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Why Does Modernism Refuse to Die?

Conference Proceedings

ACSA Northeast Regional MeetingOctober 4-6, 2002 McGill University, Montréal

Chair: Vikram BhattCo-chairs: Annmarie Adams, Bruce Anderson, Ricardo Castro,Robert Mellin, Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Pieter Sijpkes, AdrianSheppard and Radoslav Zuk.

Administrative coordinator: David Krawitz

© 2002 School of ArchitectureMcGill UniversityMacdonald-Harrington Building815 Sherbrooke Street WestMontréal (Québec) H3A 2K6 Canadawww.mcgill.ca/architecture

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ISBN 07717-0597-2

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2002Bibliothèque nationale du QuébecNational Library of Canada

fForeword Vikram Bhatt .................................................................................................................................5

Session 1 Cultural Traditions and Modernity Moderator: Radoslav ZukAdamczyk, Georges: The new Montreal architecture: Preserving the tradition of modernism ............................. 8Aranha, Joseph: Modernism and Tradition in Contemporary Non Western Architecture .................................... 13Coleman, Nathaniel: Transcending Limitations: Modern Possibilities ................................................................. 17Naegele, Daniel: Uncrating Kahn’s Fisher House .................................................................................................. 24Rosales, Camilo: Integration and Abstraction in the Modern Movement ............................................................. 28

Session 2 Modernism and Design Education Moderator: Bruce AndersonInam, Aseem: Teaching Urban Design Theory: Modernist, Post-Modernist, or Critical? ....................................... 34Jacks, Ben: Modernizing Anew: A Reconsideration of Design and Human Behavior ........................................... 42Lima, Zeuler: Can We Still Be Modern? Can We Still Be Critical? ........................................................................ 49Lucas, Michael: Thesis as Installation ................................................................................................................... 56Poole, Scott: Pumping Up: Digital Steroids and the Design Studio ....................................................................... 63Wortham, B.D.: Everything I Know About [Modern] Architecture I Learned in School .......................................... 67

Session 3 Modernism and Research Moderator: Alberto Pérez-GómezArmpriest, Diane: Thomas Herzog, Ecological Architect: The European Charter for Solar Energy in Architecture andUrban Planning and the Principles of Modern Architecture ..................................................................................... 74Carroll, Michael: Ironic Blur: Towards a Modernism of Distortion ....................................................................... 80Debelius, C.A.: (Liminal) Domains: The Language of Modernism, Phenomenal Transparency, Le Corbusier’s VillaStein and T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” ................................................................................... 86Fichman, Eytan: Neologism, Translation, Evocation and Equivalence: Searching for Authenticity Through theModern ...................................................................................................................................................................... 87Nishimoto, Taeg: Descriptive Programming in Contemporary Modernism............................................................ 93

Contents

4 ACSA Northeast Regional Meeting October 4-6, 2002 McGill University, Montréal

Session 4 International Modern Moderator: Ricardo CastroBird, Lawrence: Before and Beyond the Modern: Japanese Society, Culture, and Design ................................ 102Jones, Kay Bea: Seeing through Franco Albini: Domestic Modernity in Rationalist Italy .................................. 111de Jesús-Martinez, Javier: From the Internal to the Radical: Autonomy and Alterity in the Local Modern .... 121Srygley, John Reed: Mostmodernism .................................................................................................................. 122

Session 5 Modern Vernacular Moderator: Pieter SijpkesEmond, François: The periphery of modernism: the evolution of the Québec regional landscape: the case ofroute 112 ................................................................................................................................................................. 126Knight, Alan: Towards a post compositional architecture .................................................................................... 135Lucas, Michael: Rust Never Sleeps ..................................................................................................................... 142Neis, Hajo: Modernism is Going Away as Urbanism but not as Architecture ...................................................... 150Wortham, B.D.: Modernity and Urbanism Revisited: Baudelaire and the Boulevard ........................................... 157

Session 6 Persistent Modernisms (Part I) Moderator: Annmarie AdamsCampbell, Cameron: Pete Goché: Postmodern Modernist .................................................................................. 164Hogan, Richard: Individualism vs. community values in modern architecture: The shared traditions of Alvar Aaltoand the Nordic architects ........................................................................................................................................ 169del Real, Patricio: un coup de dés: Language and Modernity in the Catholic University of Valparaiso ............ 173Theodore, David: The Sugar-coated Architecture Pill: Lingering Modernism in the Postmodern Children’sHospital ................................................................................................................................................................... 181

Session 7 Persistent Modernisms (Part II) Moderator: Robert MellinDebelius, C.A.: Proun Studies ............................................................................................................................... 184Lima, Zeuler: Modernism as Cultural Confrontation ............................................................................................ 195Messina, John: Abstraction Versus Representation in Current Architectural Practice ....................................... 201de Vazquez, Sheryl Tucker: Light is Like Water: Barragán and the Question of Magic .................................... 207

5Why Does Modernism Refuse to Die? Session 1 Cultural Traditions and Modernity

wForeword

Why does modernism refuse to die?In choosing the theme for the ACSA Northeast RegionalConference, my colleagues from McGill and I considereda number of ideas. Most felt that the notion thatmodernism – as a theory, practice or act related to thepresent – should be dying or was already dead wastimely, challenging and worthy of academic debate,particularly since many schools of architecture remainallied with modernist teaching. Museums and opinion-makers are busy promoting arch-modernist projects; fromSiam to Sweden, Canada to China modernism is thriving.

We also realized that we were very late in gettingstarted for this conference. Our announcement could beincluded only in the last issue of the ACSA Newsletter,so the call for papers went out in April 2002. With theend of the academic year and the intervening summerbreak rapidly approaching, the concern was that wemight not get a reasonable response. My hope was thatscholars from other schools would react as positively tothis theme as my colleagues from McGill had. And indeedyour response was great. For this conference we receivedmore than 60 abstracts, many of them from outside theregion; they were peer-reviewed and 39 were chosen tosubmit full papers, of which 33 are included in theseproceedings.

For historians, modern signifies of or relating to theperiod of history after the Middle Ages, from c. 1450A.D. to the present. Architecturally, however, it could beargued that the rule of the moderns began in the early1900s and that the movement itself started to declineduring the last quarter of the 20th century. Schools ofarchitecture – the birthplace of post-modernism – playedan instrumental role in challenging the hegemony ofmodernism. But as Mark Twain would have put it, “thereports of modernism’s death are greatly exaggerated.”The remarkable persistence of modernism is worthy of

serious debate, and the following papers, organized insix categories, make a fine contribution to this discourse.

Cultural Traditions and Modernity: The finest examplesof modernist design, although trans-cultural, are foundin projects that respond to local and cultural traditions.The first selection of papers in this volume explore howand where modernism has successfully transcended itsroots.

Modernism and Design Education: Why in the age ofdigital media, is studio- and workshop-based designeducation, championed by the founders of Bauhaus, stillwith us? This and several other issues such as whatmodernism did and can contribute to contemporaryarchitectural education are debated in the second partof the proceedings.

Modernism and Research: The modernist faith in the ideaof progress and change guided architectural research fora long time; papers included in this section of theproceedings recognize the limits of this conviction whilesearching for other avenues for new answers.

International Modern: One no longer differentiatesbetween East and West, North and South in theinternational order of communication and commerce. Isinternational contemporary architecture a victim or avehicle for this condition? It is interesting to note that anumber of presenters whose papers are included in thissection suggest that while serving dotcoms and globaleconomic forces, good international architecture couldand should stand its own ground.

Modern Vernacular: The remarkable acceptance of thelanguage of modernism in popular architecture is

i


analyzed by a number of our contributors and forms partof section five.

Persistent Modernisms: Depth, vigour and common senseare the forces behind the success of modernism, andthe critiques of several scholars form the final section ofthese proceedings.

The valuable support of a number of institutions and thehard work and help of friends and colleagues has madethis event possible, and I would like to take thisopportunity to acknowledge their contribution. ArchitectBing Thom, in spite of his busy practice and internationaltravel schedule, kindly accepted the invitation to be thekeynote speaker for the conference; thank you, Bing. Iam truly grateful to the following people and institutions.The ACSA’s Michelle Rinehart, Senior Project Manager,and Judith Bing, ACSA Northeast Director, for their helpand guidance in organizing this event. The CanadianCentre for Architecture (CCA) for receiving the delegatesof the ACSA Northeast Regional Meeting; in particular,Nancy Dunton, Head, University and ProfessionalPrograms, for arranging the tour of the CCA. The JohnBland Canadian Architecture Collection of McGillUniversity Libraries for arranging the display of earlyModernists’ work, and in particular Irena Murray, ChiefCurator, Rare Books and Special Collections Division, andJulie Korman, Assistant Curator, for organizing a tour ofthe premises and for allowing us to have lunch there.The members of the Executive of the McGill ArchitectureStudents Association (ASA), especially Diana Biggs, VPCommunications, for getting the word out to the studentsto participate in this conference. As always, walking atight timeline, David Morin, Architect, who helped uswith the publicity material for this conference and withthe design and publication of the proceedings. Professors

Radoslav Zuk, Bruce Anderson, Alberto Pérez-Gómez,Ricardo Castro, Pieter Sijpkes, Annmarie Adams, andRobert Mellin who served as the moderators of theconference; they and Professor Adrian Sheppard alsohelped me with the planning and organization of thismeeting, and I owe them special thanks. Professor DavidCovo, Director of the School of Architecture, for hissupport and for overseeing everything. I would also liketo thank student helpers: Nicholas Hanna and Louise Koo,for audio-visual assistance; and Lisa Landrum, for helpwith registration and the packages handed out to theparticipants. Last but not least, I would like toacknowledge the outstanding support of David Krawitz,administrative coordinator of the School, who workedclosely with me in organizing this event.

Vikram Bhatt, ChairProfessor of Architecture


Session 1

Cultural Traditions and Modernity

Moderator: Professor Radoslav Zuk


iThe New Montreal Architecture:Preserving the tradition of modernismGeorges Adamczyk, Université de Montréal, [email protected]

IntroductionIn this presentation, I intend to offer an interpretation ofthe Old City of Montreal as a modern inspiration for thepresent architecture. Here, modern is far away fromBeaudelaire’s Spleen and from the optimistic attitudechanged into anxiety of the pioneers of the movement.The idea of modernity, its spirit, is in the artifacts, Historyembedded in forms and materials, rather than inmanifestoes. The new Montreal architecture stands asan exemplar way of making architecture with inheritedmaterial from the recent past and the possibility it givesfor facing contradictions of the real world. Nothing virtualnor actual, but things moving as life, always at the limitof another possibility within urban commune culture andcontemporary aesthetic dialogue between ends andforms. To say it, using Henry-Russell Hitchcock words,our living architecture may well be called merely modern(1). I shall conduct my presentation like an urban walk,tracing back the course of the century from early pre-modern structures to the latest works by contemporaryarchitects’.

Coming from the River:the Sources of Modern ArchitectureWith a single peripheral glance, pedestrians strollingalong the new raised promenade on Rue de la Communecan take in a particular style of architecture, peculiar toMontreal, unique in North America. Past and futuremingle with equal vitality in each of the elements thatconstitute this architecture. By one of the curious turnsof history, we are plunged into the movement of the birthof modern architectural forms. If contemporaryarchitecture, as French Canadian historian GérardMorrisset hoped in 1949, truly marked “the exhaustionof archaeological imitations” (2) and the affirmation oftechnical solutions produced by science and industry, thisis the show to which we are invited. The sources of

modern architecture, at least those that celebrate themarriage of art and industry, as Nikolaus Pevsner noted,are before us. Here, the urban landscape illustrates theunending story of the century that has just ended.

Let us follow one stroller. In the distance, toward theSt. Laurent River, beyond the long piers and the largesheds sitting on them, she or he can distinguish thepowerful steel silhouette of Jacques-Cartier Bridge, withits distinctive Art Deco–inspired pillars, built by thecontractor Dufresne in 1928. On St. Helen’s Island, ageodesic dome sparkles: it was designed by RichardBuckminster Fuller for the United States pavilion for the1967 world fair. To the south, on the MacKay pier, ahousing project designed by the young Moshe Safdieduring the same period rises. Habitat 67 evokes boththe happy disorder of Mediterranean buildings andcarefully piled containers about to be loaded onto shipsheaded for destinations unknown. Symbols of new times,these structures conveyed the dreams of architects andfired the imagination of students, and they continue toattract intrigued tourists. They are related to thegigantism of silo no. 5 at the entrance to the LachineCanal. Designed by an engineering firm from Chicagoand built in a number of phases from 1906 to 1958, insteel then concrete, this proud structure stands tallbetween the port and the city, solidly establishing theborder of the Le Havre district.

Leaving this “scene of life in the future” and turningtoward the city, the stroller sees rising before her or hima rigorous alignment of greystone buildings. The entirecity seems to be supported on this built façade,punctuated to the east by Marché Bonsecours. Restoredseveral times since 1850, this building displays itscarefully decorated façade and its dome, whichemphasizes its civic function, to the St-Laurent River.Between its cast-iron columns, cast in England,merchandise accumulated in transit for London for the


great fair of 1851. To the west, on the site cleared byChamplain in 1611, rises L’Éperon du Musée de la Pointe-à-Callière, opened in 1992. In this sector, we find animposing ensemble of commercial architecture,composed of proto-rationalist buildings from the latenineteenth century. These examples of the ChicagoSchool are better preserved here than in the city of theirconception.

We have just gotten off the boat and we are facingan eloquent built heritage, magnificent under a bluesummer sky. In the background, the new Centre desaffaires shows off its large and high buildings, with theirglass-and-metal façades. Perched on the city’s lowerterrace and rising gradually toward the Sherbrooketerrace, these buildings arrogantly challenge MountRoyal, which dominates the center of the island from itsaltitude of 234 meters. Faubourgs, parishes, newneighborhoods – the city freed itself of its heritage tolaunch its conquest of the territory, always pushingfarther inland. More than the topography, signs ofabandonment – empty lots, idle infrastructure, isolatedbuildings – signaled the radical schism between thehistorical city bordering the river and the new city fleeingtoward the interior of the country. And yet, our strollerhas before her or him a built ensemble in which city,landscape, and architecture seem so propitious to urbanlife that she has difficulty understanding what could haveled builders to let these places, which embody so wellthe encounter between tradition and invention,deteriorate during such a long time.

Looking back: the Great Forgotten CityPushed inland by demographic and economicdevelopment, the City searched for a center of gravitybetween Old Montreal and Mount Royal. During thecolonial expansion, the “petites patries” (littlehomelands) provided a counterweight to the commercialhold on the river’s shores, the industrialization of thefaubourgs, and the establishment of political, religious,and economic power within the walls of the historicalcity. The urban maintained its distance from the“habitants.” Deliberate and practical urban planningbased on the logic of occupancy and supply anticipatedfunctionalist planning. Land transport, annexations, anddemolition of the fortifications, completed in 1821,reconfigured the urban landscape in a city whosecadastral plan gave rise to the street layout. Thetransition from rural to urban was a simple formality ascontractors invented original residential typologies based

on the geometry of the lots in the St. Laurent Valley,which were adapted directly to shape Victorian cityblocks.

The urban fabric – the tectonic characteristics of thehousing, the major commercial arteries, squares andpublic places, the solid banks and public buildingsdesigned according to the stylistic rules of the Beaux-Arts school, the lively boulevards and tree-lined avenues– everything suggested that a new harmony had beenborn between architecture and the city. Paradoxically,this urban formation, which celebrated the art of livingby adapting the wealth of public spaces for the enjoymentof the citizens, was lost in real estate chaos.Modernization was the utopian word of the day thatdrove the years after the Second World War. By 1950,neither the time nor the effort was being made to adapturban and architectural models. In the name of progress,speculators did not burden themselves with the culturalsignificance of the built context.

In fact, the city became an indoor city, withunderground public spaces, buildings becamemultifunctional, and suburban structures devoured thecountryside. Sandwiched between the new businessdistrict, where “international style” triumphed, and thearea around the port, Old Montreal found itselfdowngraded by the real estate economy.

In the early 1960s, a municipal regulation set theborders of the historical sector destined to be preservedand restored, while the faubourgs began to look like anundefined borderland. In Old Montreal, a movementemerged to protect the built heritage, and citizens wereincreasingly mobilized over the following decade. OldMontreal became, in a way, a cultural sanctuary; anuntouchable island, separated by the trench of a newexpressway, dedicated to memory and to the tourismindustry. Gradually, contemporary architecture becamedivorced from the architecture of the past. On the onehand, the public was not interested in what was mostoften a caricature of the modern spirit, or the gigantismand destructive effects of facilities and infrastructureprojects alarmed it. On the other hand, buildings of thepast, even the recent past, seemed to represent the onlyreal architecture with an artistic and cultural content.This urban collage encouraged a relativist attitude, andit was without regret that people observed the arrival ofa postmodern architecture whose archaeologicalreferences are superficial but sufficient to stimulatenostalgia and transport them back to the good feeling ofcommon culture.


The tragic interlude during which the city of thenineteenth century was swept away by urbanizationcame to an end with the desire of a return to traditionalurban forms. Beyond objectives that were labeledpopulist, neo-modern, regionalist, or historicist, what wasat work was a radical critique of the modern movement– or at least of the stereotypes and standards withinwhich economic rationality had frozen it, denying anyexpressive capacity other than arrogance vis-à-vis thedaily culture of citizens. In 1980, Melvin Charney, anarchitect, artist, professor at Université de Montréal’sarchitecture school published his famous article, “TheMontrealness of Montreal,” in the London magazine TheArchitectural Review. He noted that two cities nowcoexisted, one within the other. But “the urban figures”were enclosed in the traditional city, which “forms theinner urban awareness of residents.” He concluded, in alapidary fashion, “Montreal is one of the great cities ofthe world with the destiny of an urban culture profoundlyinscribed in its form.” He defined, in a way, the agendafor the new Montreal architecture (3). In a search foritself, architecture was to find in the urban andarchitectural forms of the historical city the fertileknowledge and know-how that could reconcile practicewith citizens’ aspirations.

This new movement in architectural thought wasconveyed in various ways. Based on the know-how ofMontrealers, the work of defenders of urban architecturehad a direct influence on how development professionalsrevitalized the urban composition. While some architectslimited themselves to imitation pure and simple, or to anormative approach to integration of new buildings,others saw an opportunity to demonstrate thatcontemporary architecture is significant to the extent thatit takes into account the architecture that preceded it.This was in fact the critical lesson of some of the pioneersof the modern movement, such as Adolf Loos, who drewtheir inventive strength from architectural sources.Architecture within architecture: this is what OldMontreal shows us through its buildings.

Two projects were to break the immobility into whichfate had plunged Old Montreal. First in 1977, a group of200 housing units was built in the recycled vacantwarehouses on Rue Le Royer. The firm DesnoyersMercure et associés, designed the project Cours Le Royer.These Victorian buildings with beautiful stone façades,which concealed wooden frames, floors, and columns,could not have been converted into housing and officesunder the regulations in existence at the time. Politicians

and granting agencies had to be mobilized in order toobtain all the variances needed, and the architects werepatient but determined advocates of an urban,architectural, and social approach. This project led toothers, opening the door to reclamation of vacantcommercial buildings. The loft, as a spatial type,responded well to all programs – housing, offices,businesses, and studios. Like those in the famous Sohoneighborhood in Manhattan, the proto-rationalistbuildings of Old Montreal were perfectly adapted tomodern life. It can be observed today that the loft is notsolely a recycled industrial space, but a housing formoffered in new housing projects.

The other architectural project that made its mark onthis period was the Musée de la Pointe-à-Callière,particularly l’Éperon, designed by Dan Hanganu incollaboration with Provencher Roy. Because of itssymbolic positioning at the site of the foundation ofMontreal, the context of the celebrations of the 350thanniversary of that event, and mainly because it involvedconstructing a contemporary building on the traces of abuilding that had disappeared but maintained a mythicalstatus, this project was to open the old city to the creativeinterventions of our times. It is significant that DanHanganu had been the architect around whom a newvision of Montreal architecture had formed following hismodernist design for typical houses on Rue de Gaspé onÎle des Sœurs in 1980. Between two cultures, two cities,two architectures, and between masonry and metal,Hanganu has become one of the great figures ofCanadian Architecture.

In the Pointe-à-Callière project, Hanganu found aunique opportunity to demonstrate that the past and thefuture, like the classical city and the industrial city, canbe united in an architectural work in the same way asthey are in the consciousness of users. L’Éperon has asolid presence. Its slender tower is a constructedmetaphor of an unfinished history, evolving both the hugeharbor silos and the tower of the old Royal InsuranceCompany building, demolished in 1947. Its precisetriangular geometry, with limestone masonry typical ofbuildings of the old city, its large window that brings theport into the great hall – everything combines in a greatsimplicity that evidences an artistic mastery of buildingcraft. The interior spaces, suspended over the vestigesof the old foundations and the crypt, offer visitors anarchaeological tour in which the sacred and the profaneactively mingle.


The Remake of the City: a New ArchitectureDuring the 1990s, the idea of a new architecture in theold city was stimulated by a number of urban projectsthat embraced strategic sectors and encouraged becreative at the same time as a long-awaited urban planfor the city was being developed.

It was probably the Faubourg Québec project that putMontreal on the same footing as the great Europeancities, such as Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona. These citieshad chosen to rely on the architectural and urbanknowledge within their own histories to address the“critical reconstruction” of their neighbourhoods andurbanize the industrial wastelands that they contained.In its approach, the Bureau de projet du Faubourg Québecoverturned the usual sectarian logic. Politicians,professionals, and technical services combined theirefforts to give meaning to the very idea of the project.This search for convergence between actors enabled aplan to be structured around proposed public spaces,defining city blocks open to interpretation within thecontext of rules establishing a relatively homogeneousdensity of proposed residential buildings. The frameworkof the project was the reconstruction of a raised RueNotre-Dame, which, with Rue de la Commune, wouldensure urban continuity with Old Montreal.

The pièce de résistance, the point of departure forrealization of the project, was the block defined by RueBerri, Rue de la Commune, Dalhousie Square, and RueSaint-Hubert. The fragile situation of this firstconstruction project constituted a test for the method asa whole. The land was adjacent to the old Dalhousietrain station at the edge of the old fortifications and thebottom of Rue Berri, which had been recycled into theÉcole Nationale de Cirque by architect Vianney Bergeronof SIMPA, in 1989. The new promenade on Rue de laCommune, designed by Jacques Rousseau, was closeto the spot of the old Porte de Québec. The land was richin archaeological vestiges. The architects SaucierPerrotte, associated with Provencher Roy, won anarchitecture competition. There was then the questionof a contractor and promoter who would be up to meetingthe proposed challenge. Execution of the first phase wasa disappointment for both the architects and the public,and the scope of this major project was cut dramatically.A political change at the municipal level accelerated thedissolution of the Bureau de projet. To the west, thesuccess and opulence of 1 Rue McGill, by architectsCardinal Hardy, in partnership with Desmarais PilonCousineau Yaghjian St-Jean et Marchand, a building

occupying a similar strategic location but in a pre-existingbuilt context, demonstrated the excessive hopes forFaubourg Québec. Since the success of this major urbanproject was dependent on hypothetical improvement ofthe public spaces and contribution of public institutionsfor social housing, it could not offer a life in an invisiblecity.

It wasn’t until 1998 that a new promoter entered thescene and gave the architects Boutros et Pratte themandate to complete the first block. The firm had madeits mark in 1992 with a modest, discreet project, 110Rue Sainte-Thérèse, in Old Montreal. In a sense, thisproject coalesced the architects’ particular approach. Itinvolved recycling into an office building an old stone-and-brick house dating from the eighteenth century; itselfabsorbed by a large warehouse built beside and over itin 1913. This juxtaposition of additions has beengenerously highlighted, as one can see in its façadesthe double nature of the building; the tectonicstratification is revealed in an interior passage, wherethe concrete of the new structure emphasizes thehistorical layers that compose the ensemble.

Although the urban continuity between Old Montrealand the new district imagined by the designers ofFaubourg Québec once again came into question, itnevertheless was evident in two other projects on RueNotre-Dame, which were dedicated to a return to housingin the historical city. The Chaussegros-de-Léry projectwas a competition won in 1987 by a group of architectsand urban planners, Dan Hanganu, Provencher Roy, andCardinal Hardy. Designed as a perimeter block locatedwhere Côteau Saint-Louis descends toward Rue Saint-Antoine, this project includes a large undergroundparking lot, an annex to City Hall, and offices, businesses,and housing units with a varied typology. A few stepsfrom it, the Berri-Bonsecours project, designed byarchitects Dupuis and Le Tourneux and built almost tenyears later, contains transversal two-level housing unitsand conveys both simplicity and a duality between thehistorical and the contemporary. These two projectsillustrate well the validity of the hypotheses that hadbeen advanced for Faubourg Québec and portray theinterest in a strategy of densification with buildings ona courtyard and a higher quality of interior spaces, asevidenced by the two-floor units and transversal layout.

The Chaussegros-de-Léry, Berri-Bonsecours projectsand 1 Rue McGill, have in common an attentive readingof urban forms and a capacity to integrate thearchitectural values of the modernist built heritage into


ensembles that meet the criteria of a high-density urbancontext. Stone, metal, and masonry in which thestructural frame, strict alignment, and hierarchy of thecomposition clearly differentiate the street level, the bodyof the building, and the upper floors, are positiveresponses to the possibilities opened by theinterpretation of History to design a habitablearchitecture for our times.

A number of projects helped to revitalize the art oflandscape composition. The Old Port and Rue de laCommune are a concrete illustration of the notion of“public works.” What many call the saga of the Old Portbegan in the 1970s. It was after exemplary publicconsultation and an international idea competition thatthe architects Cardinal Hardy, with Peter Rose, GroupeLestage, and JLP associés proposed a master plan forthis vast site in 1991. Two development sectors weredistinguished: Bassin-Bonsecours to the east, Les Éclusesto the west. The master plan was presented as a strategyfor interpretation, using as a reference the port at thetime of its apogee, from 1930 to 1960. While the Easternsector was presented as an evocative site whereplantings and constructions played analogically, theWestern sector was seen as a vast public industrial-archaeology excavation site. The composition is morenarrative and gives much importance to the entrance tothe Lachine Canal and to the locks, which have beenrepaired. At the foot of the silo no. 5 grouping, the siteincludes Maison des éclusiers, a modest building thatadroitly develops an architectural lexicon inspired byindustrial artifacts.

On the King Edward pier is the Centre interactif dessciences de Montréal. Developed by the architecturalconsortium Gauthier Daoust Lestage/Faucher AubertinBrodeur Gauthier, this project followed the interpretationstrategy of the master plan for the Old Port. The twoexisting large sheds, one devoted to the Centre and muchof the other to parking, were recycled with greatsimplicity. Applying the principle that a building iscomposed of its program, its structure, and its envelope,the architects used refinements to give the buildings anextreme, almost minimalist, formal rigor, which makesthe viewer forget the gigantic scale of the project. Inside,the structure is apparent, always easy to understand,combining a technical lesson with aesthetic pleasure.Posed delicately on the pier, almost transparent,displaying the colorful graphics of the old numbering ofloading areas, these two buildings define a new sitebetween the city and the islands. They provide a context

for a long urban promenade, the first truly successfulattempt to unite the system of streets in Old Montrealand port traffic heading to the river.

ConclusionModern architecture is not as progressive as we used tothink. It is now part of History and as such it is persistentlike has been the Classical tradition. To keep architecturealive, to be modern in that sense that modernity is builton that contradiction in times, is to enter into a dialecticrelation with what was modern. The real challenge is toescape caricature. Ignasi De Solà-Morales Rubio hassuggested an interesting approach for the conducts ofarchitectural projects in historical context: “As anaesthetic operation, the intervention is the imaginative,arbitrary, and free proposal by which one seeks not onlyto recognize the significant structures of the existinghistorical material but also to use them as analogicalmarks of the new construction”(4). One could say thatthe paradox of Post- Modernism was to prepare thereturn of Modern Architecture.

Notes:1 Henry-Russell Hitchcock, “The International Style Twenty

Years After,” Architectural Record (1951)2 Gérard Morisset, L’architecture en Nouvelle-France, Éditions

du Pélican, Québec, 19493 Melvin Charney, “The Montrealness of Montreal,”

Architectural Review 499 (1980)4 Ignasi Solà Morales Rubio, “From contrast to analogy,” Lotus

International 46 (1985)


iModernism and Tradition in Contemporary NonWestern ArchitectureJoseph L. Aranha, Texas Tech University, [email protected]

IntroductionThe latter half of the 20th century was witness to thebirth of many newly independent nations. For many ofthese nations modernist architecture and theinternational style in particular provided the architecturalimage that represented growth, progress andadvancement. The trend, for the most part, in these newlyindependent non western states was generally towardimage and gargantuan size. The skylines of cities suchas Singapore or Kuala Lumpur are testimony to thisfascination with western architecture and Modernism.The proliferation of the international style all over theworld obliterated many traditional built environments andcreated a proliferation of buildings and environments thathad very little connection to place and whosemonotonous sameness all over the globe obliterated anyreferences to local culture, tradition, climate or identity.The initial responses to this loss of local, regional ornational architectural identity was for architects to ‘dressup’ modern international style designs with architecturalforms or materials that suggested references to localarchitectural traditions and cultural contexts. Theseresponses were stylistic in nature and were merely basedupon image-making. More recently, as the architecturalprofession in these non western societies has matured,local architects have begun to take more interest in theirown vernacular and traditional architecture as sourcesfor design. The new architectural styles that have beenimmerging continue to be based on the modernistparadigms of functionalism, rationalism and efficiencybut they are also created from understanding the rootsof local architectural traditions.

Some of the more well known examples of this fusionof modernity and local cultural traditions are seen in theworks of architects such as Doshi and others from theIndian sub-continent. However there are others whoseworks are commendable examples of innovative

modernist designs that respond to local conditions, drawfrom an understanding of indigenous architectural andcultural traditions and that make use of local materials.In the light of the discussion on the prevalence andpersistence of Modernism, this paper discusses somecontemporary works drawn from Southeast Asia andSouthern Africa. The author uses these examples toillustrate that although the designs vary greatly inappearance and respond to very different local contexts,they are all modernist in nature. They serve to illustratethat even in the quest for regional architectural identitythe modernist paradigm continues to prevail perhapsbecause Modernism is rooted in the same ideas offunctionalism, rationalism, appropriate technology, etc.that are also at the roots of the indigenous architecturaland building traditions from which these works arederived.

Modern ArchitectureThe idea of ‘modern architecture’ was a western one1. Itwas a response to the legacy of 18th centurydevelopments in Europe which triggered the loss inconfidence in the Renaissance tradition and the theoriesthat supported it. Curtis writes that while modernarchitecture was a response to several conditions at theend of the 18th century the principle impetus was the“idea of progress”. Another major force in thedevelopment and realization of the idea of modernarchitecture was the Industrial Revolution which providednew materials, created new patrons, building types andproblems, suggested new forms and introduced newmethods of construction. As the ideas of modernarchitecture developed they were also greatly influencedby “profound changes in the social and technologicalrealms” of 19th century Europe2.


Also embedded in the notion of modern architecturewas the idea that the past must be understood for itsprinciples and that the more important features of thebuildings of the past were their proportions andarrangements and not merely their use of formal stylisticelements such as classical columns, pediments orpointed arches. This notion enabled many of the greatmasters of modern architecture to draw upon traditionin creating their modernist vocabularies. According toCurtis, these modern masters did not throw awaytradition but they jettisoned the idea of “slavish,superficial and irrelevant adherence to it”3. As themodern movement developed so also did new ideas inarchitectural education, namely the Bauhaus. Rather thanimitate the styles and practices of the past the Bauhauspromoted inquiry and understanding of basic principlesand architectural form that was based upon function andtechnology.

Modernity and non western architectureOpportunities to apply the ideas and new forms ofmodern architecture in Europe increased dramaticallyafter WW II when vast regions of Europe requiredrebuilding. That period also saw the collapse of westerncolonization all over the world and the birth of newlyindependent countries in the non western world. Thenewly independent non western states found in modernarchitecture and Modernism a way to divest themselvesof the vestiges of colonization and to create new builtenvironments that conveyed that freedom from theirimmediate past. Factors such as social, economic,technological, political, etc. which were responsible forthe birth and development of modern architecture in thewest were now present in non western nations at thistime. By this time in the history of modern architecturein the west, the international style and Modernism werealso well established and had become associated withthe new age of technological and economic progress aswell as freedom from the oppressive buildings, regimesand styles of the past.

Modernism provided a means for newly independentnon western nations during the middle part of the 20thcentury to create architecture that represented progressbut was free of the stylistic vocabularies and imagesassociated with western colonization. It is interesting tonote however that while Modernism was viewed by nonwestern societies as a means of creating an identity freeof western colonial images, that Modernism itself wasa western idea. In this way western domination actually

continued. The old colonial styles of architecture werenot acceptable as models for the new independentnations and indigenous or traditional architecture wasviewed as primitive, rural and backward. Modernismtherefore became a popular choice that provided theprogressive images that were being sought. This isparticularly true in the case of the widespreadproliferation of the international style in the form of thehigh-rise glass, steel and concrete buildings all over thenon western world. Unfortunately these buildings hadlittle or nothing to do with culture, climate, lifestyle andother local conditions.

Modernism was also adopted by non westernsocieties because formal architectural education duringthe last century or so all over the non western worldwas (and for the most part still continues) to be basedon western models. Until about a half century agoarchitects in many non western societies were eithereducated in the west or received a local education thatwas set up during western colonial times or modeled onwestern systems soon after independence fromcolonization. Therefore architectural styles such asModernism were quickly and easily embraced. In someplaces such as India for example, influential and leadingwestern modernist architects such as Corbusier and Khanwere invited to undertake huge architectural projectssuch as Chandigarh. These architects and their projectsgreatly influenced the ideas and mentalities of architectsand architectural education in those countriesy.Additionally, the glass skyscrapers and high-rise housingblocks designed by western architects particularly in theMiddle East and Southeast Asia during the 1960’s and70’s, also influenced non western societies to adoptModernism. While the skyscraper provided images thatrepresented progress, industry and power to national andcorporate patrons, the high-rise apartments blocksprovided much needed housing in rapidly growing cities.

Tradition and Modernism in non westernarchitectureAs Modernism and the international style spread and asunique traditional environments began disappearing,architects in non western countries, began to questionthe authenticity and relevance of this form of architecturethat was devoid of reference or relevance to local orregional culture, climate, historical traditions etc. Also,the sameness of buildings all over the world wasbecoming very apparent and regionalism and expressionof local identity became factors in architectural practice


as well as architectural education in non westernsocieties. Early responses to regionalism were mostlysuperficial and copyist in nature. Traditional forms, colors,motifs etc were merely applied to the facades ofinternational style designs. Numerous examples of thisappliqué are seen in the Middle East, Singapore,Malaysia etc, during the 1960s and 70s. The search forregionalist expression initiated an interest in the studyof local and historical non western architecturaltraditions. Traditional non western architecture whichwas formerly viewed as primitive and backward nowbegan to be studied and understood for their underlyingprinciples as well as their social, cultural formal andenvironmental relevance. Today the study andinvestigation of local and regional architectural traditionshas now become part of architectural education in mostnon western countries. Globally the situation haselevated the position of traditional non westernarchitecture. Slowly a new form of non westernarchitecture that draws from tradition throughunderstanding and innovation rather than superficialapplication of form began to evolve.

It was inevitable that non western architects wouldarrive at this point. Modernism and its emphases ondesign that was derived from abstraction of ideas,understanding of basic principles, clarity of structure,technology and response to function has given architectsa new frame work to view and understand non westernarchitectural traditions. The framework of Modernismhas made it possible for architects to transfer the ideas,principles, forms etc of traditional non westernarchitecture to contemporary buildings and settlements.The design processes of Modernism rely on theunderstanding of materials, their properties, and theirlimits. Designs are derived from function and technology.In these respects Modernism has many parallels intraditional non western architecture. These similaritieshave made it possible to achieve a fusion of traditionalprinciples with contemporary materials, technologies andneeds.

Like the early western modernists, architects in nonwestern societies during the latter part of the 20thcentury have begun to draw upon tradition in order toformulate designs that are suited to local materials,appropriate local technology, climate, lifestyle etc. In sodoing, contemporary architecture in many parts of thenon western world today illustrates a synthesis of ideasand forms that are simultaneously modern andtraditional. Many of the Aga Khan Award winners during

the past few years are good examples of this melding oftradition and modernity. The fusion of modernity andtradition in architecture has also become an issue inarchitectural education in non western contexts. Whilethe theories of Modernism continue to play an importantrole in architectural education in non western societiesresearch and understanding of traditional builtenvironments that were previously viewed as inferior arenow actively studied. Most traditional architecture in nonwestern contexts however is rural and the forms cannoteasily be applied in urban contexts. This has been oneof the primary challenges to architects.

Some non western architects such as Doshi andCorrea in India, Rasem Badran of Jordan, Jeffery Bawaof Sri Lanka and others are now internationally renownedfor their work which is derived out of this fusion ofmodernism and the lessons of traditional architecture.These architects have designed buildings andsettlements that are modern in every respect but whichare also unique to place, context, climate, local life styleand culture. They have drawn heavily upon the study andunderstanding of architectural traditions in theirrespective countries and regions in order to create suchworks. Today there are several other architects in nonwestern societies who are not so internationally knownbut whose works are also good examples of this fusion.Five such works will be presented and discussed. Theexamples are taken from a variety of non westerncontexts. They illustrate the similarities in the basicprinciples of traditional architecture and those ofModernism and show how the fusion of the two formsof architecture is possible. . In the case of the examplesfrom Zimbabwe climate, economics and function weredriving forces in the designs whereas in the examplefrom Bali continuity of local character was an additionalemphasis. Although the forms and contexts of thesebuildings are very different they are all based on anunderstanding of both Modernism as well as theunderlying principles of local architectural traditions,local materials and available technologies.

Case StudiesThe following are the case studies that are discussed in a slide

presentation.

1 Ethandweni SAI Children’s Home, Whitewaters, Matobo,Matabeleland South, Architects Partnership, Harare,Zimbabwe

2 Action Magazine Offices, Mukuvisi Woodlands, Harare,Architects Partnership, Harare, Zimbabwe


3 Amandari Hotel, Sayan, Bali, Peter Muller, Architect4 Guesthouse, Bedulu, Bali, Robi Sularto, Architect

References1 Curtis, William J. R., Modern Architecture Since 1900, Oxford,

Phaidon, 1982, p. 14.2 Ibid, p. 16.3 Ibid, p. 19.


iTranscending Limitations: Modern PossibilitiesNathaniel Coleman, Washington State University, [email protected]

Introduction in the form of a Question“Why does modernism refuse to die?” is provocative butdeceptive question. It is not modernism that refuses todie but rather the modern. The former is a stylisticcategory useful for locating one “ism” among others. Thelatter relates to a condition of being in a present oneway or another distinct from the past. The divide betweenancient and modern is somewhat mobile. In history ittends to reside between the end of the Medieval andwhat comes after. For architecture, the divide betweenpre-modern and emergent modern drifts between 1700and 1900.1 “Isms” come and go yet we continue to inhabitthe modern. Consequently, while the hubris of heroicmodernism (1925-1960) is no longer tenable, therelevance of a modern architecture persists.

There are at least two kinds of modernity, and modernarchitecture has done a better job embodying one ratherthan the other: the first is associated with progress asan end in itself, and with a reduction of cultural lifeaccording to the requirements of economy and efficiencydriven by an extreme rationalism. Modernity of this sortarises alongside modern techno-science.2 The othermodernity is associated with developments during thelatter half of the nineteenth century, especially thediscovery of an unconscious by Freud, which facilitatedSurrealist thought and practice. Awareness of anunconscious suggests the possibility of collapsing thedivide between rationality and dreams. An unconscious,Surrealism and collapse between rational wakingthought and the wonder of dreams are now as muchassociable with the poetics of modernity as withphilosophical post-modernist desires to recuperateholism (especially as elaborated by G. Vattimo).3 Thesetwo modernities struggle for dominance in thought if notin action. The first is reductive and is motivated by cost-cutting dreams of total organization, the second inspiresan idea of richness that turns on a synthesis capable of

domesticating the modern world and its trappings bybringing these within the domain of humanism. Adomesticated modernity makes possible a setting wherethe machine, machine production, and scientific reasoncould be embraced as human creations, not feared astorments heralding from some abstract and anonymousforce from above.

To explore these ideas in some detail, I examine threelate-modern works constructed between 1957 and 1965:Le Corbusier’s La Tourette, Louis I. Kahn’s Salk Institute,and Aldo van Eyck’s Amsterdam Orphanage. In manyimportant ways, these three structures recuperate thepromise of early modern architecture at the momentwhen orthodox modern architecture began slippingtoward decline as it was institutionalized at the handsof CIAM (so crucial originally for the emergence ofmodern architecture). Its capture as an InternationalStyle, and the unfortunate identification of its mostabstract qualities as appropriate for imaging emergentcorporate capitalism, also helped to dissociate modernarchitecture from its radical origins. The three structureslisted above are also worth considering in light of theinability of stylistic Post-Modernist architecture to deliveron its promise of a more comprehensible, thus humane,environment. For this reason, and many others besides,modern architecture will not die.

The state of modern architecture during the postwaryears from 1946 to 1965 are as well documented inthoughts about the future of architecture as they are inthe three buildings noted above. Consequently, texts bySummerson, Giedion, Rykwert, Le Corbusier, Kahn, andvan Eyck, as well as buildings from these years informthe present discussion, the ultimate aim of which is tosuggest that another modern architecture, capable ofexceptional richness, is a real possibility only tentativelyentered upon to-date. It is an architecture as indebted


to the past as it is to early twentieth-century theories ofart, such as were elaborated by Breton and Mondrian.

End of a New BeginningThe tragedy of World War I inspired a turn from negationof existing conditions toward affirmation of an alternativeway of being modern.4 With this, Dadaists transformedto Surrealists. But if the First World War inspired arejection both of negation and the limits of extremereason taken to absurdity, the Second World War showedthe extreme danger of techno-science unhinged from anyethical restraint. Consequently, at its zenith, positivistoverconfidence—come to be known as modern—revealed its limitations with tragic clarity. Curiously, itwas at this very moment that orthodox ModernArchitecture, as represented by CIAM, came into its ownas the official style of business and government alike.This new position of authority was, ultimately, behindthe curve.

By the end of the Second World War, the modernproject deriving from nineteenth-century positivism—revealed early in the diaphanous haze of Paxton’smodularized Crystal Palace assembly and developed byway of mechanized warfare (most emphatically in atomicbombs, blitzkriegs, and death camps)—was irreparablycracked. Instrumentalized reason, the logic of positivistsocial science, and reality disciplined by economy andefficiency could no longer pretend to contain the fullspectrum of human desire. Thus, modern architectureand the logic of positivist modernism are revealed, atthe moment of apotheosis, to be inadequate, which iswhy the best architects of the 1950s appealed to dreams,fantasies, fairy tales, the past, other cultures, and to analternative, maybe authentic, modernity, represented lessby techno-science than by the achievements of earliertwentieth-century artists, as well as Marx, Freud, andEinstein. Abstraction may be the great achievement ofmodern art, but abstraction doesn’t free art from contentor meaning, rather it frees art from representation. Inarchitecture, this plays out with architects finally beingpotentially free of the style obsession that obtained (inone form or another) since the end of the Baroque. Anabstract architecture presents a number of problems. Ifits autonomy from everyday life is too complete, it willbe incomprehensible. If it is weakly abstract, it willconstantly encourage comparison to previous styles, orthe search for represented content. For an abstractmodern architecture to be both free of style obsessionand to have content it must operate through reference

or analogy. Its elements will need to carry a chargecomprehensible at the moment of perception, even if onlyvaguely so.

The Mischievous Analogy:Architecture and PaintingSummerson elaborates on how architecture freed itselffrom the styles in his essay “The Mischievous Analogy,”5

and he showed in the essay “Architecture, Painting, andLe Corbusier,”6 how Le Corbusier transformed the logicof modernist abstract painting into the basis of anarchitecture that was strange enough to make itwonderful, yet comprehensible enough to make it usable.Yet, the limitations of Summerson’s argument in bothessays render them potentially confusing in terms ofarchitectural invention. In “The Mischievous Analogy,”he argues that architecture could only become modernonce it gave up attempting to analogize past styles. Sowhile he is correct in how architecture loosed the grip ofthe styles, his rejection of analogy seems too complete,extending to a prohibition against acknowledging thatarchitecture can be informed from beyond the discipline,which could obscure that although architecture has itsown ways of thinking and doing, it does not come fromwithin itself. And while architecture can reasonably onlyaddress architectural concerns, it cannot free itself frombeing a setting for social life at all scales. Unfortunately,it is possible to come away from Summerson’s essaythinking that analogy itself, and not the analogizing ofhistorical styles, is the problem. Yet, analogy seems tobe the very way to make an abstract architecturemeaningful, thus comprehensible.

In “Architecture, Painting, and Le Corbusier,”Summerson accurately identifies Le Corbusier’s debt tomodern abstract painting, but he appears to get boggeddown in a formalist—conventionally compare andcontrast—reading. For example, he suggests that LeCorbusier’s architecture is like Picasso’s Cubist workbecause it looks like it, which seems to return the problemback to one of representation. What, though, if LeCorbusier’s architecture shows the influence of modernart movements (more likely Surrealism than Cubism) notin terms of appearance but in terms of thought, that is,on a theoretical, rather than a representational level? Ifthis is the case, then it might be possible not only toexpose the relation of twentieth-century architecture tomodern art movements, representing an authenticmodernity and freed from nineteenth-century positivismby way of poetic reason, but also to show how such an


understanding reveals the possibility of an abstractarchitecture that is as free of the styles as it is full ofmeaning. In the present discussion I will consider Breton’sSurrealist theory and Mondrian’s theory of abstract realityto the degree that they reveal a method in the work ofmodern architects that is both comprehensible and farfrom being spent.

Abstract Reality and SurrealismBreton’s conception of Surrealism and Mondrian’s ideaof Abstract Reality share an early twentieth centurypreoccupation with reconciliation.7 For Breton it wouldbe a reconciliation of waking reality with dreams; forModrian it would be a reconciliation of the mind-matterdualism. The bringing together of apparent opposites thatboth shared was expressed differently but revealed ashared desire for an augmented reality (andconsciousness) that could redeem individuals from theleveling excesses of nineteenth-century materialism. IfBreton sought the roots of creative invention in the accessdreams give to unconsciousness, Mondrian sought tounveil the primordial relationships, which he arguedforms the basis of all meaning that, according to him,naturalism conceals. Both conceptions of reconciliationharbor great consequences for architecture that hasalready been provisionally explored in the strongestmodern work. In a way, Mondrian’s project for abstractionas a form of revelation helps to release the Surrealistproject from interpretations stuck on its most provocativeimagery. For abstract reality to be comprehensible,access to unconscious perception at the moment ofexperience must at least be entertained as a realpossibility.

According to Mondrian, abstraction is an un-veilingof relationships that carry a charge, which naturalism(representation) either conceals or confuses. Repose, forexample, is the outcome of such relationships; it can beexpressed by a flat land, a broad horizon in the distance,with the disc of the moon high above—all abstracted bythe fall of night. Expression of repose can be purged ofall its representational (naturalistic) appearances and stillconvey the outcome of repose, which is a condition ofpeacefulness and tranquility. If this is correct, thebeauty—sense of balanced calm—of a beach with theocean beyond and a bright big moon above is as muchthe outcome of charms specific to a particular beachunder unique circumstances as it is a direct apprehensionof meaning at the moment when the relationshipbetween the flat swath, broad horizon, and illuminated

disk above—which emphasizes the counterpoint of thefirst two—is experienced. In abstraction, the trick is topurge the assemblage of its representational naturalismwithout losing its referential content. Ultimately, it is notwhat it looks like but rather what it feels like. The reasonsuch a statement might sound woolly is becauserationality overvalues what is seen, thus documentable,and ultimately countable. The felt of emotional statesresist quantification thus evading concretization throughverbalization or recording. But that does not makeemotion any less real than its quantifiable counterpart,which is why the barely conscious intangible that resistsexplicit expression is more fully the architect’s occupationthan simply the measurable, or re-presentable.

Mondrian’s consideration of repose offers aconvenient way to nudge abstract reality towardsarchitecture: for example, the architectural correlate ofrepose is horizontality. The very word repose carries withit the idea of horizontality: to lie or lay something at rest.Consequently, a setting of (or for) rest, that is, a placethat analogizes rest, would emphasize horizontality overother arrangements, especially verticality. Buthorizontality in relationship with verticality, dependingon the proportion of each to the other, actually increasesthe experience of repose through counterpoint. Horizontalalso carries with it horizon, the implication of which is alimit where earth and sky meet, but also the sky-domeitself, defined at its lower limit by an apparent plane—the ground or earth. Building also participates in thisdrama by constantly attempting to reconcile thehorizontal and vertical in terms of a upward thrustcarrying a potentially crushing load, or through thepreparation of a horizontal building platform ready toreceive and support vertical elements of construction.Frampton suggests that this is the drama of the tectonic,which is ultimately a poem of construction revolvingaround the downward pull of earth and the upward thrustof sky.8

In all its forms, this drama of gravity and resistanceof it refers to the experience of the body at rest, play,work, and even in death. It is thus possible to argue thatemotional states are traceable to bodily states. Forexample, a body at rest on a bed (or on some correlateto a bed, such as a rug or a beach) appears to best expressthe condition of repose, which expresses peacefulnessor tranquility that horizontality conveys. Repose iscomprehensible at the moment of its perception preciselybecause rest (or sleep) is so crucial for emotional andphysical well-being. Rest is always in mind, sleep is when


the day is shaken off and dreams intrude uponconsciousness. To summarize: abstraction reveals therelationships naturalism conceals. It reveals also theoutcome of those relationships. More accurately, itanalogizes them. In doing this, abstraction can overcomerepresentation without a loss of content. A content thatcommunicates through reference rather thanrepresentation is experienced rather than read.

Meaning and Building.Or, How to Enrich Modern ArchitectureBy the latter half of the 1950s, it had become obvious tosome that the attempt by architects to align themselveswith positivist social scientists and with the methods ofthe hard sciences was resulting in a reduced environmentincreasingly incomprehensible to the people who actuallyinhabit buildings. Reflection on the failure of a scientismapplied to architecture was in no way a call for architectsto beat a path back to the styles; rather, it was an attemptto elaborate on how modern architecture might beexpanded and enriched. It was in this spirit that, in 1957,Joseph Rykwert argued for “a semantic study of theenvironment,” which could reveal how “every building,whole cities even . . . carry declarations, confessions,avowals.” Such conviction ran counter to conventionalideas about the built environment at the time. OrthodoxModern Architecture was concerned primarily withproblems of quantity, planning, economy,computerization, and especially prefabrication, as wellas with the design of functional cities and minimumdwellings.9

By the mid-1950s, the emotional potential ofarchitecture had mostly been overwhelmed by attemptsto render design a fully rationalized and quantifiedprocess, a preoccupation that risked devaluation ofdesigners as their work became less and lesscomprehensible. Rykwert argued that to redeem theirefforts, “architects must acknowledge the emotionalpower of their work; this recognition depends on themethodical investigation of content, even of a referentialcontent in architecture. . . . rationalism is not enough . .. over and over again it has failed.”10 Argument againsta fully rationalized design method turns on the incapacityof such an approach to contribute to a multivalentenvironment available for improvised use by a diversityof occupants. In fact, a design method that sticks tooclose to technical data in an effort to simply fulfillfunctional requirements tends toward results arrived at

by the most commercial architects, who claim to only besupplying a container for predetermined activities.11

Concern with emotional criteria, the qualitative andthe intangible, ought to preoccupy architects becausedecisions are never made on rational grounds alone.Individuals seem to seek two things: something whichlocates them in their own time, and something that bindsthem to a distant, even primitive, past. Things that harborboth—the modern and the ancient—are most capableof carrying a charge to which emotion and desire isresponsive, even as more rationalist function is met. Eachof the “many parts which compose our environment . . .carries a proportionate charge of group memories andassociations. The designer’s responsibility, then, whetherhe knows it or not, is to create order not only in terms ofa sensible arrangement of physical function, but also outof the all-but-living objects which we use and inhabit.”Ultimately, economic considerations are but a small partof what sways people.12

Architecture responsive to the actual richness of themulti-varied needs individuals have is only possible byan intermingling rational functionalism and an extendedemotional functionalism. But such architecture is not somuch representational, in the sense of resemblance tosomething familiar or to a past architecture, as it iscapable of analogizing states of being both archetypaland contemporary. Rykwert explains such a capacity asfollows:

In [the strongest] pictures [by Mondrian]abstraction has been left behind—they areimages constructed out of autonomous andartificial elements. In these pictures figuration isnot resemblance but analogy. Mondrian is the key.Here all the threads I have toyed with: psychologyand anthropology, perception study andergonomics, come together at last to be given aform. What that form shall be can only be workedout in time. But I believe we have come to theend of a non-figurative architecture and that wemust now look to the scattered material whichpsychologists and anthropologists have beengathering. Not only myth and poetry, but thefantasies of psychopaths await our investigation.All the elements of our work: pavement,threshold, door, window, wall, roof, house,factory, school—all these have their poetry; andit is a poetry we must learn to draw from theprogrammes our clients hand us, not to impose it


by a cheap melodramatisation, but to spell it fromthe commonplace elements which we fittogether.13

A figurative architecture is, then, an articulation of figuresarranged into a particular form; it is non-literal and doesnot embody or convey meaning by way ofmelodramatization; it uses neither stereotypedcharacters, nor exaggerated emotions; it is not simplistic,and the conflicts it purports to resolve are not reductive.A figurative architecture operates with metaphor andanalogy—the building is a body, and the building is likea body. The figures out of which figurative architectureis configured are all the elements of architecture,including the parts, or materials, of a building fittedtogether through construction, the spatial themes of abuilding experienced through sentient occupation, andthe institutions that make up and house society. Thedifference between an architecture of technicalfunctionalism and one of emotional functionalism is thatthe first simply attempts to get the job done with aminimum of effort as it appeals to reason alone; thesecond is technically functional in addition to establishinga place for dreams, desires, and intangible needs.

The emotionally functionalist architect is capable oflooking at building assembly, not simply as a combinativeprocess guided by economy and efficiency, but rather isalso able to de-familiarize construction, occupation, andinstitutions so that the wonder hidden by suchcommonplaces is revealed as an ever presentimmanence, which overconfident rationality conceals.The emotionally functionalist architect gets at theapparently hidden marvelous dimension of thecommonplace by appealing to faculties beyond wakingreason alone; dreams, unconscious thought, and even

madness can reveal the wonder that an apparently firmlyestablished banality conceals. It is here that Surrealistthought shows itself as informing an architecture ofextended modernism. And just as Breton argued thatDante and Shakespeare are notable for the sur-realitythey elaborated in their literary efforts, the architectureof Michelangelo and Borromini participate in a similarexpression of the richness reconciliation between wakingreason and dreams (between the conscious and theunconscious) facilitates.

Rykwert went so far as to argue that the realfunctionality of a building turns on acknowledgement ofemotional elements beyond reason alone: “we shouldacknowledge the unconscious element in man throughour methods of work and make it a criterion of theworkability of our buildings.”14 Accordingly, architectureas a counterform to the unconscious, by being responsiveto it and by making a place for it, ought not be thought ofas an added value that only the best architects bring totheir work, rather it is a basic responsibility ofarchitects—a capacity to be cultivated in schools ofarchitecture—as valuable as the professional skills thatmake graduates employable. If such is the architect’sprimary responsibility and its character is so littleunderstood, some way of integrating awareness of theunconscious into things architects can know and do mustcome to preoccupy us. One way to approach theknowledge beyond the confines of a limiting reason isthrough a semantic study of the environment.15

This charge may seem a large one, even as grandioseas the overconfidence that characterized architects’forays into positivist social science. Yet, although it haslong been shown that architecture cannot form behavior,architects, and the architecture they make, can beresponsive to human emotion; even though individualsthemselves are barely conscious of their own desires.After all, isn’t that what we expect of our poets, painters,and sculptors: the ability to reveal the hidden, to makeconscious the unconscious, to bridge the rationalist dividebetween dream and reality—to reveal some truth aboutexistence? Why should we expect (or accept) any lessfrom architects?16 Only through the cultivation of aknowledge surpassing the limitations of logic could anarchitect gain access to what for most people only evervaguely intrudes upon consciousness. Yet, just such anability appears essential if architecture is to again takeits place as the stage for playing out life in all its depth.17

Campidoglio (photo by author)


Abstract Reality and Surrealism Realized:La Tourette, Salk Institute, Amsterdam OrphanageLa Tourette is notable for its roughness, partial enclosure,and play of Corbusian forms. At first glance, Le Corbusierappears to have defeated monastic enclosure (especiallyin the cloister) with a series of cruel jokes that renders itmeaningless. But this is not the case. La Tourette is oftencalled a monastery, which it is not; it is a convent. Thesignificance of this resides in the different kind ofcommunity housed by each religious structure.Monasteries house fully enclosed communities,convents—especially Dominican houses—do not. Yet,by de-familiarizing monastic forms, through displacementand surprise, Le Corbusier has made La Tourette anappropriate setting for an order of preachers whotraditionally lived in urban centers, particularly universitytowns, and took no vows of silence or enclosure. In pointof fact, La Tourette, in its play with monastic analogyopened up by cosmopolitanism, becomes a settinguniquely suited to the struggle Dominicans have longengaged in—finding a balance between the certaintyof enclosure and monastic order and the temptations ofthe world for preachers ministering to society at large.

If partial enclosure is comprehensible as an openingup of monasticism toward cosmopolitanism, theroughness of La Tourette is immediately understandableas an architectural correlate to vows of poverty. TheCorbusian forms that clutter the cloister, and the overallarrangement of the complex, quickly inform us that thingsare not exactly as they appear: convents are notmonasteries. And religious orders, with their commitmentto faith and charity, still might have something to share

with rootless cosmopolitans, even if the complex is on ahill in the countryside beyond the city.

The refinement of the concrete at the Salk Instituteis notable, particularly in contrast to the roughness of LaTourette, but smoothness is not so much an expressionof affluence or technique as it is an attempt to offer theWest Coast of the United States a building it has nobusiness having—a ruin suspended in time and occupiedwith vital wonder. Salk’s objective was one oftranscendence, which he shared with Kahn and is whythey were able to invent such a surprising structure. Aspirit of inquiry, the objective of which was to collapsethe divide between scientific and poetic reason,motivated both scientist and architect. Architects andscientists are both preoccupied with invention, and theinvention of one analogizes the inventions of the other,and the creations of both are analogous to birth.

The Salk is a center for biological research, thus it ispreoccupied as much with discovery as with birth: theInstitute building analogizes this. It also looks, as doesLa Tourette, backward toward monastic enclosure forclues as to how a place of inquiry on the edge of acontinent can be open in one direction and closed in theother—open in a welcoming manner, both to theresearchers and the spirit of scientific discoverycontained by ethical restraint, and closed to too muchworldly distraction and the piercing sun. An honorificquiet descents upon the Salk, but if the water channel isfollowed westward, toward the setting sun, and theocean (the womb of all life), to the point where it falls tothe lower plaza, one is struck by the noise of the waterand the researchers who cheerfully occupy a deck facingoutward: toward the sea, toward wonder, toward thehorizon—where Western techno science falls, nearlyundiscernibly, into a meeting with the infiniteness ofdreams.

La Tourette and the Salk Institute embody a backwardglance to achieve a forward-looking recuperative effort.

Salk Institute (photo by author)La Tourette (photo by author)


Both are realizations of dreamlike de-familiarizations ofordinary program types abstracted to the point whererepresentation is replaced by reference, and the elementsthat form both are comprehensible at the moment ofperception as a bodily experience. The same can be saidfor van Eyck’s Amsterdam Orphanage, though here de-familiarization and displacement are more overtlyemployed in an attempt to break open an institutionalform so as to redeem it. Van Eyck achieved this byestablishing an exceptionally strong initial elementdepicting the drama of load and support. This figure refersas much to the body as to a primordial past of originalconstruction, which binds it as much to Stonehenge, asto Laugier’s Primitive Hut, as to Le Corbusier’sconstructive system drawn from both. The persistenceof this figure derives, no doubt, from its reference to thebody’s defiance of gravity and to the thresholds humanspass through—physically and psychologically—throughout their lives.

All three buildings extend modern architecture bymaking it more fully modern. They do this by bridgingthe illusory divide between waking reality and the realityof dreams, resulting in what van Eyck called an authenticmodernity. It is a modernity infused with the unconsciousthat can redeem wonder as it surpasses the limitationsof the nineteenth century’s grasp at certainty—theshadow of which we continue to inhabit. Re-presentationand the styles are left behind, but modern buildingmaterials and methods are softened by abstraction,which, in these examples, reveals meaning directly tothe body.

Amsterdam Orphanage (photo by author)

Notes:1 See Joseph Rykwert, The First Moderns (Cambridge, MA:

MIT,), See also Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: ACritical History (London:Thames and Hudson,).

2 For an introduction to this idea of the modern see, JürgenHabermas, “Modern and Postmodern Architecture,” reprintedin, Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory, Ed.Neil Leach (London: Routledge, 1997), 227-235; Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science(Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1983); Gianni Vattimo, The End ofModernity, Trans. Jon R. Snyder (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins,1988.

3 See especially, Gianni Vattimo, The Transparent Society, Trans.David Webb (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1992). See also,Gianni Vattimo, Beyond Interpretation, Trans. David Webb(California: Stamford, 1997).

4 The best introduction to the Surrealist project is by Bretonhimself. See, André Breton, “What is Surrealism?” (1934);available from http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/whatsurr.html; Internet; accessed 6 August 2002.

5 John Summerson, “The Mischievous Analogy (1941),”reprinted with revisions in, Heavenly Mansions and OtherEssays on Architecture (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1963),pp. 195-218

6 John Summerson, “Architecture, Painting and Le Corbusier(1947),” reprinted with revisions in, Heavenly Mansions andOther Essays on Architecture (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.,1963), pp. 177-194

7 For a concise discussion of Surrealism, see André Breton,“What is Surrealism?” (1934); available from http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/whatsurr.html; Internet; accessed 6August 2002; André Breton, “Limits not Frontiers ofSurrealism,” in Surrealism (1937), Ed. Herbert Read (New York:Praeger, 1971), pp. 93-116. And André Breton, “Surrealismand Painting (1928),” reprinted in Theories of Modern Art, Ed.Herschell B. Chipp (Berkeley: University of California, 1968),pp. 402-409. For a concise discussion of Abstract Reality, SeeMondrian, Natural reality and Abstract Reality (1919-20),Trans. Martin S. James (New York: George Braziller, 1995);Mondrian, “Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art (1937), in ModernArtists on Art, Ed. Robert L. Herbert (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 114-130; Mondrian, “Statement (c. 1943),”reprinted in Theories of Modern Art, Ed. Herschell B. Chipp(Berkeley: University of California, 1968), pp. 362-364

8 Kenneth Frampton, Studies in Tectonic Culture (Cambridge,MA: MIT, 1995)

9 Joseph Rykwert, “Meaning and Building (1957),” reprintedin, The Necessity of Artifice (New York: Rizzoli, 1982) p. 09

10 Ibid, p. 10, 1211 Ibid, p. 1212 Ibid, p. 13, 14, 1513 Ibid, p. 15,1614 Ibid, p. 1615 Ibid, p. 1616 Ibid, p. 1617 Ibid, p. 16


Uncrating Kahn’s Fisher HouseDaniel Naegele, Iowa State University, [email protected]

dDr. Fisher tells an amusing story about the house thatLouis Kahn designed for him and his wife in Hatboro,just outside Philadelphia. Soon after its completion, twoof Fisher’s new neighbors walked past, pausing for amoment to consider this unusual double-cube structure.One condemned the flat-roofed house made of verticallyhung natural wood siding, thinking it out of place in aneighborhood of traditional dwellings of white-paintedclapboard and stone. The other reserved judgment. “I’llwait and offer my opinion,” he declared, “when the thingis uncrated.”

The comment is not without insight for boxes andmachines were certainly among the most prevalentparadigms of Modern architecture, and one might wellimagine the vertical boards of the Fisher house strippedaway only to reveal a porcelain-enameled, (Richard)Meier-esque ‘washing machine for living in’. Kahn’sbuildings often assumed a ‘box with contents’ parti andit was Kahn himself who likened his Fort Wayneauditorium to a violin in a violin case. Indeed, preliminarysketches indicate that this is exactly how Kahn initiallyconceived the Fisher house. Next to a wood-framed cube,he placed a cube of stone, hollowing from its interior acylindrical void. At their narrowest, stonewalls were tobe two feet thick. Preliminary cost estimates renderedthis scheme absurd, and Kahn was compelled to build ina manner conventional to American residentialconstruction: concealed wood-stud framing—a mannerat odds with Modern movement dicta that seemed toinsist on honest expression of structure and material. Itwas Kahn’s religious adherence to such dicta that hadbrought to his work a gravity, a weight, an order, anauthenticity that few Twentieth Century structures hadachieved. And if at Hatboro he were to reluctantly giveup his thick walls, he would not so easily give up theireffects.

Now it seems to me that one of the essential aspectsof a ‘box within a box’ parti such as that which Kahndevised for Fort Wayne is that one might inhabit thewalls. I mean by this that there is the principal ‘room’—in the case of Fort Wayne, the auditorium —and thereis surrounding this room a space that is not a room. Thisspace that is not a room is the space between the exteriorwalls of the inner box and the interior walls of the exteriorbox. To inhabit this in-between space, is to dwell withinthe building’s wall. At Fort Wayne, the ostensible functionof the building perfectly accommodates the ‘box withina box’ parti, for an auditorium demands to be surroundedby circulation space, the space of movement. The clarityof the scheme in this large volume one-story structure isreadily evident. The same parti, though somewhat morecomplex and therefore less apparent, is employed atRochester and at Dacca (clearly a variation on Rochester)at Bryn Mawr and most ingeniously at Exeter. AtRochester [L & R], Kahn surrounded the sacred, principalroom with a corridor and then with another very thickwall, a wall that houses all the other functions of aUnitarian church. When inside the building, the thickenedwall is hardly perceived as such. One understands thiswall as a series of rooms off a common corridor. Fromthe outside, however, the thick surrounding wall is madevisible by Kahn’s cutting and removing of each of itscorners. The resulting end walls Kahn rendered asimpenetrable masonry, a motif he extended to the openfront walls in the form of deep, closely spacedsunscreens. All conspire to give an overall impressionfrom the outside of massive brick walls, surrounding—perhaps, buttressing—a big box, a big box in the latterstages of decay. And something of the same might besaid of Kahn’s dormitories at Bryn Mawr [L & R], thoughhere the big box is multiplied by three and is far moresubmerged in the surrounding walls, walls which againare inhabited. The inhabited ‘walls’ are the dormitory


rooms themselves; the inner boxes are the three atriathat they surround. This parti, however, lacks cleararticulation. As at Rochester, the rooms are severed fromthe inner boxes by a corridor, but multiple levelscomplicate and confuse the order. In addition, the innerboxes lack definition. In their attempt to accommodatediverse functions and movements, their form is eroded.

At Exeter, Kahn perfected the ‘box within a box’ parti.Here the inner box is a void, a cube of light, absenceitself made manifest. This inner box is not an object,and yet it has four facades. Unlike Fort Wayne or BrynMawr, the place it offers us is not habitable. It is idealspace made manifest, a space traversed by light alone.Surrounding this light is the dense, dark core of books.And surrounding this solid core are the inhabited walls,now made very visible as such. All of this is obvious fromthe outside, where Kahn has again clipped the cornersto render the walls massive, thick brick piers; yet herehe has welded the walls together with balconies and inso doing maintained the integrity of the cube. Thebuilding can thus be perceived both as four hollowedwalls—the pergola at the top and arcade at the bottomdelineating this hollowness—strapped together at thecorners with balconies, and as a solid cube withchamfered corners. The reading depends largely on theway in which the building is lighted as the sun movesthrough the sky. But the inhabited wall motif is now madevisible on the inside too, for here the space of the wall isa vertical channel—a channel that echoes the verticalityof the wall as we know it from the outside. That the wallpresents itself as a wall, that it contains space isabsolutely imperative. That it illuminates the space itdefines is equally important. The two would seem to bein conflict, and it is the real genius of Kahn at Exeterthat both are accomplished together, that the openingof the wall makes visible the wall itself.

So at Exeter Kahn perfected a parti that he haddeployed in many of his most renowned institutionalbuildings. He turns Fort Wayne inside out, surroundingspace with solid, solid hollowed out to allow forinhabitation. Readers in this library dwell in the fabric ofits construction and by contrast, the cube of absencethat is its center, its reason for being, is rendered visible.The building is never diagrammatic, each of itselements—whether solid or void—is inextricably woveninto a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. In this,and in the clarity of its insistence on the (philosophical?)centrality of emptiness—that is, of the unknowable andinexplicable—it stands in marked contrast to a building

that assumes a very similar parti, Gordon Bunshaft’sBeinecke Rare Book Library at Yale. If Kahn, as RobertVenturi once remarked, is neither a modernist nor a post-modernist, certainly this Bunshaft building, can only beconsidered American Modern Movement par excellence[L & R]. I introduce it here only because I believe itpersuasively indicates how radical Kahn’s vision waswhen compared to that of his contemporaries. Withinan elevated box of translucent marble, Bunshaft placedat its center another box, a hermetically sealed glassbox that he filled with the renowned rare book collection.This glass box is luminous; it glows in the orange lightof the library. The display is fetishistic; the books arethere to be worshiped as objects. An extensivecomparison might be made between Bunshaft’smanifestation and that by Kahn at Exeter, and from sucha comparison, I suppose, we would begin to understandhow terribly different Kahn’s work was from that of hiscontemporaries, and how truly revolutionary was thebuilding that he built in New Hampshire.

But I recall that my declared subject was the Fisherhouse, and I began by suggesting that in his preliminarydesign for that house—a stone cube containing acylindrical interior—Kahn simultaneously incorporatedthe two notions so essential to his institutional work: a‘box within a box’ and ‘the inhabited wall’. Clearly thetwo notions work as one and, as we have seen, Kahn’sdirect and uncompromising use of materials helps toarticulate both. But, no matter how tight the weave ofthis ‘box within a box’ might be, there is a redundancy inthis multiple layering that can be sustained in a largeinstitutional building, but that necessarily must seemsuperfluous and less than ‘economical’ in the case of a

First Floor Plan 1


relatively small, modest dwelling. With this in mind, Iwill examine the more curious features of the Fisherhouse. These features, as I see it, are two: First, thereare two cubes (or near cubes) and these cubes are ‘joinedat the hip’. Second, there are the ‘windows’—if I darecall them that—and unlike most Philadelphia baywindows, these windows project into the house, not outof the house, as can be seen on the plan.

Now ‘two cubes joined at the hip’ is a variation on atheme that Kahn adopted in the early fifties when heabandoned his Breuer-esque approach to residentialdesign; and the inverted window, I would argue, growsdirectly from Kahn’s rigorous subscription to that theme.At that time he chose the square as a basic datum, andfrom this square—almost always 26 feet on a side—each of his residential designs is generated. Thus thereis the three-square Fruchter house project of 1952, andthe six-square Devore house plan of 1954-55 , looking abit like a poorer, ‘servantless’ version of Richards MedicalLaboratories. Next there is the 5-square Adler house planand here the columns, too, have become squares,—grown to the size of walls, firmly articulating the cornersas mass, while eliminating the corner as space. Chimneysfind their place as Kahn’s first servants, poised outsideglazed openings and therefore visible from the inside, aplace they will occupy in successive residences right upuntil Kahn’s last work, the Korman house. The width ofthe column-piers in the Adler scheme affects the ‘field’generated by the articulation of structure. No longer isthat field a simple Cartesian line grid, but now becomesa Scottish plaid Tartan grid, defining a swatch of spacewide enough to accommodate staircases and toiletrooms. If this mention of piers, corners and tartan grids

all sounds a bit Wrightian, the similarities are indeedthere and well worth pursuing, though certainly not atthe present time. At the present time we push on toTrenton where the corner piers of the Adler schemebecome inhabitable, which is to say that it is here thatthe idea of poché space emerges in Kahn’s work in afully modern sense. It emerges, and though it may laterbe clarified by a study of historic structure, and though,too, it may well have lurked in Kahn’s Beaux Artsconsciousness, here it is grown from within, a directresult of his disciplined pursuit. And after all, how elseto enter the walled-off dressing courts; and where elseto put the plumbing? So servant and served, poché space,inhabitation of the wall: all emerge complete at Trenton.And together with them—the yang that makes the yingvisible—at Trenton, perhaps purely by chance, Kahndiscovered the inner courtyard, the synergeticappearance of a fifth square (which is a void) from foursquares (which are solids) has something to do with theneed to eliminate redundancy and thus to allow eachsolid, pyramided roof to share two piers with itsneighbors. But the real inner courtyard, the true Kahncourt, is not the roofless, fifth square, but the roofeddressing rooms. Here the pyramidal roof does not meetthe wall, and light spills in from above. (Here again wemight remember Wright, for certainly this is what Kahnrecognized in Wright’s great workroom at Johnson Wax).The space is entirely enclosed and we are made keenlyaware of the wall, of the apparent heaviness of the roofsuspended above, and of ‘light’. As the sun traversesthe sky, successive walls are highlighted. The order ofthe building registers celestial movements. This is aregistration Kahn will conjure up again and again in allof his great space: in the Rochester church, in the Salkplaza, in the vaults of the Kimball, at Exeter and in thecourts of the British Art Center.

One could continue this review and move on to theweather-proofed version of Trenton, the Clever house ,where an obviously Palladian plan is married (perhapsmore by the Rev. Anne Tyng than by Rabbi Lou Kahn?) toBruce Goffian elevations and details. From here we wouldgo to the Esherick and Shapiro houses (the immediatepredecessors to the Fisher house) and to the preliminarysketch for a ‘box within a box’ that gave rise to thepresent inquiry. Earlier along the road we would haverun into the Esherick studio where a skewed geometryresulted in a ‘joined at the hip’ motif, not unlike that atthe Fisher house—or that exhibited more famously inearly American building, most notably at the Ephrata‘Garden’ facade of ‘living’ cube elevated on masonry base 2


Cloisters. Earlier still, we would have come across Kahn’sstructural parti made explicit, his Maison Dom-Ino as itwere, the Trenton day camp, four pavilions looselyarranged around an outdoor hearth. The day camp is aforerunner of the articulated pavilions in Hatboro, butwithout the need for enclosure or for easy movementfrom box to box. But just as with the Bath House inTrenton, it is exactly such need that drives Kahn on. Witheach new solution, comes a new discovery. You see, Kahncould not have placed the cubes side by side allowingthem to share a common wall as at the Esherick house;and, having long ago dismissed the corridor as coercive,he certainly could not have introduced a third element, aconnector between the two buildings. Connectors andcorridors belonged to his Breuer-esque phase beforeKahn became Kahn with his acceptance of theelementary square as generator of architectural form.What else then could he have done? He joined thebuildings at the hip, and, within the solid cube—forcertainly the bedroom box is this—he cored a space ofentry, a place that might approach a corridor in itsconfiguration were it not emptied entirely of itscoerciveness by its opening completely both onto thelandscape and into the living cube beyond. This joined-at-the-hip motif, having successfully percolated throughthis persistent investigation, is subsequently offered tothe next work that Kahn conceives.

Briefly I return to the inverted bay windows and tothe notion of inhabiting the wall. In his residentialarchitecture this idea is crystallized not at Hatboro butwith Kahn’s last work, the Korman house. Here he buildsa masonry fireplace that one can sit in and a masonrykitchen as extension of the dining room hearth. The effectis so very early American, as is the all-wood staircasehidden within the fabric of the house and the deepwindow recesses that show up in many Kahn works,including the bedrooms at the Fisher house. It is thisdepth that is essential to Kahn, this feeling for asurrounding massiveness not easily attained in three-and-half-inch thick concealed wood stud framing. So atHatboro Kahn introduces the inverted bay window toremedy this. It runs the full height of the cube andsuggests that, despite the exterior horizontal bandingthat divides the box into upper and lower layers, theinterior volume is a single cell. This, of course, is thecase, but with only one of the cubes, that which housesthe living, dining, and kitchen spaces. The other cube,where the bedrooms are housed, is divided into twolevels; yet here, too, vertical slits suggest it to be a single

cell. Too, this slit gives the impression of very thick walls,exactly as at Rochester, Bryn Mawr, and Exeter; yet here,on the street side at least, Kahn leaves the corners intact. Indeed the corners are reinforced and the buildingseems as though it might be made up of solid pieces, ashere the thick pier-columns of the Adler house re-appearif only fleetingly. On the inside, the inverted bays serveto thicken the wall too. Like the piers of the Adler housethey bring to the project a tartan field. A zone is createdexactly as if the cube had been built of heavy timbers.And it is this sensation of a truly heavy frame—asuggestion both reinforced by the massive stonefoundation, for instance, and occasionally denied by thelarger taut glass openings in which a phenomenal worldis found in reflections —that Kahn again offers to hislater creations.

And this then takes me back to the box and machineparadigms with which I opened. For certainly thesedevices can be found in play in Modern workscontemporary with the Fisher house, as well as inbuildings that belong to the local landscape ofPhiladelphia. And certainly exactly these paradigms wereportrayed as early as the first two decades of this century(and here I remind the reader of Walter Gropius’renowned 1913 Jahrbuch des Deutschen Werkbundarticle in which he offers for our consideration twoAmerican building types, the silo and the factory, in otherwords, the machine and the box, or in more cuddly localjargon, the duck and the decorated shed). And certainlythese paradigms have many Philadelphia connections,buildings that seem to have anticipated much of whatKahn accomplished late in his life. But if one acceptsthe analysis here offered, if one understands Kahn’sastounding accomplishment as coming from within, asa result of a firm adherence to a program intended tolegitimize the production of architectural form, then onemight begin to understand that Kahn’s buildings arealways more than machines or boxes, ducks or decoratedsheds, and one might begin to more fully appreciate thetruly vast qualitative differences that separated Kahn’swork from that of his contemporaries.

Notes:1 R. Giurgola and J. Mehta, Louis I. Kahn Architect (Boulder,

CO: Westview Press, 1975)2 David Brownlee and David DeLong, Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm

of Architecture (NY: Rizzoli, 1991)


bIntegration and Abstractionin the Modern MovementCamilo Rosales, Florida International University, [email protected]

BackgroundIt is a well-documented fact that the rate of change inthe Western Hemisphere, accelerated year after yearfrom the middle of the 18th century until the First WorldWar. New technological devices, together with newmaterials and methods of construction, were introducedcontinuously only to be replaced by ever-newertechnologies and systems. Industrialization changed thepatterns of production, consumption, transportation,human inhabitation, politics and warfare to name a fewof the many spheres of rapid transformation. Amongthose spheres of change was architecture.

Inherited styles and revivals initially coped withchange by absorbing new materials and technologieswhile keeping their outward appearances. Thoseopposed to change even tried to go back in time to rescuetraditional building patterns from the onslaught ofmodernity. One way or another, it was an inescapablefact that the so-called modern progress was there to stay,and that there was little choice but to engage in theadventure of modernism.

Revolutions in one area of activity (such asindustrialization or politics), stimulates change in manyothers seemingly disconnected pursuits such as religion,philosophy and the arts. Because this network of motionsdemands continuous adaptations, traditional styles couldnot be flexible enough to adjust to the vast array ofprogrammatic, technical and expressive demands thatthe new conditions imposed.

The project of modernity then became a search for ahighly adaptable matrix of expression that could allowfor endless experimentation and integration of newprograms, technologies and ways of thinking.

Iconic moments as the discovery of the “free plan”and “universal space” seem to have responded to theneed for that flexible matrix of operation.

Although the two world wars dramatically decreasedthe rate of development in Europe and in most parts ofthe industrialized world, they were also agents of changethat destabilized even the most resilient pockets ofconservatism that still remained at the beginning of theTwentieth Century. The formula of modernity emergedvictorious after the Second World War: politically, forthe West it was the triumph of democratic capitalismwith its free market economy. For architecture it wasthe spread of functionalism, a highly pragmatic approachto architecture using new technologies that valuedsimplicity, speed and economy of construction over manyother design considerations.

The conditions that promoted modernism in the firstplace are even more active today than a century ago.The revolution in global communications has producedan unprecedented flood of new ideas and concepts withno signs of appeasement in sight. The demand for ahighly adaptable matrix of expression becomes morerelevant as the spread of global capitalism compelstranscultural integrations. The persistence of modernismresides in great part, in its extraordinary ability ofadaptation to new conditions, its facility to change intodifferent modes of expression and its open capacity tointegrate new programs and technologies.

Perhaps the most important tool that the modernmovement invented to achieve formal flexibility was theuse of abstraction. Through abstraction, differentcomponents, (be it spatial, material, or technological),are reduced to a common denominator of simplicityallowing for seamless new combinations.

ProblemsMany of the failures of modern architecture are also tiedto the insensitive extremes of variety and abstraction.Extreme variety of expression makes it difficult to produceharmonious realms when agreements are necessary


among different components. Extreme variety can easilylead to disorder and cacophony.

Extreme abstraction on the other hand, may greatlyimpoverish the richness of human experience. Insensitivesimplification may remove differences related to placeand culture and/or to the nuances of individual andcollective behaviors. It can substitute common sensereality with theoretical constructs that exist only withinthe realm of learned minds. Diluted abstractions mayproduce bland and generic environments with littlecharacter and interest.

Both extremes did occur after the Second World War.We can still see their effects in the poorly planned,cheaply built reconstructions on some the most importantGerman cities, in the endless government housingschemes of the Soviet Union, and in the so called(housing) “projects” in the United States during the 50’sand 60’s.

Abstraction is the key element in the developmentof Western philosophy and science. To abstract is akinas to extract, to draw away, to take from, to reduce andsimplify in order to reveal the principles behindphenomena, to separate superfluous accident fromuniversal truth. As an adjective, abstraction is alsorelated to being insufficiently factual, difficult tounderstand, something theoretical and impersonallydetached.

As an heir of modern thinking, modern architecturealso embarked in the abstraction of traditional styles inorder to find universal truths. “Less is more” is the quasi-religious slogan that epitomizes this belief in hiddentruths.

Like science, modern architecture analyzed buildingcomponents independent of the totality of theirsurroundings, often removing the particulars thatdistinguish and characterize them. Off-site engineeredbuildings, prefabricated components and standardizedpieces may perform well from the point of view ofeconomy, speed of construction and durability but mayalso produce characterless ensembles.

The modern appeal for scientific cleanness,universality and coherence can also lead to boredom andplacelessness.

Jacques Monod, molecular biologist, Nobel Prizewinner and political revolutionary in an often-quotedpassage about modern science, writes:

“Cold and austere proposing no explanation butimposing an ascetic renunciation of all spiritual

fare … by a single stroke, it (science) claimed tosweep away the tradition of a hundred thousandyears which had become one with human natureitself. It wrote an end to the ancient animistcovenant between man and nature, leavingnothing in place of that precious bond but ananxious quest in a frozen universe of solitude.With nothing to recommend it but a certainPuritan arrogance, how could such an idea winacceptance? It did not; it still has not. It hashowever commended recognition; but that isbecause, solely because of its prodigious powerof performance”. (1)

Performance as for economy, speed of construction,functionality and human comfort may explain why theterritory of modern architecture is usually limited to largemodern programs such as airports, and commercial andinstitutional buildings. When it comes to the moreintimate structures such as private homes, thepenetration of modernism has still encountered greatresistance.

Herman Hesse in Steppenwolf, writing on theextreme duality of his main character, contends that hisprotagonist can’t see the richness of life because of hisobsessive personalities; in a critical paragraph heexplains:

“Man designs for himself a garden with ahundred kinds of trees, a thousand kinds offlowers, a hundred kinds of fruits and vegetables.Suppose then that the gardener of this gardenknew no other distinction than between edibleand inedible, nine-tenth of this garden would beuseless to him. He would pull up the mostenchanting flowers and hew down the noblesttrees and even regard them with a loathing andenvious eye” (2)

The gardener of this tale may be the modern architect ifnature and humanity are secondary to his uncriticaltendency for design simplification.

Successful IntegrationsFortunately there are felicitous moments as well.Abstraction and integration can succeed in bringing newtotalities of great emotional and discursive content withsuperior technical advantages and without disregardingthe impact on their surroundings.


Fig. 1 Contours inform the shape of the swimming pool andentrance.

Fig. 2 Main entrance.

Fig. 3 Columns as geometrized forest.

Fig. 4 Swimming pool and sauna.

Successful abstraction seeks to find essences notsimplifications for their own sake. An essence is relatedto the core properties that make identities, to the realand ultimate nature of things. Essence is found in thetotality of the object or organization in question, and mostlikely it is a system of relations including its surroundings.

Abstraction as the quest for the essential is then apatient and critical search, to remove the superfluousfrom the fundamental totality of beings. Since essencesare purifications and condensations of entities, theircombinations may retain the original strength of theindividual components.

To exemplify these points, I have chosen threeresidential projects involving transcultural integrations:

1) Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea is an excellent exampleof abstraction and integration because the objective was

to find the essence of place for a contemporary countryvilla in Finland.

While pursuing an abstract exploration ofcontemporary expression without precedents, Aaltoentertained another, a study of vernacular form as thekey to the nature of material, most specifically thewooden architecture of Finland. The project therefore isrich in juxtapositions only held by the overall atmospherethat was desired.

The forested site holds the central theme. The groveof trees outside the main façade is abstracted intocolumns and poles of various sizes and locations in away that it looks like if the natural forest becamegeometrized to penetrate though the house ending in ameadow, (represented by the backyard), with a miniaturelake, (represented by the swimming pool), next to a


traditional wooden cabin (represented by the saunapavilion).

An ideal Finish landscape is created to be part of thevilla, which has a modern two-story white brick frontbut progressively turns into a vernacular wooden cabinat the back. Aalto’s ability for simultaneousconsiderations of multiple variables allows the structureto integrate: the international and the regional, theindustrial and the hand-crafted, the archaic and themodern, frame with wall, wood with white brick, naturewith culture.

2) In Mexico City, the “Plaza of the Three Cultures”represents Mexico’s greatest cultural influences: theIndian, the colonial, and the modern international.

Luis Barragan synthesized these three traditions byfinding an essential common denominator among them:the monumental masonry wall.

In Barragan’s designs, the Indian wall is made ofirregular black lava stones, like the Aztec pyramids.Poetically set to modulate the volcanic landscape of “ElPedregal”, his famedsubdivision, they seem to eitheremanate from the ground (that has the same material),or like a modern day ruin, return to the ground as mostof the pre-Hispanic past.

The colonial wall is used to produce secludedcourtyards and quietly introverted interiors. The simplicityand great height of these walls is not without warmthand sentiment. Coarse handcrafted stucco adds textureand depth, and Barragan’s “Mexican” colors make themtranscend into the emotional realm.

Fig.6 “Las Arboledas” subdivision.Fig. 5 Garden in “El Pedregal” subdivision.

Finally the modern wall becomes a freestandinggesture in the landscape. A modulator of light, shadeand space. A monument to contemplation set differentthan nature but where trees can cast their shadows.

The three types of walls are used in the Prieto Lopezhouse in El Pedregal where Mexican architecture singsto the world.

3) Tadao Ando’s Koshino house near Osaka is anexample of a different approach to abstraction andintegration.

From his self-conscious cross-cultural position, Andosees reinforced concrete frame as a universal twentiethcentury technique. At the same time he regards the wallas a protective shield that is categorically opposed tothe infinite space-field of the modern megalopolis.

The essence of his architecture is ascetic order thathe sees as a provider of a calm character-formingrestorative domain where the individual may escape thenoisy turmoil of the consumerist city.

Abstract and ascetic order is coupled with a subtlesensuality of materials. He tries to take the intrinsiccharacter of any given material and enhance itsexpressive potential to the highest possible level, to bringthe essential, indisputable density or radiance.

Taoist and Zen philosophies tame Westerntechnology in Ando’s work. The normally consideredsecondary or negative effects of buildings such asshadows and voids are of his utmost concern. Thisoriental/occidental dyad crops up in unexpected waysthroughout Ando’s architecture.


Fig. 7 Koshino House, plan. Fig. 8 Koshino House, narrow alley between main volumes

For the Koshino house: the masses split to form acorridor-like void between the main volumes recallingthe oriental roji, or narrow alley, as drawn from theresidential labyrinth of the traditional Japanese city. Theidea of gap or void is constantly present in all of Ando’sarchitecture. When exposed to the elements, these voidsbring changes of light and climate that become part ofthe ethos of the space itself. This is close to the idea ofyugen in Japanese poetry, wherein the ineffablepresence of living nature is sensed through such thingsas a faint drizzle or a sudden unexpected breeze, theoutset of twilight or the premonition of dawn. (Note 3)

Conclusion:While abstraction and integration are still two of themost important tools behind the extraordinary flexibilityand adaptability of modern architecture, they may alsoproduce cacophonic and characterless environments.Successful use of abstraction and integration demand asearch for the essential totality of integrative componentsand their setting. A sensitive search for essentials looksinto the nuances of nature and culture and the symbolicarmature associated with them. Successful transculturalintegrations teach us that such operations are possiblewhen the abstracted components maintain thecondensed strength that made then identifiable andattractive to us in the first place. Such integrations bringthe vital syntheses of components with distilled powerand beauty.

Alvar Aalto, in a lecture given in 1957 at a Sweedishcity planners meeting, best concluded that:

“Architecture has an ulterior motive … thethought of creating a paradise… If we did notalways carry this thought around with us all ourhouses would become simpler and moretrivial…Victories … are won by concentratingon human happiness. In each detail a chance forjoy is welcome. But we have to discard as muchas possible of the dead weight that keep us fromcreating a humane architecture.”

Notes:1 Jaques Monod, Chance and Necessity (New York; Vintage

Books, 1972)2 Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf (New York, Henry Holt and

Company, 1972)3 Kenneth Frampton, Tadao Ando (The Museum of Modern Art.

New York; Distributed by Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1991)

References/Bibliography:Worrringer, Wilhelm, Abstraction and Empathy, New York;

International Universities Press Inc., 1967.Quinton, Anthony, The Nature of Things, London and Boston;

Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973.Feyerabend, Paul, Conquest of Abundance, Chicago; The University

of Chicago Press, 1999.Piaget, Jean, Studies in Reflecting Abstraction, Edited and

Translated by Robert L. Campbell, Philadelphia, PsychologyPress, Taylor & Francis, 2001.

Alvar Aalto Foundation, Alvar Aalto Villa Mairea, Edited by JuhaniPallasma, Finland, Vammalam Kirjapaino Oy, 1998.

Ambaz Emilio, The Architecture of Luis Barragan, New York, TheMuseum of Modern Art, 1976.

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