The Evolution of Modern Architecture 

On the Origin of Styles 

 

Chapter Seven: The Emergence of the Modern  

 

 

1. Modernism: the Fundamentals  

 

In the midst of the hundred or, indeed thousands of buildings produced in the period between the 19th. and early 20th. century the avant-garde managed to extract and identify the key elements of the Modern. They did not need to invent these forms, they were already there immanent in the great mass of buildings around them.  

 

During this period, these forms were used in some of the buildings all of the time or in all of the buildings some of the time. In other words, most works produced remained somewhat ambiguous, hovering between the classical/free style consensus and inevitably retaining elements of that period while incorporating some of the new stripped down forms evolving out of the great mass of work produced. And why not? This was a period of transition in architecture. Selection and combination of forms to create a building would involve a compromise between the known and the necessary; between familiar forms and the drive towards freedom of expression. This was not, for the majority of architects an ideological concern. It was a matter of the pragmatics of design where the need to retain the formulae of the past and its certainties met the unforeseeable functions and spaces of the Industrial Revolution. 

  

Even with its ambiguities, here we have the emergence of a new architecture, a new consensus defined by an increasing but not total similarity of forms between the buildings being built at the time. While architecture may be defined as the similarity between different buildings, the particular characteristics of that similarity, the set of forms that it uses, defines the style, in this case, the Modern with its geometric and planar tendencies.  

 

These primary forms evolving out of the great matrix of 19th.century architecture would include:  

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The Right Angle and the Cube 

 

The predominance of the right angle and its three dimensional version in the cube defined the geometric framework – the Grid within which the free forms of the building program could be expressed and, importantly, could be contained and ordered. This was a geometry whose origins in architecture lay far back in the classical past and, after the Middle Ages was recovered as an organizing principle during the Renaissance. Even when elaborated by the Baroque or smothered by decoration during the 19th century, there it was as the controlling agent in many of the buildings of the 19th. Century. The reductive tendencies of the Modern process would isolate and specialize its organizational function as the same tendencies would identify and stereotype the underlying geometries of the heavily decorated elements of architecture, namely, the column and wall. The result was the revelation of their geometric basis in the cylinder and the plane and, ultimately their ‘universal’ application to every and all possible architectural combinations. Here it was, the possibility that the architect could install these neutral forms in new buildings without at the same time drawing in numerous stylistic constrictions that would constrain the pragmatic organization of the building. Here was a freedom of sorts. Yet architects could refer back to a general organizing principle to contain these diverse elements: the Platonic figures of the circle and the square that could still be extracted from the morass of 19th. Century complications. So here we have freedom but within limits; pragmatism of layout contained within a Platonic frame. This is, as with so many other aspects of the 19th. Century is a reduction, a stereotyping of one aspect of classical planning no longer hidden underneath layers of decoration but made explicit as the organizational principle for all buildings no matter how diverse their spatial requirements. Each aspect of the post-classical architecture, including its geometric basis was identified and articulated to meet new conditions. In other words, nothing was lost from the past.  

 

1.  Skeleton Frame or Grid  

 

The skeleton frame in reinforced concrete, cast iron or steel, imported from building types which were ‘not quite architecture’ (warehouses, exhibition buildings and civil engineering works), could also be considered as an extension of the ‘structural rationalism’ of the early 19th century which sought to establish structure and building practices as the basis for a new architecture. With its final acceptance and assimilation into mainstream architecture by the turn of the century, the skeleton frame provided the key technical and expressive element for the new architecture – a virtual order simulating Classicism - which could lock together and unify the now highly specialized forms of the Modern.  

 

1. The Free Plan  

 

Made possible by the use of the skeleton frame, this aspect of the new architecture finally resolves the problem of finding a spatial organization within which elemental forms could be freely distributed. What had started as the most pragmatic attempt to incorporate the demands of new building types into existing compositions and the consequent functionalist attempt to open these compositions up to the possibility of new spatial arrangements now ends with a plan type where any and every possibility could be accommodated; all bound of course by the all-encompassing right angle. 

 

1. Functional Isolation of all Elements  

 

The extremes of articulation – the need to adapt forms to new functions - experienced by architecture between the 19th and early 20th century ultimately results in ‘exploding’ the form of buildings into a set of highly specialized elements virtually held together by the order of the skeleton frame – the 3D grid. External walls, windows, stairs, internal partitions, ducting and all the other elements of the buildings fabric could now be designed and placed according to their discrete functional requirements. Taken on its own, this functional (and ultimately formal) isolation of architectural elements within a building turns the building into an assembly of parts consistent with similar tendencies in 19th century architecture already discussed. It is a much more extreme version of course because the available technology had made it possible to physically express this formal process and, inevitably to exaggerate it. There was one major difference however: this collision of elements now took place within the virtual order of the cubic frame, itself functionally isolated from other elements. The potential for chaos in the free distribution of elements was therefore contained, literally and figuratively, by the now Platonically-inspired cube of space defined by the skeleton frame. 

 

1. Asymmetrical General Organization 

 

Symmetry had always been a somewhat arbitrary imposition on the form of buildings, derived as it was from the tri-partite organization of classical precedents. Buildings that used symmetry as their main means of composition usually involved some ritual or symbolic activity such as religious, monarchic or state functions where the central axis and adjoining symmetries emphasised the hierarchic, institutional and ritual purpose of the building. The movement and attention of people using the building had for ritualistic reasons been directed along an axis towards some notional focal point or other. While there is no doubt that 19th century developments of what one could call the Neo-Classical plan type provided an elegant and rational way of organizing large building complexes, these were usually of the institutional type. The impact of secular or non-hierarchic building types brought about by the new industrial economy and the pragmatic attempts to incorporate their requirements into available plan types inevitably led to the demise of symmetry as the overall template for designing buildings. Functionalist analysis of the plan provoked by the need to open up the closed forms of Classicism to new functions led to the articulation of the functionally different parts of the building in quite a literal sense. The design of large scale building complexes now became, in effect a the scaled-up equivalent of the free distribution of elements noted in the previous section, controlled in this case only by the implacable use of the right angle.  

 

1. External Wall as Membrane  

 

A consequence of the inclusion of the concrete skeleton frame into architecture and the elimination of the loadbearing function of the external wall, led to the development of the ‘free façade’. The wall had become specialized into a weather-excluding membrane drawn across the face of the building. Stripped of the need to include the ‘punched hole’ windows, regularly spaced, required by masonry technology, the design of the wall could be based on the functionally convenient (‘free’) placing of windows and entrances. The demand for light and transparency in the form of buildings – two key issues in the developing ideology of Modern architecture- could now be fully realized resulting finally in the use of the glass curtain wall. But  

 

1. Textureless Surfaces 

 

The elemental nature of the forms of Modern architecture, derived as they were from the reduction of historical forms to their most essential characteristics that had taken place since the 19th century inevitably precluded the expression of natural materials or textured surfaces on walls. While the ideologists of the Modern movement used ‘building-as-machine’ analogies to explain or publicly justify the smooth surfaces of Modern architecture, their real sources lies in the logic of functional analysis, articulation and reduction which had brought about Modern architecture itself. This continuous reduction finally required that the wall be seen purely as an enclosing plane devoid of references to its making or, with the character of natural materials, to its origins in the natural world. In this is it consistent with the 19th century reduction of the specific characteristics of the historical styles in order to make their forms interchangeable and generally applicable across a wide spectrum of functions. The primary focus of design had to be the specific function of the wall not its origins or any associations outside that function. This was also the rationale that lay behind the ubiquitous use of white colour on the buildings of early Modern eliminating any associations other than that of an enclosing plane apart, of course from its underlying role as another more pragmatic way of unifying the dispersed elements of the Modern composition. The stereotyped white, smooth cube containing a group of diverse elements became the symbol of the new architecture; the apotheosis of the Modern Type. 

 

1. The Free distribution of Masses 

 

By the 1920s the avant-garde had produced numerous examples of the free distribution of volumes throughout the site. The radical articulation of these blocks would, at first sight seem to be a purely functionalist solution to the organization of the building as a whole. In other words a clear identification of the various functions of the building and their three dimensional definition as separate masses connected by corridors. With hindsight of course this supposedly functionalist approach to organization might seem to be utterly uneconomic (not in the financial sense of course), denying the obviously interrelated nature of the functions in a building while, at the same time massively increasing the surface area of the building as a whole. So too it dissolved the coherence of the project by separating out the different functions of what after all were simply different aspects of the same building program. (Differences after all are just differences within the same organism. They are not oppositions which have to be separated out to avoid possible clashes of function). Whether the visible coherence of a building is an architectural or urbanistic necessity is of course debatable but it is clear that these Modernist configurations were clearly ideological necessities. They proclaimed the new architectural freedom that had arisen from the matrix of 19th century stylistic restrictions and the demise of the perspective-driven approach to the design of buildings.   

 

For the avant-garde at least the dissolution of the form of buildings into their functional components spatially separated into discrete volumes denoted a new realm of freedom in architecture. No longer entangled in the matrix of historicist stylistic concerns, buildings could be ‘what they wanted to be’. Yet, again from hindsight, this was the product of an unresolved analysis. A bit like Humpty Dumpty they could take the functional problem to bits but could not put it back together again, or, saw no need to do so. After all here was the ultimate reflection of architectural freedom. In effect, they built the diagram of the functional forces within the building program.  

 

2.0 The Modern as Evolutionary Synthesis 

 

Modern architecture represents the successful fusion of the demands for both freedom and order in the design of buildings. The grid and free plan basis of the new architecture can be seen as extended transformations of the attributes of Classicism and the Free Style of the 19th century. The ‘trick’ so to speak, in merging these attributes was to utilize them at different levels of a buildings organization: one acting as the containing order and the other as the pragmatically-disposed contents. Thus the fundamental contradiction between them – between freedom and order - could be resolved (at least temporarily). Architecture was once more able to freely represent the wide range of new social institutions with a single set of forms. It had evolved from being a collection of different styles each locked into some particular environmental niche (where a particular style became closely associated with a particular social function) to a general purpose language capable of dealing with any and all possible social functions.  

 

To get to this point, architecture had evolved to match the seismic changes that had taken place in the social and industrial landscape during the 19th century. As in any other dynamic system, architecture’s evolution is a result of cumulative adaptive changes taking place at the level of the individual agents who collectively make up the system. In this case that means the architects who design individual buildings. It is they who must adapt available forms to suit the particular building types required of them. Since each building can only be built once, each design is inevitably an experiment; a matter of trial and error in its attempt to manifest the dynamics of an institution in built form. The design process involves a pragmatic selection, modification and combinations of form drawn from the available repertoire of other architects work (and, of course from the cumulative experience of each individual architect). In this sense, each building can be seen as an adaptation of what is already available. A multitude of such adaptations produces the stylistic shift mentioned earlier; in other words the evolution of the system. Thus: while individuals adapt, systems evolve. Conditions in the 19th century challenged architects’ abilities to match the form of institutions and their building types with appropriate formal responses. At the individual level the only way out was, in each case to compromise the forms of a now inexpressive architecture to match the new reality. Each of these buildings then becomes a formal source (in whole or in part) for all other architects’ work; architects who were facing the same kinds of problems. Whether the solutions were good or bad, clumsy or elegant, the cumulative result of this mutual exchange was an increasingly radical shift in the character of architecture at the end of the century. The common denominator in all these experiments and one which defined the axis of development towards Modern forms was the search for a formula which could combine the freedom to express the realities of the new institutions with an order which could contain and control the pragmatic disposal of forms. It was this underlying requirement which directed the process of ‘natural selection’ that took place in the mutual exchange of experience between architects; directed it to identifying and filtering out examples of prototypes and elements which could serve one or the other of these two key functions. Over time the formal power of structural rationalism and the pragmatic power of the free distribution of forms would be highlighted and made conventional by the processes of cumulative selection played out in the exchange between a large number of architects. 

 

3.0 From Chaos to Order 

 

In a great arc of experiment architecture moves from the certainties of one classical architecture to another; from the clarities of the Renaissance through the multiple images of the 19th. century to the Modern Movement. Four hundred years of exploitation of a single theme results in its final fragmentation and the establishment of a new architecture. Now, again it would seem, there was one solution, both ordered and flexible for many different problems in architecture but now centred on the grid and the free plan as the underlying theme. 

 

Here is evolution in architecture; from one architectural species to another through a constant and collective process of adaptation to the unique circumstances of many different buildings.  Yet in this constant process of evolution there are clear and highly visible stages of development ranging in the first instance from the establishment of a consensus of forms followed by a stereotyping of those forms (Development) and, finally a fragmentation of the consensus into an increasing number of variations on the original theme (Involution). It has already been pointed out that there is no reason why this process of fragmentation of form that took place during the 19th. century should not continue indefinitely. Without some major intervention it could result in the most elaborate and decorative schemes reminiscent of some extreme aspects of Baroque or Hindu architecture. What changed the history of architecture in the West was the intervention of the Industrial Revolution as a radically new environment not only with new technologies but more importantly with new building types that exploded the spatial possibilities of Classical variants. A new architecture had to arise out of the mass of pragmatic attempts to save the value of learned experience. No ideology and no heroic compositions produced the new architecture, just a large number of individual experiments which criss-crossed the architectural network and filtered out the two instruments which would generate the new architecture: the grid and the free plan. One can see in this a specialization of functions where the wall simply becomes a membrane and space flows freely within a skeleton structural grid. It was from this combination of forms that the Modern Movement was born. 

 

4.0 From Emergence to the Developmental Phase  

 

The emergence of a new architecture is an entirely visible and material event. Architects do not wait around for a new architecture to happen. They do not search the skies for the imminent zeitgeist to illuminate their thinking. Nor do they wait to imitate the models provided to them by the avant-garde. They are too busy solving current problems of fitting appropriate forms to the needs of new institutions. In other words of designing buildings and it is in this most pragmatic of activities that the new architecture arises. The emergence of the new architecture could be seen in the growing number of new planar and cubic-inspired forms which began to arise in the midst of so many still historicist buildings. Among the great number of buildings being built, there they were, their strange and stripped down forms suggesting solutions to not quite architectural problems which, in a sense they were as solutions to extreme typological problems which could not be resolve by historicist or traditional means. Yet by the early years of the twentieth century there were more and more of these strange forms flickering across the face of architectural production as the possibilities of the grid and free plan combination became apparent. It was not that there was a sudden conversion to this new typology amongst architects, after all one could not jettison four hundred years of experience without some resistance. By the 1920s the resistance took the form of the Moderne where rigorously rational building organization was ‘civilized’ with the most sophisticated decorative devices. The fact that those decorative devices were heavily geometric in character and inserted into stripped down classicist forms pointed to the way things were going. Here we have the emergence of the new architecture in the early years of the twentieth century: remnants of historicism, transitional (Moderne) forms and outright Modernist buildings. Yet underlying this drive towards Modernism is the pragmatism of the whole architectural enterprise. Buildings must be built to specification, in some cases under the most extreme programmatic pressures. So, even in late 19th. Century architecture we have the Chicago architecture where frame construction replaced masonry in order to erect major office towers and so on to the New York towers of the 1930s. Was this architecture? Of course. These architects trained in the best classical traditions were solving new problems with panache while giving a nod to their classical background in the (admittedly restrained) decorative embellishments they attached to these great towers. Clearly one must show due deference to the classical past while solving the problems of the present. 

 

4.1 A Note on Decoration 

 

Here we have the interesting question of the function of decoration in the evolution, of architecture. Decoration, almost by definition is a secondary activity applied to the primary forms of the building. It is a matter of improvisation in the sense that it is used to articulate the character of primary forms whatever they are. In an Involutionary period where buildings are increasingly similar to one another decoration distinguishes one from another while in an evolutionary period where there is radical change, decoration provides a uniformity of expression (derived from its classical past) that integrates the character of different buildings. While for the architects involved, decoration was seen as an attempt to ‘beautify’ the building, from a later perspective it can be seen as an attempt to give the building a provenance, a connection with the authoritative past. To give it’s pragmatic forms an historical credibility and thus a link to many other buildings or to distinguish one building from another while retaining that classical core, that authoritative organization. What we have, of course is that decoration provides a remedial function in architecture resolving clashes between the present and the past, between necessity and idealism. Equally, decoration links the form of different buildings giving them a shared character no matter how diverse their characteristics and organization. In a period where architecture is fragmenting into variations on itself, decoration provides the ‘glue’ that holds architecture together and defines its function as the similarity between buildings.  

 

4.2 The Collective Nature of Architectural Change 

 

It is pointless to imagine a history of architecture without recognizing the work of thousands of architects who attempt to solve their very individual design problems without recourse to the models provided by the avant-garde. It is their work, good, bad or indifferent which forms the basis of avant-garde analysis, filtering and, ultimately synthesizing the many design currents within that great matrix. Indeed, on that basis one could suggest that it is the work of these many anonymous architects that provide the basis for avant-garde experimentation. Nothing comes from nothing. The avant-garde extract from this great evolving matrix of work the key elements of a new architecture as yet inarticulate. Inarticulate in the sense that their elemental characteristics derived from the exigencies of new design problems, problems without provenance or tradition. Problems in other words that demanded the most pragmatic of solutions which in many cases used the frame and free plan as their template. Economical in terms of design effort and return these strange and elemental forms spread throughout the whole of architectural production becoming stylistic nodal points which offered in themselves a potential repertoire of forms for other more mainstream design projects. They became points of exchange in that great matrix of exchange which defined architecture itself. Why these elemental forms, the grid and free plan should spread and become the standard formula for future buildings lies in the changing environment in which the new architecture arose. Clearly the Industrial Revolution triggered the search and discovery of the flexibility of the grid and free plan open to continuous pragmatic interpretation but in every period there are a number of styles in existence filling one or another programmatic niches. One could imagine that this new cubic style might have remained just another niche style catering to industrial building programs. After all, at the beginning of the 20th. Century public buildings, churches and housing were still expressed in a cosy Gothic vernacular style while town halls and banks were expressed in an admittedly subdued classical style. Each of these building types had their appropriate architectural expression including industrial or semi-industrial buildings which utilized the grid and free plan to solve their particular problems. How was it possible that this niche style could become the dominant style? The answer is, as usual the environment which shifts in the 20th century from the essentially merchantile capitalism of the 19th century to the corporate capitalism of the 20th. Capitalism now supercharged by the needs of war and the rationalization of a production process geared to mass production now stood along with the new power of the state as the environment within which architecture would have to work.  

 

4.3 The Post War World 

 

In a Europe devastated by war the idea that the remnants of classicism or the folksy confections of Gothic vernacular could solve the gigantic rebuilding problems of Europe could only be seen as a joke. It is no surprise that the avant-garde (Bauhaus) in Europe saw (before the war) that mass production of buildings (particularly urban housing) and domestic products was the way forward and that the stylistic means for doing so lay in the flexibility of the cubic and planar forms of the Modern Movement. It was not that other styles became extinct. There are always several styles in existence in architecture at any time no matter what the environmental conditions for the simple reason that the environment is not a monolithic set of conditions but a variety of economic and cultural niches which require or at least provide a setting for a diverse group of styles to coexist. In the 1930s for instance one can simultaneously find examples of a stripped down Neo-Classicism in the totalitarian fantasies of Soviet Social Realism and Nazi building programs and equally rigid versions of this style could be found in London and Paris. One can also find huge swathes of suburban developments expressed in the reassuringly domestic forms of the Gothic vernacular while Neo-Gothicised environments could be found on American university campuses. Meanwhile the Chrystler building and the Rockerfeller Centre were being built in New York and the European avant-garde had already produced numerous examples of how the cubic architecture could be applied to domestic and institutional buildings. In many of these examples there was still the essentially Victorian sense of appropriate form where the character of the building was defined in terms of its function; after all, what could a suburban house be other than a minuscule gothicky country cottage or what else could a university campus look like other than the medieval models of Oxford and Cambridge? Design by association. 

 

However, in the post-conflict world of the late 1940s, the environmental game had changed. In Europe, the state building programs used to resuscitate shattered cities required a more comprehensive and flexible set of forms to re-establish the urban, domestic and industrial fabric of the post war world. Necessity rather than Romanticism became the order of the day and the architectural means of achieving these colossal tasks were already available in the pristine set of forms provided by the Modern. In theory at least these forms could be combined to express any given building program without the need to deal with obscure stylistic rules. The examples and models of how to combine these forms to meet the needs of new building types had already been established in the late 20s and 30s either in the form of the increasingly simplified forms which had spread across architectural production or in the avant-garde models which had shown how these forms could be elegantly combined to deal with new or existing institutions. In other words the template for the new architecture was already there; nothing had to be invented only the selection and combination of these clean forms were necessary to define and organize the shape of many new buildings and, indeed the urban form of the re-built cities. 

 

5.0 The Developmental Phase 

 

It is at this point that one can refer to the Developmental stage of Modern architecture. Previously it was suggested that an architecture goes through three different stages in its history before it is replaced by another. These three stages: Emegence, Development and Involution define the history of an architecture. In the context of the post-war world described above one can see that by the 1940s Modern Architecture had entered its Developmental phase. That is, it was given the opportunity to apply its forms to a whole range of building types. It became, in effect the standard formula for building production at that point. Again, it was the environment, architecture’s eco-system that allowed the Modern to develop from a niche activity to that of the dominant style of the 20th. Century. The Emergent stage of this style from the mid 19th century simply allowed it to come into existence through the exigencies of the Industrial Revolution by defining its basic set of forms (in this case the grid and free plan). In the Developmental stage the issue is whether this set could handle a whole range of building types, some new and some old. Experiments in the late 20s and 30s showed that to some extent it could do so. The question was, how expressive could this elemental style be. After all, architecture is multidimensional requiring a response not only to the programmatic circumstances, namely to the organization of the building, but also to a visible expression of the nature of the building. That is, how to trigger a particular response from observers. In a sense to elicit from them a desired psychological state that matches the intention of the building, (for instance, state, religious, domestic, commercial or industrial). Not just its function but, given the context, the way that function is expressed; the statement itself and its several meanings. To be clear, this is not the naïve ‘Design by Association’. For the Modern the issue was not to provoke associations with other and necessarily historical styles and periods in order to give a public understanding of the nature of the building. Rather it was to make the building itself through its combination of forms and materials elicit such a response; a response defined in terms of the expectations that would be appropriate for this function. The question was, would these almost diagrammatic forms of the Modern Movement be able to elicit such responses? For instance, would the school look like a factory or would the town hall look like the insane asylum? Would Modern Architecture be able to differentiate between different building types? Would it be able to express the differences between different buildings – the most serious problem for classicism and, indeed for any dominant set of architectural forms.  

 

5.1 Development as Articulation 

 

Here is the real function of the Developmental stage in an architecture, to develop its capacity to express the full range of building types that the new environment would generate. After all, this embryonic architecture was composed of the most diagrammatic forms and derived from the most essential geometric elements of Classicism combined with the casually organized forms of the Gothic vernacular. Was it possible to express the nature (function, institutional status, behavioural expectations) of a building through these elemental forms? Was this architecture sophisticated enough to represent the complexity of all the new and unforeseen building types that would come into existence in the post war world?  The answer could only be that the Modern in this embryonic stage could handle some of these functions adequately some of the time but given its elemental character, it could not adequately represent all of these requirements all of the time; represent in the sense that it could express the public face of these buildings, their public meaning and the formal connotations suggested by the nature of the institution itself. More directly, could the Modern with its pristine forms accurately reflect the identity of the institution? Was Modern architecture given its essentially geometric character able to do what architectures must always do, namely to fully express the nature of a building? Did it have the necessary formal apparatus to do so? So many questions many of which would be articulated during the 50s and 60s as full blown criticisms of the Modern itself. In fact the issue was simply a matter of time; time to elaborate the forms of the Modern, to make it capable of expressing what it needed to express.   

 

During the Developmental period there is a shift from pragmatic to semantic concerns. That is, a necessary elaboration of the forms available for recombination in a building to achieve a fully credible semantic dimension. To use the example given above could the public recognize the difference between one building and another given Modernist forms; the difference between say, the insane asylum and the town hall? In fact during the 50s and 60s this criticism more prosaically stated as the difference between the school and the factory given their similar Modernist forms. Of course there was no direct relationship between the form of the building and its social function. There never had been. For instance, was Classicism or Gothicism an appropriate form for a church or a town hall? Why should there be? There was no necessary organic or historical relationship between them. It was all a matter of the coincidence of habit and historical circumstances, of two historical discourses (architecture and social history) colliding at one point in time. There might be clashes of meaning or association between a style and its use in one social function given the associations that could be made between purely historical periods and the architecture of the time which were fixed in the public memory. Gothicism after all was Christian was it not and there were distinguished churches built in the classical style were there not? But what happens for instance when this sacred Gothic was used for museums or town halls? But architecture had the means to alleviate such problems. For instance, how was it possible to view the difference between one classical building and another or between the character of one style and its social function? The answer was decoration. This improvisational technique allowed architects to identify one building from another and, theoretically, to identify the function of individual buildings by displaying (to the cognoscenti at least) quite explicit signs about the function of the buildings. For the Modern however that kind of improvisation, that kind of supposed ‘superficiality’ was not available given that ‘decoration was a crime’ according to the avant-garde. But, contrary to most histories of architecture, one must avoid the polemics of the avant-garde in order to see the development of Modernism as it attempts to represent the most diverse set of building types produced in the post war world. For most architects decoration was still an option that served to differentiate one building from another and give each a recognizable identity within the limits of the essentially geometric set of forms available in the early stages of Modernism. How else could this architecture indicate the specific nature of any building given the elementary forms it had at its disposal?  

 

Here we have the problem of a limited vocabulary with which to represent an increasingly wide range of experiences. One must recognize therefore that in the 1930s and the 1940s most buildings attempted to bridge this semiotic gap between the general and the particular, between a limited vocabulary and the complexities it must represent by a discrete use of decoration. Architects, as usual did what they were paid to do, namely solve particular pragmatic or semiotic problems with the possibly limited formal means at their disposal. In most case they would be quite unaware of what the avant-garde were doing and they could therefore include the improvisational apparatus of decoration when necessary. The avant-garde might produce provocative buildings with pure, geometric forms and organization and these might well be seen by some of architects some of the time through magazines or travel but certainly for most architects the imitative or source of exchange would be local networks where the severe forms of the Modern were called on to characterize different buildings. So, this (almost) embryonic set of forms with all its limitations was called on to create a whole new post war physical environment. After all what other set of forms could do so or was available to do so? The historical styles had faded into history apart from a few small scale nostalgic exercises in rural or suburban areas or decorative gestures in urban situations. There is this transitional stage in the history of the Modern. Not the heroic position occupied by the avant-garde in the histories of the Modern Movement where apparently most architects waited with baited breath to discover what they should do next by seeking out avant-garde models but, rather in the mass of undocumented works whose only presence exists in that great repertoire of architecture: the cities.   

 

5.2 Development as an Elaboration of Possibilities 

 

The Developmental phase of an architecture involves the elaboration of its elementary forms to allow them to deal effectively with the complexities of experience. It has already been pointed out that the new style which emerges from its historical antecedents will inevitably be somewhat ‘diagrammatic’ in character given that it is the result of the integration of the most fundamental geometric aspects of previous styles. The planar or cubic elements of the Modern while they could be used to represent many experiences in general lacked the capacity to represent the complexity of particular experiences with any degree of authenticity. It could, in other words represent the general but not the particular characteristics of a building program. Almost inevitably these forms oversimplified the design problems they were used to solve. To that extent public criticism of the Modern was correct. It was too simple and lacked the texture and character of previous architectures although many of these criticisms were based on nostalgia for the familiar forms of the past. At this point in its history it was not the skill of individual architects which could be blamed for this oversimplification of the built environment. It was, rather the inherent limitations of the vocabulary of forms and techniques which was available at that time which posed the problem. This was a problem which could (and would) be solved with time, namely Developmental time where Modern forms would be progressively adapted to handle the complexities of lived experience and its expression in built form.  

 

Once again adaptation is the key mechanism in the shift from one architectural state to another and, again this is achieved by the efforts of many individual architects who adapt the pristine forms of the Modern to suit very particular requirements and, of course to the exchange of experience between those architects. In other words this change in architecture in its Developmental phase still involves the normal processes of design – selection, combination and adaptation of antecedent forms to represent new design problems. The deconstruction of the architecture of the 19th century (an Involutionary state) then the projection, emergence of the Modern and, now its development and elaboration were all the result of the same typological processes recursively applied to architectural form. Emergence, Development and, finally Involution are not, therefore intentions or aspirations on the part of architects no matter what teleological fantasies the avant-garde or architectural historians may espouse. At the level of architecture as a whole there is no one to make such a decision because it is the effect of mass of decisions – a network - and at this top level of the system there is ‘no one there’. Nor are they a carefully considered plan by architects which is put into effect and realized in a whole new state of architecture. They are the unforeseen results of a myriad of individual adaptations exchanged across the architectural network. While in one case and one particular environment this network effect may dissolve one architecture, another state of the environment would trigger the emergence of another architecture. Here is the apparent paradox that the same design processes could in one case produce the decorative and convoluted forms of the 19th century and then dissolve this tightly meshed set of forms into the simple grid and free form of the modern. With the passage of time and constant architectural activity among the mass of architects this same process proceeds to elaborate and develop those same pristine Modern forms into a fully articulate architecture. That is, an architecture, a style, that can express the full complexity of any and all the building programs it is likely to be used for. 

 

Given the constancy of the typological process of selection and combination, the normal processes of architectural activity and the multiple exchanges between architects the only variable factor in this process would be the state of the environment. For instance the 19th century industrial revolution projected a large number of new building types into society. As suggested previously, in this context the formal constraints of the historical styles struggled to freely express the organization of these new problems and resulted in the breakdown of their characteristics into more flexible forms that allowed architects to handle different kinds of projects.  

 

6.0 The Complexification of the Modern 

 

In the post war world of the 40s and 50s the environment changed again not only in kind but in number in the aftermath of a devastating war and the rise of state intervention and the growing power of international corporations. This tumultuous state of things defined the environment of architecture in the post war world. Two processes are evident here. In the first case there is the constant architectural activity of selection, combination and exchange of forms across the whole spectrum of architectural production – the typological process itself. So while a new architectural paradigm – the Modern – may have come to dominate the scene, emerging out of the Involutionary bric-a-brac of the 19th century, underlying this apparent dominance, normal and cumulative processes of design would gradually transform that initial and diagrammatic set of forms into something else. Not towards a new set of forms (that was impossible since one cannot go back in time), but towards an elaboration of the basic Modern set itself. This involved a radical development of the diagrammatic forms of the grid-free plan consensus into a more complex architectural paradigm. In other words the development of that paradigm and its ability to express the difference between different contexts while using the same basic set of forms. At the most basic level of architecture the issue was simple: how to individualize these many different projects within the frame of a grid-free plan organization and within the norms of the Modern set.  

 

This, of course suggests quite rightly that the Developmental phase of an architecture is a natural extension of an emergent architecture. The continual and multiple combinations of that basic set in order to individualize buildings would inevitably over time produce an elaboration of the basic Modern plot. The second process involved in the post war world of architecture was the enormous number of buildings which architecture had to deal with. What this meant was that the timescale for the Development and elaboration of the Modern was dramatically collapsed given the urgency to solve post war infrastructural problems. 

 

One can suggest therefore that the normal processes of architecture which required architects to individualize buildings given their function and context and again, given the multiple exchanges between architects, the result could only be a complexification of the Modern; an elaboration of its forms. After all, while architects might select forms from the typical set of Modern forms which they saw around them in the great matrix of production, they were required to adapt these (virtual) forms to very particular contexts and programs and in turn other architects (many of them) would select and combine those very same forms and adapt them for their own unique building programs.  

 

What could be the result of these multiple operations right across the spectrum of architecture? It could only be a shift in the character of the Modern which in itself is the product of multiple acts of selection and combination. This now dominant style is not a ‘thing’, a Platonic essence which flies above the everyday world of design. It is that world, defined by the statistical prevalence of the cubic and planar forms which give it a particular character. Each selection, each adaptation would, if copied and further adapted would shift the nature of this statistical concept called the Modern from its pristine, geometric origins towards a more complex situational model of reality. More architects working on more projects each of which deserved a unique characterization and adaptation of the basic forms of the Modern would inevitably result (through the exchange mechanism) in a gradual increase in the complexity of forms projected out of the great matrix of production. Given the distillation of 19th century architecture into the elementary forms of the Modern how was it possible that the very same processes could result in an increase in the complexity of forms in the Developmental period in the post war world? At its simplest one could ask the parallel question: where else could this elemental set of forms go other than towards a more complex set of expressions? In other words, the same processes in different environmental conditions produce a different set of results. More fundamentally the recursive application of the same processes to a particular material base (architectural form) will automatically produce continuous change. One does not require special or visionary acts (for instance by the avant-garde) in order to produce change in the system just the collective typological process, the continuous exchange of experience between architects. Changing environmental conditions in the post war world would not alter the basic typological activity of architects which underlies continuous change. This new environment would simply speed things up.  

 

So change at this point in time – the Developmental phase -inevitably involves an increasing complexity of form. One can apply the same analysis to the formation of the Renaissance and its successive manifestations in Mannerist and Baroque forms. The continuous application of the collective selection/combination algorithm could only result in the change from one mode of representation to another more complex way of saying the same thing, or, different ways of the same thing. 

 

Equally, changes in the environment (economic or social relations) do not dictate the character of an architecture whether Gothic, Classical or Modern. That is purely a product of the history of architecture itself and the selection/combination processes applied to it. For instance, the merchantile capitalism of the Renaissance did not produce the architectural forms of that period. What the state of the environment does do is to offer opportunities (or not) for architects to deal with the same or different building types. If such building types are strange or new, then architects will have to search across the current spectrum of forms within the existing vocabulary to find appropriate forms. If no such forms are readily available then architects will combine and recombine existing forms to fit the circumstances. Again, it’s more than a bit like language. If a new social experience requires a new word to describe it then inventing a new an unintelligible word will not suffice. As usual, the way to handle this is, by association, to pull an existing word into play and, with prefixes and suffixes and inflexions condition it to serve as a description.  

 

7.0 Between Freedom and Order 

 

But equally, when there is no real change in the environment architectural activity does not stand still. Architectural activity still involves the exchange and adaptation of forms across a myriad of building programs no matter how stable or even moribund the environment. Even in ultrastable conditions these multiple attempts to characterize particular situations, whether competent or not, will feed back into the mass of work already being produced. After all, architects continue to design buildings whatever the economic or political circumstances. And other architects will continue to use these buildings as a basis for future works by selecting and combining the forms on display. It must be re-emphasized that the dominant style, in this case the Modern (the grid free-plan nexus), is not a separate, Platonic entity to the great mass of architectural works that exist at any one time. It is immanent to those works. It is the statistical analysis of that great mass of work revealing the prevalence or otherwise of certain kinds of forms thus the use of the term ‘dominant’. The Developmental period involves a play on and an adaptation of these dominant forms to suit different contexts but these dominant forms can only be identified by abstracting them from their real existence as parts of parts of real works. For most architects this abstruse analysis is meaningless to their search for readily accessible and usable forms for their projects. For the avant-garde however this kind of analysis is vital. How else would they identify the directions and possibilities inherent in the new architecture without identifying its basic elements and combining them in provocative and exemplary models of what was possible? 

 

One cannot judge the Modern (or Renaissance, or Gothic or whatever) as good or bad for there is no arbiter at this highest level of the game anymore than one can judge the state of the weather or the products of evolution itself. One can, of course judge the architectural quality of individual works drawn from this great mass of work simply because they seek to represent a particular building type, its program, the particular urban or cultural context in which it is situated and the state of the language available at the time. The form of a building – a statement which seeks to represent an experience (building type, program, urban context, etc.) - can be assessed by how well it represents that experience, that program, in terms of the above criteria. That is, how appropriate the selection and combination of forms given the conditions which it seeks to express and explain in built form. For example, how well does a spoken or written phrase explain or exemplify the experience it seeks to represent? How appropriate is it to those circumstances? This is not about literary elegance, but rather about the efficient transmission of information about an analogue experience through a digital medium, a legitimate grammatical combination of ‘words’ which express the meaning of the building. In architecture words are forms and the grammar is the acceptable or understandable arrangement of those forms in space based on precedent.  

 

While Modern architecture in the Developmental period shows an increase in its expressive power and complexity by a continual and inevitable combination and recombination of its forms, there was a more fundamental developmental requirement and that was to more fully and completely integrate the two sides of its character, namely the organizational power of the grid derived from Classicism and the free distribution of forms derived from the Gothic vernacular free-plan. The Modern emerged from the matrix of 19th century architecture as a binary system that theoretically combined the order of the classical grid with that of the free disposition of forms inherent in the gothic free-plan. In logical terms the Modern was a perfect synthesis; the integration of freedom and order. That one could freely combine these two aspects of the now dominant style was, ultimately an idealistic assumption occasionally put into practice in real buildings, (the Villa Savoie for instance). However, the formal and logical split between these two dimensions of the Modern had certainly not been resolved and, strangely it did not seem to be an important issue at the time. While by the 1950s the idea that such an integration of geometries might be the key goal in the design of buildings had disappeared. What took its place was the overriding idea of freedom, the ability to choose whatever forms one thought useful and expressive for any particular building program. Now this ‘freedom’ was exactly what the Modern had promised as against the strictures imposed by historicist styles of the 19th century.  

 

Pragmatism had triumphed and in the process had extruded the elemental forms of the Modern out of the Involutionary matrix of the 19th century. Those elemental forms were of course the grid and free-plan. In theory (and only in theory) resultant Modern forms would have combined these different dimensions into a coherent paradigm which could be used for a wide variety of building programs. In fact, it did not turn out like that. Maybe the resort to an either/or selection was inevitable. On this basis the 1950s would produce the classical grid par excellence (a la Mies van der Rohe in Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive or New York’s Seagram Building) or free form ‘sculptural’ assemblages (for instance Niemeyer’s Brazilia, Le Corbusier‘s Ronchamp chapel). The formal result of these choices selected from the binary of the grid/free-plan nexus was strangely reminiscent of the ‘appropriate form’ design approach of the 19th century where particular styles were associated with particular building types. For instance, in that era churches would normally be designed using the Gothic style while public buildings such as town halls (associated with democracy) would be designed in the Classical style. Not all of the time of course, but often enough to define such associations as canonical. Given the inherent split in the formula of the Modern the tendency towards such ready-made either/or associations really was inevitable. While avant-garde models might suggest how a real synthesis of these different dimensions might be physically achieved, the reality on the ground and amongst the mass of architects inevitably became an either/or selection. Why? Because it was simpler and in design terms, superficially more economic. Again, the promise of the Modern was to provide a set of forms which could be applied to each and any design problem no matter what its character. In principle that is the value of any dominant style, that it provides a real economic solution to any design problem: a finite set of forms which can be combined to achieve an infinite number of different solutions. There is no agony of choice involved here, all possibilities are to be found in this one precious set of forms which has been distilled out of the experience of previous generations of architects. Well, that is the theory, but in the unresolved conditions of the Modern there was no unified set of forms but rather two possible dialects each of which could represent diametrically opposed perceptions of architecture: freedom or order. Development of the Modern could only mean, apart from the normal processes of complexification of form, that this formal split inherent in architecture could be resolved into a single multidimensional set of forms and its consequent grammar. A set, in other words which could economically handle any given design problem. Given this ideal state there would be no need to invoke such delicate questions as to what would be appropriate and what would be ‘correct’ in any given circumstance. These essentially 19th century questions would be resolved in the clear light of a new integrated classical architecture.  

 

8.0 Adaptation upon Adaptation 

 

Yet the continuous and systemic elaboration of architectural form due to the collective exchange between architects would ultimately resolve this either/or problem. Fundamentally this is what the Developmental phase does. Namely, to transform the early diagrammatic style set into a complex and expressive set of forms capable of handling any or all design problems. Buildings derived from the binary origins of the Modern certainly in say the 1940s and 1950s showed a tendency to cluster around either the grid or free-plan ends of the stylistic spectrum. For instance, tower blocks (whether housing or corporate) or the somewhat ambiguous and arbitrary forms of the free-style ‘symbolism’ defined this simple either/or approach of architects to the selection process. This should not be seen as a lack of skill on the part of the majority of architects at the time. It was rather a lack of an available formal vocabulary with which to express the design problems that they had to deal with. Since the 19th century, the collective process had reduced architectural form to its most basic elements and, there they were, the only resource that architects had to represent the building programs they faced. Yet in the never ending works that they produced, architects were inadvertently designing themselves out of this simplistic either/or problem for the simple reason that their adaptive manoeuvres to identify unique contexts, collectively exchanged, would have a cumulative effect. That effect would be the elaboration of the basic Modern set into a more complex vocabulary of forms. Every time an architect selects forms from that great mass of available work around him to create a new architectural statement, that adjustment, that customization of the existing into the new creates a new and potential imitative source which may or may not act as a model for other architects. Thousands of such works would produce a new generation of more complex forms which become the source of future works. Why more complex? The reason is that each adaptation becomes the source for a further adaptation. In other words, the process is cumulative and non-reversible; a distortion here exchanged with a distortion there ripples through the whole system of exchanges and ends up in some form or another in the concrete reality of buildings.  

 

Given the collective nature of the process, there is a trial and error aspect to its impact on the current style. With all these individual works and their various requirements, there was no sense of central directive, a mission statement, a plan or even a recipe for the production of the canon. (One must exclude the supposedly heroic demonstrations of the avant-garde. In many cases this is simply an easy way for historians to explain change). Yet given the environmental conditions prevalent at the time the result is not stylistic chaos but a uniformity with variations, and that uniformity is a definite style but again, that style is a purely statistical concept.  Evolution as a process cannot foresee the future and the result of the machinations of its agents. There is, therefore with the constant exchange between architects a constant statistical shift in the character of forms produced.  

 

In the Developmental terms, what would elaboration of architectural form mean? Obviously it denotes a shift from the simplified planar, cubic forms, orthogonal geometries and smooth ‘metallic’ surfaces of the late 19th century and the early Modern to something else; something more complex and in some sense richer in texture and form. Theoretically it would suggest a complete merging of the grid free-plan binary and not just a free plan sitting inside an orthogonal grid. It would have to be something more than this. Perhaps fragments of the grid colliding with a complex of free plan elements or the destruction of the orthogonal regime altogether. Who could know? At this point in time, such thoughts were unthinkable but they would finally be realized in built form much later, in the Involutionary phase of the Modern or, what would be called the ‘PostModern’. Again, one must recognize that this evolutionary process had no foresight no matter what the dreams of the avant-garde might be. The result of the endless selections and combinations of form by architects could not possibly be predicted. Yet this interchange between many architects was not completely random since the selections were still based on that underlying grid free-plan nexus which was the residue of the 19th century. The important idea here is to recognize the continuity of the architectural process and its unpredictable consequences. 

 

9.0 Vertebrate and Invertebrate Elements 

 

Here it might be useful to introduce the concepts of vertebrate and invertebrate as  a more concrete means of describing this stylistic shift towards more complex forms in the Developmental phase of the Modern. The vertebrate suggests a skeletal, columnar structure but does not bring with it the geometric and platonic baggage of 19th century tri-partite symmetrical organization. It is not quite a structural concept but rather (initially at least) a pragmatic distribution of columns and beams throughout the building design quite consistent with the multidirectional axes of the Modern. Here was a kind of freedom to distribute the spaces of the building program as the architect wished while eliminating the overriding classical geometries of the 19th century. As usual however, the right angle was the dominant organizational force in these projects as it had been for centuries and indeed further back to the platonic geometries of the Renaissance. Yet the pragmatism of the Developmental phase, its reconstitution of the basic set as a free selection of available forms could (within limits) allow for a non-orthogonal distribution of forms and spaces. During this Developmental phase, the grid, derived from classical sources, had now been exploded and transformed into a kit of parts; the vertebrate end of the Modern synthesis. In the future this assemblage of parts would allow the final dissolution of the Modern by dissolving the orthogonal dominance of the design process; that armature which had held architecture together since the Renaissance. 

  

 The invertebrate dimension of this Modern synthesis – the wall – remained the primary element in any and all design decisions by architects. Since the introduction of the concrete or steel frame the wall no longer performed a structural function but had become primarily a formal device. It had been and continued to be the means whereby architects could visually establish the mass of the building, its gravitas, its presence in an unique context. It remained the primary means of defining the stylistic character of a building. While (theoretically) in the Early Modern period the wall had been a simple plane, a membrane screening a multitude of functions it could never lose its importance as the formal anchor – a visible mass and the public face of the building and which locked the building down to a specific place and time. Developmental time (that endless exchange of experience between architects) could only result in the elaboration of these generic wall planes which defined the primary architectural element of the building. No longer the pristine white screen of the Modern but, with time articulated into a dense, textured and emotive surface which gave a necessary presence to institutional and, indeed religious buildings. To some extent this was inevitable. Where else could the development of the wall go? One need only look at the same developmental path in the post-Renaissance period as the wall moves through its Mannerist phase with highly articulated wall surfaces towards the drama of the Baroque with its plasticity and extreme decoration. In the Developmental phase of an architecture therefore the same technical and organizational problems of defining the external envelope of the building produce a distinctly different solution to those defined during the Emergent phase of the architecture. This is not a different architecture, it is the same architecture in a different state and the reason for that new state is not some dramatic change of building type or patron, but the continuity of the typological process itself which condenses a myriad different solutions into a generally available template for future actions. Here in the Developmental phase the collective exchange process seems (but only seems) to go into reverse, producing more complex architectural forms whereas in its Emergent phase it had produced a convergence towards geometrically simpler forms. It is not the process that changes, it is the architectural material upon which it acts that has changed.  

 

The simple geometries of the earlier history of the Modern which had been condensed out of the debris of the 19th century were now themselves subject to the same recursive process of articulation and adaptation. The result could only be a shift towards more complex or elaborate spatial and material forms and a further articulation of the wall plane not only in terms of texture but also in terms of its plasticity and arrangement. Freed from its structural role, the wall – the invertebrate dimension of the grid free-plan binary could become a much more expressive functional element during the Developmental phase; a much more articulate and articulated statement about the identity of the building. It could express mass and solidity or when cut or indented define and isolate different functional groups of spaces within the building. Again, freed from its structural role it became a much more specialized, single function element. Indeed, the process of specialization and articulation of its different elements could be seen as the defining aspect of the Modern Movement. The autonomy of the structural grid is the classic example of this kind of specialization of function. Compared to its 19th century antecedents where all the elements are tightly fused together by structural necessity, Modern architecture seems more like an assembly of specialized forms brought together in space with notional digital gaps between the elements.   

 

10.0 Articulation, Specialization and Identity 

 

If Developmental time produces an assembly of forms out of a tightly knit mass of simplified forms, whether grid based or free form, then its basic drive consists in the articulation of form. That is, the identification and expression of different elements in a mass of architectural forms. By definition, articulation defines the joint between one form and another and in the Developmental phase this is emphasised to the point where clusters of functional forms could be isolated one from another. Again, one must not assume that this was a whole new process. It wasn’t. This was the same process of articulation which pulled the grid and free-plan out of the matrix of 19th century architecture. Articulation was not a choice on the part of architects, it was rather the collective result of pulling together several different functionally related forms from different sources into one (possibly) coherent building design – one statement about a particular experience. In that sense it introduced logical gaps between one cluster of forms and another just like the spaces between words which make statements comprehensible. These notional gaps between one group of functional forms and another could only serve to express and identify the different parts of the building. Naive though such ideas might seem now, during the 1950s and the 1960s this increasing expressionism in architecture was hailed as a kind of functionalism which of course it wasn’t but rather another stage of formalism. After all, according to this rationalization of the way things were going, different functions had to be expressed differently. ‘Had to be’? Well, in this phase of articulation where differences had to be seen to be different it could only result in the fact (and ideology) that vertical and horizontal circulation, groups of similar spaces, service as against servant spaces, sun and rain control, different surface and materials would be emphasised with clear-cut gaps between these functional/formal elements. Here we have articulation, specialization and expressionism locked together into a formal embrace where architecture in the Developmental period achieves the drama (if not yet the elegance) of the Baroque.  

 

11.0 The Collective Experience 

 

At the conscious level of design thinking, namely that carried out by individual architects or motivated groups such as the avant-garde, the question was always about what Modern architecture could do. Given its somewhat diagrammatic origins, could it express and authentically represent the full range of human experience? Could these elemental forms be stretched to encompass the gravity required for institutional buildings, the spirituality required of religious buildings, buildings which exemplified the democratic ethos, the functionality of the industrial, the dignity and community space required by mass housing and any other number of very specific challenges to the expressive power of the Modern? Given the somewhat limited vocabulary they had inherited from previous generations, the only solutions these individual architects had was a continual adaptation and transformation of that very same vocabulary, building by building, experiment by experiment in order to develop that generic set of Modern forms into a fully expressive architecture. At this level of the game individual architects were quite aware of the deficiencies of vocabulary available to them in the forms of the Modern. There was no way, however that they could change the nature of the system or project a fully fledged and fully expressive architecture into reality or even imagine what such an architecture would look like. The results of evolution are inevitably unpredictable. At the systemic level where ‘there is no one there’ there is only a multitude of experiments and adaptations of previous works exchanged between many architects each selecting, adapting and combining antecedent forms into new configurations in a continuous search for a very authentic expression of the nature of particular buildings.  

 

This is the nature and function of the Developmental period, the experiments, the adaptation of previous works or parts of works and a progressive expansion of the canon of the Modern. The result was indeed the expansion of the canon of the Modern but equally by the 1980s (the Involutionary/PostModern period) its disintegration into a collection of disparate sub-styles each focussed on some specific aspect of the history of the Modern and each overly articulate in their expressions of specific contexts. But that was in the unforeseeable future.  

 

This period of experimentation and elastication of the basic tenets of Modernism from the 1920s onward can be seen as the very definition of the Developmental phase in architecture. It did not require radical changes in the ecosystem for such changes to occur. The typological process built into the machinery of architecture would ensure that change happened anyway and that that change would involve a continuing complexification of architectural form. While the results of this interchange between architects can be seen as random in the sense that its end product could not be predicted, it was inherently limited by its continued reference to its antecedent forms. Where else could it go to find forms or a vocabulary that could be combined and recombined to suit new circumstances? Equally, these experiments could only circle around that great attractor, the grid-free plan nexus which defined the very basis of the Modern. Yet apart from the (controlled) churning of the many forms produced by architectural activity these were inevitably focussed on particular architectural niches which would tend to diversify the products of the Modern in its Developmental phase.  One might refer here to the different institutional contexts that the Modern had to deal with. For instance these might involve the corporate, spiritual, democratic or mundane circumstances dictated by modern society. Each of these niches would involve some definitive selection, some appropriate sense of place, time and space and physical presence. This, of course had always been the case in architecture. How could it be otherwise? But here architects were playing inside a new framework: the grid/free plan binary that defined the Modern vocabulary. There were so many different institutional niches to fill and to represent with this limited set of forms that the only result would be a diversification of the character of that original pristine set. After all, social experience is so much more complex than the model that seeks to represent it.   

 

So here in the Developmental phase of Modern architecture we can note that the diversification of Modern architecture while a product of the collective exchange of experience between architects is, in fact, locked into and derived from the need to represent quite specific and real representational problems. Nothing here in this evolutionary situation is abstract. Everything is geared to specific physical problems, to the character of buildings in other words. The increasing difference between groups of buildings during the Developmental period can be ascribed to the need to adapt the Modern to different institutional and social needs. What could this new architecture with its diagrammatic forms actually do? How representative could it be? The wide range of building projects that were required in the post war world provided the perfect arena for the resolution of such questions. It must be remembered however that the nature or the advantage of a new and dominant architecture – a classic architecture - was that it could provide a single solution for a multitude of problems; a finite vocabulary which could be permutated into an infinite number of statements. With evolution, difference arises when the same generic form is required to adapt to unique niches in the ecosystem. This is certainly the case with architecture where that original set of cubic/planar forms were adapted to suit the complex needs of different institutional contexts. With natural evolution (as against the cultural evolution of architecture) a single species is differentiated when different groups of that species are locked into a different ecosystem for whatever reason Inevitably they increasingly differentiate themselves from the original groups to the point where they can no longer interbreed with them, in effect becoming a new species. With cultural evolution, the same process applies beginning with the Developmental period which progressively differentiates one group of forms from another. Is the original binary still there? Yes, but attenuated into a memory, a basic reference point. 

 

12.0 The Culmination of the Developmental Phase 

 

So, roughly by the late 40s and the early 50s, the avant-garde showed a tendency towards complexity of form compared with their pristine forms of the 20s and 30s. One need only compare Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp chapel (1955) or his Unite d’Habitation apartments (1952) with his work in the 30s to recognize the increasing complexity of the Modern in its textural and organizational character. The grid and free plan were there of course as a basic conceptual infrastructure, a cubic volume within which these strange and wonderful machines would exist. Here was the grid and free plan and multidirectional space where many things could happen and where one mode (grid or free plan) could be emphasized over the other while staying within the formal limits and canons of the Modern. Mies van der Rohe could equally well portray the Modern in his severe demonstrations of what the grid could do in his Lake Shore Drive apartments in Chicago (1951) or in the utter elegance of his Seagram Building in New York (1958). There were of course practical differences between the design of these two types of buiing, one European, one American. For Europe, concrete was the most available post war building material while the United States could freely use steel construction. But the significant issue here is this play between the two poles of the Modern: the grid and the free plan. But if the grid referred back to classical geometry and the ancient world, then Le Corbusier’s works for instance at Chandigarh or Kahn’s work in Dacca or the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmadabad could, equally be seen as exemplars of these antecedents, of the Acropolis and of Rome. Together with Mies van der Rohe’s works, here we have legitimate but different versions of classical geometry derived from the ancients and filtered through the 19th century into the geometry of the 20th century. What is being reproduced here are the possibilities inherent in the orthogonal geometry of the classical, its possible permutations and, equally the invertebrate mass of the wall and of Rome that endless source of inspiration. An inspiration which challenged the functionalist forms of the Bauhaus in the sense of something primal, something much deeper than functionalism. Something perhaps that referenced a neurological desire for order or comprehensibility. Whatever, these are speculations. Yet here in these works there was the real integration of the grid and free plan, vertebrate and invertebrate into a new monumentality. But for most architects monumentality was not the issue. It was much more mundane: schools, hospitals, public housing and the whole paraphernalia of the post war world.  

 

In the diversification of architecture which can be seen in the post war world there is this evolutionary niche-driven production of difference. These many projects were in almost all cases Modern in that broad sense of being centred on the vertebrate/invertebrate binary minus of course any historical allusions.  However in that same post war world a new set of niches developed through political and geographical circumstances which massively widened the scope of the Modern. These were the regional variations of that dominant Western-oriented style. Even given the supposedly ‘International’ architecture of the corporate world there was this re-definition of regional themes in terms of the Modern. Here was a new cluster of potential architectures which had something significant to say in defining Modern architectural form in terms of their particular circumstances. One can suggest Japan, Mexico and India as the forerunners of these regional voices which sought to articulate a regional thematic out of this ‘universal’ architecture. But given the technological differences between these societies and the advanced Western economies, it was inevitable that the invertebrate wall would play a major part in the definition of such regional architectures. Still, this emphasis on the wall corresponded quite appropriately with the historical and vernacular characteristics of these regional themes. That, and the emphasis on the textural qualities of materials and the significance of colour in buildings would give a whole new dimension to the somewhat puritanical forms of the Modern Movement. This was particularly apparent in the works of Japanese architects who transmuted the precisely engineered timber construction of Japanese traditional architecture into equally precise concrete forms utterly Modern in their appearance but imbued with a particularly Japanese character. (It is of some interest that the same process of transmutation occurred in ancient Greek architecture where originally timber forms were translated into their marble equivalents. Thus the pediments, metopes, capitals and other paraphernalia came down through history). So too with the Mexican works of Luis Barragan where the wall, colour and the landscape of courtyards defined an alternative view of the Modern. Equally precise and equally functional, these regional architectures set up an alternative set of forms which would become part of the collective exchange of experience which would now form part of the global vocabulary of Modern architecture. While corporate power would define the ‘International’ aspect of the Modern in the central business districts of major cities throughout the world with its glass towers, a whole other vocabulary was being created which sought to define a much more local and particular kind of space and character still within the canons of the Modern. Without doubt, by the 1960s Modernism had differentiated itself into a whole series of sub-groups and individual themes which had to be and would be worked out over time. 

 

Development had run its course. It had shown that this strange and puritan architecture could represent any and all possible circumstances. By the 1960s and the 1970s it was apparent that it could do anything. For all its failures in terms of the functionally-inspired mass housing, the strict and bureaucratic zoning of cities, and the endless undifferentiated space of the suburbs, Modern architecture was already there, already available with an extensive vocabulary of forms which could be applied to any given situation. 

 

The question was of course, where could it go from there? 

 

 

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