This is a summary of chapters 1-7 and 9 of The Future of Architecture. Since 1889. by J.L. Cohen. Note: the most important sentences are taken from the book and used in the summary and are hardly paraphrased. Only a few examples from the book were used in the summary, simply because there are too m...
The Future of Architecture. Since 1889.
Jean-Louis Cohen
Chapter 1: Sheds to rails: the dominion of steel
- Paleotechnic age (Patrick Geddes and Lewis Mumford)
o Symbolized by the invention of the steam engine, diffusion of the telegraph, and the
expansion of the railroads.
- Rapidly growing cities, erosion of historicist architectural languages -> late-19th-century revision of
ideals
- Economic growth -> demand for public policies by well-organized workers
- Increasing use of machinery -> John Ruskin against the use of machines that were stripping workers
of their role in handcrafting objects
The lamp of style
- Gottfried Semper and Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc
o Shared the believe that architecture must free itself from the multiple styles inherited from
the past
o Logic of the history of architecture could form the true style of the contemporary age.
- Gallery des Machines (1889, Paris)
o Use of iron, sometimes shown very explicitly, sometimes carefully disguised with other
materials
o Ruskin: The architect is not bound to exhibit structure, nor are we to complain of him for
concealing it. That building is the noblest, which reveals the structure to the intelligent eye,
but conceals it from a careless observer.
o Semper: differeniate the Kernform (coreform) from the Kunstform (artform).
The eminence of the Beaux-Arts
- The relationship of the outer skin to the internal structure was a kind of mystery in the great Parisian
buildings of the late 19th century (e.g. Charles Garnier’s Opéra and Vicotr Laloux’s Gare dÓrsay: the
metal used in the construction was completely hidden)
o These buildings did exactly what the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris taught:
Axial composition
Symmetry
Hierarchy
It neglected the relationship of buildings to the surroundings
- Beaux-Arts eclectics
o Proclaimed their allegiance o Viollet-le-Duc. His idea: a building’s plan is a function of its
purpose and its facade deduced from its plan.
- Frantz Jourdain on the architecs of the 1889 exposition:
o It’s good that they put aside senile and dangerous formulas and understood that ... social
requirements cannot be subjected to the tyrannical rule of a style
o And it is the necessities of everyday life that have the right to dictate the structure and to
demand that it provide rational exteriors, plans, and proportions
Programs of modernization
- This ‘everyday life’ Jourdain referred to changed radically since the beginnings of industrialization
o Increased manufacturing needs
o Expanded communication
o Distribution networks
o These three lead to:
More factories
Train stations
Markets
Department stores
, o New penal, healthcare, and education policies took material form in prisons, hospitals,
schools and universities.
o Above all: attention goes to the large building devoted exclusively to offices (particularly in
the US)
Invention of new types of structures became crucial
-> these new types did not include “Greek, Gothic or Renaissance
borrowings; they are a new, original form, unachievable with stone,
possible only with the metallurgical products of our factories” (Joris-Karl
Huysmans)
-> skyscrapers resembled “extravagant pins in a cushion already
overplanted” (1906, Henry James)
- There was tension between civil engineering and architecture (historicist ornament contrasted
sharply with structural innovations)
o This was somewhat toned down in the great works of the engineers, often achieved without
architects
Eiffel’s viaducts in Porto and Garabit. Benjamin Baker and John Fowler’s bridge
over the Firth of Forth.
These publicised the idea of an architecture based on the elasticity of the
frame rather than the massiveness of the walls.
Networks of internationalization
- Travel by steamship, rapid long-distance transmission, increasingly accurate reproduction of
photographs
o -> encouraged the circulation of people and images
o -> internationalization intensified
-> major international competitions
o Photography became a powerful medium in the circulation of architectural forms and the
study of urban environments
Architects and writers practised the young medium themselves.
- Artist’s interpretations of modern life were no less significant.
- Architects had access to handbooks and portfolios containing examples of building designs and
ornamental motifs
- The world’s fair of 1900 in Paris was somewhat a setback
o From this time on, the most successful experiments were to take the form of houses and
modest public buildings rather than the grand official architecture of nation-states and
municipalities
o The most coherent and revolutionary architectural hypothesis put forward between the two
Paris world’s fairs was probably that of Otto Wagner
He advocated Nutzstil (Utilitarian style)
This was free of historical references and this transposed the rhythms of
industrial society to architecture
Postsparkasse (Post Office Savings Bank)
o No decorative detail
o The aluminium rivets that make clear that the building was
assembled on-site became the ornamentation
o This punctuated that the building turned with its still-symmetrical
facade to the Ringstrasse
Chapter 2: The search for modern form
- By the turn of the 20th century: famous writers: Friedrich Nietzsche, John Ruskin and William Morris
- The new generation was driven to break with institutions that were now considered as outdated as
they were tyrannical
o The unification between architecture and the decorative arts was a constant feature of the
practice of these young professionals
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