I recently made a video on how and when Modern Architecture began.
While the video itself doesn’t make any evaluations on whether Modern Architecture
is good or bad, because that was not the point of the video.
However it’s clear that many people, as demonstrated in the comments, have a strong
rejection towards Modernism - seeing it as monotonous, ugly and even dehumanizing.
If you’ve seen some of my other videos, you may expect me to now defend and make the
case for Modern Architecture.
But actually no.
There are some valid and very compelling reasons why many people dislike Modern Architecture.
A point of clarification - in this video I’m referring to Modern Architecture with
a Big “M” - a formal architectural design movement that was most prominent during the early to
mid-twentieth century.
The word “modern” with a small “m” which describes things that happened recently,
makes this kind of confusing.
As in - a neoclassical-style building that was completed in the last few years is technically
“modern,” but it’s not “Modern.”
I didn’t come up with these terms.
To learn about how and why this terminology got so complicated
you can watch my other video.
The thing is - Modern Architecture is not just about how it looks.
A truly Modernist design adheres to a strict set of formal rules that upholds Modernism’s
fundamental principal - Form Follows Function.
In the 1940s and 50s, most architects and designers embraced this principal.
Many were followers of theorists associated with the International Style, such as
Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, and Le Corbusier.
They argued that architectural design should be disassociated from historic reference,
be free of unnecessary ornamentation, and be simplified to the essentials of function.
This radical approach is understandable in a time that was recently plagued by two devastating
world wars.
Modern building techniques were cheap and efficient, especially for the rebuilding of
war torn urban areas, and why would people want to retain characteristics of the old
imperialistic empires responsible for all the war and chaos?
But in pursuit of this pure functionalist approach - did we end up building empty boxes
of nothingness?
In 1968, two architects - Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi, along with students of
their research studio at the Yale School of Art and Architecture - ventured out to study
the design of the Las Vegas strip.
At the time, especially to their colleagues of the academic establishment out east, taking
design lessons from a place like Vegas was absurd.
Las Vegas was seen as wasteland of urban sprawl, rampant commercialism and kitschy decor.
But Scott Brown and Venturi saw something rich and meaningful in the vernacular architecture
of ordinary life, and together with their colleague Steven Izenour, they published the
findings in their 1972 book “Learning from Las Vegas,” which became one of the most
influential and controversial architectural texts of the twentieth century.
Scott Brown and Venturi believed in learning from history
and evolving from traditional practices.
They argued that “Learning from the existing landscape is a way of being revolutionary
for an architect.
Not the obvious way, which is to tear down Paris and begin again, as Le Corbusier suggested
in 1920, but another, more tolerant way; that is, to question how we look at things.”
It’s important to point out that Scott Brown and Venturi were not calling for a direct
revival of historic styles.
Their actual position was that sometimes it’s necessary
to “look backward at history and tradition” in order “to go forward.”
One crucial historic lesson highlighted by Scott Brown and Venturi is the importance
of ornamentation and iconography - elements that Modernist abhor.
Egyptian hieroglyphics, Byzantine mosaics, Gothic stained glass, and Renaissance frescoes
would have all been written off by Modernists as superfluous decoration, but they argue
that decorative elements “make verbal and symbolic connections through space, communicating
a complexity of meanings through hundreds of associations in few seconds from far away.”
A barber’s pole dates back to medieval ages.
It’s a “superfluous” piece of decoration that definitely references history, and technically
serves no architectural function.
But it provides context and denote purpose.
Scott Brown and Venturi really challenged architects and designers to put away their
egos, their idealism, their puristic concepts - and take a hard look at the everyday realities
of their actual surroundings.
Las Vegas may have looked tacky and eclectic, but it represented the speed and messiness
of contemporary life.
Sparkling signs may embody frivolity and excess, but it reminded people of the fun fairs they
used to go to as children
and the glittery things their grandparents would bring home for them.
Modern Architecture neglects “an individual’s need for intimacy and detail” while “five-eighth
scale reproductions of Disneyland” satisfy this need.
Scott Brown and Venturi weren’t the only ones criticizing formal academic institutions
during this time.
In fact they were very much inspired by Pop Artists of the 1950s and 60s
who challenged elite art establishments by appealing to popular imagery and mass culture.
However, unlike the fine arts - it’s arguably much more important for architecture to be
in tune with the needs of everyday people - as you can choose whether or not to look
at a work of art, but essentially everyone in modern society has to live with the built-environment.
Architectural theorist Charles Jencks argued that “architecture...faces the problems
of modernism more directly than the other arts” as “the dilemma of bigness, mass
production, anonymous living” are the elements of our everyday reality.
However - in the 1950s - most American architects modelled their designs from ideal cities like
Le Corbusier’s Radiant City or Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City, not from observations
of real contemporary communities.
This makes “Form Follows Function” an idealist concept that often falls short in reality.
How many buildings built a few hundred years ago, 50 years ago, or even 10 years ago still
house its original activities?
Whether it’s a home, workplace, school, shop, entertainment venue, or community centre
- functional actives are always in flux and programmatic needs are always changing.
This is not to say okay screw design, we don’t need architects and designers anymore.
No because I’d be out of a job.
But it does mean that designers needs to be adaptive and flexible.
A lot has changed since the 1950s and 60s.
The Las Vegas Strip today is a very different place from what Denise Scott Brown and Robert
Venturi observed - but it is nevertheless still an eclectic reflection of popular culture.
Scott Brown and Venturi are also by no means the only critics of Modern Architecture.
Shots were fired as far back as 1961, when Jane Jacobs published The Death and Life of
Great American Cities.
Aldo Rossi's the Architecture of the City, and Hassan Fathy's Architecture for the Poor
were also powerful critiques and challenges to Modernist principals.
By the 1970s, many followers of Mies van der Rohe have also come to abandon his teachings,
a shift symbolically demonstrated by Stanley Tigerman in 1978 - depicting Crown Hall, one
of Mies’ most iconic and revered designs, sinking into the ocean like the Titanic.
In fact - if the first half of the 20th century is considered to be the age of Modern Architecture
then the latter half of the century can be defined by a continual, unrelenting assault
on Modern Architecture.
So why do people hate Modern Architecture?
Because it erases historic traditions that are meaningful and symbolic to us.
Its purist approach is in conflict with the complexities of contemporary life.
Its utopian models fail to address the real needs of everyday people.
And its strict, formal principals cannot adapt to the shifting needs of a changing society.
The downfalls of Modernism is not in the glass and steel
nor the straight lines and sharp angles.
It’s not about what’s ugly and what’s not, it’s in the problematic ways that Modernism
has shaped our world.
So what do we do now?
Do we tear them all down and rebuild again?
I’m sure that’s what some of you are going to say in the comments but I honestly don’t
think that’s right either.
If we learned anything through all this - it’s that there is value to in learning from the past -
including from Modernists.
The legacy of critics like Scott Brown and Venturi is not in overthrowing Modernism,
but in teaching us to be flexible and adaptive, to gain an appreciation for the vernacular
and the ordinary, to be more accepting of diverse traditions,
and to practice thoughtful evolution as opposed to radical revolution.
What do you think?
Are you a supporter of Modernism and think “form follows function” should be upheld
as a primary design principal?
Or do you think decorative, symbolic, historical, and vernacular elements are valuable to design
and that architectural principals should be more permissive and adaptable?
Let me know in the comments below.
If you liked this video, here are some more you can check out.
And don’t forget to subscribe for more to come.
Bye for now!