Otto Wagner, Adolf Loos, and the Road to Modern Architecture Werner Oechslin ETHZu¨rich(FederalInstituteofTechnologyinZurich) Translatedby Lynnette Widder published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge ThePittBuilding,TrumpingtonStreet,Cambridge,UnitedKingdom cambridge university press TheEdinburghBuilding,CambridgeCB22RU,UK 40West20thStreet,NewYork,NY10011-4211,USA 477WilliamstownRd.,PortMelbourne,VIC3207,Australia RuizdeAlarco´n13,28014Madrid,Spain DockHouse,TheWaterfront,CapeTown8001,SouthAfrica http://www.cambridge.org (cid:1)EnglishlanguagetranslationCambridgeUniversityPress2002 (cid:1)WernerOechslin1994 Thisbookisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithout thewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublishedbygta/Ernst&SohnVerlag ETH-Ho¨nggerberg,Zurichin1994. FirstEnglisheditionpublished2002 PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge TypefacesAdobeGaramond11.5/15pt.andFutura SystemDeskTopPro [bv] /UX AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Oechslin,Werner. Wagner,Loos,andtheroadtomodernarchitecture/WernerOechslin,LynnetteWidder. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-521-62346-4(hb) 1.Architecture–Philosophy. 2.Architecture–Composition,proportion,etc. 3.Architecture,Modern–19thcentury. 4.Architecture,Modern–20thcentury. 5.Wagner, Otto,1841–1918–Criticismandinterpretation. 6.Loos,Adolf,1870–1933–Criticismand interpretation. I.Widder,Lynnette. I.Title. NA2500.O422001 724'.5–dc21 2001035029 ISBN0521623464hardback Publicationofthisbookhasbeenmadepossible,inpart, byagrantfromProHelvetica,theArtsCouncilofSwitzerland. Contents Preface page vii 1 Introduction 1 On the Problem of Accessing and of Reassessing Modern Architecture in a Broader Cultural Context 3 On the Internationalismof Otto Wagner and the Wagner School. Wagner’s Identification with the Zeitgeist and with the Development of Modern Architecture. Wagner’s Highly Developed Consciousness of Time and of Temporal Processes of Development 13 2 Wagner,Loos, and theRoad to ModernArchitecture 25 The Opposite of the Issue of Style: Necessity, Unity, Immanent Coherence, the Naked, Simple and True 27 “Tectonics” and the “Theory of Raiment” 44 Disenchantment with “Bo¨tticher’s Overly Intellectual Work” and the Postulation of a Way to Overcome the “Semperian Mechanistic Conception of the Essence of Art” 64 “Stilhu¨se und Kern” – From Theory to Metaphor and Its Application to the Work of Otto Wagner 83 Adolf Loos – Against the Zeitgeist 112 “...ad usum Delphini” – The “Elemental Event” of the Raiment Dissolved, and the Ineluctable Return – or Recognized Tenacity – of the Hull 120 3 Plates 135 4 Anthologyof PrimarySources 175 Index 261 On the Problem of Accessing and of Reassessing Modern Architecture in a Broader Cultural Context Frey not only distinguished between the initial design and the design as executed – in other words, he did historical work. By means of this distinction, he uncovered the line of demarcation between the early and the high Renaissance – in other words, he did art historical work. PaulFranklonDagobertFrey’sanalysisof Bramante’splanningforSt. Peter’s(P.Frankl,reviewof “DagobertFrey,BramantesSt.Peter-Entwurf undseineApokryphen”[Vienna:1915], in:Repertoriumfu¨rKunstwissen- schaft,XLII[1920],p.128/129). In truth, there is hardly any other scholarly pursuit that requires such sobriety in its proofs, such refinement in its perceptions andcomparisons, and such manifold knowledge of discipline-specific and historical matters as the theory of art, especially in architecture. AloysHirt,DieBaukunstnachdenGrundsa¨tzenderAlten(Berlin:1809), p.ix. Need it be repeated? “Modernist ideology” has long been in the process of dissolution. It has receded sufficiently into history to allow one, in the meantime, to predict that architectural Modernism – its specific achievements and qualities critically reconsidered at a distance – will be rediscovered. This is precisely the act that is necessary to prevent the most recent permutations of the history of architecture from dissolving in the primordial soup of endlessly expanding,undif- ferentiatedsingularhistoricalphenomena.Muchofwhatiscurrentlybeingstudied in response to a legitimate need is nonetheless presented in the narrowframework of a monograph or in an analysis limited to a single building. And only a small portionofthe fundamentalinsightsgatheredinthisfashion–atleastinthisphase of research on Modernism – has been reintegrated into a holistic overview and synthesis. Excepting singular points of contact, the factorsthatconstitutetheconceptual and humanistic framework and cohesion of Modernism are most frequently ig- nored. There is indeed a danger that greater knowledge of subtly differentiated historicalrelationshipscouldbedirectedagainsttheinherentlysimplifiedprograms of the era, as if this standard of truth – the coincidence of theory and practice – were the appropriate one. Admittedly, the “Modernist ideology” – even more 3 reduced and recombined as a result of other contingencies – used its rhetoric and its programmatic character as provocation. In this sense, it has always willingly opened itself to attack. Nonetheless, whether one likes it or not, the coincidence of an architectural Modernism, of the new “style,” or even only of affirmedly common architectural aspirations, arose despite all sentiment to the contrary, first and foremost at the level of the program, of contemporaneous points of view and interpretations.1 This insight has, of course, been made difficult: more often than not, the physical objects were subject to a considerable loss of their self-sufficiency. They were instead subordinated – if not yoked – to programs “in order to demonstrate the commonalties postulated.” This process is exemplified by Walter Gropius’s statement, not exactly indicative of modesty, as it appeared in the second edition of his book Internationale Architektur in 1927: “Since the first edition appeared, the Modern architecture of the different cultural nations has followed with sur- prising alacrity the lines of development sketched in this book.”2 That posture was shocking then – and apparently still is. There is a desire to “expose” this programmaticism and rhetoric and finally to avenge the Dadaist claim that “Art is dead, long live art,” as well as the Futurist battle cries, “distrug- gere il culto del passato” and “considerare i critici d’arte come inutili e dannosi.”3 But rather than condemn manufactured ideologies in toto, it is more important to situate them in a broader historical framework and to follow them through their various furcations. Those people who today continue to combat the “tabula rasa” tone of these manifestos, rather than try to understand the way in whichthe pronouncements were rooted in the early Modernist era, still lack historical dis- tance some two generations later. They risk obstructing an open rapprochement with history. This intellectual history is an exceptionally rich one. Its polyvalence and self- contradiction were, of course, as already has been mentioned, suppressed or sometimes concealed even then by an unquestionably reductive form of propa- ganda – or simply sacrificed to a systematic reticence about sources, as with Le Corbusier, for example. This situation produces an even greater task for critics and historians. They must not merely dismiss the ideology of Modernism – or, phrased more simply and less contentiously, dismiss the propagandistic way in which Modern architecture represented itself – nor adapt it blindly as a nominal standard, whether affirmatively or as a “demon” is unimportant. Instead, they are called upon to situate it in relationship to an intellectual history that is rich in commentary and texts on all imaginable issues. At stake here is not the generalized recourse to roughly sketched contoursand ideas of a distanced, abstracted history of culture. The inextricabilities – not the 4 points of concurrence! – of theory and practice are much more concrete. Even such topics as the relationship between Modern architecture and the arthistoryof that period lie largely fallow, although everyone knows that, without Wo¨lfflin, without the simplifying categories of the “fundamental concepts” (Grundbegriffe) or without the differentiated use of the concept of “artistic form”(Kunstform)and its complementary correspondents from “core, or fundamental, form” (Kernform) to “purposive form” (Zweckform) and “technological form” (Technikform) – all borrowed from Bo¨tticher and Riegl – much would be unimaginable.4 Anyone who does not understand that a qualitative difference (the topic of Giedion’s Building in France) existed between industrial architecture, including its artistic complement (in accordance with an ideal still current at the beginning of the century),5 and the declaration that industrially produced components represented Modern architectural form, will overlook the essential point. He will have to be satisfied with tracing the history of Modernism back, perhaps to 1851 or perhaps to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England, but always in a manner limited to partial aspects. Even greater deficiencies exist in the consideration of that period’s architec- tural theory that was phrased “in addition to the manifestos” in the form of a discourse. Friedrich Ostendorf himself has become a victim of petty moralism becausenoonewanted,orwants,toseethatatraditional,Classicistunderstanding of architecture can be reconciled with aradicallyModerntheoreticalposition(“To design means to find the simplest formal manifestation”).6 Even more obscureare those theoreticians who could not insure their place in posterity’s memory by leaving behind works of architecture. Who has heard of Hermann So¨rgel or Leo Adler, to mention only two theoretical voices – between 1918 and 1926, respec- tively – who should be taken seriously? Of course, forgetfulness has itsineluctable place. Even then, the literature made itapparentthateveryonewasspeakingabout “space” but that almost no one knew the father of that concept – Schmarsow – much less his work, Das Wesen der architektonischen Scho¨pfung (The essence of architectural creation) (1894). And Paul Frankl – another important figure in the definition of a theoretical realm between architecture and art history – wrote in a 1920 book review that Schmarsow’s predecessor Richard Lucae and his 1869 lecture “On the Power of Space in Architecture” (U¨ber die Macht des Raumes in der Baukunst) was “never cited”! Although contributions such as these remain forgotten or without consequence – howeveronemakesthatdetermination–they retain extraordinary significance in elucidating the intellectual historical back- ground. These comments are enough to suggest an approach in which the gaze does not remain fixed on a specific object (whatever that may be) but instead takes in 5 Figure 1. The True Varietyof the Architectureof the Twenties (from: Bruno Taut,Bauen. Der neue Wohnbau[Leipzigand Berlin:1927], “Bilanz,”p.5) the respective branches of theory and practice and their various related or unre- lated levels. A “hermeneutic” but unfortunately less than oft-fulfilled assumption! It would be worthwhile interrogating Postmodern “arbitrariness” and its concom- itant pleasure in attacking a – complementary – “compact” Modernism about its disregard for the richness of the earlier period’s architectural positions as well as its explanatory paradigms and theories. Not everything associated with Modern- ism is “monothetic” or “monocausal”– or evenonlyconclusiveandcompact.The idea that contention and reality, in all their various hues, were bonded was too widespread. And that is exactly the point at which criticism shouldbegin.Because it is in this respect that Postmodern critiques of Modernism are founded uponan 6 Figure 2. Panoramaof German Architecturecirca1913 German Architecture of the Twentieth Century – “Deutsche Baukunst des XX. Jahrhun- derts” at the International Building Industry Exposition, Leipzig, 1913. (from: Bericht u¨ber die Internationale Baufach-Ausstellung mit Sonderausstellungen, Leipzig 1913[Leipzig: 1917], p.139/141) 7 error. Concerning the topic of “Postmodernism and Architecture,” this is, of course, as true of those critics, such as Ju¨rgen Habermas, who wanted to use a compact ideology of the Modern as a shield against the destructive dissolution of Modernism (including architectural Modernism). The Smithsons, naturally, reduced Modernism to cubic, white and autono- mous, just as the “international style” had previously tailored all selected images to conform to these qualities. But it is necessary to leaf through the books and magazines of the period to discover that the variety of forms assumed by Modern architecture is as large as that of what is nowadays called “arbitrariness.” When Bruno Taut subjected every conceivable form of architecture to his ridicule in the publication Bauen. Der neue Wohnbau (Building. The new residential building), published by the “Ring” – the “most Modern” architectural circle in pre- Weissenhof Germany – he referred not to the past, but to the present. It was a present that considered itself sometimes more and sometimes less Modern and, as such, was assigned such epithets as “Field, River and Meadow Style,” “Mr. Bie- dermeier...,” “An Architecture of Staircases– ergo‘NeueSachlichkeit,’”“Char- lotte 1926,” “Aunt Meier’s Cottage!” or “Not Made of Cardboard.”7 Seen in this way, the heterogeneity of twentieth-century architecture is second to none. At the International Building Exposition in Leipzig in 1913, the panorama entitled “German Architecture of the Twentieth Century” paraded this heterogeneity offi- cially at a time when the form of Modern architecture had “yet to be found.”8 Also in the twenties, in 1927, Peter Meyer not only differentiated between “Modern” and “pseudo-Modern” buildings (buildings by the Dutch architects, from de Klerk to Rietveld, who misused a modern formal language for decorative purposes), he also employed categorizations such as “Functionalist Symbolism”or “Sacral Faustic, Nordic, Vienna” to explain his precise understanding of Modern- ism. It is plain that his categories were quite specific but nonetheless deviated considerably from those of the “Ring.”9 And shortly after World War I, when Modernismbeganitstriumphalmarchinearnest,FranzSchusterstillsawa“chaos of forms and opinions” rather than a unified Modern architecture. He wentsofar as to subsume both Le Corbusier’s work and Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpieces Falling Water and Johnson Wax under the category of deceptive form, which he opposed to the “unified world of essential forms.” (These essential forms were in turn to nurture the “root of the style.”)10 Despite programs andrhetoric,thethree positions selectively presented here bespeak little of the perceived compactness of a Modern style, even if the smallest common denominator still seems interesting enough. In fact, the three, somewhat arbitrarily chosen, examples do not prove that there is, and that there can be, no “Modern architecture.” All the authors 8 Figure 3. The Permutations of Modern Architecture in Departure from the Mainstream Functional Symbolism. (from: Peter Meyer, Moderne Architektur und Tradition [Zurich: 1927], plateVIII) Figure 4. SacralFaustism,NordicDirections,Vienna.(from:Meyer,op. cit., plateIX) quoted are concerned at least with moving toward the ability to define Modern architecture with some clarity. All of this proves just how one-sided and misrepresentative it is to measure the “Ideology of Modernism” against built reality alone and vice versa. This practice is especially inappropriate in view of the discrepancies, the lack of corre- spondence, between theory and practice, and in view of the dissynchronicity of the simultaneous – this, too, being a particular approach in the art history of the twenties.11 All of these inconsistencies often more articulate, nottomentionbeing the ingredients of every vital culture throughout history. Consequently, we may not ignore the relative autonomy of the intellectual historical framework – also as the prerequisite to all concepts based uponsimplificationsandtypifications–even if we give close attention to the relationship between theoryandpractice.Itmight be contended that the typical models that describe the derivation of Modernism from construction and industry, and from abstract art forms, produce only a partial solution to the problem of defining clearly this “Modern” style. In that 9