Why is modernism singular? >
It was the photograph that came up as the opening screen saver that stimulated the thought: why is this cohesion that we so much admire, apparently no longer possible today? The starter image showed the village of Xitang, China – shops and housing on a canal. There was no struggle for visual supremacy here; just the happiness to share, to be a part of a village; a community.
The image showed a visual contentment; an integrity that overcame the desire to be heroic; to be different. One recalls how ARM approached a similar situation on water in Venice with the Australian Biennale Pavilion. This building sought to be seen, and to be seen to be different; to be clever in every way: bespoke – slyly smart. In contrast to the Xijang buildings that sit calmly in quiet repose, content, the ARM project jumps out with a loud squeal, arms waving - (no pun intended). The Xijang buildings seem happy with their just being there; the ARM project arrogantly demands attention.
We might be saddened by the demise of our cities, upset by the shambles of identity they exhibit, their lack of coherence and meaning; but is this what modernism inspires? Have we forgotten how to live as a community?
Lloyd Wright had his farm near Spring Green, Wisconson, but was not happy until he had purchased all the neighbours within sight, and demolished some 32 “nuisance” buildings to create ‘his’ place; ‘his’ vistas; see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/search?q=wright+landscape - to make Taliesin, his home. Even a mature oak tree was considered a ‘weed’ if it was in the ‘wrong’ place. While Taliesin remains an icon – Meis said “Just be thankful that it is here” when a student criticised a clumsy detail - this desire to laud it comes with the latent ambition to be alone, isolated, singular: just ME,** MY place, and MY chosen vistas – no neighbours in sight; not a thought for anyone else: just ‘Wright’ – (pun intended).
Likewise with Meis and his famed – some say infamous – Farnsworth House at River Road, Plano, Illinois, southwest of Chicago, that was built in an isolated clearing by a river on a flood plain – he knew best. This much-praised structure also brings with it the desire to be alone – indeed, relies on the necessity of singularity. How might this house ever have a neighbour nearby, within sight? The house demands its own privacy by claiming the space around it as its own. Still, in spite of all of its problems, (see Alex Beam Broken Glass), it is promoted as the greatest, most influential house of the century; as something highly desirable and preferable irrespective of the context. So we see inspired replicas being produced, e.g. Murcutt’s Laurie Short House 1972-74; the Douglas Murcutt House; and the Daphne Murcutt House: Murcutt’s story begins before his Short House, Kempsy, 1980* with projects directly inspired by the Farnsworth House. He is not alone.
One can go on in much the same vein with: Aalto’s Villa Mairea; the Eames house; the Rose Seidler residence; Corb’s Villa Savoye; see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2020/02/villa-mairea-city-of-solitude.html https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/03/architectures-two-remote-islands-too.html https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-rose-seidler-house-private-visions.html. Even when the home is in a suburban street context, it is made to be alone, to appear as if it was, as if it wished to be; as with the first Jacobs house by Wright in Madison, Wisconsin: see - https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2019/03/architectures-two-remote-islands-too.html. One can cite Melikov’s house in Moscow as the exception; but Melikov himself was an exception in his profession - indeed, exceptional. This stunning home stands in a street crowded with classical revivalist architecture, yet, in spite of its stark difference, still manages to recognise its context with subtle gestures defining its own certainty without apology, shaped in a green void for light.
Singularity is rooted in modernism. Our cities reveal this in their efforts to be new, ‘revitalised,’ with iconic statements cluttered throughout, each seeking dominance over the other; some like San Gimignano structures compete with height; but difference is enshrined in modernism too - startling differences; so we get the challenges both in height and stark difference, the more extreme, the better. Meis in New York with the Seagram Building steps his tower back to create a public void, but couldn’t care less about the neighbours or the city; and the similarly tall neighbours couldn’t care less about Meis’s structure either. Everyone is seeking a singular identity; the declaration of ME. The Seagram forecourt is to allow HIS building to be better noticed; to be different. It hardly ‘revitalises’ the city; it merely creates a viewing platform for admiration of the 'masterpiece.'
Why can we no longer create cities that enrich and cohere? Instead, we create theories that praise the cluttered shambles as some sort of justification – e.g. like Learning from Las Vegas. One thinks of cities, towns, and villages that cohere, that present an organic integrity, woven place and space, and then worry about why our places are a chaotic shambles of clashes between unbearable traffic, bold commerce, and bespoke homes – an uncomfortable, stressful mess that we endure because we think we have to, or can do nothing better. Has modernism created this? How can this silliness be changed?
One might ponder alternative possibilities here, and use the hospital experience to help us see things more clearly. With COVID quarantine, even though we know that good, natural light and clean, fresh air are basic essentials to fight the virus, along with healthy food, folk are still placed in sealed hotel rooms and fed rubbish: see https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-quarantine-room-analysis.html; https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2021/01/quarantine-cuisine-photographic-diary.html; https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2021/01/quarantine-air.html In hospitals, we act likewise, even though we know the benefits of fresh air and sunlight on well-being and healing, and the benefits of good food too, patients are placed in sealed air-conditioned rooms with fixed windows orientated willy-nilly to suit the external sculptural expression, and fed meals of varying quality to suit budgets and production lines. Why? Why might anyone expect these spaces to be places of healing? Have hospitals become something else – places of treatment with successes claimed prior to any healing?
Again, even though we know the healing benefits of a good sleep, hospital patients are now fully wired up and tubed in such a way as to leave one feeling as though one had been restrained in a bed, unable to move without assistance, with electronic stuff and its clutter of wires and tubes, constantly beeping, moaning, buzzing, grunting, gripping, and groaning 24/7 so as to ensure a poor night’s sleep; and as if to make sure that the possibility of any quality sleep is completely shattered, the nurse’s regular, abrupt intrusions with the switching on of the light as she/he barges in with the declaration that its pill time, or blood pressure time, or whatever – ironically just for one’s well-being – ensuring the certain disruption of one’s attempts to try to get to sleep yet again. “Don’t worry. It’s daylight already,” as if to justify the disturbances that ensure one is always awake.
Recently a relative checked himself out of hospital because he was unable to sleep in the hospital room, and knew that he was getting worse rather than better; but hospitals cannot seem to see the problem – or, if they do, are not interested in doing anything about it.
Do we have such smart hospital equipment now that everything has to be designed for the operation of the gadgets rather than for the well-being of patients? One older nurse told how the original small hospital on the site had one double power point behind each bed. Now there are seven - maybe more - along with all other ‘essential’ services. That none of this ‘modern’ stuff might be helping in recovery never seems to appear even as a fleeting thought flashing across anyone’s mind, anywhere. The tech is all assumed to be progress, therefore better, leading towards the best possible treatment, as if outcomes might not be critical.
Is this what has happened to our cities - our lives? Maybe if we started making decisions based on ordinary well-being and simple bodily and spiritual comforts for all - on good outcomes - we might start getting better places – better cities, homes, and hospitals. Instead we seem hooked on the slick photograph - the appearance; the slick gadget – the technology; etc. in what seem to be our gladiatorial battles with being.# We need empathy rather than grandstanding self-promotion.
Imagine a hospital where rooms could open up to fresh air, trees, grass, and sunny balconies; where beds could roll out to enjoy the wonders of nature - a flower, a raindrop - rather than be entwined, entangled in the intriguing air-conditioned wonders of noisy technology. Imagine cities doing likewise, avoiding all that stresses and deforms; everything that degrades the spirit. Maybe we need to start in our hospitals, and then our homes, and once we know the benefits, we might start to insist on improving our cities too, rather than stressing them with our desire for clever tech and startling difference that is never satiated, leaving us entangled in what we call ‘progress.’ Somehow we have been led to believe that the future of the world will be solved by electric vehicles. One is left wondering why plastic bottles are collected while one Tesla factory turns out 0.85 vehicles every minute. Do we want a world cluttered by more and more vehicles that will be trash in a few years? Is ripping up the earth for batteries better than sucking it dry of oil? We need true alternatives rather than mere variations.++
Once hospital treatments started to truly consider and review impacts, and do away with everything that could make matters worse, while enhancing those things that can really help, we might start getting richer, happier, health outcomes; and, with the same approach, we might get richer, happier cities too: but this needs empathy rather than an over-indulgence in the newest of world wonders that eulogise technologies and appearances as selfies. Is this the interest that stimulates singularity in things modern - highlighting the importance of ME and MY clever expression/appearance?
Is the problem merely a lack of empathy? The nursing profession should understand what empathy might be, and its importance, but some of the most awkward matters have become so everyday that they are now merely routine, unquestioned. Has this lack of concern now slipped into city life too? Into homes? We seem more concerned with smart plugs, clever speakers, and huge screens than comfortable spaces: more interested in clever images being published in glossy ‘art’ magazines than achieving good living conditions that might enrich the spirit. We seem happy with our ‘chip’ planning where homes are squeezed in as tight as possible to maximise everything except quality living conditions, and praise ourselves for being ‘green.’
It seems that our ambitions have been blinded with the promises of the new, the next, the ever better and better, always ‘going forward’ in our modern times – being so engrossed that we have forgotten the basics of good living; of simple well being. Let’s start with sunlight and fresh air and manage these first - see: Kingo report https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/KtbxLvHXDfklFldXZThQjQMsRFfxWRRbhg?projector=1&messagePartId=0.1 The report references the traditional Chinese courtyard house; and the traditional town: “like flowers on the branch of cherry tree, each turning towards the sun” - then, once this has become the norm, we can then work on other matters until we do things right as a matter of course, by beginning to look after lives rather than accommodating and performing them as things ‘modern’ might be preferred to be conceived. Here one recalls Jacques Tati’s cynical, critical comedy Mon Oncle.
It is on leaving the hospital that one can experience that little lift of the spirit; feel how walking out the door into sunlight and fresh air exhilarates the spirit, invigorates the mind, even though one might still feel poorly, and find oneself in a grubby car park. Imagine how matters could be transformed once this experience became everyday, everywhere; imagine the change in our interests and our different demands then.
The irony is that modernism began enthusiastically with the idea of health – good light and fresh air.^ How did this beginning ever develop into a love for everything contrary? Was it the culture of the hero that changed our attention, making good work uniquely ‘heroic’ – that of the master architect, c.f. Blake’s The Master Builders? Was it our making ‘good’ hospitals high tech; making cities ‘smart’ that caused the problems we now have? Has our attention been dragged to the bespoke, the singular, rather than to the complexity of enrichment of community and well-being? ##
Making problem-solving the core matter to be attended to has created a distraction that has redirected our attention from simple good living and essential well-being, disrupting ordinary contentment with blind ambitions feeding the phantom of progress. We need to get back to an understanding of what is truly best for us, rather than be totally engrossed with things ‘new’ and their possibilities, no matter how intriguing they might appear.++ 3D printing might be 'interesting,’ but it needs to be kept in its context of method – mechanics.^^ Treatment too, is only one aspect of healing, the mechanics of healing – the beginning; healing involves something completely different, as does living – our well-being as wholeness. We need to see this circumstance beyond the framework of any cliché. Our cities, our homes, our lives – our hospitals – all need healing, to become places for healing, wholeness – for the care of the body, mind, and spirit. Singularity has no role here as it divides; this is its necessity. The more we concentrate on the parts, the more we isolate ourselves from the everyday enchantment of the world, and our ability -
To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour. (William Blake).+
#
Cillian Murphy, (Peaky Blinders), spoke of social media being gladiatorial rather than sensitive, empathetic, where each is seeking to outdo the other: see -
Are our hospitals gladiatorial, determined to fight disease at the expense of empathy?
Have our cities become likewise in their thrust to be ‘modern’?
Is our architecture gladiatorial rather than empathetic, seeking self-expression in the bespoke “Look at ME!”?
*
The Marie Short House at Kempsey is yet another example of the iconic, isolated, modern house. It stands in a large open space, with clumps of trees carefully concealing the associated buildings and the neighbours so as to enshrine its uncluttered, pristine presence. Note that this house has always been promoted as being at Kempsey. It is actually between Kempsey and Port Macquarie, east of Kundabung on the highway, halfway to Crescent Head. Why do architects do this? Did Kempsey sound better than the other places? Here one recalls the Granny Flat at Burleigh – see: https://voussoirs.blogspot.com/2021/04/wheres-granny-flat.html
Again, in spite of this unique isolation, the house has become an inspiration for houses in all sorts of climates and contexts, from the Shetland Islands to Australian suburbia. Has the power of style more authority than any regional or contextual concern?
+
William Blake
(Fragments from "Auguries of Innocence"
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear.
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.
Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night.
##
Jane B. Drew, in her essay Le Corbusier as I Knew Him, recalled the numerous personal letters Corb used to send her:
I remember much of what was in them: “There is no such thing as detail in architecture, everything counts”;
^
Russell Walden, in his essay New Light on Corbusier’s Early Years in Paris, notes:
Thus, by the time Jeanneret returned to La Chaux-de-Fonds for the winter of 1909, he was in possession of some critical writing, which made passionate protests against slums, the plight of the poor, the place of the machine in society, the distribution of wealth, the source of political power, and the tragedy of man’s spiritual alienation as a result of his technological commitment to an industrial world.
The article reports on the vision of 3D-printed cities without ever wondering what our cities might be, other than, perhaps, mere 3D-printed versions of what we have today. Method becomes our madness.
In the same way, we are distracted from thinking about what our suburbs might be, by thinking about the wonders of grocery deliveries: see - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-02/google-alphabet-wing-coles-drone-grocery-delivery/100868514 Technology blinds us with vague, intriguing promises. There is no mention of earlier trials that raised noise issues with drones. It seems that we only want positives when new ideas are promoted, as if we were creating a wonderland that knows no evil.
**
Note that 'ME' here is not referring to any firm of architects in any way, but to the idea of extreme narcissistic tendencies: see - https://architectureau.com/articles/me-architects/
28 FEB 2022
The enthusiasm for things new can be seen in articles like this: https://www.yankodesign.com/2022/02/26/top-10-tech-trends-of-2022/
and
++
10 MAR 22
The 90km journey to the city on one of the state's major motorways took over two hours yesterday. This journey started at 6:00am. It was not only the highway congestion that was frustrating. On arrival at the capital city, one discovered that there was no street parking available anywhere; it had all been taken. We seem to be distracted by the idea of electric cars, forgetting that cars are a problem, whatever the fuel they use. Our cites are clogged with them. We need far better solutions than the electrification of our current nemesis.
René Guénon, in The Reign of Quantity & the Sign of the Times, Penguin, Baltimore, 1972, answers this question:
p.17 - “individualism” . . . is one of the characteristics of the modern spirit.
In the context of Meis’s “Less is more,” one should note Guénon's comment:
p.30 - to claim to derive the “greater” from the “less” is indeed one of the most typical of modern aberrations.
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