348 Transformation and Dissemination after 1940

Crises and Critiques in the 1 960s •

349

The caption stated that There will be no further reason Although there was no direct equivalent to Team X
forroads or squares'. The forms and spaces of earlier in America, the ideas of the group did filter in by a
architecture were to be rejected as so many pretensions number of routes. J. Bakema, S. Woods and J. Soltan
towards an absolute order, which really masked taught in American architecture schools, while J. L.

oppressive social systems of power. Thus a curiously Sert (who was not a member, but whose ideas were not
sensual attitude to technology was combined with the dissimilar! preached a new unity of architecture and
badinage of radical chic. town planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design
In the United States between 1955 and the late (of which he was Dean) in the late fifties. In his design

1960s, architecture pursued some parallel courses for Peabody Terraces (see Chapter 2 1 he gave form to)

with Europe, though patronage conditions required his theories. Holyoke Center and Boston University
different reactions. Skidmore. Owings and Merrill (1 964 1 dealt with similar ideas: the subtle linkage of
evolved a standardized big business heraldry in- townscaped spaces, tall towers, interior streets,

corporating a somewhat glib version of Micsian purity, intermediary buildings of transitional scale, the
the steel frame, tinted glass and refined finishes of articulation of different uses through highly textured
chrome and marble. The engineer R. Buckminster facades of louvers and balconies, the delicate com-
Fuller succeeded in popularizing the geodesic dome position of concrete frames and bright colours. As in
and stimulated a school of technological wizardry Europe, these urban demonstrations remained the
which even came up with the fantastic notion of property of well-to-do universities, having little effect
covering Manhattan with a giant environmental on the increasingly brutal development of the capitalist
bubble. American confidence in high technology was city. The sixties witnessed the wholesale destruction of

also reflected in a megastructure compulsion which hit vast areas of historical fabric in the interests of
the profession in the mid-sixties (influenced in part by 'economic development'. Earlier modern movement
Archigram and the Metabolists). This prompted Paul platitudes concerning the value of space and light
Rudolph to envisage a linear city of stepped section (though rarely greenery) were co-opted-to rationalize
running for miles across the edge of New York. A financial motives, to justify the construction of
scientific approach to the design process was argued freeways, or else to support grotesque civic monu-
forcibly by Christopher Alexander (Notes on the ments with compulsory piazzas. The American archi-
Synthesis of Form, 1963). who restated some of the tect was constantly demoted to a sort of exterior

traditional functionalist arguments but with the help decorator for business interests. Those housing
of mathematical models. And a certain admiration for agencies which existed encouraged simplistic, grand-
social science was reflected in the foundation of slam solutions of an insensitive kind, and American
numerous university departments with such titles as architects had little tradition of radical criticism. The
'School of Environmental Studies'. The danger in all artist architect was thus forced into the gilded cage of
this was obvious: the role of intuition, imagination, upper-crust patronage: museums, prestigious univer-
and tradition in the genesis of forms could become sity buildings, villas on Long Island. The aspirations
severely demoted. The later self-conscious and towards an integrated society implicit in Team X
strenuous assertion of the primacy of aesthetic values thinking seemed foreign indeed.
which would bedevil the American avant-garde in If Mies van der Rohe dominated the early fifties in

the 1970s probably needs to be understood against the America, late Le Corbusier dominated the early sixties.
background of this quasi-scientific methodology. Curiously enough his one American building the
But the emulation of the processes and images of Carpenter Center at Harvard, was little understood,
technology was only one strand of the complex but replicas of La Tourette popped up all over the place
American development. At another extreme was the as city halls or even department stores. Rough concrete
wilderness romanticism of Bruce Goff. who delighted in piers,heavy crates of brise-soleil and rugged overhangs
ad hoc combinations of natural materials and found were the order of the day. An elephantine tendency
objects from industrial waste. The Bavanger House of seems to have gripped America in the early sixties in
1957, near Norman. Oklahoma, was organized any case veneers of hrisc-soleil or coatings of marble
:

around a central mast with a swirling wooden roof, were laid over massive steel frames and trusses. Scully
and an idiosyncratic cable structure; the whole was coined the phrase 'paramilitary dandyism' to describe
fashioned from bits and pieces found close to the site. It it: one thinks of the grand monumentality of Roche

is not surprising that Goff should have been adopted as and Dinkeloo's Knights of Columbus Headquarters at
a sort of hero of the counter-culture of the late 1960s, New Haven (1968) or of the huge piers coated in
for his buildings implied a critique of total design and a expensive stone of their Ford Foundation in New York
rejection of the corporate values that were associated ( 1967). or again of the eerie surrealism of their sliced
with it in the American context. glass pyramids for College Life Insurance in Indiana
350 Transformation and Dissemination after 1 940

(1969). where high tech' and the pristine visions of

Boullee seemed to come together (fig. 26.7). As always
in American luxury commissions, the craftsmanship
and detailing were of the highest level: I. M. Pei's
Hancock Tower in Boston (designed by Henry Cobb I

used reflecting glass and a slender steel mullion system

of a precision unthinkable in Europe (fig. 26.8 1.
American corporations needed to express their power,
their efficiency, their belief in advanced technology,
their preoccupation with styling: the sharp-edged
minimalist creations of the aforementioned firms were
able to supply them with just the right imagery.
The rugged concrete tradition in monument build-
ingwas best represented by Kallmann and McKinnell's
Boston City Hall (see Chapter 23) or by Paul Rudolph's
works of the mid-sixties. These buildings were surely
part of a robust reaction against the spindly Inter-
national Style of the fifties. Rudolph had been trained
under Gropius at Harvard, and had soon rejected the
reductivism of his mentor. The Jewett Arts Center at
Wellesley 1 9 S 3 was coated with references to its neo-
( 1

Gothic setting, and highly mannered in its use of

ornamental sunscreens, but it still represented a quest 2h.y [iibovei Kevin
for formal richness. The late works of Le Corbusier. the Roche and John
spatial dramas of the Italian Baroque, and the Dinkeloo, College Life
Insurance building,
complexities in section of Wright's works helped
Indiana, 1969.
Rudolph to find his way. By the time he designed the
Art and Architecture building at Yale (1964). his 26.8 (/e/() I.M. Peiand
personal style was assured: violent contrasts of scale Associates (designer H.
and colossal piers in rough corduroy concrete gave the Cobb). Hancock Tower.
whole building a vaguely primitive air (fig. 2(1.9). Boston, 1969.

Silhouettes and sequences were expressed in an

exaggeratedly irregular external volume. The same
vigorous style was taken still further in the buildings
for Boston's Government Center where curved
( i ^)h4^.

stairs and cascades of were linked to

platforms
spiralling towers. But Rudolph's expressionism seemed
overdone, giving the feeling that all these displays of
virtuosity perhaps contained no social content. Once
again, an American artist resorted to formalist
gestures, albeit of considerable aesthetic interest.
Against this setting of the mechanistic at one end,
and of dandyism at the other, the sober figure of Kahn
stood out like a sentinel of ancient sense and principle.
As well as being the major talent of the post-war years
in America, he was also an inspiring teacher. In the
1950s he taught regularly at the University of
Pennsylvania School of Architecture in Philadelphia,

where he was a living link to the enlightened aspects of

Beaux-Arts discipline. He encouraged a respect for the
past and an understanding for the role of ideas in
architectural expression. His pupils were presented
with a very difl'erent diet from their Harvard contem-
poraries, who still laboured under the inheritance of
Gropius, Most notable of the younger men to be taught
 Crises and Critiques in the 1 9 60s •
351

and clarity are foreign to an architecture of

complexity and contradiction, which tends to
include 'both-and' rather than exclude 'either-
or'.

If the source of the both-and phenomemon is

contradiction, its basis is hierarchy, which yields

meanings among elements with

several levels of
varying values. It can include elements that are

both good and awkward, big and little, closed and

open, continuous and articulated, round and
square, structural and spatial. An architecture
which includes varying levels of meaning breeds
ambiguity and tension,

Venturi supported his case with numerous il-

lustrations of buildings and plans from past periods in

history, Lutyens. Hawksmoor, Le Corbusier or a

humble stone building might all be used to illustrate a
certain quality of complexity. The method was thus
loosely similar to that pursued in Vers une architecture,
but where the lesson of this earlier work had been the
integration of certain underlying essentials of Classi-
cism with an imagery for the machine age. Venturi's
26.9 Paul Rudolph, Art by Kahn was Robert Venturi. who won a scholarship approach seemed to imply a less profound synthesis
and Architecture to the American Academy in Rome, and then went
and a inore fragmented aesthetic. He claimed that his
building. Yale into private practice in the late fifties. He received few
University. New Haven, 'both-and' approach to architectural elements and
commissions and devoted much time to teaching and meanings was more in tune with the complexity of
Connecticut. 1966.
writing. book Complexitfi and ContiMlution in
His
modern experience than the sterilities of the preceding
Architecture 1466) pulled together the reflections of a
{
generation, but gave little evidence of an underlying
decade, and functioned as both a personal Towards an
social vision or ideal. Clearly his sensibility had some
architecture' and a handbook of sensibility for a
loose links with contemporary painters like Jasper
generation bored by the blandness of what they called
Johns or Robert Rauschenberg. who deliberately
'orthodox modern architecture',
confronted the spiritual heroics of the abstract
'Orthodox modern architecture' turned out to mean expressionists with banalities drawn from everyday
not somuch the entire architectural production of the life: but there was no automatic step from such a
previous half century (Venturi singled out both Ix set of architectural forms. Positive
sensibility to a
Corbusier and Aalto for special praise) as the simplistic claimed that he was
all for
reviewers of Venturi
and skin-deep version of modern design that had been enriching the language of modern design: detractors
prevalent in America for the previous twenty years.
suggested that his forms were arbitrary and that he
Venturi took the well-known Miesian jingle 'I.ess is
was simply opening the doors to eclecticism again.
more' and parodied it with the retort 'Less is a bore': Whichever way you looked at it, it was obvious that he
however, he was quick to point out that the complexity was avoiding the arid sociological and technical
he sought could not be found by simply sticking on definitions of architecture then prevalent, in favour of
more ornamental details. Rather he was in favour of a a discussion in which issues of form (and even
tension bred by perceptual ambiguity - a richness of
meaning) did at least play a part.
both form and meaning - which should affect the Towards the end of the book Venturi applied some of
overall form of a design:
his arguments to the American urban scene, claiming
that 'Main Street is nearly all right' and that official

The tradition 'either-or' has characterized orthodox planning (he might have called it orthodox modern
modern architecture - a sun screen is probably urbanism' ) in the USA had done much to destroy street
and to subdue the vitality of the flashing signs and
nothing else: a support is seldom an enclosure: a life

wall is not violated by window penetrations but is advertisements. This mood of reaction against over-

totally interrupted by glass: program functions are discrete and over-simple categories was in tune with

exaggeratedly articulated into wings or segregated the age: sociologists like Richard Sennett would soon
pavilions Such manifestations of articulation
. . .
write in favour of 'disorder' and Jane Jacobs (in Death
352 Transformation and Dissemination after 1 940
26.10 Robert Venturi,
house in Cliestnut Hill.
Philadelphiia.
Pennsylvania. 1963.

ami Life of Great American Cities) would praise the American urban streets and coined the term 'de-
complex weave of meanings of the most 'ordinary' corated shed' to describe the type this he contrasted to
:

urban places. Venturi and his partners Denise Scott- the concrete sculptural buildings of the early sixties,
Brown and Steven Izenour expanded on this point of which he referred to contemptuously as 'ducks'.
view in Learning from Las Vegas (1973). in which they Despite Venturi's populist stance, his architectural
claimed that the coloured street signs in front of the jokes were obviously directed at the initiated. His
casinos were some native, indigenous form of ex- buildings were even provided with the artist's own
pression of 'ordinary American people'. Thus populism elaborate explanatory texts. Of the small house just
and Pop Art sensibility came together in the curious described he wrote:
illusion that products of Madison Avenue should be
seen as a grass-roots, public, 'low art'. This building recognizes complexities and
There was a regionalist flavour to Venturi 's ideas contradictions: it is both complex and simple, open

which was related to his feeling that a truly American and closed, big and little: some of its elements are
architecture should be created. The 'vernacular' to good on one level and bad on another: its order
which he turned to find appropriately popular and accommodates the generic elements of the house in
reassuring images was and mass-produced: it
artificial general, and the circumstantial elements of a house
was provided by the commercial strip and the in particular. It achieves the difficult unity of a
suburban crackerbox house, both areas traditionally medium number of diverse parts rather than the
despised by elitist planners with European pretensions. easy unity of few or many motival parts.
In his design for a house for his mother in Chestnut
Hill. Philadelphia (1963). Venturi had evaded the In the Guild House, an old people's home in
fifties 'orthodox modern' cliche of the glass box Philadelphia of 1962-66 (fig. 26.11), Venturi
pavilion, in favour of an elusive image of the home extended the same approach on a larger scale and for a
replete with gable, sloped roof attached mouldings, function where his interest in 'commonly understood
facade, back porch, etc. (fig. 26.10). However, this was imagery' might be tested. The building had to include
no mere suburban image, since
replica of the standard ninety-one apartments of varying types with a
the allusions to the humble American home were common room it was to house elderly folk
recreation ;

combined with witty and ambiguous quotations from from the neighbouring area. Venturi disposed the
Le Corbusier and Palladio. The facade had a de- rooms in a symmetrical plan with a facade that came
liberately dead-pan character which disguised the up to the street line. This elevation was also
welter of internal complexities and contradictions of symmetrical, with the entrance doors placed tantaliz-
the plan: Venturi praised the billboard character of ingly either side of the axis at the base. A large arch
 Crises and Critiques in the 1 960s 353

2(i.ii (nV//it) Robert

Venturi. tJuild House.
Philadelphia. I4h2-(ifi.

26.12 (/)('/ou') Charles

Moore. Faculty Club.
University of California
at Santa Barbara, i'-)hH.

interior.

was cut through the top of the facjade perhaps to try to

give the building an image of openness and shelter.
Finally, on the very top was placed an anodized gold
television aerial, which (according to the artist) could
be interpreted as a symbol of the aged, who spend so
much time looking at TV.
The Guild House was constructed from cheap bricks
and simple standardized windows, and detailed so that
a planar character was emphasized. The windows
were chosen to rhyme with those in the area and were
commonplace, standardized sashes of the kind found in
the cheapest housing schemes. In the context of such a
self-conscious architectural composition they recalled
Venturi's observations on Pop artists who employed
'old cliches in new settings' and so gave 'uncommon
meaning to common elements by changing their
context or increasing their scale . .
.'
One scarcely
needs to emphasize at this point the contrast between
Venturi's approach and vocabulary, and those of
Rudolph. Kallmann. Roche and Ilinkeloo.and Pei at
the same time, fiowever, his ideas were usually more
convincing in writing than when built. The agonized
self-consciousness betrayed the lack of an instinctive
feeling for form, space or even proportion. Venturi set
the tone for a literary conception of architecture in
which more emphasis was put on imagery and
quotation than on formal integration.
Another American architect to react against the
blandness of cliched modern architecture of the fifties
was Charles Moore, who was based in California,
where the weight of imported European modernism of
the Gropius variety was far less. Moore and Lyndon's
354 Transformation and Dissemination after 1 940
'Sea Ranch' on the Pacific coastline north of San Golden Age. But reviving the forms of the early
Francisco was a somewhat routine essay redwood in International Style in the late sixties, forty years
cabin regionalism. But by the late sixties Moore had afterwards, was by no means a simple exercise: it was
gone beyond this folksiness and absorbed some of the every dangerous as reviving any other set of
bit as

lessons of Pop Art. The interior of his Faculty Club for forms of the past. The problem of pastiche hovered over
the University of California of 1968 (fig. 26.12) was the endeavour: and there was little evidence that the
designed as a sort of stage set of thin planes and screens 'New York 5' were in any position to supply a cogent
(planarity was once again in fashion), evoking new content in their renaissance of earlier forms.
simultaneously modern architectural icons (e.g., van Despite the insubstantiality of their philosophical
Doesburg's forms of the twenties), the image of a positions, some of the New York 5 architects achieved
baronial hall (replete with electric neon 'banners'), the buildings of a dainty elegance. The Benacerraf addition
standard efl'ects of the American faculty club (portraits, by Graves (1969) may stand as an example (tig.

stuffed animal heads, etc) and Spanish Colonial 26.1 3). This was a sort of pavilion attached to a house
touches (a sort of tongue-in-cheek regionalism). In this in Princeton. Its architectural language was com-
case has to be said that too much complexity and
it pounded from a variety of modern architectural
contradiction ended up being simply a witty hotch- sources, but elements were put in unexpected juxta-
potch without underlying order or tension. But positions which challenged expectations concerning
Moore's design, despite its lack of formal resolution, their usual role. Thus the knowledgeable observer
was still symptomatic of an increasingly eclectic mood might note that cylindrical pilotis turned up as
in which all periods of the past (including the modern horizontal handrails: or he might sense that coloured
movement) were regarded as 'game' for quotations. struts and exploding spatial effects derived from the
Venturi's and Moore's positions suggested that at Schroeder House were being deliberately collided with
least some of the guiding principles of modern free-plan curves recalling Le Corbusier's villas. Giulio
architecture were losing hold, although, of course, Romano had relied, in the Palazzo del Te i S34). on (

their attitudes, styles andwould have been

strategies the knowledge of his audience, so that they might react
inconceivable without the numerous intellectual and with a frisson of shocked delight when they noticed his
formal inventions of the previous fifty years. Nonethe- dropped keystones, and other breaks with the Classical
less they could be portrayed as iconoclasts who were rules of the High Renaissance: thesame way Graves
in

deliberately playing mannerist games, and who were relied on a historical perspective which made of the
undermining some of the hard-won battles of the twenties a classic age, and on an audience, who,
pioneers. In the circumstances, it was not surprising to knowing this, would admire his virtuosity in breaking
find shrieks against their heresy, related to attempts at the rules. This was complexity and contradiction, but
returning to 'the fundamentals of the faith'. This led to applied to revered prototypes of the modern move-
the curious situation of theorists arguing for a return ment, rather than to American domestic sources as
to some mythical and crystalline principles of 'modern- with Venturi. It was an architect's architecture aimed
ism', and of practitioners reviving some of the white at a profession thoroughly acquainted through coffee-
forms of the 1920s. table books and college art-history courses with the
Most of the architects involved in this exercise were monuments of modernism. Philip Johnson character-
linked to East Coast architecture schools like Princeton ized the Benacerraf rather aptly as 'a wonderfully
and Cornell. Chief among them were five (briefly called sporty piece of lawn sculpture'. Indeed, it is arguable
the 'New York 5'): Peter Eisenman, Richard Meier, that the Graves style, with its interest in delicate
Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk, and Michael Graves. coloured struts and a sort of backyard pastoralism,
In the late sixties most of these men were in their mid- may have owed something to the abstract sculptures of
thirties, and therefore grew up with modern art and Anthony Caro.
architecture as entirely established facts. They were In the broad context of the 1960s in the United
loosely united by a strong feeling for the seminal works States it is possible to see the New York 5's self-
of the inter-war years, like the Schroeder House, the conscious interest in formal issues as a reaction against
Villa Stein or the Casa del Fascio: by an obsession with the technological school on the one hand, and the
formal issues at the expense of content and function preoccupation with social scientific methodologies on
(their formalist definitions of 'modernism' parroted the other. In turn their stylistic emphasis on thinness,
those used by defenders of the American 'hard-edged' planarity and transparency may perhaps be seen as a
abstraction of the late sixties); and by their allegiance formal reaction against the brutalist antics in heavy
to the opinions of Colin Rowe. who taught in America concrete of some of their predecessors. It is interesting,
from the sixties onwards, and who seems to have in retrospect, how little attention they devoted to late
conveyed the twenties to his acolytes as some lost Le Corbusier. and how much they concentrated on the
 Crises and Critiques in the 1 960s •
355
any cultural significance in this choice of prototype or
in the resultant analogies between his work and Italian
Rationalism of the 1930s. Instead he argued that such
buildings as 'House 11' (1969) were explorations of
basic formal syntax and the logical structure of space.
It seemed to matter New York s architects
little to the
that the forms they imitated had been the outward
expression of Utopian philosophies and social visions.
Discussions of moral content were displaced by
concentration on issues of a purely formal kind. In
their revulsion against sociology they perhaps neglec-
ted the dilTerent question of the idealization of a way of
life in symbolic form. In that respect they followed in

the Greenbergian critical tradition, or even the

formalist version of the International Style set by
Hitchcock and Johnson forty years before.
was cloaked
Indeed, the International Style revival
insmoke-screens of verbal rhetoric implying that it
was throwing aside false doctrines of functionalism in
favour, once again, of the 'art of architecture'. Venturi
and Moore tended to be rejected for their slumming in
Americana, and it became customary by the early
seventies to contrast the 'whites' (the New York s and )

the 'greys' (Venturi et al. ) in rather the same way that

critics had contrasted pure geometrical abstraction
with Pop Art, namely as a contest between modernism
and realism, or as a battle between exclusiveness and
inclusiveness. In fact the architectural movements had
a good deal in common: both placed a high value on
complex formal manipulations of screens and planes;
both were involved with quotations and overt revival;
both were conceived (in part) as reactions against
debased modern design; and neither had much to say
about the general state of American society. Both were
precious flower architectures, conceived and con-
cocted in the hothouses of the elite American
universities; and both were prone to a bloodless and

26. 1 5 Michael Graves. villas of the 1920s as sources. However, where the over-intellectualized academicism.
Benacerraf addition. exemplars were often made of stuccoed concrete, and Broadly speaking the path between 19SS and 1975
Princeton, New Jersey. indulged in machine quotations, the replications were in Western Europe and the United States was one from
1969. often made of wood, were related to the American a loosely felt consensus (which nonetheless took many
timber frame tradition, and were even more spindly in forms) to a position of greater scepticism in which
appearance. But it is not appropriate to treat the various spectral versions of mythical orthodoxy came
group's work monolithically. Clwathmey. for example, under attack. The quest for deeper meanings in the
rehed on bold contrasts volume and dumpy
of fifties avant-garde gave way to a brittle formalism

proportions for his effects. Meier was

aesthetic proud to announce that it had no social polemic, and
preoccupied with the contrast and resolution of dubiously supported by intellectualizations derived
vertical and horizontal layering in his house designs (a from linguistics and formalist criticism. The age of
concern which he claimed deriv'ed from the inherent conviction gave way to an era of broken faiths, where
properties of Le Corbusier's Dom-ino skeleton and no strong, new generating ideas seemed to emerge,
Maison Citrohan respectively). Hejduk built rarely and leaving the architect in a sort of suspension, free to
expressed his ideas through crisp geometrical exercises stick together fragments, but uncertain of the meaning
based on a somewhat academic view of Purism. of their combination. Itwas symptomatic of the change
Eisenman. a theorist as well as a practitioner, modelled that, by the late seventies, one could find the word
his style extensively on that of Terragni. but disclaimed 'revolutionary' applied to revivals of earlier styles.
2 7. Modern Architecture and Developing
Countries since i960

Every people that has produced architecture has evolved its own favourite
forms, as peculiar to that people as its language, its dress, or its folklore. Until
the collapse of cultural frontiers in the last century, there were all over the
world distinctive local shapes and details in architecture, and the buildings of
any locality were the beautiful children of a happy marriage between the
imagination of the people and the demands of the countryside.
H. Fathy, 1973

Modern architecture was created in industrialized was usually linked to foreign businesses, and while the
countries where a progressivist world view flourished multi-storey, air-conditioned offices and the expensive-
temporarily, and where avant-garde cliques attempted ly clad airports may have served as instant status
to produce an authentic modern style appropriate to symbols for those intent on attracting international
rapidly changing social conditions. This curious capital, the results were usually crude and lacking in

pattern was not repeated elsewhere, but its results sensitivity to local traditions, values, and climate. Even

were copied all around the world, and were often had there been architects keen on reinterpreting
misapplied. Moreover, as has been emphasized, it was national traditions, they would have had difficulty
not until the 1940s and 1950s that modern forms had finding relevant local precedents for such functions. As
any appreciable impact on the 'less developed coun- it was. cultural introspection was not high on the list of

and these forms were usually lacking in the

tries', priorities of the typical patron.

poetry and depth of meaning of the master-works of This collision of old and new was another version of
the International Style. The dissemination of this the crisis of industrialization which Western European
degraded version of modern design occurred in a countries and the United States had themselves begun
number of ways: through rapid economic develop- to experience in the nineteenth century. But there
ment of a kind which fostered functions, technologies were at leasttwo major differences: the 'advanced'
and urban circumstances in which some sort of nations had themselves invented the Industrial
modern architecture seemed either relevant or un- Revolution and they had had over a century to adjust
:

avoidable: through continuing colonization, in which to the far-reaching social and cultural changes it

case images of modernity functioned as emblems of brought with it. The rapidly developing Third World
foreign economic or political control: and through the country of the 1960s or 1970s (e.g., Iran or Nigeria)
brainwashing of post-colonial elites (native-born but could find itself passing from a rural and agricultural
foreign-educated with Western images and ideas
1 economy to an urban and industrial one in the course
which were upheld as 'progressive' counter-agents to of a single generation. Moreover, the tools (including
an earlier era of 'backwardness and stagnation'. which
buildings) with change was achieved
this rapid

Some sense of the problems following from rapid were imported ones: little wonder
that a form of
modernization has been given already with the cultural schizophrenia should have emerged at the
example of Japanese architecture in the twentieth same time.
century (see Chapter 25). In the 1960s and 1970s Pleas on the part of 'sensitive' Western observers
many other parts of the world, especially in Africa, the that national and rural traditions be preserved or used
Far and Middle East, were afflicted by similar difficulties as the basis of a new regionalism were liable to fall on
of cultural identity. The arrival of modern architecture deaf ears in these circumstances, since peasant
 Modern Architecture and Developing Countries since i960 •
357
vernaculars could easily be identified with backward- talents ran the risk of producing buildings which
les,ser

ness and the exploitation of rural labour. The case in were pastiches of both modern and traditional forms.
favour of preserving fine nineteenth-century colonial In the transactions between industrialized and
buildings (which might also possess subtle adjust- industrializing nations there were also collisions in the
ments to local traditions and climates was even harder
I ways buildings were designed and put up. Modern
to make. The new nrriviste classes seemed to wish to architecture presupposed a division of labour between
disassociate themselves from the weight of their recent architects, manufacturers, engineers and construction
history and to experience nothing less than the workers, but in many 'underdeveloped' countries there
consumer 'freedoms' of the West. They grew greedy for were fewer steps in the process between conception
glossy images with technological and international and construction. Thus a building conceived on a
overtones which could affirm their own position. Skin- Parisian drawing-board might require imported and
deep modern building (rather than any substantial expensive mass-produced components which entirely
form of modern architecture) was waiting in the West, ignored local patterns of construction and labour
all too ready to overwhelm yet another area of the when built in the Persian Gulf. The resultant forms
international market. The irony was that so many were immediately at odds with centuries-old traditions
countries, at last liberated from overt colonial rule, of craftsmanship in which methods had been evolved
should so quickly have been persuaded to adapt vulgar to handle local materials. The practical logic behind
versions of Western architectural dress. regional style was undermined, and the delicate details
By the early l9f)Os city centres were springing up and intuitions of handicraft were replaced by tatty
around the world which seemed closer in spirit to industrial building components.
Manhattan or modern London than to local, national, The problems attached to importing foreign tech-
or colonial precedents. The new ersatz international nologies were compounded by others related to the
modern design with its standard cliches - the glass-slab imposition of alien social theories, especially in the field

hotel with balconies and kidney-shaped pool, the air What were conceived in Europe as low-cost
of housing.
conditioned lobby with tinted plate-glass windows, the models might be inappropriate when built elsewhere.
whitewashed concrete frame, etc. - was not just the In Egypt, for example, the philosopher/architect
face of 'Western economic imperialism', for parallel Hassan Fathy discovered that concrete-frame housing
developments occurred in countries under Soviet schemes w'ere liable to be far more expensive in terms
influence at the same time. Perhaps Le Corbusier had of money, transport costs, and salaries, than local,
been right when he had suggested that the machine traditional, self-build methods, and that they were at
caused a revolution of its own transcending political odds with non-Western ways of life. In his book.
ideologies. Some of the same distressing features which Architecture for the Poor, an Experiment in Rural Egypt
had crept up on the cities of the West during the (1973). he suggested that labour-intensive con-
nineteenth century, and to which modern architecture struction methods using local materials were the
had been an attempted answer, now impinged on obvious answer. He conducted an experiment at New
places where there was the added problem of a split Gourna. close to Luxor in the Nile valley, in which he
between adapted Western models and native values. schooled the local peasantry in Nubian techniques
The safety valve of an avant-garde, or at least an elite using mud-brick vaults and simple domes (fig. 27.1).
intent on visual quality and symbolic depth, was These elements had stood the test of time and were well
usually missing or else a pale shadow of its Western attuned to the resources and climate of the region: by
relatives. contrast 'modern' solutions were often unfunctional
One way out of the impasse was to try and put and ill-fitted to the particular environment. Fathy
some combination of the indigenous and the
together expressed his scepticism of modern architecture
imported. Here fake regionalism - with a few succinctly:
gingerbread 'historical' attachments over an ill-
conceived modern structural box - was a constant Modernity does not necessarily mean liveliness, and
danger. A sounder approach lay in the sort of modern change is not always for the better Tradition is . . .

regionalism mentioned Chapters 21 and 2^. in

in not necessarily old fashioned and is not
which an attempt was made to unearth fundamental synonymous with stagnation . . . Tradition is the
lessons in local tradition and to blend them with an socialanalogy of personal habit, and in art has the
already evolved modern language. The problem came same effect of releasing the artist from distracting
in translating these basic features expressing regional and inessential decisions so that he can give his
adaptation and meanings of the past into a form whole attention to the vital ones.
appropriate to changing social conditions: no set
recipes existed which could guarantee success, and Fathy's critique of industrialization and its accom-
358 • Transformation and Dissemination after 1 94"

would be disrupted by a new spirit of rationality. The 27.1 {left) Hassan Fathy
uprooted urban proletariat would be cut off from its and the citizens of
Gouma. New Gouma.
countryside origins, but at the same time hard put to
near Luxor. Egypt.
adjust to the chaos of industrial urban life.
1947-70: the mosque.
A crisis of this kind was felt acutely in places as far
apart as India and Brazil by the early 1 960s. Architects 27.2 [above] Hassan
were powerless in the face of it. Neither bland low-cost Fathy. house near
housing slabs, nor agrarian romanticism of the type Luxor. Egypt.

espoused by Fathy were much use in dealing with this

urban poverty and overcrowding. Vast new self-built
slums made of tin cans, cardboard and industrial
panying Unms w ,is thus quite basic. He simply refused wastes grew around the urban fringe. In these
to accept the myths of progress and claimed that in circumstances, 'Architecture' - whether glass-boxed
most Third World circumstances the peasant could or regionally sensitive - was a luxury. It is scarcely
build better for himself than any architect. He argued surprising that urban theories should have reflected a
that each individual family should build to suit its own feeling of hopelessness in the face of such chaos. Indeed
needs, employing the wisdom of tradition rather than the argument was put forth that the squatter and
the expensive whims of professionals. There can be forms did at least provide shelter for the poor,
satellite

little doubt that romanticization of the peasant was which the official housing agencies were unable to do.
part of a larger ideological quest for national roots his ; Around Cairo the illegal settlements even hinted at the
philosophy would have particular appeal wherever the shape of a new. half-industrialized vernacular, employ-
rural past was idealized and treated as a source of ing a rough-shod concrete frame with a flat roof, a
cultural mythology. courtyard, and infill walls of pot-tile and brick (fig.

Fathy's experiments were conducted in a country

whose vernacular had, in fact, suffered severe disrupt- By the early 1970s in any case, concepts of total
ion under Ottoman rule, and his programme involved planning were under attack. This anti-absolutist
something of a self-conscious revival of indigenous attitude was well reflected in an experiment conducted
craft (fig. 27.2). In many Third World rural areas no in Peru for 'Barriada' housing in 1970. in which

such revival was necessary, as local traditions endured a variety of well-intentioned international architects
on their own. But even in these cases mechanization of supplied a rational plan based on the patterns
materials and of the means of production might of life which had emerged in the slums themselves,
eventually affect the remotest countryside by drawing and left each family free to alter the individual
peasants to the city in search of jobs and by house at will. In Papua New Guinea, in towns like
introducing labour-saving tools which interfered with Port Moresby, native inhabitants who had recently
the continuity of rural craft traditions. The intricate arrived from the country were encouraged to trans-
fabric of myths behind genuine vernacular forms form rural vernacular patterns which coped well with
 :

Modern Architecture and Developing Countries since 1 960 359

a tropical climate (fig. 27.4). rather than following the
earlier way of dreary, ill-adapted, imported house-
types. One theorist. Z. Plocki. even went so far as to
propose a 'New Guinea' architectural style, advocating
a sort of 'modern regionalist' approach and arguing in
favour of a new vernacular applicable to the broad
range of building tasks, large and small

Most architectural styles were the products of their

own societies. Its religious values, climate,
technology, social and political structures dictated
the need and style of buildings. Shapes, proportions
and decorations were symbolic and had meaning,
often ending up with strict architectural orders.
This 'internal stimulus' created cultures and
architectural expressions that differed greatly from
each other . . . Many of the better examples are
being preserved, but rarely copied, and when they
are it's apparent they have no meaning . . . Today,
with jet travel, intercontinental news media,
cinema, political structures and cultural
exchanges, the world is smaller and the bulk of the
influences which dictate a style are international,
based on technology and economics . . . But. even
accepting the International Style, technology and
the stimulus from the outside, and not copying the
27.3 [above) Cairo.
Egypt, the 'industrialized
vernacular' of the
outskirts. n.)70s.

27.4 Urban
{right]
Hahuabada. Port
village.
Moresby. Papua New
Guinea, mid 1970s.
360 Transformation and Dissemination after 1 940
27.5 l/e/n Louis Kahn.
traditional, rules can be formulated within which
I.

Ahmadabad Institute of
architects can create architecture and a character
Management. India.
that can become the Niuginian style.
1964-

Here it was admitted that new urban patterns 2j.b (below) Balkrishna
architecture aping neither traditional Doshi. mixed income
required a new
housing at Hyderabad.
tribal nor imported forms. The pretensions of the
India. 1976.
modern movement towards universality' showed up
with embarrassing the limitations of a
clarity, as did 27.7 [right] J.F. Zevaco.
superficial and nostalgic regionalism. Moreover, Plocki holiday housing. Agadir.
extended his arguments to simple and self-built Morocco. 19(15: an
attempt at cross-
structures, not just to the creations of the well-to-do.
breeding traditional and
The few touches of local colour required by the tourist modern forms.
industry were scarcely adequate problem of
to the

defining a new post-colonial style. This would have to

come partly from 'within' and be a direct expression of
new life patterns.
Where basic shelter was the concern, regionalist
sensitivities may have seemed a luxury, but it was still
possible to treat middle-class commissions as a
laboratory for general formulations. As always,
architectural value would reside in the convincing
synthesis of the practical, the aesthetic and the
symbolic, and in the creation of a unity in harmony
with the setting. Vernacular structures provided many
basic clues in achieving such ends by revealing age-old
patterns of adaptation. In India both Kahn and Le
Corbusier had turned to this source in originating
elements for handling the extremes of climate: the
former's Ahmadabad Management ^j(i4)
Institute of ( 1

was built in a rugged, handmade brick vocabulary

with ingenious shading and ventilating apertures (fig.

27.5). while the latter's buildings in the same city and

in Chandigarh revealed the relevance of the concrete
frame, the parasol and the brise-soleil to Indian needs.
Among the Indians to take these hints were Charles
Correa and Balkrishna Doshi. Doshi's housing and
university schemes of the 1960s extended the im-
ported language and blended it still further with
indigenous realities. He established simple standard-
ized systems of construction and patterns of plan
arrangement adapted and use. and laid
to climate
these out in variations which enlivened the spaces
between. His housing at Hyderabad of the 1970s
employed terraces and overhangs derived from the
vernacular of the region careful thought was given to
;

orientation, shading, and natural cross-ventilation, as

well as to gradations between public and private space
27.6). Doshi tried to avoid the gaping spaces
(fig.

between buildings that had been made at Chandigarh,

and to create something closer to the tight-knit and
dense street patterns of traditional Indian towns. He
was acutely aware of the irrelevance of indulging in a
merely romantic peasanlism. especially in a country
where the peasant's lot was anything but romantic.
Modern Architecture and Developing Countries since 1960 361

His buildings were usually constructed for an emerg-

ent bourgeoisie and were rigorously designed to meet
the demands and habits of a new India where values
reflected Western mores. Forms were needed which
crystallized this situation. After all. much of the finest
architecture in Indian history had emerged from the
cross-breeding of foreign and local influences. Even the
hardest-boiled nationalist might have to admit that not
all the best things were entirely home-grown.
A satisfactory blend of old and new was also
achieved by J. F. Zevaco in his design for courtyard
houses in Agadir. Morocco (1965). Here the social
context was positively luxurious compared with that
which had confronted Fathy in Egypt as these were
holiday dwellings (fig. 27.7). Nonetheless, the archi-
tectural strategy was one which was transposible to
somewhat less expensive situations. Zevaco's solution
drew together the concrete technology, planning logic,
and simple volumes of a modern architectural
vocabulary, with the traditional, inward-looking,
362 • Transformation and Dissemination after 19 40

North African courtviird dwelling. Thf approach was to be insertedbetween this major symbolic monu- 2 7.S irt/imri .Andre
similar to that which Bodiansky and Woods had ment and the river Niger (fig. 27.8). The solution Ravereau. Medical
was to distribute the functions in low, well-pro- Centre. Mopti. Mali.
suggested in their ATBAT scheme of the early 1950s
1976. with ttie
(see Chapter 2i|. Like its predecessors, the Zevaco tected volumes, linked one to another by shaded walk-
traditional mosque in
design was valuable for its straightforwardness and the ways, and disposed to maximize cross-ventilation. The
the background.
way in which it abstracted underlying social and style was simple and unadorned, and in tune with
climatic features from a local tradition and rephrased the of the local Saharan vernacular:
abstraction 27.9 [above right)

them in a new context. A certain formal elegance was the typical rectangular geometries and flat roofs of the Minoru Yamasaki.
assured by the fine handling of proportions and details, region, gashed by deep shadows and enlivened by rep- Dharan airport. 1961.
the play of light and the control of scale and greenery. etitions and variations of simple themes, might have
27.10 (right) Alison and
Agadir was a city already undergoing drastic been designed with a Cubist sensibility in mind. The Peter Smithson. project
modernization: it was a resort which had been largely technique of construction was also a happy blend of for Royal National
rebuilt after a major earthquake. Mopti in Mali was a the regional and the imported, since concrete and mud Pahlavi Library, Tehran.
traditional sub-Saharan city with one of the most were both materials cast in a wooden form-work. In 19 77-
splendid mud mosques in North Africa. The Medical the Medical Centre, the traditional mud walls were
Centre, by Andre Ravereau (completed in 1976), had strengthened (and given a longer life than usual) by
 Modern Architecture and Developing Countries since i960 •
^63

tlic citlJihoii ul cement. The contextual sensitivity of altogether rare. Ravereau attempted to incorporate the
the scheme extended from its colour, materials, and best qualities of both worlds Plate 15).(

shape (which blended with the neighbouring mosque), Mopti Medical Centre was a context
FA'idently the

to the overall arrangement, which restated traditional which demanded a quiet, almost anonymous, solution.
urban alleyways and pedestrian links in the building But Western architects might also be called upon to
itself. Arguably these were strategies of a kind which design prestige buildings. Among the competitions
had originated in the West (e.g., with Team X) but in held in the 1970s for grand new buildings in the
Ravereau's design, the ideas were carried through to wealthier developing countries were numerous ones
create a subtle blend of the old and the new, of the for 'cultural centres', museums and state palaces,

African and the FAiropean. Part of of the richness of the where issues of representation' were paramount. One
building came from the use of local handicraft of these was held in 1977 for the Royal National
methods, which gave the forms a sensitive touch Pahlavi Library to stand in Tehran and embody
lacking in most industrialized buildings. To have (presumably) the munificence of the Shah's imperial
achieved similar effects in the West would have been court. Architects from all parts of the world made
extremely expensive, as such craftsmanship was entries and indulged in confused efTorts at 'cultural

m
"iff

i f Hj^RrW*^ »t" U X V \ ^'U''

SOUTH €L€VRTIOn
364 • Transformation and Dissemination after 1940

expression'. Alison and Peter Smithson, for example, architectural language suitable to both modern and
departed drastically from the safe path of their usual traditional tasks. It was no good pretending that
vocabulary (no doubt sensing that it lacked sufficient modernization was not occurring, and hoping that the
'rhetoric' to deal with the symbolic requirements of a clock would stand still or even go backwards to some
state building which should be identifiable by the (entirely illusory) 'pure period', when foreign in-

populace), and embarked on a perilous road involving fluences and chaotic changes were held not to have
an imagery based on the 'Peacock Feather' (a motif occurred. Nonetheless, these sentimental traditionalist
from the Shah's heraldry) and the dome (a traditional emotions were often rehearsed in the confused search
Persian symbol of authority). The result was a fussy for 'cultural identity', whether this was defined in
orientalism which failed entirely to capture the spirit of nationalist or pan-cultural terms. The architectural
traditionalmonumentality (fig. 2 7. 10). The mannered tradition in question might involve Islamic monu-
attempt at aping Islamic ornamental patterns recalled ments or Melanesian wooden huts, but the traditional-
the Baghdad University scheme of over a decade before ist still shared all the predicaments of his revivalist
by Gropius and TAC, in which a bogus historicism had counterpart in nineteenth-century Europe: even once
come very close to the spirit of a Hollywood production a cultural essence' had been divined and linked to
of the Arabian Nights. Minoru Yamasaki's Dharan some 'golden age' or another in the past, there was still
airport for Saudi Arabia, of the early 1960s, also came the problem of representing this core identity archi-
dangerously near kitsch in its pre-cast supports tecturally. One could not simply imitate the earlier
emulating palm trees, and its tracery screens sup- forms: precedents needed transforming into meaning-
posedly modelled on traditional fenestration (fig. 27.9). ful images in the present.
However, the Western architect intent on even a 1973 was a crucial year for the economies of the
genuine regionalism might find himself faced by a West because it was then that the 'oil crisis' came to a
client or an advisory body keen to have the latest from head. The revenue which flowed into the oil-producing
New York or London. In this scenario the theorist countries was exchanged for Western expertise,
armed with his arguments about 'locale' and 'genius of including the talents of the architectural profession. A
place' might be rejected as an agent of the West intent lull Western production (often filled with paper
in
on holding the developing world back from 'progress'. projects and theoretical researches) corresponded with
There were some situations in which the Western a boom in construction in previously undeveloped
architect might be called upon to design for religious or parts of the world which had usually been ignored by
state institutions with highly defined traditional types the West. It was not a happy contract of forces: get-
of building such as mosques. In these cases the conflict rich-quick clients had little time to spend on niceties of
between new and old. imported and indigenous, was at architectural culture, and Western architects intent on
its most extreme. If the designer simply followed the financial gain were abysmally ignorant of local
formula of the traditional type he ran the risk of customs and traditions. An epidemic of technological
producing a sham, for his vocabulary and structural brashness hit the shores of the Persian Gulf and the
systems were not, in fact, traditional, and his forms fringes of the desert. The matter was further com-
lacked symbolic conviction. If he stuck to his own. plicated by the relative lack of monumental and urban
modern vocabulary, he might fail to adhere sufficiently examples in a primarily nomadic region. Relevant
to the traditional elements and conventional mean- models were few. What was needed was a thorough
ings, and end up with a design that failed to com- assessment from first principles, of the formal sug-
municate its purpose. The problem was not so very gestions inherent in climate, materials, social patterns
different in kind from that facing an architect in the and the like. Unfortunately, such rigour was not
West when presented with a cathedral: what was usually applied, and the new buildings of Saudi Arabia
needed was an imaginative transformation of proto- or Kuwait looked as if they could have stood anywhere,
types. However, it was rare that a Western architect A possible exception was the Intercontinental Hotel
grasped the spirit of the culture for which he was designed for Mecca by Frei Otto, the West German
designing, and the employment of a native architect architect/engineer. In his Olympic Games structures
was no sure guarantee of authenticity either. At one for Munich, Otto had employed delicate high-tension
extreme one might have a mosque that was indistin- nets and webs of irregular geometry to cover huge
guishable from an office building; at the other, a bogus spaces. His forms were derived from a careful
version of dome and minaret clumsily coated in assessment of function and materials, but were also
industrial tiles and related uneasily to an entirely partly inspired by natural structures and by nomadic
foreign constructional system in concrete. tents. His hotel design incoporated the basic principles
Thus major element of the architectural crisis of
a of a Bedouin tent but at a much larger scale and using
developing nations arose from a failure to establish an steel cables and wooden slats instead of rope and cloth.
 Modern Architecture and Developing Countries since i960 •
365
courted a number of teasing difficulties. He had to
decide on the common denominators of 'Islamic
architectural identity' (a tall when one included
order
the whole Muslim world, and when one admitted that
many other factors than religion influenced forms). He
felt compelled to believe that 'the nature of Islam' was
some fixed and unchanging entity, which it clearly had
not been. And, like any other revivalist, he had to
decide which period of the arts was closest to the
'essential Islam', then to restate these forms without
debasing them. There were other tricky issues arising
from real changes in functions and needs: what, for
example, was an 'Islamic railway station' supposed to
look like.' The fundamentalist architect had the further
theoretical difficulty of deciding whether or not
architectural quality might transcend religious
dogmatism.
Such dilemmas were not. of course, uniquely
Muslim property, but were shared by most countries
confronting rapid change. After its revolution in 1 949.
2 7.11 Ministry of The building was laid out as a sequence of small China embarked upon a tricky path of cultural self-
Building, Peking, igsos. pavilions in a lush garden and the tent was drawn over definition which had to steer its way between Soviet
the whole thing as a minimal shading device, open at influence and its own quest for modernization. Grand
the edges for the flow of air. A similar concept of the State buildings such as the Great Hall of the People and
'high-tech' tent was employed by Skidmore, Owings, the Museum of Chinese History and the Revolution
and Merrill in their design for the airport at Mecca, a built in the 1950s in Peking reflected a Classicizing line
building of some symbolic importance as the modern from Moscow, with mild touches here and there of
arrival point for Muslims from all over the world bland ornament abstracted from the Imperial tradit-
making their pilgrimage to the Holy City. ion. The Building Ministry, erected in the 1950s (fig.
The international resurgence in the cultural power 27.1 1 had more overtly nationalist overtones, but its
).

and confidence of Islam was another major force to oriental touches were still skin-deep. Most matters of
influence relationships between industrialized and less visual culture in China have been highly controlled by
industrialized nations in the mid-1970s. This coin- the Ministry of Culture and by the propaganda arm of
cided with a period of soul-searching in the West, well the Chinese Communist Party. A dogmatic framework
reflected in a sort of architectural introversion and of this sort has done little to encourage visual
mannerism which replaced any serious attempt at excellence. Indeed, it is an ideological premiss of the
expressing human values. 'Islamic revival' took many system that social function should always be con-
forms and was fuelled by many fires, among them a sidered before formal quality. Evidently the idea that
revulsion against the materialism which (it was held) life-enhancing formal arrangements might have an
could be traced to 'Western modernizing influences'. elevating role to play in the formulation of a new
Architecture could not remain immune Ibr long: the society has not yet penetrated the official platitudes
images of the debased International Style were soon which and obvious propaganda devices.
stress realism
condemned as emblems of demonic secularism. It is an all too brief survey of
interesting to conclude
The backlash against 'modern values' implied emergent world architecture with a monument which
nothing distinct beyond a greater reverence for seems as if it may succeed on the social, symbolic, and
traditional moral and aesthetic forms. Once again, the formal levels simultaneously, and which has been
issue of identity was at stake, but Pan-Islamic conceived within a complex weave of cultural
sentiments could even be manipulated to imply a influences. This is the Hurva Synagogue, designed by
community of culture between Morocco and Manila; Denys Lasdun between [978 and 1981 (fig. 27.1 2) for
with the wave of a wand they conveniently overlooked the old city of Jerusalem on the site of a synagogue
schisms, national boundaries and centuries of change. shelled in the 1967 war. The rebuilding including part
(

It was a mood which was hard to translate into an of the ruin) obviously has a significance of renewal for
architectural philosophy, let alone architectural forms. international Jewry as well as ardent local Zionists.
The traditionalist designer who pretended that Originally Louis Kahn was employed to prepare a
modern' and 'Western' models should be expunged design, but this was left incomplete at his death. His
366 Transformation and Dissemination after 1940

sketches suggested a large symmetrical building of gave a hooded character to the interior, while the roof 27.12 Denys Lasdun.
almost fortified appearance towering above the itself restated the meaning of a sacral umbrella and Hurva Synagogue.
neighbouring flat roofs of the old city. gave an almost primeval feeling of shelter. The rhetoric Jerusalem. 1978-81.
project.
Lasdun sought a less no less
forbidding but of the Hurva scheme arose, not from the spurious
monumental solution. In accord with his urban attachment of devalued symbols, but from an imagery
landscape philosophy he thought of the main chamber and a mood associated with the basic meaning of a
of the synagogue as a piece of the city, and of the place of dignified assembly in a city-space. Lasdtm
building as a whole as a more intensified form of the 'rethought' the significance of the synagogue in terms
surrounding urban patterns of streets, squares, and Hat of an authentic language (the strata and towers)
roofs. A synagogue is not a building type of fixed form. already attuned to the idea of congregation. This he
although Middle-Eastern variants have often used managed to do without any frantic search for 'Jewish
domes. But even if there had been a firm convention, essences'.
the architect would still have had the problem of The obsession with cultural representation which
injecting the standard image with a new meaning and came into focus in the mid- 9 70s was ever in danger of
1

vitality. Lasdun envisaged a central room of great ignoring issues of architectural quality and authen-
formality on a clearly defined main axis running from ticity. A building that fitted some passing prescription
the small access street to a square at the rear of the site. or dogma, that illustrated values that were noisily
Galleries were placed at the middle levels for the proclaimed as 'Islamic'. 'Jewish'. 'Melanesian',
women, and were focused towards the arc and the 'Communist' (or whatever I. was not necessarily
bema. This main space was surmounted by a grand architecture of lasting quality. Indeed, too facile an
parasol roof - a much enlarged version of his usual acceptance of conventional iconography could lead
strata - supported on polygonal towers containing quickly to kitsch. The post-Second World War era
stairs and providing natural ventilating chimneys. The began with the emancipation of various architectural
deep overhangs sheltered the interior from the glare cultures from a debased international formula: this
and gave a feeling of enclosure to the room. The light, was desirable and inevitable. But regionalism could
filtering in from the edges, added to the mysterious easily become the facile tool of religious and nationafist
character of the space. The lowest portion of the dogmatism of a sort which left no room for the
synagogue was enclosed by the walls of the ruin. No universal aspects of both the human condition and the
attempt was made at employing domes or other language of art. What was needed was a blend of the
elements of local usage, because they were not specific local and the universal which avoided the limitations
to synagogues as a type, and because they were not of each and led to forms of lasting symbolic resonance.
part of the Lasdunian conviction and language. Skin-deep modernism and glib traditionalism were
Nonetheless, the lighting system under the parasol evils to be avoided in every part of the world.
28. The Traditions of Modern
Architecture in the Recent Past

I dislike a sentimental antiquarian attitude towards the past as much as I

disliive a sentimental technocratic one toward the future. Both are founded on
a . . . clockwork notion of time.
A. VanEyck, 1967

It is a standard part of art historical folklore that one character remains unclear to all concerned. Those
should never attempt to write the history of the recent who contribute to this view will obviously play down
past. The reason given is that one is liable to be biased. continuities with the modern tradition and do all they
Why this should not be true of studies of the more can to inflate the originality of architects selected to fit

distant past too is not explained. It tends to be taken for a 'post-modern' label. Those who find the idea
granted that the true shape of recent history will unsavoury will hang on tenaciously to the habits of
emerge on its own. their upbringing and claim that they stem from some
Caution is obviously required in describing contem- is based
core identity of 'modernism'. Neither position
porary developments, but it is misleading to imagine on a view of the genesis of forms within
subtle
that an acceptable consensus will come about traditions, and each tends to posit a simplistic and
naturally. If the historian steps back, the propagandist monolithic version of modern architecture. Neither is

with an axe to grind steps in, usually with his own willing to admit that themost profound innovations
polemical version of what is 'salient'. This danger tend to blend together old and new. and that the
seems greater than ever in the past ten years when so seminal works of the modern movement have value for
much emphasis has been placed on the printed word the future precisely because their principles transcend
and the photograph: movements and 'isms' have been period limitations. In fact, both views seem too
fervently discussed on the basis of a few drawings in concerned with changes of architectural dress. The
glossy magazines without so much as a brick being laid 'newest' (and rarest) thing that one can hope for is a
or a concrete slab poured. Factions of the avant-garde building that is simply very good, whatever its
have grappled for control over the media and over relationship to traditions near and far, however it tits
university departments to assert that their own ideas the prescriptions of the fashion-mongers or the
(rather than someone else's) are the 'right' ones for the yearnings of the old guard.
times. Architects have even developed the habit of There are probably two extremes which should be
writing their own histories (sources and all), thus avoided when dealing with the recent past. The first is

leaving the impression that the most signiticant identification with the values of one school or clique:
features of the period must be the ones that are most the second is a lofty pretence at knowing what is

published and discussed. 'essential' about recent development. Both positions

The problem of examining the recent past dispas- are too exclusive and amount to forecasting in disguise
sionately is compounded by the repeated refrain that rather than to history. Perhaps one should adopt a
modern architecture is dead'. This emotive slogan has different strategyand pretend that one is looking back
encouraged the view that one period is in its decadence at the 9 70s
1 at a distance of a few decades. From such
and that another one may be dawning, though its a vantage-point movements that claim opposition to
368 Transformation and Dissemination after 19 40

one another reveal underlying similarities. Events. architecture to go unscathed. Too many oppressive
ideas and personalities blend into longer temporal housing schemes, too many clumsy skyscrapers, too
perspectives, including the developments described many acres of windswept concrete, too many alienat-
earlier in this book. Claims to originality made by ing and gaunt arrangements of form had been
younger architects appear excessive, and the weight of insinuated into the programme of urban and social
the modern tradition may seem more insistent than renewal, and in the late 1960s there was a backlash
some would like. Even styles of criticism and rejection which took many shapes. One recurrent theme was
may be seen to have a pedigree. Such a description is that modern architecture should blend more apolo-
bound to be lopsided and incomplete, but I can at least getically with its another demanded
historical context:

claim that I have set out to portray the complexities - a greater participation of users: another required
and contraditions - of recent pluralism. If have, on 1 obvious signs of identity and association. An extreme
occasion, adopted a critical position with regard to an critique claimed, of course, that modern architecture
idea or a building, I have attempted to lay bare the was merely the face of a decaying and contradictory
basis of the judgement. In case there is any doubt, I capitalism, but this did little to help the designer make
have reserved the next chapter - the conclusion - for a his necessarily more
piece-meal improvements
statement of critical principle. effective.The counter-culture of the late 1960s
It is as well to begin by bearing in mind that the perhaps did its bit to undermine modern movement
1970s was not a self-sealed episode exactly ten years pretensions towards universality, while a concurrent
long. Its preoccupations and problems, its crises and its populism implied the extent to which architects'
were rooted in previous decades. Underlying
critiques, palliatives were class-bound. Ideas derived from the
the period as a whole was an increasingly vocal theory of signs were drawn in to reveal the supposed
scepticism about the tenets of modern architecture, or, 'arbitrariness' and 'conventionality' of architectural
to be precise, what were thought have been the
to forms, while relativism mounted its attacks on the
tenets. In fact wholesale rejections of one aspect of sociological and functional determinism which so
modern architecture were often accompanied by mattered to one wing of the modern movement.
unconscious continuations of another. One of the Perhaps the death of the modern masters had a further
striking features of the styles of the 1 9 70s is the way in corrosive effect within the fold, by removing charisma-
which they were mostly continuations of the earlier tic leaders. Even tame scholarship may have had a role

modern movement tradition. In some cases (e.g.. the by undermining the notion of a simple grand tradition
designs of the New York 5 or those of Aldo Rossi), a of modernism. With progressive fervour dowsed and a
revival of inter-war forms was even involved. It could profession increasingly uncertain of its aims, it is

be argued that those happy to be called 'post- scarcely surprising that the word 'crisis' should have
modernists' themselves drew on devices such as occurred in numerous book titles and articles. For
fragmentation, planarity and collage with an obvious some it was a 'crisis' of consumer society, for others a
modern pedigree. We should be on the look-out. then, 'crisis' of identity for architects, for others again a
for a certain divergence between rhetoric and actual 'crisis' of 'modernism'. Increasingly one encountered
production, between words and forms. Strong pro- the suggestion that the way forward lay in going back:
testations are only to be expected when a younger whether it was to the golden days of radiant modern
generation emerges in the shadow of the likes of Le architectural faith or to some earlier phase of supposed
Corbusier. Aalto or Kahn. Nor is it surprising to come certainties.
across the oedipal scenario in which the repressive But this is to speak of only one revisionist mood
father-figures of 'modernism' are cast aside to allow among many in the seventies. As in most periods, the
young minds to engage with the luxuries of more myths, preoccupations, and problems of a number of
distant traditions. After all, the previous generation generations and individuals existed side by side. Men
also crusaded for greater richness, also turned to the like and Lasdun produced mature works
Utzon, Kahn,
past, also portrayed its predecessors through a of a high order which evaded changing fashion:
demonology. obviously this did not mean that they should be
Having said this, it must be admitted that the regarded as 'out of date'. Philip Johnson changed like a
atmosphere of the early 970s was altogether different
1 chameleon in an effort to keep his architecture
from that surrounding the rallying of Team X in the adjusted to the latest hem-lines: evidently this did
early 1960s. There was little of the optimism of a nothing to give his work a depth it perhaps needed.
decade earlier. The well-meaning frameworks supplied James Stirling's style altered drastically as he at-
by Europe's welfare states or by wealthy patronage in tempted to incorporate overt references to urban
the United States for modern architecture had exposed contexts and to historical precedent, and a new,
too many of their contradictions for their adopted younger generation, devoted to a self-conscious