The current demands of architecture

The only thing I can do at this last moment is to outline in a few sentences the present situation of architecture and its current urgent demands.

Relation to Techniques: The situation is as follows: During the nineteenth century construction represented the subconscious of architecture. Architecture itself —under the spell of the ruling taste—portrayed the external attitudes of the period: construction its internal strivings which never came above the surface.

During the present century the situation has become changed as a result of the rise of such personalities as Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, who have been able to transform means of construction into artistic expression.

To-day matters are almost reversed. Architects are now demanding more from the engineers than their calculations permit. One of the reasons for this is that we are to-day on the way towards a new solution of the vaulting problem. This demanding of more than lies within the possibilities of present structural techniques is a hopeful sign. Periods imbued with an architectonic spirit have nearly always made such demands: it was so in the Gothic period; it was so in the late Baroque period.

Relation to Economics: Nobody will deny the connection between architecture and economics, but the matter is by no means so simple that it can be reduced to the level of cause and effect. The relation is obvious when only an individual or a private undertaking are concerned : "I have so much money, therefore I can afford this and I cannot afford that”. But this no longer remains true when the community as a whole, or the state, comes into play. At this moment it is no longer the simple economics of the situation which is decisive, instead it is the public attitude which directs the spending of money.

It depends what kind of institutions are regarded as necessary for civic standards of living, and therefore on what kinds of amenities money should be spent for the sake of the people. The Roman thermae were no more regarded as profit making undertakings than schools are today. The cathedral of Chartres was by no means proportioned to the size of the available funds.

To-day economically poor states—such as India— embark upon the building of a new capital city, while the western nations on both sides of the Atlantic have—over the last century and more—been incapable of creating even a well-equilibrated city square.

In other words, the relation between available funds and economics is not that of cause and effect, but rather of the will to accomplish things left undone.

Urgent Demands: To-day contemporary architecture urgently demands, for the solution of the problems which lie ahead, that relationships become established. There is no longer an architecture which is enclosed within itself. There is no longer the single family house, or the single skyscraper, no matter how artistically conceived it may be. There is no longer the individual building considered as an isolated structure. We are now in a time of the relationship between building and building. Here we touch upon one of the most difficult problems of to-day: the relationship of volumes in space. Very few contemporary architects are able to realize Le Corbusier’s definition of architecture as “le jeu savant, correct et magnifique des volumes sous la lumière”. This involves two other conditions which have to be re-established.

1. Urban Design

There is no architecture when there is no relationship with urban design. This is neither easy nor self-evident at the moment. We are historically in a very curious situation. In former periods, such as the middle ages, the outburst of building new cities came only after centuries of architectural effort. It needed centuries from the early Renaissance to the Baroque period before really creative urbanism could come about. To-day our situation is such that the reawakening of architecture lies only a generation back, and yet we are
already in the midst of the adventures of urban renewal. Incalculably over the last few years this long neglected urbanistic approach has suddenly sprung up: things are
impossible and even subversive. Not only the building of completely new capital cities — such as Chandigarh and Brazilia— but enormous rebuilding projects, covering the entire central areas of existing large cities— such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and several other US cities, Baghdad (on which a galaxy of western architects is working) and the recent competition for the replanning of Berlin, both east and west.

It is also significant that, for the first time, a large Canadian city—Toronto—has embarked upon an international competition, which has attracted extraordinary participation, to obtain a plan for the core of an otherwise chaotic human agglomeration.

This momentum is already reflected in modern architectural education. I will instance only the Graduate School of Design at Harward University where, under the direction of Jose Luis Sert, collaborative projects are carried out between the young architects and city planners from their first year through to the Master Class. In these exercises, the architectural student is obliged to fulfil a double role : as member of a team to prepare the threedimensional plan for an entire urban sector, then to become personally responsible for the development-down to the last detail—of a building within this complex. Here is reflected what should be typical of everything in our period: working simultaneaously with the airview and with the microscope.

2. Trinity of architect, sculptor and painter

This trinity has still to be re-established, and yet it is the most urgent need of the present moment. The problem of the co-operation between artists and architects circles around one point which Hans Arp and I placed before the Sixth CIAM Congress at Bridgwater in 1947, in a questionnaire upon architectural expression: “Should the architect, painter and sculptor co-operate from the very beginning so as to strengthen the emotional and symbolic content of architecture?” This formulation was very cautious, as architects at that time were convinced of their omnipotence. Some still are. These regard the artist in just the same way as the architect himself was formerly regarded by the business man : as a kind of decorator who should adorn the building after the engineer had completed the essential job.

May I just mention a wellknown example of good architecture—the new UNESCO building in Paris. After the archiects had completed the essential jobtheycalled in the best artists they could get, and asked them to place their work upon places predestined by the architects.

To-day another attitude towards the role which the artist has to play is essential. Architects and artists must create together from the very beginning. The reason is that architectural expression is becoming increasingly more refined in all aspects of form. We are, without any doubt, moving towards a period of more sculptural development, both in the modelling of the interior and of the exterior of buildings.

We know that co-operation between architects and artists is by no means easy. Enormous organizational demands are placed upon the shoulders of the architect. But there is another reason which I regard as far more important: the habit of working together between artist and architect has now been lost to us for two centuries.

In the questionnaire submitted to CIAM 6 in 1947 one final point, especially stressed by Hans Arp, had to be omitted: “The precondition for the working together of architects, painters and sculptors is a state of humility of all participants”.

Here we enter the sphere of human aspirations—of human vanities—which are always the most difficult to combat.

Sigfried Giedion