Architecture

370.  See Grady, J., ‘Nature and the Art Nouveau’, Art Bulletin, XXXVII (1955), 187-92.

371.  See Mackmurdo, A. H., Wren’s City Churches, Orpington, 1883.

372.  Not perhaps impossible: There is something a little analogous to Impressionism in the work of Shaw, though he probably had no admiration for the art of Monet and his contemporaries in the seventies even if he was at all aware of it. The same is true of the American masters of the Shingle Style. The analogy lies in the casual looseness of over-all composition and the delicacy of the touch—both tile-hanging and shingles provide a certain effect of ‘broken colour’ or at least ‘tachiste’ brushwork—even though they are usually monochrome. On the other hand, Kimball in his American Architecture, written a generation ago, saw an analogy to Cézanne in the return to architectural order in the mid eighties in America. There is no evidence that McKim or White then admired any French painters more advanced than Puvis de Chavannes however.

373.  Some studio houses were certainly built in France by leading architects throughout the second half of the nineteenth century: The one that Viollet-le-Duc provided for the painter Constant Troyon in the late fifties was of notable interest—in fact, one of his best works. Moreover, the more modest ateliers d’ artiste erected by builders provided much later, in the 1920s, precedents of value to Le Corbusier and Lurçat. See Banham, R., ‘Ateliers d’artiste’, Architectural Review, CXX (1956), 75-83.

374.  See Delhaye, J., ‘Hommage à mon maître; architecte Baron Victor Horta’, L’Appartement d’aujourd’hui, Liège, 1946, 6-17; Maus, O., ‘Habitations modernes, Victor Horta’, L’Art moderne, XX (1900), 221-3; Sedeyn, E., ‘Victor Horta’, L’Art décoratif, IX (1902), 230-42; and Madsen, S. T., ‘Horta. Works and Style of Victor Horta before 1900’, Architectural Review, CXVIII (1955), 388-92.

375.  See Koch, R., and others, Louis Comfort Tiffany 1848-1933, New York, 1958.

376.  The wallpaper was probably one of those designed by Heywood Sumner, possibly his ‘Tulip’ according to Elizabeth Aslin of the Victoria and Albert Museum. This was one of the considerable range of English papers shown by Jeffrey & Company at the Salon de l’Association pour l’Art d’Anvers in Antwerp in the winter of 1892-3. These papers, which included designs by most of the English leaders in the field of decorative art, had already been shown at the Paris Exposition of 1889. It is hard to believe that Horta became aware of them only when the Tassel house was nearly finished and not earlier in Antwerp or in Paris. For the Antwerp showing, see Van de Velde, H., ‘Artistic Wallpapers’, L’Art moderne, XIII (1893), 193-5. This article was copied in L’Emulation, XVIII (1893), 150-1, the most advanced Belgian architectural journal, where the Tassel house itself was published in 1895. It introduces the name of another important Belgian figure besides Horta in the story of the Art Nouveau.

377.  It is of interest, although irrelevant to the inception of the Art Nouveau, that in this same year Horta became professor of architecture at the Académie like Balat before him.

378.  See Kaufmann, E., ‘224 Avenue Louise’, Interiors, 116 (1957), 88-93.

379.  For a late tribute to Van de Velde in English, see Shand, P. M., Architectural Review, CXII (1952), 143-55. It is a major error of emphasis—and in detail an accumulation of errors of fact—that H. Lenning offers in his book The Art Nouveau (The Hague, 1951) by accepting the legend that Van de Velde was the initiator of the Art Nouveau. There is plenty of evidence that Van de Velde was aware of English innovations in decoration from the early nineties. On the other hand, despite the wallpaper in the Tassel dining-room, it should be noted that Horta’s widow and his disciple Delhaye minimize, to the point of denying all but absolutely, the dependence of Horta on English sources at the time he designed the Tassel house.

380.  Paul Hankar (1861-1901) was a third Belgian architectural innovator in this period. His work, however, is so crude and uneven that his name need be no more than mentioned. He is in no proper sense an exponent of the Art Nouveau. See Conrady, C., and Thibaux, R., Paul Hankar, [n.p.] 1923.

382.  See Gout, P., L’Architecture au XX^e siècle et l’Art Nouveau, Paris, 1903.

383.  See Hostingue, G. d’, Le Castel Béranger, œuvre de H. G., architecte, Paris, 1898.

384.  Both the main façade and the principal interior are essentially the work of Deglane. Louvet and Thomas were more responsible for other elements of the complex structure.

385.  See L’architecture moderne à Paris, concours de façades, 2 vols, Paris, 1901, 1902.

386.  See Uhry, E., ‘Agrandissements des magasins de la Samaritaine’, L’Architecte, II (1907), 13-14, 20, plates X-XII.

387.  I owe my knowledge of this remarkable façade to Martin Kermacy. He was unable to find out by whom and when it was built; it is very probably an early work of Josef Urban, Novotny informs me.

388.  For another rather independent Scottish architect of this period, see Walker, D. M., ‘Lamond of Dundee’, Architectural Review, CXXIII (1958), 269-71.

389.  See Scheichenbauer, M., Alfredo Campanini, Milan, 1958.

390.  See Note ^[259], Chapter 11.

391.  Among other things, it is Gaudi’s use of forms inspired by primitive architecture that has appealed to later twentieth-century taste. ‘Primitivism’ in painting and sculpture has been of recurrent importance since the days of the Fauves and the Expressionists; a comparable primitivism in architecture has been much rarer, except for Gaudí.

392.  Except as regards the theories of vaulting exemplified in successive schemes for the Sagrada Familia and his church at Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Gaudí’s technical innovations have been until lately little studied despite the very considerable literature devoted to his work. Research is proving that he made many important innovations in structure over and above those so evident in the crypt—the only portion executed—of the Santa Coloma church. George Collins showed some of the results, as yet unpublished, of the latest studies in an exhibition at Columbia University in May 1962.

393.  While the mosaic of broken fragments of patterned ceramic on the benches at the Parc Güell suggests Cubist collages and even Dada compositions—notably the Merzbilder of Kurt Schwitters—the handling of the coloured glass on this façade is closer to the paintings of Jackson Pollock and other New York artists of the 1950s.

394.  A curious continuation, or more accurately revival, of Gaudian modes has of late occurred in Portuguese Africa. See Beinart, J., ‘Amancio Guedes, Architect of Lourenço Marques’, Architectural Review, CXXIX (1961), 240-51.

395.  Even Gaudí after 1910 produced little, being almost wholly occupied with the slow progress of the Sagrada Familia. Of course, in a sense Horta is another exception; but his success after 1910 was of purely local significance and dependent on his total rejection of the Art Nouveau of his youth. One can only think of the later career of Giorgio de Chirico, still today a success in Italy but ignored by the outside world except when he imitates his earlier work.

397.  See Baudot, A. de, L’Architecture, le passé, le présent, Paris, 1916, and Baudot, J. de, L’Architecture et le béton armé, Paris, 1916.

398.  See Huxtable, A. L., ‘Progressive Architecture in America: Reinforced Concrete Construction. The work of Ernest L. Ransome, Engineer—1884-1911’ and ‘Factory for Packard Motor Car Company—1905, Detroit, Michigan, Albert Kahn, Architect. Ernest Wilby, Associate’, Progressive Architecture, 38 (1957), 139-42 and 121-2.

Such research is revealing that Albert Kahn (1869-1942) was not such a pioneer in concrete factory construction as has been generally supposed. However, the ‘Kahn Bar’ developed by his brothers’ engineering firm was a major technical contribution, and undoubtedly his motor-car factories were among the earliest major industrial works in the new material. For the alternative use of steel in American warehouse and factory construction, see Eaton, L. K., ‘Frame of Steel’, Architectural Review, CXXVI (1959), 289-90.

399.  The detailed history of the concrete grain elevator cannot be given here. The prototypes for the great monuments of Buffalo, Minneapolis, and Duluth were certainly French. These monolithic cylinders are, of course, very different from the motor-car factories with their post-and-lintel construction, but the history of the elevator undoubtedly runs nearly parallel to that of the factory. See [Torbert, D. R.] A Century of Minnesota Architecture, Minneapolis, 1958, unpaged.

400.  In the last few years the innovations of such engineers as Pierluigi Nervi (b. 1891) in Italy, Eduardo Torroja (1899-1961) in Spain, and Felix Candela (b. 1910) in Mexico have revolutionized earlier conceptions of the possibilities of ferro-concrete (see Chapter 25). For Torroja, see The Structures of Eduardo Torroja, New York [1960], and Torroja, E., The Philosophy of Structures, Berkeley, 1958. (See Epilogue.)

401.  See Pfammatter, P., Betonkirchen, Cologne and Zurich, 1948.

402.  By reaction many of the same architects, notably Le Corbusier, have in the last few years consciously sought the brutality of industrial concrete finish—he calls it béton brut—even in monumental work (see Chapter 25 and Epilogue).

403.  The atelier was founded in 1928.

404.  The team that worked with Perret on Le Havre consisted of P. Branche, P. Dubouillon, P. Feuillebois, A. Heaume, J. Imbert, M. Kaeppelin, G. Lagneau, M. Lotte, P.-E. Lambert, A. Le Donné, A. Persitz, J. Poirrier, H. Tougard, and J. Tournant, all of whom seem to have shared responsibility for the buildings flanking the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Poirrier, Le Donné, and Lambert were, however, joint architects-in-chief. Specific attributions are perhaps not very significant in this kind of situation, but the characteristic Hôtel Normandie (1950) is by Poirrier and the whole sea front by Lambert.

405.  See Garnier, T., Une Cité industrielle, Paris [1918]. The basic project goes back to 1901, but was much elaborated in the intervening years. Although it was unpublished, many architects were certainly familiar with its general character. See Wiebenson, D., ‘Utopian Aspects of Garnier’s Cité Industrielle’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIX (1960), 16-24.

406.  See Garnier, T., Les Grands Travaux de la ville de Lyon, Paris, 1919.

407.  This applies particularly to the work of Michel Roux-Spitz (b. 1888), who became in the thirties the acknowledged leader of the profession in France.

409.  See Pellegrini, L., ‘La decorazione funzionale del primo Wright’, L’Architettura (1956), 198-203.

410.  Wright’s ‘Baroque’ period, running for approximately ten years from 1914 to 1924, parallels the Expressionist episode in European modern architecture (see Chapters 21 and 22). That may be considered to open with van der Meij’s Scheepvaarthuis of 1912-13 in Amsterdam and to run out in general sometime in the mid twenties. It is not apparent that there was any influence of consequence either way; indeed, the effect of studying Wright’s work in the war years and the early twenties was rather adverse to Expressionism and related tendencies, particularly in Holland where Wright’s influence was strongest.

411.  See Life, V (26 Sep. 1938), 60-1.

412.  See Ladies Home Journal, February 1901; June 1901; April 1907.

413.  Wright, F. Ll., The Story of the Tower, New York, 1956.

414.  Wright had a tendency to scoff at the work of his former junior associates and to deny the reality of their discipleship. There are at present in practice a good many architects who have been for shorter or longer periods at Taliesin, where the Fellowship has at times since the Second World War included over sixty. Those who were at Taliesin some time ago have naturally made the greater mark, since many of the post-war members of the Fellowship had, in the mid 1950s, only just begun their own practice. Alden Dow (b. 1904) in Midland, Michigan, and Henry Klumb (b. 1905) in San Juan, Puerto Rico, have over the last few years the greatest volume of work of more-or-less Wrightian inspiration to their credit. But it must not be forgotten that Richard J. Neutra (b. 1892), whose work is of a very different order, was also for a time with Wright; while there are some architects whose work is Wrightian to the point of parody who have never had any direct contact with Wright at all.

415.  Richard E. Schmidt (1865-1959) and Hugh M. G. Garden (1873-1961).

416.  The contribution of these men is only beginning to receive the study which it merits now the realization is growing that American architecture was far less dominated by traditionalism in the first quarter of the twentieth century, particularly in the Middle West and on the Pacific Coast, than has generally been supposed in the last thirty years. See Brooks, A., ‘The Early Work of the Prairie Architects’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XIX (1960), 2-10.

417.  See Thompson, E., ‘The Early Domestic Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Region’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, X (1951), 15-21; Bangs, J. M., ‘Bernard Ralph Maybeck, Architect, Comes into His Own’, Architectural Record, CIII (1948), 72-9, and ‘Greene and Greene’, Architectural Forum, LXXXIX (1948), 80-9; McCoy, E., Five California Architects, New York, 1960; and Woodbridge, J. M. and S. B., Buildings of the Bay Area, a Guide to the Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Region, New York, 1960, which covers both earlier and later work.

418.  See Price, C., ‘Panama-Californian Exposition: Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and the Renaissance of Spanish-Colonial Architecture’, Architectural Record, XXXVII (1915), 229-51.

419.  See Macomber, B., The Jewel City, its Planning and Achievement..., San Francisco, 1915.

420.  See Lancaster, C., ‘The American Bungalow’, Art Bulletin, XL (1958), 239-53.

421.  That is, on the West Coast; considered as an alternative to the ‘International Style’ suitable for emulation everywhere, as it was for a few years, it had no more validity than any other regional mode.

423.  For the development of Van de Velde’s ideas in these years see Die Renaissance im modernen Kunstgewerbe, Berlin, 1901, and Vom neuen Stil, Leipzig, 1907. Van de Velde was a prolific writer, and it is impossible to give a complete list of his books and articles here. They will be found in Madsen’s Sources of Art Nouveau, 469.

424.  See Bauer, C. K., Modern Housing, Boston and New York, 1934; and my Early Victorian Architecture in Britain, Chapters XIII and XIV.

425.  See Schumacher, F., Das Wesen des neuzeitlichen Backsteinbaues, Munich, 1917. The rich and decorative use of brick is as characteristic of the Hamburg School as of the Amsterdam School in these decades (see Chapter 21).

426.  See Bie, O., Der Architekt Oskar Kaufmann, Berlin, 1928; Hegemann, W., German Bestelmeyer, Berlin [n.d.] and Mayer, H., and Rehdern, G., Wilhelm Kreis, Essen, 1953. In the twenties a large number of such well-illustrated monographs on individual German architects were published; it is much more difficult to find adequate documentation on the work of several architects in other countries who are of considerably greater originality and historical importance.

427.  Paraboloid domes of ferro-concrete were used with brilliant spatial effect by Jacques Droz (b. 1882) at Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc in Nice. This was built in 1932, just at the same time that Böhm was building Sankt Engelbert. The plan, consisting of three intersecting ellipses, is very nearly identical with that of J. B. Neumann’s Baroque masterpiece Vierzehnheiligen; the result is very different, however, because of the continuity of the walls and roof here. Unfortunately Droz’s church was elaborated with a tower and other features of a rather ‘Jazz-Modern’ order.

428.  Another German church-architect of the twenties who has still a very considerable reputation is Otto Bartning (b. 1883). He moved much earlier in this direction than Böhm. For a statement of his intentions, see Bartning, O., Vom neuen Kirchbau, Berlin, 1919.

429.  See Maria Königin [Cologne, n.d.].

430.  This is not the place to discuss these churches. It may be remarked here, however, that Candela’s church is considerably more Expressionist in appearance, especially the interior, than anything Böhm ever built in the twenties. Yet its strangely angular piers and vaults that look so much like the settings for the ‘Cabinet of Dr Caligari’, the most famous German Expressionist film, result from this engineer’s consistent use of the hyperbolic paraboloid forms which he favours primarily for technical reasons. De la Mora, Niemeyer, and Moya were content to use barrel-vault elements of plain parabolic section such as were first introduced by Böhm in 1925-6.

431.  The triangular bay-window lighting the stairs is still somewhat Expressionist, but the interior treatment is in general more related to geometrical abstract art. The decoration approaches what came to be known as ‘Jazz-Modern’ when it became vulgarized in the next ten years or so in England. The contrast of the interiors that Behrens designed with the fine examples of Mackintosh’s furniture, brought from a house that he had remodelled earlier for the Bassett-Lowkes, appears rather shocking a generation later. What must have been considered a bit démodé in 1925 now represents to posterity—at least in the field of furniture design—the main line of advance in the early twentieth century; what then seemed in England to be ‘the last word’ has dated badly.

432.  ‘New Objectivity’: A generic term for some of the advanced movements that succeeded Expressionism in the arts; in architecture, roughly equivalent to ‘Functionalism’.

434.  See ‘Ornament und Verbrechen’ in Loos, A., Trotzdem: Gesammelte Aufsätze 1900-1930, Innsbruck, 1931, first published in the Neue Freie Presse in January 1908. A French translation of the article appeared in L’Esprit nouveau, I (1920), 159-68.

435.  Considering that Wright’s open planning had by no means matured while Loos was in Chicago, American influence (if any) came probably from the houses of the Shingle Style. Because of his close rapport with England, however, one may assume that the influence of Baillie Scott’s plans was more important; while the treatment of interior trim comes closest to Voysey, as has been noted.

436.  The recurrent suggestions of Richardsonian influence in Europe in the nineties are not yet adequately explained. Townsend in England knew of Richardson’s work from American and English publications, and there was in England one house by Richardson, Lululund at Bushey, Herts, now largely destroyed except for the entrance. This was designed shortly before Richardson’s death for Sir Hubert von Herkomer, who had painted his portrait, and executed without supervision. Boberg had been for a short while in Chicago and Bruno Schmitz (1858-1916) in Indianapolis; but there are others whose work also seems somewhat Richardsonian, such as Theodor Fischer, who certainly had not. Berlage did not visit America until 1911, when it was Wright’s work that most impressed him. He and Fischer might, of course, have known Richardson’s buildings from publications. For foreign publications of Richardson’s work before 1900, see pp. 333-5 in the 1961 edition of my Richardson book.

437.  See Berlage, H. P., Gedanken über den Stil in der Baukunst, Leipzig, 1905; Grundlagen und Entwicklung der Architektur, Amsterdam, 1908; German ed., Berlin, 1908; and Studies over Bouwkunst, Rotterdam, 1910.

438.  The work of K. P. C. de Bazel (1869-1923), a pupil of Cuijpers who represents a rather different stream in Dutch architecture of the early twentieth century, is especially close to that of the contemporary German leaders but hardly at all related to Expressionism. His massive office building for the Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij in Amsterdam of 1917-23 is quite similar to Behrens’s nearly contemporary office blocks in Hanover and Düsseldorf, but much more intricate and inventive in its brick-and-stone detail.

439.  Although it is unlikely that de Klerk actually owed anything to the sets that Bakst, Benois, and others were designing for the Ballet Russe, the visual investiture of the Diaghilev productions certainly had a loosening effect on Western European taste in these years just before the First World War. For the first time Russia impinged visually on European art, but that impingement had only an oblique effect on architecture, for the art that was exported was not, of course, very architectural.

440.  See American Architect, CXXVIII (5 October 1925).

441.  See ‘The American Radiator Company Building, New York’, American Architect, CXXVI (1924), 467-84.

442.  It is this that makes it so difficult to decide which architects should be discussed in Chapters 18-21 and which in Chapter 24. No two critics will agree, but most now recognize that the boundary line is not a sharp one. For this reason in Modern Architecture, published thirty years ago, I labelled the work of this generation ‘The New Tradition’ and did not then reject the work of the Scandinavians as too ‘traditional’ to be classed, broadly at least, with that of Wright, Perret, Behrens, Wagner, and Loos, as I have done here.

444.  See Roggero, M. F., Il Contributo di Mendelsohn alla evoluzione dell’ architettura moderna, Milan [1952].

445.  See Jaffé, H. L. C., De Stijl, 1917-1931, London [1956], and Zevi, B., Poetica dell’ architettura neoplastica, Milan, 1935.

446.  See Mendelsohn, E., Bauten und Skizzen, Berlin, 1923; and English ed., Buildings and Sketches, London, 1923.

447.  The whole question of Expressionism in architecture is still a difficult one despite a renewed critical interest in the intentions and achievements of the architects influenced by the movement (see Note ^[422] to Chapter 20). As will shortly be noted, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe were both briefly affected by Expressionist concepts and used forms of distinctly Expressionist character in the years 1919-21.

448.  An earlier Goetheanum of 1913-20, which was destroyed by fire, had been largely of wood. It was not at all like Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower but still somewhat Art Nouveau. See Brunati and Mendini, Steiner, Milan [n.d.], for both versions. See also Steiner, R., Wege zu einem neuen Baustil, Dornach, 1926 (Eng. trans., London-New York, 1927), and Der Baugedanke des Goetheanum, Dornach, 1932; and Rosenkrantz, A., The Goetheanum as a New Impulse in Art, [London, n.d.].