Walter Benjamin and architectural modernism

Never realized before just how plugged-in Walter Benjamin was with the avant-garde architectural scene in Germany, France, and Austria during his day. Seriously, even just skimming through the convolutes of his unfinished Arcades Projectthe text is teeming with references to Le Corbusier’s Urbanisme (1925), Adolf Behne’s Neues Wohnen — Neues Bauen (1927), Sigfried Giedion’s Bauen in Frankreich, Bauen in Eisen, Bauen in Eisenbeton (1928), and Emil Kaufmann’s Von Ledoux bis Le Corbusier, Ursprung und Entwicklung der Autonomen Architektur (1933). An acquaintance pointed out to me that he corresponded with Erich Auerbach, later author of Mimesis, as well.

Surprisingly prescient, too. Corbu was already an established figure by then, but Giedion and Kaufmann were relatively unknown. Auerbach wasn’t even on the radar.

Over the next few posts will be spread out some of Benjamin’s notes quoting and discussing some of these figures.

Lev Rudnev’s “City of the Future” (1925), before his turn to Stalinist neo-Classicism

Modernist architecture archive

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IMAGE: Lev Rudnev’s City of the future (1925),
before his turn to Stalinist neoclassicism

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An update on the Modernist Architecture Archive/Database I discussed a couple posts ago.  I’ve begun work on it, and have uploaded almost half of the documents I intend to include.  Only a few of the Russian ones are up yet, but I’m hoping to post them over the next couple days.  There are many more on the way.

Anyway, anyone interested in taking a look at this archive (arranged as a continuous text) can access it here.

However, this might not be the most convenient way to browse through it all.  For a more manageable overall view of each of the individual articles (detailing the author, title, and year of publication), click here.

Adolf Behne’s The Modern Functional Building (1926)

 

 

The Original Cover to Behne’s Book, Featuring El Lissitzky’s “Cloudprop”

 

Foreword

Man’s primordial reason for building is to protect himself against the cold, against animals, against enemies.  He is driven by necessity: he would not build were it not for definite, compelling, urgent purposes.  His early buildings are purely functional in character; they are in their nature essentially tools.

But when we study the earliest stages of human culture, we find that the instinctive joys of play cannot be separated from practical matters.  Primitive man is not strictly utilitarian.  He demonstrates his instinct for play even in his tools, which he makes smooth and beautiful beyond the demands of strict necessity, painting them or decorating them with ornaments.

The tool called “house” is no exception to this.

From the very beginning the house has been as much a toy as a tool.  It is difficult to say how long a balance was maintained between the two poles.

In the course of history we only rarely find such a balance.

The play instinct led to interest in form.  Without that instinct it would be impossible to understand why the tool called “house” must look good and be a certain shape.  Thus our play instinct established certain laws of form, although they are subject to change from time to time.

The laws of form did change periodically.  But if laws of form were unquestionably the secondary element in the origin of all building, they became the stronger, stricter, more rigid principle in the history of human building — stronger, stricter, and more rigid than mere fulfillment of utilitarian function.  Formal considerations outweighed considerations of purpose.

Thus a return to purpose is always revolutionary in its effect.  Forms that have become tyrannical are discarded in order to create — from the recollection of the original function, from as neutral a condition as possible — a rejuvenated, living, breathing form.

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