THE MEANING OF MODERN ARCHItECtURE

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The Meaning of Modern Architecture
Its Inner Necessity and an Empathetic Reading

Hans Rudolf Morgenthaler

University of Colorado Denver, USA
First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © Hans Rudolf Morgenthaler 2015

Hans Rudolf Morgenthaler has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morgenthaler, Hans Rudolf.
The meaning of modern architecture : its inner necessity and an empathetic reading /
By Hans Rudolf Morgenthaler.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4724-5301-3 (hardback)
1. Architecture, Modern--20th century--Themes, motives.
2. Architecture--Psychological aspects--Case studies. 3. Architecture and society--
History--20th century. I. Title.
NA680.M64 2015
724’.6--dc23

2015008096
ISBN: 9781472453013 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781315555669 (ebk)
Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Preface   ix

Introduction: The Meaning of Modern Architecture   1

1 Wittgenstein House: The Perfect Mechanism   25

2 An Empathic Description and Interpretation of Le Corbusier’s Villa

Savoye: The Machine Design   43

3 Spatial Esthetics and Einfühlung (Empathy): Theodor

Lipps’s Aesthetik   53

4 The Inner Construction of Objects and Space: Hildebrand’s

Problem der Form   61

5 Visual Perception and Artistic Judgment: Conrad Fiedler’s Visibility   65

6 The Scientific Treatment of Perception and the Human Nature of

the Viewer: Alois Riegl’s Kunstwollen  77

7 The Word on the Street: Architectural Criticism   95

8 House Schminke: The Anti-esthetic Design   113

9 Casa del Fascio: The Eclectic Puzzle   123

10 Haus Lange: The Elegant Analyst   133

Bibliography   143

Index   149
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List of Illustrations
1  Wittgenstein House: The Perfect
Mechanism
1.1  Wittgenstein House, Entrance façade
(Author’s collection)
1.2  Wittgenstein House, Southern
corner with entrance block on right side
(Author’s collection)
1.3  Wittgenstein House, Rear façade
(Author’s collection)
1.4  Karlskirche, Main façade
(Author’s collection)
1.5  House at Linke Wienzeile 40, Vienna,
Otto Wagner (Author’s collection)
1.6  Wittgenstein House, Entrance hall
(Author’s collection)
1.7  Wittgenstein House, Plan of ground
floor (Kimberley Verhoeven)
2  An Empathic Description and
Interpretation of Le Corbusier’s Villa
Savoye: The Machine Design
2.1  Villa Savoye, Northwest corner
view with main entrance on left side
(Author’s collection)
2.2  Villa Savoye, Rear façade
(Author’s collection)
2.3  Villa Savoye, Glass wall
surrounding main entrance at left edge
(Author’s collection)
2.4  Villa Savoye, Vestibule looking toward
the rear of the building (Author’s collection)
2.5  Villa Savoye, 2nd floor terrace, ramp to
roof on left side (Author’s collection)
8  House Schminke: The Anti-esthetic
Design
8.1  Schminke Haus, Street façade
(Author’s collection)
8.2  Schminke Haus, Garden façade
with entrance canopy on left side
(Author’s collection)
8.3  Schminke Haus, Rear portion of
garden façade with entrance canopy to
the right of the curved kitchen addition
(Author’s collection)
8.4  Schminke Haus, West façade with
chimney (Author’s collection)
viii The Meaning oF Modern ArchitectUre
8.5  Schminke Haus, View from entrance
hall toward living room, music room, and
winter garden (Author’s collection)
8.6  Schminke Haus, Ground Floor Plan
(Kimberley Verhoeven)
8.7  Schminke House, Second Floor Plan
(Kimberley Verhoeven)
8.8  Schminke House, Upstairs hallway
with windows to street on left wall (Author’s
collection)
9  Casa del Fascio: The Eclectic Puzzle
9.1  Casa del Fascio, Main façade
(Author’s collection)
9.2  Casa del Fascio, North corner with rear
(left) façade (Author’s collection)
9.3  Casa del Fascio, East façade
(Author’s collection)
9.4  Casa del Fascio, Central courtyard view
toward entrance (Author’s collection)
9.5  Casa del Fascio, Ground floor plan
(Kimberley Verhoeven)
9.6  Casa del Fascio, 2nd floor plan
(Kimberley Verhoeven)
10  Haus Lange: The Elegant Analyst
10.1  Haus Lange, Entrance (North) façade
(Wikipedia Commons)
10.2  Haus Lange, Garden (South) façade
(Wikipedia Commons)
10.3  Haus Lange, Northeast corner
(Wikipedia Commons GNU Free
Documentation License )
10.4  Haus Lange, Ground Floor Plan
(Kimberley Verhoeven)
10.5  Haus Lange, Second Floor Plan
(Kimberley Verhoeven)
10.6  Haus Lange, Living Room
(Jörn Schiemann)
Preface

This book began on a cold winter day in Berlin, when I purchased Wilhelm
Worringer’s book Abstraction and Empathy from the bookstore that was under the
bridge of Bahnhof Zoo. I was working on Expressionist architecture and looking
desperately for clues as to how I could distinguish Expressionism from the more
conventional Modernist architecture. I still like to think that the mysterious man
mentioned in the preface of that book was Alois Riegl, although scholars now
believe it was Georg Simmel. Long after I finished my dissertation, this first spark
got me to Alois Riegl, and I began to familiarize myself with his work.
Some of my architect colleagues got me interested in the Wittgenstein House,
and it was probably through studying the literature on this building, and then
seeing it, that I got the insight of using Riegl’s theories to explain this building. I
gave a paper on this topic at a meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians,
where I received positive feedback. When my first sabbatical came around, I spent
it reading everything by and on Riegl I could find. In addition, I looked through
German, Swiss, and Austrian architectural magazines from about 1900 to 1930.
Due to other projects, the Riegl research lay dormant for a long time, but
eventually I spent my second sabbatical beginning to write up this project.
I want to thank above all the libraries of the University of Chicago and the
University of California at Berkeley. It was there that I did most of the journal and
magazine perusing. It was sometimes heart-breaking to open one of those large
books into which these old magazines were bound, and release a cascade of
broken bits of paper like confetti on a parade. I was amazed that the librarians at
these institutions let me make so many photocopies of these old pages. I also spent
many days in the Newberry Library in Chicago, which still has one of the greatest
collections of German and Austrian books that are hard to find at other libraries.
I dedicate this book to my wife Susan who has supported this project throughout
the many years it took, and made sure that I would always complete a good day’s
work.
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Introduction
The Meaning of Modern Architecture

Is Modern architecture—the International Style—just functional design

constructed in the most effective manner from the industrial building materials
steel, glass, and reinforced concrete? This view is too simplistic. The forms and
shapes of Modern art and architecture—from Impressionism to Constructivism in
painting and sculpture, and the International Style in architecture—are radically
different from those found in earlier periods. They are abstract and devoid of
any of the ornamental details that had previously created a sense of familiarity
with, and access to, works of art or architecture. Werner Hoffmann once defined
Modern painting as that where the artistic creation “took the material substance
off of the objective quality” and incorporated this as force lines or “constructive”
elements into the pictorial composition.1 This was a dramatic change because it
interrupted the stable foundation of historical and stylistic continuity on which
historians and critics had relied for their interpretation. Modernity had established
a new foundation that did not provide immediate reference points for orientation.
In other words, buildings were no longer representative in the traditional stylistic
manner. Like the other Modern forms and media, so architecture also created
works and forms that were new both as artistic and real creations in themselves,
not recreations or symbolizations of something that already existed.
To understand the new art forms, a new explanatory method had to be
found, because “(t)he (Modernist) effort to eliminate sensual properties makes
one hypersensitive to their presence (in earlier styles).”2 Historians and theorists
of the visual arts recognized this already during the last decades of the 19th
century. They proposed that in contrast to earlier art, Modern painting expressed
mood (Stimmung). Alois Riegl saw the main purpose of art as giving human
beings the certainty of order and harmony. He once stated that the relationship
between geometric and figurative art forms was like the relationship between
mathematics and physical nature.3 He demonstrated how artists communicate
order first in prehistoric art through the use of fetish objects aimed at appeasing
the uncontrollable natural elements. In Ancient art, the second appearance of this
2 ThE MEaNiNG OF MODErN ArchitEctUrE

can be seen in the dominance of the Roman Empire and its celebration of human
strength in its art. In its third incarnation, Medieval art extols the spiritual force
of the Christian god depicted through the human form. In Modern art, finally,
the natural scientific worldview brought the order of knowledge that provided
people with a notion of harmony expressed as mood in works of art.4 This could
not be understood through historical analysis, but only by relating the art works
to contemporary life. Consequently, Modern art was not accessible through
normative historical esthetics, but only through intuition and visual esthetics.5 It
needed to be deciphered. The pure forms of abstract twentieth-century paintings
required “embodied” perception.6
Conrad Fiedler called the new method “perceptual experience.”7 Art historians
and critics around the turn from the 19th to the 20th century understood that
perception “is a process consisting of distinct physical events.” Interestingly, clues
as to what new methods might be helpful for interpretation did not just come from
the traditional foundations and perspectives of art history, but also from more
exact sciences such as optics and physiology, and to a lesser degree, the relatively
new methods in psychology and psychiatry. In these disciplines, the notion of
“subjective vision,” one based less on stimuli and more on sensory images, was
increasingly used and studied already at the beginning of the 19th century. In the
late 19th century, when Modernist tendencies appeared in the arts, this would
evolve into the conception of an individual who was no longer just receptive, but
perceived and experienced his/her environment autonomously, choosing him/
herself what to accept in order to create his/her own world. People were self-aware
and did not need to rely on history and memory alone to assist in this endeavor.8 Art
historians began to apply these methods to post-impressionist painting during the
1890s. They claimed that psychophysical comprehension was used by the Modern
artists to enhance the impact of their paintings, thus trying to generate an extra
manner of esthetic response through the physiological reactions in the body of
the viewer. “Paintings were held to produce pleasure or pain, to represent cultural
decay or health, to be the products of normal or deranged sensibilities.” Painters
used techniques from advertising, as well as, those suggested by psychologists
to attract viewers and create desired outcomes in their works of art.9 This is no
doubt a valid attempt to account for the increased abstraction post-impressionist
paintings exhibited.
These developments indicate that progressive art historians became aware of
the development of their discipline from relying on biographical and historical
evidence to account for the meaning of works of art to analyzing their esthetic
value. The new method can be called broadly formal analysis. Art history
concentrated on the individual work, instead of a style, or epoch. Walter Benjamin
credited Alois Riegl with this realization. According to him, Riegl established a
connection between the meaning of a work of art and its physical appearance.
This new insight dispatched the previous cyclical history with its culminations and
declines. This was replaced by an analysis of the psychological impact the individual
work generated, which shaped its individual meaning.10 This theory emphasized
empathy and was a method that did not account for the previous approach,
 INtrODUctiON: ThE MEaNiNG OF MODErN ArchitEctUrE 3

which focused on “individual, cultural, and historical differences.”11 Instead, it dealt

primarily with the formal aspects of works of art and concentrated on how these
can be described linguistically.12
Riegl’s disdain for conventional historiography is shown in a statement in which
he questions the absolute value of historical facts and suggests that the ability to
ignore it may prove advantageous for the researcher. He proposed that too great an
adherence to historicism may adversely affect creativity. In fact, he blamed the late-
18th-century scientific updating of art history for having delayed the formulation of
a new style in favor of a historicist perspective. He even stated that “art history has
retarded, overgrown and smothered the development of art.”13
Could such methodologies be applied to Modern architecture as well? Would
Modern architecture’s meaning become more clear, if one focused on perceptual
experience to understand it? After all, the major difference between Modern and
historical architecture was between a “traditional symbolic, cosmologically based
representation and modern instrumental thinking,” fairly similar to what happened
in the visual arts. Architectural forms no longer communicated the universal
notions and ideals that previous styles had done, but were now indeed forms
generated by humans and expressing human concerns and aspirations.14 One must
distinguish between ornament that simply decorates a surface, and ornament that
creates motifs communicating symbolic meaning. Therefore, one could argue that
there is not much symbolism in the forms of Modernist Architecture, but a much
more practical message. Debra Schafter wrote about Riegl’s view of ornament:
“The foundations of ornament, he insisted, lay outside imitative, symbolic, and
technical motivations.”15 The interpretation of works of architecture should not just
be theoretical, but also requires familiarity with their practical parts.16 A number
of 19th-century theorists—Jones, Ruskin, Semper among them—began to see
architecture as a free art that can express sometimes self-referential, sometimes
rational or natural ideas, but no longer divine or spiritual concepts. “Instead, “the
essence of (architecture) resided in the pure artistic values of line, form, surface,
and color.”17 That this approach was seriously considered in the late 19th century
is shown convincingly by Alina Payne in her From Ornament to Object: Genealogies
of Architectural Modernism. Here, the author proposes a genealogical approach to
development that rejects a purely architectural trajectory in favor of swerving from
World Exhibitions to Anthropological Collections to innovative art historians and
cultural studies until finally the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier are established as the
two main contrasts with regard to what the characteristic Modern house is.18
The method proposed in this book combines physiological reaction to external
stimuli with an intellectual analysis of this reaction. After all, “the fundamental
methodological issue for all material-cultural disciplines (is) … to tell a story within
a larger historical or philosophical picture.”19 This book is interested in finding
out whether architectural forms can be interpreted in such a psychophysical
manner, and whether this interpretation can be communicated through language.
Viennese art historian Alois Riegl (1858–1905) stated that Modern paintings do not
depict objects, but are geared to the human subject, because they try to evoke
sensations and feelings in the individual viewer.20 This simply acknowledges that
4 ThE MEaNiNG OF MODErN ArchitEctUrE

art is addressed to the public. It behooves the science of interpreting works of

art to posit the viewer at the starting-point of its considerations.21 Riegl and his
fellow members of what would soon be called the Vienna School of Art History
understood that “(t)he peculiar significance of fin-de-siècle art lies therein, to
shape a psychological content in a symbolic form.”22 Furthermore, works of art and
architecture can represent a “world (that) could in some way be life-enhancing.”23
Hence, they may have an educational effect.
Modern art consists of geometric shapes that enter our minds through sensations.
These shapes do not have content in the traditional sense and must therefore be
understood through the intuitive mind. Adding thus a subjective interpretation to
the physical object makes the latter less significant for generating meaning. Works
of art became “object-less,” because their meaning was the only part that mattered,
connected, as it were, to the metaphysical.24 This applies especially to architecture,
as here experiencing the building—walking through, using, and occupying the
interior spaces—contributes heavily to one’s understanding. The technical term
for this is ekphrasis, i.e., putting the viewer in an empathetic contact with what
the creator of the work intended.25 Some scholars elaborated on this insight by
realizing that forms are as important as content if one wants to comprehend
Modern art. This brings with it a notion that the forms constitute a vocabulary and,
consequently, that art is a kind of language.26
With regard to architecture, opinions are divided on whether it is a language.
While some scholars advocate generic differences between the two, others agree
that there are similarities. It is clear that buildings do communicate and express.
And they achieve this through juxtapositions of different forms, spaces, and surface
articulations. This architectural vocabulary is ideal, since its parts carry singular
meanings, and are assembled in a straightforward manner into the finished work.27
Of course, this can be achieved in many different ways of communication. Among
the conventional ones is the assumption that exterior details act as signs that can
be deciphered through semiotic or semantic analyses. Or, the manner in which
they are mounted and combined together reveals how they are configured and so
offers clues about their meaning, very much like grammar structures language.28
One of the most enduring systems of classifying architecture—one might even
call it a language—is style. However, there is a problem when this concept is applied
to Modernist architecture, as was stated at the beginning of this introduction. This
situation calls for a redefinition of style away from its universal claim to one that
defines style as intimately tied to its particular epoch. Each period has its own
individuality, which is concentrated in the creative architect and his/her knowledge
and intuition. In this perspective, transcendent meaning is replaced by immanent
meaning; the resulting view shifts from symbolic interpretation to formal analysis
through experiencing. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that we have
debased interpretation into a form of “technological rationality.” One might rather
see it as buildings revealing “the truth of existing reality.”29
Considering the communicative appeal of architecture, a lingering question is
whether architecture is a free or ideal art. Since buildings rely heavily on tectonics
and construction technology in order to be realized, and since they usually must
 INtrODUctiON: ThE MEaNiNG OF MODErN ArchitEctUrE 5

satisfy the needs of the user in an efficient manner, scholars do not agree whether
architecture should be considered a useful or a free art. Should one treat buildings
as if they had parts that were beautiful—esthetic—as well as, parts that were extra-
esthetic? It could be argued that even purely technical objects possess a measure
of beauty. How one solves a functional problem can definitely be evaluated and
judged with respect to esthetic conventions. However, for reasons mentioned
above, this becomes problematic when one compares the esthetic analysis of
an Ancient Greek Temple to a Modern single family home. During Modernity,
philosophers changed the definition of architectural beauty. New features that
could be considered beautiful included the solutions for functional efficiency, the
formal configurations of these undecorated boxes, such as order, measurements,
gravity, and necessity, or the creation of spaces. The most important change in
esthetic analysis was, however, the change from evaluating how a building conveys
an idea of beauty to how an object is just beautiful in itself. Is the object a symbol
of the idea of beauty, or is the object a creation of naked beauty that expresses
it directly?30
The next step in the development of interpretive methods was the proposition
that engineering works built in iron and steel possessed mechanical beauty.
Economy in the use of materials and purity of construction were its trademarks.
These characteristics were also seen as a reason to eliminate ornamentation.
Instead, iron and steel constructions revealed their essence in a straightforward
manner. In addition, appreciation for new materials and their performative
potential became integrated into architectural criticism. Eventually, correctly
calculated engineering forms were declared artistic forms, and used to elevate
architecture again to the primary position among the arts it had enjoyed during
the Ancient Greeks.31 From praise for engineering constructions it was only a small
step to focus on the typical geometric shapes of Modern buildings and declaring
this to be the main characteristic of this new architecture.32
Modernist architects were driven by utopian optimism promoted above all
by the industrialization that began to dominate life in the 19th century. In fact,
this technological foundation is among the most recognized characteristics of
Modernist architecture. Architecture espoused the very tools that were supposed
to make life abundant, although even politicians and economists realized that the
use of science and technology at all cost did not equally apply to, and ameliorate,
the social realm. This view favored material, utilitarian, and technological aspects of
architecture over its more cultural values and meanings. It emphasized technique,
not those features that ensure longevity and memorability. The architects were so
intent on promoting the break with the past they had chosen that they abandoned
also the traditional “true reflection of their intentions,” namely “reference to historical
and social meaning, to symbols, styles, and so forth.”33 To heighten this urge to
renew, there was also a move to improve the design of industrially manufactured
household goods, primarily to improve the export economy in central European
countries. The German, Austrian, and English governments supported efforts to
educate their countrymen to improve their taste.