Modernity

Modernity

I was watching Hitchcock's North by northwest the other day, thoroughly enjoying the film, as well as the images of modernist architecture that abound in it. Twenty years after the film was released, the same morphology was still the most modern idiom, they one we were taught to respect and reproduce. That got me thinking and comparing the architecture with other designed things in the film. Some seemed rather out of sync. Men's suits in the period when the film was made were spartan and austere enough to match modernist architecture and furniture, significantly simplified from prewar men's fashions (ironically the stuff Loos appreciated). Women's clothes were closer to their overcomplicated prewar precedents, not yet attuned to the practicalities of the washing machine and the dry cleaner. Still, those early postwar women's fashions were considered pretty revolutionary at the time. Twenty years later both men and women dressed in even simpler manners, having abandoned hats and adopted denim (which seems equivalent to respectively avoiding pitched roofs and using béton brut in architecture). Modernism was still dominant, although there was widespread disappointment with its effects. Postmodernism was about to emerge, promoting eclectic, decorative forms, from which we have yet to recover. Things keep changing in ways that seem unpredictable, rendering our vision of modernity outdated almost as soon as they are expressed. Perhaps it's a good thing that we don't were the clothes or have the technologies one sees in science fiction imagery from the 1950s and 1960s. That stuff seems quite comical today. As for modernism, its redeeming feature (which is not unique to modernism) is simplification and the resulting attention for fundamental aspects of form and construction. Although it has not become the basis for all morphology, ait underlies a fair share of the things we make and use today, thankfully often without the dogmatic proscriptiveness of modernism.

Style and contrast

Style and contrast 

I have soft spot for The Quiller memorandum. Admittedly, I like the whole genre of cold war spy thrillers but that's not the reason I watching this not so great film: it's the photography and above all the use of architecture. Germany in the reconstruction period following the Second World War is presented as a Janus-like built environment - or rather a combination of an overworld (sunny, clean, modernist and hence forward-looking and possibly cleansed of the sins of the past) and an underworld (dark, decaying, full of historicist elements and Nazis). Much of the film is predictable but the contrast between the overworld and the underworld is a point of personal interest. Every time I happen to come across the film on television, I don't change the channel, waiting for some glimpse of those hopeful images of a modern society that were part of my childhood and youth. I miss the belief in the future we used to have back then.

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy

Orthodoxy and orthopraxy

Design methods are split into two categories: proscriptive ones that tell you what is acceptable and prescriptive ones that tell you how to do it. This distinction between orthodoxy and orthopraxy is quite fundamental. One can fine it everywhere, including in religion: the ancient Greeks and Romans were arguably more into orthopraxy (making offers and following rituals) than orthodoxy (developing a dogma).

In archtiecture, proscriptive methods tell you that a classical or modernist building is what you should make. That's what matters and in order to do it, your building should include elements from the corresponding canon. It's not possible to make a classical building without elements from the classical orders.

Prescriptive methods can be seen as a reaction to proscriptive ones: it's not enough to know the final state of a design, we need to know the way to reach it. So, prescriptive methods love algorithms and sequences of well-defined steps. They tell you to do first this, then that and so on. If you're lucky, they also tell you when to stop.

One might be tempted to see proscriptive and prescriptive methods as complementary: by putting the two together, one would have a complete, strong method. However, I fear that any union would bring out the weaknesses of both. Proscriptive methods restrict designing to arbitrary systems and conventions leading to stagnation and frustration. From an intellectual viewpoint, it's interesting how they operate by excluding all other options but adopting them can be quite claustrophobic. Prescriptive methods, on the other hand, tell you too little to feel confident. They often amount to hill climbing: taking small steps towards some local optimum that may not be the best option or even good enough - but then you cannot know that as you move blindly around.

Architects and journalists

Architects and journalists 

Architects believe that they shape the built environment, that they are responsible for the ways cities develop, how people live in their homes or work in their workplaces. Similarly, journalists appear to believe that they make the news. You see them present their exploits on television and you get the feeling it was they who liberated a city rather than (admittedly courageously) walking behind those who actually took it. With journalists, being close to the action, a real eyewitness, often counts more than being able to give a good overview of the facts or an insightful and informative explanation.

I wonder how much architects actually make in e.g. a city, how much of the built environment is down to their skills, sensibilities and decisions. Sometimes, when I see haphazard rainwater piping on a facade, I wonder how much architects fail to take into account. But even when it comes to the parts that are undeniably architecture, I wonder to what extent architects lead rather than follow, whether they are followers and eyewitnesses of change rather than its initiators and carriers.

One thing that makes things more difficult to read is the combination of prescriptiveness (sometimes moreover moralistic) and vogue: modernist interiors, for example, were sold to the public as the correct way to live, uncluttered and bare, free from the sins of decoration and worshipping the past - not as an aesthetic choice. Nowadays that these heavy associations have died down, people are once again allowed to be eclectic and ironically include modernism in their choices.

Architecture and meaning

Architecture and meaning 

Is it so that architecture can express ideologies and cultural attitudes? They say that Le Corbusier's villa's encapsulated the attitudes of their early 20th century-urbanites that occupied them: their mechanised environment, their detachment, their god-like overview. They also say that the Renaissance villa was a connection between its agricultural setting and the urban culture of its occupants (retaining some form of ecological balance or "consensus" according to Back to the garden  - b.t.w. in both cases it's about villas: could it be that the type holds some special appeal?).

I find such claims hard to accept for two kinds of reasons. The first is that they are not inclusive. For example, despite their charm, modernist villas didn't become a huge success, even if one adds blocks of flats with similar morphology to the tally. Suburban semi-detached and row housing with more traditional forms and a closer contact to the ground have an enduring popularity that disproves many of the modernist arguments.

The second reason is that ascribing a particular meaning to an architectural form seems like a scholarly invention: isn't it possible to attach various meanings to them, e.g. link them to the aspirations of a social class? In the end, one could have any kind of connotations, as the frequent a-historical revivals suggest. Drawing from affordance theory, one might even claim that user activities can change the meaning of any environment.

Voerendaalstraat, Tilburg

Voerendaalstraat, Tilburg

The train coming to Tilburg from the north passes along a street that has always attracted me: the Voerendaalstraat. The view of its modernist architecture from the train is appealing; it looks like one of the many residential developments that made good use of modernist morphology to lighten up the image of the Dutch housing and create streets that seem worth living in. The whole surrounding neighbourhood of Koolhoven, appears to be in the same style. It must have been one of the early Dutch suburbs and it's rather remarkable that it was designed by modernists. That's more or less all I can find on the architecture of Koolhoven and the Voerendaalstraat. The many architectural guides to Dutch architecture appear to contain nothing on either.

In the end it doesn't matter much. Is it that important to know who designed this or that - not only buildings but also industrial products, infrastructure etc.? It's nice to be able to find it if one is interested but it changes little in reality. In this case, it wouldn't alter the appeal of what I see from the train if I knew who the architects were. If anything, I might be more critical if they were among the prominent ones. One tends to be more lenient with the anonymous designers. As it is, the Voerendaalstraat is a delightful image and a promise of a pleasant environment. That's a compliment to any architect but more significantly to the country and city that contain these streets and neighbourhoods.

South Bank, London

South Bank, London

When I first went there is 1986, it was an unloved and underused area. The concrete terraces exposed the clumsy side of Brutalism to both people and the elements. Under the overcast London sky, it was a desolate and uninviting landscape. People expressed negative opinions about it. Concrete, Brutalism, Modernism were all out and the empty terraces suggested that the complex was well past it prime. If I'm not mistaken, there was talk of demolishing it back then. Still, I must admit I like it. It's not just that I have a soft spot for Modernism (provided that the building is not just a collection of morphological elements), I actually liked the space it offered.

A couple of decades later, the South Bank was completely transformed into a lively area, full of people and activities. The same spaces that used to be empty and looked rather forlorn now accommodated them apparently well. How can one explain the change? I double that people's perceptions of exposed concrete have changed. It remains a material that ages ungracefully and feels rather unfriendly. Granted, Modernism and even Brutalism have now entered the retro sphere and so have become more acceptable. But I suspect that above all people care less about all that because they can bow focus on what is happening, join in and enjoy themselves. The built environment no longer oppresses them; it becomes a fuzzy background to their lives - and this can be a great compliment to any design, regardless of style.

What is architecture?

What is architecture? 

Is architecture what architects do, make, think, believe? Boring old question and the answer is obviously not: architecture is possible without architects (whether these are defined by training or inclination). One doesn't even have to be a builder to produce architecture (as in vernacular traditions). It's probably safer to define architecture as a fundamental human tendency and capacity, similarly to poetry, music or technology: we need architecture to add meaning to the environments we construct and inhabit, to move beyond the basic yet critical achievement of shelter and accommodation. Architecture should be considered as a societal and cultural layer that architects service rather than determine. I've been told that only a minority of buildings is designed by architects, yet practically every building has architectural aspirations, for example decoration in a possibly recognisable architectural style.

This doesn't make architects superfluous or irrelevant; they remain custodians of architecture, which gives them the opportunity to introduce and interpret, to redirect and safeguard - and they can do it, provide it they manage to avoid hubris: they shouldn't believe they're entitled to do whatever they want, that they are infallible, as was the case with high-rise council flats in post-World War 2 England. These did not develop as social reformers and architects naively believed, bringing much discredit to British modernism, which was ironically following rather interesting directions at the time (late modernism).

A modern amphitheatre

A modern amphitheatre 

At a concert in the main auditorium (Grote Zaal) of the TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. It's the only part that remains of the original Vredenburg theatre by Herman Hertzberger. During the recent restoration it was spared much change: its morphology, furniture and furnishings remain rooted in the modernism and brutalism of the 1960s and 1970s. In comparison to earlier and later theatres it has an inexpensive, informal appearance that does little to endear it to the visitor, although it is deeply familiar, reminiscent of so many formative environments from that period - schools, libraries, hospitals, neighbourhood cafés.

The space of the octagonal amphitheatre helps one go beyond such matters: it's a large hall that nevertheless feels intimate, probably because many parts are dimensioned smaller than one would expect. This clever trick works admirably well in the auditorium but not so well around it. There, all one experiences is a labyrinthine network of corridors, lots of small, complex circulation spaces, with little room to stand and wait, except for a number of cute little niches. The number of the niches may be large enough but their size and dispersion make them seem more like incidental appendages to the corridors.

I admit to having a soft spot for this kind of architecture but I try to be objective about my darlings. The bottom line is that I'm glad they preserved the Grote Zaal; as a theatre it's worth having; as a monument of past Dutch architectural tendencies it's worth studying.

A few words on the TivoliVredenburg building

Shifts

Shifts

I just found an old note from a book I'd read in the 1980s (Niels Lund Prak, 1968. The languages of architecture. Mouton, The Hague): architecture symbolises ideal worlds, what people should aspire to culturally as well as materially. Both Classicism and Modernism represent a harmonious system that may contrast with the real world. It is no accident that both stress 'pure' and simple forms from which the rest evolves.

How different the world seems now! Firstly, the dipoles: it used to be Classicism versus Modernism, capitalism versus socialism - always two opposites fighting for a clear prize. Nowadays it's more about pluralism, about all kinds of variations that can coexist (although the latest populist tendencies may put an end to that).

Secondly, the cultural aspirations: architecture has always been about aspiration but for a long time now it has been mostly about the material side. Associations with ideologies, including aesthetic ones, have been weakening rapidly, with lifestyle taking their place, not as a means to improvement (social and cultural) but as a goal by itself. More recently, cultural issues have been promising a comeback, as one can see in the environmental awareness of young people. I wonder how this will turn out.

Thirdly, the 'pure' and simple forms: these no longer constitute the basis of architectural composition and morphology, as one can see in digital architecture. Instead, we are more into complexity, both in form and in the processes that produce form.

Taking all three together, I can't say if the world has improved; it has certainly become less predictable.