Two Sides of the Same (Modernist Housing) Coin

Adolf Loos

As we have elaborated on these pages before, modernist architecture did not arise in a vacuum. The passing of time from the 19th to the 20th Centuries did not imbue designers with mystical insight that lead to what we call modernism overnight. The process of establishing a modern form of architecture was wrought with fits and starts. Often, designers were working in parallel directions, but with perpendicular intents. Such is the situation we find ourselves in when we begin to examine the similarities and differences between the residential architectural ethos of Adolf Loos and that of the architects involved in the Werkbund and the Weissenhofsiedlung exhibition.

We begin with Adolf Loos, the "unclassifiable" giant of early modernism. Loos, an Austrian, possessed a fundamentally different outlook on architecture than many of his contemporaries. Though he vehemently eschewed ornament and held the industrial zeitgeist as an ideal, he did not seek to create a style of architecture. He felt that to be cognizant of creating a style was to make architecture artificial and to end up with the same sort of historical hodge-podge that the other modernists so detested of their predecessors. No, Loos was not interested in style per se, but in the deliberate evolution of architecture toward its true ends.

“The present constructs itself on the past just as the past constructed itself on the preceding past. It has never been another way – nor will it ever be any other way.” - Adolf Loos

Adolf Loos' buildings thus follow the above formulation. They are built upon the past as a type of evolutionary object, leading organically to the architecture of the future. For Loos, it was inconceivable to "jump" to a new style that exists only as some philosophical ideal. His intent was to build his way from the past, thus creating the new style by the very act of building.

These baseline ideas are key to understanding Loos' philosophy in residential architecture. Another layer we must consider, however, is how Loos reacted to other architects of his day whom he felt were not following a similar trajectory of building the future based on the past. He was diametrically opposed to the architects of the Viennese Secession (an Austrian variant of the Jugendstil), whom he felt relied entirely on ornament and not enough on true, simple materials. Thus, we find in Loos' houses a minimalistic treatment of the surfaces - the material selection is what gives character to the spaces.

Villa Müller, Prague

Let us now examine the Villa Müller, a house Adolf Loos designed in Prague. On the exterior, the home is quite plain - the whitewashed concrete cube is punctured only in a few places to allow fenestration. The austere facade was in keeping with Loos' philosophy of keeping the public (Gesellschaft) and the private (Gemeinschaft) separate and distinct entities. Thus, the interior of the Villa is lavishly and comfortably decorated in rich material. The private spaces were not for exhibit to the public.

The plan of the Villa Müller exhibits one of Loos' novel inventions, the Raumplan. The Raumplan is a system of spatial organization that Loos used in many of his homes. Its execution relied on spaces that stepped up and down into other spaces, allowing for an implied hierarchy to be evident in each space within the house. Loos said of the Raumplan:

"My architecture is not conceived in plans, but in spaces (cubes). I do not design floor plans, facades, sections. I design spaces. For me, there is no ground floor, first floor etc.... For me, there are only contiguous, continual spaces, rooms, anterooms, terraces etc. Storeys merge and spaces relate to each other. Every space requires a different height: the dining room is surely higher than the pantry, thus the ceilings are set at different levels. To join these spaces in such a way that the rise and fall are not only unobservable but also practical, in this I see what is for others the great secret, although it is for me a great matter of course. Coming back to your question, it is just this spatial interaction and spatial austerity that thus far I have best been able to realise in Dr Müller's house"

Plan of the Villa Müller: notice the half-levels present

When looking at a plan of the Villa Müller, it is difficult to sense the Raumplan since it is such a three-dimensional concept. However, one can get the feel of its impact on the plan by noticing the various stairways that are present in each level.

On a similar mental trajectory as Loos were the architects involved in the exhibition of the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart. Present were many of the great personalities of mid-century modernism: Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Peter Behrens. The Weissenhofsiedlung was planned as a display for utopian modernist residential design. Each architect invited to the exhibition was given a site to design a house. Contrary to Loos' methodology, the architects present at the Weissenhofsiedlung (many were members of the German Werkbund) were indeed interested in attempting to manufacture a new, international, industrially-inspired style.

House 10 by Victor Bourgeois, Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart

The house that we will look at in-depth is House 10 by Victor Bourgeois. Interestingly, the site of House 10 was originally to have gone to Adolf Loos, but due to his considerable differences of opinion with the Werkbund, the site was given to Bourgeois. Victor Bourgeois was a Belgian architect who was at one time under the tutelage of Henry van de Velde, the most "unadorned" proponent of the Art Nouveau and a founder of what would become the Bauhaus.

Van de Velde's influence can be felt in much of Bourgeois' aesthetic. The design of House 10 is a simple, unadorned rectangle, with a few curvilinear projections (perhaps vestiges of the Art Nouveau?). This is a house that is trying really hard to be modern. It is minimalist in its use of diverse materials, unlike Loos' more nuanced position of greater diversity of material palette in the private realm. The plan is straightforward and quite open (at least on the third floor). The building is divided rationally and completely among the three floors, precluding any imaginative spatial configurations a la the Raumplan. 

Plan of House 10

Bourgeois' design for House 10 was actually criticized for being too traditional. Just looking at the plan, one can easily imagine any number of stylistic skins that could be slapped on the outside. If one were to just look at the first floor, there is nothing decidedly modern about the spatial organization. So, it was ironically through the ornamental scheme (or lack thereof) that this building achieved its modernist aesthetic.

This is not to say that Loos' methodology and work are superior to that of Bourgeois, but simply to show that they arrived at similar places by taking different paths. Bourgeois focused on the simple geometries of square and circle, and let them stand for themselves as gestures. Loos manipulated three dimensional space and then enclosed it in an austere box. The methods mutually enriched one another and eventually bore fruit in the pure simplicity of later modernist architecture (SOM, Philip Johnson, etc.). But, in any event, after the construction of Villa Müller and the exhibition at Weissenhofsiedlung, we were well on the way to the manifestation of the house as the ultimate industrial machine - the machine for living.

It is my opinion that Loos had the more valid methodology, though I disagree with his theories on the inherent evils of ornament. His idea that architecture should naturally evolve and not seek to be a "newness" unto itself seems quite valid to me. On the other hand, what the Werkbund did at Weissenhofsiedlung seems forced and artificial. It was exhibition after all. They were attempting to create something new and exciting and idealistic. Meanwhile, Loos was still trudging down the road of real life, real history and real change.

References and Further Reading

Discussion of the Raumplan in the Villa Müller
The Deutscher Werkbund, Adolf Loos, and the Problems of Ornament and Style in the 20th Century
Weissenhofsiedlung
Ornament and Crime by Adolf Loos

Three Nouveau Artistes

The brilliant but brief period of European art history known as the Art Nouveau was spearheaded by the work of three men: Hector Guimard, Henry van de Velde, and Victor Horta. The contemporary theories of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc on exposed steel structure and ornament influenced each of these men in their architectural endeavors throughout their careers. Active for a very short period (from about 1890 to 1920), these men would nonetheless exert great influence on the course of modern architecture.

The Belgian Victor Horta was chief among all Art Nouveau theorists and practitioners. He was trained and firmly grounded in the Beaux-Arts style, yet, he soon began to develop what would become an intensely personal and ahistorical design aesthetic. Taking inspiration from both Viollet-le-Duc's discussions of iron and steel structure and the earlier, emotional Italian Mannerists, Horta gave lyrical life to the Art Nouveau movement in Europe.

The dome of the Grand Palais in Paris, a fine example of Art Nouveau detail

One of Horta's important early works, the Hotel Tassel in Brussels, set the tone for much of his career. The sensuous and curvilinear facade gives way to a rationally planned interior that is made cohesive by the use of exuberant ornamentation. Both of these aspects - the rational and logical plan and the use of curvilinear ornament on all interior surfaces - would become the defining hallmarks of Art Nouveau architecture.

Another Belgian, Henry van de Velde, would expound upon and clarify the Art Nouveau architecture of Victor Horta. Van de Velde would follow in Horta's footsteps in terms of allowing interior volumes to influence the exterior expression. However, van de Velde began stripping away the curvilinear ornament and structure that had so defined Horta's earlier works. So, in essence, all that was left of the Art Nouveau in van de Velde's works was a penchant for a rational plan and a good interior-exterior relationship. These twin desires are at the core of all subsequent modernist architectural works. Given van de Velde's presence at the school that would become the Bauhaus, we can easily trace his influence in the work that that institution produced.

Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van der Rohe

Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion, for instance, has traces of the theories that began with Horta and matured with van de Velde. The rational planning around structural elements and the interaction between interior and exterior are clearly delineated in the structure. Also, the use of modern materials such as concrete and glass echo the Art Nouveau movement's fascination with steel - which was the most modern of all materials at the time.

Another link between the 19th Century and Modern Architecture was the French architect Hector Guimard. Guimard, like Horta, was intrigued by the whiplash organic nature of Art Nouveau decoration and the integration of various parts into a harmonious and total whole. Guimard sought in his work to weave the Art Nouveau aesthetic throughout the project - in its decoration, ornamentation, and interior design. His dedication in standardizing design over an entire project is most evident in his famous work on the entrances to the Paris Métro. This devotion to the entire work of art would, for instance, foreshadow Le Corbusier's devotion to each aspect of his designs.

Additionally, Guimard was a proponent of mechanization and industrialization to make the Art Nouveau more readily available to the lower classes. Standardizing parts, though not entirely successful in Guimard's case, would become a constant in all modernist architectural works - even to the present day.

Though the Art Nouveau is often seen as an anomaly on the long historical route from 19th Century eclecticism to Mid-Century Modernism, its additions to the architectural canon cannot be discarded. The Art Nouveau devotion to integrating the whole structure into a rational sum total is an integral component of each architectural development that was to follow.

Related Links
Images of the Hotel Tassel by Victor Horta
Various Works of Hector Guimard
Discussion of Henry van de Velde by those who still produce furniture to his designs

On the Edge of Modernity

Life in 18th Century Europe was a fairly structured - if bleak - affair for the common man. Under the ancien regime, a farmer on the continent could expect an existence of thankless agrarian toil and a life dominated by the double authority of the Church and the State. Architecture, for the most part, reinforced this dominance with dazzling Neoclassical palaces and Baroque churches that spoke of the grandeur of God-given power. Built forms were an expression of the establishment agenda.

The 19th Century burst onto the scene with guns blazing (literally - think the revolutions that swept the continent in the 1840s).  Radical political ideologies like Marxism upset the old order and turned the establishment on its head. The Industrial Revolution brought tremendous gains in material production while creating a new set of societal problems. New theories in science such as Darwinistic evolution further challenged the way the world was viewed. It was in these 19th Century growing pains that three architectural theorists were writing and establishing their own views on art, history, architecture, and human existence at large. They challenged the ways of the architectural establishment (namely, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris), and looked for a more reasoned approach to building. Their writings and theories would resonate for many years to come and eventually help give birth to modern architecture as we know it.

Gottfried Semper was the first of these architectural theoreticians. Living and working in Germany, Semper is most famous for his design for the Dresden Opera - a building that combines various styles from across time. One could claim that this building looks fairly conventional for its time, yet it embodies many of Semper's more novel ideas about architecture. Semper was an admirer of the classical architecture of Greece because it divulged the inherent societal values of the people through its form. Tying architecture to the social and political situation of its construction was thus one of Semper's chief goals.

Dresden Opera by Gottfried Semper (Dresden, Germany) 

This desire was further expounded in Semper's seminal work The Four Elements of Architecture which attempted to draw commonalities among all architectural styles on the basis of certain formal elements rather than distinct decorative patterns. He describes the hearth, the platform, the roof, and the enclosure as the elements present in all architecture. Successful integration of each of these elements results in a successful piece of architecture. Semper uses each of these formal elements in his design of the Dresden Opera: the hearth (the symbol of societal gathering) is the stage, with the rest of the building organized around it; the roof, enclosure, and platform are all clearly defined by difference of material or ornament.

Dividing architecture into discrete, rational, tectonic elements would have reverberations throughout the history of the modern movement. One need only glance at the Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to see the Semper-esque interplay of the four elements and the rational search for structural tectonic elements.

Farnsworth House by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Second among our list of architectural giants of the 19th Century is the Frenchman Eugene Viollet-le-Duc. Like Semper, Viollet-le-Duc was interested in the underlying origin and meaning of all architecture. Taking the great gothic structures of his native France, Viollet-le-Duc posited that all architecture is a systematic transition of material into a logical structural system. The pointed arches and flying buttresses of Chartres were no more than an elegant structural system perfectly suited to the stone and glass materials used in its construction. Viollet-le-Duc saw great potential in using this same Medieval logic with modern materials such as steel. His theoretical drawings show a great interest in using a sort of hybrid Gothic style as a system of support for modern buildings. His struggle to adapt the Gothic to modern times mimics the work of his contemporary, Antoni Gaudí, who was active in Spain.

Viollet-le-Duc was active mainly in restoration work, rather than original building projects. One of his most famous - and controversial - restorations was that of the Medieval French walled village of Carcassonne. In the additions resulting from his intervention, we see Viollet-le-Duc's philosophy made manifest. Viollet-le-Duc believed in restoring structures to their ideal state of being, regardless of whether that state ever existed in history. So, we see Carcassonne restored to an ideal vision of Medieval fortification with conical slate roofs uncharacteristic to the contextual architecture of southern France.

Carcassonne, France - restored by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc

Viollet-le-Duc's structural philosophy was longer-lasting and further-reaching than his historic preservation (which would be criticized by later generations for obscuring the true course of history). The idea that rational structural systems drive architecture would echo down to our current time. Widespread use of steel in the 20th Century would lead to buildings' design being dominated by their internal structural organization - from the proto-skyscrapers of Louis Sullivan to the soaring glass boxes of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Indeed, the entire modern utilitarian mantra of "form follows function" could be traced back to ideas espoused by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc.

The restoration programs undertaken by Viollet-le-Duc would be heavily contested by another 19th Century artistic heavyweight, John Ruskin. Ruskin, hailing from Britain (which, we must recall, was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution), would attack Viollet-le-Duc's restoration efforts as contrived and inauthentic. Ruskin believed in preserving old buildings as they were, believing in the emotional power of ruins and their ability to convey the passing of time. Restoring buildings to an indefinite or imagined prior existence was dishonest to history according to Ruskin's view.

Ruskin would also find himself at odds with Viollet-le-Duc's treatment of the Gothic style. Where Viollet-le-Duc saw the Gothic as a primarily structural enterprise, Ruskin saw the Gothic style as the epitome of emotion, craft, and morality in architecture. Ruskin held the Gothic in high esteem for its ability to convey a moral message in its presence and its allowance for artistic freedom in its construction. He felt that the artist was freest when working in the Gothic style, since the ornament gave soul to the structure - a thought antithetical to the structural purism of Viollet-le-Duc and the elemental tectonics of Semper.

Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright (Bear Run, Pennsylvania)

Ruskin's residence in Britain would expose him to the might of industry and the magnificence of mechanization. To this trend Ruskin offered his total opposition. Mechanization and its attendant standardization were seen as opposite to true art and architecture from Ruskin's viewpoint. Ruskin valued the craftsman and his ability to shape a building with his unique talents. Cookie-cutter mass production fails to give a building a true soul. Ruskin's theorizing on handcraft would have a direct effect on the English Arts and Crafts Movement and the subsequent Craftsman era in the United States. His ideal of anti-industrial architecture would find fruition in such architects as Greene & Greene and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Though John Ruskin, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc and Gottfried Semper lived in disparate places and circumstances, each would develop architectural philosophies that would impact architectural history for the next century. Their influence on modern architecture cannot be underestimated, and really should be delineated more clearly by future historians, as modern architecture is often presented as simply occurring ex nihilo. In the works of Ruskin, Viollet-le-Duc, and Semper, we are offered a window into how art transitioned from the authoritarian order of the ancien regime to the free-spirited romanticism and rationalism of the modern era.