textsFigures of architecture and thought : German architecture culture, 1880-1920

348 Pages·1990·23.401 MB·English

by  Francesco Dal Co

~ German iWomcsernc:
1880-1920 —
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‘RIZZOLI | eo eeeneaee ans
NEW YORK peace" y -
The debate over the meaning of modernity was waged
with unparalleled brilliance by German architects and
rhatccll (craatel urtamd seme (ol(cmolanectemmettetciccrcrelsomrreveumeractee
“ning of the twentieth century. The key concepts cen-_
tered about such terms as “home,” “dwelling,” “project,”
and “language.” Among the protagonists were figures
like Peter Behrens, Henry van de Velde, and Hermann
Muthesius; Alois Riegl, Georg Simmel, and Georg
Lukacs: Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, and
Martin Heidegger. In four thematically interwoven
chapters—including essays on the German Werkbund
and the intellectual background of Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe—the author acutely interprets a cultural milieu
that gave birth to the modern movement in Germany
and Europe. An anthology of important primary docu-
ments—with writings by Hermann Hesse, Heinrich
Tessenow, Adolf Behne, and others—concludes the
book.
ipu itelacrreom DY) mQeo mccria lawetue llcceallucmlandslom Cietavuce)
Universitario di Architettura in Venice and is Visiting
Professor at Yale University School of Architecture.
Among his other writings published by Rizzoli are Carlo
Scarpa: The Complete Works (with Giuseppe Mazzariol);
Mario Botta: Architecture 1960-1985: Kevin Roche; and
Modern Architecture, volumes 1 and 2 (with Manfredo
‘Tafurt).
RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS. INC.
300 Park Avenue South, New York. NY 10010
Figures of Architecture and Thought
German Architecture Culture 1880-1920

Figures of
Architecture and
Thought
German Architecture Culture 1880-1920
Francesco Dal Co
‘RZZOLI
Figures of Architecture and Thought: German Architecture Culture
1880-1920 is the second volume in the series Rizzoli Essays on
Architecture.
Editor: Joan Ockman
Designer: Massimo Vignelli
Typography: A & S Graphics, Wantagh, New York
Printed and bound in the United States of America
Chapters 1 and 2 first published in Italian in the book Abstare nel
moderno by Francesco Dal Co, © 1982 by Gius. Laterza & Figli
Spa.
Chee 3 first published in Teorte del moderno: Architettura
Germania 1880-1920 by Francesco Dal Co, © 1982 by Gius.
Laterza & Figli Spa.
Chapter 4 first published in Mzes Reconsidered: His Career, Legacy,
and Disciples, © 1986 by The Art Institute of Chicago.
Chapters 1—4 translated from the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli.
“The City” from Stories of Five Decades by Hermann Hesse,
translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. English
translation © 1954, 1972 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
Published in the United States of America in 1990 by
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
300 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010
Copyright © 1990 Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without permission in writing from Rizzoli
International Publications, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Dal Co, Francesco, 1945-
Figures of architecture and thought.
Bibliography: p.
1. Architecture—Germany. 2. Architecture,
Modern—19th century—Germany. 3. Architecture,
Modern—20th century—Germany. 4. Modernism (Art)—
Influence. 5. Architecture—Philosophy. 6. Philosophy,
German. 7. Aesthetics, German. I. Title.
NA1067.D35 1990 720'.943 85-—42959
ISBN 0-8478-0654-5 (pbk.)
Contents
Introduction to the English Edition
Chapter 1
Dwelling and the “Places” of Modernity 12
Chapter 2
Projects, Words, Things 82
Chapter 3
On the Cultural Tradition of the Werkbund 170
Chapter 4
Mies 262
Appendix 287
The Modern Hermann Bahr 288
The Future of Our Culture Richard Dehmel, Ludwig
Gurlitt, Julius Hart, Kurt Lasswitz, Friedrich Naumann,
Bertha von Suttner, Ferdinand Avenarius, Peter Behrens,
Georg Simmel, Peter Altenberg, Alfred Fretherr von Berger,
Henry van de Velde 222
Metropolis, Town, Village Heinrich Tessenow 313
The City Hermann Hesse a
Art, Craft, Technology Adolf Behne 324
List of Illustrations Soe)
Wherever the fundamental decisions of our history happen
to fall, whether we embrace or reject them, ignore or explore
them further, there 1s the World transformed.
Martin Heidegger, Holzwege, 1950
In history, ideas do not multiply in a straight line, since
conflicting forces grow out of them; in the same way, the
clock’s wetght. moves not only the spheres, but also its coun-
terweight.
Equilibrium 1s thereby reestablished, and the forms cor-
responding to ideas ave prevented from assuming monstrous
proportions or vrigidifying in them. This is, in the realm of
the free will, the very same process that in zoology cuts short
the shoots of growth.
Ernst Junger, Strahlungen, 1950
Introduction to the English Edition
In a book that I am very fond of, Marcel Proust et les
signes, Gilles Deleuze says, “We are wrong to believe in
facts, for they are only signs. We are wrong to believe
in truths, for they are only interpretations.” This short
quotation perhaps affords me the best means of setting
Out an introduction to this new publication of an old
book, whose pages are tangible proof of how every
interpretation occurs in the act of reflecting on the lack
of finality in one’s work.
This said, it seems appropriate to recall that the writ-
ings collected here were conceived together and date
back to 1982. The time that has passed between then
and now obviously has not been without changes. If I
were to approach today many of the themes which I
gave a first reading seven years ago, I would be obliged
to adopt a rather different order of discourse, to em-
ploy different critical instruments, and probably to bring
them together in a different historical perspective. In
other words, this book today would not have the same
characteristics, for the attention that the past requires is
truly inexhaustible. Every time a subject is summoned
up, inevitably something else has to be said about it; the
result is that it is possible to bring back from every voy-
age taken in the circuits of history and the labyrinths of
time different interpretations and accounts.
Each book, however, is the fruit of a particular ex-
perience, and along with being a work of interpretation,
it reflects at least a shred of a more complex human and
intellectual experience, one that constitutes the solidest
bond between the author and his work—even if this is
not always welcome. For to this particular copartner-
ship, to tell the truth, the author, even prior to the
reader, risks falling victim. It is also—though not only—
for this reason that the volume now being presented had
to wait so long before coming to its new readers. In fact,
I have always found it tedious to have to go back to
works of mine that were already in print—all the more
so since the flaws in such concluded works tend to be
fatally revealed when reread after a length of time, their
expression belonging to past history as well as to the
past of the author, making distasteful any reordering or
8 Introduction to the English Edition
revision. Given this reluctance or laziness on my part,
such revisions do not have the importance one might
like them to have. Nor has this book fared differently
in its successive Italian editions, for which I have pro-
vided only corrections of typographical errors; and I
have treated the present edition much the same. To
have reworked the Italian text for this translation would
have involved, as I said, a radical remaking, first of all
taking into consideration the long length of time that has
elapsed since the first edition. In recent years signifi-
cant new contributions have been made to both the his-
torical and the theoretical problematics discussed here.
Not only the notes and bibliographic apparatus would
have merited a serious adjustment, but also—how shall
I put it?—the general perspective of the historiographic
research, which has changed. But to have done justice
to all these transformations would have meant that pre-
cious little of the original character of the book would
have survived. Thus the decision to present it in its
original guise, trusting to its initial qualities.
The time that has passed has not produced only neg-
ative effects. When the book appeared in Italian, for
exclusively editorial reasons, it was opportune to pres-
ent it in two separate volumes, the one entitled Abztare
nel moderno; the other, Teorte del moderno: Architettura
Germania 1880-1920. The second of the two volumes
was supplemented with a long anthology of German
texts relevant to the historical period under considera-
tion. At the time it was deemed useful to publish this in
order to offer access to the documentary and critical
sources especially to students in the architecture schools,
for whom the language is at times an insurmountable
obstacle. The book, however, was originally conceived
without these “didactic” ends in mind. The compromise
which I then voluntarily accepted no longer has any
reason to be. Thus with the present edition the book
reacquires its original structure, even if this has in-
volved the omission of most of the documentary an-
thology.
Also with time, the text has found a less hasty con-
clusion. With the final essay on Mies van der Rohe, ab-
sent from the Italian edition, and for which I have taken
the Greek term areté as theme (in spite of the difficulty
of translating this word into our modern languages), it
seems to me that the trajectory of the book becomes