Modern Architecture and Functionalism

By Mohammad Mohammadzadeh · Memar 23, mag pages 10-12.

The English summary that follows appeared verbatim on the printed page alongside the fuller Farsi essay. Both texts are by the author. The translated essay then follows below.

In the sense used in the architectural literature, Functionalism is an outcome of Modern Architecture, while the notion of 'function' is as old as the architecture itself. That is why one cannot develop a correct understanding of the motives and backgrounds of functionalism in architecture in the first half of the 20th century without the appreciation of the roots of Modern Architecture.

The problem of the duo of 'beauty' and 'usefulness', or in other words 'art' and 'utility', is another major subject over which there has always been much discussions in the history of the philosophy of aesthetics, from the ancient Greece, from Plato and Aristotle, to Pragmatism of the 19th and 20th century and up to the present time. Defining the role of this duo in the creation of an architectural work is a problem whose footprints could be traced from the very ancient times to the time of Vitruvius, to that of the developments at the beginning of the 20th century and up to the present time. In the first half of the 20th century, the historical conditions, which came into existence, necessitated a new definition of the role of these two notions in the process of formation of architecture and other products. In these years, Sullivan expressed his famous statement for describing the qualities of the new architecture, 'form follows function'. This sentence is regarded today as the motto of functionalist architecture. In my opinion, it would be very naïve to use this statement as a guideline in the process of architectural design and take the form of the shapes from their function. That sentence was actually a symbolic slogan and a brief manifesto for introducing the blooming ideals of a new period of architecture, which was developing on the fertile and prepared ground of the new age, and in such context the practical necessities — function — had to take priority over artistic and aesthetic needs (form as a place for the manifestation of beauty). These needs had to be considered in the light of every day functions, as the director of Bauhaus school, Gropius, whose professional personality was formed in Werkbund, preferred none of the two subjects mentioned above to one another. In the new perspective of life, he tried to realise the two aspects of the problem, the formal and functional needs, through proper education of the students. To the eyes of Gropius, handicraft and mechanical industries were two stages of the vital cycle of production. Passing the first period was the prerequisite to learning the second. For him, handicraft was the qualitative pole and the creative supply in the system of industrial production. It would lead to the design of a primary example of the product, while the mechanical industries were regarded as the quantitative pole of this system: they mass-produced the primary example with a proper price. This system was a bridge between the artistic creativity and the field of everyday functional needs of the public. The aim of this method was actually to refer a certain role to artists in the cycle of the economy of the industrial production in the modern world and in other words, to define the role of art in the industrialised society and to put it into use in a scale relevant to the new social system.

The fuller Farsi essay — translated

Functionalism¹, with the known meaning it has in architectural literature, is a product of modern architecture, whereas function² in the broad sense of the word has a history at least as long as that of architecture itself. For this reason, a correct understanding of the motives and grounds for the emergence of functionalism in the architecture of the first half of the twentieth century will not be possible without an understanding of the roots of modern architecture. At the same time, any study of modern architecture requires clarifying the ambiguity that the application of vaguer titles — such as functionalist architecture, machine-style architecture, international-style architecture, or similar terms — invites. To clarify specific aspects of it, it is better first to gain awareness of its overall nature.

To recognise the absolute nature of so-called modern architecture is a difficult task, because modern architecture is a subject with various dimensions and is continually changing, since modern life itself is fundamentally a multidimensional phenomenon perpetually in transformation. Merely to give body to the overall fabric of modern architecture, in a horizon beyond its dominant general current, we may liken it to a constellation of models and types — sometimes unlike one another, sometimes arising from the ideas, tastes, and personal explorations and singularities of certain architects in this historical period. A constellation that, in terms of form, includes a range of so-called machine-like forms, a variety of natural forms, and biomorphic and geomorphic forms.

On another front, in examining the modern movement, awareness of the characteristics of the ground on which this movement grew is important alongside identification of the factors effective in the emergence and development of modern architecture. The modern revolution — which at the beginning of the twentieth century led to a turning away from historicism and an embrace of the new age — took place within a particular historical setting; a setting in whose text names such as Freud, Wittgenstein, Joyce, and Kafka were present, an evolution called Cubism occurred, and an environment took shape within which the principal components forming this historical setting — and by natural extension, the shaping and continuation of the modern architectural movement — were placed.

Among the main components of this historical setting, the following six principal factors may be noted:

• 1. The rationalism of the Enlightenment philosophers in the eighteenth century and the influence of philosophical positivism, based on the views of its most important thinkers — namely Comte and Hume — and other thinkers of the Enlightenment current.
• 2. The emergence of a new institution called Industry, under the influence of the Industrial Revolution, together with the expansion of the use of machines in life.
• 3. The maturation of building technology in the early twentieth century along its developing path through the nineteenth, especially the use of iron and reinforced concrete, and also other building products.
• 4. The 1917 Russian Revolution under the influence of social currents inspired by the ideas of Marx.
• 5. The World War and the special conditions that, in its train, came to dominate the world, particularly Europe.
• 6. The professional movement of architectural associations and schools, and architects themselves — including the Werkbund association and the Bauhaus in Germany, the Vienna school in Austria, the Chicago school in America, and architects such as Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto, and others.

In what follows I will briefly examine each of these components.

The foundational principles of philosophical positivism, very simply stated, point to the logical justifiability of phenomena and to their authenticity on the basis of being investigable. That is, that for any question concerning a phenomenon there should exist a rational answer based on a process of investigation. In my view, the approach to architecture as a useful product, and consequently the elevation of the importance of the matter of function in the building, was not unrelated to this philosophical paradigm in the world of manufactured products. For functions, in one sense, may be regarded as practical rules; and rules, in a sense, are investigable — that is, they can be issued on the basis of logic. On the other hand, following the formation of the institution of industry and production by industrial means, and the expansion of the possibility of mass production, the need to reconsider the way buildings are produced — as manufactured products — was, in the opening years of the twentieth century, with special attention to its practical aspect and through the effort of pioneering architects, brought into step with the rhythm of industrialisation and the capacity for mass production. Obviously this synchronisation could not have come about without becoming logical and rule-bound.

On the other side, the increasing entry of the machine into the field of life — and the attractions that its use in everyday affairs brought with it — gradually turned the building, for architects, into a product comparable to a machine, with all its practical and functional qualities. This may be regarded, to some extent, as arising from a kind of fascination with, and a hurried reaction toward, the process of becoming machine-like. In any case, the rule-bound view of building had begun, and the counterpart to this need — namely the up-to-date engineering knowledge accompanied by new building products such as reinforced concrete and glass — had, just before this period, found its way into the construction market.

On another front, social developments in those years had reached a sensitive stage whose outcome was the establishment of a new social, economic, and political order, on the basis of the ideology of Marxism, in Russia; the wave of which, more or less with a time-lag, reached the other parts of the world. In the new order, the structure of ownership shifted from individual to society, and the ownership of the means of production passed to society; the social equality of classes became a sacred ideal. The spread of mass and inexpensive housing production for the low-income segment, in the historical slice mentioned, was a kind of embodiment and reflection of this way of thinking in the world of architecture and urban planning. Of course, in this very matter, the effect of Europe's problems during the inter-war years — especially the housing shortage — as a market with a high volume of demand in steering thinking toward mass-housing, should not be lost sight of. It should also be recalled that the mass production of manufactured items itself required standardisation and attention to a system of rules.

In any event, the general current of modern architecture was established on the basis of new methods and capacities and on the foundation of new aims and ideals, and organised itself in accordance with the spirit of the age. Mies van der Rohe, one of the most important architects of the modern movement, has clearly expressed this matter: "There is no link between architecture and the invention of new forms. The essence of architecture has nothing to do with personal taste; rather, it depends on the matter that the time and space we live in give it order."

From ancient Greece, and from Plato and Aristotle, to the Pragmatism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and on to the present day, the dual subject of beauty and usefulness — or, in similar terms, art and utility — has always been discussed. The trace of this matter, namely the manner of dealing with two domains of human activity as independent categories and yet, at the same time, in connection with each other, can be followed from far back to Vitruvius, and after him, through the developments of the early twentieth century in architecture, up to today. In the first half of the twentieth century, particular historical conditions had come about in which the position of each of these two notions in the process of the formation of architecture and other products had to be clarified. John Dewey (1842–1910), the only Pragmatist thinker who took up the subject of aesthetics, in his treatise "Art as Experience" in 1934, expressed his belief in placing art within the field of life and paying attention to the use of art in life, and emphasised that in museums and galleries art becomes distanced from life. Such a view, in fact, ascribes a kind of practical status to artistic activities.

On another side, architects and architectural thinkers in Austria and Germany at the end of the nineteenth century took up important questions in this regard. Otto Wagner, the senior of Vienna's architects, believed that beautiful things are those that are not useful; and Adolf Loos, one of the most influential of these architects, held that only tombs and monuments (non-functional buildings) are essentially to be regarded as "art". Such a view of the artistic and the functional dimensions of the building was directed at emphasising and giving importance to its functional aspect. Sullivan likewise, in those years in America, used the famous sentence "form follows function" to describe the qualities of the new architecture — a sentence today known as the motto of functionalist architecture. In my view, taking this expression as an instruction in the process of architectural design — that is, deriving forms from functions — is highly naive. The expression was, in truth, a symbolic slogan and a brief manifesto for the introduction of the blossoming ideals of a new era of architecture which was taking shape on the prepared and fertile ground of the new age. In this horizon, according to the requirements and ideals of the time, practical necessities (functions) had to take priority over artistic and aesthetic needs (forms as the locus of beauty's manifestation) — and this priority, considered at higher levels and in a horizon of everyday usage, was the focus of attention.

There is another view on this subject as well, which is important. Leonardo Benevolo, the distinguished Italian researcher of the history of architecture, holds that the concept of "form follows function" never meant that practical needs took priority over formal needs; rather, it was the clarification of the position of both components in the new horizon of cities. He maintains that formal values — which had previously remained at the margins, stagnant, as a particular domain separate from human experience — had now found the opportunity to be integrated, as a manifestation of inner conduct of the human being, into the dialectic of useful mechanisms and into the territory of everyday experience. He also believes that the leaders of the modern movement in the second decade of the twentieth century were focused only on those interests. They did not want to convince people that modern architecture is more beautiful than ancient architecture; rather, their emphasis was on the better functioning of modern architecture — for this architecture, by solving and addressing societal needs, established a better connection.

The Werkbund association in Germany, in the years before the First World War, was among the first centres in which attention was paid to the two subjects of art and use, and also of handicraft and machine industries. Because of disputes between the partisans of each of these two components, this association was driven nearly to the brink of dissolution. Gropius, whose professional personality had been substantially formed in the Werkbund, as the director of the Bauhaus school, did not give preference to either of the two subjects over the other and sought, through suitable teaching, to give objective form to art and to functional needs in the new horizon of life.

In his teaching cycles, the thinking of handicraft and that of industry were divided into two stages, the first being the prelude to the teaching of the second. In Gropius's view, handicraft formed the qualitative pole and the creative nourishment of the system of industrial production, and led to the design of a prototype³, while machine industry constituted the quantitative pole of this system and produced the article based on the prototype, on a mass scale and at a fitting price. This system was, in truth, a bridge between artistic creativity and the field of everyday functions, accessible to the public. The aim of this method was actually to assign a certain role to artists in the cycle of the economy of industrial production in the contemporary world; in other words, to define the role of art in industrial society and to put it to use on a scale fitting the new social system.

That is, a society in which equality of the various strata of the community in benefiting from goods, and the priority of society's interests over those of individuals, had been placed at the centre. In this period, for almost the first time, the body of tasks that had previously rested on the shoulders of a single individual was divided among separate competencies and embraced a wide span from urban planning to applied artefacts. On the other side, this group activity was founded on shared understanding, on the negation of individualistic features, and on a rational footing. In Benevolo's view, this kind of rationalism stands in contrast to a sterile, individualistic rationalism, and is objectified on the basis of understanding the views of the collective; and according to him, this matter is the genuine translation of rationalism, or rationalism of the moderns, and distinguishes it from the rationalism of the Enlightenment philosophers. In the view of Gropius, a deliberate, patient, and universally accessible rationalism was the visible embodiment of this very modern rationalism.

In the present article, the principal components effective in the emergence of modern architecture, as well as functionalism and some of the principal roots of this phenomenon, have been briefly examined; and six subjects have been mentioned as the main factors shaping the modern architectural movement, and correspondingly functionalism — each of which I addressed briefly. I hope on another occasion to be able to take up the views of the prominent architects of the first half of the twentieth century on functionalism and the concept of function, and two other fundamental subjects, namely: critical currents toward functionalism, and the concept of function and its place in the design process.