power without destroying the beauty of the
marshy islands that lie at the mouth of the river~ Aalto
wanted to create a Venetian-style development (fig. 417) by
taking the hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of stone and
rubble resulting from excavation of a canal and the necessary
dredging of the river and using this material to enlarge the
islands and to raise their ground level a few inches.
The islands nearest to the power plant were to support the
dwelling quarters of the workers. An administrative civic
center and a sports center were to be created on the desolate
652
414. ALVAR AALTO.
Kauttua. Ground plan.
416. ALVAR AALTO. Kauttua.

415. ALVAR AALTO. Terraced houses showing entrances on
Kauttua. Terraced houses. different levels.
653
417. ALVAR AALTO. Oulu, 1943. Model.
418. ALVAR AALTO. Oulu, 1943.

The city with the new civic centers.
islands that face the open water. A large highway would

connect all with the two parts of the existing city of Oulu
(fig. 418). In front of the public center, a number of foun-
tains would spring, geyser-like, from the surface of the water.
This plan was also not implemented, and in 1962 a new com-
petition was held in which Aalto did not take part.
Decentralization The northern countries have taken the lead in decentralizing
their universities and technical institutes to meet their needs
for expansion. Finland was in the vanguard. The Helsinki
Institute of Technology has been rebuilt in the forests of
654
Otaniemi, ten kilometers from the city. The plan, coordinated
with a new highway network, was made by Aalto in 1955 and
building started in 1962.
Ci'Vic and Cultural Centers

One of Aalto's most perfect schemes- a Sports and Cultural
Center for Vienna (won in competition, 1953)- has unfor-
tunately not been built. Its main building for 25,000 people,
which could serve as sports arena, concert hall, and exhibition
hall, had a concave ceiling and slanting walls at front and
back (figs. 419, 420).
Only fragments were built of Aalto's general plan for a village Saynatsalo,
on the little island of Saynatsalo about three hundred kilo- 1950-52
meters north of Helsinki, across from the island where Aalto
built his summer house, Muuratsalo. This civic complex
standing in a pine wood represents the first three-dimensional
realization of a fully planned community center (fig. 421).
Its planning goes back to 1945, but building was not begun
until1950. This complex was Aalto's first community center
to be erected. It contains the Council House with its offices
on three sides of a raised court facing a small library. Below
them, on the ground level, are shops and dwellings.
This project, with its different levels, is dominated by the
Council Chamber. The construction of its wooden ceiling as
a radiating focus served to evoke Aalto's plastic imagination-
it is like the spokes of an opened umbrella.
The most interesting aspect of this complex is its use of two
different levels. Aalto created the upper level from excavation
materials, organizing the buildings one above the other. The
Council Chamber, meeting rooms, and library lie one upon the
other, opening onto a raised patio split open on two sides lead-
ing to stairways: one with polygonal projecting steps bordered
by stone risers. Grass grows on the steps - intentionally.
Later Aalto was to emphasize the relations between two levels
even more strongly.
Saynatsalo was the start. In the next decade realizations Seinajoki,
followed unusually rapidly on an increasingly larger scale. By 1960
655
419. ALVAR AALTO. Sports and Cultural Center, Vienna, 1953. The building f or
simultaneous operations is a roofed sports arena accommodating 25,000 that can also serve
as a concert hall and an exhibition hall. The suspended roof also covers a row of smaller
halls. The large room has a concave suspended roof and walls that slope inward.
420. Sports and Cultural Center, Vienna, 1953. Section through the large hall with
suspended roof and tension members.
656
1960 it had become possible to erect a complete community
center in the rural district of Seinajoki, five hundred kilometers
north of Helsinki. This is dominated by the Council House
(fig. 424), its upper chamber set back to emphasize its volume.
The exterior walls are clad with dark-colored glazed enamel
bricks, like those Aalto had used in 1955 on the interior walls
of the Pensions Office in Helsinki.
Although the Council House is the dominating element, the
whole complex is a group form containing the library whose
outstretched wing lies parallel to the Council House, and a
small theater (fig. 422). These buildings do not surround an
enclosed space; instead they are held together by the relations
of their three volumes. Like the Saynatsalo patio, the open
area is slit open at the sides so that the space flows freely
through it.
The element of space construction which underlines most
strongly the relations between volumes and space is the stair-
way, which rises from the earth like the spread-out base of a
truncated pyramid (fig. 423). The part played by the stairway
in the total complex is much clearer than it appears in the
model (fig. 422), where it seems to be made of stone. In
reality, instead of being smooth curving steps, the treads are
held by wooden planks and are overgrown with grass, like the
surface of the plaza. Only one narrow paved path traverses
both plaza and stairway.
Is it after all a stairway f There would never be such a large
crowd of people to give a rational justification for its dimen-
sions. It is there because it must be there. It is a fourth
element whose stratifications give an added emphasis to the
interrelation of the volumes. Such a plan would have con-
tributed to the glory of any Greek agora.
A broad road separates this civic and cultural center from the
religious center, which with its church and community house
forms a second plaza.
Aalto started relatively late to erect large buildings in the Helsinki Civic
center of the capital; the first was the Government Pensions Center, 1964---
Office (1952-56). To bring a human note into this office
657
421. ALVAH AALTO. Saynatsalo, designed 1945, built 1950-52. Sayniitsalo was
the first of A alto's community centers to be buill: in addition to administrative offices it in-
cluded a small library (right), shops, and dwellings. The use of two levels is especially
interesting. A alto created the upper one from the excavation materials. The steps lead to
a patio split open on two sides.
422. ALVAR AALTO. Seinajoki, construction started 1960. The commnnity cen-
ter of the small town of Seiniijoki, 500 kilometers north of Helsinki. To the right, the Conncil
House with wide steps. At the time of the model the steps were designed to be made of stone.
In the right foreground is the library , left, a theater. O.flthe photograph to the right is the
religious center. As at Sayniitsalo, the area between the buildings is split open.
658
II
423. Seinajoki Council House, construction started 1960. As at Sayniitsalo, the steps
are built up from the excavation debris, like the base of a pyramid, and are overgrown with
grass. Only a small path is paved. In the background the religious center is visible.
424. Seinajoki Council House, construction started 1960. The fa9ade is dominated by
glazed enamel elements.
659
425. ALVAR AALTO. Helsinki Civic Center, design started 1958, building started
1964. Instead of being in the center of the city, it radiates out from it, between wafer and
sloping hills. In a dynamic rhythm, museum, concert hall, and other buildings stretch out
along an existing park. The treatment of the traffic lines is particularly important. An
existing highu:ay runs behind the new center and is linked to a new one run on the far side
of the water.
building he used dark glazed porcelain elements to clad the

interior walls, sometimes only in bands, sometimes completely
covering the walls. (He used this motif time and again, almost
as in a symphony). It took some time before these elements
appeared on the outer walls. In the auditorium (which serves
as a concert hall and opera house) of the Helsinki Civic Center
(designed in 1958; building begun in 1964), Aalto used small
square bricks which easily followed the great curve of its rear
wall. This is the largest auditorium in Helsinki and its vaulted
ceiling has proved to be acoustically excellent.
660
Aalto's new civic center for the capital focusing on this audi-
torium is not situated in the middle of the city. It radiates out
from the city on open land gently sloping toward the water.
Again Aalto avoids an enclosed square. Auditorium, theater,
museum, and other buildings flow through an existing park in
a dynamic stream (jig. 425).
Despite its extrusion from the city, the Helsinki Civic Center
retains contact with the existing National Museum and Olym-
pic Stadium. (The capital of Chandigarh is also, in another
way, separated from the body of the city.) The new buildings
extend partly over the water. The plan provides for generous
underground parking; an existing highway runs behind the
center, and a new one will be built along the opposite bank of
the water. A few kilometers away, deliberately separated
from the civic center, will arise a business center with restau-
rants, radio station, and television building.
This project is on an unusually generous scale when one recalls
that the Technological Institute with all its branches is being
decentralized at the same time. The enterprise is astonishing
for a small country of only five million inhabitants. No other
country in Europe can be compared to Finland in the general
quality of its architectural development.
Furniture in Standard Units

In Alvar Aalto's opinion, a house is not only a far more com-
plicated organ than an automobile; there is also a real dif-
ference between an object which one may live in for a gen-
eration and a vehicle of transport which one may conveniently
exchange every second season. Furthermore, no two sites are
the same. Above all, the house reaches too far into the psychic
to admit of total mass fabrication.
Only elements of it should be standardized: doors, windows,
mechanical equipment, and constructional members, whether
they consist of skeleton or panel. The important matter is
that architectural freedom should be preserved. The stand-
ardized elements should awaken, not destroy, architectural
VISIOn.
661
Both house and furniture today are composed of machine-
made parts. The comparison can be taken no further, how-
ever. The type house, the prefabricated house, kills the
phantasy of the architect and administers a deathblow to
organic town planning. But furniture is predestined to be
conceived in standardized types. I have discussed this ques-
tion at length elsewhere, 8 yet I cannot close these remarks
upon Aalto without mentioning his stimulation of furniture
design in the middle thirties. The cause lies once again in his
integration of the regional element with the latest mechanical
processes and his full awareness of contemporary means of
expression. The substance which he took in his hands and
made flexible, as he had made walls, ceilings, and town plan-
ning flexible, was that organic material wood.
The constituent element of Aalto's furniture, like the slab in
a bridge by Maillart or the plane surface in a modern painting,
is a sheet of plywood. Aalto received the impetus for his first
experiments when he had to furnish the Paimio sanatorium
from top to bottom in 1929. Here can be found the first mass-
produced plywood chairs, consisting of a ribbon-like wood
frame, within which is suspended the undulated plywood seat
(fig. 280). About 1935, Aalto dared to do away with the closed
plywood frame and built the chair as a free cantilever, a con-
struction that, till then, had only been expected of steel.
Like all those who succeed in taking the plunge into the un-
known, Aalto possesses the gift of seeing things as freshly as
though they had never been touched before. This is the kind
of talent that is urgently needed today, to discover an emo-
tional equivalent that may rescue us from drowning in the
flood of technical processes that is being poured over us.
Aalto announced a new development in the manufacture of
furniture. By a special suction process it is possible for wood
to acquire such suppleness and flexibility that the architect
may twist it and turn it as he pleases. Further, chemists
have found a method of forming a cable-like structure from
a number of small rod-like pieces of wood tapered at both
ends - "wood macaroni" Aalto calls them. A physician, on
8 Mechanization Takes Command (Oxford University Press, 1948).
662
seeing them, was at once reminded of certain organisms
within the large intestine.
The Rococo developed the greatest mastery and finesse in
wood carving. The skeleton of the chair was then reduced to
astonishing slenderness and shaped in elegant forms. Today,
entirely new possibilities have been opened up through the
aid of chemical changes. We wonder whether this chemical
processing will be assimilated emotionally.
Aalto as Architect
If one were to try to sum up the distinguishing marks of Aalto's
work and to assess his position in the constellation of the
pioneers of the modern movement, one would arrive at some-
thing like the following. As we have said before, in the decisive
period of the late twenties, three buildings came to the fore:
the Bauhaus of ·walter Gropius (1926), Le Corbusier's project
for the League of Nations (1927), and Aalto's tuberculosis
sanatorium at Paimio (1929-33). Aalto, although working
in distant Finland, stepped very early into the front rank of
contemporary architects.
Like Gropius and Le Corbusier, Aalto was very early convinced
that a building could not stand as an isolated object of art,
but must form part of a greater complex. This conviction
was early embodied in his sanatorium at Paimio (1929-33),
whose wings - different in height from the main building and
radiating out in different directions - avoid any rectangular
enclosure.
At the same time, Aalto, like Le Corbusier, desired to create a
simultaneity of inner and outer space. To bring about this
unity, he often modeled a shell-like vault over the interior of a
building and emphasized its plastic volume on the exterior - a
phenomenon particularly interesting to our period.
Aalto is wedded neither to the right angle nor to the cube. He The flexible
is one of those architects who have worked unswervingly to wall
create a flexible wall and to intensify its architectonic proper-
ties. The stages of this process can be hinted at in Aalto's
case as follows: first came the astounding boldness of the
663
wooden ceiling of the lecture room at Viipuri (fig. 392), rising
in waves from the floor, up and over the space. The Finnish
Pavilion of the Paris World's Fair, 1937, had steeply sloping
and rounded wall surfaces superimposed on one another,
strengthened with wood cladding. In the Finnish Pavilion at
the New York World's Fair, 1939, Aalto curved the walls,
which also slanted inward. In the M.I.T. dormitory, 1947
(fig. 398), the whole fa.;ade was brought into a swinging curve.
He pursued this line steadily in apartment houses (in Bremen,
1958); private houses, like the Mairea house; and public
buildings like the Pensions Office and Civic Center in Helsinki,
the Opera House at Essen (the nearest in grandeur to his
Viennese project), and the Seinajoki Council House.
Helations between The establishment of relations between horizontal surfaces -
horizontal working with different levels - is one of the long neglected
surfaces
elements of architecture. One can notice in almost every
competition how inept most architects have become at working
with different levels and using their varieties of tension to
strengthen architectural expression.
Aalto stressed the relation between horizontal surfaces in the
undulating ceiling of the Viipuri Library (1927 -34), where he
deliberately enlarged the space of the reading gallery. This
relationship was emphasized more strongly in the library of the
W olfsburg Cultural Center (1959-62). In the dining hall of
his M.I.T. dormitory (fig. 400) Aalto did the opposite: he
hollowed out the floor. Out of doors, we find Aalto working
with several artificially created ground levels at the Saynatsalo
community center (fig. 421) and, even more subtly, in the
Seinajoki community center (fig. 422).
In Denmark he designed the museum at Aalborg (building
was started in 1964) with well studied lighting in the interior
and, on the exterior, amphitheater-like terraced steps up the
hillside, designed for the display of sculpture.
Town From the beginning Aalto was very interested in town plan-
planning ning. A flexible organic element runs through all his planning:
from his project for an experimental town, 1940 (fig. 413) to the
Seinajoki community center, 1960 (figs. 423, 424). It also
appears in his flowing, outstretched civic center for Helsinki,
664
with its well-organized relationship both to the structure of the
landscape and to the traffic routes (fig. 425).
Aalto embodies the type of architect who can take regional
features and translate them into a universal language without
ever losing their individual flavor. Regional roots and a world-
wide orientation do not conflict in those artists who are
sensitive to the mood of our period.
It has been said of Hans Arp, whose art is close to that of
Aalto, that his shapes and forms never even momentarily
slipped into modishness, but instead were deeply rooted in the
eternal verities of mankind. This can also be said of Aalto.
The Human Side

One cannot speak about Aalto the architect without speaking
about Aalto the man. People are at least as important to him
as architecture. Aalto is interested in every human being, in
each of their particular desires and experiences, no matter
where they come from or to what social class they belong. He
draws incentive and stimulation from contact with men of
varied callings, much as James Joyce did. Indeed, Aalto can-
not set foot outside his door without becoming involved in
some human episode. He approaches people directly and
without inhibitions, in the same way that he approaches the
organic material wood.
When Aalto first appeared, unknown to the rest of us, within
the circle of the newly formed ClAM, in Frankfurt in 1929,
he. did not talk about his buildings but instead told us of a
delicate adventure that had befallen him at nine o'clock that
morning, on his way from the station to the hotel. In 1933,
when he was traveling from Finland to the Athens Congress
by plane, rail, and automobile, to take part in the formulation
of the Charte d 'Athenes, the long conversations that he had
on his journey were of the greatest interest to him. Accom-
panying him on his journey through the Balkans was his
grandmother, who had a plaster cast and whom he had to
assist from train to train.
Aalto came to America for the first time in 1939 to build the
Finnish Pavilion at the New York World's Fair. His English
665
vocabulary was far from extensive, yet he lectured to the
jaded public of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The way that he stood there, the way in which he was able
to express what he had to say with his fragmentary vocab-
ulary and a few "okay's," captivated his audience from the
start.
Aalto's call to a professorship at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology was a natural consequence of his personality,
the success of the Finnish Pavilion, and the approval ac-
corded to his furniture. Thus \Valter Gropius and Alvar
Aalto were at work in the same town.
Aalto then divided his time and his work between the re-
building of Finland and his American professorship. The
dormitory that he erected for M.I.T. was a particularly bold
undertaking when one considers that American college archi-
tecture had traditionally been decked with pseudo-gothic or
colonial forms.
Aalto's relationship with man in his completeness cannot be
defined on a rational basis. His personality radiates in di-
rect contact. But, when he is gone, there does not seem to
be any possible means of contact with him. It is probable that
he has never carried on a regular mail correspondence in his
life. However, immediately he appears, his tales, flavored by
a whimsical understanding of human situations, and the
radiance of his whole being, make it seem as though he had
only left the day before.
There are certain architects whose work develops almost of
itself. Aalto's work is of a different kind. Each line tells of
his close contact with human destiny. This may be one of the
reasons why his architecture encounters less difficulty in
overcoming the resistance of the common man than that of
others of his contemporaries.
I agree with Ernst Cassirer, the philosopher, who, in his last
work, 9 demands so fervently that history should be written
only with an intimate knowledge of the human side.
9 E. Cassirer, An Essay on Man (New Haven, 1944), p. 181.
666
All Aalto's exhibitions and his work up to 1949 were signed
"Aino and Alvar Aalto." It was not a gesture of chivalry that
induced him to place the name of his wife before his own. This
marriage was as singular as everything else related to him.
I.ts steadfastness was based upon common sharing of all
struggles and successes ever since their joint student days.
But its real secret lay more likely in a profound reciprocation
of human contrasts. Aalto is restless, effervescent, incal-
culable. Aino was thorough, persevering, and contained.
Sometimes it is a good thing when a volcano is encircled by a
quietly flowing stream.
Though Aino Aalto died on January 13, 1949, her name will
always be connected with the work of Alvar Aalto. He always
put her name before his own, but Aino herself always insisted,
"I am not creative, Alvar is the creative one." This is not the
moment to determine the extent of Aino's influence on Aalto's
production. But we know that she had her quiet say as an
architect at all stages of his work and life. She never appeared
in the foreground or admitted what had really been designed by
her. She was always at work behind the scenes, as when I
last saw her in the fall of 1948: by day, director of Artek, the
corporation engaged in the designing and manufacture of
Aalto's furniture; in the evening, hostess at a dinner party for
Finland's intellectual elite, sitting relaxed in a white gown
among her guests, quiet as the Finnish lakes and forests from
which she had sprung.
The, for Aalto, inseparable connection between productivity
and human relations explains why his closest working partners
were women. First it was J\ino. Then, some years after her
death, Aalto married the young Elissa, who had formerly
worked in the studio. She has a quite different nature from
Aino, a mixture of absolute femininity and intensive activity:
the daughter of a general who prevented the isolation of Fin-
land from Sweden in 1939. Elissa's active strength is seldom
outwardly apparent; one exception is when she undertook
responsibility for Louis CarnS's large house in Bazoches. On
the other hand she knows well that Aalto always needs human
company, and so she steadfastly accompanies him on his
unpredictable journeys, wherever they may lead him.
667
J~RN UTZON AND THE THIRD GENERATION
'N e have before us the work of three generations of men con-

cerned with building up the architecture of this century.
There are differences between these generations, but what is
significant is that, while being true to itself, none has felt it
necessary to renounce its forebears, and each has thus been
able to carry further what the earlier generation had begun.
In the fifties the third generation of architects came into
action. How do they stand in relation to the development
since the twenties~
The social orientation is pushed further: a more conscious
regard for the anonymous client.
Open-ended planning: the incorporation of changing con-
ditions as a positive element of the plan.
Incorporation of traffic as a positive element of urban
planning.
Greater carefulness in handling the existing situation, so
that an interplay can arise between architecture and environ-
ment, each intensifying the other.
An emphasis upon the architectural use of horizontal planes
and different levels. More forceful use of artificial platforms
as urbanistic elements.
A stronger relation to the past; not expressed in forms but
in the sense of an inner relationship and a desire for continuity.
Further strengthening of sculptural tendencies in architec-
ture. A freer relationship between inner and outer space and
between volumes in space.
The right of expression above pure function.
Relations to the Past
The relation to the past, the desire to make contact with the
past, now expresses itself in a special manner, quite differently
668
from the way it appeared in the second generation, especially
the second generation in America. It is not concerned with
playing with historic details torn from their context.
The rejection of yesterday was understandable at the begin-
ning of contemporary architecture, in order to regain self-
awareness. Le Corbusier is the sole pioneer who never broke
off a contact with the past. The situation has now long since
quieted down and one can feel again the living forces of the
past, the reservoir of human experience.
Relations with the past can be both positive and negative. In Pseudo-
the United States a series of well-known architects of the middle relations to
generation has tried to incorporate isolated details and stylistic the past
fragments into their buildings as decorative features. But
this selection does not lead to a relationship to tradition or to
the past. It leads only to a decadent architecture that delights
the public and the press, since it reminds them of the only
half-buried ideals of the nineteenth century. From a formal
adoption of details it moves further to a decadent imitation of
space relationships which have no contact with contemporary
society nor with contemporary space conceptions. A typical
example is the Lincoln Center in New York.
The relation of the third generation to the past is expressed The third
differently. It appears in its attitude toward anonymous generation
structures which are everywhere living bonds with the past.
The older generation- with certain exceptions- was in-
different to anonymous architecture. It is quite different with
the third generation. Wherever one goes one finds a reawak-
ening of the desire to live in a wider span of time; this genera-
tion is revolted by the wanton destruction of old buildings in a
period of high prosperity.
This is linked to something else: a different attitude toward the

single building. A recurrent theme in the projects of the
younger generation is that they are not centered upon an
individual building, that their essence lies in an interplay of
different buildings; just as in Greece on the acropolis, or in the
agora of Athens. Archeologists have long since called the
relationships on the acropolis or in the agora " group design."
669
This approach now appears in Japanese urban planning even
more than in the West.
The attitude of the third generation to the past is not to saw
out details from their original context. It is more an inner
affinity, a spiritual recognition of what, out of the abundance
of architectonic knowledge, is related to the present time and
is, in a certain sense, able to strengthen our inner security.
The attitude to the past of Utzon's generation differs from that
of the historian, at least from that of those historians who lack
an inner relation to the contemporary scene. The architect is
little interested in when or by whom a certain building was
erected. His questions are rather: What did the builder want
to achieve and how did he solve his problems? In other words,
the architect is concerned with searching through previous
architectonic knowledge, so that he can immediately confront
contemporary architectural aims with those of a former period.
Travel gives the best possibility for such immediate question-
mg.
The approach to the past always revolves around the same
question: How did man in another time under other circum-
stances solve certain problems, and what were they? The
buildings of primitive peoples are often closer to the architect
of today than those of later cultures. So it is understandable
that a ruin may sometimes express the essentials more immedi-
ately than a completely organized palace. This means, among
other things, that an instinct is alert to penetrate the historic
atmosphere of a city and, in a certain sense, its genius loci,
without submerging itself in the space conception or details
of the past period.
426. Temple at Uxmal (Yucatan) with various levels and monumental stairways.
The attitude of the third generation of contemporary architects to the past is concerned with
the question of how certain problems were solved by men in other times and under other cir-
cumstances. In the broad horizontal platforms on different levels and the monumental stair-
ways of Mayan architecture, Utzon discovered elements that had long lain slumbering in his
own consciousness.
427. Reconstruction of the temple at Uxmal. It gives a better impression of the dis-
position of the temple's wide terraces and immense stairways.
428. J0RN UTZON. Steps rising up to the foyer of the Sydney Opera House.
670
)
---
____
- ---- ·---
====-=-=-==- :c:-- =
- - - -:
- -=
----
671
J~rn Utzon
We select the figure of J¢rn Utzon, since in him several sensi-
tive characteristics of the third generation are sharply de-
lineated. J,Srn Utzon was born in 1918 and grew up in Den-
mark. At the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen he came
under the influence of the excellent historian and town planner
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, who sought from the very beginning to
widen Utzon's powers of perception. In 1945 he studied with
Alvar Aalto and Gunner Asplund. He regarded them as his
Nordic teachers and later developed their tendencies further.
For a short time Utzon had his own practice. In 1948 he met
Fernand Leger and Le Corbusier in Paris, but above all he
came in contact with the sculptor Henri Laurens. From him
Utzon learned how one builds forms in the air, and how to
express suspension and ascension.
Le Corbusier, almost alone in the first generation, visited
ethnological museums and around 1910 toured Europe and
Asia Minor. Utzon, like many of his contemporaries, pressed
on to a more direct review on a world scale. In 1948 he went to
Morocco. What most interested him there was the unity of
village and landscape brought about by their identical material
- earth. This created an unbroken sculptural unity between
the environment and the up to ten-story housing. When
Utzon later designed his housing projects, such as Kingo and
Fredensborg, with unified walls of yellow brick, he had in
mind the unity of primitive structures.
In 1949 a scholarship took him first to the United States and
then to Mexico. He spent a short time with Frank Lloyd
Wright in Taliesin West and Taliesin East. He came in
contact with Mies van der Rohe. In Mexico he was impressed
by the Mayan and Aztec architecture. In their sanctuaries
he recognized something that had long slumbered within him:
wide horizontal planes as a constituent element of architec-
tural expression (jigs. 426, 427).
On his return to Denmark, Utzon entered numerous competi-
tions. He was not so much concerned about their terms and
conditions; he was interested only in the problems to be solved.
Little was built. His compatriots had long been accustomed
672
only to gentle and smiling forms, such as helped Danish furni-
ture to its world renown. Almost the only things he built were
the sixty-three Kingo Houses near Elsinore (1956), and a
smaller housing project near Fredensborg, 1962 (figs. 442, 443,
444).
In 1957 he was surprised to find he had won the competition
for the Sydney Opera House in Australia. It was a great act of
Eero Saarinen (who died in mid-career) that he recognized at
once the world significance of Utzon's entry and pressed with
all his energy for Utzon to receive the first prize and execution
of the building. When Saarinen looked through the projects
that had already been eliminated from the competition, he
found Utzon's scheme among them. He returned to the jury
with it and said, " Gentlemen, this is the first prize."
After 1957 Utzon found opportunities to visit China, Nepal,
India, and Japan, and to experience the varieties of their
cultures. He noticed differences between Chinese and .Japan-
ese architecture. In Japan measurements were taken with
a flexible cord and not with a stiff rod as in China, and he
noticed the effect this had upon their architecture.
Strange encounters led remote themes to come close to aims
dormant in his own creativity. In Peking he chanced to meet
Professor Liang, who had made a collection of ancient Chinese
building laws from before 800 A.D. and had translated them
into modern Chinese in seven volumes. These described pre-
fabricated building systems developed in great detail, not, as
today, only in their dimensions, but in every possible com-
bination and with great care for their symbolic content.
In March 1963, Utzon went to Sydney to oversee the difficult
construction of his opera house. In 1964 he won first prize for
a new building for the Zurich theater.
The Horizontal Plane as a Constituent Element

The relation of a building to the horizontal plane carne about
at the beginning of architecture, with the forerunners of the
ziggurats of Surner. The first volume of The Eternal Present,
The Beginnings of Architecture (New York, 1964), follows this
673
development in Mesopotamia, as well as in Egypt. One sees
there, again and again, the relationships of horizontal planes
on a grand scale: in the Old Kingdom, the relation of the high
desert plateau, on which stand the pyramids of Giza, to the
low lying plain of arable land; in the architectonic summit of
the New Kingdom, the cosmic embedding of the three hori-
zontal terraces of Queen Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at
Deir-el-Bahari.
The emotional content of the plane is only recovered with the
advent of cubism. In the forefront stands the relationship of
429. Jl3RN UTZON. Sketch of a

Japanese house. Utzon has drawn
only the roofs and platforms. He says,
"This Japanese platform is like a
.. table lop, and you do not walk on a
table lop."
vertical planes. The third generation now places the hori-

zontal plane in the foreground as a constituent element of their
architecture. Both of the foregoing generations were also con-
scious of its architectonic significance, but more in the sense
of linking different levels.
Le Corbusier uses it in the form of the ramps of the Villa
Savoie (1928-30), in the great structures of Chandigarh, and
in the ramp of the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Har-
vard (1963), where it has become a definite architectural ele-
ment.
Among the second generation it is Alvar Aalto who, from the
start- ever since his library at Viipuri (1927-34) has used the
674
-- ~
430. J p RN UTZO N. Sketch of clouds
over the sea. Utzon brings out the sharp
horizontal line of the water and, hovering
above it, the apparently horizontal under-
side of the vault of clouds.
.- :....==::;
I
!! ;:::·:· z:-· ~-,--

--
- ... . . --.......-. ·-
...........
-- ~-
. .. --- --~
_ __ ,.._
relations of horizontal levels as a form-giving element. Enough
has been said of how this has penetrated his entire work and
how he - very early - built up different artificial levels and
used them to dramatize the architectonic expression of his
structure (Saynatsalo Council House, 1950-52).
The incorporation of the horizontal plane as a constituent
element has acted almost like a new discovery among the third
generation. As we have said, J¢>rn Utzon was inspired by the
great scale oLthe terraced buildings of the Aztecs and Mayas
(jigs. 426, 427). In the late culture of Mexico, around 1000
A.D., he found a confirmation of something that had always
slumbered within him. Several years later, in the article
"Platforms and Plateaus," he ref,;rs to horizontal planes as a
means of architectonic expression as follows: "The platform as
an architectural element is a fascinating feature. I first fell in
love with it in Mexico on a study trip in 1949, where I found
many variations both in size and idea of the platform . . . A
great strength radiates from them." 1 Everywhere Utzon felt
Zodiac, X (1959), 114.
431. JORN UTZON. Preliminary sketch

for the vaults of the Sydney Opera House. ·· -- ~: ........
·...
·. : ·~~
.
This conveys the meaning of what he wished
to create.
675
the horizontal plane - the platform - to be "the backbone of
architectural compositions" ; 2 in Greece, in the Middle East,
and in India.
When he wishes to show the nature of the Japanese house in a
drawing (fig. 429), he draws the roof hovering above the floor,
without including the transparent walls. "The floor in a tra-
ditional Japanese house is a delicate, bridge-like platform.
This Japanese platform is like a table top, and you do not walk
on a table top. It is a piece of furniture." 3
When he draws clouds over the sea, he notices the sharp hori-
zontal line of the water and above it the apparently horizontal
level of the vaulting clouds (fig. 430). This is a prefiguration
of the vaults of his opera house and hints at the meaning that
he gives to them. He perceives them as hovering over the
horizontal structure and only touching the earth at one point
(fig. 431).
Further, the building itself stands on a definite platform.
"The idea has been to let the platform cut through like a
knife, and separate primary and secondary function com-
pletely. On top of the platform the spectators receive the
completed work of art and beneath the platform every prepara-
tion for it takes place." 4
Manmade The use of the platform, an artificially constructed ground,
horizontal runs through all the work of this generation. It can be found
level everywhere where efforts are made to rescue the pedestrian
from a chaotic intermingling with automobiles and trucks: in
the plan for North Amsterdam, 1963, by Bakema, van den
Broek, and van Eyck; in the plan for a sector of Tokyo (fig. 526)
by Fumihiko Maki - among the youngest of the rising gen-
eration - or in the different platforms with which Kenzo
Tange builds over the bay of Tokyo (figs. 524, 525).
The Right of Expression: The Vaults of the Sydney Opera House

A remarkable amount of opposition manifested itself against
the series of great vaults for the Sydney Opera House (designed
in 1957, construction started in 1963). This did not, by any
2 Ibid., p. ll5. 3 Ibid., p. ll6. 4 Ibid., p. 117.
676
means, come only from people who consider anything different
from what has been customary to be a personal affront.
It is not usual to have a series of ten vaults that rise one behind
the other up to sixty meters and overshadow the building both
front and back. The most widespread objection is that these
shells, which come together in a ridge, are quite arbitrary, as no
relation exists between the inner and outer space, and even the
high, rectangular stage is arched over by the wing of a huge
vault (fig. 1).
This objection gives rise to a basic question. A question that Beyond
our period must again answer and decide, a question of con- the purely
science. Are we prepared to go beyond the purely functional functional
and tangible as earlier periods did in order to enhance the force
of expression?
The "shells," as J¢>rn Utzon calls his staggered vaults, are
superfluous if one recognizes only the functional in architec-
ture, so far as this can be tested by a direct material coherence
between cause and effect. After half a century of development,
contemporary architecture demands something more than this.
The autonomous right of expression must again assert itself
in building, over and above the purely utilitarian.
We are fully aware that at the present moment only a master
hand can dare to manifest the independence of expression
from function. In the hands of minor talents this can only
lead to sliding off the rails.
In two grandiose private publications (65 X 40 em.), Utzon
gives some insight into the origins and development of his
creative approach. In the first publication, 1958, whose cover
shows the silhouette of the Sydney Opera House on a red
ground, the staff of specialists is given opportunity to express
itself. For today's complex buildings, a staff of specialists-
structural engineers, acoustic experts, heating experts, stage
construction experts - is taken for granted. In the end they
usually vanish anonymously behind the work of the architect.
In this publication, Utzon presents their tasks with their sep-
arate working drawings and explanations. Through these the
outsider gets a rare glimpse into the mosaic of contemporary
teamwork.
677
The second large publication, 1962, has no text and consists
simply of a series of masterly drawings. Its cover shows the
graphic calculations determining the shell vaults as elements of
a sphere. \Vithin the book the architectural development of
the building is presented step by step, especially the contra-
puntal interplay of the interior ceilings and the external shells.
A section (fig. 432) through the small hall shows clearly how
the curving ceiling plays contrapuntally against the shells,
which climb up in sequence to the third and largest, rising high
above the stage. They are closed from thE1 outside by glass
curtain walls: not vertical, but fanning inward like the wings
of a bat. The shells are so organized that the cords linking
their vertex and their base each spring from the same point
in space (fig. 438). From this ideal point the vaults radiate
out front and back. Though the eye cannot check this di-
rectly, it realizes that an inner order exists.
Jc,Drn Utzon, like others of the better architects of the third

generation, possesses a double gift: he is able to have direct
contact with the cosmic elements of nature and the past and
also complete control of contemporary methods of industrial-
ized production - especially prefabrication. As a result he is
able to detach prefabrication from its purely mechanistic at-
tributes and bring it nearer to the organic.
This is apparent in the flexible glass walls that hang from the
shell vaults of the Sydney Opera House and serve as a link
between the soaring shells and the horizontal level of the earth.
To Utzon, a vertical glass wall gives the impression of a load-
bearing element. He has therefore transformed its abstract
verticality into a dynamic flexible form, made up of separate
glass panes, each one overlapping the one below, as in a green-
house (fig. 436).
Utzon has said that this solution was inspired partly by the
organic-dynamic movements of a bird's wing (fig. 437) and
partly by the many connections of an automatic telephone
which, when correctly assembled, enable one to "dial any-
where."
678
U tzon ultimately took the sphere as his starting point: the Starting
sphere which Plato describes as the most perfect and unified point- the
sphere
body since all points on its surface lie at the same distance
from its center. It is the only regular form that appears as
sculpture in the earliest primeval art. Saturated with sym-
bolism, it became the monumental starting point of Byzantine
architecture.
Utzon did not want to use the enclosed form of a dome. He
uses only segments of the sphere in which both the ever con-
stant and the ever changing are inherent, expressed by the
rising sequence of the shells of the opera house, one behind the
other. Whether we like it or not, the fragment is a mark- a
symbol- of our period.
One day Utzon sent me from Australia three wooden balls,
from which he had sliced the different segments of his vaults
(fig. 435). These show that the curves of his vaults are far
from being arbitrary.
It was essential to retain the hovering expression. Yet archi-
tecture has to be built and demands that a metaphysical idea
be made practical and workable. Utzon is in the core of the
present period. Although he has absorbed the past, he thinks
in the realistic categories of the practitioner. This means that,
to him, the rational production of prefabricated parts and the
full use of constructive possibilities hidden within the form of
the sphere cannot be detached from a metaphysical back-
ground.
Thanks to these wooden spheres, whose surface lies always at
the same distance from their center, Utzon could renounce
complicated scaffoldings and substitute a single, movable
formwork. Age-old methods thus find a place in developing
the complicated vaults of our period. We know from Choisy
that the Egyptians of the New Kingdom (the Ramasseum at
Thebes) constructed their barrel vaults (built up with courses
of unburnt bricks) with the help of a movable formwork.
In a letter dated June 1963, Utzon tells how spatial geometry,
as he calls his method, enabled him to arrive at "a construc-
tion of prefabricated elements using only movable formwork
without any of the heavy scaffolding usual for shell concrete
679
432. J0RN VTZON. Sydney Opera House, 1957. Section through the small hall
showing its wooden ceiling suspended freely from the roof. In the background the great
shells rise from behind the stage. "The character, the style, has developed from a series of
shapes in combination, all with the characteristics of water, waves- waves within waves-
the wave that breaks, .foams, etc. In my thought, I mould the invisible space with geomet-
rically defined shapes in combinations and when I ha1Je established the void I want, I freeze
the situation in my mind. Because I have moulded space with geometrically defined shapes,
the whole enclosure of the void is .fully defined and the surface of the enclosure is divisible in
a number o.f similar elements. These similar elements can be mass produced- and when
their relat1:onship has been clarified they can be assembled like a big jig-saw puzzle in space."
(J~rn Utzon, in Zodiac, XIV, 1965.)
433. LE CORBUSIER. Project for the Palace of the Soviets, 1931. The ceiling o.f
the great hall was to be suspended on wire cables hung .from a great parabolic concrete arch
that thrust itself high into the open air. This was the most advanced of Le Corbusier's
projects of that period. Uizon acknowledged that it had given him the idea for his hanging
ceiling and .free vaults.
680
434. J0RN UTZON. Determining the forms of the shell vaults on the basis of a
sphere. The regular surface of a sphere pro!Jed the simplest bas1:s for determining the con-
struction of prefabricated elements that could be buill up to form the vaults.
construction." The use of segments of a sphere also simpli-

fied the working drawings : "As a result of my spherical system
I can give all dimensions their true size because I inscribe on
the sphere great circles that intersect at the North Pole [fig.
434]. I have thus come to a solution that is as simple as
cutting up an orange into small identical pieces." Utzon re-
435. J 0 R N UTZON. A wooden ball showing the way Utzon cut out the different
segments of the vaults "as easily as slicing up an orange."
681
436. J0RN UTZON. Drawing of the flexible, fan-like
glass curtain walls that hang within the great shell vaults
of the Sydney Opera House, 1957.
437. Photograph of the wings of a skua gull in flight.
438. Sydney Opera House, 1957. The sails of the shell vaults all meet at a single point.
682
ferred to the shells of Saarinen's TWA building in the Kennedy
Airport as an example of how difficult the representation of
vertical and horizontal sections through complicated curves
can become. These drawings had to be calculated by a com-
puter.
On the front cover of the second volume on the opera house, Interlocking
1962, Utzon shows the mathematical development of the vaults of expression
and
from a sphere and, on the back, his first quick sketches of its
prefabrication
form. These show the two poles around which everything
turns: an immediate record of the imagination and its prac-
tical development.
This was not an easy road.
The shells were first drawn as the imagination envisaged them.
Ove Arup, a Danish engineer who has long lived in England
where he has acted as a sympathetic defender of contemporary
architecture, undertook the task of finding a way to construct
the shells. His office did their best but could find no solution
and had to give up.
439. Sydney Opera House, 1957. Ground plan showing the two halls, one sealing 3500
people, the other 1200.
683
The solution was reached in Utzon's own office between May
and October 1961, when he turned from the two-dimension-
ality of the drawing board to three-dimensional representation.
Utzon arrived at the final form of his shells, he says, just as
Le Corbusier arrived at the idea of his " Domino" house, 1914
(jig. 312), composed of several supports and horizontal concrete
slabs.
As a result it was possible to construct the high shells from
prefabricated elements, made partly on the building site and
partly in Sweden and put together into ribs, which were then
tied together in steel shoes.
Why all this~ Why this expenditure of time and money~
For nothing more than the right of expression that the imagi-
nation demands. The unyielding tenacity with which this
right of expression was upheld opens a new chapter in con-
temporary architecture.
The interpenetration of artistic volition and the laws of matter
is at the root of all artistic creation. It is methods of construc-
tion that have changed with time.
Ceilings People have objected to the lack of a "functional" relation-
and vaults ship between the ceiling and the vaults of the opera house.
But the suspended wooden ceiling has quite a different func-
tion from the vaults, which attract the audience of 5,000 into
the hall not along a single axis but like bees to a flower.
The light ceiling, as planned, is freely suspended, its curved
surface made up of prefabricated wooden boards with com-
plicated, acoustically derived profiles, also fabricated with the
help of a geometric form, based this time on the cylinder.
The idea of a hanging ceiling, as stated by Utzon in one of our
talks, went back toLe Corbusier's project for the Palace of the
Soviets, 1931, though there it was expressed in a quite different
and more primitive manner. Le Corbusier's ceiling of the
great hall was suspended by steel cables fastened to a high
rising parabolic concrete arch (fig. 433).
What happened in In the spring of 1966, a new government was elected that set
spring 1966 up a committee of six consultants under the official government
architect. Utzon was asked to be one of the consultants.
684
vVhat then happened is best documented in the "New South
vVales Parliamentary Debates," March 9, 1966 (pp. 4,008,
4,019-4,032).
The parliamentary debate on the Opera House opened with an
extremely courageous defense of the Utzon scheme by Mr.
Ryan, former Minister of Public Works and Utzon's client for
six years: "This project is of such magnitude and importance
that it is regrettable that it has already been dragged down to
the level of poEtical controversy . . . It is a project that has
established a new principle in architecture and new engineering
techniques that have excited the interest of professional people
throughout the world. It is an undertaking of which this
country can be, is, and certainly will be very proud, if it is
completed as originally designed . . . I say this with full
knowledge of the fact that for six years I was the Minister in
charge of this great project" (p. 4,019).
Utzon had found that existing experience in acoustics was
insufficient for his project. To be sure of the result he needed
to build and test a prototype of the acoustic ceiling. "I had,"
said Mr. Ryan, "the experience of seeing the difficulties of this
problem revealed in a striking way at the Lincoln Centre in
New York. The Philharmonic Hall, the first unit of the com-
plex to be completed has an acoustic ceiling that was rebuilt
three times at a cost of over $1,000,000 because in the first
instance not enough attention had been given to experimen-
tation" (p. 4,024). "The Sydney Opera House is not a costly
building by comparison with others - £4,400 a seat as against
approximately £5,500 for the Lincoln Centre" (p. 4,031).
The case of the Sydney Opera House is highly significant. In
earlier years an architect of genius had been eliminated before
he was engaged. As noted, this happened to Le Corbusier in
1927 when, as a result of intrigues, other people were called
upon to build the League of Nations in Geneva; a similar
situation developed when an American architect took over
Le Corbusier's sketch of the United Nations Building in New
York. Everybody can judge the results.
In the case of the Sydney Opera House the situation was
different. Through the influence of some farsighted jurors,
685
J ~rn Utzon won first prize in the competition for the Sydney
Opera House. But when he had nearly finished the project,
another political party came into power and decided to hand
over completion of Utzon's highly individualized building to a
committee whose task was to cheapen it and simplify all de-
tails.
The curved wooden acoustic ceiling is to disappear (fig. 432) as
a consequence of Utzon's demand for a prototype test model.
Utzon is certainly not alone in requiring acoustic experiments
before a major building is erected; such experiments were
needed for the Symphonic Hall in Berlin and, as Mr. Ryan
commented, for the Lincoln Center in New York. The sensi-
tive curves of the protecting glass walls of the shells (fig. 436)
are to be flattened.
Such major changes should arouse profound protest in every
architect who feels a responsibility toward his work. A
building being erected in every detail according to a pre-
arranged program cannot have its program changed at the
last minute, when the building is already nearing completion.
What has happened~ The great hall, designed from the· begin-
ning as the opera house, is suddenly changed into a concert hall
and a movie theater. Its stage machinery is thrown out and
its beautiful plywood mullions will be replaced by concrete.
The small hall (fig. 432) will now become the opera house.
These are only some of the projected changes.
The role of the The verdict of the historian is very different from that of the
historian politician. It is a moral duty for the historian to stand up for
the real qualities of one of the most outstanding works of this
period.
From Finland to Italy there is today a general trend in archi-
tecture to develop simultaneously sculptural qualities and
interior space. In his Philharmonic Hall in Berlin (1956), with
its excellent interior, Hans Scharoun showed that different
methods are needed to give a building both a spatial and a
plastic expression. He worked with sculptural models - not
two-dimensional drawings - in an atelier next to the building
site, just as Gaudi had done. Even so Scharoun did not fully
succeed in creating both a plastic volume and a fine interior
686
space. How difficult this is can be seen in Le Corbusier's
Pilgrimage Chapel of Ronchamps and in Utzon's Sydney Opera
House.
Architecture has always had close contact with the proportions
of geometry, regardless of its different forms: the pyramids,
the Parthenon, the Pantheon. This has held true for highly
geometric forms and for highly organic ones (as in the late
baroque) and it is still valid for contemporary architecture.
A comparison, for example, of the expressionistic drawings of
Finsterlin with the organic shapes Utzon created leaves one
with no doubt that they represent two quite different trends.
The real secret of Utzon's Sydney Opera House is its obedience
to the eternal architectural law: the close relations of archi-
tecture and geometry.
The historian needs to bring forward yet another aspect that
should not be forgotten: differences have always existed be-
tween the exterior and the interior of a monumental building.
The most famous example is Hadrian's Pantheon in Rome
(early in the first century), the starting point for all subsequent
domed architecture. The cupola with its graduated cofferings
appears from within to indicate the construction system;
however, it is only a fac;ade supported by the actual construc-
tion system of arches and columns. The innovation in the
Pantheon is that arches and columns were used to build a
vaulted ceiling instead of a vertical wall, as in the Colosseum.
Even there, the bold construction uprights embodied in the
staircases were formerly covered with reliefs.
Although Utzon's approach to interior and exterior appears
very different, it is not essentially so in principle. He unites,
in a new manner, two separate intentions. The exterior of his
building with its marvelous vaulting shells projecting forward
from its unique site creates a vivid symbol for the incoming
ships and for the entire city. Beneath these wings he has
inserted the functional interior of an opera house and a con-
cert hall.
What is so devastating in the new decisions about the Sydney
Opera House~ This is the first time in our period that the
architect's intentions- based on the explicit demands of the
687
original client - have been changed by another government
because of a dilettantish misunderstanding. This involves
something that should deeply offend the architectural pro-
fession. The architect has to be regarded as an artist. It
shows crass irresponsibility to change the program of a master-
piece when it is already almost complete.
It is understandable that Utzon resigned and went back to
Denmark.
The One must see the Sydney Opera House as a totality, and above
building as all, how it fulfills its human purpose. Its only goal is to pre-
a totality
pare the audience for a festival.
Whoever visits the theater at Delphi in Greece, high above
the sanctuaries, must first experience a long slow climb up
the winding sacred way. In the theater itself he first experi-
ences the full majesty of the landscape. On a smaller scale,
something similar is attempted at Sydney. The leisurely
and dignified approach ascends to different levels by steps as
wide as those of the monuments of the Aztecs or the Mayas
(fig. 428). As Utzon says, "The building has the possibility
of opening all halls and foyers during the intervals, so that the
audience when moving through the foyers can have a full
sensation of the hanging shells which command a wide view
over the harbor." Eero Saarinen recognized from the begin-
ning that the Sydney Opera House would be one of the great
buildings of our period.
Empathy with the Situation: The Zurich Theater, 1964

One of the traits of the third generation is a strong feeling for
landscape and the architectural environment. Environment
and architecture should be interlocked as intensively as pos-
sible. In Sydney this meant correlating a high-rise building
with a cosmic expanse of sea and sky.
In June 1964, J~rn Utzon won first prize in a competition for
the Zurich Theater (fig. 440). The situation there was totally
different from that in Sydney. In Zurich it meant incorporat-
ing a new building within a fixed and static environment and
simultaneously creating a definite urbanistic accent, creating
688
the focus for an extensive district of closely packed teaching
institutions - high school, university, technical institute,
medical school, and numerous others. At present any such
focal point is lacking. This area ends in an open square
crossed by traffic lines and bordered by one of the most im-
portant through roads: a miserable green patch with a public
lavatory and kiosk stands in the middle of it. On the axis of
this modest square rises Karl Moser's noble art gallery (1910).
Toward the mountain and far in the background is a high school
(1839) in the good tradition of Schinkel's Building Academy in
Berlin. In the green area between them, the new theater is
intended to bind this scattered neighborhood together and to
give it some dignity.
How can this be achieved by a single building~
A fluid is never tangible. It flows between the fingers and

then, at a certain temperature, through the action of energy, it
suddenly acquires form and shape. Something similar happens
in city planning.
This situation is not limited to the special case of a particular
piece of land in a city of half a million people. It is sympto-
matic of a period when, wherever one looks, in the most dif-
ferent circumstances, one finds fragments of a lost sense of
community trying to glue themselves together again. In the
case of Zurich it is apparent that the need is not so much for
immense, new structures as for the healing of a wounded situa-
tion.
To work in an existing situation is only justified when no
compromise of architectural purity is involved. The problem
in Zurich was not, as in Sydney, to stretch out antennae into
the cosmos. In Zurich it was a matter of entering the puri-
tanical atmosphere of the city without loss of artistic vision.
Utzon's building rises up the slope in delicately graduated
horizontal levels: "a flat, relief-like carpet of building with a
structured roof," stated the competition jury. The sculptural
roofs step gradually up the hill with their almost organically
shaped folds, such as exist also in the lower part of the Syd-
ney Opera House. Their varied profile is due to considera-
tions of statics arising from the unusually wide spans. In
689
440. J0RN UTZON. Model of the Zurich Theater, 1964. It grows up the slope in a
series of stepped horizontal planes. The resuli is a flat, relief-like carpel of buildings with
a structured roofscape (as staled by the competition jury).
441. Zurich Theater, 1964. Elevational view of model. The beams, which have an
almost organic form, permit extraordinarily wide spans and a significant reduction of
columns: the result is a very flexible organization of interior space.
690
Zurich these folds appear decisively upon the upper surface
(fig. 441). The wide spans not only permit a freer development
of the interior space; they also emanate an inner elasticity -
an expressive sense of movement - like the structures of
Robert Maillart. Their form gives a structural backbone to
the entire building.
The foyer, its horizontal planes adapted to the smaller scale,
has stairs developed across its entire width, as in Sydney.
These produce the opening scene where, as Utzon says, "The
spectator becomes an actor." The drawing-in of the audience
is not accomplished here by soaring vaults but by " an entry
way developed in depth" (in the words of the competition
jury).
Whether one likes it or not, Utzon worked neither in Sydney
nor in Zurich with a variable stage. This was partly owing to
the conditions of the architectural program. In both places he
created the theatrical space like an amphitheater, " as a deep-
ened shell" (Utzon's phrase).
In his combination of empathy with a given situation and an
unrelenting maintenance of his own expression, Utzon is not
alone among his generation. For instance, there is the hori-
zontally layered City Theater of Helsinki (1959), where Timo
Penttila (then only twenty-eight years old) cut the stage area
partly out of the living rock.
It can be observed that the Zurich project is not fully elabo-
rated in all details and that, thanks to the wide spanning
beams, the theater needs only a minimum of supports. This
means that the development of the building will have great
flexibility.
It is no accident that every detail of the building is not fixed.
In city planning, which comes most strongly under the pressure
of the explosive population increase, there is an increasing
tendency to plan so that, despite dynamic development, it
will not be necessary to destroy what has already been built.
The same tendency appears in many large buildings. The
buildings of the Philadelphia architect, Louis Kahn, are fa-
mous for being designed so that extensions can take place
691
without disrupting the original conception. Le Corbusier de-
veloped this idea first in his study for a museum of contem-
porary art, 1931, with its continuous, unbounded spiral forma-
tion. In the case of Utzon the boundaries of his buildings are
firmly established: their flexibility lies in the development of
their interior space.
The linking of constancy and change as a single complementary
entity and not as irreconcilable opposites comes ever more
strongly into consciousness.
Sympathy with the Anonymous Client

The relation between the individual and the collective spheres
is a problem which has preoccupied generations but whose
solution becomes increasingly urgent. Very few have suc-
ceeded in expressing this relation in architectural form.
Among Utzon's buildings in Denmark there were two housing
projects: the sixty-three Kingo Houses near Elsinore (1956)
and a smaller project for Danes returning from abroad, near
Fredensborg, fifty kilometers north of Copenhagen (figs. 442,
443, 444). Both show great sensitivity in their site planning.
The placing of the houses willingly responds to slight changes
in the slope of the land. They are linked together like the
scales on a butterfly's wing, while the flexible plan of the in-
dividual houses makes full allowance for individual privacy.
The houses of both projects are based on the frequently em-
ployed L-shaped ground plan, but used in an individual man-
ner. They are disposed on the site so that they share the
minimum length of common wall (fig. 444). This is made
possible by forming each house into a square with its own
open court. Should not one really call this court a patio since
it is the private open space of the house~
The detailing of the Fredensborg project shows that Utzon
knows how to model space. He cut a rectangle from each
garden wall so that the landscape, the garden-like exterior
space, can flow freely into the private zones (fig. 443). In
surgery everything depends upon the sureness of the cut; it
is the same with the architect. Instead of a small scale land-
scape of minuscule gardens the site displays a spacious gen-
692
442. J!i)RN UTZON. Fredensborg housing near Co-
penhagen, 1962. View of the flexible rows of single-
family dwellings from the community house. Utzon
created a visual relationship between private and public
areas simply by cutting rectangular wedges from the walls
bounding the houses.
443. Fredensborg housing, 1962. View of a dwelling

across the rectangular opening .
.'
·~ ~·
444. Plan of Fredensborg housing set-
tlement, 1962. The community house is
at the head of the long loop to the left.
\...' ~ ,./ l ... -
693
erosity. The same kind of thinking, though formulated quite
differently, resulted in the common gardens of the Blooms-
bury Squares of London in the first half of the nineteenth
century.
Steen Eiler Rasmussen, Utzon's teacher at the Copenhagen
Academy of Architecture, once told me that he had a great
regard for Utzon since he possessed a two-fold ability: he
could give a spatial solution to monumental projects with fully
mechanized means and to social projects with the simplest
possible means.
Imagination and Implementation

In his own personality Utzon mirrors our period in all its
complexity. In architecture Utzon stands for the right of
expression as the supreme law, as it has always been supreme
for all creative spirits.
J¢>rn Utzon combines a rare power of spatial imagination with
the ability to express this graphically. Behind this imagina-
tive power stands a primary impulse to depart from the
two-dimensionality of the drawing board and come to three-
dimensional sculptural forms. Thus full-scale models play an
important role in his work. In Mies van der Rohe's studio
there is a wooden model of his steel profiles at a scale of 1:1,
so that he can check the behavior of their dimensions. As
stated, Utzon went further and required three-dimensional
confirmation of the spatial behavior of his shell vaults.
The primacy of expression must always be achieved through
the contemporary technical possibilities. This implies some-
thing more: the machine has to be subordinated to the creative
process, not the creative process to the machine. Rationality
of construction in the nineteenth century was the only refuge
to which the creative core of architecture could flee. Today
something quite different is needed. Industrial production is
all powerful. It tyrannically imposes its purely mechanistic
standardization on every sector, not least on architecture.
For the first and the second generations the way to bring their
imagination to implementation was hard enough, but it was
694
less complex than today. For the third generation creative
imagination is inextricably bound up with the industrial pro-
duction of all structural elements. The machine must be so
guided that its products are not based solely upon rationalistic
considerations.
It is said that the ancient architecture of Japan was based
upon an attitude of mind - upon a philosophy - and it was
this attitude that influenced technical production, and not
techniques that influenced architecture. Today we possess no
vitalizing philosophy that can influence everything.
In its place we have something else - however vague it may
appear - an attitude toward humanity. This is the problem
around which all now turns. Production must no longer be
based solely on a mechanistic outlook; the machine must be
guided in such a way that its products stem directly from a
human point of view, fundamentally growing out of a human-
istic atmosphere, as they did previously through their direct
contact with the human hand. Everything centers on the use
of today's powers of production to restore the imagination to
its earlier freedom. Freedom in this sense means to transform
the prefabrication of building components so that, in the house,
all detailing from foundations to roof can have a wide range of
flexibility; and, in monumental building, even the most com-
plex forms can be solved by contemporary methods.
The vaults of the Sydney Opera House in their formation and
in their meaning are symptomatic.
695
THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES FOR
MODERN ARCHITECTURE (CIAj\-1) AND THE
FORMATION OF CONTEMPORARY
ARCHITECTURE
The International Congresses for Modern Architecture (Con-

gres lnternationaux d'Architecture Moderne- ClAM) were
not founded to protect the rights of the profession - that is
the task of the large official architectural organizations. The
purpose of ClAM was to establish contemporary architec-
ture's right to existence against the antagonistic forces of
official architectural circles, who controlled the major building
enterprises. The aim of ClAM was to deal with problems
that could not be solved by the single individual. This was
approximately the definition Le Corbusier gave of ClAM's
purpose.
In February 1928, I received a letter from Madame Helene
de Mandrot, telling me that she was about to visit Zurich.
The purpose of this visit was to arrange for a meeting of
architects connected with this new movement at her chateau
of La Sarraz, a few kilometers north of the lake of Geneva in
the canton of Vaud. Madame de Mandrot had already spoken
of this possibility with Le Corbusier and other friends (P.
Chareau, G. Guevrekian, and others) in Paris. The term
"congress" was to be employed in its original sense of "work-
ing together." It would be a congress of collaboration, not a
congress in which each would report on his own specific field.
Three circumstances favored an international union of young
architects. One was the initiative of Helene de Mandrot, who
had founded the Maison des Artistes and had already held a
meeting of young painters. She now invited young archi-
tects from Belgium, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Aus-
tria, Spain, and Switzerland to meet at this neutral spot in the
center of Europe.
The second was the scandal that had resulted from the com-
petition for the League of Nations building at Geneva. Le
Corbusier had been awarded the first prize ex aequo: his project
was, in every way, superior to the others. As a result of in-
696
trigues by a professor of the Paris Academie des Beaux Arts,
Aristide B~iand, the most influential politician in the League of
Nations, declared he would accept only a building in academic
style. Thus the prize was not granted to Le Corbusier and
a wall was thrown up against contemporary architecture. It
seemed imperative to create a new organization - ClAM -
to assert freedom of architectural conception and support it
whenever necessary so that there could be no repetition of the
Geneva affair.
Third, and the reason that proved decisive, was the need to
provide for helplessly isolated architects in various countries
an ideological basis and professional support that would enable
them to tackle special problems and to defend their approach.
At the first congress in La Sarraz, 1928, a small international The '\Tanifesto
group, not without lively discussion, formulated the manifesto of La Sarraz
that first laid down the bases of contemporary architecture.
At the end of the congress Le Corbusier produced a long
drawing and spread it on the walls of the Gothic chapel where
the medieval lords of the estate are buried. The drawing is
reproduced in the first volume of Le Corbusier's collected
works. 1 It depicted in diagrammatic form the course ClAM
should follow. At that time it was absurdly Utopian to expect
that the forces of contemporary architecture would one day
overcome the opposition of officialdom and be admitted to the
citadel of the state.
At this congress, Professor Karl Moser of Zurich, the noted
teacher and architect, was elected first president of ClAM.
The second congress was held at Frankfort in 1929 at the in- Low in<'ome
vitation of Ernest May, then head of that city's Department of housing
Housing, Planning, and Building. On the walls of his offices,
members' drawings, all on the same scale, were presented on
the theme: "Low Income Housing." (These drawings were
subsequently reproduced in Die ~Vohnung fiir das Exisienz-
minimum, issued by J. Hoffman, Stuttgart, 1930.) This sys-
tem of using the same scale and the same techniques of pres-
entation became the rule for all ClAM congresses, so that the
1 Le Corbusier, CEuvre complete (Zurich, 1937), I, 175.
697
subjects under discussion could be immediately compared with
one another.
At this congress, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, and Jose Luis
Sert made their first appearance in ClAM.
Rational The third congress was held in Brussels in 1930 on the initia-
methods of tive of Victor Bourgeois: its theme was "Rational Methods
site planning
of Site Planning" (publication: Rationelle Bebauungsweisen,
J. Hoffman, Stuttgart, 1930). The actual topic of discussion -
then a burning question - was the relative merits of laying
out areas with row houses, walk-ups, and high-rise apartments.
All the speakers- Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, R. J. Neu-
tra, among others - were obliged to address themselves to
this theme.
Cornell van Eesteren, the young head of the Amsterdam Office
for City Planning, was elected president because Professor
Karl Moser wished to hand over his position to a younger man.
The election of a city planner instead of an architect showed
the future direction ClAM would take.
A cabled invitation from the highest official of the Housing
and Building Association of the U.S.S.R. to hold the fourth
congress in Moscow was accepted.
The Athens At the end of 1932, C. van Eesteren and I were invited to
Charter attend a preparatory meeting in Moscow that lasted ten days.
The program of the fourth congress was settled with mutual
friendliness and the date fixed for June 1933. This congress
was planned on the largest scale. If it had been held in Moscow
it would have been of immense significance since Russia was so
greatly interested in city planning. But a few months later
the news came from Moscow that the congress had been post-
poned. We immediately understood the reason for this meas-
ure: the Avanlgarde had no place in Stalin's Russia.
Since all the congress material had already been prepared, I
called an emergency meeting in Le Corbusier's studio in the
Rue de Sevres, Paris. What should be done? Marcel Breuer
proposed that the congress should be held on a ship. Le
Corbusier telephoned at once to the director of a Greek ship-
ping company whom he knew. As a result the fourth congress
698
was held on the "Patris II" sailing between Marseille and
Athens, and in Athens itself.
The Brussels congress had shown that interest centered on a
study of city planning. C. van Eesteren, on the basis of his
experience in Amsterdam, had the task of developing and
distributing three sample plans using standardized symbols
and methods of presentation:
1. A land-use plan using symbols to show areas mainly
devoted to residential, industrial, and recreational uses.
2. The traffic network.
3. The relation between the city and its region.
All plans shown at the fourth congress were based on these
examples derived from the city plan of Amsterdam, and each
used the same symbols and was drawn to the same scale. Thus
their different problems could be seen at a glance.
The purpose of these drawings was to give an insight into the
comparative structure of small and large cities - an insight
which simply did not exist up to that time. Thirty-three
cities were analyzed (including London, Paris, Berlin, Detroit,
Los Angeles, Athens, Rome, Warsaw, Madrid, and Zurich).
Their main functions -living, working, recreation, circulation
- could at once be recognized and compared.
This was the longest, most exciting, and most fruitful of the
ClAM congresses. Excellent studies had been prepared. It
was possible for the groups to make analytical comparisons of
the thirty-three cities and, on this basis, to lay down the prin-
ciples of contemporary city planning in the Athens Charter
(Charte d'Ath{mes).
Wells Coates made his first appearance at this congress as
organizer of an English group of CJAM. With us were a
number of interested painters, poets, and art historians - such
as Fernand Leger, Moholy-Nagy, Gueguin, Christian Zervos,
and Jean Badovici- who effectively cleared the atmosphere
of dry professionalism.
J. L. Sert brought together the results of the fourth congress in
a comprehensive book, Can Our Cities Survive? (Harvard
University Press, 1942). The complete text of the Athens
699
Charter was published in French as La Charte d' Athenes
(Paris, 1943), with an introduction by Jean Giraudoux. It
was republished in 1957 by Jean Petit, Paris. The complete
English text is in Ekistics, XVI (October 1963), 263-267.
Housing and In the shadow of dark years ahead the fifth congress met in
recreation Paris in 193 7. The theme was "Housing and Recreation" -
a theme that is not yet resolved. Le Corbusier assembled its
documents under the title Logis et Loisirs (Paris, 1933). It
was intended to hold the sixth congress in 1939 in the United
States, where, in 1937, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer had
been invited to work at Harvard University and Moholy-Nagy
at Chicago. One year later, I also was invited to Harvard.
Then came the war and the sixth congress was postponed ten
years. During the war the different ClAM groups were sep-
arated from one another, but they carried on their work in-
dependently. In New York Lonberg-Holm, Walter Gropius,
Richard J. Neutra, Jose Luis Sert, and I, with Stamo Papadaki
and a few other friends, formed the "ClAM Chapter for Relief
and Post--War Planning" (R. J. Neutra was the president).
In the Netherlands, members of ClAM met secretly through-
out the Occupation to prepare for the rebuilding of Rotterdam,
which later proceeded according to their recommendations.
In England, the Modern Architectural Research Group-
MARS, the name the English ClAM group had adopted -
rose to the fore: its members took leading roles in the devel-
opment of post-war city plans and the preparation of new
planning legislation.
A decade of It was the MARS group who in 1947 organized the sixth
new archi- congress at the small town of Bridgwater in southwest Eng-
tecture land. After the ten years that had passed since the last con-
gress it was necessary to reformulate the goals of ClAM and to
renew broken contacts.
The usual ClAM custom was broken. The works of individual
members of the different ClAM groups were displayed to
explain the situation in their countries. As the Argentinian
delegate Ferrari-Hardoy said, the congress was astounded to
find how the "development of an idea" had followed parallel
lines in the completely separated groups. 11 Decade of New
700
Architecture, by S. Giedion (Zurich, 1951), resulted from this
congress.
In Bridgwater the question of aesthetics was broached for the
first time. Until then it had been avoided. Two approaches
could be distinguished. The MARS group, led by J. M. Rich-
ards, held that the question should be approached from the
view of the "man in the street." Hans Arp and I concentrated
on the relationship between architect, painter, and sculptor.
A short account of the ensuing discussion appears in my book
Architecture, You and Me (Harvard University Press, 1958),
pp. 70-78.
At this congress, Jose Luis Sert was elected president.
The seventh congress was organized by the Italian group and The ClAM
held in Bergamo in 1949. The selection of subjects for pres- Grid and the
problem of
entation at this congress was left completely open. It was aesthetics
only stipulated that they should be presented within the for-
mat of the "ClAM Grid" 2 developed by the French group
ASCORAL (Assemblee de Constructeurs pour une Renovation
Architecturale) and Le Corbusier, and later published as a
special supplement by Architecture d' Aujourd'hui in 1949.
All groups brought analyses of different urbanistic problems
in the form of the Grid. These analyses were examined in
turn. Problems of the development of new towns and of new
community centers were particularly stressed.
The problem of aesthetics, apparently so far removed from
this analytical approach, gave rise to heated discussion. Fol-
lowing a Polish recommendation to adopt the Stalinist ap-
proach to art, long smoldering differences came to light as
positions were taken on the relation between art and the
views of the "man in the street." This discussion is also
summarized in Architecture, You and Me (pp. 79-80).
The eighth congress was again organized by the MARS group The heart
and was held at Hoddesdon, near London, in 1951. The four of the city
2 The ClAM Grid took the form of a matrix with living, working, recreation, and cir-
culation as the main heads, along the side; and along the top, a series of heads including
region, building volume, aesthetics, economic and social considerations, legislation, etc.
Material was displayed in the appropriate positions. (It was not necessary to fill in all
the squares.)
701
notions ofliving, working, recreation, and circulation that were
the basis of the Athens Charter had proved useful for the first
analysis of a city. But it now appeared that something more
was needed to grasp the spirit of a city. The theme, "The
Heart of the City," had been proposed by the English group.
This congress heralded the final period of ClAM, in which it
would concentrate more and more on social aspects of urban
planning: first in the formation of the city center and, in the
following congresses, on the human habitat.
One of the points most stressed in the eighth congress, the
rights of the pedestrian (la royaute du pieton) has now become
one of the chief points of city planning in the rehabilitation of
city centers. The first sketches of Chandigarh were shown at
this congress. The results of this congress, edited by J. Tyr-
whitt, J. L. Sert, and E. N. Rogers, were published under the
title The Heart of the City (London and Milan, 1952).
The human The ninth congress was organized by ASCORAL and held in
habitat Aix-en-Provence in 1953 on the theme: "The Human Habi-
tat." To the zoologist, the word "habitat" means the natural
area in which an animal lives and procreates; to the botanist,
the area in which a particular plant flourishes. In addition
habitat can be defined as the area best suited to meet the
inborn and future needs of man. This congress considered the
extensions of man's living quarters (logement prolonge) out-
side the four walls of the dwelling and attempted to gain
insight into the many-sided relationships between members of
a family and members of a community.
ClAM was an avantgarde movement, and in the art world
avantgarde movements normally have only a short span of life.
ClAM was already twenty-five years old. The founders of
ClAM, who were still leading the movement, now had large-
scale projects on their hands and heavy demands on their time.
They wanted to hand over leadership to the younger genera-
tion, but their retirement was not accepted at this point.
However, the organization of the tenth congress was entrusted
to Team X, a group of younger architects, who would carry
out the preparations with the cooperation of the older leaders.
J. B. Bakema was appointed head of this team.
702
Team X, who were to prepare the transition from the older to
the younger generation, had prepared the method of represen-
tation of work at the tenth congress, held in Dubrovnik in
1956.
The task of the congress was to outline the form of the Charte
de !'Habitat, which would specify the spatial relations of the
individual within the family, taking into consideration the
cycle of human life; his relations with the community; his
needs for quiet and seclusion; his needs for contact with nature.
The isolated individual of today should be transformed from
a passive on-looker to an active participant in community
life. The political aspect is only one part of the problem.
In place of the usual terms- village, city, metropolis- Le
Corbusier proposed a general expression: "the human agglom-
eration." Present agglomerations, in their continuous change
and continuous growth, are something quite different from
former cities. In the emerging habitat there can be no self-
sufficient settlements, but instead of an amorphous sprawl
there could be what the congress termed "urban constella-
tions."
J. L. Sert and his colleagues at Harvard University were en-
trusted with the formulation of the Charte de !'Habitat. It
was never written, not only because of the strenuous schedule
of a large American university, but also because, in the absence
of the many polyphonic voices of a congress, such a document
could not be brought into being. But what had already been
arrived at could and should be set down.
In Dubrovnik the entire former leadership of ClAM resigned,
and a proposal was made that the old name " ClAM" should
be dropped so that the new leaders could start afresh. This
proposal was unfortunately not accepted.
At the final session of ClAM a letter from Le Corbusier to the
younger generation was read: "Messieurs, Amis, attention au
tournant I ''
ClAM came into existence at the same moment as the first The influence
large buildings of contemporary architecture. The main in- of ClAM
fluence of ClAM was to strengthen the convictions of its
703
members. Because they believed so strongly in what they
were doing, ClAM's members were willing to undertake large-
scale projects without pay. ClAM never had any financial
resources. It was an assembly of individualists who tried to
establish a common basis. Step by step they worked to pene-
trate unsolved problems, using the tool of comparative anal-
ysis: studies using the same symbols and drawn to the same
scale. It was one of the unwritten laws of ClAM that par-
ticipants should not display their own individual work so that
criticism of each other's projects would not divert them from
the general theme of the congress. It was typical of the spirit
of ClAM that the great pioneers of the modern movement also
submitted to this discipline.
ClAM was led by its officiers, J. L. Sert, president; Walter
Gropius and Le Corbusier, vice presidents; S. Giedion, secre-
tary-general; and delegates from twenty-two countries. Some
of the most prominent delegates were: Belgium, Victor Bour-
geois and L. von Stynen; Brazil, A. E. Reidy and 0. Nie-
meyer; Germany, Ernest May, Hugo Haring, W. Hebebrand,
and H. Scharoun; England, Maxwell Fry, J. M. Richards,
P. Smithson, and W. Howell; France, G. Candilis, J. Preuve,
and E. Parent; Netherlands, C. van Eesteren, B. Merkelbach,
A. van Eyck, and R. B. Bakema; Italy, E. N. Rogers, L. B.
Belgiogoso, I. Gardella, E. Peresutti, and G. Terragni; Japan,
K. Maekawa, Kenzo Tange, and J. Sakakura; Poland, S. H.
Syrkus and J. Soltan; Sweden, S. Markelius and G. Seidenblad;
Switzerland, \V. Moser, M. E. Haefeli, R. Steiger, and A. Roth;
United States, R. J. Neutra, Moholy-Nagy, Marcel Breuer,
and K. Lonberg-Holm.
ClAM called whoever had talent to collaborate whether his
name was already made or not. As a result, almost all creative
architects took an active part in the ClAM congresses. ClAM
started near the beginning of the movement in a moment of
crisis, and ClAM ended at a moment of great prosperity, when
contemporary architecture had prevailed.
Architecture a Architecture has long ceased to be the concern of passive and
moral problem businesslike specialists who built precisely what their clients
demanded. It has gained the courage to deal actively with
life, to help mold it. It starts with intimately vital questions,
704
inquiring into the needs of the child, the woman, and the man.
It asks, "What kind of life are you leading? Are we respon-
sible for the conditions you have to put up with? How must
we plan- not just in the case of houses, but clear through to
regional areas - so that you may have a life worthy of the
name~"
When we go to the bottom of questions like these, we see that

contemporary architecture takes its start in a moral problem.
Architecture has emerged from the realm of narrow specializa-
tion. And by taking off his specialists's blinders, the architect
has greatly extended his influence. Architecture is a highly
complex activity; it works in the boundary area halfway be-
tween the regions of aesthetic feeling and practical doing. But
this is just the reason why we look to it to give us the kind of
surroundings that will express the life of our period.
Modern painters have enlarged our visual experience by work-
ing with relations between objects which we had never taken
cognizance of in our ordinary, half-automatic seeing. Con-
temporary architects have been just as willing to anticipate
public understanding. They too have refused to wait until
they could be sure of universal approbation for their work.
Following an impulse which was half ethical, half artistic,
they have sought to provide our life with its corresponding
shell or framework. And where contemporary architecture
has been allowed to provide a new setting for contemporary
life, this new setting has acted in its turn upon the life from
which jt springs. The new atmosphere has led to change and
development in the conceptions of the people who live in it.
In the past (and to some extent even now) really creative art
has met with resistance from a public whose conceptual de-
velopment had outdistanced its emotional growth. The fight
which contemporary architecture had to wage to establish
itself was due to just this gap between thinking and feeling.
That fight would never have succeeded if architecture had
waited for other branches of knowledge to arrive at a coordi-
nated and universal outlook. Builders, sociologists, econo-
mists, political theorists - none of these have as yet fulfilled
all their aims. Meanwhile the architects have worked with
whatever means were at hand - sometimes very primitive
705
ones, with which completely satisfactory solutions were im-
possible - to establish the contours of a new kind of life.
Universal trends Many different countries have contributed to the development
and local problems which we have been discussing. It would be interesting to
observe the spread of the new movements, through Holland,
France, Germany, Sweden, England, and elsewhere; to see
what direction was taken in each of these countries and the
special dangers which each involves; to note the influence of
environment and tradition upon the solution of architectural
problems. Such local differences have a more than superficial
importance. Those countries which accepted contemporary
architecture as a kind of universal coinage - a collection of
particular shapes which retained their full value wherever they
were transplanted - invited architectural bankruptcy. Mod-
ern architecture is something more than a universally appli-
cable means of decoration. It is too much the product of our
whole period not to exhibit some universal tendencies, but, on
the other hand, it is too much concerned with problems of
actual living to ignore local differences in needs, customs, and
materials. Finland, under the leadership of Alvar Aalto, has
shown how contributions can be made to architecture univer-
sally through solutions adapted to the specific conditions of
their native setting.
706
CITY PLANNING
PART VII IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Early Nineteenth Century
Once again we must turn back to the nineteenth century. We
can appreciate what is required in the sphere of town planning
today only if we understand how the present situation has come
about.
A universal If a universal attitude is needed anywhere at all in architecture,
attitude basic to it is in town planning. In the absence of a wide survey, a far-
town planning
sighted point of view, there can be no urban order. Periods
incapable of arriving at a consistent outlook on the world are
also incapable of carrying out the kind of town planning that
goes beyond mere patchwork. Armies of specialists are no
help when what is missing is a universal attitude covering the
whole of life.
Reign of the On the contrary, specialists who lack a universal attitude are
specialist in incapable of grasping real relationships. Valuable and precise
nineteenth-century
as their work may be, its results will be limited and out of
town planning
balance - perhaps even harmful, since one task is overstressed
at the expense of others. Periods which depend on specialists
are incapable of successful town planning. What happens in
such times is something like the case of a man who reads a
book with such extreme exactitude that he never manages to
get beyond the first ten pages. He loses the meaning of the
whole in attending to the details. The situation nowadays is
an analogous one. In spite of the existence of many conscien-
tious town-planning associations and of specialists trained in
the planning and administration of towns, there prevails a
shocking lack of direction and an inability to remove the most
obvious inconveniences.
This penalty cannot be evaded since for a hundred years there
has been almost nothing but chaos in town planning. Regula-
tions alone can offer no solution, for the regulations also bear
the stamp of the men who make them. A new universal vision
is needed.
It would be unreasonable to expect new solutions to town-
planning problems from a period like the nineteenth century.
A century that (especially in its later period) was dominated
by the spirit of laissez-faire and under the rule of specialists
708
was no time for town planning, which by its very nature must
result from broad vision and foresight.
There is no doubt that the charm of many individual forms of
living of the last century will be more and more fully recognized
in the near future. But this coming revaluation will not in-
clude town planning.
Our interest in town planning can be reduced to three ques-
tions: Was the highly developed late baroque art of town
planning continued during the nineteenth century~ What
arose to take its place afterwards~ Finally, what new solutions
has the twentieth century to offer~
In times when there is a universal vision resting on a long and Late baroque town
solid tradition, town planning is taken as a matter of course. planning: summary
We have considered some eighteenth-century solutions which
were interesting for their farsightedness and for the feeling
for space which they manifest. Many plans of an amazingly
high quality are the work of anonymous architects, even of
speculators. It is important to notice that solutions which
come out of universal vision of the eighteenth century still
remain valid long after the death of the society - or the ideal
of a society - for which they were formulated, and after
changes in circumstance which the designers could never have
foreseen. But when the vision of a period is predominately in-
fluenced by specialists, the solutions arrived at do not even
satisfy the needs of the time.
The late baroque showed a magnificent power of dominating
outer space. This period was thoroughly aware of the different
relationships between one building and another and between
buildings and nature: between constructions and organic life.
The social life from which baroque town planning sprang lim-
ited its attention to connections between palatial residences
and the spatial treatment of beautiful plazas in the great
towns.
Late baroque town planning is the expression of two absolut-
isms: the first produced by the Counter Reformation, the
second by monarchy. All great constructions of the period
were built for the Church, for the king, or for those who
helped them to rule.
709
No interest in The lodgings of the common people did not enter into these
dwellings of the schemes; they were not thought of as presenting any problem.
common people:
Vauban's proposal
The people formed the invisible foundation and support of the
state; everything that was newly built was intended, without
question, for the ruling class. People of great experience and
wide vision -like Vauban, Louis XIV's great military en-
gineer - saw the dangers of a system which put such burdens
upon the people. But Vauban's Projet d'une dixieme royale
(1707) 1 cost him the monarch's favor by its assertion that
"what is wrongly called the dregs of the people" merited the
"celestial king's" serious attention. "This mass is . . . very
important," Vauban continued, "in view of its numbers and
the services it renders to the state." The system itself inevi-
tably dictated the rejection of Vauban's main proposal that the
nobility and clergy should be taxed (to the extent of one-tenth
of their incomes) as well as the people.
Thus it came about that a great town, as far as the mass
of the people was concerned, was simply a crowd of houses,
neglected in every respect. On the other hand, historical jus-
tice forces us to state that great towns in the eighteenth century
in no way played the part they did in the nineteenth. The
eighteenth-century city lay outside the interest and attention
of the chief forces in the period. After the departure of Louis
XIV for Versailles, town planning was entirely neglected
except in so far as it concerned the building of places and great
avenues of communication.
A city tenement Everything that affected the people was either abandoned to
in the eighteenth disorder or arranged merely provisionally. The confusion and
century:
Mercier's Tableau
filth, the neglected approaches to the houses, and even the
de Paris, 1786 tragicomedy of the city-dweller's longing for flowers and
greenery appear in an etching of 1736 (fig. 445). The etching,
Pot de fleurs, is from Mercier's Tableau de Paris, a book which
so fascinated Diderot that he described it as "pense dans larue
et ecrit sur la borne." The illustration shows the ordinary
houses of Paris and the misfortune of one of the fifth-story
tenants who has just seen his aerial garden tumble into the
1Published in 1708 in London under the title, "A project for the Royal Tythe: or
General Tax; ... by the famous Monsieur Vauban."
710
445. MERCIER. Etching
from Tableau de Paris, 1786.
dirty disorder below. But such houses were sparsely populated

and cannot be compared with the crowded slums created by
the nineteenth century.
During the century between Versailles (1668-84) and Lans- Contact with
downe Crescent in Bath (1794) 2 residences came to be placed nature of late
in direct contact with nature. This direct contact belonged baroque residences
first to the monarch, next to the nobility, then to anonymous
wealthy citizens. The increased stress in the eighteenth cen-
tury upon the connection of the dwelling with nature may be
laid in large part to the trend of the times toward Rousseau's
cult of the "natural man."
2 Seep. 157.
711
446. Tuileries, gardens laid out by Lenotre. Engraving by Mariette. The avenue of trees
to the right still exists, and now borders the Rue de Rivoli along one side.
Space is necessary if houses face greenery. Such space was

impossible in the old walled towns, but in the seventeenth
century Vauban moved the defenses of Paris much farther
out in order to protect the city against new developments in
armaments. It was this which permitted the eighteenth-
century places to grow up in Paris.
It will be recalled that, in the north and south alike, baroque
architects of the second half of the eighteenth century took
pains to preserve the association of architecture and greenery.
This new phase of town planning continued and was extended
for a long while in the nineteenth century. Because in any
period town planning is the last department of architecture to
acquire a form, the association of architecture and greenery
was maintained until the influence of industrialization seriously
altered the daily life of the nineteenth century. However, the
industrial towns that grew up around slums from the very
start show no trace of this tradition.
712
447. Rue de Rivoli, Paris, c. 1825.
The part of the Rue de Rivoli first
built by Percier and Fontaine for Na-
poleon I, looking toward the Place de
Ia Concorde. Its single row of homes
fadng across the roadway onto green-
ery inspired the Regent, later George
r
-~--·
1
r_c-'
IV of England, to develop the Regent's
Park terraces shortly thereafter.
'
•
~ r
1
~ t
448. PERCIER and FON-
TAINE. Elevation of a house on
the Rue de Rivoli, 1806. This
charming and unified fa~ade is a
basis for Haussmann's boulevards
half a century later. Shops are hid- I
den behind the arcades. Thus this ..1~.
1,!
'•
street of Napoler;m I has already, in
'
germ at least, that mixture of residence
and business functions which the
English avoided.
713
The Rue de Rivoli of Napoleon I
Late baroque When Napoleon I commissioned Percier and Fontaine, the
tradition in the founders of the Empire style, to design the Rue de Rivoli, the
Rue de Rivoli
main outlines of the design were already established by existing
(i80l)
conditions.
The Rue de Rivoli of Napoleon I, still the most beautiful
street in Paris, is not a rue corridor. It has only one wall, and
this faces upon the gardens of the Tuileries and, what is more
important, upon an avenue of trees. This avenue had been
laid out under Louis XIV (as an eighteenth-century engraving
by Mariette plainly shows), and at first bordered the royal
stables (fig. 446). These stables occupied the site upon which
the Rue de Rivoli was built.
The Place de Ia Concorde, where the Rue de Rivoli begins, was
built under Louis XV and Louis XVI, and the bridge over the
Seine was built just at the beginning of the Revolution, in
1790.
Louis XIV laid out the park, Louis XV the square, and N a po-
leon the street. It was quite typical of the building programs
of the period that Napoleon should have commanded a street
to be built (this was at the time of his consulate, in 1801). The
street was intended for the rich bourgeoisie and offered them
a view of the former royal gardens.
In marked contrast to the English practice of making business
and residential streets entirely separate, the Rue de Rivoli
was both in one. 3 Continuous pillared arcades protected shop-
pers from the weather and at the same time prevented the
shop fronts from diminishing the dignity of the street. Plac-
ards and grocers' shops were excluded. These arcades continue
the tradition of the seventeenth-century Place des Vosges.
In working out their new task Percier and Fontaine used a
form which is as neutral as it is appealing (fig. 448). It goes
without saying that the whole house was treated as a repeating
unit. To preserve the total effect of the street, there are but
few accents. The pillared arches of the ground floor are in
3 This separation appears in the Bloomsbury section of London, built up around the
same time.
714
449. Rue de Rivoli, view toward the Louvre, 1840.
strict alignment; the balconies of the first, third, and attic

floors are continuous; the walls are smooth-surfaced.
The Rue de Rivoli of the time of Napoleon I is a part of the
late baroque tradition (fig. 447). Its single row of houses per-
mits as free an outlook as the brothers Adam provided for the
occupants of their splendid Adelphi Terrace, built in 1768,
overlooking the banks of the Thames. The Rue de Rivoli, at
this stage of its development, inspired John Nash and his
employer, the Prince Regent, in their plans for laying out
Regent's Park and its terraces.
The various continuations of the Rue de Rivoli - the last
completed as a part of Haussmann's percement de Paris-
changed its whole character and made it over into one of
those "endless streets" born out of the nineteenth century
(fig. 449) .
715
THE DOMINANCE OF GREENERY: THE LONDON
SQUARES
In the garden squares of London we have for the first time

since the Middle Ages the outward appearance of a city deter-
mined by the building activities of the upper middle classes.
These classes created a residential style as self-confident as it
is lasting. Like the Flemish towns of the fifteenth century,
these London squares of the early nineteenth century will bear
witness for generations to the sureness with which the middle
classes set about providing a framework for their lives, unless
these squares are destroyed by insensate building.
To understand the true nature of their development we must
first of all remember the English preoccupation with the idea
of comfort, especially the Englishman's insistence upon com-
fort in the home, all the way from the comfortable chair before
the fire to the undisturbed privacy of the individual house.
This strong urge toward bienseance does not appear for the
first time in the eighteenth century. To see how far back it
goes and how early it influenced the organization of his dwell-
ing, one need only compare the spacious settings and arrange-
ment of early English manor houses with their Continental
counterparts. It is to this desire for comfort and privacy that
the garden squares of London owe their particular pattern.
Indeed, if the development of London may be said to follow any
rule, it is unwritten - like so many of those English laws that
carry most weight - and derives from the democratic insist-
ence that a man shall not be disturbed in his private life. The
rule runs roughly as follows: The residential quarters of a city
should, as far as possible, merge into greenery. They should
be inconspicuous.
London's London developed with an almost total disregard for definite
irrational growth axes. Its growth was at the mercy of the divisive influences of
the great landowners, of the Crown, the nobility, the Church.
Its lack of guiding axes such as those which make Paris so easy
to survey makes it almost impossible to orient oneself. On the
other hand, the numerous small districts into which London
resolves itself act as refuges from the sheer immensity of a
city which has outgrown the human scale.
716
450. WREN. Plan for the reconstruction of London, 1666.
The comprehensive unity sought by the baroque was not Rejection of

acceptable to seventeenth-century England. The coordinated Wren's plan, 1666
plan of Christopher Wren for the general rebuilding of London
following the great fire of 1666 was rejected by Charles II after
only three days' consideration (fig. 450). And this just at the
time when Bernini was laying out the Piazza in front of St.
Peter's, and Le Notre the gardens of Versailles! The sweep of
Wren's scheme- half baroque, half Renaissance in character
- was too thoroughgoing to permit its execution, 1 but for a
reason more fundamental than the one usually given. The
popular belief is that Wren's plan was not used because it was
impossible to reach agreements with the owners of a half-
dozen burned-over sites through which Wren's axes incon-
veniently ran. But it was not merely a complicated question
of ownership which blocked the laying out of axes in the Renais-
sance or baroque manner; there was also an inner repugnance
to them. This same repugnance operated to prevent any
systematically related arrangement of terraces, squares, and
streets in those areas where it could have been most easily
1 London was self-governing and independent of the Crown. Neither Wren nor any
other architect would have thought of using the Continental idea of organizing London
around the Royal Palace. Wren's intended point of accent- almost in the Renais-
sance manner- was the center of the city, at the Stock Exchange. All his lines of force
radiated outward from that point to penetrate the whole body of London. St. Paul's
stood near the town gates, at the confluence of two main arteries; in the same fashion,
two decades later, Rainaldi placed twin churches facing the Piazza del Popolo.
717
achieved - within the great estates. The Crown and the
Duke of Bedford igncred such schemes in the Covent Garden
district; the Earl of Southampton did likewise in Bloomsbury.
The way in which these squares are irrationally scattered over
a site, separated and yet not quite cut off from each other, is
like the pattern of an Oriental carpet or a painting by Paul
Klee.
451. Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London, 1812. Around 1800 the open spaces in the
middle of the London squares were laid out with freely planted trees and lawns, the beginning
of that luxuriant greenery which natural growth brought in due course of lime . "Queen
Square, situated to the eastu:ard of Bloomsbury Square , is a handsome area, surrounded on
three sides by good houses, having an extensive garden in the center. . . . The north side
formerly commanded fine views of Hampstead and Highgate." ("Ackermann's Repository
of Arts," September 1812.)
Nature of a square "The square," according to a Dictionary of Architecture pub-

lished in 1887, "is a piece of land in which is an enclosed
garden, surrounded by a public roadway, giving access to the
houses on each side of it." For all its brevity, this definition is
an excellent statement of the nature of the London squares.
718
It very properly begins with the "piece of land" ; next it
stresses as an essential feature the enclosed garden (enclosed
because it is only for the tenants, who all have keys); last of all,
it mentions the houses which invariably surround it. It does
not specify the shape of the square, which may be four-sided,
three-sided, regular or irregular. There is no rule requiring
that the square must bear any specific relation to neighboring
squares, places, streets, or crescents.
The London squares of the seventeenth and eighteenth century
have great significance for the town planner. In them for the
first time the countryside was built upon without being oblit-
erated beneath masses of stone and networks of streets. As
living flesh gleams warmly through sheer material, so the one-
time gardens of the Duke of Bedford still disclose themselves
beneath the residential developments of Bloomsbury with
which they have been overlaid. Modern architects often boast
of the attention they pay to trees; indeed, they sometimes
build a house around one. In the best of the London squares a
whole district is composed architecturally around the existing
countryside. Herein lies the prescience of the squares.
The main constituent of all the London squares is a central Central garden
garden of grass and plane trees (fig. 451). When newly planted,
the rows of plane trees did not achieve the effect of a secluded,
romantic garden which they were intended later to produce.
Such a picture required the existence of a wall of greenery,
which, grateful both to eyes and to lungs, had also the advan-
tage of ensuring privacy from one's neighbors. Each square
garden was treated as a unit, just as the houses were. There
was no ridiculous breaking up into small allotments but wide
expanses where the residents might stretch themselves out
on the grass on sunny days or play tennis on the green lawns
in front of their own houses. And all this within five minutes'
walk of the surging traffic of Tottenham Court Road or Oxford
Street.
At the start, some of these areas were by no means gardens.
" Originally these open spaces were neither so aesthetically
pleasing nor so healthful as they might have been, owing to the
fact that it was the inevitable fate of open ground in every
European city of the seventeenth century to become a dumping
719
place for filth of all kinds. This was prevented only when the
inhabitants of squares applied for powers to enclose, clean, and
beautify them; St. James's Square, in 1726, was one of the first
to seek such permission." 2
Houses serial and The architecture of the houses around these squares is also
inconspicuous affected by the unwritten rule that residential quarters shall be
as inconspicuous as possible. They are arranged serially in
apposition, a treatment which was used for more than half a
452. Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, in the early eighteenth century. "The square is a
piece of land in which is an enclosed garden, surrounded by a public roadway, giving access
to the houses on each side of it."
century in the newly erected parts of London without ever

becoming either tiresome or antiquated. Everything is avoided
that might obtrude; there are simply smooth, continuous sur-
faces with as little subdivision as possible. The building
material- brick, without stucco- is admirably suited to con-
2W. R. Davidge, "The Planning of London," .Journal of the Royal Institute of British
Architects, March 10, 1934, p. 433 .
720
ditions. Plain brick, instead of suffering from the dampness
and fog of London, becomes mellowed and dignified with the
passage of time, like a well-smoked meerschaum pipe. Paint
is used sparingly, and only in places where weather cannot
harm it and where it can be easily renewed: on the inside
of window casements, along the narrow moldings at the en-
trances, and on the pediments of the houses. Nash's use of
stucco in Park Crescent, London (begun in 1812), showed a
453. Square in the Bloomsbury district, built c. 1825. Even though Bloomsbury was
originally a suburb, the separation of traffic and residential quarters was carefully observed.
The result is that even today, only a step from the most congested London traffic, the houses
are intimately and directly related to their pleasure grounds.
Continental influence which departed somewhat from the main

tradition.
How did the London squares originate~ An answer to this Origin of London
question will help us understand better their architectural in- squares
heritance. The desire for green spaces within London reaches
back to Gothic times. In the fifteenth century the court of
Lincoln's Inn was laid out as a lawn and converted into walks.
721
At the same time a piece of land outside the town, Moorfields,
was being used by the inhabitants as a recreation ground for
archery and other sports. As early as the seventeenth century,
the most important of the popular parks, Hyde Park- far out
of London, and the property of the Crown - was opened to the
public. 3
It was in the seventeenth century also that the first squares

were built. They originated in the desire of various noble
landowners to build up portions of their estates. These con-
structions followed the baroque pattern of places rather than
streets. About 1630 the Earl of Bedford gave over seven acres
of his land to building purposes. The result was the first
London square: Covent Garden. It has often been pointed
out that this first square - never quite completed, by the
way- resembles the Place des Vosges in Paris (1612). Both
are typical seventeenth-century places, rectangular, and with
arcades running through the ground floor of the houses. As a
matter of course they were open to the public and devoid of
lawn or trees. The application to them and other such spaces
of the name "piazza" clearly shows a recognition of their
Italian origin.
The Earl of Bedford's example was soon followed by the Earl

of Leicester. Leicester Square, in front of Leicester House,
was laid out by him on the same principles in 1635. It is a
business center today and has been totally disfigured. In
1665 the Earl of Southampton "was building a noble square
or piazza, a little town," 4 which became a fashionable quarter.
This later became Bloomsbury Square. Several other squares
followed: Soho Square in 1681,_St. James's Square in 1684, and
Grosvenor Square (Mayfair) in 1695 (figs. 452, 454).
From this brief account the pertinent point emerges that as

early as the late seventeenth century London, unlike Paris,
was becoming attractive for residences of the upper classes.
Furthermore, the London squares were separate, widely scat-
tered areas like the French and Italian places.
3 Steen Eiler Rasmussen, London, the Unique City (New York, 1937), pp. 86, 92.
4 The Builder, July 28, 1855, p. 349.
722
There was increased building activity during the eighteenth
century. About fifteen squares in all appear to have come into
existence during this century. 5 To some extent this activity
was devoted to completing the seventeenth-century squares.
Thus Grosvenor and Hanover squares were completed in 1720,
and Berkeley Square around 1730. Then building took an-
other spurt just as the century began its last quarter: the
Adelphi Terrace on the banks of the Thames was built by the
brothers Adam around 1770, Manchester Square in 1774, Bed-
454. Grosvenor Square, London, begun in 1695. An eighteenth-century square set in the
midst of open fields with the enclosed area laid out as a formal garden. The gardens behind
the houses stretch out into the fields.
ford Square in 1775, Portland Place in 1778, and Fitzroy Place

in 1790. The greatest activity went on in Bath from about
1730 - the time of the emergence of the elder Wood - until
the construction of the Royal Crescent in 1767. What is
important at Bath is the interrelations between the various
squares and crescents, relations so much more subtle than the
purely axial ones employed in French town planning. Such
carefully thought-out relationships were arrived at in London
toward the end of the eighteenth century.
• The Report of the Royal Commission on London Squares (London, 1928).
723
THE GARDEN SQUARES OF BLOOMSBURY
That harmonious interrelation of squares, places, and crescents

upon which alone rests London's claim to a high level of urban
planning came about during the years between 1775 and 1850. 1
On such sites as Bloomsbury, well-ordered spaces of every
shape- oblong, circular, square, elliptical- accumulated to
form a new and composite organism. In them the late baroque
inheritance was carried on in a completely native manner, per-
fectly adapted to the conditions peculiar to London.
Bloomsbury's The development of Bloomsbury occupied more than a century
human scale and a half, approximately from the time Louis XIV began
planning the removal of his court to Versailles down to the
rise of great industrial cities like Manchester. It is the one
known instance over such a long period of urban development
to a constantly increasing perfection. As an architectural
composition, Bloomsbury is, in its way, fully the equal of such
widely different organizations as the monumental baroque
squares before St. Peter's and, later on, the Place de la Con-
corde. Though there is no doubt that both these, playing
with the whole orchestra of monumental voices, are much
more impressive, the Bloomsbury district can take its place
beside them. For although it employs shapes of an anonymous
and humble character, these shapes have a timeless validity,
and the way in which they were successively added together to
form ever-larger units- places, squares, terraces- produced
a district which for its human treatment remains unsurpassed
to this day.
Bloomsbury is all of a piece, a simple and democratic fabric in
which any touch of the monumental is a violation. The -com-
paratively small mansions of the Bedfords and Montagues,
around which it grew up, were no intrusion upon this unity,
but the building of the British Museum early in the nineteenth
century introduced an element harshly out of scale. Today the
huge buildings of the University of London and other office
1 The Report of the Royal Commission on London Squares (1928) places the building peak
between 1800 and 1850: "The activity in the development of the squares reaches its
height in the early part of the nineteenth century. By 1850 practically all the well-
known squares were completed" (p. ll).
724
455. Bloomsbury at the
end of the eighteenth
century. Part of a 1795
map. This shows the
original boundaries of
the district just before the
period of its greatest de-
velopment, when it was
still largely composed of
estates of the Duke of
Bedford.
456. Bloomsbury in 1828.

Map of James Wyld, en-
graved by N. R. Hewitt.
The whole plan follows
late baroque tradition in
emphasizing the squares,
but they are laid out flexi-
bly and informally. In
their careful yet irrational
planning they resemble the
pallern of an Oriental
carpet or a painting by
Paul Klee more than
any rigid French axes.
725
buildings have largely destroyed the old Bloomsbury scale.
The dominant three-hundred-foot tower thrusts itself upward
like an explosion, shattering forever the serenity and cohesion
of the district lying below.
However, the tower does serve one good purpose. It affords

a unique vantage point from which to survey Bloomsbury and
trace the pattern of its squares. Laid out so that there are no
extended vistas, their relationship to each other is not dis-
cernible from any one of them. Only from above is it possible
to see the balanced proportion between building and open
space, a balance so nicely maintained as to give every resident
an equal sense both of his privacy and his freedom (fig. 457).
Boundaries of The great thoroughfares that bound Bloomsbury are also
Bloomsbury easily distinguished from the tower - Holborn and New
Oxford streets on the south, and Tottenham Court on the west;
Bloomsbury itself stretches away to the east, to the gardens of
Gray's Inn and the squares beyond, until it fades out of sight
in the distance. The original boundaries of the district, as
shown on a map of 1795 (fig. 455), 2 were Tottenham Court
Road, New Road, Southampton Row, and Holborn Street.
This map defines Bloomsbury just before the period of its
greatest development, when it was still largely composed of
the estates of the Duke of Bedford, with Bedford Square
as the most conspicuous architectural organization.
Bloomsbury The beginnings of the Bloomsbury district date back to Res-
Square (1667) toration times. Southampton Square - later called Blooms-
bury Square- was laid out in 1667 by the Earl of Southamp-
ton along the axis of Bedford House, his town mansion in
Bloomsbury. Bedford House, with its cour d'honneur and
extensive grounds and gardens, dominated the square. Thus
the houses and the green but treeless areas of Bloomsbury
Square were dependent, like any French place or Italian piazza,
on a noble residence. Bedford House was still standing when
new and greatly increased building activity began in the late
eighteenth century.
2University of London, The Bloomsbury Site (c. 1933), a pamphlet by Eliza Jeffries
Davis. Cf. also London Topographical Record, XVII, 78 ff.
726
457. Bloomsbury: air view of Russell, Bedford, Bloomsbury, and adjacent squares.
Only from above is it possible lo see the balance between buildings and open spaces and the
relationship of the squares to each other.
The first of the new squares was Bedford Square. It was Bedford Square
located at some distance from the gardens of Bedford House (1775)
and on an axis at right angles to Bloomsbury Square. On the
1795 map it appears isolated and treeless and completely in-
dependent of its surroundings. Executed about 1775, this
noble square, with its oval enclosure, is one of the few associ-
ated with the name of an architect - in this instance, Thomas
Leverton. 3 Montague House, the town mansion of a family
related to the Bedfords, also appears on the map of 1795. It
resembled Bedford House and had, like it, a cour d'honneur.
In 1753 the British Museum was housed in it.
Thus at the end of the eighteenth century, Bloomsbury had
three points of accent: Bloomsbury Square, Bedford Square,
and the British Museum with its gardens.
The third and decisive stage in the evolution of Bloomsbury Bedford Place
occupies the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The fifth (1800)
3 Even this attribution has been questioned. See Johu Summerson , .Journal of the
Royal Institute of British Architecls, March 6, 1!J:N. p. -UO.
727
458. Bedford Place, from Bloomsbury Square to Russell square, begun in 1800. This
street, lined by houses the neutral architecture of which is the result of an old and highly re-
fined tradition, is not a long extended street in the Continental sense but a short connecling
link between two places.
Duke of Bedford pulled down his house in Bloomsbury Square

in 1800; its groves and avenues fell with it. On the site arose
Bedford Place with its magnificently coordinated houses
(fig. 458). ·what was left of the gardens was also turned over
to residential development; the largest and most lordly of the
squares, Russell Square, was really the very heart of the gar-
dens cut out and preserved intact in the midst of its new
buildings.
The Duke did not undertake these projects himself. Instead
he leased his lands to James Burton, a speculator and builder,
who planned, designed, and executed Russell Square (1800-
14) 4 and at the same time carried out work on several streets
that open off that square - Keppel Street, Montague Place,
' These dates are the result of John Summerson's research. Earlier sources - for ex-
ample, Henry Clutton, "The Squares of London, " Builder, July 28, 1855, p. 319- give
the date as 1801.
728
and Southampton Row. Burton constantly pushed farther
eastward, always striving to evolve appropriate dispositions of
large open spaces. 5 He planted the land behind the houses on
Bedford Place, which runs between Bloomsbury and Russell
squares, with lawns and shrubbery. The result was particu-
larly pleasing, for the low mews or stables behind the houses
did not obstruct the view, and the openings at the ends of the
rows of houses linked the parallel areas of greenery so that
there were no closed blocks.
After 1820 Burton's work in this district was taken over by Thomas Cubitt
Thomas Cubitt (1788-1855). "He was thirty-two and already
famous in the building world for his great workshops in Gray's
Inn Road where he was doing what had never been done before
-employing all the trades on a permanent collective basis.
To keep his organisation going he took land and built wher-
ever a good opportunity occurred." 6 Cubitt completed Tor-
rington Square in 1827,7 using a greatly elongated quadrangu-
lar pattern which, although it maintained sufficient distance
for privacy between the opposite rows of houses, wasted no
land. The intentions of its unknown architect are shown by a
map of 1828, only one year after its completion, on which
already there is indicated a row of trees planted along the
middle axis of the enclosure (jig. 456). This central garden
has remained till today one of the most attractive in the
district. 8
In every particular Bloomsbury is imbued with the architec- Single-family house
tural tradition of the eighteenth century. The delicacy and the basic unit
5 The segmented North and South crescents and Alfred Place (the broad connecting link
between them) represent some of the solutions at which he arrived.
6 Summerson, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, March 6, 1939, p. 442.
1 According to Summerson. According to Davis (London Topographical Record, XVII,

92), it was completed in 1829.
8 Cubitt was a pioneer in the construction of great building units, one of the few con-
tractors to undertake works on a large scale and carry them through successfully. But
it is perhaps of more interest that, although he was essentially a builder of streets,
squares, and places in the late baroque tradition, he had nevertheless a definite con-
nection with the new potentialities. In 1839 he became a member of the Institution of
Civil Engineers. One of his two contributions to its proceedings was a paper entitled,
"Experiments on the Strength of Cast-Iron Girders." Toward the end of his life, when
the Crystal Palace Exhibition was being undertaken with doubtful success, Cubitt did
everything possible to promote it and was among tho~e who offered to guarantee the
necessary funds.
729
imagination which marked its town planning are here con-
tinued and very graciously united with the naturalistic land-
scape gardening of the early nineteenth century. The basic
unit is the single-family house. The dwellings were intended
for the professional upper middle class, for the lawyers and
judges of Gray's Inn near-by, for writers and others of similar
intellectual pursuits. The rows of houses are treated like the
garden squares, as homogeneous units. Here again is the
exercise of a wise distinction between what must be private
and what is best held in common.
The architecture has that timelessness, that independence of
fashion, so often found in farmhouses. Yet every detail of
these buildings has refinement, from their apparently paper-
thin slate or cast-iron balconies to the graceful sweep of their
interior staircases. Sometimes the balcony is overhung with a
small canopy which is carried on slim, cast-iron trellis work so
delicate that it is more like the veining of a leaf than a design
in metal.
The ground plan of the individual houses follows late eight-
eenth-century practice. At the core of the house is a stairway
rising in spaciously curved flights through the entire height of
the building to a skylight. This arrangement, first employed
by the brothers Adam in their Adelphi Terrace (begun in
1763), leaves the exterior walls unblocked. Thus every room
receives direct outside light. The rooms themselves are per-
fectly proportioned, being neither too large nor too small. It
must be affirmed that their dimensions are human.
The location of the servants' quarters in the basement where
they are exposed to the dust of the street has often been
thought callous. Certainly it is a defect in planning. Even so,
it is more humane than the Continental use of cramped attic
stories.
J\Tews The light-well, used later on with disastrous effect by Con-
tinental speculators, is in these houses happily avoided. Ample
space both at front and back gives every room, whether open-
ing on the back yard or on the street, its full amount of light.
And the location of the stables and coachmen's quarters in one-
story buildings (mews) at some distance to the rear of the
730
459. Bloomsbury district, Woburn Square, row of houses.
c. 1825- :30.
houses removes any possible obstruction to openness of view.

This combination of tall houses and low mews back of the
gardens appeared as early as the late sixteenth century. Up to
the sixties of the nineteenth, two of these combinations were
often paired, creating twice the ordinary amount of space be-
tween the backs of two rows of houses. Occupying the wide
distance between the houses was a double row of carriage
houses forming a mews, or service street exclusively for the
private carriages and eoaehes.
These London quarters condense and continue architectural Controlled
experience going back to Renaissance times. Nevertheless, development
they were as much the products of building speculation as
those later Continental residential blocks whieh brought chaos
into the structure of the city. The difference was one of con-
trol. The contractors active during the reconstruction of Paris
had to build fa<_:ades according to Haussrnann's requirements,
hut that was all. \\' hat lay behind was subject to no real eon-
731
460. Kensington, LondOJt . 1830- 10. Air view. Though com para! ir•ely modes( in area,
the squares of f\ensinglon show a fine freedom of planning and the achieumenl of new
organic shapes toward the end of lhe der•elupmenl.
trol, and they adopted the quickest means to the largest profits.
In their hands buildings becatne part fa<;ade and part light-welL
In London a much more careful control was exercised by the
great landowners on whose estates the buildings were erected.
These owners were accustomed to reckoning in terms of hun-
dreds of years. The land and everything on it usually reverted
to them in not more than ninety-nine years. Knowing very
well that estates could be destructively exploited, they retained
732
in their leases control over the utilization of the ground, and
their trustees had the power to undertake maintenance work
in cases of neglect.
\V andering through London, one frequently comes upon Other Squares

squares built between 1830 and 1860 in the most diverse and
unexpected parts of the town. 9 Some of these almost unknown
places (for example, Lloyd Square of about 1840) were laid
out for people of small means; though simpler in execution
than those of Bloomsbury, they too were treated in a manner
that adapted them to human living. 10 Others, like the squares
of South Kensington, are also comparatively modest in area,
but show a fine freedom of planning and achievement of new
organic shapes (jig. 460). All of them, whatever their location
and proportions, are the products of a town planning which
strives for a plastic modeling of space. They continue the
eighteenth-century tradition of towns like Bath and Edin-
burgh. They achieve a unity at once charming and reassuring,
and demonstrate the vitality which can be introduced into the
structure of a city through the laying out of quite freely formed
complexes.
There is an obvious degeneration in the treatment of the houses Decline after 1860
after 1860, particularly in their architectonic features. The
hitherto discreet front becomes loud; the windows are over-
loaded with detail; the whole house disintegrates into separate
and conflicting parts. In addition, other influences were at
work. The uniformly treated square was being supplanted by
the semidetached suburban house with its miniature garden.
Also growing up along the great roads were settlements con-
sisting of endless rows of tiny houses, like boxes, merging
without distinction into other settlements. Devastating in
themselves, they are the ruin of all comprehensive town-
planning schemes.
9In 1858 Building News was still able to announce new work: "At present there are ten
new squares in actual progress in the suburbs of London." It lists Kensington Square,
Leinster Square, Bays water Square, with its "first-class dwelling houses," Princes
Square, and Norfolk Square. All these are in Bayswater and Paddington. (Building
News, May 7, 1858, p. <HY.)
10See Christopher Hussey, "Georgian London, the Lesser-Known Squares," Country
Life, LXXXV (January 28 and March 1, 1939), 91-94, 224-225.
733
LARGE-SCALE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT:
REGENT'S PARK
John Nash and During the last stages of the development of Bloomsbury,
Regent's Park John Nash was commissioned to design a scheme of buildings
and gardens for what was then Marylebone Park, a large,
irregularly shaped tract of meadow land belonging to the
Crown at the north edge of London. The Regent wished it
developed for residential purposes, but not crowded with
build.ings. He particularly desired the creation of a large new
park accessible to the inhabitants of the city. Nash drew up
his first plan in 1812 (jig. 464); after some modification and
delay, the project was carried out during the twenties. The
result was Regent's Park and its terraces.
In making his plan Nash "declared his aims to be threefold:
firstly, to assure the greatest possible revenue to the Crown:
secondly, to add to the beauty of the Metropolis; and thirdly,
to study the health and convenience of the public.'' 1 His
work was another essay in the free disposition of large build-
ing complexes facing nature. It followed not so much the
example of the London squares as that line which begins with
Versailles and continues through the Bath crescents and the
arrangement of some other English towns.
Regent's Park lies along the axis of the Adams' Portland Place
(1778). Connecting it and Portland Place with Piccadilly
Circus in the heart of London is Regent Street, also Nash's
work. This imposing London business street was built around
1820, being finished just as the Regent's Park terraces were
begun. The two are the English counterpart of Napoleon's Rue
de Rivoli. Nash had started his Park Crescent in 1812 (jig. 461)
at the end of Portland Place. The time, however, was not yet
ripe; Napoleon was still unbeaten, commercial conditions were
unsettled, bankruptcies were frequent. But by 1825 everything
had been set straight, and a new wealthy class had sprung up.
It was for this new class that the Regent's Park residences
were intended. An opulent and anonymous class who had been
1 W. H. Davidge, "The Planning of London," Journal of the Royal lnslilule of British
.1 rchitect~. March 1 0, l93t p. ,t-1-3.
734
461. JOHN NASH. Park Crescent, London, begun inl812. The indi11idual houses are
treated as p arts of a unit, organized in a single semicircnlar block behind a fa~;ade of a uni-
fied design. Park Crescent was the beginning of the large-scale ho11sing development of
Regent's Park.
made rich by industry, the development of trade with the

colonies, or the exploitation of English victories in the field, 2
they were quite able to afford the magnificent houses which
Nash designed for them. In 1825, almost overnight, there
appeared long rows of terraces which, starting from Park
Crescent, embrace Regent's Park like a pair of giant lobster
claws. Set well back from the road encircling the park, most
of the houses are on raised plots with the ground between them
and the road t erraced to separate them from it. They face
directly on the park, which they overlook without dominating.
In Park Crescent the individual houses are once again treated
as parts of a unit - a unit often consisting of fifty separate
houses (fig. 462). But this regard for the effect of the whole
does not achieve the completely neutral result attained in
2It is said that observers sent by the London financiers followed all Wellington's cam-
paigns and reported everything of importance by carrier pigeon.
735
Bloomsbury. The terraces of tall and narrow houses were
consciously conceived with an accent on monumentality.
They remind one of the Royal Crescent at Bath, but in their
pilastered central portions they already reveal the seeds of late
nineteenth-century form.
Boldness in treating Definitely more important to us than the actual execution of
outer space park and terraces is Nash's original plan of 1812, which un-
fortunately was not carried out. For in that plan are shown
a boldness of imagination and a daring treatment of outer
space which are highly significant today. The simple sketch of
it which appears in Summerson's biography proves the origi-
462. JOHN NASH. Large-scale housing adjacent to H.egent's Park.
nality and sweep of Nash's thought. 3 • Its boldness of con-

ception is illustrated by several striking details.
For one thing, Nash planned to erect two huge semicircular
crescents in the north of the park, which would have stood like
two enormous half-cylinders in the midst of a sea of greenery.
He also wanted to place a double circle in the center of the
park. The houses of its concentric rings were to face in op-
posite directions, those of one inward, those of the other out-
ward.4 But even more interesting is his proposal to enclose
3 John Summerson, John Nash, Archilecllo George 1 V (London, 1935}, p. 113.
' Summerson discovered that the huge double circle was not entirely original with
Nash. He found in a scheme of 179-t what "was obviously the prototype for Nash's
plan" (Journal of the Royallnslilule of British Archilecls, vol. XLVI , March 6, 193(),
pp. 44·1--445). This was the work of quite obscure architects- more evidence that towu
planning was as much within the reaeh of everyone at this period as industrialized
design is now.
736
463. JOHN NASH. A terrace of Regent's Park.
464. JOHN NASH. First project of t,he housing development in Regent's Park, 1812.
This plan, which was not carried out as designed, is an essay in the free disposition of large
building complexes in open spaces. It followed not so much the example of the London
squares as that trend which begins with Versailles and continues through the Bath crescents
and the arrangement of some other English towns, and has its continuation in our period.
~~:.---- r
~ I~
I
r
737
465. View of Birmingham, 1850. The squares of Bloomsbury do not give a piclure of
what happened during the first half of the nineteenth century to other English cities which
endured the full impacl of mechanization. Its devastating effect on the urban pattern ap-
pears in this bird's-eye view of Birmingham. Livin_q quarters and industry are inextricably
mixed: back yards are choked with chimneys and factories.
the eastern side of the park with a series of terraces. He

planned to push great complexes of buildings into the park,
with a liberty of disposition that would be daring even today.
At the southeast corner, supporting the main entrance," an
open square, intended by Nash to be larger than Russell
Square, joined with the open space of the park. Near the short
upper arm of this square he placed a long building, parallel to
it and receding still further, and at right angles to that a single
unit which, quite asymmetrically, extended half the length
of the park. (See fig. 464).
Such an organization of exterior space, with advancing and
receding complexes which cannot be embraced in a single
glance, was never actually realized during this period. How-
ever, the free disposition of large building units in contact
with nature that appears in this first plan of Nash's was a
premonition of twentieth-century ventures. Just as Francesco
Borrornini in the late seventeenth century extended building
frontiers by seeking to accomplish an interpenetration of inner
and outer space, so Nash in this project approached in the
• On Nash's plan the main entrance lies at the south of the park, as it does today. It was
given the form of a circle which led into Portland Place. Only the southern half -
Park Crescent (1812- 19) - was completed.
738
realm of town planning that freedom of spatial organization
which has since been explored on an even larger scale.
We have seen that the fundamental requirement for town
planning is the maintenance of one controlling authority, with
no dispersion among independent owners of control over the
ground. But it is perhaps as important for this controlling
authority to possess an instinct for town planning. In the
twentieth century enormous blocks of residential or business
premises have been thrust into the beautiful late baroque
squares- Berkeley Square, for example- destroying every-
thing. Business is not alone the offender. The University
of London has steadily reduced the noblest district of the city
to insignificance. Thanks partly to Continental, partly to
American influences, London seems to have lost that instinct
for scale which was responsible for Bloomsbury.
THE STREET BECOMES DOMINANT:

THE TRANSFORMATION OF PARIS, 1853-68
The London squares antedate the railroad; the transformation Contrast between
of Paris, on the other hand, took place during the feverish London and Paris
middle years of the railway age. The London squares were
designed primarily to be lived in, with busy thoroughfares
excluded. Thus the traffic of London- at this period a city
three times as big as Paris - circled the Bloomsbury district
at a distance, and the same thing was true of many other sec-
tions of the town. Residential quarters were kept intact and
systematically isolated from traffic routes.
The situation in the Paris of Napoleon III was quite different.
One element dominated all others: the street, the "cannon-
shot boulevard," seemingly without an end. The great town
of the latter half of the nineteenth century, the metropolis of
the industrial era, suddenly took its typical form in Paris
between 1850 and 1870. In no other city of this period did the
changes consequent upon the development of industry proceed
with such impetus.
739
Paris in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
Alterations begun A large map of Paris hung on the wall of Napoleon III's study
by Napoleon III at Saint-Cloud. With his own hand - "his own august
hand," Haussmann prefers to say - he plotted on it the alter-
ations he intended to make in the city. These proposed altera-
tions were marked out in red, blue, and green, in descending
order of urgency. For the most part, those sketched in green
were never executed.
The original plan and all but one of the copies made of it were
lost in a fire. The surviving copy was found in the library of
the castle in Berlin by a French historian. 1 This had been
presented to the King of Prussia by Napoleon III on the occa-
sion of the German monarch's visit to the Paris Exhibition of
1867 - the apogee of the Second Empire. It is not quite iden-
tical with the original, as certain works - the extension of the
Rue de Rivoli, for example - are prematurely shown as ex-
isting (fig. 466). Nevertheless it gives an idea of the vast
amount of town planning that was compressed within the
short span of seventeen years.
:Motives for At first sight, the thick lines crisscrossing through the dense
this work confusion of houses in the center of the city suggest not so
much town planning as the layout of a trench defense system
for some difficult piece of terrain. And in fact it was a kind of
trench system, erected with an internal foe in mind. According
to a French authority, 2 during the quarter century between
1827 and 1852 the streets and alleys of Paris had seen barri-
cades thrown up on nine separate occasions. This called for
drastic remedies, and wide, unbroken lines of streets were the
best means of controlling incipient riots.
But since history refuses to progess in straight lines or in ac-
cordance with rational schemes, these streets and boulevards
of the Second Empire never proved of service in its defense.
1 Andre Morizet, Du vieux Paris au Paris moderne (Paris, 1932), p. 130.
2 Morizet, p. 133.
466. Map of Paris by l\'apoleon liT. The

Emperor's own project for the lransformalion
of Paris. ___.
740
...
!«:)
The enemy which overthrew Napoleon came from elsewhere
than the interior of his capital city.
Industry and the The rapid growth of big cities - the increase in their number
growth of cit;es as well as the violent expansion of their populations - is the
outstanding phenomenon of nineteenth-century urbanism. It
was in the second half of the century, just when there was
the greatest uncertainty about how life should be organized
to meet new conditions, that the major part of this growth
took place. This speed and uncertainty were responsible for the
heaviest tasks that confronted town planners of the next pe-
riod. \Ve have already argued that the social disorder which
was so clearly reflected in the mid-century town planning was
connected to the break between methods of thinking and
methods of feeling during the period.
The increase in the numbers of cities and the size of their
populations and the spread of industry are interrelated events.
Thus the evolution of London into a great nineteenth-century
city precedes the similar change in Paris by, roughly, a half
century. The same interval lies between the industrialization
of England and the industrialization of France.
Paris under As a consequence of the French Revolution the population of
Louis-Philippe Paris fell off by a hundred thousand. But, following this first
decrease, the population doubled between 1801 and 1808,
rising from a half million to more than one million. During the
eighteen years of Louis-Philippe's reign, a total of only forty-
one and a half million francs was spent on street undertakings
for Paris. This averaged somewhat less than half a million
dollars per year. Over the same interval- 1831 to 1848- the
population grew from three-quarters to more than one million.
Rambuteau, a The guiding formula of Count Rambuteau, prefect under
forerunner of Louis-Philippe, was to give the Parisians water, air, and shade
Haussmann
- "donner aux Parisi ens de l' eau, de l' air, de l' ombre."
He cannot be said to have been entirely successful in his en-
deavors, since at the end of them twenty thousand water-
carriers still patrolled the streets of Paris- and they still
depended on the Seine to supply their stock in trade. In
general the achievements of this Burgundian nobleman have
not been given a very high rating. A French historian regards
742
him as a half-ridiculous figure who conducted his work in
petty-bourgeois fashion, never undertaking anything which
threatened to exceed the amount of spare cash on hand. 3 On
the other hand, an English authority regards him as the fore-
runner of Haussmann, one who anticipated him as a maker of
modern Paris. 4
Rambuteau (earlier a prefect under the first Napoleon) was

in fact a most amiable person. Tactful and considerate, pos-
sessed of a social conscience and regard for his fellows, Ram-
buteau genuinely loved nature. As prefect of the Swiss De-
partment of Valais under Napoleon I, he imported the vintage
grapes of Burgundy to these valleys, so favorable to their
growth. In exchange he gave Burgundy the pine trees of the
V alais district. During the fifteen years of his prefecture in
the Department of the Seine (terminated by the collapse of the
July Monarchy) he leveled and paved the Boulevard Saint-
Denis and the Boulevard des Bonnes Nouvelles, carefully
planting them with trees, giving them their present aspect.
Rambuteau worked untiringly to humanize institutions for

the unfortunate - prisoners, the sick, the insane, and the
destitute. His name remains associated with the model prison
of Mazas, the hospital of Lariboisiere, and the Salpetriere,
whose barbarous methods and equipment for treating the in-
sane were changed on his initiative. He founded playgrounds,
and placed public benches in the squares and public parks,
where before his time there had been only chairs for hire.
In short, Rambuteau was neither ridiculous nor the maker

of modern Paris: he was as typical of the July Monarchy as
Haussmann was of the Second Empire. Achievements on a
grand scale are possible only under regimes that demand them
and seek out the proper instruments for the work. Under
Louis-Philippe, Haussmann would have remained a provincial
prefect all his life, and would never have found an opening for
his talents.
3Morizet, pp. 104 ff.

40. F. Abbott, "A Maker of Modern Paris," Contemporary Review (London), no. 873
(September 1938), pp. 350-356.
743
The "Trois Reseaux" of Eugene Haussmann
Paris the first Time after time, in man-y different fields, Paris had been the
city to conform to center of Europe. The guiding spirit of ever-y age is cr-ystal-
the industrial age lized in its monuments - from the Sainte-Chapelle to the Rue
de Rivoli. But this splendid heritage was set in the midst of a
thoroughly disorganized city, each monument surrounded
and isolated by a tangle of streets. The herculean efforts of
Georges-Eugene Haussmann (1809-91), Prefet de Ia Seine
under Napoleon III, drastically altered this situation. It was
his desire to provide a splendid framework for the great tra-
ditions preserved in Paris. At the same time he wished to
make Paris the first great city of the industrial age.
We have already mentioned the fact that Napoleon III had

outlined the transformation of Paris before Haussmann was
called in. He had even begun actual operations on some of his
projects: the extension of the Rue de Rivoli, the Boulevard de
Strasbourg (whose starting point, the Gare de l'Est, was in
process of construction), the preparatory work on the Bois de
Boulogne, and the erection of the Grandes Halles (for which
there had been a demand since the late thirties). 5
Napoleon's Napoleon was none too successful with these undertakings,

unsuccessful however. He proposed, for example, to lead a river through
beginnings
the Bois de Boulogne, in the style of London's H-yde Park.
When Haussmann arrived on the scene, the bed for this new
river had alread-y been dug, under the direction of an old jar-
dinier-paysagiste who had worked on the estates of Napoleon's
father. Haussmann discovered that the water would have had
to run uphill in one section. The old gardener "avait commis
une erreur, sinon un complet oubli de nivellement." 6 There
was nothing for it but to substitute two lakes on different
levels for the projected river. A similar neglect of the elemen-
tar-y rules of surve-ying in the extension of the Rue de Rivoli led
to serious difficulties later on. The start on the great markets
was more encouraging. We have already recorded that the
first stone pavilion had to be torn down.
5 Cf. the account of Horeau's design, p. 231.

6 Georges-Eugene Haussmann, Memoires (Paris, lll<J0-'!31, lll. 122.
744
Napoleon III behaved in these matters as he did in politics: he
drew up great schemes, but when serious difficulties arose he
tried to twist his way through by making numerous petty
concessions. This instinctive attempt to bargain his way out
at the cheapest price had undermined his regime from the
beginning. Thus Napoleon allowed Haussmann to rule Paris
while things went smoothly, but as soon as he became a political
storm center, Napoleon to all intents and purposes abandoned
him. Without Haussmann;s energy and determination, the
transformation of Paris would never have been carried through
- certainly not in the short space of seventeen years.
Between 1853 and 1869 Haussmann expended some two and Haussmann's a1ms
one-half billions of francs on "extraordinary expenses," about
forty times what had been spent under Louis-Philippe. Easily
the largest portion - nearly one and one-half billions - was
spent on street construction and on the demolition necessitated
by the decision to run new streets through closely packed quar-
ters. Paris in Haussmann's time was adapted to the totally
changed conditions of the nineteenth century (fig. 467).
The fundamental aims behind Haussmann's schemes- com-
municated by him to the city council as he began his duties
-are strongly colored by the fear of street fighting. 7 The
latest outbreak of such rioting had occurred in 1852, shortly
before his appointment.
The first of these aims was "to disencumber the large build-
ings, palaces, and barracks in such a way as to make them
more pleasing to the eye, afford easier access on days of cele-
bration, and a simplified defense on days of riot."
The second fundamental principle aimed at "the amelioration
of the state of health of the town through the systematic
destruction of infected alleyways and centers of epidemics."
The central part of Paris was littered with these dreadful
alleys. Many of them (including the one in which Gerard de
Nerval, the romantic poet, hanged himself) were photographed
by Atget. 8 Haussmann never really succeeded in cleaning up
these areas, and the middle of Paris remained in bad condition.
7This policy is summarized in E. M. Bouillat, Georges-Eugene Haussmann (Paris, 1901),
pp. 8-9.
8 One of the early photographers.
745
467. The transformation of Paris by Haussmann. Map by Alphand.
The third point was "to assure the public peace by the crea-
tion of large boulevards which will permit the circulation not
only of air and light but also of troops. Thus by an ingenious
combination the lot of the people will be improved, and they
will be rendered less disposed to revolt." This point shows
very clearly why the Second Empire took such pains to build
wide streets.
Haussmann's fourth principle was "to facilitate circulation
to and from railway stations by means of penetrating lines
which will lead travelers straight to the centers of commerce
and pleasure, and will prevent delay, congestion, and acci-
dents." Here the traffic problem was the main considera-
tion.
Haussmann's Haussmann's operations were conducted in three. sections-
reseaux en trois reseaux, to use his own terms. These reseaux do not
constitute topographical units; the "first," "second," and
"third" refer to different methods of financing. Thus works
forming parts of the third reseau might be located in the areas
of the first or second and might be completed before these
were.9
9 llaussmann, op. cit., Ill, 55.
746
The first reseau was in full swing when Haussmann took office.
It was financed, without any difficulties, by the state and the
city of Paris jointly, under the act for the prolongement of
the Rue de Rivoli (1849). The chief work under this act was the
extension of the Rue de Rivoli from the Place de la Concorde
to the Bastille. This operation, which provided for cross-town,
east to west communication in Paris, was carried out in the
years 1854-55.
Haussmann began with the Rue de Rivoli. Demolition and Extension of the
construction went on piece by piece, first as far as the Pavilion Rue de Rivoli
(1853-54)
de Marsan, then to the Louvre. Forty-seven houses were
pulled down, then twenty more, then a group of one hundred
seventy-two (to clear the Palais-Royal and the Louvre on both
sides of the Rue de Rivoli). If we also consider in this connec-
tion the entirely new market halls (fig. 131) which were con-
structed near by, it may be said that a new district and not
merely a new street was organized. 10
The Rue de Rivoli was next carried to the Hotel de Ville - the
starting point of all Parisian revolts. The confusion of narrow
streets in front of the Hotel de Ville was cleared away; on their
site appeared the Place du Chatelet (fig. 469), soon to connect
with the Boulevard Sebastopol (1858).
The first reseau also included the transformation of the Bois de Bois de Boulogne
Boulogne into a place of recreation for the elegant world. In
connection with this were also built the Longchamp race
track and the magnificent approach to the Bois de Boulogne,
the Avenue de l'lmperatrice, today the Avenue Foch (fig. 471).
Haussmann was responsible for its great width of nearly four
hundred feet, three times as wide as its architect had proposed.
In the second reseau the city was required to provide the The second reseau
greater part (three-quarters) of the cost. A decree of March 18,
1858, authorized the state to pay the remaining fraction, pro-
vided that the total amount did not exceed a hundred and
eighty million francs, and that all the work was finished within
ten years. This particular piece of legislation became known
as "the decree of the hundred and eighty millions."
° Cf. pp.
1 230 ff.
747
468. Square de Ia Tour Saint-Jacques, 1855. One of Napoleon I I l's endeavors to imitate
the London squares. The great difference is that it is set in the midst of traffzc.
With the second reseau north to south communications re-

ceived further extension: Haussmann led the Boulevard
Sebastopol across the Seine to the Ile de la Cite and the Latin
Quarter on the Left Bank. From there it was continued as the
Boulevard Saint-Michel (fig. 470). The extension transformed
the Ile de la Cite into an administrative center. The adapta-
tion of the Bois de Vincennes (1860) - the eastern counterpart
of the Bois de Boulogne - to a park for the working class was
financed under the same arrangements. Another of the works
in this reseau was the percement de l' est. This interlacing of
working-class quarters with wide, straight roads- a plan
voyant- proceeded from 1858 onward, and was more carefully
carried out here than in any other district. By it the last
likelihood of really dangerous rioting was removed. As a result
of this clearance, the Hotel de Ville seems almost to float in
space, but it remains isolated and unrelated to its neighbors.
The Napoleon Barracks were erected next to the Hotel to
ensure its safety.
The final stage was the extension of the Rue de Rivoli de-
cided upon in 1854. Crosswise communication in Paris was
achieved by this extension. It connected those points where
the political regime was most sensitive - the Hotel de Ville
748
469. Place du Chiltelet.
and the Louvre - and formed the first of those streets reach-
ing interminably into the distance which were soon to deter-
mine the picture of Paris.
The route of east-west communication -the Rue de Rivoli
-joined the north-south route, the Boulevard Sebastopol,
which was Haussmann's prolongation of Napoleon's Boulevard
de Strasbourg. All this work by which la grande croisee of
Paris was achieved had to be carried on in a densely populated
section.
Haussmann now turned to what he called the Westend du
now·eau Paris. In spite of the strongest resistance, the Boule-
vard Malesherbes was cut through from the Madeleine. This
work involved the demolition of several luxurious houses
which had been built quite recently, in the time of Louis-
Philippe. This final part of the second reseau was opened
with great pomp and ceremony on the fourteenth of August,
1861.
H aussmann took this opportunity to complain that the mo-
ment he interfered with the "habits of the people who have
been favored by fortune" he found himself assailed by a storm
of complaints. He observed, rather pointedly, that the mer-
chants, shopkeepers, and workmen had borne with great pa-
749
470. Boulevard Saint-Michel, 1869.
tience the "highly penalizing removals" made necessary by

the work on the Boulevard Sebastopol.
The incorporation The second reseau was affected by a development of great
of the suburbs moment- the decree of June 16, 1859, which incorporated
the surburbs into the city of Paris. The area of Paris was
thereby increased by more than half. The incorporation was
essential for the future, but it seriously handicapped Hauss-
mann's immediate calculations and set him his most ex-
tensive task. Eighteen communities spread out about Paris
had to be incorporated, with all their chaotic agglomerations
of buildings and their neglected street systems. Great ad-
ditional expense could not be avoided; the budget estimate
was exceeded by a hundred and sixty million francs. Napoleon
and Haussmann did not stop at simple incorporation. Al-
though the expression did not exist at the time, Haussmann
arrived at the notion of regional planning. According to his
Memoires, he wanted to make the entire Department of Seine-
et-Oise a single unit. This would ensure control over the small
outer communities and thus over the course of development
of the great city.
Attempted belt A belt of greenery was to be created all around Paris, following
of greenery; defeat the line of its fortifications, The project adopted by the
of the project
Emperor in June 1859 used the land attached to these forti-
750
471. AYenue de l'fmperatrice (Avenue Foch), 1862. The great width (nearly four hun-
dred f eel) of the approach to the Bois de Boulogne was insisted upon by llaussmann. His
architect's original version was only a third as wide.
fications as well as a strip two hundred and fifty meters wide

that lay beyond them. This latter area was subject to military
restrictions and had greatly depreciated in value as a conse-
quence. The Emperor wished to transform this land into a
boulevard and to provide " vast plantations" with walks for
the residents of the new faubourgs and of the contiguous com-
munities. The belt would have completely encircled the city,
connecting its two great parks in the east and west, the Bois
de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes.
But when Napoleon left for the Italian battle front his own
Conseil d' Etal found opportunity to defeat his intentions.
Haussmann, the implacable enemy of all shortsighted politi-
cians, gives this account of what happened: The president of
the council, M. Baroche, "a bourgeois full of the narrow and
hidebound ideas of the Parisian middle class and opposed at
heart to our _great works," fought and defeated the whole
project .a
Paris never got its belt of greenery. After his return from Italy
Napoleon hoped to find a chance to repair this shortsighted-
ness, but he never did. Public parks in this area would have
prevented the erection of rows of seven- and eight-story tene-
11 Haussmann, op. cit., II, 233.
751
ments. These enormous buildings - magnificent slums, in
effect - stand in the way of replanning Paris even more than
the original fortifications would have.
The third reseau The third reseau had to be supported in its entirety by the
city: the deputies wanted nothing more to do with the building
or the financing of Paris. Haussmann was left standing alone.
In financing these works he had to manipulate the machinery
472. Boulevard Hichard-Lenoir, 1861-63. Planned by Haussmann to cover an old canal.

Behind the regular and endless street fronts a tremendous disorder is crammed, as though
in a closet.
of credit singlehanded. It was these financial operations (the

whole cost of the third reseau had not yet been raised when he
left his post) which enabled the deputies to bring about his
downfall.
Haussmann's operations over a seventeen-year period had
called for eight hundred million francs in excess of normal ex-
penditures. The sum had been raised without creating any
752
new taxes or increasing the old ones. And was not Paris
becoming more prosperous daily~ Its population was growing
at an unheard-of rate: within a bare two decades it had almost
doubled. The five or six hundred million francs beyond what
was actually on hand would certainly be found. The cost of
the work could be paid off through annuities based on the in-
creasing revenues of the city. Nothing was involved except
time.
Two parks- Montsouris in the south and the Buttes-
Chaumont in the north - were created by the third reseau.
Both were conversions of useless and neglected areas. The
Buttes-Chaumont was an abandoned quarry: it became a pop-
ular park.
The suburbs needed more and more streets. Streets leading
out from Paris were extended, and new crosswise roads were
made. In this manner the budget for the suburbs increased to
double the amount estimated.
Haussmann pressed rapidly on with the development of Paris Creation of the
as though he knew there was no time to be wasted. To the Champs-Ely sees
district
west was a field for new town planning. The old toll barriers
marked the western edge of the city; beyond them stretched
the open country. The Champs-Elysees led up to the toll
barriers. Just behind them stood the Arc de Triomphe de
!'Etoile in its circular place. From the thirties on, the Champs-
Elysees was one of the places where all Parisians with any
claim to smartness were expected to make an appearance.
Haussmann could work with a free hand in this district. There
was open land for the twelve avenues which he led out from
the Place de !'Etoile; no demolition was necessary. His ene-
mies accused him of running these avenues out into the open
country and destroying the grainfields of Passy. But once
more Haussmann's foresight was justified; the Paris of 1900
was to stand on this area.
The interconnection of the various streets that pierced Paris Rue Lafayette
greatly occupied Haussrnann. Thus he insisted that the Rue
Lafayette should reach a length of five kilometers so that it
might lead travelers from the north and east railway stations to
the Opera and the Grands Boulevards in the heart of the city.
753
Avenue de l'Opera The Avenue Napoleon, now the Avenue de l'Opera, is his
master work in town planning. Besides being a magnificent
street in itself, it functions as a traffic bridge between several
main thoroughfares. Through this avenue, the Rue de Rivoli
and the opposite bank of the Seine achieve direct contact with
the Grands Boulevards and the northern parts of the city.
None of Haussmann's schemes appeared so foolish to his con-
temporaries as this comparatively short street. So far as they
could see, it could only serve to connect the Theatre Fran<;ais
with the Opera ~ and who could possibly want to attend both
on the same evening? Actually, if it were not for this street,
the circulation of twentieth-century traffic in Paris would be
impossible (jig. 473).
Haussmann built only the beginning and the end of this
thoroughfare. Between the two sprawled a network of streets
which was not cleared away until much later. The whole
length of the Avenue de l' Opera was only opened to traffic in
1879. This was under the Third Republic, long after Hauss-
mann had left office.
If one were to select a specific monument to Haussmann and
to that Second Empire in which he believed so thoroughly, it
would be this avenue and its opera house. The grand staircase
of the Opera never served its original purpose, never furnished
a background for the gliding train of the Empress Eugenie\"
Designed in 1861, when the Second Empire was at its zenith,
the Opera was not completed until1875. It remains, neverthe-
less, the purest expression of the transitory glories of the
Second Empire.
Squares, Boulevards, Gardens, and Plants

We have observed the interrelations since the seventeenth
century between groups of buildings and nature, and since the
eighteenth century between squares and greenery. It is true
that in the transformation of Paris other questions are in the
foreground, but we must not overlook the great efforts made to
save the city from becoming simply a vast acreage of asphalt
and masses of stone. In discussing this work it is necessary to
754
distinguish between the layout of squares with their gardens
and the old and new parks and pleasure grounds.
As a refugee in London, Louis Napoleon was much impressed London and
by the English squares and parks. \Vhen he came to power, he Paris squares
desired to provide his capital with similar open green spaces -
immense romantic parks and squares planted with trees and
shrubs. Both were unknown in Paris. From the point of view
of town planning, too, the squares of Paris differed from those
of London in one important respect: the London squares were
isolated from traffic, whereas those in Paris were no more than
the enlargement of streets. For example, the Place des Arts-
et-Metiers was a broadening of the Boulevard Sebastopol;
that around the Tour Saint-Jaques (fig. 468), of the Rue de
Rivoli. The houses were placed in straight, continuous lines
along the streets, permitting no free spaces apart from side-
walks and trafficways. 12 It was inevitable that the small parks
created out of these squares, quite unlike those of London,
should be set amidst the noise and dust of traffic.
No innovation in urban planning was more generally imitated
in the years immediately following than this arrangement of
squares filled with greenery in the midst of traffic. Especially
pleasing and completely new was the fact that they were open
to the general public. \V. Robinson, the English landscape
gardener, whose books had great influence on English land-
scape gardening, expressed the contemporary reaction to one
bit of Haussmann's work: "The first thing that strikes the
visitor in this square is its freshness, perfect keeping, and the
number of people who are seated in it, reading, working, or
playing." He also recognized the social significance of squares
created for and open to the public: "but while we still persist
in keeping the squares for a few privileged persons, and usually
without the faintest trace of any but the very poorest plant
ornament, they make them as open as our parks and decorate
them with a variety and richness of vegetation." 13
12The evils inherent in the "block system" of houses were recognized about two decades
later by the critic of straight-line thoroughfares, Camillo Sitte, in City Planning Accord-
ing to Artistic Principles, trans. George and Christiane Collins (New York, l '!65). p. 17'!;
originally published as Der Sliidlebau nach seinen kiinsllerischen Grundsiilzen (\ierma,
188'!).
13 W. Robinson, The Parks, Promenades, and Gardens of Paris (London, 1869), pp. 82, 85.
755
756
473. Avenue de !'Opera, from
the Opera to the Louvre and the
Rue de Hivoli. Haussmanh's
masterpiece, carried through
against great opposition. Few
people could see how necessary it
tcould be later on as a traffic
bridge.
474. Grand staircase of the

Tuileries. Imperial Ball, 1860.
"Boulevard" means literally a walk on the walls of a fortified Boulevards

town, the word going back to the German Bollwerk (bulwark).
The first boulevard in Paris was opened by Louis XIV in 1670
and extended from the Porte Saint-Denis to the Bastille, occu-
pying the site of the ancient walls leveled by Vauban. These
boulevards were formal footways, designed like gardens for
the promeneur- not, like Haussmann's boulevards of the
nineteenth century, intended as roads for heavy traffic.
"If not already the brightest, airiest, and most beautiful of all
cities, Paris is in a fair way to become so; and the greatest part
of her beauty is due to her gardens and her trees." Such was
the impression on Robinson of the Paris of the new boulevards
at the height of their splendor (1869), and he continued:
"What would the new boulevards of white stone be without
the softening and refreshing aid of those long lanes of well-
cared-for trees that everywhere rise around the buildings,
helping them somewhat as the grass does the buttercups~ . . .
In Paris, public gardening assumes an importance which it does
757
475. Tree-lifting machine for transplanting full-grown trees.
Through the use of such contri11ances, thirty-year-old trees sprang
up along the boulevards overnight.
476. Place de Ia Concorde and Cbamps-Elysees. Air view, 1855.
758
477. Hardy subtropi-
cal plants: Wigandia.
These huge-leaved and
impressive plants which
Alphand introduced
stood out at great dis-
lances.
not possess with us. . . . It follows the street builders with

trees, turns the little squares into gardens unsurpassed for
good taste and beauty . . . presents to the eye of the poorest
workman every charm of vegetation." 14
The speed with which these boulevards were created was
amazing. They seemed to come into being overnight - great
thoroughfares lined with thirty-year-old trees in full leaf. In-
deed, "the chief gardeners and the city architects were often
called upon to extemporize shady avenues in a few days." 15
They were able to accomplish such extraordinary tasks by
the use of a tree-lifting machine which they invented, a cart
by which in a simple and ingenious way they were able to
transplant trees as much as thirty feet high (fig . 475).
14 Robinson, op. cil., pp. l, 2. "Edouard Andre, quoted by Robinson, op. cit., p. 551.
759
Like the squares with their greenery, these tree-lined streets
leading to the heart of the city were accepted and copied every-
where. But they represented a solution of the problem which
forced town planning to take a very dangerous direction that
had no future.
The parks The great range of Haussmann's talent as an organizer is still
evident today in the system of parks which he created on a
large scale and in the grand manner. They derived from that
478. Bois de Boulogne, 1853-58.
class of English landscape gardens which imitated nature,

often with romantic aim, encompassing within their limits
miniature mountains, valleys, lakes, and brooks. Their func-
tion was to give Paris the lungs that it lacked. They were
designed for the promeneur, for the workman on his day off,
the Sunday stroller, who was thus enabled to take the air along
their broad paths like a seigneur walking in contemplation
through his estate. Their wide vistas and the massing of their
herbage were made to be looked at and enjoyed. And into
these parks were introduced plants which had not previously
appeared in public gardens.
T ypes of As a result, the old masters of gardening, the English, now
new plants came to Paris to learn how "a new aspect of vegetation"
760
could also be given to English gardens. These new plants were
hardy subtropical species (jig. 477) which Jean Alphand and
his collaborators discovered and brought to Europe in the
greatest variety. They were large, vigorous, and easily grown.
Some of them attained a height of ten or twelve feet (Cen-
taurus babylonius); others, like pampas grass (Gynerium argen-
iium), were remarkable for the "rapid vigor and great size of
their herbaceous vegetations," or, like a type of the common
479. Bois de Vincennes, from Plateau de Gravelles, 1857-64.
tobacco ( Nicoiiana macrophylla), were "readily raised from

seeds and [grewJ luxuriously in rich soil." 16 Their enormous
leaves and the grandeur of their aspect could be perceived
from greater distances than usual, so that they were not lost
when planted in spacious lawns. 17
The two great parks in the west and east of Paris, the Bois de Parks for
Boulogne (1853- 58 ;jig. 478) and the Bois de Vincennes (1857- promeneurs
64;jig. 479), look on the map of Paris like the two lungs of the
city. If Haussmann' s idea had been carried out properly, they
16 Cf. W. Robinson, op. cit., chapter on "Subtropical Plants for the Flower Garden,"
pp. 182 ff., and chap. XI, "Hardy Plants for the Subtropical Garden," p. 210.
17 Herein lies the principal reason for their choice by Alphand and his gardeners, and for
their general use in European ga rdens up to the beginning of this century. Then they
seem t o have been forgotten until recently, when their charm and vigorous growth again
commended them.
761
would have been connected with one another by a wide green
belt around the girdle of fortifications. Each park contains
about two thousand acres. To them, besides previously exist-
ing parks which were reorganized, must be added the Pare
Manceau in the center of Paris, the charming Pare Montsou-
ris in the south, and in the north the Buttes-Chaumont for the
laboring classes. In keeping with the taste of the period, they
were laid out on the most extensive scale as leisure grounds for
the promeneur. The next step in development was not reached
until more than three decades later, when parks for the prome-
neur gave way to a playground system, as in the south parks
of Chicago.
The City as a Technical Problem

Haussmann stands as a symbol of the nineteenth-century
faith in production.
It took Borromini nearly thirty years to erect a small church,
and even then it was not quite complete. Louis XIV spent
a lifetime building Versailles, despite the fact that he had all
the resources of France at his disposal. In seventeen years,
by a mixture of determination and foresight, Haussmann
created the great nineteenth-century city. The speed of the
work reflects the tempo and enterprise of the industrial expan-
sion which gave rise to it.
Subordinate role To solve the problems connected with the city of the indus-
of the architect trial age, Haussmann brought together the first precisely
coordinated staff of technicians. 18 He could rely on very little
assistance from the quarters from which one might expect it
to come. There were no town planners at that date and the
architects were of singularly little help. They could not even
adjust themselves to the scale of his projects; on many occa-
sions he had to send their work back and insist upon its exten-
sion. He remarked that the Second Empire was unfortunate
in not producing a single artist equal to the problems of the
temps nouveaux. Haussmann seems to have resigned himself
to this. The official Bureau of Architects with its staff of
18Haussmann gave a lively account of the way this staff was built up in his Memoires,
vol. Vll, chaps. IV, VIII, IX, XI, XIV-XVI.
762
academicians and celebrities was the one department which he
left almost undisturbed when he took over the administration.
His problems were too novel and too extensive for these men
to handle; as Henri Labrouste had already noted, their training
left them completely out of touch with their own period. This
detachment from reality had gone so far that they could no
longer even figure the costs of their own projects. "As artists
. . . [theyJ had little concern for expenses. I might add that
in general they possessed neither the knowledge required for
drawing up an estimate nor the careful and detailed attention
which is needed for checking a bill." 19 Estimates and bills
alike had to be referred to two special commissions which
Haussmann created for this purpose. Such architects could
have no understanding of the new and pressingly practical
problems which town planning involved. They were trained
only to design single buildings, for erection on sites pointed out
by someone else.
Haussmann had to look in other fields for his helpers, and in Haussmann's staff
any case buildings were for him only the decor de la vie. From of "unknowns"
the beginning he looked on his work as a technical problem of
urban services and carried his real difficulties to the engineers,
his closest collaborators. Most of these men were relatively
unknown when he engaged them, but he was very astute in his
choice, and his assistants grew up with him and with the work.
Haussmann had been prefect of the Yonne and later of Bor-
deaux; he knew the able men in these southern districts and
looked for his helpers there. Belgrand, for many years a sub-
ordinate engineer in a small provincial town, constructed in a
faultless manner the enormous sewer system of Paris and the
aqueducts which, for the first time in its history, provided Paris
with an adequate water supply, drawn from the reservoirs of
theY onne and the Dhuis. Belgrand was of the inventor type;
"a man of genius," he was always "modifying his original
ideas in some respect or other." As engineer-in-chief and in-
spector-general of the bridges and highways department "he
took upon himself all the work connected with the projects
which he had most at heart, even though he had his choice
of the most competent collaborators." This trait, Haussmann
19 Haussmann, op. cit., III, 511.
763
remarked, was "no doubt due to his long service in the inferior
grades." 20
An engineer To replace Napoleon's jardinier-paysagiste (whom he had
creates the Paris dismissed after the fiasco in the Bois de Boulogne) Hauss mann
park system
found a jardinier-ingenieur - Jean Alp hand. Hauss mann had
known him in Bordeaux, where he had been an engineer in the
bridge and highway service, and recognized him as a technician
who possessed "le sentiment de l'art." Made head of the
Service des Promenades et Plantations, Alphand transformed
the old leisure grounds in Paris and laid out new ones: the
Bois de Boulogne, the Bois de Vincennes, the Champs-Elysees,
the Pare Monceau, the Buttes-Chaumont, and the Pare Mont-
souris. These kidney-shaped systems of walks in Paris reflect
his workmanship.
Haussmann provided Alphand with - as he put it - "a
right and left hand" for his work: Davioud and Barillet-
Deschamps. Davioud, a young architect (later, in 1878, the
builder of the Trocadero), had one of the rare clear heads in his
profession, owing in part, perhaps, to his long training under
Alphand. Barillet-Deschamps, an excellent horticulturist, re-
mained comparatively obscure (in marked contrast to Al-
phand, who later became head of the service, and was made
commissaire general of the 1889 exhibition). 21
A surveyor takes Haussmann had found an engineer and a landscape gardener;
charge of the he still needed a man to plot the lines of the streets which he
Plan de Paris
proposed to cut through the body of Paris. This time he found
his collaborator among the specialists employed by the city:
Deschamps, its chief surveyor. Haussmann thought enough
of his work to say afterwards that "le Plan de Paris, c' etait
M. Deschamps." When the suburban zone was annexed in
1859, Haussmann created a new municipal service, the Direc-
tion du Plan de Paris, and made Deschamps its chief. Des-
champs and his assistants in this service constituted the
general staff for the planning as a whole and were largely re-
sponsible for its outcome.
20Haussman, op. cit., III, 118-119.
21It was Barillet who selected the plants that decorate the various public gardens in
Paris.
764
These three departments- the Service des Eaux et des Egouts,
the Service des Promenades et Plantations, and the one just
named- were Haussmann's chief instruments for his work.
This would not have been possible elsewhere, since only France
had an institution, the Ecole Polytechnique, that was system-
atically training engineers with an unexcelled theoretical back-
ground. The first transformation of a great city to adjust it to
the changes brought by industry was carried through by en-
gmeers.
Haussmann's Use of Modern ~Ieihods of Finance

The technical aspects of town planning had never before been
so systematically and precisely organized. It was also neces-
sary for Haussmann to attempt a similar control over the
complex machinery of credit and finance. Parliament (both
the parties of the Left and the Right) opposed his program
and so did the landowners (whose privileges the regime was
pledged to support). In these circumstances it took a real
mastery of the complications of finance, as well as extraor-
dinary adeptness on Haussmann's part, to push the scheme
through. Because of rises in values owing to work he had
already accomplished, Haussmann had repeatedly to find new
sources of credit.
In the course of these manipulations Haussmann endeavored "Productive
to persuade the legislative bodies concerned that the budget expenditure"
of a nation must find a place for "extraordinary expenditures"
which- when managed with intelligence- can have the
remarkable effect of enriching rather than impoverishing the
country. This was his iheorie des depenses productives-
theory of productive expenditure. His point was that some
expenditures which are not strictly necessary can be justified
because they lead to "a general increase in revenue," and he
went on to observe that "these 'productive expenditures' which
ordinarily meet with economic censure" can really be incurred
with little risk, "since they are optional, and are less trouble to
cut down again than the others" 22
22 Haussmann, op. cit., II, 265.
765
Haussmann ruled Paris from its city hall, the Hotel de Ville.
His city council was appointed by Napoleon and was not, as
Haussmann put it, subject to "the accident of the vote."
After a decree granting him one hundred and eighty million
francs in 1858, he established a fund for public works in Paris
- la caisse des traz'aux de Paris - which was under his own
control. This caisse was the financial instrument that made
his huge operations possible. But the Cour des Comptes still
rendered final judgment on all revenue and expenditure. The
members of this board had been appointed under Louis-Phi-
lippe. in 1868 they reported adversely on a loan made directly
to Haussmann by the Credit Mobilier. Half a year later
(March 1869), this report made Haussmann's expenditures in
excess of budgeted amounts 23 the subject of debate in the
Chamber of Deputies.
Haussmann frankly admitted that the caisse des lravaux had
been made to carry an entirely unauthorized debt of a hundred
and fifty-nine million francs, but promised that such high-
handed practices would be abandoned. In spite of the violent
opposition of Adolphe Thiers, the Chamber passed the laws
needed to regularize this affair, and the Senate confirmed them
by a vote of llO to 1. 24 But the caisse des travaux was liqui-
dated. This meant the curtailment of Haussmann's liberty of
action and the beginning of his downfall. He did not resign,
since he hoped to find other ways of continuing his work.
However, political developments were against him. The new
elections were a triumph for the Republicans, and the Em-
peror, trying to maintain his regime, took as his prime minister
Emile Ollivier, a man who proposed to "concilier I' empire et
le liberalism e.''
Haussmann, the dictator of the Hotel de Ville, saw quite
clearly the mendacity of l' Empire liberal: "L'Empire Parle-
mentaire, ah! oui. C'est celui-la que je repoussais de toutes
mes convictions, auquel j'entendais ne participer en rien, tant
23 The budget for the first reseau was exceeded by seventy million francs, the second by
two hundred and thirty million francs, and the third by a hundred and eighty million
francs. Haussmann's virtues as a town planner- the ability to carry projects through
in the shortest possible time and to build them up to the proper grand dimensions -
had financial consequences.
24 There is an excellent account of the episode in Morizet, op. cit., p. 298.
766
je sentais qu'il allait no us mener fatalement aux abimes I" 25
Napoleon III permitted Haussmann's power to decline, and in
January 1870 he resigned his place in the Hotel de Ville. The
same year saw the end of the Second Empire.
The bourgeoisie overthrew Haussmann, in spite of the fact
that he had protected that class better than any of his prede-
cessors. Even the Commission for Expropriation which fixed
the compensation for houses that had to be demolished was
made up of house-owners. One of Maxime du Camp's anec-
dotes sums up the situation: when he asked a certain nouveau
riche how he had arrived at his present prosperous state, the
man replied simply, "I was expropriated."
The bourgeoisie, however, could not forgive Haussmann for
disturbing their peace. What he achieved was accomplished
against the will of the majority.
The Basic Unit of the Street

To obtain an insight into Haussmann's Paris let us take a
typical apartment house, and see how it was occupied.
Boulevard Sebastopol, 1860: an apartment house (jigs. 480, 481) An apartment
of normal type with shops on the ground floor, a mezzanine house and its
sociological
floor, three main floors, and two attic floors. The three main background
floors have the same plan. They are apartments intended for
upper middle-class tenants. The three-windowed bedroom for
Monsieur and Madame takes up the space at the corner. To
its left is the living room, to the right the dining room. Further
along to the right are the other bedrooms. There is a nursery
which receives almost no light. The kitchen and the servant's
room look onto a narrow light-well.
These narrow light-wells are an evil characteristic of Continen-
tal dwelling houses of this period, and for years afterward.
The attic floors are the most densely overcrowded parts of the
building. Here bed is placed next to bed, in the most confined
25Haussmann, op. cit., II, 537. "Ah yes! The parliamentary empire! That is just
what I have rejected with all my convictions and determined to have no part in; I was
convinced that it would infallibly lead us into disaster."
767
480. Apartments on the Boulevard Sebastopol, Paris, 1860. Facade and section. Typ-
ical apartment house of the period (shops on ground floor, middle-class apartments abot>e them,
servants' quarters in atlic). The basic unit of Haussrnann's street. It exhibits an intermin-
gling of functions which had been possible earlier but would not work in an industrial age.
481. Apartment house

on the Boulevard
Sebastopol, 1860. Plan
of second, third, and
fourth floors.
space possible, for the accommodation of servants, night lodg-

ers, and the lower classes generally.
The uniform fac;ade of this apartment house of 1860 covers a
unit in which the most diversified functions of daily living
swirl together. Business takes over the ground floor, and often
encroaches on the mezzanine, in workrooms connected with the
768
various establishments. The three main floors are given over
to apartments for the well-to-do. The attic floors are con-
gested slums.
In earlier times the association of production with dwelling Intermingling of

quarters was quite natural, but this connection could not be different functions
carried over into large towns. Such apartment houses artifi-
cially briJ!g together functions which, in an industrial society,
should be kept strictly separate. It is absurd in an age of
industrial production to permit residence, labor, and traffic to
intermingle. It is not merely the endless streets that are in-
human but also the units that go up beside them.
Haussmann is not alone to blame for this mixture. The same

phenomenon appears in all countries. Behind it lies a failure
that is peculiar to the nineteenth century, a marked inability
to control the available resources.
It is true that there are fine houses which offer excellent rooms
and the best of locations to the more prosperous. But just as
poison gas does not stop outside the window, so a general
sense of disorder cannot be avoided in these luxurious dwell-
ings. They stand in the midst of airless routes of heavy
traffic, cut off from natural surroundings and exposed to every
noise and disturbance.
If in an industrial age the various functions of daily life cannot

be clearly separated, that fact alone spells the death sentence
of the great city.
Haussmann showed his sagacity in refusing to allow any tricks Uniform fac;ades
to be played with fa<;ades. Simply and without discussion, he
spread a uniform fa<;ade over the whole of Paris. It featured
high French windows, with accents provided by lines of cast-
iron balconies like those used in the Rue de Rivoli under
Napoleon I. In the unobtrusive Renaissance shapes of a
pleasantly neutral nature that he employed, one can still feel a
last touch of the unity that had marked baroque architecture.
Their neutral fa<;ades and general uniformity make Hauss-
mann's enormous projects of rebuilding better than any others
executed in or after the fifties of the nineteenth century.
769
The Scale of the Street
Haussmann's reorganization of Paris demonstrates the French
fondness for the culte de l' axe. w·herever possible, he tried to
introduce "grand prospects," usually without success. 26 The
great length of the streets causes a building put at the head of
a boulevard to be soon lost in the blue distance. Thus the
Gare de l'Est, where the Boulevard Sebastopol originates,
sinks from its dominating position long before one reaches the
end of this thoroughfare. The streets themselves, not squares
or single buildings, dominate the scene. These Parisian streets
were sometimes as much as three miles long. This was a new
phenomenon in the history of architecture. (Several decades
later, in Los Angeles, city streets were to extend for more than
thirty miles.)
The boulevard developed out of the baroque avenue. The
baroque idea was to have long avenues of trees unrelated to
houses. In the nineteenth century this idea was taken up and
transmuted. It reappeared in the form of endless tree-lined
streets bordered by uniform apartment houses.
J\Iiscellaneous vVe are tempted to forget that during these seventeen years
building activity Paris was also sprinkled with buildings of the most various
types: great exhibition halls, churches, schools, markets, the
Bibliotheque N ationale, and so on. 27 Although these include
many buildings which cannot be overlooked in the history of
nineteenth-century architecture, they tend to 'be overlooked
because the new picture was dominated by the street.
Two units of scale To most of his contemporaries H aussmann seemed a danger-
for the street: the ous demolisseur, a man who was mortgaging the future of the
promeneur vs.
city and a financier who was inclined to play fast and loose
the vehicle
with the law. All his projects were repugnant to "common
sense'' -with the exception of the work on the Rue de
Rivoli, which had been under consideration from the time of
Napoleon I. If he had confined himself to enlarging streets
already in existence, there would have been no objections.
But when he cut new ones he disturbed the settled scheme of
26Haussmann, op. cit.
27Haussmann cited an impressive list of buildings put up during his transformation of
Paris. See Memoires. 11, 524-528.
770
things and showed a lack of respect for the rights of property.
With these new developments" on tombe dans ce que j'appelle
la fantaisie, on est dans l'imaginaire et on marche vers la ruine
financiere." 28 So stated Haussmann's bitterest opponent, the
historian Adolphe Thiers, whose political career began under
Louis-Philippe and - unlike Haussmann' s - continued after
1870 under the Third Republic.
Regarding the organization of the city mainly as a technical
problem, Haussmann concentrated primarily on the problems
of traffic and transportation - this before the railway age and
long before automobiles had added to the burdens of city
streets. His contemporaries, lacking his vision, could not un-
derstand Haussmann's passion for new lines of communication
through the center of the city, and even into the suburbs,
where no such counterrevolutionary measures were needed.
"Pour les promeneurs," Thiers inquired, "queUe necessite
avait-il d'aller de la Madeleine a l'Etoile par la voie la plus
courte~ Mais les promeneurs, au contraire, veulent allonger
leur promenade et c' est pour cela qu'ils font trois ou quatre
fois le tour d'une meme allee." 29
This remark reveals unconsciously the grounds for Thiers's
criticisms. The town planning he understood worked from the
point of view of the promeneur; Haussmann's started from the
demands of an industrial age. The first result of approaching
the planning of a city as a large-scale transportation problem
is the endless street, the street that stretches beyond the range
of the eye.
Haussmann's preoccupation with traffic tended to force the Traffic receives
residential problem into the background. His boulevards dis- primary
consideration
membered the city. That housing was definitely a secondary
consideration is depicted in the etchings which illustrate Al-
phand's large publication, Les Promenades de Paris (Paris,
1867-73). The Boulevard Richard-Lenoir (jig. 472), for ex-
28 "We fall into what I call fantasy, we are in the realm of the imaginary and on the
march toward financial ruin." Quoted in Morizet, op. cit., p. 297.

29 "Do people out walking need to go from the Madeleine to the f~toile by the shortest
route~ On the contrary; promeneurs want to prolong their walks. That's the reason
they will take three or four turns up and down the same street." Quoted in Morizet,
op. cit., p. 297.
771
ample, shows a wide highway, its center strip covered with
lawns and planted with trees; but behind the uniform fa<;ades
of its apartment houses is concealed the most appalling dis-
order.30 The street dominated Alphand's bird's-eye view of
the city; all houses which do not front on it were obviously
allowed to spring up in a huddled confusion. Haussmann used
the uniform fa<;ade as a kind of closet door behind which all the
disorder could be crammed. All other aspects of the life of
the city were sacrificed to the problem of traffic.
One can now recognize easily enough the mistake involved in
considering only the problem of transportation and ignoring
the residential problems. But at the stage of social and indus-
trial development that existed in Haussmann's day not even
the beginnings of a solution to housing problems in great cities
had been found.
Difficulties in Haussmann's later critics have concerned themselves mainly
the aesthetic with an aesthetic evaluation of his work. This is obviously a
evaluation of difficult undertaking, and it is not made any easier by com-
Haussmann's work
paring his "merely straight and convenient" 31 thoroughfares
with "rhythmically articulated aesthetic compositions" by
Renaissance masters. Haussmann himself was devoted to the
culte de l'axe, but the enormous scale of his work made certain
things impossible. The street cannot have "organic unity . . .
as part of a dominant building" when it is required to serve
as an artery for huge volumes of cross-town traffic. To criti-
cize Haussmann for breaking with Mansard and Le Notre is to
ignore his transformation of Paris.
It is true that "the wall of houses around the Place de I' Etoile
is so broken that one hardly feels it as circular," 32 and that,
indeed, it "has no right to be called a 'place' in the sense of the
word established by the French architects of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries." But this is no more than a dispute
about definitions. And in any event this is not a failure
peculiar to or even characteristic of Haussmann's planning.
30 Haussmann planned the Boulevard Hichard-Lenoir (1861-63) to cover a canal. The
avenue of trees is planted above the "roof" of the canal.
31 This and the following quotations are taken from Elbert Peets, "Famous Town Plan-
ners: Haussmann," Town Planning Review, XII, no. 3 (June 1927), 187-188.
32Haussmann himself saw this defect in the work of his architect and planted tall trees
before the small houses, which were completely out of scale.
772
Badly organized squares, reflecting a general loss of the
baroque ability to model space, were common in the nine-
teenth century. 33 London was the exception.
Haussmann's work was done at a time when architecture was
in a very unsettled state. The best he could hope for - and
at the time it was a considerable achievement - was to give his
street fronts the most neutral character possible. No one in
his day, or later in the century, managed to equal the sure and
inoffensive neutrality of his uniform Paris fa<;ades. Finally,
any aesthetic judgment of Haussmann's work is bound to
place undue emphasis upon the transitory facts that appear in
it. Granted that everything has "a silk-hat slickness" and
reflects the artistic standards of "the bank-president and the
midinette," but this does not touch the main issue. Hauss-
mann was in fact the first man to view the great city- the
capital with millions of inhabitants - as a technical problem.
Hence his distant relations with architects and his close col-
laboration with expert technicians.
Haussmann' s Foresight: His I njluence

Haussmann made extraordinary strides toward the solution of
urban traffic problems, strides far in advance of the actual
needs of his time. Almost a generation after Haussmann's
death at the age of eighty-two, the influx of automobiles made
this problem still much more urgent and complex.
Haussmann's work anticipates the future in another respect; Anticipates
every great town planner has been driven - at whatever cost development
to himself- to attempt undertakings that only the future of the
suburbs
could justify. The Prefet de la Seine was no exception, and he
ran into disaster through schemes whose intentions went be-
yond the current desires of the populace. Haussmann's work
on the incorporation of the banlieue, the suburban zone of
Paris, was just such a coup de genie.
This enterprise, begun, as we have noted, under the Second
Empire, was still incomplete when Haussmann left the Hotel
de Ville. His intention was to give the great mflSS of the
people a chance to live outside the city. It was, however, an
33 This point is discussed with reference to some German squares in the author's Spiil-
barocker und romanlischer Klassizismus (Munich, 1922).
773
undertaking whose extent could not be estimated in advance. 34
Haussmann's "illegal borrowings" from the caisse des lravaux
were being used to .finance work in the suburbs whose scope
constantly widened. His critics, who acknowledged only the
scale of the promeneur, could not have been expected to under-
stand Haussmann's plans, intended as they were for genera-
tions yet unborn. They could not have foreseen that these
roads, carried clear over the horizon, would prove to be the
most "productive" of all the prefect's "expenditures," and
would open up the future living space of Paris.
It was useless for Haussmann to point out that in the years
during which this network of suburban streets was being de-
veloped the population of the zone rose from 258,000 to
368,000. Since Haussmann's time, the population of Paris has
increased seventy per cent, the population of the suburbs eight
hundred per cent. 35 This trend of growth in the area surround-
ing Paris has justified his schemes to an extent even he could
not have foreseen. The same phenomenon has occurred
around most other large cities.
The later The subsequent peripheral expansion of Paris proceeded with-
expansion out a hint of order. No one had the power either to carry
of Paris
Haussmann's plans further or to adjust them to the growing
need for a careful separation of residential and industrial areas.
The inability of the declining century to master and give form
to its life gave rise to a chaotic mixture of villages suddenly
inflated into cities and tiny houses and new industrial centers
scattered at random over the countryside. 36
34 The final cost was over three hundred and sixty million francs- a hundred and
sixty million more than had been allotted for this purpose.
35 The Columbia Encyclopedia, 1964.
36 See Les Banlieues urbaines (Paris, 1920) by Henri Sellier, Conseiller general de Ia
Seine. Sellier gives a true picture of how immense agglomerations of high tenement
houses were built along unpaved village roads, often without sewers, in the midst of old
peasant houses, and soon became thickly populated slum&, entirely lacking in sanitary
facilities.
The result, as Professor Duguet revealed in his reports to the Commission of Hygiene,
was a shocking death rate from tuberculosis in the Department of the Seine. For every
hundred people dying of tuberculosis in the rest of France, a hundred and fifty died in
the Department of the Seine. (See Revue des deux mondes, July 15, 1923, p. 444.)
The chaotic growth of American cities since the sixties has often been attributed to a
lack of tradition. Yet in the banlieue of Paris, a city with a history of twenty centuries,
a similar disorganization occurred. The reasons in both cases were the same.
774
The wide scope of Haussmann's activities was not owing solely
to the autocratic powers given him by the regime of which he
was so firm an adherent. He belonged to a generation - that
gfmeralion forte, as he himself called it- which showed ex-
treme initiative in all fields, and an irrepressible urge to do
things which had never been accomplished before.
Haussmann's enemies referred to him derisively as the Louis
qualorze municipal. There was more truth in this than his
contemporaries recognized. To be sure, his work lacked the
unity of conception which underlay the great projects of Louis
XIV. They show the split personality of the nineteenth cen-
tury with its almost inextricable mingling of constituent and
transitory facts. On the one hand there is foresight and energy;
on the other, dangerous expedients which reflect the uncer-
tainty of Haussmann's period.
But the huge scale of Haussmann's work is genuinely over-
whelming. He dared to change the -entire aspect of a great
city, a city which had been revered for hundreds of years as the
center of the civilized world. To build a new Paris - attack-
ing all aspects of the problem simultaneously - was an opera-
tion still unequaled in scale. The indomitable courage of the
Prefet de la Seine has also remained unequaled. Haussmann
allowed no group to block his schemes: in his transformation of
Paris he cut directly into the body of the city.
Haussmann's direct influence was immense. In almost every Haussmann's
other country where industrialization developed later, one influence
encounters details imitated from his transformation of Paris,
particularly from the accomplishments of the first reseau. Few
such cities are without a main street directed toward the axis
of the central station, like the Boulevard Sebastopol and the
Gare de l'Est. The Parisian boulevards echo in monumental
streets built up along the lines of razed fortifications. But it
was only details which were imitated. No one arose with
Haussmann's power to attempt a general attack upon the new
problem of the city.
775
PART VIII CITY PLANNING AS A HUMAN
PROBLEM
The Late Nineteenth Century
From 1870 on, the great cities developed continuously toward
what they are today- unserviceable instruments. No one
knows when this tremendous waste of time and health will be
stopped, when this pointless assault on human nerves will end,
when this failure to achieve a dignified standard of life will be
remedied.
Cities cannot simply be discarded, like worn-out machinery;

they play too large a part in our destiny. But by now it is
plain that the life which they havt> abused is increasingly ex-
acting its revenge, and that this fundamentally provisional
and feverish institution must soon be brought within narrower
limits. Whether the work will be done by intelligence or by
brute disaster cannot be foreseen.
Unsuccessful attempts at change and reform have been going

on for a long time. As early as 1883 the Society of Arts- the
body which organized the Great Exhibition in London in
1851- offered twelve hundred pounds in prize awards for
essays on the best ways of rebuilding central London and
housing its poor.
Camillo Sitte's On the Continent there was an early reaction against the de-
return to the city generate and omnipresent imitations of Haussmann's work.
of the ::Vliddle In 1889 the Viennese town planner Camillo Sitte (1843-1903)
Ages (1889)
- like the handicrafters of four decades earlier - suggested
that the remedy was to be found in a return to methods of
the medieval period. 1 Sitte saw in the organic growth of the
medieval town a way of humanizing the contemporary city.
He made sensitive analyses of these towns - northern and
southern, Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, and baroque. He was
interested in the successful organization of open spaces ex-
pressed in their layout. He found this in the way streets flow
into squares in a medieval town, in the relations between the
market square and the church or town hall, and in the free
and well-pondered equilibrium of all parts of these urban or-
gamsms.
1See the English edition of Camillo Sitte's Der Sliidlebau (Vienna. 1889), City Planning
According lo Artistic Principles, trans. George and Christiane Collins (New York, 1965).
778
PUN .. OFA PIIOPOSh'D lli!JU.L, TOII:Y. TO HJ>: l"A.£1./.'D HTOJ!IZ.A,
. 'tbt j).,,, of Qill.tlullork
I.
......···,._w RJl"JIR 0DLO.I0i.A'TVCKJ; mth.o l',l"/TA'D STATES cf "I.MI!RIC~,
./ / lDliDII!lil.l:I:D lDT ll.lS.!P.Al"V~lD.'!'II: ·

.. .. &,d./d a .t£ sz:;; I!IQ./7 >t s-.p
'
482. J. B. PAPWORTJ-1. Scheme for" Rural Town" on the banks of the Ohio River,
"Hygeia,"' 1827.
Camillo Sitte felt, as everyone must, that the laws of town

building are summed up in Aristotle's laconic statement:
Towns should be built so as to protect their inhabitants and
at the same time make them happy.
Most of us nowadays share Sitte's further conviction that the

artistic problems raised by urban development are fully as
important as the technical ones.
Camillo Sitte's intentions were of the best. He sought to over-

come the monotony and the artistic lifelessness of the typical
late nineteenth-century city. Its defects he saw very clearly,
but the measures he suggested to correct them were no more
than palliatives. Clearing the centers of squares and placing
all statues and monuments at the corners, locating gardens in
the courtyards of apartment blocks instead of in busy public
places, building high walls to isolate public parks from street
noises -- all these were superficial reforms.
779
Such proposals show the extent to which the town planner
had lost contact with his period. He had become a kind of
troubadour, ineffectually pitting his medieval songs against the
din of modern industry.
In the late nineteenth century the urbanist, like the popular
painter, lost himself in the composition of idylls. Neither was
able to work on the scale that was necessary. Life moved on
along a different track.
What attitude did really creative artists around 1900 - men
like \Vagner, Garnier, and Berlage- take toward the prob-
lems of urbanism~ The answers may give us some insight
into how much mastery over town planning was possible at
this period.
Otto Wagner's Otto Wagner (1841-1918) belonged to a generation which had
faith in the retained the hopeful attitude of the nineteenth century toward
big city
industry. He could never have imagined that the time would
come when the great city -then at the full tide of its growth
-would find its prosperity seriously threatened.
\Vagner began formulating his ideas when Sitte's influence was
at its peak. The garden city had just been advanced as the
solution to the urban residential problem. From the very be-
ginning Wagner recognized that the garden city could not
solve the housing problem of the major cities. Much later,
popular opinion was forced to acknowledge that Wagner was
right.
The architectonic vision and energy apparent in so much of
Wagner's work seemed overcome by a sort of paralysis when
he entered the field of town planning. In an endeavor to
avoid the usual haphazard and chaotic urban development,
Wagner drew up detailed plans for a whole quarter in Vienna
(jig. 483). 2 His scheme provided for a sizable open area in the
middle - "a center for air" -but the layout as a whole was
rigidly formal and a great deal more static than Haussmann's
arrangements in Paris. The dominant unit of his design was
the enclosed, five-story apartment block, the basic element in
2Cf. Otto Wagner, Die Groszstadt, eine Studie iiber diese (Vienna, n.d.). These studies
date back to the nineties.
780
483. OTTO WAGNER. Scheme for a district center in Vienna, c. 1910.
almost every large Continental city of the time. Wagner

could not seem to devise any alternative to this kind of plan-
ning. In the late nineteenth century it appeared that town
planning had exhausted all its possibilities and that no new
solutions could be reached. The ability to organize space in
accordance with actual problems had been lost.
But there did arise in this period the realization that the needs
of its inhabitants ought to govern the planning of the modern
city. Otto Wagner was among the first to see this clearly. His
chief interest was the creation of a healthful environment for
the average man. He was one of the earliest to recognize that a
great city embraces many different types of people, each type
requiring a different kind of dwelling. He realized too that
the residential needs of the average city-dweller changed with
his circumstances.
Wagner called for community ownership of those areas which

would be required for the future growth of the city. Only by
that means could the city regulate land prices and maintain
control over its own development. (Amsterdam had already
adopted this system.)
781
Wagner perceived very clearly what was responsible for the
diseased state of the big city: "The expansion of cities can
no longer - as in the past - be abandoned to blind chance,
with artistic influences regarded as superficial and the develop-
ment of great towns left to detestable usury."
More than thirty years later, at its congress in Athens in 1933, 3
the ClAM laid down the same requirements (in less violent
language):
"It is of the utmost urgency that each town establish an
urban program, and that it create the laws necessary for its
realization."
Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City

The idea of the garden city was advanced as a panacea for the
many dwelling problems of the late nineteenth century. The
essence of the plan was that the community should control the
ground, and that all profits through increases in the value of
the land should be returned to the community in order to
discourage speculation of any sort.
The idea of the garden city as it was formulated by Ebenezer
Howard is quite different from the forms the idea took in ac-
tual practice. Howard's book, Tomorrow, a Peaceful Path to
Real Reform, first appeared in 1898. As the title indicates, it
was no mean achievement at which Howard aimed. He aspired
to nothing less than the abolition of the evils of the industrial
revolution, the elimination of slums and overcrowded indus-
trial districts. All this was to be accomplished without arous-
ing the antagonism of any group, even the landlords. He
expected to create new forms of public wealth through a
complete transvaluation of values, without even waiting till
some party sympathetic to his views was in power. 4
One is reminded of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Broadacre City"
when one reads in Ebenezer Howard of the migration of an
industrial population into the country, the colonization of the
3See pp. 698-700.
4Dugald Macfayden, Sir Ebenezer Howard and the Town Planning Movement (Man-
chester, 1933), p. 29.
782
land, and the setting down of factories in an unspoiled land-
scape.
Ebenezer Howard was an expert stenographer working in the Origin
London courts when the idea of the garden city came to him.
That was in 1898, and he had just finished reading Bellamy's
Looking Backward, published not long before in America,
which a friend had lent him. He responded to the book with
such enthusiasm that he immediately set to work to promote
its publication in England. This book presented a graphic
picture of the whole American nation organized on coopera-
tive principles, and in reflecting on it Howard "was led to put
forward proposals of his own for testing out Bellamy's princi-
ples, though on a very much smaller scale -- in brief, to build
by private enterprise an entirely new town, industrial, resi-
dential, and agricultural." 5
This was how the garden-city idea got its start. It grew out
of the same soil as the general problem of a cooperatively
organized society.
Howard conceived of his city as a set of concentric circles. Howard's scheme
The center consists of a group of civic buildings grouped
about a common. Midway between the center and the outer-
most circle is a circular grand avenue, four hundred feet in
width, with trees and greenery. The outermost circle is an
agricultural belt. An area set aside for manufacturing is an-
ticipated. In a circular park at the center stand the larger
public buildings, each in its own ample grounds: town hall,
concert and lecture hall, theater, library, and so on. The
"Crystal Palace" encircles the central park and recreation
ground. It consists of a glass arcade, opening on the park;
within it manufactured goods may be exposed for sale. One
part of it is used as a winter garden, a place of resort in bad
weather. 6 The fundamental idea of this scheme- which, as
Howard noted, is a diagram only, the plan necessarily depend-
ing on the site selected - had been developed in the Renais-
sance. It has since been repeated under many different forms,
and other proposals made in the early nineteenth century do
not differ markedly from Howard's conceptions.
5 Macfayden, p. 20.
6 Ebenezer Howard, Garden Cities of Tomorrow (London, 1899), p. 23.
783
As early as 1827 proposals were made by the English archi-
tect J. B. Papworth for what he called "rural-towns." 7
Hygeia (jig. 482), a settlement that was never brought into
being, was to be on the Ohio River in Kentucky. He conceived
of it as having community buildings in the center, with broad
areas given over to gardening and with zoning regulations.
The whole conception was very close to the late baroque urban
tradition of John Nash.
It is often said that Howard treated his idyllic garden city
as an isolated phenomenon unrelated to reality. He knew
quite well, however, that overcrowded cities had "done their
work" and that the great cities of the future would have to
be constructed on another pattern.
He remarked at the end of his Tomorrow _that "a simpler
problem must first be solved. One small Garden City must be
built as a working model and then a group of cities . . . .
These tasks done, and done well, the reconstruction of London
must inevitably follow . . . . "
Failure of the But execution and idea were, as is so often the case, quite
garden-city idea different. No "Crystal Palace" in a garden city ever ap-
peared.8 For half a century, the most that resulted was the
creation of new suburban settlements by cooperative societies
and the introduction of better architectural schemes. 9 For
the most part the idea degenerated into the building of con-
glomerations of small houses in small gardens until it was
partially revived in the British New Towns movement of the
late forties and fifties.
It is easy to see why the original idea of the garden city,
"where town and country are married,'' was doomed to failure.
No partial solution is possible; only preconceived and inte-
7 Much of Cheltenham remains as a memorial to his powers as a town planner. Cf.
H. P. Ross Williamson, "John Buonarroti Papworth, Architect to the King of Wur-
temburg," Architectural Review, vol. LXXIX, 1936. Cf. also R. G. Thwaites, Early
Western Travels, 1748-1846 (Cleveland, 1904-07), vol. XIX, map preceding Bullock's
"Sketch of a Journey through the Western States of North America."
8 The first model, Letchworth, in 1903, failed to attract much over half of its intended
population.
9 For example, the scheme of Peter Behrens in 1918; Vreewyke's garden city at. Rotter-
dam; H.adburn, N.J. in 1929, with segregation of automobile traffic; and Neubiihl near
Zurich in 1932.
784
grated planning on a scale embracing the whole structure of
modern life in all its ramifications can accomplish the task
which Ebenezer Howard had in mind.
Patrick Geddes and Arturo Soria y Mala

If one turns over the pages of the standard handbooks on city
planning of 1900 to 1920, one is astonished to see that nine-
teenth-century drawing-board methods are still followed un-
changed and even repeated like recipes. One finds routine
studies of how to determine the dimensions of long and cross
sections of traffic streets and "avenues," or how open spaces
can be inserted into a sea of masonry. Officialdom seemed to
be blind to the total disorder of the situation.
In a period of transition city-planning specialists appeared
helpless. They could function when directives were provided,
but they were incapable of inventing new directives. Only
the unblinkered eyes of a few outsiders brought the disorder of
city planning to public consciousness and laid the foundations
for a new orientation. Four are listed here.
Ebenezer Howard, who cleared the way for the humanization
of the environment through his advocation of the garden city,
was a parliamentary stenographer. Sant' Elia, whose futur-
istic city-planning studies made him a complete visionary in
the eyes of the professionals, was nevertheless the first to
present traffic as a constituent element of the urban structure.
In addition, both a biologist and a highway engineer prepared
decisive directives for the new orientation of city planning.
\Vith almost prophetic vision they were prepared to wait for a
far distant time when their ideas would finally become reality.
They were the Scottish biologist and student of Huxley, Pat-
rick Geddes (1854-1932), and the Spanish highway engineer,
Arturo Soria y Mata (1844-1920).
Patrick Geddes looked at human agglomerations with the eyes Patrick
of a biologist interested in the phenomena of life - all life. Geddes: unity
The new edition of his best known book, Cities in Evolution, 10 of city and
region
° First
1 published in 1915; revised edition, edited by Jaqueline Tyrwhitt, published in
London, 1949.
785
includes an extract from Geddes' famous " Cities Exhibition,"
in which he displayed pictorially the organic development of
cities and elaborated his main theme: the city is inseparable
from the landscape in which it is set and can only be under-
stood in terms of its geographic situation, its climatic and
meteorological facts, its economic bases, and its historic heri-
tage. One sentence from the introduction to this exhibition
can best explain how Geddes read a city plan: "Town plans
are thus no mere diagrams; they are a system of hieroglyphics
in which man has written the history of civilization, and the
more tangled their apparent confusion, the more we may be
rewarded in deciphering it." 11
Lewis Mumford, who modestly describes himself as a "true

disciple" of Patrick Geddes, but who naturally developed his
ideas further, has included in his book, The Condition of JHan,
several of Patrick Geddes' finest thoughts. One finds there
how Geddes considered sociology as evolving from biology and
used this idea to show the development of the city .12 Geddes,
a Scot who lived in the "Outlook Tower" in Edinburgh and
spent many years in India developing a rich and subtle prac-
tice of city planning, was simultaneously provincial and cos-
mopolitan, a type only really recognized a generation after his
death. When one reads Mumford's words," Geddes' Scotland
encompassed Europe and his Europe encompassed the World,"
it is difficult not to think of a passage in James Joyce's Por-
trait of the Artist as a Young Man in which Joyce- Stephen
Daedalus - identifies his own position: moving out from the
strictly localized situation of the individual to cover Ireland,
Europe, the world, the universe.
Soria y The highway engineer, Arturo Soria y Mata, started out from
Mata: the a totally different point of view. He was a practical man. In
linear city
1882, a time when the electrified street railway exercised an
almost hypnotic charm, he recognized transportation as an
element of the highest importance for city planning. His
starting point was the street railway track. On both sides of
this track he set housing and industry.
11 Patrick Geddes, Ci{ies in Evolution, rev. ed. (London, 1949), p. 170.

12 Lewis Mumford, The Condition of Man (New York, 1944), pp. 382-390.
786
Soria y Mata saw the realization of his dreams, on a modest
scale, in a suburb of Madrid. It was not until the thirties that
his linear-city idea was taken further, in Russia. Le Corbusier
adopted the linear-city notion in his plan for St. Die's develop-
ment alongside an expressway. However, the trend of the
linear city came into real prominence only in the sixties, with
the development of a continuous urbanized area - such as
from Boston to Washington: a development that is not with-
out its dangers.
Tony Garnier's Cite Induslrielle, 1901-04

In 1898 a young man named Tony Garnier was installed in the First example of
Villa Medici as the current holder of the grand prix de Rome. contemporary
At about the same time Frank Lloyd ·wright was building his town planning
early houses in the suburbs of Chicago, and Ebenezer Howard
was vigorously urging his garden-city scheme. To satisfy the
prize requirements, Garnier sent the Academy in Paris a re-
construction of the plan of Tusculum, Cicero's home. As
with Henri Labrouste before him, however, the work he did
on his own account was of a different character. This holder
of the prix de Rome set himself the task of planning a com-
plete town - not merely its general layout, but all the rooms
of every building. His Cite Industrielle was intended for some
thirty-five thousand inhabitants (fig. 484).
According to Garnier, the general layout was exhibited in 1901,
and the detailed plan in 1904. It was not until1917, however,
that Garnier's ideas were published (in a limited edition). 13
The great influence of this book was not restricted to France;
it was circulated from hand to hand wherever new solutions
were being sought.
Garnier had taken a great step forward in treating a whole
town without losing himself in masses of detail, as many of his
contemporaries did. His designs for houses, schools, railway
stations, and hospitals likewise represented a great advance.
Architecture begins in construction and ends in town planning;
Garnier's work is based on both. His Cite Industrielle grew
13 Garnier, Etude pour la construction des villes (Paris, 1917).
787
out of a broad understanding of social requirements. The
balance of its layout is not destroyed by overconcentration on
single issues, such as specialized problems of traffic or the more
or less specialized problems of housing that absorbed the
advocates of the garden city. Garnier sought for an organic
interrelationship between all the functions of his town.
Ferroconcrete was the material Garnier chose for his con- Ferroconcrete
structions. Its potentialities were just beginning to be appre- Garnier's primary
material
ciated around 1900, especially by the traditionally alert French
constructors. It was quite natural that it should fascinate a
young architect, even an "ancien pensionnaire de l' Academie
fran<;aise a Rome." With ferroconcrete Garnier could realize
more adequately than with any other material his intention
of providing an appropriate frame for industry, public services,
and the life of the average man.
In the plans for the Cite Industrielle there is a clear separation Clear distinction
of all the different functions of the town: work, residence, between different
leisure, and transport. Industry is cut off from the town functions
proper by a green belt, as it was later in the Russian schemes
for linear cities, based on Soria y Mata's much more radical
ideas. Tony Garnier's large medical complex is located on a
protected site on the slope of an outlying hill and is oriented
toward the south.
The middle of Garnier's elongated town is reserved for a civic
center, a high school district, and very complete and elaborate
athletic fields. 14 This sports area adjoins open country, which
gives it room to expand and a fine view as well.
Main-line railway traffic enters the city terminal (jig. 201)
through a subway. (This terminal, like some other buildings
in the Cite Industrielle, is extraordinarily advanced for its
date; its simple and functional exterior is genuinely revolu-
tionary.) Garnier even includes a speedway, or racetrack for
cars, as well as testing grounds for moteurs d'aviation.
14 This is rather curious; at that time the French paid little attention to sports.
+---
484. TONY GARNIER. Cite Industrielle, 1901-04.
General map. Designed for 35,000 inhabitants.
789
The town site is subdivided into elongated lots, running east
and west to facilitate proper orientation of the rooms in the
houses. These lots- the basic units of the Cite- are thirty
by a hundred and fifty meters. Such long plots give a new
aspect to the town and represent an extreme departure from
the centralized Renaissance type of layout. Unconsciously the
basic principle of the linear city is here carried out - at least
in part.
485. TONY GARNIER. Cite In-

dustrielle, 1901-04. Houses and gar-
dens. Most traffic is routed away from
the houses. An attempt is made to solve
the residential problem through the use of
low houses set in communal gardens.
486. TONY GARNIER. Cite In-

dustrielle, 1901- 04. Plan of a dwelling
unit; terraces.
790
Urbanists of a generation later adopted a similar arrangement
to avoid the rue corridor and to isolate residential sections
from heavy tra'flic routes. Garnier was quite aware of what he
was doing: "On traverse la ville independamment des rues"
(fig. 485). 15 In the Cite Industrielle the closed blocks and
light-wells of Haussmann's time are completely eliminated.
There are open communal spaces between all Garnier's low
487. TONY GARNI E R. Cite lndustrielle, 1901-04. A school, with open terraces
and covered verandah. An attempt is made to blend the surrounding open spaces with the
houses to form a neighborhood unit.
housing blocks (many with roof terraces) on the main thor-

oughfares.
Each individual dwelling has a large central living room and
small but well-organized bedrooms, bath, and kitchen (fig. 486).
The open areas between the houses are filled with greenery.
The schools, low and open in their planning (fig. 487), are dis-
tributed throughout the town, adding their lawns and shrub-
bery to the green areas around the houses. New suburbs of
Amsterdam were later developed along similar lines.
15 This is not to be taken with complete literalness, but it would have h eld true for the
small volume of traffic in 1900. Germs of later solutions are certainly present in Gar-
nier's layout.
791
488. TONY GARNIER. Cite lndustrielle, 1901-04. Ferroconcrete houses with open
staircases and roof gardens. Through the use of ferroconcrete, Garnier arrived at solutions
which would later reappear.
Tony Garnier was attracted to the classical, as the modeling

of his buildings shows. He broke away from this attachment,
however, in many of the details of his Cite Industrielle. Its
houses, with their terraces and the gardens on their flat roofs
(fig. 488), are a sound combination of modern construction and
the old tradition of the Mediterranean culture.
Parts of Garnier's scheme were later realized at Lyons, where
he built hospitals, stockyards, athletic stadia, and a residential
district. 16
Garnier's plan clearly separated the different functions of the
city: work, housing, traffic, and recreation. Garnier allotted
each its own space so that a future expansion of any one of
them would leave the others undisturbed. His long residential
blocks with their greenery were planned to form neighborhood
units with their own schools and all necessary services. His
drawings for every building, complete down to the last details
of construction and layout, often foreshadow future develop-
ments to an astonishing degree. Garnier's main material,
ferroconcrete, was employed to arrive at new solutions for his
schools, railway stations, sanatoriums, and residences.
16 See Garnier, Les Grands Travaux de Ia ville de Lyon (Paris, 1924).
792
489. LE CORBUSJER. Settlement at P essac, near Bordeaux, 1926.
The Cite Industrielle directly influenced many of the men who

have contributed most to the city planning of the future. This
influence is understandable, since Garnier's scheme contained
the germs of contemporary methods. Developments often
take unpredictable courses: the lost instinct for town planning
was recaptured by a young pensionnaire de l' Academie a Rome.
AMSTERDAM AND THE REBIRTH OF TOWN

PLANNING
We turned to London to gain an insight into the state of

town planning between 1800 and 1850. Our example for the
years between 1850 and 1870 was Paris, and for the period
between 1900 and the thirties it is Amsterdam. There are
other cities where, over a short interval, a more rapid advance
occurred - for example, Frankfort on the Main in the late
twenties. And in some respects building activity was more
extensive in Rotterdam, though it was sometimes carried on
without coordination. It was at Rotterdam (after 1919) that
J. J. P. Oud built his carefully planned apartments for lower
income groups, and that van Tijen experimented (after 1930)
with tall slablike apartment houses to come closer to the
special requirements of a modern European city.
793
Continuous But Amsterdam is one of the few cities of our times that
tradition at shows a continuous tradition in town planning, unbroken
Amsterdam since 1900. This uninterrupted building activity is particularly
important for our purposes, since it affords us a view over a
long period of development and eliminates the necessity of
collecting different examples from all corners of the world.
Amsterdam is thus the city best adapted to a study of the
main currents working through the period.
Town planning in Amsterdam operated within the realm of

what was really possible. There were no erratic developments,
no Utopian enterprises, but a steady progress. The method
behind the work might be called analytic. It admirably
suited the temperament of the Dutch, who disliked daring
speculations like those that went on in England around 1820.
Both progress and mistakes were made by slow stages at
Amsterdam.
For a long time the population of Amsterdam had remained

stable, but in 1875 it began to rise steeply. This rise followed
the opening of a canal which gave Amsterdam an outlet into
the North Sea. Between 1875 and 1900 the population
doubled, and in the interval between 1900 and 1920 there was
another increase of almost fifty per cent. It was in this second
period (barring the war years) that tremendous building ac-
tivity took place.
For what classes were these buildings raised~ The early Lon-
don squares and crescents were for the gentry and the richest
members of the middle class. The middle classes were the chief
objects of Hausmann's boulevard-building in Paris- with
the poor often crowded into slumlike apartments on the top
floors of the buildings. In Amsterdam building activity was
carried on in the service of the lower middle class and the
working people.
Traveling in Holland during the twenties one encountered

brand-new housing settlements in every part of the country -
variable in quality, but all marked by clean brick surfaces, big
windows, and a visible intention of giving the Dutch scene the
imprint of the best contemporary architecture. Now here else
794
was modern architecture given such an opportunity to change
the whole face of a country.
The impetus for this entire development came from the Dutch Impetus furnished
Housing Act of 190 l. "This enactment," to quote from the by Dutch Housing
Harvard City Planning Studies, "is perhaps the most com- Act of 1901
prehensive single piece of legislation ever to be adopted in this
field. Its eleven chapters provide the essentials of a complete
attack upon the national housing problems. Some amendments
have been made since its passage, but the basic structure of
the law remains and is the authority for the greatest part of
all governmental intervention in housing in the Nether-
lands." 1 The act required every town of ten thousand or
more inhabitants to draw up a scheme governing its future
expansion. Detailed as well as general plans were required,
and the general plan had to be revised every ten years. The
process of expropriation was also regulated by the act, and
was made easier for the cities to carry through.
This act came just when the northern countries were entering The city becomes
upon a new stage in the treatment of the housing problem. a landowner
Up to this time, ideal dwellings for the lower class family had
often been displayed at the great exhibitions, but had never
formed a recognized part of building activity. The Dutch
Housing Act of 1901 was shrewdly drawn to encourage con-
structions for the use of people of small means.
Cooperatively organized building societies received building
credits on very easy terms from the state, the credits being
guaranteed by the community. Thus the whole tendency of the
act was to make the city a decisive influence upon all building
activity. At the same time Amsterdam made intensive (though
not always successful) efforts to constitute itself a great land-
owner by acquiring land for its housing settlements before
speculation forced up prices. And, like the nobles who were
the landlords in London, the city of Amsterdam leased the
ground instead of selling it.
1 Richard Ratcliff, in Mabel U. Walker's Urban Blight and Slums (Cambridge, 1938),
p. 398 (vol. XII of Harvard City Planning Studies). Ratcliff examines the effect upon
slums and blighted areas of construction standards, housing and population surveys,
closure and demolition of unfit structures, expropriation, town planning, slum clearance
and redevelopment, financial assistance by municipalities and by the state, etc.
795
VERKIARINO: ·:
E3 OMGRENZING BE51"!li\NDE·OFYA5TGM"il
~ OMGRENZINGONTWORPEN Ai'fiLEG :·:
~ OPENBAARVAAR\VATER ..
1IIIIIIllD M"1EENGE5l9TEN·BEE'>OUWING ..
. . OPEN BEE'>OUWING .. GEMEENTE
c::J OPENBA'>.R-Pl!\NT50EN ~ NtEUWER·AM5TEt.:
490. H. P. BERLAGE. Plan of Amsterdam South, 1902. A mixture of influences is

evident here, along with the uncertainly that accompanied Berlage's attempt to break with old
formulas.
Many cities have attempted to use a similar land policy. Am-

sterdam, however, actually succeeded in building whole dis-
tricts which were homogeneous and met the demands of the
community. Building contractors were forced to submit to
the judgments of what was called a "commission for beauty,"
which saw to it that uniform fagades were erected. This com-
mission formed the basis for the building activities of de
Klerk and the other architects of the Amsterdam school in the
twenties.
Land tenure and the character of the fagade were pretty
thoroughly controlled by the community; regulations govern-
ing ground plans were not set up until later.
H. P. Berlage's Plans for Amsterdam South

First plan, l902 Besides the 1901 ordinances, individual creative forces were at
work in Amsterdam to bring about a kind of city planning
that broke loose from routine. Such energies were not confined
to this Dutch city; they could have been found elsewhere as
796
"i9l. French lawbcape gardening.l869. The kidney-
shaped windings of the [Jalhs are recalled in Her/age's
1902 plan for I he 11mslerdam Solllh district.
well. There was, for example, Otto Wagner in Vienna, who

was conducting a long, bitter, and ultimately unsuccessful
fight with the city administration. Amsterdam, by contrast,
afforded remarkable freedom to a private architect of real
genius by handing over the development of the Amsterdam
South district to Hendrik Petrus Bcrlage (jig. 490). Berlage
drew up his first plans for this development in 1902. The
Stock Exchange Building which was to make his name the
center of discussion in all parts of Europe was just then nearing
completion.
Berlage assumed the responsibility for laying out a whole
residential district - Amsterdam South -- in complete inde-
pendence of the city officials and the Department of Public
\Vorks. The results form an ideal test case for our purposes:
nowhere could we gain a better insight into the level of town
planning at that period, and the actual limits of what could he
accomplished. Conclusions drawn from the Berlage develop-
ment also apply very closely to architecture.
Berlage's schemes reflect the central difficulty at that date:
the inability to arrive at new means of expression in the solu-
797
tions offered for the problems peculiar to the times. In the
1902 plans particularly (and to some extent even in the later
version of 1~15) we sense the struggle involved in Berlage's
attempted break with the formulae of previous decades, his
spasmodic efforts to attain modes of expression suited to his
purpose - the humanizing of the residential district.
When one recognizes that an eminent architect such as Berlage
could not free himself from the overriding power of stereotyped
preconceptions, one can understand the situation of routine
offi.cial city planning in 1900. This is the reason that Berlage's
plans for Amsterdam South will be considered in some detail.
Romantic charac- At first glance Berlage's 1902 drawings suggest a diagram of
ter of the plan the convolutions of the brain more than the layout of a city.
The oval windings of the streets embody curves which are
familiar in Haussmann's public parks of the sixties (jig. 491).
These outlines are quite in keeping with the generally romantic
character of Berlage's first plan.
Another influence shaping the layout was a horror of the forced
and artificial axis, and of the whole gridiron system. Camillo
Sitte's sermons had made it seem that the remedy for this
cheerless aspect was a return to the medieval town, with its
natural patterns of growth.
The specific problem was to construct a residential quarter for
middle and working class tenancy; essentially it was a problem
in housing. But how could dwellings be brought close together
without becoming sources of mutual annoyance~ Berlage's
concern with this question is evident in every line of his work,
and with it a horror of relapsing into the cruel and banal
solutions that guided average practice.
Uncertainty Actually, a real solution of this difficulty was impossible at the
revealed in it moment. Though the garden-city idea had been advanced
a few years earlier, Berlage had perhaps not heard of it. It
was, at any rate, irrelevant to his task: he was planning a
district which was expected to be rather densely populated.
In this period of uncertainty as to the direction town planning
should take, Berlage fell back on the Renaissance system, in
which every major street axis is dominated by some prominent
public building. The dwelling houses which should have given
each section its character are thereby reduced to a mere back-
798
drop. And the centers of force which they frame - markets,
theaters, auditoriums - are located quite arbitrarily. They
form an artificial backbone upon which the whole scheme is
pegged out, and the way in which they are brought into rela-
tion with each other (by patching or building out) suggests a
jigsaw puzzle. Finally, the residences themselves are not well
oriented to human needs; they are not even properly related to
the play of sunshine.
This example may serve to show that in 1900 even the most
progressive minds tended toward an artificial monumentality
- artificial or pseudo because it was used to hide the uncer-
tainty and perplexity with which the organization of a town
was approached, even when carte blanche had been given to
the planner.
Berlage's second scheme for the Amsterdam South region, Second plan, 1915
made in 1915 (fig. 492), merely provided a general framework
for its development. This time the city asked only for a plan
which would cover the broad aspects of any later expansion,
without specifying details of execution. These could be filled
in to satisfy whatever necessities should arise. Berlage was
still given a free hand in his work, and the site was unobstructed
meadow land, cut only by some small irrigation canals.
Berlage's original map for this area (a beautifully executed
drawing) was hung in the office of the Department of Public
\Vorks at Amsterdam. One's first and decisive impression is
derived from the network of streets which appears upon it.
This network is so dominant that at a casual glance one would
suppose the plan to deal with a business center rather than a
quiet residential quarter occupying undeveloped land on the
outskirts of town. The most prominent feature is the enor-
mous Y formed by three streets which lead up from the bank
of the Amstel River. The backbone of the 1915 layout is the
Amstellaan Boulevard, unusually wide for Holland, which
forms the base of the Y.
The Amsterdam South district - especially around the Am-
stellaan (fig. 493)- was built up by the so-called Amsterdam
school some years after World War I. Before his early death,
the leader of this group, de Klerk, played a major part in the
799
492. H. P . BERLAGE. Final plan for Amsterdam South, 1915.
work (fig. 496). During the twenties this section with its uni-
form fa<;ades was the best-known example of the possibility of
making a residential area both attractive and well-adapted to
human living.
The street The Amstellaan does not owe its unusual width and the trees
humanized and greenery down its center to any attempt at traffic control.
Nor did it -like the Boulevard Richard-Lenoir in Paris
(1861-63)- come about as the covering for a canal or any
other break in the ground (fig. 494). Its landscaping was some-
thing more than a tasteful screen for the light shafts and ven-
tilation ducts required to keep the old canal under the Boule-
vard Richard-Lenoir operable. Width and greenery were both
intended to produce a better living space, to give more air and
freedom to the residents (fig. 495). And its fa<;ades are not
used like the doors of a closet to hold in a tangle of houses
jammed together behind them. To the rear of the houses
fronting on the Amstellaan are spacious courtyards, planted
with lawns and shrubs. 2 The 1915 plan as a whole, however,
was not preceded by sufficient research into the housing re-
quirements of the Amsterdam South area. 3
2 It was J. J. P. Oud who, in his Tusschendiyken settlement (1919), first used the in-
terior courtyard as a means of humanizing apartment blocks .
3 Later architects pointed out that this plan- as was usual at the time- pays little
regard to traffic needs. Thus a main artery (Rijn Straat) crosses the Amstellaan just
before the latter opens out into a square.
800
493. Amsterdam South. N orth and South Am s tellaan in th e thirtie:<. Air view.
49-t . Boule nnd Hichard-Lenoir ,

1861 - 6 :~.
Though it is doubtful whether Berlage was familiar with the Berlage's oppo-
garden-city movement in 1902, he flatly rej ected it in 1915. sition to the
garden city
He wrote then that the residential apartment block was the
on Iy serviceable expedient; pending the development of an
original style in architecture which would be capable - as in
earlier periods - of binding together all the individual houses.
Building authorities should regulate streets or parts of streets
instead of single dwellings, so that the streets' unity would in-
clude the residences that were parts of them. "The building
of dwellings is becoming a work of mass production. The
block building must be used again, and to an even greater ex-
tent than formerly , to provide a solution." 4
' The remarks are from the foreword to hi s l9lS scheme, " M cmorie van Toeli chting."
(; emeenleblad l'an Amsterdam. March'! , 191 5.
801
495. Amsterdam South, the Amstellaan. This was one of the first projects in which the
street was dealt with as a unit. It remains, however, essentially the street of the nineteenth
century, though considerably humanized and with garden areas behind the houses.
496. Amsterdam
South, the Amstellaan.
Apartment houses by
de Klerk, 1923. This
district was built up by
the Amsterdam school,
especially by its leader,
de Klerk.
Berlage's reaction not only against the dismal street frontages

common at the time but also against the romantic ideal of the
garden city is easily understandable. In his plans for the dis-
802
trict he proposes as remedies the employment of a unified sur-
face and an arrangement that is quiet and unemphatic. These
are precisely the qualities we find in his Stock Exchange Build-
ing. But at the same time his historical position is made quite
plain. The demand for the erection of whole streets with unified
fronts is a demand for the reinstatement of Haussmann's neu-
tral fa<;ade. In effect, Berlage was trying to regain a historical
level which had passed for good. This attempt, however, left
the atmosphere cleared for new developments.
The streets throughout the Amsterdam South sector are wide
and extensively planted with flowers and trees, handled with
the great pains that the Dutch take in their gardening. This
scheme is much more human and dignified than the night-
marish town planning of the preceding decades. But this
plan, like architecture in the years before 1900, still failed to
arrive at a genuinely contemporary expression based on a new
conception of life. It succeeded only in reforming the streets
and weakening their dominance of the total layout. They
remain streets bordered by residences, and that kind of street
is not the solution to the problems of living in a great city.
This is not to deny that the district possesses a marked gran-
deur; no one can tour the Amsterdam South region without
feeling it. And nowhere else on the Continent at this period
was greenery brought so graciously into combination with
uniform rows of buildings.
Berlage displayed the courage needed to formulate a genuinely
impressive system of streets and to conceive a whole district
of a city as a unit. Individualized house fa<;ades disappeared,
and uniform street walls - treated as surfaces - took their
place. These walls, despite their monumental and much-
censured treatment at the street corners, never completely
surrender their plane effect.
\Vhen we look back at the Arnstellaan from the point of view
of later developments, we perceive that it belongs in the main
line of nineteenth-century town planning: the street dominates
the whole. The Amstellaan, moreover, is representative of the
whole scheme; there is reform but no new conception. 5
' Berlage had a great influence upon the development and increase of town planning in
Holland. He himself planned extensive projects for several Dutch cities: The Hague
803
The General Extension Plan of Amsterdam, 1934
The general extension plan of Amsterdam, 1934, was a collec-
tive achievement carried out by the Department of Public
~Works. It represented the close-knit collaboration of an
entire staff of specialists. The layout of the scheme as a whole
shows signs of an approach similar to that of contemporary
art in its response to the world today. 6
Our main concern is the way in which our age is becoming

conscious of its own nature, and we have therefore largely
avoided technical detail. But it is impossible to understand
the tendencies at work in the inner structure of the Amster-
dam extension plan unless we know the problems that had to
be solved by this scheme.
The general plan (jig. 497) for the future development of the
city, prepared by the Department of Public \Vorks, 7 was based
on a careful correlation of all those factors which determine the
social make-up of a community. All measures proposed had
their foundation in figures that come under the heading of
vital statistics: birth and death rates, immigration and emi-
gration totals, etc. Statistics more difficult to obtain also
entered the planning: calculations of the number of people
who could make their living in the district, the rate and direc-
tion of population changes, and forecasts of the probable course
of the business cycle.
(1908), Rotterdam (1914), and Utrecht (1921). He was responsible for the execution of
some squares of a monumental character- Mercatorplain in Rotterdam, for example.
See the article by K. P. de Bazel in Dr. H. P. Berlage en zihn werk (Hotterdam, 1916), a
symposium produced in honor of Berlage's sixtieth birthday.
6 See the two volumes published by the Amsterdam Department of Public Works, No-
vember 1934: Algemeen uilbreidungsplan. A complete understanding of the scheme and
the methods employed in it can be derived from this publication and the maps which
illustrate it. These volumes should be in the hands of every town planner.
For short references in English, see Town Planning Review (Liverpool), vol. X VII, no. 1
(June 1936), and Archileclural Review (London), vol. LXXXIII (June 1938), "A New
Plan for Amsterdam," by Arthur Korn.
7Ordered by the city, prepared by this public department, and approved as the master
plan for the extension by the Amsterdam City Council. Research, planning, and exe-
cution were in the same hands. The situation was vastly different in some other cities:
New York, for example, where the extensive 1929 regional survey of New York and its
environs was supported by a group of civic-minded private citizens and had no official
character.
804
...
:-"'•...-"'-"" .-··! -:'-·.,.·.•;.~ .• -·.<·-~·····
-.•.tt
805
Vital statistics From a consideration of all these factors it was concluded that
and livelihood population growth in Amsterdam would eventually cease,
statistics though it would continue to increase throughout the century,
up to the 900,000 or 1,000,000 mark. 8 Accordingly, the plan
for the extension of Amsterdam was based on the supposition
that 250,000 additional inhabitants would have to be accom-
modated between 1934 and the close of the century.
Extent of the plan The expansion was directed westwards, toward open land
which required years of preparation to make it fit for building
purposes. The key area was the western edge of the harbor,
and the big industrial plants that lie beyond the docks. The
southern part of the development was a residential area for
workers employed around the dockyards and in the neighbor-
ing industrial plants. At the time there was not sufficient
accommodation for these people within reasonable proximity
of their places of work. This quarter extends to the limits of
Berlage's Amsterdam South district of 1915.
Distribution The general extension plan did not destroy the rural belt
of greenery around the city. The market gardeners on its outskirts were
not dispossessed, and the natural aspect of the Amstel's banks
on the southern boundary was preserved.
In the southwest, great parks - planned with extreme care -
were developed. (One, the magnificent Amsterdam Bosch,
has an area of 2,135 acres, about that of Haussmann's Bois de
Boulogne.) This park system took up land unsuitable for
building purposes and converted it into wooded areas.
The recreational needs of the population were studied in detail.
It was found that people make little use of any parks farther
than a quarter of a mile from their homes. The maximum
distance between any two parks was therefore limited to a
half mile. Such planning is consciously proportioned to the
human scale, to the scale of the promeneur. It moves in the
direction of those "playgrounds at the doorstep" which Le
Corbusier proclaimed as one of the fundamental requirements
in town planning.
8 See D. T. J. Delfgaauw, "A Study of the Future Growth of Population in Amster-
dam," Journal of the Town Planning Institute (London), February 1933, pp. 79-80.
(In 1960 the population was around 870,000.)
806
From the aesthetic point of view, this planning is important
because of its new town structure. The formerly unbroken
spread of dense masses of houses is everywhere broken up by
strips of greenery of various dimensions.
The accommodation of 250,000 additional inhabitants was Major unit of
planned to be carried out by building successive units com- ten thousand
prising ten thousand dwellings (fig. 498). Each dwelling dwellings
provided, on the average, for three and one-half inhabitants.
Methods of forecasting the future needs and composition of its
population were developed very early in Holland. As far
back as 1920, the city of Rotterdam used a carefully differen-
tiated method for accurately determining not only the number
of dwellings needed but the kinds of people who would occupy
them and the sort of dwellings each would require. 9
The decision to provide for three and a half tenants per unit-
dwelling in the Amsterdam extensions was the result of this
sort of research. The planning authority knew what different
categories of tenants had to be housed, as well as their various
needs, and the proportion of each type in the population as a
whole.
The composition of a major unit of ten thousand dwellings
reflected these varying needs. The majority (sixty-five hun-
dred) had two rooms and a kitchen; fifteen hundred had three
rooms, eleven hundred four rooms. Four hundred and fifty
were designed for families with six children, and two hundred
and sixty were especially designed to meet the needs of older
people.
The actual building of these major units was carried out by Municipal control
private enterprise and by cooperative societies alike. The city, over site, ground
however, exercised control over the ground plan and the fa<;ade, plan, and fac;ade
and determined where houses of a given type- two, three, or
four rooms, etc. - were to be located. Both private contrac-
tors and cooperative societies had to build on a site approved by
the city as maintaining the organic unity of the whole unit of
ten thousand dwellings.
Town planning must be controlled by the needs of the people Row-housing basic
who, on the basis of preliminary researches, will make up the
9 See T. K. van Lohuizen, Zwei Jahre Wohnungs-Slalislik in Rotterdam (Berlin, 1922).
807
population of a district. In the Amsterdam extension plan
four-story houses in continuous rows predominated. These
rows, made up of individual apartments with a volume of two
hundred cubic meters, were left open at the ends, not formed
into closed blocks (fig. 498). High buildings, houses of eight
stories, were rare at this time. 10 Single-story houses facing
south were planned for the use of elderly people, following an
old Dutch tradition. The differences in height, location, and
spaces between the housing types established unexpected inter-
relations in the layout.
Execution of the It will help us to gain a notion of the special character of this
extension plan: work if we study some of its smaller units rather carefully.
"Het \Vest en"
How does such a theoretical study work when put into active
practice~
\V e shall take a small part of the Amsterdam West region,

with its various building complexes and the school at their
southern edge. 11 In this quarter the extension plan called for
residential blocks of three and four stories (fig. 499). The
architects (different men were responsible for the various
blocks) proposed an open layout, at right angles to the traffic
thoroughfare (fig. 501). They oriented the blocks in such a
way that space was left in the south, at their open ends, for
the smaller residences of the elderly. This scheme was per-
fectly adapted to the general layout, whose effect is intensified
by the better orientation of the buildings. It is one of the chief
advantages of a flexible general layout that it can easily be
brought into harmony with changed circumstances.
This project, which provided seven hundred apartments for
low-income classes, was erected by several cooperative build-
ing societies. One of them, the "Het Westen" society, built
a group of two hundred and eight apartments designed by the
architects Merkelbach and Karsten in 1937 (fig. 500).
The unit of The architects desired to offer the tenants the greatest possible
the single amount of comfort (fig. 502). The living room was given
dwelling
10 Van Tijen's experience with them at Rotterdam revealed that they did not suit Dutch
habits, and this discouraged their use.

11 For a detailed account, see Tijdschrijt voor volkshuisvesting en stedebouw (Amsterdam).
vol. XVIII, no. 9 (September 1937).
808
498. Amsterdam, master
plan, district Bosch en Lorn-
mer, with detail of model,
1938. A single unit of the
general extension plan. De-
signed for 35,000 inhabitants.
The neighborhood unit shown
in the model makes the most
economical use of open spaces
and greenery.
809
broad French windows at the front, so that the house could
be thrown wide open in the summer time, and to facilitate
moving. The cooperative societies maintain the gardens and
play areas. The whole project gives an impression that the
apartments were designed to meet actual demands. That this
was recognized was clear from the sixteen hundred applica-
tions that poured in for the two hundred and eight apart-
ments when they were opened.
Interrelations of Housing and Activities of Private Life

Housing must offer something more than privacy. It must
provide for access to parks, playgrounds, schools, recreation
centers, stores, and places of business. Such needs have always
been recognized, but the problems they pose have usually been
solved separately and not within a comprehensive system.
Until then town planning had not dealt in any carefully pre-
conceived way with the interrelations between residence and
the other activities. In the Amsterdam 'Vest development the
chaotic methods of the late nineteenth century were discarded
and provision made in advance for such activities, and for
their complex interrelations. And the preliminary research
and calculation resulted in a flexible plan that could be changed
when necessity arose.
The task of the town planner is to avoid mutual interferences
in the various functions of a section, uniting or separating them
as the case may require. Thus he will separate traffic arteries
from residential streets, which may be closed to through traffic
and serve only the housing. He will concentrate stores in one
area and avoid a random dispersion of working places. Schools,
playgrounds, and athletic fields will be so related to the rows of
houses that greenery will penetrate the body of the town to the
greatest extent compatible with its ~conomic life.
Planning such as this results in an alteration of the structure
of the city. The ground plan of the modern house has been
made flexible and informal: the layout of the modern town
tends in the same direction.
Caution in plan- In Holland all measures toward this end have had to be ear-
ning the extension ried through with great caution. Land is very expensive and
810
499. Master plan of Amsterdam West,
proposal for "Het Westen." Such
proposals do not have to be f ollowed ex-
actly. The architect is p ermilled cer-
tain liberties in developing his scheme,
provided it remains L:n harmony with
the larger unit.
~
500. MERKELBACH and KAR-

STEN. Low-cost housing settlement,
Amsterdam West (" Het Westen"),
1937. An element in the 1994 plan as
executed. 1
502. MERKELBACH
and KARSTEN. Low-
cost housing settlement,
"Het Westen." Apart-
ment with living room, two
bedrooms for parents and
children, kitchen, balcony,
and shower. The Dutch
have succeeded in reconcil-
ing very low rentals with a
high standard of living.
The means employed can
be traced back to the careful
utilization of the available
space in J. J. P. Oud's
early apartment blocks m
501. Changes of the master plan by the execu- Rollerdam (1919).
tive architects of "Het Westen."
811
must be used with strictest economy: pile foundations have to
be driven for every house; an elaborate engineering service
has to be maintained; and greenery and open areas require
years of preparatory work. All these factors contribute to
raise the price of land.
In addition, rental rates are fixed at extremely low levels. In
this situation there is no room for free flights of genius; ad-
vance is possible only by one careful step after another.
Dutch experience in such developments is scrupulously collated
and checked with that of contemporary architects in other
countries. The town-planning authority is a clearinghouse for
such data, which are carefully studied and which guide the
layout of the city. Practice has continued to justify the
measures these experts adopted.
It has sometimes been objected that houses in Amsterdam are
too closely massed together, that more open space and greater
individual freedom are needed. The scheme as a whole, how-
ever, operates under circumstances which put a freer layout
beyond the power of the planner. As one of the Amsterdam
officials remarked, "It is not really the architect who makes
these plans - it is society."
The technical The kind of technical staff needed for large-scale urban devel-
and the human opments was first brought together by Haussmann in the
approach
fifties for his transformation of Paris. Since then the tasks
such staffs must deal with have changed. It is not merely en-
gineering works in the service of the population as a whole
that are needed- streets, traffic arteries, parks, sewer sys-
tems, aqueducts, etc. - but ways to facilitate an integrated
life for each individual citizen. The focal point of later devel-
opments was the individual and the interrelation of his ac-
tivities with the total life of the city.
The scheme for the extension of Amsterdam presupposed a
continuance of the city's growth. And the project for human-
izing the city was joined to the belief that all population in-
creases would be included in an expansion of the limits of the
city. No satellite towns were projected. Units of ten thou-
sand dwellings and some thirty-five thousand inhabitants
812
would continue to be joined onto the existing city for as long as
its growth persisted.
In the steady process of realizing this scheme, only conditions
actually in force - and those which calculation established as
most probable in the near future - could be taken into con-
sideration. All measures adopted have been justified by the
later course of events. Life has filled out and diversified the
original plan in the way a river occupies and shapes its bed.
It may be that the range of the popular Dutch traffic vehicle
- the bicycle - constituted a basic unit of scale for the ex-
tension plan, and it might, therefore, prove unsuited to other
countries. Even if this were true the value of what has been
achieved at Amsterdam remains undiminished. It is the
methods employed in these developments and not their specific
successes which are important. There are cities ten times as
large as Amsterdam - cities like London and New York -
which are still far behind it in methods of planning. Attempts
are still being made to restore the sick bodies of these immense
towns by operations performed on isolated subsections. Slum
areas are selected here and there, re-housing is carried through
- and the existing disorder in the city as a whole is simply in-
creased. Research and statistics are not enough in themselves.
They must be backed by vision, by a general understanding of
the course of development today's cities must take.
The plan of Amsterdam involves no attempt at clearing out
slums in the center of the city: it establishes a new town on its
outskirts. And the freedom and flexibility of the scheme are
not hopelessly constricted by the rue corridor or the gridiron
system. The conception of space-time- the basis for a con-
temporary town planning - can already be felt in the 1934
extension plan for Amsterdam.
813
PART IX SPACE-TIME IN CITY PLANNING
Contemporary Attitude toward Town Planning
What is the general attitude of the contemporary town plan-
ner? What does he seek to achieve? From what concepts
does he proceed to his work? Questions such as these are of
the utmost importance in any consideration of our subject.
For town planning is first and foremost a human issue: its
problems are by no means exclusively technical and economic.
It can never be carried on satisfactorily without a clear under-
stflnding of the contemporary conception of life.
Town planning Now here else in architecture do we encounter the influence of
and contemporary the prevailing outlook so strongly as in town planning. Very
life little town planning can be expressed in shapes and structure;
often its participation in a given project can only be felt, an
adumbration without explicit accent. But even when not
visibly defined, it acts to unite the organism which is a town,
much as the hidden skeleton of steel supports the modern
building. Whenever town planning lacks such organic integ-
rity, it must fall back upon artificial expedients, just as a
building of faulty design requires buttresses.
In the future the town planner will need to advance further
and further beyond the limits of the purely technical. The
reconquest of the unity of human life is nowhere more urgent
than in his work. Representative of contemporary attitudes
is the Dutchman C. van Eesteren, 1 who, as chief architect of
the city of Amsterdam, conducted its general extension plan
from 1929 to 1960. From his conversation we may gam a
personal insight into the mind of the town planner.
Van Eesteren' s The town planner, as van Eesteren sees him, is not concerned
idea of the primarily with architecture. Nor does he believe that the town
town planner is essentially either an object of financial speculation or, as in
the Russian formula, one of the instruments of production.
He seeks to discover how the town came into being and how
it has reached its present stage of growth. He wants to know
1 Van Eesteren. who was trained as an architect, decided very early to concentrate upon
town planning. He used a traveling scholarship to establish contacts with the leading
European artists. As we have already noted, he collaborated with Theo van Does-
burg; as a young man, his training under such modern architects as the members of the
Stijl group laid the foundations for his later development.
816
as much as he can of the site (a matter of peculiar importance
in Holland) and of its relations to the surrounding region and
the country as a whole. Above all, he studies the different
categories of people who have to be accommodated, each ac-
cording to his manner of life; he finds out whether they are
young or old, married or single, with few or many children.
He must consider where these people work, the routes traffic
must take, the distance there should be between residential
and industrial sections. He must also establish a control of the
relation between the communications of the city and its living
quarters. He thinks no longer in linear terms of street and
axis, but in terms of population densities. His approach to
the town is conditioned by this population ration, which in the
Amsterdam extension plan, for example, was allowed to range
between llO and 550 inhabitants per hectare.
The task of the town planner is to form plans on the basis of Flexibility of
widespread inquiries, so that they are adjusted to existing contemporary
town planning
conditions and, as far as possible, to those of the future. But
he must not adopt a rigid and definitive system; he must
handle each section in such a way that unforeseen changes
can be met. There must be a vital and mutual relation be-
tween the desired goal and the existing reality, between wishes
and facts. Moreover, he must not attempt to force the func-
tions of residence, work, and leisure into conformity with tight
and final arrangements; he must make only generalized dis-
tributions, leaving their ultimate shape to the interplay of
circumstances. Yet these arrangements cannot be left to de-
velop haphazardly; his aim must be to find the forms best
suited to every special condition. The town planner must
know what functions have to be provided for; his task is to
create a whole out of the existing potentialities and conditions.
The foundation of town planning is our contemporary concep- Conception of
tion of life; without it order cannot be brought into the en or- life the foundation
mous mass of factual material that confronts the planner. of planning
This conception of life is molded and expressed in many
different ways. Modern traffic, for example, educates and
sharpens our sense of space. City-dwellers moving across
congested avenues seem almost to know what is taking place
behind them. This kind of spatia-temporal awareness was
817
unknown in baroque times; it may be a case of the redevelop-
ment of a primitive sense.
The plan of a modern town must be developed in a more com-
plicated way and take account of a tighter net of relations than
ever before. Paper planning in two dimensions - the method
of the last century - will not suffice, nor will the three-dimen-
sional planning of the baroque. The contemporary planner
must take a different approach. A town plan must bring all
constituent elements into a measured and living balance.
·when the planner is seeking, for instance, the proper location
of a cemetery or a market hall, he must be able to go over his
plan with almost tactile perceptiveness, sensing the contrasting
character of its districts as plainly as though they were velvet
or emery beneath his fingers.
In the modern city - only fragments of which have been
realized so far - there exist interrelationships which are more
than merely spatial. These subtle values are the elements on
which the charm of the city and the proper coordination of the
various functions of the community depend. No element -
even the technical and industrial ones - can be allowed to
dominate at the expense of the others. Technical and indus-
trial factors should not complicate development (as in the
nineteenth century), but should help to overcome difficulties.
In this manner the town may pass from a static condition to
the free equilibrium of an organism.
DESTRUCTION OR TRANSFORMATION?
Reasons for Again and again we have tried to point out how in the various
structural change domains of construction, painting, and architecture- all
independent each of the other - there has arisen a certain
identity of method. \Ve have observed that contemporary
architecture can be explaitted in terms either of functions or of
sociological patterns. But such explanations are not enough.
They are intellectual only; they do not comprehend and reveal
the quality of feeling which underlies contemporary architec-
ture. It is the same with town planning. Cities have always,
in every period, been essentially agglomerations of social,
818
political, and economic interests. Consequently, changes in
urban structure have been difficult to realize. Sometimes, as
we well know, they have been forced by independent processes
exerting pressure from the outside. For example, the evolu-
tion in warfare and arms which rendered older cities helpless
against attack forced changes in their structure for the sake of
protection. 1
The contemporary city is more profoundly menaced in all
countries and without exception- not by any outside danger,
but from within, by an evil shaping within itself. This is the
evil of the machine. Because of the confusion of its different
functions, its growing mechanization, the omnipresence and
anarchy of the motorcar, the city is at the mercy of industrial
machines. If it is to be saved, its structure must change. This
change, forced by mechanization just as in other days it was
forced by implements of war, is inevitable, whether it comes
through insight or through catastrophe. The city must be
changed or it will perish, and our civilization with it.
However, here, as when discussing construction and architec-
ture, we wish to deal with the formation of the city in so far as
it is emotionally conditioned, to look for the interrelations
between its structure and the form-giving tendencies of our
time. Resistance to changes in urban structure springs not
only from private interests but also from emotional sources.
Complete freedom in the development of an area is not enough
in itself. Even in countries where the authority of the state
over land use is absolute, planning still proceeds according to
nineteenth-century ideas unless those in power are moved by
later artistic conceptions.
The question arises whether the large city as it has been in- Future of the city
herited from the nineteenth century, with its chaotic inter-
mingling of functions, should not be allowed to die. One
1 Lewis Mumford's The Culture of Cities (New York, 1938), so far as it is concerned
with the change of the structure of the city, is based on social, political, and economic
developments, and points oui especially the influence of arms and defense on the growth
of the city, as does his later work, The City in History (New York, 1963).
A volume prepared under the auspices of the International Congress for Modern Archi-
tecture (Can Our Cities Survive? edited by J. L. Sert, Harvard University Press, 1942)
contains a general analytical survey of the conditions of life in the cities of today based
on the principle formulated by leading town planners of eighteen different countries.
819
opinion is that the metropolis cannot be saved and must be
broken up; the other that, instead of being destroyed, the city
must he transformed in accordance with the structure and
genius of our times.
Proposals for Several suggestions have been made as to how the break-up
decentralization of the city is to be accomplished. Differing as they do in
details, it is significant that they possess one tendency in com-
mon - an urge toward the organic, which has become in-
creasingly strong in our time as a kind of self-protection against
the evils of civilization. The difference between these pro-
posals lies in how this organic development may be realized.
One suggestion is that instead of concentrating the population
in gigantic blown-up agglomerations, the whole country should
be colonized in small tracts of one or two acres. Such a decen-
tralization would change us from city dwellers to country
dwellers living on an independent mechanized farm unit which
would maintain a balance between rural and industrial occu-
pation. This is the complete and conscious destruction of the
idea of the city. It also undermines to a large extent that
differentiation in occupations which has been the basis of our
civilization, for it makes the small, self-sufficient landowner
predominant. Such schemes go back to the doctrines of
Charles Fourier, the most thoroughgoing of the French utopian
economists, who, in opposition to the existing industrial system,
wanted to achieve the fullest development of human nature by
the creation of a social and organic life in which each individual
could find his greatest satisfaction. He envisioned such a life
as a decentralized society in which agriculture would be the
staple industry. Since Fourier developed his ideas in the
twenties of the nineteenth century, many social thinkers have
followed him in an effort to deal with the evils produced by
industrialization. Frank Lloyd \Vright, with his "Broadacre
City," was one of the most vocal among the twentieth-century
theorists. He based his program, as he himself admitted, on
the ideas and experiments of Ralph Borsodi. 2
2 An economic consultant who realized his program of decentralization or "distribut-
ism" by means of small-owner units and mechanized home production (small tractors,
small-scale labor-saving machines, etc.), first in Dayton, Ohio, and after 1935 in Bayard
Lane, near Suffern, N:Y., only an hour's drive from New York City. See John Cham-
berlain, "Blueprints for a New Society: Borsodi and the Chesterbelloc," New Republic,
820
There is no doubt that self-sufficient units have a proper place
in economic life, but there is also no doubt that this primitive
form of society cannot replace that differentiated organization
which, whatever the political system, is basic to our culture.
It would change the country into a forlorn hybrid, something
neither rural nor yet urban, but with the limitations of both.
In any case, a proposal to parcel the inhabitants out in small
communities, with agriculture the staple industry, is com-
pletely out of scale with the problems which today demand
solution.
The opposing point of view - that the city must be trans- Transformation
formed but need not be destroyed - likewise holds that men of the city
cannot be separated from nature, and consequently that the
city cannot continue to exist in its present form. But it imme-
diately points out that the city is more than a contemporary
and passing phenomenon. It is a product of many differenti-
ated cultures, in many different periods. Thus the question of
its life or death cannot be settled simply on the basis of present-
day experience or conditions. The city cannot be damned to
extinction merely because it has been misused since indus-
trialization or because its whole structure has been rendered
impotent by the intrusion of a technical invention, the motor-
car. The question has to be considered from a broader view
and extended into other queries: Are cities connected with
every sort of society and civilization~ Did urban agglomera-
tions simply arise, first for defense and later for production, or
is the institution of the city a profound need of man himself~
Are cities a temporary phenomenon, a stage in development,
the difficulties of which we have to overcome by means of
mechanical inventions, radio, television, the motorcar, and
the like~ Or are they an eternal phenomenon based on the
contact of man with man despite the interference of mechani-
zation~
Those who hold that the present state of the metropolis is in-
human and cannot continue are preeminently right. The only
January l, 1940. Borsodi's book, This Ugly Civilization (New York, 1929), is an attack
upon the entire factory and industrial system. In his Flight from ihe City (New York,
1933) Borsodi tells of his experience with the self-sufficient small community, which
performs all functions from canning food to making cloth.
821
question is whether this means the end of the city as such.
Can the unworkable disorder of today's giant cities be elimi-
nated without destroying the institution itself? Those who be-
lieve that the city has been a component of every succeeding
human civilization see its existence menaced if its whole struc-
ture cannot be brought into harmony with the needs and
requirements of present-day life. Clearly, small means are of
no aid; they serve merely- and in this Frank Lloyd \Vright
was quite correct - to prolong its existence artificially without
offering.any real hope of recovery. Nothing positive can be
accomplished by sowing the streets with more and more traffic
lights or by clearing slums and simply erecting new buildings
on the same sites. Destroying all the slums in existence will
not make the city any less unworkable than it is today.
\Vhen Haussmann undertook the transformation of Paris, he
slashed into the body of the city - as a contemporary ex-
pressed it - with saber strokes. Cleanly he drew the blade,
cutting keen, straight thoroughfares through the congested
districts, solving his traffic problems by single daring thrusts.
In our period even more heroic operations are necessary. The
first thing to do is to abolish the rue corridor with its rigid lines
of buildings and its intermingling of traffic, pedestrians, and
residences. The fundamental constitution of the contempo-
rary city requires the restoration of liberty to all three- to
traffic, to pedestrians, and to residential and industrial quar-
ters. This can be accomplished only by separating them.
Haussmann's endless streets belonged not only in their archi-
tectural features but also in their very conception to the artistic
vision born of the Renaissance: optical perspective. Today we
must deal with the city from a new aspect, dictated by the
advent of the automobile, based on technical considerations,
and belonging to the artistic vision born out of our period -
space-time.
The residential Cities have to be modeled around human needs. Human
structure rights must be restored. From our architectural inheritance
comes the tradition of placing large groups of buildings in
natural surroundings, a tradition that extends from the Ver-
sailles of Louis XIV to the London squares. In Haussmann's
Paris of 1850 functions of traffic and housing were inter-
822
mingled, in contrast to the London squares, where it was
wisely remembered that in his residence man needs quietude
and the companionship of growing things. Contemporary
architecture and city planning revive the old demand that men
should not be separated from the great outdoors, from nature.
How is this to be accomplished~ How can we realize the eter-
nal law of urban life, that cities must be more than masses of
stone, that they must be joined to the living soil, either by
their small scale, as in 'the Middle Ages, or by an intermingling
with greenery, as in the late baroque~
In our brief outline of the attitude of the contemporary town
planner, we stated as a fundamental requirement that town
planning must consider the prevailing conception of life and
its expression through contemporary artistic means. An
overriding unity unconsciously underlies all technical, engi-
neering, social, and aesthetic problems.
THE NEW SCALE IN CITY PLANNING
The American Parkway in the Thirties

\Ve found that in the nineteenth century construction was
ahead of architecture in expressing, often unconsciously, the
true constituent forces of the period. The engineer has often
been nearer to future developments than the town planner,
who has too frequently been concerned exclusively with the
reorganization of the body of the city itself. The American
parkways as they developed in the early nineteen twenties and
thirties - coincident, by the way, with the flowering of con-
temporary architecture in Europe - revealed in their whole
treatment the fact that they were one of the elements of the
contemporary town, one of those born out of the vision of our
period.
The definition of "parkway" has never been exactly estab- What is a
lished. 1 The "definite legal definition of a parkway," as parkway?
1 Professor Hubbard commented on this confusion of definition in his Parkways and Land
Values (Cambridge, 1937), vol. XI of Harvard City Planning Studies: "What is a park-
way? How does it differ from a boulevard or an avenue, or a highway beautified with
trees? These terms ... have been so loosely applied and have crystallized by custom as
823
H. V. Hubbard pointed out, "is an attenuated park with a
road through it. That is, a parkway is primarily for traffic,
but mostly or exclusively for pleasure traffic." 2 In this sense
the parkway is not new. 3 But considered in relation to the
contemporary city, the modern parkway, as developed in
America in the early thirties, is clearly different from that of
the normal legal definition. As an element of the future town
it restored the rights both of traffic and of the pedestrian; it
harmonized the functions of both; in separating them definitely
from one another, it gave full freedom to each. Out of this
separation came the fundamental law of the parkway -
that there must be unobstructed freedom of movement, a flow
of traffic maintained evenly at all points without interruption
or interference. To secure this steady flow, no direct crossing
was permitted, nor had the owners of abutting property the
right of direct access: at intersections the conflicting or con-
verging lines were organized separately through the use of
overpasses and cloverleaves of connecting roads. It is inter-
esting to note that, whether by tradition or coincidence, the
earliest parkways were created in the same area as the large
parkway systems of the thirties - in New York. About 1858, 4
America's great landscape architect, the elder Olmsted, in his
plan for Central Park in New York provided underpasses for
vehicular cross traffic, cutting his roadbed through rock (fig.
503).
Parkway and Up to this point the parkway may be said to be identical with
terrain the European autostrade, the highway without grades. But it
was not, like certain Continental highways, laid out for mili-
tary purposes, driven rigidly through the country in danger-
the names of such different things in different places, that nothing but specific local
knowledge will make it safe to apply to a 'parkway' in one town what has been learned
about a parkway in any other town" (p. xii).
2 Ibid., p. xii.
3 The green belt by which Haussmann intended in the sixties to surround Paris and to
connect the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes, the boulevards linking the
south park system in Chicago in the early nineties, the layout of park-like drives in
Minneapolis by Professor Cleveland in 1883 - all these belong in the category of park-
ways. The device of passing one road under another to avoid the confusion of cross
traffic, commonly applied to railways and even to overcrossing streets, was an established
practice in the nineteenth century.
4 Third Annual Report of the Board of Commiss1:oners of the Central Park (New York,
1860).
824
ously straight lines. Nor was it, like a railway, built to provide
the most direct and rapid transit. Instead it humanized the
highway by carefully following and utilizing the terrain, rising
and falling with the contours of the earth, merging completely
into the landscape. 5 The road was laid into the countryside,
grooved into it between gentle green slopes blending so natu-
rally into the contiguous land that the eye cannot distinguish
between what is nature and what the contribution of the land-
scape architect. In the middle, separating the opposing move-
ments of traffic, were garden strips, widening and contracting
as the course of the road required. Sometimes the traffic lanes
flowed together in approaching a bridge, joined as they passed
under, and then separated again, drawing apart to restore the
landscaped spaced between them. Air views show the great
sweep of these early highways, the beauty of their align-
ment, the graceful sequence of their curves, but only at the
wheel of the automobile could one feel what they really meant
- the liberation from unexpected light signals and cross traffic,
and the freedom of uninterrupted forward motion, without the
inhuman pressure of endlessly straight lines pushing one on to
dangerous speeds. Confidence was given the driver by the
way the road fitted into the earth between its sloping sides and
by the dividing green and wooded strips which afforded
protection against the hazards of contrary traffic. Yet he was
held to a reasonable speed limit by the adaptation of the road-
bed to the structure of the country, by its rise and fall, the
smooth swing of its curves, its clear open runs before creeping
under a cross highway or bridge. Freedom was given to both
the driver and car. Riding up and down the long sweeping
grades produced an exhilarating dual feeling, one of being
connected with the soil and yet of hovering just above it, a
feeling like nothing else so much as sliding swiftly on skis
through untouched snow down the sides of high mountains
(figs. 504, 505). 6
5 It is probably no accident that several branches of the first complete parkway system
in Westchester County (1913-25), just north of New York City, followed the courses of
rivers. See Jay Downer, "Principles of Westchester's Parkway System," Civil Engi-
neering, IV (1934), 85; Stanley W. Abbott, "Ten Years of the Westchester County Park
System," Parks and Recreation, XVI (March 1933), 307 ff.
6 The Merritt Parkway, continuing the Hutchinson River Parkway from New York
through Connecticut, opened 1939, is a masterpiece of organic layout. The State High-
825
503. F. L. OLMSTED. Overpass in Central Park, New York City, 1858. This early
employment of the overpass by Olmsted, the great American landscape architect, had little
influence. Only the traffic confusion of recent times has forced its adoption.
In other sections the parkways, in technical contrast, crossed

rivers and islands by great links of bridges with broad drives
leading up to them (fig. 506). These bridges, their mounting
drives, and the modern sculpture of numberless single or triple
cloverleaves proved that the possibilities of a great scale were
inherent in our period. As with many other creations born out
of the spirit of this age, the meaning and beauty of the park-
way cannot be grasped from a single point of observation, as
was possible when from a window of the chateau of Versailles
the whole expanse of nature could be embraced in one view. It
can be revealed only by movement, by going along in a steady
flow as the rules of the traffic prescribe. The space-time feel-
ing of our period can seldom be felt so keenly as when driving,
way Commissioner was authorized to undertake a layout of the route in 1931. Unfor-
tunately, as in most other parkways, the architectonic detail used to embellish the over-
passes is much below the high level of the scheme.
826
Merritt Parkway, Connecticut, 1939. A masterpiece of organic layout exempltjy-
ing the arrangement of the parkway - adaptation of the roadbed to lhe structure of the coun-
try, careful alignment of traffic lanes, separation of vehicular from all pedestrian traffic,
and overpasses at junctions.
505. Merritt Park-

way, Connecticut,
with overpass.
827
506. Randall's Island, cloverleaf, with approach to Triborough Bridge, New York
City, 1936. Such bridges, with broad drives leading up to them and the modern sculpture of
numberless single or triple cloverleatJes, prOtJed that the possibilities of a great scale were in-
herent in our period. Expressive of the space-lime conception both in structure and handling
of movement.
828
507. "The Pretzel," intersection of Grand Central Parkway, Grand Central Parkway
Extension, Union Turnpike, Interboro Parkway, and Queens Boulevard, New York
City, 1936- 37. One of the most elaborate and highly organized solutions of the problem
of division and crossing of arterial traffic in the thirties.
829
508. West Side development, including Henry Hudson Parkway, 1934-37. The park-
ways of the thirties could not penetrate the city, but c.ould only go along its boundaries. Thus
the Henry Hudson Parkway, leading down from the northern suburbs as a continuation of
the Westchester park system, followed the Hudson River side of Manhattan almost to the tip
of the island.
the wheel under one's hand, up and down hills, beneath over-
passes, up ramps, and over giant bridges.
It was Chicago that in the late eighties introduced the new The parkway
potentialities in architecture. To New York in turn must go and the city
credit for the creation of the parkway. More than three hun-
dred miles of parkways were constructed in the metropolitan
area before World War II. At first they all ended at the
outskirts of the city. One of them, the Henry Hudson. Park-
way (1934-37), a continuation of the \Vestchester park system,
was extended for thirteen miles down the west side of Man-
hattan, almost to the tip of the island (fig. 508). On the other
side the Long Island system, of which the Northern State
Parkway (1931-34) is the main artery, continued through
open spaces, along and over rivers and through parks to the
eastern entrances of Manhattan (fig. 507). 7 From here the
East River Drive runs beside the river to the southern tip of
Manhattan where it meets the Hudson Parkway (fig. 508).
Thus, two parkways circumscribe the entire peninsula of
Manhattan. These are the only routes that permit one to
move faster than by using the subways from a point on the
east or west of Manhattan to a point on the opposite side or
from the \Vall Street area to the southern tip of the peninsula.
This great circumferential parkway with several new recrea-
tion centers and their linking highways constitutes the fore-
runner of the city on a new scale.
But the problem of the city itself was scarcely touched. At
that time the parkway ended where the massive body of the
city began. It was not able to penetrate the city because the
city remained an inflexible structure, tightly bound within
itself and immovable. Robert Moses, then Commissioner of
Parks of New York, who showed in his work for parks and
park ways the enthusiasm and energy of Haussmann, pointed
out that when his program was being carried through, "plan-
ners were producing one scheme after another for taking care
of the traffic within the citv limits," all of them to no effect.
"
"Some were impractical, others over-elaborate, and others
proposed such costly rights of way that they had to be tossed
7 By the great Centr:~l Park extension (1937) and the Triborough Bridge (1936).
831
out of the window." 8 The parkway is not an isolated traffic
lane independent of the organism of the city. It simply has a
different scale from that of the existing city with its rues
corridors and its rigid division into small blocks. Improve-
ments in access to the city can accomplish very little. It is
the actual structure of the city that must be changed.
Why can the parkway be called an element of the new form of

the city~ It fulfills a fundamental law of the nascent city: it
separates the intermingled functions of vehicular and pedes-
trian traffic. At the same time it delivers a death blow to the
notion that the highway is an isolated track running through
the countryside but unrelated to it. It was conceived as part
of its surroundings, as a part of nature. Perhaps most impor-
tant of all, regulations govern all construction along its borders,
limiting the number of gasoline service stations or restricting
them to side roads, and prohibiting all residences, business
houses, and factories. 9 Property owners have learned that
their civil rights are not infringed when they are not allowed
direct access to the parkway, and recognize its usefulness in a
wider sense to them as well as to the community. Only when
the same truth is recognized by the population at large will it be
possible to attack the chaotic state of the cities. Finally, the
parkway is the forerunner of the first necessity in the develop-
ment of the future city: the abolition of the rue corridor. There
is no longer any place for the city street with its heavy traffic
running between rows of houses; it cannot possibly be per-
mitted to persist. And the parkway was the first demonstra-
tion of a clear separation of traffic and housing. It looks ahead
to the time when, after the necessary surgery has been per-
formed, the artificially swollen city will be reduced to its
normal size. The parkway was the forerunner of the urban
highway which, properly designed and properly located, can
weld the automobile and lines of traffic into the actual organ-
ism of the city, so that they are a constituent element of the
whole. They can pass through the city as the early parkways
8 Robert Moses, "The Comprehensive Parkway System of the New York Metropolitan
Region," Civil Engineering, IX, no. 3 (March 1939), 160.

9 The ribbon development of houses and factories erected along new highways, espe-
cially in England, has had a disastrous effect on the countryside.
832
passed through the landscape, as flexible and informal as the
plan of the American home itself.
High-rise Buildings in Open Space

Both those who believe that the city will disappear and those
who try to preserve it by changing its structure agree that the
intricate disorder of the present day cannot continue, that man
cannot live forever on asphalt. In Europe, the projects of
those who were making creative efforts to find a solution for
the problems of contemporary urbanism revealed a faith in the
continued existence of the city. But they showed that, in
order to achieve the placement of living quarters amidst green-
ery in densely populated districts, which is imperative, there
must be a concentration of groups of high buildings standing
in parks or, at any rate, in open spaces. Only by such means
can the distances necessary for light and air between buildings
be secured. Thus the basic principle on which these men
worked was to condense large numbers of dwelling units into
high buildings so as to gain free open spaces that could be used
as gardens and recreation grounds.
There appeared in Germany during the early twenties pro- Slablike housing
posals for slablike eight- to twelve-story residential blocks units
standing at considerable distances from one another, yet hav-
ing at the same time a density of population equal to that of
lower blocks placed close together on the same area.
This type (fig. 509), which was first conceived by Walter
Gropius and Marcel Breuer, 10 proved an important factor in
changing the structure of the existing city. It involved break-
ing up the solid rows of houses along the street into units
placed at right angles to the public road and parallel to each
1oIt was first introduced to the public in a scheme of Marcel Breuer's on the occasion of
a competition in low-cost housing conducted by an architectural journal (Bauwelt, 1924).
Such buildings became popular through the careful research and comparative studies of
Walter Gropius, especially his work in the large competition for a low-cost housing
project for three thousand dwellings at Haselhorst near Berlin in 1929. His entry
showing three different projects- for low, medium, and high houses- won first prize,
with its comparison by means of layouts and calculations of the respective effectiveness
of each. He proved that the best conditions of light and economy of construction are
achieved when the same number of dwelling units are built in twelve-story blocks rather
than in two- or five-story units. Cf. Walter Gropius, "Das Ergebnis des Reichsfor-
schungswettbewerbes," Bauwelt, 1929, no. 8, pp. 158 If.
833
~ii"slchfaus·socr····-············-···· ----··········· --·- __jL_ -·- ...... ... --· .... .... ··--·······J
509. W ALTEH GROPICS. Slablike block units, 1930. This type of slab/ike block was
proposed in Germany about 1924 in parallel rows. These slab/ike blocks achieved more open
space at the same density as the customary three- to ji11e-story closely packed buildings.
510. WALTEH GHOPIUS. Model for the settlement " Haselhorst," Berlin, 1929.
One of the studies in which slab/ike buildings were used in experimental form and to a lim ited
extent. Such German layouts of the twenties had their effect on the extension plan of Amster-
dam of 1934.
other, facing onto landscaped areas between them. The first

realization of this sort of slablike apartment house was built
in Rotterdam about 1934, when the Dutch architect W. van
Tijen built two blocks nine and ten stories high, for low-cost
apartments of two and three rooms. These are located in
834
511. W . VAN TIJEN. The Plaslaan, H.otterda m, 1937-3H. Situated near parks and
an artificial lake, this slablike unit was surrounded by a large amount of open space, fore-
shadowing the form of the city of the future.
different parts of the outskirts of Rotterdam in districts where

the existing buildings were not more than two or three stories
high. The first one, the Bergpolder (1933- 34), is a steel skele-
ton and was built in a densely populated district. The Plas-
laan (1937-38; fig. 511) was situated near parks and an artifi-
cial lake, surrounded by a large amount of open space, much
as we imagine the town of the future could be. Such slablike
buildings (jig. 510) were also shown in the extension plan of
Amsterdam (1934).
835
I 11 111
-=,
L..l..-l:l:-J 1
II
512. Apartment house at

Highpoint, London, by the
Tecton group, 1936-38. To a
certain extent similar to the
slab/ike block unit, this build-
ing, on a luxurious scale, rep-
resents at the same time a
return to the English tradition
of placing large houses within
extensive pleasure grounds.
About the same time Le Corbusier used the slablike block

for one of his most gracious and human town-planning schemes
-the small colonial town of Nemours in Morocco, where the
blocks are freely located on a slope. Similar slablike blocks
were built on a luxurious scale in England at Highpoint,
London (fig. 512), by the Tecton group (1936-38). The High-
point project recaptured the old English tradition of the house
surrounded by and in immediate connection with a private
park.
Such slender apartment buildings encountered great opposi-
tion at the time. The reason was that their form was expres-
sive of a new space conception. For the first ten years, their
light, open quality seemed very strange to a public accustomed
to massive, earth-bound residential blocks.
Lacking the heavy massing of customary buildings, they ap-
peared unsubstantial to people able to respond only to solid
836
volumes. Thus they met an emotional resistance which was
responsible for their slow acceptance. It is quite under-
standable that political opposition prevented Gropius' four
high-rise slabs at \Vannsee (Berlin, 1931)- with their roof
terraces, restaurant, and terrace gardens on the seventh story
- from being built. 11 If built, they would have shown the
livability of this form of dwelling. In spirit they are the fore-
runners of Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation in Marseille
(1947-52), though they lack his imaginative plastic handling.
\Vhen Gropius went to England in 1935 he worked with Max-
well Fry on an interesting project. An old estate belonging
to the Duke of Gloucester, in the vicinity of ~Windsor Castle,
was to be developed for housing. As usual, the preliminary
plan had divided the estate up into small plots for single-
family houses, quite destroying the "grand seigneur" aspect of
the park-like landscape. As with the Wannsee project, Gro-
pius' alternative high-rise project which preserved the free
parkland remained on paper .12
By around 1960 the high-rise apartment slab had become ac-
cepted all over the world. In exceptional cases the tall build-
ings form a spatial relationship with lower blocks and thus
become integrated into the urban scene. Their widespread
distribution has meant however that they have usually been
erected in isolation. Like the garden-city idea, they have led
to a breaking up of the countryside.
Another solution for the problem of highly populated districts Zigzag blocks
- the use of zigzag blocks (maisons a redents) - was worked (maisons a
redents)
out by Le Corbusier. In 1922, his scheme for a "Contem-
porary City of 3,000,000" was exhibited in the Salon d'Au-
tomne in Paris. An adaptation of this project to Paris, the
so-called Plan Voisin, was exhibited in his Pavilion de l'Esprit
Nouveau in 1925, and the idea was further developed in his
book La Ville radieuse (Bologne, 1935). In these schemes,
maisons a redents- apartment slabs about a hundred and
fifty feet high, with glass walls, and standing on pillars - zig-
zag across green areas. All schemes shared a clear separation
11 SeeS. Giedion, Gropius, Work and Teamwork (New York, 1954), p. 81.
12 Ibid., pp. 206-207.
837
of traffic from pedestrians and of the residential sectors from
the center of the city, which was composed of business offices
in cruciform skyscrapers.
Le Corbusier designed schemes for the reorganization of cities
all the way from Moscow and Stockholm to Rio de Janeiro,
sometimes being magnificiently inspired by the site of a par-
ticular city - as, for example, Algiers, for which he proposed
513. Skyscraper apartment houses in open space near Lake Michigan, Chicago, c . 1929.
The baroque desire to surround the human dwelling with greenery is urgenlly desirable in
our period. These high-rise apartments, built before the depression of 1929, have a view of
Lake Michigan and are surrounded by open space.
roads and buildings on a daring combination of levels utilizing

the natural contours of the land. 13 But always his thought
swung back to Paris; again and again he returned to that city
with radically new ideas.
ilot insalubre, In his project for Paris, 1937, Le Corbusier showed how the
no. 6 new scale of town planning could work in the reorganization of
'' See pp. 159-161.
838
residential areas. Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret concen-
trated on a section in the east of Paris in the Faubourg Saint-
Antoine, designated by officials as an Uot insalubre, 14 an un-
healthy area. Their plans united for the first time a solution
of the traffic problem with a solution of slum clearance. Their
scheme could have been realized immediately because it elim-
514. LE CORBlJSIER. Skyscraper amidst greenery; project for Buenos Aires, 1929.
What in the case of the Chicago apartment houses was perhaps owing to local economic
circumstances is here proposed as a principle.
inated only the old street system within the boundaries of the
section, replacing it by free-standing building groups of about
the height of the early Chicago skyscrapers of the eighties. 15
14Le Corbusier discussed his idea in Des Canons des Munitions? (Paris, 1938), pp. 67-82.
15Their height set the density of the district. The density Le Corbusier favored was
about eight hundred persons per hectare, which seems rather too high for the city of the
future. It may be observed that in most European projects of that period, especially
in those of Le Corbusier, there persisted a belief that the existing level of population
would remain the same, an optimism which is not in accordance with later observations.
839
These buildings \Vere disposed freely in green spaces. Their
long wings turned at angles according to the demands of the
site and their orientation to the sun. At the end of our dis-
cussion of the London squares we referred to John Nash's
unexecuted scheme of 1812 for the Regent's Park housing
development, with its advancing and receding building groups
which cannot be embraced in a single glance, as a premonition
of twentieth-century developments. \Ve had in mind projects
like Le Corbusier's tlot insalubre, no. 6 (figs. 515~ 516).
The large zigzag apartment buildings stand on pillars so that

the ground is left free for the pedestrian. The open space
rescued by this concentration of high buildings is used for
landscaping, nurseries, cinernas, and sports. Even the twelve
per cent of the ground covered by the buildings is available
for recreation, and their flat roofs are also transformed into
playgrounds and solaria such as he first realized magnificently
in the Unite d'Habitation, 1947-52.
Cnite The individual apartments are of various sizes. As in one of

d'Habitation, the rare projects of Frank Lloyd \Vright for a skyscraper
1947-52 apartment building in 1929, they are duplex apartments, each
two stories in height with an internal stairway. Room heights
follow the old human scale of approximately seven feet which
Le Corbusier found constant in rural houses all the way from
Switzerland to the Greek islands. In other parts of the units
the space is undivided, extending to its full height of fourteen
feet.
The Unite d'Habitation is more complex than Le Corbusier's

early project for the /lot insalubre, no. 6, since its apartments
have a double orientation and are approached by a central
corridor (fig. 326). But the Unite still comes into the category
of a high-rise slab. Since it was built, Le Corbusier erected a
number of other unites such as those in Nantes-Rese, 1952-53,
and Berlin, 1956-58. The sociologist P. Chombart de Lauwe
has used the unites at Marseille and Nantes to make studies of
the interrelationships between a building and its inhabi-
tants.16
16 P. Chombart de Lauwe, Famille et Habitation, 2 vols. (Paris, 1960).
840
515. LE CORBUSIER. Plan
for "Hot insalubre, no. 6,"
1937. This large-scale slum
clearance project, with its open
spaces and concentration on slab-
like buildings, was never realized.
516. LE CORBUSIER. "Ilot

insalubre, no. 6," zigzag apart-
ment blocks.
841
Freedom for the Pedestrian
Though Le Corbusier's early projects for a city of high-rise
apartment blocks may now appear unsympathetically uniform,
two matters are highly significant. These tall slabs never grow
along the borders of narrow city streets, but always stand as
sculptural entities surrounded by free space. (It is possible
that this freedom was in conscious opposition to the congested
Manhattan skyscrapers of the same period.) The second
important contribution of these early projects is the deliberate
separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic.
In his models of the Plan Voisin shown at the Paris Exhibition
of 1925 and in his Uot insalubre plan for Paris of 1937, Le
517. LE CORBUSIER. Entry in the international competition for replanning the

center of Berlin, 1961. The whole length of Unler den Linden becomes a pedestrian prom-
enade.
842
Corbusier showed all rapid traffic routes spanning the area on
long viaducts. A quarter of a century later, in his entry for
the international competition for the rebuilding of the center
of Berlin, 1961, he also proposed an unhindered tract along the
entire length of Unler den Linden (fig. 517). But this time it
was the pedestrians, not the cars, that were given the right of
way under the open sky, undisturbed by the fumes and turmoil
of rushing traffic.
Le Corbusier's 1937 dream of an elevated express highway
running from east to west through Paris was too difficult to
realize. This is not because it was too extreme. It was not so
far ahead of its time as Haussmann's percement of the city;
indeed, it was a parallel to Haussmann's projects, being simply
an adjustment to later requirements. But circumstances had
changed. It is a curious coincidence that the width of Le
Corbusier's proposed expressway was the same (a hundred and
twenty meters) as Haussmann's broadest street, the Avenue
Foch, which, as we pointed out earlier, Haussmann had made
three times as wide as the architect proposed. \Vhen Hauss-
mann was transforming Paris, he once remarked bitterly that
no architects were living to match the "temps nouveaux."
In the Paris of almost a century later the situation seemed to
be just the contrary: there were architects, but no directing
officials equal as Haussmann was to the opportunities and
needs of the period.
It rests with the instincts of the ruling class to select the right
designers for major projects. Since the early nineteenth cen-
tury the quality of those responsible for the government of
cities and countries has sunk to dismally low levels. It is rare
to find a man such as Claudius Petit who, when Minister
of Reconstruction in France, was able to push through the
erection of Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation in Marseille
(which was conceived as an integrated element of a new resi-
dential quarter). ~When he became mayor of Firminy, in the
center of France, Claudius Petit again called on Le Corbusier's
services to prepare plans for the extension of this small indus-
trial city. A stadium, with which Le Corbusier had wished to
incorporate a youth hostel and a Unite d'Habitation had been
built before Le Corbusier's death, the latter with parking for
843
three hundred cars, partly underground. Le Corbusier also
designed a church (1963), li whose hyperparabolic form is rem-
iniscent of the tower of the Chandigarh Parliament Building.
The use of a new and larger scale in town planning which would
coincide with the scale of a parkway system is still an impera-
tive necessity for the creation of the city of the future. This
scale is closely connected with the space-time conception of
our period.
The Ci1•ic Center: Roclwfeller Center, 1931-39

The great cities of the future \Yill contain civic centers, public
places which, like the agora of Athens, the Roman forum, and
the medieval cathedral square, will form a community focus and
popular concourse. The first major civic center in which large
buildings stand in a many-sided relationship to one another
was the Rockefeller Center in Ne\Y York, 1931-39, 'vvith later
extensions (fig. 518). The activities of the center are concen-
trated in high-rise buildings which express the highly differen-
tiated requirements of contemporary social life. These build-
ings are freely disposed in space and enclose an open area, the
Rockefeller Plaza, which is used as an ice-skating rink through-
out the winter. Around 1940 such a development was a rare
exception. ~When considering the new conceptions of our
period we very seldom have the opportunity of referring to a
completed building.
Rockefeller Center first consisted of a group of fourteen build-
ings in the heart of Manhattan between Fifth and Sixth
avenues and Forty-eighth and Fifty-first streets. Its area of
almost three city blocks (around twelve acres) was cut out
from New York's checkerboard grid. Since then several other
buildings have been added. All buildings are organized in
17 See Le Corbusier, CEuvre complPte, VI I, 130-139.
518. H.ockefeller Center, 'lew York City, 1931-39. Air view. The mrious buildings
spread out like the vanes of a windmill from the highest (R.C.A. Building). Their slab/ike
form represents a revoli against the former type of skyscraper which imitated a Gothic tower
or an upward extension of the traditional jour-story block, without considering new condi-
tions and consequences.
845
what was then a completely new and independent manner. It
introduced for the first time into a contemporary city the larger
scale of the parkways and other great engineering works. Its
buildings were conceived as a coordinated unit and introduced
new and original plastic elements.
Plastic elements First, let us consider what these plastic elements are and what
of Rockefeller they involve architecturally. In Chicago the office buildings
Center
of the eighties, with their fifteen to twenty stories, had dignity,
strength, and scale. They were so organized as to provide
light everywhere, often in an open plan with aU-shaped inner
court. 18 The early New York skyscrapers had none of these
qualities. They lacked scale, dignity, and strength, becoming
simply towers rising to extreme heights. Louis Sullivan, who
created some cf the purest examples of what should have been
followed in later developments, pointed out that "the archi-
tecture of lower New York became hopelessly degraded in its
pessimistic denial of our art and our civilization." \Vhere the
New York skyscrapers went astray was in the exaggerated
use of high towers with an intricate mixture of pseudo-histori-
cal reminiscences and a ruthless disregard of their immediate
surroundings, as well as of their effect on the entire structure
of the city.
After passage of the New York zoning law of 1916, the chaotic
state of building development was somewhat .reduced by the
use of the setback and the application of other zoning regula-
tions, but fundamentally no real order was achieved until an
entirely new architectonic form started to be explored: a
structure adapted to the requirements of unusual height and
its internal consequences. This change did not come about
until nearly four decades after the birth of the skyscraper.
How this new form developed step by step, in various cities,
cannot be outlined here. 19 \Ve can only note the emergence of
the new form of the skyscraper in the R.C.A. Building of
IS Cf. the ground plan of the Marquette Building (1891), fig. 2:~0.
19Steps on the way to this overthrow of the tyranny of the tower, with its medieval
echoes, are, for example, the Civic Opera House in Chicago (1928-29), by Graham,
Probst, and \Vhite, three slablike wings, )·et without any new spatial relationships; and
the Daily News Building in Chicago, by Holabird and Hoot (1929), with its blunt, obtuse
T-shaped plan in the upper stories.
846
519. The slablike skyscraper: R.C.A. Building, Rockefeller Center, New York,
1931-32. Seventy stories and 850 feet high, this slab is based on the principle of 27 feet of
lighting depth to give optimum workihg conditions around a core containing the elevators
and service space.
520. R.C.A. Building, Rockefeller Center. Floor plan.

1931-32 (fig. 519), whose immediate forerunner was Raymond
Hood's Daily Mail Building in New York, 1930.
"Its huge, bro~d, flat north and south fronts, its almost
unbroken mass and its thinness," according to the New York
City Guide of 1939, are the features that impelled observers to
nickname it 'the Slab."' 20 This slab stands on its site like an
immense upturned rectangle~ a form impossible of realiza-
tion in any other period. The shape grew naturally from the
purely technical and economic considerations of how to give
normal lighting to every spot of usable space. Raymond Hood
explained the design thus: "Grouped in the center are the
elevators, and the service facilities, and surrounding them on
each floor we have stretched the 27 ft. of lighted space that
experience has proved is the maximum to be allowed to provide
adequate light and air to all parts of the building." 21 The
result ~ an immense slab born out of mathematical calcula-
tions for utilizing ground and space to the best advantage ~
is a form proper to our age. It employs the same basic element
as that used by a cubist painter in his hovering planes or by
an engineer like Maillart in building bridges out of concrete
slabs, all achieving solutions which would not have been pos-
sible with other means. The skyscraper slab form is as signifi-
cant and expressive for its period as the monolithic obelisk of
Egypt and the Gothic cathedral tower were for their periods.
The walls The walls of the R.C.A. Building rise up unbroken eight hun-
dred and fifty feet. In such a dimension the architectural form,
when it is not spoiled by details inappropriate to the large
scale, is not of decisive importance. Its strength and power
are expressed by the curtain walls, whose windows are reduced
to mere grooves like ribbing in the texture of a fabric.
Even the staggered setbacks of the curtain walls were at least
in part justified, as Hood explained, by practical considera-
tions. "\Ve have," he said, "carried the principle [of providing
light and air to all parts of the building] to its logical conclu-
20 Federal Writers' Project, New York City Gllide (New York, 1939), p. 3:36.
21Haymond Hood, "The Design of Hockefeller City," Archileclural Fomm, January
19:l2, p. 3. ltockf'feller Center was executed by three architectural firms: Heinhard &
Hofmeister; Corbett, Harrison and 1\lacl\lurray; Hood and Fouilloux.
848
sion. As each elevator shaft ended we cut the building back
to maintain the same 27 feet from the core of the building to
the exterior walls." 22 \Vhat was startling to the human mind
was the idea that planes quite usual in the horizontal sense
should be pulled into the vertical. It can be perceived that
when great height is combined with the thinness of the struc-
ture, a certain feeling of hovering, of suspension, emanates
from the surfaces - and, as a matter of fact, both the immense
surfaces of the curtain walls and the whole skeleton move
imperceptibly but flexibly in the wind.
Nothing new or significant can be observed in looking over

a map of the site. The ground plan reveals nothing. The
street gridiron runs through it, as everywhere else in the city.
Even the first designs for grouping the buildings show no
special approach; they were entirely conventional. Among the
numerous preliminary studies made by different firms, one
still shows an attempt to build up a sort of ideal pyramid
composed of the five main buildings; in spatial terms this would
have meant a centralized unit. However, the final project,
even from the beginning, must have appeared somewhat ag-
gressive and intriguing to eyes accustomed to former concep-
tions. 2•1 A celebrated designer of American Gothic churches
attacked the scheme as being a conglomerate of "sprouting
amorphous and cubicular mushrooms." Is not this curiously
reminiscent of the protest of Charles Garnier, the builder of
the Opera in Paris, against the erection of the Eiffel Tower for
the exhibition in 1889, in his conviction that this huge, hideous
iron structure would destroy the skyline of Paris forever?
It is apparent that it was not through architectonic vision

but through an effort to adjust design to changing necessities
that the development gradually took its final shape - from
the module of twenty-seven feet as optimum for well-lighted
rooms to the organization of the volumes around the plazas,
22Architectural Forum, January 1932, p. 5.

23 The scheme, whose architectural shape is far from being revolutionary, stirred up
public opinion nevertheless. The newspaper columns of the Herald-Tribune and the
Times were filled with discussions in the form both of editorials and of letters from read-
ers. Pencil Points brought out an article with the headline, "The Functionalist Design
for Radio City Has Aroused Public Indignation" (May 1931).
849
which for the first time expressed open planning on the new
scale - which accomplished for town planning what the small
Chicago houses of Frank Lloyd ·wright in the nineties had
accomplished for the free and open planning of the single
house. 24
Arrangement of The original fourteen buildings of Rockefeller Center are more
Rockefeller Center closely grouped toward Sixth Avenue. Here is Radio City,
with its enormous Music Hall, its Center Theater, and its
slablike seventy-story R.C.A. Building, which contains the
broadcasting studios. To the east, toward Fifth Avenue,
the buildings are not so densely massed. Placed there are the
lowest of the structures, the comparatively small six-story
buildings dedicated to foreign nations. They stand with their
narrow fronts lined up on the avenue, so that coming along the
street from the north one gets the effect of a series of truncated
structures behind which rise the higher units of the center.
Standing a bit to one side is the forty-one-story International
Building; and in the background, clearly separated from the
lower buildings by the open space of the Plaza, rises the narrow
slab of the R.C.A. Building. As one proceeds south, different
dimensions in heights and depths are perceived, a succession of
impressions like visual impulses recorded in time - the depth
of the Plaza, the soaring reach of the R.C.A. Building, the
narrow streets running through, and fragmentary glimpses of
the broad side of another thirty-six-story building.
The actual arrangement and disposition of the buildings can
be seen and grasped only from the air. An air-view picture
reveals that the various high buildings are spread out in an
open arrangement from the highest, the R.C.A. Building, like
the vanes of a windmill, the different volumes so placed that
their shadows fall as little as possible upon one another, some
of them parallel to their neighbors, others at right angles. This
is all quite rational, but the moment one begins moving in the
midst of the buildings through Rockefeller Plaza, where the
24 We cannot enter here into the history of Rockefeller Center, which started with the
search 0f the Metropolitan Opera for a new home and which because of the depression of
1929 was changed into a radio and theatrical city-within-a-city. See Frederick Lewis
Allen, "Radio City: Cultural Center?" Harper's Magazine, April 1932, and "Look at
Rockefeller Center," Harper's Magazine, October 1938.
850
521. The towers of Asinelli
and Garisenda, Bologna, thir-
teenth century. These lean-
ing towers of two noble fami-
lies of Bologna are private
patrician fortresses which
though of great height can be
embraced in a single view.
three largest structures rise in different directions and to dif-

ferent heights, one becomes conscious of new and unaccus-
tomed interrelations between them. They cannot be grasped
from any single position or embraced in any single view. There
becomes apparent a many-sidedness in these simple and enor-
mous slabs which makes it impossible to bind them rationally
together. Through the free orientation of the thirty-six-story
slab to the south (completed in 1938), a decisive force of
planes is brought into play, separated by air but combined un-
consciously by the observing human eye. From these well-
calculated masses one becomes aware of a new fantastic element
inherent in the space-time conception of our period. The in-
terrelations which the eye achieves between the different planes
give their clearly circumscribed volumes an extraordinary new
effect, somewhat like that of a rotating sphere of mirrored
facets in a ballroom when the facets reflect whirling spots of
light in all directions and in every dimension.
Such a great building complex presupposes not the single point Space-Time and
of view of the Renaissance but the many-sided approach of Rockefeller Center
851
522. Rockefeller Center. Photomontage. Expressions of the new urban scale like Rocke-
feller Center are forcefully conceived in space-lime and cannot be embraced in. a single view.
To obtain a feeling for their interrelations the eye must function as in the high-s.peed photo-
graphs of Edgerton.
our own age. The difference can be indicated by comparing it

with such thirteenth-century structures as the leaning towers
of the two noble families of Asinelli and Garisenda in Bologna
(fig. 521). These private patrician fortresses rise magnificently
into the sky, but they can be embraced at a single glance, in a
852
single view. There is no uncertainty in the observer concern-
ing their relation to each other. On the other hand, a view
restricted to its central axis reveals none of the essential
character of an organism like Rockefeller Center. It possesses
symmetries which are senseless in reference to the aesthetic
significance of the whole. The complex must be comprehended
in terms of space and time analogous to what has been achieved
in modern scientific research as well as in modern painting.
In Edgerton's stroboscopic studies, in which motion can be
fixed and analyzed in arrested fractions of l / 100,000 of a sec-
ond, a complete movement is shown separated into its succes-
sive components (jig. 523). At Rockefeller Center the human
eye must function similarly (jig. 522); it has to pick up each in-
dividual view singly and relate it to all others, combining them
into a time sequence. Only thus are we able to understand its
grand play of volumes and surfaces and perceive its many-
sided significance.
523. EDGERTON . Speed photograph of golf stroke. 1n Edgerton's stroboscopic studies

in which motions can be fixed and analyzed in arrested fractions of 1/ 100,000 of a second, a
whole movement is separated into its successive components, making possible comprehension
in both space and time.
853
Rockefeller Center houses many different activities. Leisure
and entertainment, which were the initial motive in projecting
the Center, are provided in Radio City, with its music hall,
theaters, broadcasting studios, and night clubs; international
trade is represented in the buildings on Fifth Avenue; journal-
ism in the headquarters of the Associated Press, which gives its
name to one of the buildings, as well as in the Time and Life
Building. In addition there are a variety of other offices and
establishments, an underground shopping center, and a six-
story garage built into one of the structures (1939) with three
of its stories below street level.
Obviously it can be objected that such a commercial com-

position does not constitute a civic center. It is a private enter-
prise arising from private initiative and carried out as a private
speculation, based, as Raymond Hood said, on pure calcula-
tion of cost and return. \Vhat might have been a new home
for the opera was changed by force of economic circumstances
into the largest music hall in the world, where every night the
world's longest line of shapely and well-trained girls' legs is on
display. It may also be pointed out that, standing amid the
chaos of midtown New York, Rockefeller Center is not sur-
rounded by greenery but instead is confined by streets and
traffic. Moreover, the Center dominates, indeed tyrannizes
over, the entire vicinity - Fifth Avenue, the neighboring
churches, all the surrounding buildings.
How then does it differ from the downtown district - from

Wall Street and lower Broadway, which Louis Sullivan re-
garded as a center of infection, as "a plague spot of American
architecture''~
The difference lies in one thing only: in the new scale of city
planning inherent in Rockefeller Center, which relates to the
scale of modern bridges and parkways.
When Rockefeller Center was projected, there was objection

on the part of eminent critics to the increased congestion which
would inevitably result from its location in the midst of the
city. Proposals were therefore made to widen the street
fifteen feet. This would have helped very little. What really
854
needs to be changed is the entire structure of the city. The
parkways and Rockefeller Center are small beginnings, isolated
new growths in the immense body of New York, like new
shoots on an old tree.
But it must not be forgotten that tiny new branches properly
tended can change ihe whole shape and structure of a mature
tree. Rockefeller Center was in advance of its period in the
urban scale. What must change is not the Center but New
York itself. Only when the whole city has adopted the new
scale of its bridges and parkways will its civic centers stand
amidst greenery. Until then Rockefeller Center will stand as
a reminder that the structure of the city must be transformed,
not just in the interest of single individuals but in the interest
of the community as a whole.
New York combines intensive mechanization below and above
ground, blighted areas directly in the shadow of the sky-
scrapers of Manhattan, extreme fluctuations in the value of
land, and rapid and disrupting changes in population. It has
also a street system, completely inappropriate in scale, which
cuts off the organic development of the city like an iron ring
around a tree. The tree grows larger and larger, and the ring
remains rigid and inflexible. It is no occasion for surprise
when the city, like the tree, becomes completely defprmed
under these conditions. It may even be that the iron ring must
burst or the tree die.
Yet with all these disadvantages New York in the thirties had
the initiative· to cope with some of the problems that have to
be solved, to create leisure centers for the masses, parkway
systems, and the skeleton of a civic center on an appropriate
scale.
The hopeful upswing of the spirit of New York developers of
the thirties in placing different volumes together in a spatial
relationship is without equal in recent times and cannot there-
fore be lightly brushed aside.
The United Nations building (1947) in its final form can only
be considered a retrograde step. The Lincoln Center - that
great cultural center of the sixties, with theater, opera house,
855
concert hall, and several related institutions - is unfortu-
nately a disappointing retreat to the customs of the late
nineteenth century.
The Rockefeller Center's pioneering placement of different
volumes in a new spatial relationship has remained unique.
When, in the early sixties, there was a problem of massing
together an even larger number of offices or apartments than
before, these were, whenever possible, compressed into a single
gigantic structure or into two isolated and exaggeratedly tall
identical towers, such as the International Trade Center in
New York. 'That complex is more akin to the sort of "exhi-
bition architecture" that usually disappears at the end of six
months.
Possibilites for the future and the danger of disaster are in-
extricably interwoven in the structure of New York, but its
fundamental transformation will never be accomplished by the
town planner alone. The contemporary city, as the most
visible symbol of human interrelations, can only be built when
the methods of human administration cease to be opposed to
the developments in science and art which make men aware of
undiscovered spheres.
CHANGING NOTIONS OF THE CITY
City and State

It is impossible to assess the problem of the contemporary city
without briefly examining the changes in the structure of the
city throughout history.
The notion of a relationship between city and state goes back
to the first Mesopotamian city-states of the fourth and third
millennia B.C. These were interdependent communities under
priestly rule. The notion of the polis - the community
of free men - arose during the last centuries B.c.; first in
Ionia, then on the Greek mainland. vVith the polis came the
agora, the first center for forming democratic public opinion.
Here began the inseparable unity of city and state.
856
The city of Rome gave its name to the first world empire. The
entire Roman empire consisted of a network of cities old and
new.
The "free cities" of the Middle Ages, in contrast to those of
Greece, were based on the rise of small, handicraft industries.
The communal government of the city was extended to cover
nearby food-producing villages. Thus in the Middle Ages the
name of a city was often used for the region around it. Even
today the names of Bern, Freiburg, Lucerne, and Zurich are
used both for the cities and their surrounding areas - the
cantons.
In the Renaissance the highest cultural development occurred
in individualistic Italian city-states.
Surprisingly, the absolutism of the eighteenth century pre-
pared the scene for what happened in the nineteenth century:
the political regression of the city. The French Revolution
went one step further; it did away with the guilds in the
"Proclamation de la liberte du travail" (1791).
If we seek for the roots of our present difficulties, we find them
in the nineteenth century. It was then that production for
the international market weakened the original concept of the
city, which had been based mainly on economic independence.
However, the organic entity of the city had not yet been burst
asunder by the automobile. Nor had incoming floods of people
created mammoth cities.
The City: No Longer an Enclosed Organism

In the history of architecture, city planning- urban design-
has been a ]ate comer in every period. Usually several
centuries were needed before a period became ripe enough to
draw up city plans. City planning blossoms when the way of
life of a period has become so self-evident that it can be im-
mediately translated into plans.
The present situation is no exception to this rule. We are
now neither at the peak nor near the end of our period. We
stand at the beginning of the formation of a new tradition.
857
This moment of transition forces us into a new urbanistic
organization on a scale without parallel in history.
Another fact characterizes the present situation: Europe is no
longer the sole center of architectural development. The
limits extend ever wider and wider. The problems of urban-
ization have become global and are not halted by any system
of government. \V e are faced with a continued expansion of
giant cities and a reduced rural population.
The notion of the city as a self-sufficient organism - as it had
remained throughout history - has lost its validity. The
sirnple solutions of earlier periods no longer apply to the com-
plicated living requirements and related phenomena of
contemporary urban life. Differentiation of occupations,
industrial organization, and traffic demand a complex inter-
relationship of functions and a great increase of scale.
Far-reaching interrelations that have not as yet been success-
fully crystallized in plans have disrupted the traditional
notion of the city. Continuous change and continuously
extended frontiers destroy independent units and make the
former terms- village, city, metropolis- useless. In 1953,
at the ClAM congress in Aix-en-Provence, Le Corbusier pro-
posed in place of these inadequate terms the designation:
human agglomeration.
The structure of the urban organism has been changed more
radically in recent years than ever before. \Vhat has happened
since \Vorld \Var II was unforeseeable. Analogies with the
end of \Vorld \Var I suggested the advent of unemployment,
hunger, and serious crises. The opposite occurred: prosperity,
shortage of workers, rising standards of living, together with
a precipitant population increase. And in defiance of every
logical anticipation the defeated countries - Japan and West
Germany- made astonishing post-war advances.
Compared with the over ten million population agglomerations
of New York, London, and Tokyo, Paris (with its suburbs)
has had a relatively small increase. But the French provinces
continually lose population to Paris. Like Stockholm in
Sweden, Paris absorbs France even though the government
tries to bring new life to the larger provincial cities and their
858
regions and to stem the draining away of their population by
granting them special privileges.
The unwieldy accumulation of population in one city in the
heart of Europe - Paris - has led to a serious impoverish-
ment of the countryside. This problem is far more serious in
the Far East.
We have seen how one attempt after another was made to New towns
humanize the chaotic nineteenth-century metropolis, and how
each proved disappointing: the garden city, the linear city,
satellite cities, and, recently, the "new towns" -an experi-
ment that has by no means come to an end. Great Britain,
using government assistance, has since 1945 built twenty new
towns at various distances from a major city. Sweden,
Canada, Germany, France, and the Soviet Union have also
founded new towns for widely varying numbers of inhabitants.
America was the slowest to follow this development. In the
New Deal period of the thirties three "green belt cities" were
started. There was also the unique experiment in Radburn,
New Jersey (1929), where a new development was built in
which the pedestrian was successfully isolated from vehicular
traffic. It remained, at that time, an isolated experiment.
However, by 1964 the United States had several new towns in
the planning stages, each accommodating from 35,000 to
250,000 inhabitants.
The attempt to establish a satisfactory, intimate human en- Neighborhood
vironment by splitting up an area into "neighborhood units" units
for 2,000 to 5,000 people was not particularly successful.
These units were said to be too small in scale for the purposes
of redeveloping the city. A neighborhood unit did not meet
the needs of the contemporary differentiated society. Placing
an elementary school in the center of the unit did not necessar-
ily correspond to the requirements of all inhabitants.
Continuity and Change

In human nature the tendency to change and the desire for
continuity live side by side. In The Beginnings of 4rt (The
859
KENZO TANGE. Detail of the project for building over Tokyo
Bay. This project shows a combination of megastructure and group form .
The megastructure consists of a continuous system of traffic lanes and other
services on different levels; the group forms of large office buildings, often curved,
sometimes boldly bridge the megastructure.
KENZO TANGE. Project for building over Tokyo Bay, 1960.

The city would be extended lineally over the shallow bay. The huge mega-
_,....._.,...-. structure of the central traffic system would be completed in four five-year plans.
860
Eternal Present, vol. I), I have posed this problem in relation
to art: What has been driven back into the unconscious in
human nature and what must be reawakened for man to re-
cover his inner equilibrium~
The problem is the same with the human habitat. Like life
itself, it exists in a tension between continuity and change, one
or the other of which is always in the foreground. Today
relentless demands for change persist. These are symptoms
that often occur during periods of transition.
All urban planning must become dynamic in consequence of
this unprecedented flood of population to the metropolitan
cities. The world population today is growing at a rate of
about two per cent while the urban population grows at four
per cent or more. We stand helpless in the face of this situa-
tion; the United Nations can do little more than place the
"catastrophic perspective of the development" before the
eyes of the world. It is now clear to everyone that this un-
paralleled population growth and the traffic chaos within the
city organism indicate a completely different way of life and
demand radical changes.
Proposals to handle the situation pile up endlessly - cities
under the ground, cities hovering above the ground on steel
scaffolding - proposals that would schematize the complex
526. FUMIHIKO MAKI. Project for rebuilding a sect~on of Tokyo, 1964. The
principle that go11erns this, and many other projects of the youngest generation of architects,
is the move away from self-contained individual buildings to a group form, in which there-
lation of the buildings to each other is stronger than any single structure. This example
deals with a complex of department stores, other shops, and apartment houses connected
with wide pedestrian ways.
861
organism of the city more drastically even than the traditional
two-dimensional checkerboard pattern. \Vhat is needed is a
completely new attitude toward the structure of the city.
The contemporary planner must be fully aware that he must
simultaneously satisfy the most heterogeneous needs and
create a "dynamic field" in which these forces are related to
one another. In place of the rigid master plan proposed in the
early years of the century a flexible "master program" is now
being put forward, one that allows for changes and that leaves
open-ended possibilities for the future. An example is the
plan for the Free University in \Vest Berlin by Candilis, Josie,
and Woods, which creates only a framework and everywhere
leaves openings for future developments.
At this time it is possible only to indicate liow the .demands
for change can be met. All possibilities revolve around and
penetrate one another. It is too early for a systematic pres-
entation. Only an encompassing trend in which the whole
development is involved can be given a name: open planning.
The future will show in what forms this open planning can
actually be realized; but we have already some fragmentary
glimpses.
Spatial Urban planning has begun to move from two-dimensional to
organization three-dimensional planning. By two-dimensional planning we
mean the conception of the city built on a single level. The
site of the city may be uneven - Rome, city of the seven hills,
Greek and Italian hill towns- but in every case the city
extended along the ground. Now two-dimensional planning
gives place to three-dimensional. J~rn Utzon's emphasis on
the relations of horizontal levels (jig. 428) gives a hint in this
direction. Urbanism has become the organization of hori-
zontal levels below and above the ground.
Traffic as The dynamism of traffic and the dynamism of change have
a constituent unavoidably become as much a part of urban planning as the
element of
facts of nature. They must be integrated into the contem-
city structure
porary urban plan in a positive form-creating sense. History
presents few prototypes of or analogies to this situation. It is
the task of the most recent generation to solve the problem of
reconciling simultaneous and conflicting functions. Two no-
862
tions start to emerge in the vocabulary of this generation:
" megas t rue t ure " an d" group f orm. "
The megastructure consists of a large-scale structural frame-
work encompassing many needs and functions. One of the
first such megastructures was Kenzo Tange's project for
building over the bay of Tokyo (figs. 524, 525), whose different
horizontal levels allow for an unhindered flow of traffic. 1
Group form consists of the relations between buildings. The
importance of the individual building is subordinated to the
importance of the collective group form (fig. 526). This is the
description of the notion given by one of the word-makers of
this generation- Fumihiko Maki, a Japanese architect who
has studied at Harvard. 2 Maki has developed several proj-
ects for the renewal of sections of Tokyo. Kenzo Tange's
project for building over Tokyo Bay combined both notions:
group form and megastructure.
The Individual and Collective Spheres

The twin notions of individual liberty and communal order
are inherent in every democracy. The right of the individual
and the right of the conununity confront each other.
The balance between them has not yet been found. But a
definite position has been taken by J. B. Bakema, an architect
and planner in Rotterdam: "We must build individually for
the anonymous client." \Yith the Dutch ClAM group
OPBOU\Y, he produced a series of projects for the Alexander
Polder area near Rotterdam in the early fifties. 3 This settle-
ment for 30,000 people was designed to give each inhabitant
a feeling of individual existence.
In the simplest but most convincing manner, J¢rn Utzon ex-
pressed the relations of the individual and collective spheres in
1For further details see The Japan Archilecl, April 1961; and Hobin Bo:yd, A-enzo Tange
(New York, 1962).
2 Fumihiko M aki, I nvestigalions in Collective Form (St. Louis: Washington l niversity
Press, 1964). The author and his friends present the notion in the essays, "Collective
Form: Three Paradigms" and "Linkage in Collective Form."
3 Illustrated inS. Giedion, Archileclure, You and Me (Harvard University Press, 1958).
863
CHIMBOTE
527. J. L. SERT and P. L. WIENEH.. Project for a new mining t own at Chimbote,
Peru, 1949. Various modest house types, each house with its small private sphere (patio),
are organized within a wider public realm. The individual and the collective spheres are
each given equal weight.
his Danish housing settlement at Fredensborg, 1962 (figs.

442-444).
Definition of the spheres of the individual and the community

is particularly important in the so-called developing countries,
whose living standards are far below those of the western
world. Even in new plans, the people are frequently housed
in endless, identical, row-houses. J. L. Sert and P. L. \Viener's
1949 plan for Chimbote (a mining town in Peru on the Pacific
Ocean) made a radical break with this practice. It included
several very simple house types with individual patios, which
are so organized that they everywhere frame small plaza-like
spaces. Intimat e private life and community life form an
interlocking unity (fig. 527).
864
University dormitories are another area in which we can
observe the interlocking of the individual and collective
spheres. They have undergone great changes in type - from
the early monastic assemblies of identical rooms within a
single building to complex components of urban space.
Aalto's dorrnitory for graduate students at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (1947-49), with its undulating brick
fa<;ade and varied layouts of the bedroom and study units,
was still contained within one encompassing structure (fig.
397). The Harkness Graduate Center by \Valter Gropius
(The Architects' Collaborative), 1949-50, had already spread
out in a series of \vings connected by passageways and opening
directly to the outdoors (jig. 304·).
Jose Luis Sert's dormitories for married students at· Harvard Peabody
University, Peabody Terrace, 1964, marked a third step by Terrace, 1964
being deliberately planned, from the start, to become an inte-
gral part of the city of Cambridge as soon as the slums which
partly surrounded them were cleared. Sert's buildings form
a strong contrast to the nearby Georgian style dormitories
along the Charles River, whose high walls turn their backs
upon the city while their open courts face the river.
Peabody Terrace consists of a cluster of three high-rise build-
ings individually placed in different positions. They are
combined with lower buildings of different heights, L-shaped
or in single wings, so that open spaces of manifold forms can
develop between them (fig. 528). One of the difficulties of
creating urbanistic groupings of residential buildings today is
that we have no good intermediary between a three- or four-
story walk-up and a ten-story elevator building. In this
project the elevators of the high-rise towers fulfil a double
function: they serve both the high-rise towers and the seven-
story buildings, to which they are connected by bridges (jig.
530). In this way an intermediate height structure is in-
corporated in the design without recourse to the inhuman
five-story walk-up.
By this grouping of buildings of different heights the danger
of an inhuman accumulation of housing for 1500 people on a
rather limited site has been overcome, and only a third of the
area is covered by buildings. Relations with the outside world
865
528. J. L. SEHT. Peabody Terrace on the Charles River, 1964. Air view showing differen-
tiated building types. In the foreground is the parking garage, approached from Putnam Street.
529. Peabody Terrace, 1964. Plan. Memorial Drive, beside the

Charles River, in the foreground and Putnam Avenue to the rear.
530. Peabody Terrace, 1964. Section
[ }Do[ through a twenty-one-story tower, showing

by hatching the floors served by the eleva-
tor and the bridges to the adjacent seven-
[ :;tory block.
r===1 r=
531. Peabody Terrace , 1964. The central plaza.
are carefully considered. From Putnam Avenue one sees first

a row of three-story houses, similar in scale to the houses of
the surrounding area. At right angles to these houses is
another low building, which steps up to form part of an L-
shaped apartment block connected to the central tower.
These buildings frame a green area with a tree planted in the
middle, whose fourth side is the wall of a garage for 350 cars
and a pedestrian promenade, with a double row of trees, which
runs right across the whole complex to the Memorial Drive
along the Charles River (jig. 528).
Facing the river another L-shaped structure, freely related to
row-house units, foJ,"mS a rectangular green space with a foun-
tain, separated from the noisy Memorial Drive by a tall green
867
hedge which, by a happy chance, had existed previously and
was carefully retained (fig. 529).
Between these two groupings is a kind of central plaza (fig. 531)
around which all community functions take place, thus bring-
ing this assembly of different dwelling units into a small but
lively urban neighborhood.
Great care has been taken to define spaces at ground level, and
yet not to create fully enclosed areas. Everywhere there are
openings between or through buildings. The frequently crit-
icized uniformity of contemporary residential buildings has
been happily avoided. A unified complex has been created
that is carefully calculated to allow for as much personal
freedom and visual diversity as possible.
Sert's varied treatment of the fa<;ades shows one of the means
of revitalizing the wall: breaking its uniform structure. This
treatment has been employed ever since it first appeared in
Le Corbusier's large unbuilt skyscraper for Algiers, 1931
(fig. 85). It still seems strange to many people who have
become accustomed to seeing walls only as massive volumes or
glass curtains. The variations in the Peabody Terrace fa.;ades
are never arbitrary. They follow rationally from the different
orientations or aspects of the rooms - for example, the west-
ern ones, which face the Charles River, need careful protection
from the sultry afternoon sun in summer.
Signs of Change and of Constancy

The demands placed on the city planner by continuous changes
have given rise to a fanatical desire to design a city in which
possibilities of change are woven into the plan and earlier
buildings can remain when alterations or additions become
necessary.
The use of change as a creative element is a problem that
occupies several forward-thinking schools. For example, in
the spring of 1964 the Master's Class in Urban Design at
Harvard University (under F. Maki, J. Soltan, and J. Tyr-
whitt) were set the problem: How can a new city for 50,000
868
people be built between Baltimore and Washington in such
a way that its initial communit)' structure will not be de-
stroyed by its subsequent growth~
In the early stages of working toward a determined goal, one
side of the problem is almost always overemphasized. In the
case of group form, the accent has been laid on relations be-
tween individual buildings and their functions. Archaeolo-
gists speak of "group design" to describe the relation of the
temples of the Acropolis of Athens to one another. Even the
Parthenon is part of a group design, without this in any way
weakening the perfection of its individual form. Strongly
pronounced or complex relations between buildings do not
mean that they must assume the insistent monumentality of
buildings of the preceding century.
Beside frenzied change - child of our age - stands that other
component of human nature: the desire for constancy. This
shows itself behind the mask of growing demands for urban
centers. The Capitol at Chandigarh (fig. VII), the Place of
the Three Powers at Brasilia (jigs. III, IV) are both no longer
in the heart of the city, but at its head. The never-built
Back Bay Center for Boston (fig. 306), the community center
of the little town of Seinajoki (jig. 422), and the large civic
center for Helsinki (fig. 425) are examples of countless efforts
to design commercial centers so that they can substitute for
the lacking community centers of our cities.
869
PART X IN CONCLUSION
All we have been able to do in this book is to select some
fragments that, pieced together, may give an image of our
period. Perhaps, at the present stage of our development, all
that is possible is to discern here and there at isolated points
what is going on under the surface. Certainly to have aspired
to any exhaustive or comprehensive treatment would have
been futile. The time for that is not yet ripe.
\Ve have restricted our observations to architecture and its
interrelations. We have pointed out why architecture reflects
the inner tendencies of the time and therefore may properly
serve as a general index. We have regarded architecture as a
finite organism, isolating it, just as the scientist isolates cer-
tain phenomena to determine their interior processes. We have
not been interested in establishing any fixed or permanent
laws of architecture. Nor have we sought to chart closed
cycles of rise and fall or to determine whether such cycles re-
peat themselves in different cultures.
\Vhat has interested us throughout the periods we have ob-
served has been the growth and change in the architectonic
organism and, especially, the development of those constituent
facts which form the substance of its true history. Only by
isolating architecture as an organism in itself, and by obtaining
in consequence understanding of its nature and growth, have
we been able to seek out and fix its relations to other and
cognate activities.
Before turning to other aspects, a basic question must be
posed: the relations between geometric and organic form -
between the rational and the irrational. Ever since Descartes,
the principle of rationality has held the upper hand. Descartes
unlocked the door to mechanization, even though it remained
closed for another century. The mechanization of the entire
world can be traced back to his thinking.
The world has now become aware of the impasse to which we
have been led through an overemphasis on purely rational
thought. We have again become conscious of the limits of logic
and rationality. We again realize that the principles of form
are based on more profound and significant elements than
rigid logic. We know that things are not simple, and that,
872
even when we wish to, we are unable to cut ourselves off
abruptly from the whole of our past: it continues to live on in
us.
What we have to do in the realm of architecture is to find a
method of linking rationality with the organic in such a way
that the organic becomes dominant and rationality is reduced
to a menial position.
On the Limits of the Organic in Architecture

Where are the limits of the approach to the organic in archi-
tecture? No exact statement can be made. The limits of
what comprises architecture cannot easily be drawn, although
many definite positions can and have been held.
Architecture is an austere art that must obey harsh laws.
This applies not only to the materials of which it is composed
but also to the forms it adopts.
Architecture cannot have absolute freedom. It moves within
certain limits which have, in each particular period, had the
force of eternal laws. The nature of architecture is to find its
fulfilment within the limits of these laws. However, relations
between geometrical structure and organic form have run
through architecture's development since the beginning.
Geometrical structure was the basis of the first great architec-
ture of stone: the pyramids, symbols of life eternal. Architec-
ture then drew close to the geometric forms that Plato termed
unchanging and universal.
Mankind has always felt itself drawn, in many different ways,
each time starting anew, to the eternal stability of the square
and the circle and their related bodies: the cube, the pyramid,
the cylinder or half-cylinder (tholos, apse, vault), the globe or
half-globe (cupola).
Architecture, when built, must create a unity from a number
of different parts. One of the many ways to achieve the
spatial relationships that transform an assembly of parts into
a unity is through the use of a system of proportions or of a
simple module - that is, by employing certain measurements
that recur in all three dimensions.
873
The foundation of architecture is bound up with its relations
to proportions and to geometrical forms. But architecture is
not only geometrical structure. It is not solely dependent on
eternal laws. It exists to serve man, who is as perishable as a
plant. Thus architecture also bears certain human and
plant-like traits.
The notion of the organic is anchored so deeply in the irrational
unconscious that it is extremely difficult to define it at all
precisely. Frank Lloyd Wright never put his notion of the
organic clearly into words. His teacher Louis Sullivan -
whose life span ran parallel with that of Antoni Gaudi - came
close to it. Around 1900, in Kindergarten Chats, probably the
most original book written by an architect, Sullivan stated
that the organic is the "ten-fingered grasp of reality."
Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) is the originator of the organic
development of contemporary architecture. Gaudi combined
the sure instinct of a sound constructor with an adventurous
sculptural imagination. He absorbed an abundance of ar-
chitectural legacies from his region: Gothic, Churuguerra-
Baroque, Moorish Azulecho. At the same time he longed to
express in his work a new sculptural modeling of architecture.
But in the first decade of this century, the time was not yet
npe.
His precognative talent came out most strongly when he had
the greatest freedom of expression, as in the Guell Park in
Barcelona (1900-14). Irrational, sinuous planes gleam with
the indestructible colors of majolica fragments. In his mosaics
of broken pieces of glazed tiles he made use of the principle of
collage more than a decade earlier than Picasso and Braque.
Le Corbusier was the first to open the eyes of others to Gaudi's
talent, which he had recognized in 1928 when he was in Madrid
in connection with the competition for the League of Nations
building. Four years later, when the Council of ClAM met in
Barcelona, a moment when most of us were stuck fast in the
purely rational interpretation of architecture, Le Corbusier
impressively brought Antoni Gaudi's artistic intensity to our
attention. But, despite Gaudi's impetuous genius, the ar-
chitecture of this century could not then follow his direction.
874
It had to complete the change-over to a new space conception
- first made visible by the painters - and it was a decade
after Gaudi had completed his final work before a new ar-
chitectural generation felt able to reapproach the matter.
Politics and Architecture

We must also consider the relations between social develop-
ment and architecture. These relations have often been too
much simplified. Historical space has many dimensions.
It is many-sided. It does not present the observer with a
single point of reference from which to interpret its phenomena.
Just as in modern physics, no exact causality, no exact de-
termination, can be established. Identical causes do not
inevitably lead to identical effects.
Modern physicists, when they attacked the Newtonian system,
called this uncertainty between cause and effect "semi-
causality." This semi-causality is as true for historical as for
subatomic spheres. No definite rules, no simple causality,
determines reciprocal dependence between political events and
the human activities which explore thought and feeling. The
irrational interferes.
No preestablished point of view is possible. Works rich in
constituent facts and works of the most pernicious influence
have appeared under the same economic system. \Ve have
seen that speculators during the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries were responsible for housing developments
which achieved the highest in human and urban values.
However, speculators in the later nineteenth century destroyed
the very structure of our cities, engulfing them in hopeless liv-
ing quarters which degraded human dignity.
In the same political system, at the same time, and in the
same country, it is possible to produce both works full of
power to invigorate the future and works of confusion and
decadence. For example, during the eighties and nineties,
speculators erected great office buildings and department
stores in Chicago; but the quality of office buildings erected
in New York at the same time, under the same economic
875
conditions, made that city the "plague spot of American
architecture."
We know that a unity of culture has existed in some periods
when imagination and the external world flowed into one
another. In those periods the spirit was not condemned to go
its way alone, and reality did not mean only a struggle for
existence. Those were the happy hours of mankind, but they
have been rare and of tragic brevity. They occurred in Athens
under Pericles, and in Rome during the lustrous reign of
Augustus. But, for example, it is questioned among historians
whether Augustus was formed by the great spirits who sur-
rounded him (and who now represent the glory of Roman
literature) or whether their creative power was called forth by
his personal influence.
On the It is in these short periods of unity of intellectual, emotional,
preconception and political culture, that life has been able to manifest such
of culture
splendor as is possible to man. We cannot now aspire so high.
We must proceed more humbly. Before demanding from a
disorganized world such a unity of emotional, intellectual, and
political culture, we must first understand how far the emo-
tional and intellectual are today interrelated, how nearly we
have approached that vital preconception of every culture:
affinity between its methods of thinking and of feeling.
The sciences and the arts are activities which, by exploring
the unknown in the human mind, directly enlarge man's
consciousness. Every scientist, every artist, is part of a long
line of tradition. However, only a creative spirit can go for-
ward, beyond the limits of that tradition, to explore what
until then no one has known, no one has seen, no one has felt.
By means of intuition, imagination, mystical impulse - what
you will - he is able to open up new spheres of the uncon-
scious. These spheres are distinguished from the outer world
in that their essential development takes place directly, per-
sonally, without interference from any external power. They
develop only in liberty, for no command can open the way to
the unexplored.
The creative spirit is also bound to the earth and to the social
environment. It does not grow in air-tight cans. It is
876
affected by the primary impulses of hunger, love, and self-
esteem. It is affected by good and bad conditions. Adverse
conditions may kill creative effort before it reaches realiza-
tion; favorable conditions may stimulate its sudden growth.
However, it is not so important to establish the conditions of
creative growth today as to have an understanding of its
real structure - that is, to become aware of what kind of
growth is going on within the depths of our period. We can-
not grasp the constitution of this growth without knowing
what methods of approach underlie advances in the different
realms of thought and feeling.
Here our insight is very limited. Barriers between the dis-
ciplines and the fact that people are educated to become sub-
merged and confined by their special fields have resulted in a
lack of interest in methodological principles; so much so that
sometimes they cannot even be spelled out. Consequently,
there has been practically no comparative study of methods
in the different realms, whatever they may be, from biology
to music. The methods of approach underlying creative
research form an ecriture automatique. They open the way to
objective insight into its spirit by making plain how close the
different disciplines are to the preconception of culture: an
identity of methods.
A period's social and political development is fundamental to Influence
its structure and there is an extensive literature dealing with of feeling
the influence of the social order on architecture and environ-
ment. However, we wish to emphasize still another factor
whose influence on human life, though less obvious and easy
to establish at a given time, reaches more deeply into the
present state of culture: the influence of feeling.
The influence of feeling on practical decisions is often re-
garded as unimportant, but it inevitably permeates and
underlies all human decisions. The chaos of our cities, from
Soviet Russia to the United States, cannot be explained as a
result of social and economic conditions alone. In the rebuild-
ing of Moscow, in the slum clearance of New York, there is
the same lack of scale, the same schism between retrogressive
feeling and advanced technology. Actions are triggered by
877
social and economic impulses, but every human act is affected,
is formed unconsciously, by a specific emotional background.
Without exception, every human being has both a mental and
an emotional relation to his occupation, whether he be laborer,
artisan, merchant, or scientist.
It is the same with politics and government. Every political
system is operated by individuals whose actions reflect their
mental and emotional equipment. The moment these come
in conflict, the inner kernel of personality is split by the differ-
ence of level between our methods of thinking and of feeling.
The result is the symbol of our period: the maladjusted man.
It is possible that before long this situation will be recognized
everywhere, and the schism may then disappear. Until then
it will continue to be much easier to promote the most difficult
scientific theory than the simplest of new artistic means.
Education is today directed toward intellectual specialization;
the education of the emotions is neglected. Thinking is
trained; feeling is left untrained.
Intellectually trained people are now able to follow the most
difficult scientific research, but the same people are lost when
faced with new artistic means that force an enlargement of
their emotional response. The reason is that most of them
have nothing equivalent to their mental training to rely upon
in the world of feeling. Knowledge and feeling have been
isolated from each other. So we arrive at the curious paradox
that feeling has today become more difficult than thinking.
In periods of equilibrium between thinking and feeling no one
needs to speak of the training of feeling. Though it goes its
own way, it forms an inseparable unity with the act of think-
ing. Emotion is like liberty. When freedom exists, it is
taken for granted, it is reflected in every action; no one thinks
it necessary to mention it. But the moment freedom is
suppressed, life is deprived of its tonic, its invigoration, and
men become aware of its loss.
Science and art, in so far as they explore the unknown or
anticipate the future, reflect the real level, the true being, of
our age. They are the real moral forces; they will speak for
878
us to later generations when the horrors of the external world
of our period have faded away.
\Ve may even go a step further. How can one explain the
disorder in all spheres concerned with human relations~ How
explain disturbances involving the most elemental laws of
human life~ In addition to the many reasons always given for
the present chaos, there is a fundamental one that is often
forgotten: factual knowledge has not been reabsorbed and human-
ized by an equimlenl level of feeling.
Reality, as mirrored in the organization of the external world,
has the power to destroy every one of us. This reality, which
crushes more people every day, and menaces our culture just
as it has begun to be conscious of itself, cannot be identified
with the true being of our period.
\Vhat is this menacing reality~ It is opposed to the methods
of approach employed by the creative forces of our time. Its
energy and material power are expended on vain attempts to
cope with the many-sided and complex problems of our
period by means of a ruthless simplification.
In the nineteenth century the means of production were
mechanized, and unrestricted production became an end in
itself, bringing disorder into human relations. In the twen-
tieth century the means of destruction were mechanized, and
unrestricted power became an end in itself.
Architectural fa<;ades of the last century were erected in many
diverse shapes and styles, but these styles were not used as
statements of conviction. They functioned merely as curtains,
disguising what was behind them. Similarly, mankind has
today many diverse political systems. Most do not reveal -
some even contradict - the continued urge toward the organic
going on in the depths of the period. These political systems
simply serve to disguise the fact that political power has be-
come an end in itself.
Social disorder was delivered to us as an inheritance from the
Industrial Revolution. To restore order in this unbalanced
world, we must alter its social conditions. But history shows
us that this is not sufficient. It would be a fundamental
879
mistake to believe that socio-political change would itself
cause today's maladjusted man, the product of a century-long
rupture between thinking and feeling, to disappear. Uninte-
grated people are today multiplying everywhere and in every
class, among employers and employed, among high and low.
Their acts reflect their inner division.
At the end of the nineteenth century, one of the most im-
pressive political thinkers of his period recognized one of our
central problems when he demanded that the division of labor,
the dominant fact of an industrial society, should be replaced
by what he called "the integration oflabor." "To integrate"
means, according to the dictionary, "to make a whole out of
different parts." Though such integration of labor is undoubt-
edly desirable, it would not be enough, for it would only be
the treatment of a single symptom. At the base of everything
is the individual man. It is he who must be integrated -
integrated in his inner nature, without being brutalized, so
that his emotional and intellectual outlets will no longer be
kept apart by an insuperable difference of level. To bring
this fact into consciousness and to try to overcome it is closely
connected with the outstanding task of our period: to humanize
- that is, to reabsorb emotionally - what has been created
by the spirit. All talk about organizing and planning is in
vain unless we first create again the whole man, unfractured
in his methods of thinking and feeling.
We are still passing through the test period of our civilization.
The existence of each of us is menaced. But at the same time,
there is being revealed in different spheres of activity an
affinity in methods of approach, which, though developed
independently in each sphere, yet underlie all that is significant
in our thinking and feeling. It seems as if, unconsciously and
out of its own forces, our period were moving by a still un-
realized process toward a cure of its fatal disease.
Some unpredictable event may change the situation, and all
these isolated, drifting efforts may coalesce at once into an
inner sureness. In this moment our period will master reality.
In a letter long believed to be apocryphal but now regarded
as genuine, the philosopher Plato announced that no statement
880
of his doctrines existed in his own hand and that he would
never write one. Nevertheless, his doctrine, so he said, would
never be lost. In the human soul, as a result of "being ab-
sorbed by these things and by being in permanent contact
with them," it would suddenly arise, "as a fire is kindled by
a leaping spark and blazes forth into a bright flame." We
believe it is the same with the formation of our cultural con-
sciousness. It may awake suddenly, but never unless we
begin to become "absorbed by these things," never without a
strong will for an inner change, and never without forward-
looking preparation.
881
INDEX
INDEX
Aalto, Aino, 667 Amsterdam: town planning in, 27, 781,

Aalto, Alvar, 417, 467, 500, 549, 618-667, 791, 793-803; van Doesburg and van
672; work for MIT, 504-506, 510, 636, Eesteren house, 442-443; plan for North
664, 666; relation to Finland, 620; early Amsterdam, 676; general extension plan
work, 625-628; Paimio Sanatorium, for, 804-810; relation of housing to ac-
629-632, 664; use of undulating wall, tivities in, 810-813. See also Berlage,
631-639; Viipuri Library, 632-633, 663, H.P.
674; Finnish Pavilion, 633-636, 664; Amsterdam Stock Exchange, 292, 309-313
Sunila, 640-645, 649-650; Mairea, 645- Andreas, A. T., 353
648; town planning, 648-655; civic cen- Antonine Column, 98
ters, 655-661, 664; furniture by, 661- Apartment house: in Paris, 328-330; in
663; significance of, 663-665; personal- Chicago, 377-381; in Marseille, 544-
ity of, 665-667; in ClAM, 698 548, 606, 840; Weissenhof settlement,
Abstractionism, 487 598; work of Mies van der Rohe, 603-
Academie des Beaux Arts, 500, 566 607; in nineteenth-century Paris, 767-
Adam, Robert and James, 150, 715, 723, 769; in Amsterdam, 808-810, 833; slab-
730; Portland Place, 734 like housing units, 833-837; zigzag
Adams, W. J., 338 blocks, 837-838
Adelphi Terrace, 715, 723, 730 Apollinaire, Guillaume, 436
Adler, Dankmar, 397, 607 Arago, Frant;ois, 15
Adler and Sullivan Auditorium, Chicago, Architects' Collaborative, the (TAC), 506-
10, 372, 378, 532-533 507, 514
Aesthetics, and modern architecture, 700- Architecture: as organism, 19-23; as index
701 of period, 19-20; continuity of evolu-
Agglomeration: defined, 703; proposed by tion in, 21-23; construction as hidden
Le Corbusier, 858 force in, 24-25; and town planning, 25-
Ahmedabad, 558 27, 859-873; separation from engineer-
Air conditioning, 42ln ing, 182-183, 763; and technology, 211-
Albers, Josef, 488, 510n 218; schism healed, 382, 618-619; role of
Albert, Prince Consort, 249 modern, 704-706; and politics, 875; in-
Alberti, Leon Battista, 35-36, 45, 76, 112 fluence of feeling upon, 877-881. See
Alphand, Jean, 285, 759; work with Hauss- also Engineering; Technology
mann, 764, 771 Arnodin, 290
America: use of feroconcrete in, 325n, 327- Arp, Hans, 416, 475, 510n, 621, 665, 701
328; at London Exhibition (1851), 336- Art: and science, 12-17, 182-183, 211, 430-
338; tools, 339-341; furniture, 338,341- 431, 443, 562, 878-879; influence of
342, 354-355; influence of industrial Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 212; functions of,
architecture in, 343; use of balloon 431-432; relation to public, 432-434;
frame, 346-354; use of plane surfaces, related to new types of construction,
355-363; development of dwelling house 450; related to modern architecture,
in, 398-400; post-1930 immigration to, 496-497; reunion with architecture,
499-500; work of Gropius in, 499-517. 509-510, 621. See also Feeling;.Painting
See also Chicago; New York; St. Louis; Art nouveau: use in architecture, 302-304;
Wright, Frank Lloyd outgrowth of work in iron, 322
American architecture, elements of: bal- Arts and crafts movement: in England,
loon fame, 346-354; flat walls, 355-363; 298, 399; in Austria, 319-321, 399n; in
flexi-ble ground plan, 363-368, 405; Germany, 485
porch, 407-409. See also Chicago Arup, Ove, 474, 683
School; Mercantile classicism Ashbee, C. R., 298
Ammanati, Bartolomeo, 51 Aspdin, Joseph, 324
Amstellaan Blvd., 799-800; as nineteenth- Asplund, Gunner, 672
century conception, 803 Assemblee de Constructeurs pour une
884
Renovation Architecturale(ASCORAL), Amsterdam Exchange, 309-313, 357,
701, 702 797; use of Romanesque by, 310, 314-
Austria: influence of Otto Wagner in, 318, 315; influence of, 313, 315-316, 588; and
319, 478; influence of handicrafts, 319- F. L. Wright, 426; plan for Amsterdam
321 South, 796-803; orientation toward the
Aztec architecture, 672, 675, 688 past, 803
Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo, 65, 125; in
Back Bay Center, 513, 869 France, 134, 137; Piazza Obliqua, 141-
Badovici, Jean, 699 142, 717
Baghdad University, 514 Bertrand, Louis, 140
Bagnocavallo, 45 Bibliotheque Nationale, 222-228
Bakema, J. B., 676; in ClAM, 702-703; Bloomsbury: Square, 722, 726; develop-
builder in Retterdam, 863 ment of, 724-733
Balat, Alphonse, 306n Boccioni, Umberto, 445
Balla, Giacomo, 445 Bode, Wilhelm, 365-366
Balloon frame, 346-354; principle of, 347- Bogardus, James, 195-200, 208, 255n; use
349; dependent on cheap nails, 350; and of prefabricated parts by, 196, 236-237,
building of the West, 350-351; inven- 346; Harper and Bros. Bldg., 197;
tion of, 351-354 scheme for N.Y. World's Fair, 198-199,
Baltard, Victor, 230-231 290; as inventor, 199-200; elevator pro-
Barcelona, Mies van der Robe's pavilion posed by, 208
at, 481, 591 Boileau, L.A., 195; Bon Marche, 238-241;
Barillet-Deschamps, 764 on transparent surfaces, 267
Barnard, Henry, 338-339 Bois de Boulogne, 744, 747, 761, 764
Baroque: perspective of, 54, 109; in Rome, Bois de Vincennes, 761, 764
75-106; universal outlook of, 107-109; Bologna, fortresses in, 852-853
late, 107-109; defined, 108; use of un- Bonnier, Louis, 327n
dulating wall, 110-113, 120; in South Bordino, Giovanni Francesco, 93
Germany, 127-133; in France, 133-141; Borromini, Francesco, 110, 762; use of
town planning of, 709-710, 712; Rue de undulating wall by, 110-113, 120, 157,
Rivoli, 7l4-715;avenuesof, 770. Seealso 640; San Carlo aile Quattro Fontane,
Borromini; Guarini; Squares; Versailles 110-113, 143; rediscovery of, 111n; Sant'
Barr, Alfred, 437 lvo, 113-116; as sculptor, 117-120; con-
Bath, England: Royal Crescent, 147-149, nection with past, 121; forerunner of
640, 723, 736; Lansdowne Crescent, modern architecture, 155, 521, 529, 738
157-158; middle-class Versailles, 160; Borsodi, Ralph, 820
influence of, 734 Boston: commercial buildings in, 234-235;
Baudot, Anatole de, 271; Saint-Jean de Oak Hall, 235; granite warehouses, 359-
Montmartre, 326-327 360; Quincy Market, 359n; Back Bay
Bauhaus, the, 266, 486-497, 595; role of, Center, 513, li69.
489-491, 511; buildings at Dessau, 491- Boulevard: defined, 757; in Paris, 757-759
497, 515, 529, 629, 663 Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, 771-772, 800
Bayer, Herbert, 488, 510n, 594 Boulevard Seba.stopol, 748, 749
Beams: cast-iron, 191, 192; rolled-iron, 195 Boulton, Matthew, 191-192
Beardsley, Aubrey, 302 Bourgeois, Victor, 316, 595, 698
Bedford House, and Bloomsbury, 724-728 Bourget, Paul, 381
Bedford Place, 727, 728-729 Bowen, H., 353-354
Behrens, Peter, 318, 371, 595; atelier of, Bramante, Donato, 36, 44, 76, 567, 580;
479, 519, 588; contrasted with Gropius, Piazza Ducale, 48; Via Giulia, 57-58;
482-483 use of stairways by, 62-64
Belgrand, Eugene, 763 Brancusi, Constantin, 475, 476, 621
Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backward, 783 Braque, Georges, 438, 443, 446, 521, 594,
Bellange, 176 620
Bellini, J acopo, 62 Breuer, Marcel, 488, 500, 700; work with
Berkeley Square, 723, 739 Gropius, 502, 504, 507, 539; high-rise
Berlage, Hendrik Petrus, 115, 292, 309; buildings, 833n
885
Briand, Aristide, 537, 697 Charnley house, Chicago, 399-400
Bridges: Sunderland, 171-173; Seguin's, Charte d'Athenes, La, 699-700
178; Roebling's, 178; Golden Gate, 179; Charte de !'Habitat, 703
London, 190; Arnodin's, 290; Maillart's, Chateaux: emergence of, 135; Vaux-le-
450-462, 467-473. See also individual Vicomte, 135; Versailles, 137-141
bridges Chevalier, Michel, 247
Brighton, Royal Pavilion at, 174, 187-188 Chicago: early center of architectural de-
Britannia Tubular Bridge, 173 velopment, 10, 26; skyscrapers in, 208,
British Museum: reading room in, 222; 846; department stores in, 238; World's
and Bloomsbury, 724, 727 Fair (1893), 275-277, 342-343, 393-396;
Brunelleschi, Filippo, 226; initiator of per- Montgomery Ward warehouse, 327-
spective, 32, 33-34; Spedale degli Inno- 328; development of balloon frame in,
centi, 38-39; influence of Byzantium on, 352-354; architectural innovations in,
39; Pazzi Chapel, 39-·40 380-390; Mies van der Rohe in, 601.
Brunet, 176 See also Chicago School; Wright, Frank
Brussels: center of conte .•1porary art, 295- Lloyd; individual buildings
298; exhibitions at, 297-298; Horta Chicago construction, 381, 392
house, 299-306; ClAM meeting in, 698 Chicago School, 368-396; office buildings,
Bryant, Gridley J. Fox, 359n 370-377; apartment houses, 377-380;
Bryggman, 626 innovations of, 380-382; schism be-
Bucher, Lothar, 253, 337 tween architecture and engineering
Buffington, Leroy S., 206-207 healed, 382; Leiter Building, 371, 373,
Bunschaft, Gordon, 617 382-385; Reliance Building, 385-388;
Burckhardt, Jakob, 3-4, 111, 444 Carson, Pirie, Scott store, 388-390; de-
Burdon, Rowland, 173 cline of, 391; and World's Fair, 393-
Burnett, Sir John, 537 396; and F. L. Wright's work, 409-410,
Burnham, Daniel, 371, 374-377; Reliance 420; revived by Mies van der Hohe, 607
Building, 385-388, 409; and World's Chicago Tribune Building, 391-393, 501
Fair, 395-396 Chicago World's Fair (1893), 275-277,
Burton, James, 728-729 342-343, 393-396; influence of Paris on,
Byzantium: influence of on Brunelleschi, 394-395
39; origin of porticoes in, 52 Chomhart de Lauwe, P., 840
ClAM, see Congr/>s Internationaux d'Ar-
Capitolina, use of space in, 64-71 chitecture Moderne
Carpaccio, Vittore, 45 Cite lndustrielle (Tony Garnier), 331, 333,
Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Harvard 787-793
University, 529, 556-563 Cities: growth of, 41-42, 742; Renaissance
Carson, Pirie, Scott store, 388-390 star-shaped, 42-54; Rome, 75-108; ba-
Cast iron: columns of, 184-188; design for roque dislike of, 137; new buildings
London Bridge, 190; for interior frame- caused by growth of, 234; large-scale
work, 191-195; use of by Bogardus, 195- planning for, 543; as technical problems,
200; in commercial buildings, 200-204; 762-765; late nineteenth-century, 778-
on St. Louis waterfront, 200-204 781; garden, 780-785, 859; linear, 786-
Ceiling, modern treatment of, 632-633 787, 859; destruction vs. transformation
Cement, hydraulic, 324 of, 819-823; changing notions of, 856-
Cendrars, Blaise, 285-290 859; "new towns," 859. See also Town
Central Park, New York, 824 planning; individual cities
Cezanne, Paul, 292, 295, 297, 433, 462 City planning, see Town planning
Champ-de-Mars, 260 City Theater of Helsinki, 691
Champs Elysees, 143, 148, 764 Civic centers: Alvar Aalto's, 655-661, 664;
Chandigarh: Secretariat Building at, 534, Rockefeller Center as type of, 81,5-846,
552, 702; capitol designed by Le Cor- 850-856
busier, 549-553, 569, 661 Clapboards, 358
Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, 213 Clifford, Thomas, 350
Chareau, P., 696 Coates, Wells, 699
Charles II, of England, 717 Cobden-Sanderson, T. J., 298
886
Cole, Henry, 247, 249, 480 Doesbu.,:;, Theo van, 155; and Stijl group,
Collages, as artistic means, 438 413, 426, 439, 590, 619; as architect,
Column, cast-iron: use in factories, 184-- 442-443, 591; and Bauhaus, 488-489
186; combined with other materials, Dome, concept of flexibility in, 115; use of
186; in Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 187- infinity in, 125-126; use of binding arch,
188; mass production of, 189-190; in 126
private house, 302 Donatello, 32
Comte, Auguste, 233 Dormitories: Aalto's at MIT, 504--506,
Concrete, see Ferroconcrete; Shell concrete 510, 636, 664, 865; Harkness Graduate
Congres Internationaux d'Architecture Center, 504--510, 637, 865; Peabody
Moderne (CIAM), 4, 316, 511, 538, 566; Terrace, 506, 637, 865-868
Le Corbusier in, 567; background of, Douglas, design for London Bridge, 190
696-697; 1st congress (La Sarraz), 697; Douro Bridge, 279-280
2nd (Frankfort), 697-698; 3rd (Brus- Drew, Jane, 550
sels), 698; 4th (Athens), 698-700, 782; Duchamp, Marcel, 445
5th (Paris), 700; New York chapter of, Duchamp-Villon, Raymond, 270, 290
700; MARS, 700; 6th (Bridgwater), Dudok, 426
700-701; 7th (Bergamo), 701; 8th Duiker, 501
(Hoddesdon), 701-702; 9th (Aix-en- Diirer, Albrecht, 498
Provence), 702; lOth (Dubrovnik), 702- Dutch Housing Act of 1901, 795
703; summary of, 703-706; delegates to, Dutert, Ferdinand, 270, 327n
704 Dvofak, Max, 121
Constable, John, 69
Constructivism, 439-440 Eclecticism in architecture, 292; and end
Continuity, demand for, 7-8; importance of Chicago School, 390-391
of, 21; relation to change, in modern Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 396; revival of, 212;
architecture, 868-873 influence on training of architects, 213
Cordova, influence on baroque, 126 Ecole Polytechnique, 212, 489; influence
Corny, Here de, 144-147 on training of architects, 213-214; train-
Cottancin, 270 ing of engineers, 765
Couturier, Father, 568, 570 Eddystone Lighthouse, 323
Covent Garden, 722 Edgerton, H. E., stroboscopic studies, 450,
Crystal Palace, 245, 249-255; reported by 853
Cole, 247; prefabricated parts in, 251; Edinburgh, 158
implications of, 252-254 Eesteren, C. van, 442-443, 590, 619; and
Cubism, 434-439, 848; and space-time, ClAM, 698; as town planner, 816
436, 525; compared with futurism, 445, Egypt: use of horizontal planes in, 674;
448; use of planes, 674 barrel vaults, 679
Cubitt, Thomas, 729 Eilfel. Gustave, 278-290; Bon Marche,
Cupola, use of iron in, 176-178 238-241, 266n, 279; Exhibition of 1867,
262, 279, of 1878, 266, of 1889, 268,
Daly, Cesar, 214, 215, 217 274n; Douro Bridge, 279-280; Garabit
Darby, Abraham, 169-171; Severn Bridge, Viaduct, -280-281. · See also Eilfel Tower
170 Eilfel tower, ll5, 246, 268, 529; elevator
Davioud, Gabriel, 265, 532; work with of, 2ll"; building of, 281-284; emotional
Alphand, 764 content of, 284-290
Delauney, Robert, 285 Einstein, Albert, 436
Department stores, 234-243; ongm of, Elevators, early, 208-210, 236; first Eu-
23,t-238; French, 238-243; Magasin au ropean, 210; in Eilfel Tower, 2ll
Bon Marche, 238-241 Elmslie, George E., 315, 389n, 391
Descartes, Rene, 872 Engineering: separation of from architec-
Deutsche Werkbund, 479-481, 486; and ture, 176, 183; interrelations with archi-
Mies van der Rohe, 595 tecture, 215-218; relation to modern
Dewey, John, Art as Experience, 12 city planning, 765. See also Science;
Dientzenhofer, Christoph, 131 Technology
Dion, Henry de, 267, 268 England: and Industrial Revolution, 168;
887
use of mineral fuel in, 168-169; early for Sixtus V, 90-100; Strada Felice, 95-
iron construction, 169; arts and crafts 96
in, 298-299; dwelling houses, 398-399; Fountains, 103-104
MARS, 700; housing based on comfort Fouquet, Nicolas, 135
and privacy, 716-733. See also London; Fourier, Charles, 820
Squares France: influence of secular absolutism in,
Ensor, James, 297 133-141; role of women, 134; royal cha-
Evelyn, John, 48 teau in, 135, 137-141; early uses of iron
Exhibitions, industrial, 243-277; early, in, 175-177, 178, 179-181, 318; use of
244-245; international, 245-249; archi- concrete in, 325-327, 328-333
tectural innovation in, 245; use of vault- Francesco di Giorgio, 45; wedge-shaped
ing in, 248; Crystal Palace, 249-255; bastions of, 43; citla ideale, 47-48; as
Paris (1855), 255-260; Paris (1867), Renaissance man, 51-52; Piazza ldeale,
260-268; Paris (1889), 268-275; Chi- 51, 54, 57
cago, 275-277, 393-396; later, 277 Francke, ]{uno, 397
Expressionism, 485-487 Frank, J., 595
Frankfort, congress at, 697-698; and city
Factories: use of cast-iron column in, 184- planning, 793
186; Bolton, 184; Massachusetts, 184; Franklin, Benjamin, 172
Salford cotton mill, 191-193; Noisel- Frauenkirche, Dresden, 75n
sur-Marne, 204-206; Fagus works, 482- Free University, W. Berlin, 862
484, 485, 507, 515, 589; Sunila, 640-645 Freyssinet, 465
Fairbairn, William: on beams, 191, 192; Fry, Maxwell, 550
use of iron in construction, 194-195; Fuller, George A., 369n, 378
warehouses by, 236, 324 Function, concept of, 618; step toward
Falke, Jakob van, 339 irrational organic, 620; independence of
Faraday, Michael, 15 expression from, 677
Farnese Palace, 56-57 Furniture: nineteenth-century American,
Feeling, importance of, 16-17, 877-881 338, 341; Windsor chair, 354-355; of
Feininger, Lyonel, 487 plywood, 467; cantilever tubular, 599;
Ferroconcrete, 322-333; history of, 323- Alvar Aalto's, 661-663
325; early uses of, 326-327; use in Futurism, 443-448; compared with cub-
America, 327-328; work of Perret, 328- ism, 445-446; in architecture, 446-447
332, 522; work of Garnier, 332-333,
522, 788; new structural possibilities of, Gabo, N aum, 539
451; use by Le Corbusier, 522, 546-547 Gabriel, Jacques-Ange, 143, 148
Ferry bridges, 290 Galerie d'Orleans, 179-181
Filarete (Antonio di Pietro Averlino), 45- Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, Milan, 181
47, 48, 50 Garabit Viaduct, 280-281
Finance, Haussmann's use of, 765-767 Garden, Hugh, 391
Finch, A. W., 296 Garden city, as solution to urbanism:
Finland, and Aalto, 620, 626-636, 706; urged by Otto Wagner, 780-782; urged
architecture before 1930, 621--625; town by Ebenezer Howard, 782-785; rejected,
planning in, 648-661 801, 859. See also Town planning
Flachat, Eugene, 232-233 Gardens, public, 757-759. See also Parks;
Floating foundation, 381 Squares
Floor, beamless, 452-454 Gardner, Eugene C., 366-368
Florence, and new conception of space, 30; Garnier, Charles, 849
work of Masaccio, 32-35; Spedale degli Garnier, Tony, 332-333; Cite lndustrielle,
Innocenti, 38-39; Pazzi Chapel, 39-41; 331, 333, 787-793
ideal plan of, 52; work of Leonardo, 72- Gaudi, Antonio, 304, 686; and organic ap-
75 proach, 874-875
Fontaine, Pierre, 179; Galerie d'Orh~ans, Geddes, Patrick, 785-786
179-181; Rue de Rivoli, 714 Germany: nineteenth-century classicism
Fontana, Domenico: Palazetto Felice, 87- in, 2; late baroque in, 127-133; in-
88; design of garden by, 90; architect fluence of Wright in, 397; in nineteenth
888
century, 477-479; Deutsche Werkbund, Haussmann, Georges-Eugene, 27, 260,
479-481; work of Gropius in, 482-485, 715, 743; Les Grandes Hailes, 230-233;
498; after World War I, 485; expres- aims of, 745-746, 750--751; stages of
sionism in, 485-486; Bauhaus, 486-497 work, 746-752; accomplishments of,
Glass: as wall, 227; in Bon March<\ 239; 747-754; system of parks, 759, 761; as
plate, 251; at Paris Exhibition (1878), technical planner, 762-765, 773, 812;
266-267; used by Gropius, 482-484, as financier, 765-767; typical apartment
515, 589; used by Bauhaus group, 495- houses of, 667-669; use of streets by,
497 770--773; influence of, 773-775, 798
Gogh, Vincent van, 292, 295, 297 Heisenberg, Werner, 562
Golden Gate Bridge, 179 Helsinki, civic center in, 657-661
Gothic, 41, 42, 45, 55 Hennebique, Fran~ois, 325-326, 451; villa
Granary, Paris, cupola of, 176-177 at Bourg-la-Reine, 326; Rue Danton
Grandes Hailes, Les, 230--233, 259, 744 apartments, 330
Granite, see Stone Herriot, Edouard, 333
Gray's Inn, 729 Hevesi, Ludwig, 301-302
Gris, Juan, 431 High-rise buildings, in city planning, 833-
Gropius, Walter, 343, 479, 482-485, 498- 840
517, 538, 566, 595; St. Leonard's Hill, Highway, use of at Versailles, 140. See
149-150; Chicago Tribune Building, also Parkways; Streets
391-392; Fagus works, 482-484, 507, Hildebrandt, Lucas von, 131
515, 589; Fabrik, Cologne, 484--485, 507, Hitchcock, Henry-Russell, 483
515; and Bauhaus, 487, 5ll, 594, 595, Hoffmann, Josef, 318, 319, 321, 480, 519-
629, 663; advocate of exhibitions, 489n; 520, 537
in America, 499-517, 700; use of stand- Holabird, William, 371, 373, 388, 605
ardized parts, 501; Architects' Collabo- Holland, nineteenth-century architecture
rative, 506-507; Back Bay Center, 513; in, 308-309; work of Berlage, 309-313;
American Embassy, Athens, 514--517; Stijlgroup,413,426,442,488,585,619;
place in contemporary architecture, 585, work of van t'Hoff, 426; influence on
618; and ClAM, 698; advocate of high- Mies van der Rohe, 588-590; housing
rise buildings, 833, 837 development in, 590n
Gropiustown, 514 Home Insurance Co. Building, 208, 371-
Grosvenor Square, 722, 723 372
Group design, in modern architecture, 669 Hood, Raymond, 391, 393n, 565, 854;
Group form, 863 Daily Mail Building, 848
Guarini, Guarino, 121-127, 131; San Lo- Horeau, Hector, 231-232, 259
renzo, 124--126; use of infinity by, 125- Horta, Victor, 298-306, 357; house at 12
126 Rue de Turin, 202, 299-306, 327, 524,
Guevrekian, G., 696 537; use of art nouveau, 302-304; use of
plan libre, 305; Maison du Peuple, 305,
Habitat, theme of ClAM congress, 702; 311, 537; juror for League of Nations
relation to city planning, 703 competition, 537
Hadrian's Villa, ll2-ll3 House, see Private house
Haefeli, M. E., 327 Housing, essentials of, 810. See also
Hague, the, 802n Apartments; Town planning
Hallieday warehouse, 266 Howard, Ebenezer, 782-785
Handicrafts, see Arts and crafts Hubbard, H. V., 824
Hankar, Paul, 298, 306-308 Hungerford Fish Market, 229-230
Hardouin-Mansard, Jules, 137, 143 Huttunen, 626
Hardware, American, 339-340 Hyde Park Hotel, Chicago, 378
Harrison, Wallace K., 564--565 Hygeia, 784
Harvard University: Graduate Center,
504-506, 507-510, 637; Carpenter Cen- Illinois Institute of Technology, 504, 601-
ter for Visual Arts, 529, 556-563; com- 603
plex for married students (Peabody Individualism, and concept of linear per-
Terrace), 506, 637, 865-868 spective, 31
889
Industrial Revolution, 165; reflected in Kepes, Gyorgy, 510n, 562
architecture, 166-167; and use of iron, Klee, Paul, 487, 595, 619
167-168; legacy of, 879 Klerk, de, 796, 799-800
Industrialization, and demand for innova- Klimt, Gustav, 304
tion in architecture, 214--218, 229-277; Knopff, Ferdinand, 296
market halls, 229-233; department Koechlin, Maurice, 281
stores, 234--243; exhibitions, 243-277; Krantz, J. B., 261
early American, 244-246; mechanized
methods in housing, 346; in Germany, Laborde, Count Leon de, 337
477; and growth of cities, 742. See also Labrouste, Henri, 187, 218-228, 278, 763,
Technology; Town planning 787; Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve,
Industry, influence of on town planning, 220-221, 311, 325, 524; Bibliotheque
160-161; American and European dif- Nationale, 222-228; use of interior iron
ferentiated, 344-346 bridges by, 226-227, 239
Infinity, use of in baroque, 109 Lake Shore Apartments, Chicago, 606-607
lngres, Jean Auguste, 433, 500 Larkin Building, 420-422
Interpenetration, concept of, 445; in L'art moderne, 296
"Guernica," 449 La Sarraz, congress at, 697
Invention, 165-166 Laugier, Abbe, 148
Iron: use linked to Industrial Hevolution, Laurens, Henri, 672
167-168; in England, 168-174; for League of Nations building competition,
Severn Bridge, 170-171; Sunderland 3C5, 530-538; Le Corbusier's plan, 530-
Bridge, 171-173; as roofing material, 536, 629, 663, 685, 696-697; other de-
175-177; in cupolas, 177-178; in sus- signs, 536; jury, 536-537
pension bridges, 178-179; combined Le Cor busier (Charles Edouard J eanneret),
with glass, 179-181, 304, 319; columns 240, 316n, 331, 434, 479, 518-586, 595,
of, 184-188; reasons for use, 188-190; 672; work in Algiers, 159-160, 514, 543,
in London Bridge, 190; for interior 637, 836, 838; Electricity Pavilion, 277;
framework, 191-195, 381; in exhibition Clarte apartments, 380; Maison de
buildings, 245; "Chicago construction," Verre, 383; and Wright, 426n; attention
381 to common objects, 431, 619; and pur-
Isabel Roberts house, 402-404 ism, 439; as a painter, 520-521; work on
Italy, and futurism, 444--445 houses, 523-525, 591; Unite d'Habita-
Itten, Johannes, 487 tion, 525, 543, 544-548, 567, 606, 837,
840, 843; Villa Savoie, 525-530, 554,
Jacquet-Droz, Pierre, 166 555, 674; plan for League of Nations,
Jardin des Plantes, conservatory of, 181 530-536, 629, 632, 663, 685, 696-697;
Jeanneret, Charles Edouard, see Le Cor- projects in Russia, 538, 684, 838; Swiss
busier Pavilion, 539, 637; significance of, 541-
Jeanneret, Pierre, 530, 535. See also Le 543, 616, 618-619; work at Chandigarh,
Corbusier 543, 549-553, 569, 674; core of St. Die,
Jenney, William LeBaron, 206n, 208, 238, 543, 787; development linked to that of
380, 607; founder of Chicago school, contemporary architecture, 555; Car-
370-371; Leiter Building, 371, 373, 382- penter Center for Visual Arts, 529, 556-
384, 524; Home Insurance Building, 563, 674; relation with clients, 563-569;
371-372; Manhattan Building, 373-374; United Nations Building, 564--565, 685;
"The Fair," 374, 377 Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 569-
Johnson Wax Co. Building, 420, 422-424 578; legacy of, 578-586; Zurich pavilion,
580-582; Maison La Roche, 580, 591;
Kahn, Louis, 420, 691-692 in ClAM, 700, 701; and city planning,
Kandinsky, Wassily, 413, 487, 595 806, 837
Karlsruhe, 144; and baroque perspective, Leger, Fernand, 475, 580, 581, 594, 621,
54 672, 699
Karsten, 808 Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 16, 22
Kauttua, 651-652 Leicester Square, 722
Kennedy Airport, 683 Leiter Building, 371, 373, 382-384
890
Lemaresquier, M., 537 Manet, Edouard, 462
Le Notre, Andre, 135, 717 Marcks, Gerhard, 487
Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 44; and Francesco Marinetti, F. T., 444
di Giorgio, 52; on cities, 55n; and re- Markelius, Sven, 564, 566
gional planning, 72-75 Market halls: Madeleine, 229; Hungerford
Le Play, Frederic, 260 Fish Market, 229-230; Les Grandes
Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 233 Hailes, 230-233
Lessing, Julius, 340-341 Marseille: Unite d'Habitation, 544-548;
"Les XX," 296-297 other projects in, 843
Le Vau, Louis, 135 Masaccio, 32-35; Trinity fresco, 33-35, 38
Libre Esthetique, 297 Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Liebermann, Max, 297 dormitory by Aalto, 504, 510
Lincoln Center, 669, 855-856 Materials, architectural: iron, 167-181;
Lincoln's Inn, 721 iron and glass, 179-181; cast iron, 184-
Linear city, 786-787, 859 195; glass, 266; ferroconcrete, 322; brick
Lippold, Richard, 510n for flat walls, 356; clapboards, 358;
Lonberg-Holm, K., 501, 700 stone walls, 358-360; as used by Wright,
London, squares in, 27, 716-733; Wren's 416-417; plywood, 467, 662; marble,
plan for rebuilding, 717; Bloomsbury, 591. See also Ferroconcrete; Glass;
724-733, 739. See also Exhibitions; Iron; Steel
Parks Mathematics, artistic counterparts of, 122
London Bridge, 190 Matisse, Henri, 396, 462
London Exhibition (1851), 480; American Maus, Octave, 296-297
productions at, 336-338 May, Ernst, 481, 697
Loos, Adolf, 318, 319-321, 478 Mayan architecture, 672, 675, 688
Los Angeles, streets in, 770 Medieval city, 45
Louis XIV: and Versailles, 137-141, 762; Megastructure, 440, 863
Tuileries, 714 Meissonier, Jean, 433
Louis XV, 143, 714 Mendelsohn, E., 536
Louis-Philippe, 742-743 Mercantile classicism: in Chicago World's
Louis, Victor, 175 Fair, 395-396; in American architecture
Lyon, Gustave, 531 after 1900, 500
Mercier, Sebastien, 710
Mackintosh, Charles Rennie, 319; con- Merkelbach, 808
trasted with Wright, 399, 413 Messel, Alfred, 478
Mackmurdo, Arthur H., 298 Metropolis, large-scale planning for, 543-
Madeleine, market hall of, 229 553
Maderno, Carlo, 36-38 Meunier, Constantin, 295
Magasin au Bon Marche, 234, 238-241, Meyer, Adolph, 507
238n Meyer, Hannes, 536
Maher, George, 391 Michelangelo (Buo:narotti), 76, 168, 580;
Maillart, Robert, 327, 450-477, 691, 848; nave of St. Peter's, 37, 567; Porta Pia,
bridges of, 450-462, 467-473; new 54, 92; Farnese Palace, 56-57; modeling
structural principles of, 451-454; use of of outer space by, 64-71
concrete slab, 458-459, 547; Schwand- Milan, 36
bach-Briicke, 459-461; work compared Minkowski, Hermann, 14, 443
to cubism, 462-463; different systems of Minne, Georges, 479
construction, 467-473; Cement Hall, Minneapolis, as birthplace of skyscraper,
473-475 206
Maillol, Aristide, 479 Mirbeau, Octave, 215
Mairea, 645-648 Mir6, Joan, 510n, 619
Maki, Fumihiko, 676, 863 Modern Architectural Research Group
Malewitsch, Kasimir, 413, 439, 443; and (MARS), 700
constructivism, 439, 447 Moholy-Nagy, L., 439, 487-488, 500, 594,
Malraux, Andre, 520, 529 595; at ClAM meeting, 699; invited to
Mandrot, Homme de, 696 U.S., 700
891
Monadnock Block, Chicago, 374 feet of Industrial Revolution on, 165;
Mondrian, Pieter, 413, 439, 619; neo- "period pieces" of, 181; separation of
plasticism of, 442 architecture and technology in, 2ll-218,
Monge, Gaspard, 122 277-279; new solutions to problems of,
Monnier, 325 229; use of vaulting in, 248; eclecticism
Montague House, and Bloomsbury, 724- of, 292; art and technology joined, 382;
728 root of present city problems, 857-858
Montgomery Ward warehouse, 327, 410
Moscow, Centrosoyus, 538 Obelisks, used by Sixtus V, 97-100
Morality: influence of on modern art, 293, Office buildings: Harper and Bros., 197;
313, 433; as integrity of industrial de- Home Insurance Co., 203; Larkin Build-
sign, 343 ing, 420-422; Johnson Wax Company,
Morisot, Berthe, 297 420, 422-424; Federal Ce,nter, Chicago,
Morris, William, 294-295, 296, 297, 298, 608-610; Bacardi Building, 6ll-614
478, 480 Office furniture, designed by F. L. Wright,
Moser, Karl, 537, 689; president of ClAM, 421
697, 698 Olbrich, Joseph, 318, 319
Moses, Robert, 831 Ollivier, Emile, 766
Motion, concept of linked with time, 443- Olmsted, F. M., 824
445 Open-ended planning, 668, 691-692, 862
Mumford, Lewis, 786 Organic style of mastering environment,
Munich, work of Kandinsky in, 413 contrasted with rational, 414; Wright as
example of, 414-417, 474; limits of, 873;
Nails, mass production of, 350 defined by Sullivan, 87 4
Nancy, France, interrelated squares in, Osdel, J. M. van, 353
144-147 Otis, Elisha Graves, 209, 210
Napoleon I, 714-715 Otis Elevator Co., 10
Napoleon III, 739, 744 Oud, J. J. P., 316, 367, 426, 541, 590n,
Nash, John, 150, 174, 227n, 784; Royal 800n; work at Weissenhof settlement,
Pavilion at Brighton, 174,187-188, 302; 595; union of function and aesthetics,
use of pillar by, 524; Regent's Park, 715, 619; work in Rotterdam, 793
734, 840; Park Crescent, 721, 734-736; Oulu, 652-654
original plan for Park Crescent, 736-739 Ozenfant, Amedee, 439, 539
Nature, contact with: in Versailles, 138-
141; in modern cities, 823 Paimio, sanatorium at, 629-632
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 549, 569 Paine, Thomas, as inventor, 171-173, 190
Neo-plasticism, 442-443 Painting: relation to architecture, 33, 433-
Neumann, Balthasar, 130-133; Vierzehn- 434, 443; cubism, 434-439; use of planes
heiligen, 130 in, 437-439; collage, 438; purism, 439;
Neutra, Richard J., 500, 536; use of bal- constructivism, 439-440; neo-plasticism,
loon frame by, 354; and ClAM, 698, 700 442-443; futurism, 443-448; today, 449-
"New towns," 859 450; affinity with modern construction,
New York City: commercial buildings in, 461-467, 619; relation of Le Corbusier
235; department stores of, 236; style to, 520
contrasted with Chicago's, 390; mer- Palmanova, Italy, 43
cantile classicism in, 395-396; Central Pan American Building, 514
Park Casino, 408; parkways of, 824-831; Panizzi, Sir Anthony, 222
Rockefeller Center, 845-846, 850-856; Pantheon, 687
problems of, 854-856 Papadaki, Stamo, 700
Newton, Sir Isaac, 22 Papworth, J. B., 185, 784
Niemeyer, Oscar, 564 Paris: rue corridor in, 27; squares of, 142-
Nineteenth century: neglect of contempo- 143; in early nineteenth century, 740-
rary records in, 8-10; architecture of, 744; work of Haussmann in, 744-754,
10-ll, 277-278; inner division in, 13-14, 843; parks of, 755-761; plan for suburbs,
17; science in, 14-16; architectural con- 773; Le Corbusier's plan for, 838-839,
struction in, 24; evaluation of, 164; ef- 843
892
Paris Exhibition (1798), 244 Pillar, use of by Le Corbusier, 524
Paris Exhibitipn (1855), 255-260 Pissarro, Camille, 297
Paris Exhibition (1867), 260-264; use of Place de Ia Concorde, 148, 714
iron columns, 188, 261; first European Place Vendome, 150
elevator, 210, 263; use of concrete, 325 Plan libre, 524-525, 539
Paris Exhibition (1878), 264-268; glass Plane: in modern art, 437-439; in" Guern-
fa~;ade, 266; Galerie des Machines, 266- ica," 449; use of horizontal, 673-676;
268; American furniture at, 342 use of vertical, 674
Paris Exhibition (1889), 268-275; climax Platform, use of, 676
of engineering skill, 268; Galerie des Plywood, 467, 662
Machines, 269-271; new aesthetic prin- Polychromy in ancient art, 219n
ciples in, 271-274; distribution of load Population, and town planning, 817
and support, 273-275 Porch: in American houses, 407-409; Cen-
Parks: Paris distinguished from London, tral Park Casino, 408; in F. L. Wright's
755-761; in Amsterdam, 806; Central work, 408-409
Park, 824. See also Squares Portico, origin of, 52
Parkways, American, 823-824; in 1930's, Portland Place, 734
823-833; relation of to city planning, 832 Prefabrication: of houses, 502; of elements,
Parris, Alexander, 359n 581; of sections of shell domes, 679-680.
Parts, standardization of, 501 See also Parts
Pascal, Blaise, 108 Priory of Ste. Marie de Ia Tourette, 569-
Patent furniture, 341-342 578
Patio, used by Wright, 428 Private house: iron construction intro-
Pavilion, use of in modern buildings, 239, duced in, 302; art nouveau in, 302-304;
264n Wright as specialist in, 397, 398, 417;
Paxton, Joseph, 199; Crystal Palace, 251- developed by Le Corbusier, 523-530;
255 Dutch development of, 590; work of
Peabody Terrace, dormitory for married Mies van der Robe on, 590-591; Aalto's
students, 506, 637, 865-868 Mairea, 645-648. See also Gropius;
Pedestrian, importance of in urban plan- Horta; Wright
ning, 702; separated fro.m vehicles, 842- Promontory Apartments, Chicago, 603-
843 606
Penttila, Timo, 691 Purism, 439
Pepperell house, Kittery, 363
Perac, Etienne du, 64, 65 Radio City, see Rockefeller Center
Percier, Charles, 179, 714 Rainaldo, Carlo, 152
Perret, Auguste, 328-332, 371, 519; dock Rambuteau, Count, 742-743
buildings at Casablanca, 221; Rue Ramp, used by Le Corbusier, 529, 541,
Franklin apartments, 328-331, 524 558, 674
Perspective: and Renaissance conception Ransome, Ernest Leslie, 325
of space, 30-31, 435, 444; in use of Raphael, 44, 76, 567, 580
vaults, 33-40; in star-shaped cities, 54; Rasmussen, Steen Eiler, 672, 694
and baroque use of infinity, 109; dis- Rathenau, Emil, 588
solution of, 435-436, 437 Recreation and housing, 700
Petit, Claudius, 544-555, 567, 843 Regent's Park, 734-739, 840
Pevsner, Nikolaus, 475 Reliance Building, Chicago, 385;-388
Philadelphia Exposition (1876), 339-341 Renaissance: Burckhardt on, 3-4; breadth
Philharmonic Hall, Berlin, 686 of men of, 32; expressed in early build-
Philips Pavilion, Brussels World Fair, 555 ings, 38; citta ideale, 42-54; constit-
Piazza del Popolo, 150-155 uent elements of towns of, 55-71;
Picard, Edmond, 296 Rome as peak of, 75-108; and concept
Picasso, Pablo, 28, 115, 315, 431, 434, 475; of perspective, 435, 436
and cubism, 435, 438, 446, 521, 594; Renoir, Auguste, 297
"Guernica," 448-450; images related to Repton, Humphrey, 174
those of construction, 461; " L' Arle- Residences, see Private house
sienne," 493; early and late periods, 554 Residential complexes: Royal Crescent,
893
Bath, 147-149; St. Leonard's Hill, 149- St. Pancras Station, London, 270
150 St. Paul's, London, 75n
Reuleaux, F., 339 St. Peter's, Rome, 36-38, 567
Richardson, Henry Hobson, 202, 360-363; Saint-Simon, Comte de, 233
work in Chicago, 10; use of Roman- Salem, 364
esque, 310, 362-363; Sever Hall, 314, Salford cotton mill, I9I-I93
357; use of plain brick wall, 357; Mar- San Carlo aile Quattro Fontane, 110-113,
shall Field Store, 360, 372; relation of I43
Wright to, 397, 398 Sangallo, Antonio, 56
Rietveld, G., 590, 591, 619 Sant' Elia, Antonio, 785; Citta Nuova,
Robinson, Solon, 352n 32I-322, 446-447
Robinson, W., 755, 757 Saulnier, Jules, 204-206, 207
Roche, Martin, 371, 373, 388, 605 Scala di Spagna, 64
Rockefeller Center, 845-846, 850-856; Scamozzi, Vincenzo, 54
new scale of planning in, 854-855 Scharoun, Hans, 595, 686
Rodin, Auguste, 295, 297 Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, 2, 588
Roebling, John Augustus, 178 Schlemmer, Oskar, 487
Rogers, Ernesto N., 566, 569, 702 Schuyler, Montgomery, 374
Romanesque: Berlage's, 310, 314-315; Schwandbach-Briicke, 459-46I
Richardson's, 314-315 Schwedler, J. W., 270n
Romantic classicism, 2-3 Schwitters, Kurt, 473
Rome: St. Peter's, 36-38, 567; Palazzo Science: and art, I2-I7, 211, 878-879;
Farnese, 56-57; Via Giulia, 57; as center method of, I6; and perspective, 3I;
of town planning, 75; Renaissance city, separation from arts, I82. See also Art;
80; streets of, 80-82; work of Sixtus V, Engineering; Technology
82-106; San Carlo aile Quattro Fontane, Sedille, Paul, 239
110-113; Sant' Ivo, 113-114; Piazza Seguin, Marc, 178
Obliqua, 141; Piazza del Po polo, 151-152 Semper, Gottfried, 18I, 338
Ronchamps, Pilgrimage Chapel of, 568, Serlio, Sebastiana, 57
569 Sert, Jose Luis, 450, 562; Harvard com-
Rondelet, J.-B., 2I3 plex for married students (Peabody
Roofs: use of iron for, 175; gardens on, 326, Terrace), 506, 637, 865-868; Dean,
331; terrace on, 525, 586 Graduate School of Design, 558; in
Rooms, Wright's treatment of, 420, 428 ClAM, 698, 699, 700, 701, 702, 703;
Root, John, 371, 374-377, 382, 385; and plan for Chimbote, 864
Chicago World's Fair, 394-395 Seurat, Georges, 295, 297
Rotterdam, 802n; rebuilding plans by Sever Hall, 314, 357
ClAM, 700; work of Oud in, 793; city Severini, Gino, 445
planning in, 807, 835; work of Bakema, Severn Bridge, 169-17I
863 Sforza, Ludovico, 48-50
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 711 Shakers, stonework of, 359
Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 174, 187-188 Shaw, Norman, 398
Rudolph, Paul, 584 Shell concrete, 474-475. See also Ferro-
Rue de Rivoli, 714-715, 740,747, 748-749, concrete
754, 770 Shells, used by Utzon, 678-688
Ruskin, John, 4, I68, 298, 432, 478 Sheraton, Thomas, 342n
Russell Square, 728 Simultaneity: concept of, 436, 445; in
"Guernica," 449
Saarinen, Eero, 204, 566, 673, 688; General Siren, J. S., 623
Motors Technical Center, 617; TWA Sitte, Camillo, 778-779, 780, 798
Building at Kennedy Airport, 683 Sixtus V, and development of Rome, 75,
Saarinen, Eliel, 623 82; pontificate of, 82-91; master plan
St. James's Square, 720, 722 of, 91-100; Via Felice, 95-96; squares
St. Louis riverfront, 201n, 235, 304; use of and obelisks, 97-100; Acqua Felice,
cast iron in, 200-204; Gantt Building, I 00-101 ; social aspects of reign, I 00-106
202-203 Skeletal construction: early buildings of,
894
204-206; in skyscraper, 206; Leiter Stone, as building material, 358-360
Building, 382-383; Maison de Verre, Stoss, Veit, 128
383; Carson, Pirie, and Scott Store, 389; Street: treatment of in Renaissance, 57-59;
as used by Le Corbusier, 529. See also plan by Sixtus for Rome, 93-99; be-
Gropius; Mies van der Robe comes dominant, 739-754, 770-773, 803;
Skyscraper: forerunners of, 204-206; in- Haussmann's plans for in Paris, 747-
ventor of, 206-207; first built, 208; 754; in Berlage's Amsterdam, 799, 803;
Chicago type, 846; new forms in New rue corridor outgrown, 822, 832. See
York, 846-849 also Highway; Parkway
Slab, concrete: Maillart's use of, 458-459, Sullivan, Louis, 239, 275, 309, 846, 854;
547; sculpture of, related to painting, Garrick Theatre, 10; Transportation
461-463 Building, 275, 276; on Richardson, 361-
Smeaton, John, 169, 323-324 362; on Jenney, 371; Carson, Pirie,
Smirke, Sydney, 222 Scott store, 388-390; style of, 39Q-391,
Snow, George Washington, 352-354 425; on Chicago World's Fair, 394, 395;
Soane, Sir John, 150 Wright as apprentice to, 397, 398; as
Social imagination: architect's need of, organic architect, 414-415, 874
542-543; Le Cor busier as example of, Sunderland Bridge, 171-173
543-553; of third generation of modern Sunila, 640-645
architects, 668; and urban planning, 702 Surface, emphasis on: in painting, 462;
Soho Square, 722 in use of concrete slab, 463. See also
Sonck, Lars, 623 Painting
Soria y Mata, Arturo, 785 Suspension bridges: by Seguin, 178; by
South Kensington, 158 Roebling, 178; Golden Gate, 179
Space: organization of in architecture, 23- Sweeney, J. J., 462
24; new conceptions of, 26, 435-443; Sydney Opera House, 673, 676-688
and perspective, 30, 435; Michelangelo's Syrian architecture, 40
modeling of, 64-71; interpenetration of
inner and outer, 117, 284, 436, 493, 521, TAC, see Architects' Collaborative
668; interrelated horizontals and verti- Taliesin, 415-416
cals, 155; organized by Wright, 411; Tallmadge, Thomas, 391
modern vs. classic, 435; and concept of Tange, Kenzo, 555, 676, 863
simultaneity, 436, 445, 449; expressed Tatlin, 117
by Bauhaus group, 496-497; medieval Taut, Bruno, 480, 501, 595
use of, 544; use of horizontal planes, 668, Technology: schism between architecture
672. See also Space-time and, 211-218; as incentive for new
Space-time: concept of, 14, 430; and dis- growth, 214-215. See also Architecture;
solution of perspective, 434-436; in cub- Art; Science
ism, 436, 444, 525; in futurism, 444; Tecton group, 836
and modern cities, 822 Telford, Thomas, 190, 218
Spanish Steps, 64, 95 Tengboom, Ivar, 623
Squares: in London, 27, 724-733, 739; Terrace, used by Le Corbusier, 525, 555
planned by Sixtus V, 97-100; Piazza Tbeatre-Fram;ais, iron roofing for, 175-
Obliqua, 141-142; in Paris, 142-143; 176, 191
interrelated, 143-147; Piazza del Pop- Thiers, Adolphe, 766, 771
olo, 150-155; defined, 718-719 Third generation of contemporary archi-
Stairway, Renaissance use of, 59-64 tects, characteristics of, 668; relation to
Starn, Mart, 481, 595, 599 past, 668-671; use of planes by, 674
Starrett, Theodore, 378 Tijen, W. van, 793, 808n, 834
Statistics, in town planning, 816-818 Time: as constituent fact, 436; new con-
Steel frame, 191-193; girders first used, ception of, in art, 443-444; Edgerton's
208n stroboscopic studies, 853. See also
Stephenson, Robert, 190; and Paine's Space-time
bridge, 173-174 Tokyo, plan for, 676
Stevens, Robert, 195 Tolnay, Charles de, 70
Stijl group, 413,426, 442,488, 585,590,619 Tools, American, 339-341, 343
895
Tower, use of in skyscraper, 846 Zurich Theatre, 688-691; implementa-
Town planning: significance of, 25-26; tion of expression by, 694-695
citta ideale, 42-54; use of constituent
parts in, 55-71; Rome as center of, 75; Valadier, Guiseppe, 150-1.55
work of Sixtus V, 91-106; influence of Van de Velde, Henri, 25, 217, 296, 297,
Versailles on, 140; Nancy, 144-147; 298, 331; revolt against falsity, 293-295,
Bath, 147-149, 157-158; Algiers, 159- 357; house in Uccle, 294; and arts and
160; baroque, 160, 713-715; influence of crafts movement, 298-299; exhibit in
industry on, 16Q-161; work of Aalto, Germany, 478, 480
648-655; subject of ClAM congress, Vander Rohe, Mies, 388, 404, 479, 500,
699-700, 702; social aspects of, 702; 587-617, 672; German pavilion at Barce-
early nineteenth-century, 708-713; Lon- lona, 481, .591; work in America, 504;
don squares, 716-733; Regent's Park, W eissenhof settlement, 538, 594-599;
734-739; Haussmann's work in Paris, place in contemporary architecture, 585;
744-754; in twentieth century, 785-787, elements of architecture of, 588-590;
816-818, 823; Garnier's Cite industrielle country houses by, 590-591; Illinois
787-793; work in Amsterdam, 793-810; Institute of Technology, 601-603; use
interrelations of housing and activities, of proportion by, 603, 694; apartments,
810-813; relation of parkways to, 832; 603-607; office buildings, 607-615; and
civic centers, 845, 850-856; contempo- integrity of form, 615-617
rary proposals, 859. See also individual Van Gogh, Vincent, see Gogh
architects Vantongerloo, 442
Traffic problems: suggested solutions by Varma, E. L., 550, 553
Le Corbusier, .534, 842; as element in Vasari, Giorgio, 33, 51, 58-59
urban planning, 668, 862; ignored, SOOn Vatican, Cortile del Belvedere, 62-64
Transition, present as period of, ll-12 Vauban Sebastien, 142, 710, 712
Transitory facts, defined, 18-19 Vault: expression of perspective by Masac-
Transportation, Haussmann's work re- cio, 33-35; by Alberti, 35-36; in St.
lated to, 771; included by Garnier, 789- Peter's, 36-38; by Brunelleschi, 38-40;
791 Byzantine influence on, 39; by La-
Tredgold, Thomas, 188-189 brouste, 226; related to nineteenth-
Tugendhat House, Brno, 591 century industrial buildings, 248; in
Turin: Palazzo Carignano, 122-124; San Palais de l'lndustrie, 257-258; in Paris
Lorenzo, 124-127 Exhibition of 1889, 273-27.5; staggered,
Turner, C. A. P., 454-455 677
Turner, J. M. W., 69, 254 Venice, Piazza di San Marco, 52
Turnock, R. H., 380 Versailles, chateau of, 20-21, 135; and
Tyrwhitt, J., 702 baroque perspective, S4, 109; symbol of
absolutism, 137-138; contact with na-
Uccello, Paolo, 31, 449 ture, 138, ISS, 160, 535; constituent
UNESCO Building, Paris, 565-567 facts in, 138-141; lasting influence,
Unite d'Habitation, 543, 544-548,606,840 822, 826
United Nations, N.Y., 532, 564-565, 685, Vienna, Wagner's plan for, 780-781
855 Vierendeel, 190, 271, 275-276, 394
United States, see America; American Vierzehnheiligen, Church of, 130-133
architecture Vieux Port, ferry bridge at, 290
Upjohn, E. M., 206 Vigevano, Piazza, 48
Urbanism: increasing problem, 778-780; Villa Savoie, .525-530, .554, S5S
and work of Wagner, 78Q-782 Viollet-le-Duc, 206
Utzon,J¢rn,581,611,668,672-695;repre- Volta, Alessandro, 208
sentative of third generation of con-
temporary architects, 672; Kingo houses Wachsman, Konrad, 502
672, 673, 692; Fredensborg, 672, 673, Waddington, C. H., 562
692, 863-864; Sydney Opera House, 673, W aentig, Heinrich, 346n
676-688; use of horizontal planes by, Wagner, Otto, 304, 316-319; Modern
673-676, 862; use of shells, 678-688; Architecture, 317; isolation of, 318, 797;
896
Karlsplatz station, 318, 322; Postal Windsor chair, 354-355
Savings Building, 318-319; solutions of Wittmer, Hans, 536
urbanism, 780-782 Wolffiin, Heinrich, 2, 3, 108
Wall: as plane surface, 41, 311, 313, 318- Women, influence on architecture, 134
319, 355-363; use of in Renaissance, 56- Wood, John, 148,723
57; undulating, 110-113, 120, 158, 539, "Woolworth Gothic," 391
638-639; Romanesque influence on, Wren, Christopher, 717
314-315; as organized by Wright, 410; Wright, Frank Lloyd, 26, 315, 316, 391,
of glass, by Gropius, 482, 493; functional 478, 500, 781, 787, 840; use of simple
independence of, 524, 589-590; by Aalto, brick wall, 357; flexible ground plan,
632-639 368, 405, 523, 525, 589; and mercantile
Wanamaker Store, 238 classicism, 395-396, 425; place in
Warehouses, 202, 237; Montgomery Ward, American development, 396-400, 425,
327, 410; Leiter Building, 371, 373, 382- 585; Charnley house, 399, 409; cruci-
384 form plan, 400-405; Isabel Roberts
Warren, Clinton J., 378 house, 402-404; Suntop houses, 404-
Watt, James, 169, 200n, 208; iron frame- 405; use of porch, 407-409; Robie house,
work for Salford cotton mill, 191-193 410, 417, 529; organization of space,
Webb, Philip, 398 410-413; organic approach of, 414-417,
Weber, Mrs. Heidi, 580 618, 874; Larkin Administration Build-
Weissenhof Housing Settlement, 538, 594- ing, 419-422; Johnson Wax Co. Build-
599 ing, 420, 422-424; influence of, 424-427,
W erkbund, see Deutsche W erkbund 589; late period, 427-428; compared
Whistler, J. A. M., 297 with Gropius, 496; honored, 500; and
Wiener, P. L., 864 Utzon, 672; on cities, 820, 822
Wilkinson, John, 170, 174
Winckelmann, J. J., 432 Yamasaki, 607
Windows: influence of large displays on
use of iron girders, 195; in commercial Zervos, Christian, 699
buildings, 202; the "Chicago window," Zores, 195
381, 387-388, 389, 392 Zurich Theater, 688-691
897

Untitled

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Untitled

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Untitled

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The CHARLES ELIOT NORTON LECTURES for 1938-1939

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

All rights reserved

First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2008.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-17310

In preparing the fifth edition (sixteenth printing) of this work

RoME, AMERICAN AcADEMY, SEPTEMBER 1966 S.G.

Space, Time and Architecture is intended for those who are

ZuRICH, DoLDERTAL, JuNE 1940 S. G.

Jacob Burckhardt and Heinrich Woeffiin never touched their

On the occasion of this thirteenth printing the question arose

In the sixties a certain confusion exists in contemporary

SIGNS OF THE EVOLVING TRADITION

An easy pandering to popular taste in architecture has been

The future way of life consists in the recovery of the intimac-y

Structures imbued with creative force suddenly arose, first in

CONSTRUCTION AND ITS SPATIAL

In the nineteenth century, structural engineering gave expres-

wings of each of these giant shells (erected without use of

DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE PAST

I have always regarded the past as something not dead but

THE PRESENT STATE OF ARCHITECTURE

Many architects are disturbed by the sculptural tendencies

talent to do this has become rare, perhaps because the shaping

Architecture and Sculpture

of civilization. They have again become active emanating

The Vaulting Problem

The Revitalization of the Wall

VI. KENZO TANGE. Annex to National Indoor Stadium, Tokyo, 1964.

reliefs on the part of the sculptor and in the revitalization of

Organic and Geometric

THREE SPACE CONCEPTIONS

It is easier to understand what is happening in architecture

Unknown in the United States and using a language that is

THE DEMAND FOR CONTINUITY

THE IDENTITY OF METHODS

TRANSITORY AND CONSTITUENT FACTS

We are looking for the reflection in architecture of the progress Architecture as an

THE NEW SPACE CONCEPTION: PERSPECTIVE

Florence as the Jakob Burckhardt in The Civilization of the Renaissance as-

between 1607 and 1617. Following the orders of a new pope,

Byzantine and Syrian architecture.) These vaults, together

PERSPECTIVE AND URBANISM

Prerequisites for the Growth of Cities

The Star-Shaped City

In contrast to the collective spirit of the Gothic period, the

6. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Wedge-shaped bastions

rr- b'Y!,_ ,._,.Y • 1'tr.,J,·

da Vinci. The central building in the midst of a star-shaped

it took the form of a dialogue between a Tuscan architect

13. Vigevano: Main

Francesco di Giorgio was a celebrated fortress engineer; for

How natural it was for the painter Francesco di Giorgio to

ple of self-government broke down during the Renaissance, it

It would be misleading to judge Renaissance town planning

jekten Michelangelos," Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, vol. 51 (1930).

metrical outline of the roof above make this a masterpiece of

Bramante and the Open Stairway

to bring horizontal surfaces lying on different planes into spa-

Terraced buildings and monumental stairways go back almost