Building the Future

After the terrors of the First World War had subsided, European civilization was looking for a fresh start. Utopianism was rampant, and many prominent social theorists from both the left and the right proffered their own plans for how best to construct a new, peaceful society. In the political arena, the formation of the ill-fated League of Nations was the paragon of this ideal. Architecture, too, was often discussed as the ideal means to reach an equal, utopian society. Often, however, architects wove more subtle ideas into their work - notably the obsession with being new and modern. The old order had passed away in the war, and it was up to the new and modern architects to create ways of building that were novel and suited to the age. In the residential works of Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, and Alvar Aalto, we see these trends recurring throughout their designs.

Le Corbusier began his architectural career designing in the Neoclassical style, which was resurgent in France in the interwar years. He focused first on interiors, but eventually began designing whole houses, for which he devised a new set of rules, overturning the conventional order represented by the Neoclassical style. His rational principles of house design were: pilotis, a roof garden, the free plan, the horizontal window, and the free facade.

Villa Savoye - exemplary use of the five points of architecture

The development of these principles can be examined in light of Le Corbusier's familiarity with the Cubist movement, and later the Purist movement, in art. Condensing art into an ideal, platonic object, was the goal of both of these artistic trends. It was Le Corbusier who attempted to marry the ideal, platonic object with the complexity of building design and the aesthetic of industry (Colquhoun). To make this intellectual leap, the architect often compared houses to automobiles; the art and the industry are perfectly united under an object that could be related to an ideal. It was in this careful revealing and concealing that Le Corbusier developed his personal design ethos. The plans were to be free, but not expressionistic - same with the facade. The windows should be regular and industrial, but not monotonous - and so forth. The results of this stylistic balancing act can be viewed in many of Le Corbusier's residential works.

In the Citrohan House, which was built for the Weissenhofsiedlung Exhibition (see previous post), exhibits all five of Le Corbusier's points for new architecture. However, it is decidedly cubist in relation to some of his later works. His purest and most sublime expression of an ideal modern residence came with the design of the Villa Savoye between 1929 and 1931. It, like the Parthenon that had originally inspired Le Corbusier's classicism (Colquhoun), is in the site as a monument. It floats above the ground, supported by pilotis. The free, but minimalist facade gives way to a more asymmetrical floor plan. Living, eating, sleeping, and working spaces are all utilitarian and logical, but shaped in an artful cocoon of concrete. It is in the Villa Savoye that we see Le Corbusier's platonic ideal of housing given form.

Le Corbusier's idealistic housing ideas did not stop with the Villa Savoye, however. He carried much of the utopian and utilitarian thinking into his unbuilt proposals for an ideal city. The residents of the city are lifted above the hustle and bustle and are able to survey the city from shady patios. Uses are definitively separated from each other - with skyscraping office buildings divorced from the living spaces. Le Corbusier's attempts to fuse art and technology are clarified in this unbuilt scheme. The artistic framework of architecture allows the technological aspects of the city to function logically.

Le Corbusier's Ideal City

Across the border in Germany, Mies van der Rohe - another giant of midcentury architecture - was developing his own theories on the modern house. Like Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe began in the Neoclassical style. His early houses, such as the Riehl House, exhibit strong traditional elements. However, like Le Corbusier, van der Rohe would eventually evolve his personal style into something self-consciously modern. To achieve this end, Mies would become ever more concerned with the overall composition of his houses, taking into account the way certain walls shaped spaces.

In the Tugendhat House in Brno, Mies was able to take elements of earlier houses like the Riehl House and reapply them in a more modern way. The plan is free-flowing, with a sweeping view over the city. To contrast with this openness, rich materials are used for interior partitions - not unlike Adolf Loos' rich interior surfaces. This play with material would reoccur throughout Mies' work, and is especially evident in the Barcelona Pavilion.

Interior of the Tugendhat House, Brno, Czech Republic

Since Mies thought about a house as a pure object that encloses the vigor of life (Colquhoun), there is perhaps no better example of his work than the Farnsworth House. The pure structure and glass skin enclose a house that was meant to be flexible and free-flowing. Of course, we know that this particular method was not successful for the client, who ended up suing Mies. But, in any event, the ideals of Mies are readily apparent in the Farnsworth House, more so than any of his other projects.

For some concluding thoughts on Modernist housing, we turn now to Finland. After World War I in Finland, the artistic and philosophical school of New Objectivity was flourishing. It was to this movement that the architect Alvar Aalto was originally drawn. However, like his compatriots in France and Germany, Aalto began to reject the forms of his artistic upbringing, and began experimenting in new building ideas. However, unlike Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, Aalto sought to accentuate the relationship between the person and the spaces - an human-focused philosophy that was absent (or at least secondary) in the other architectural giants of his age. Aalto wished to accentuate the primitiveness of his native Finland by drawing similarities and contrasts throughout the house between nature and industry.

Villa Mairea, Alvar Aalto

The first test of this philosophy on a large scale was at the Paimio Sanatorium, where Aalto was called upon to design a large hospital. Throughout the building, Aalto's attention to the needs of patients, doctors, and nurses took precedence over purist goals - though the building appears minimalistic on the exterior. This interplay between minimalism and material richness reaches a crescendo in Aalto's work with his design for the Villa Mairea. Curvilinear and organic forms and materials are juxtaposed with machine-made elements. The interior is seen as an extension of the exterior, with warped wood and thin columns echoing the forest surroundings. In each of these design decisions, we can see Aalto's fascination with modern architecture as a way to establish metaphorical connections with the world.

Each of these three modernist giants produced architectural works that have withstood the test of time. Again, we see in this generation of architects perpendicular minds working in parallel directions. Mies and Le Corbusier were interested in creating the ideal consciously. Aalto was concerned with relationships with context that would evolve into an ideal for the site. In all three, we see the strong desire to consciously do what has not been done before by integrating technology, nature, and material.