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Towards Universality
Le Corbusier, Mies and De Stijl
The central theme of this book is the striving for universality as

opposed to the individual and the particular. The foundation mani-
festo of De Stijl begins: There exist on old and a new consciousness of
the age. The old is directed towards the individual. The new is directed
towards the universal (1918). This first opposition is intersected,
however, by a second one: that between the open and the closed.
The universality aimed at by De Stijl artists like Van Doesburg and
Mondrian resembled that of the universe itself: it was boundless.
Their paintings continued, in theory, beyond the limits of the canvas;
their architecture sought to abolish the wall as the boundary
between interior and exterior space. But each of Le Corbusier's
buildings and paintings was itself a self-contained universe, held within
a clear frame. Mies fluctuated between two ideals; in the 1920s, in
such designs as the brick country house and the Barcelona Pavilion,
he outdid even the De Stijl architects in openness, but in his later
work in America he reverted to the closed neo-classical box.
Richard Padovan has worked as an architect in various European

countries and published extensively. He is the author of Proportion:
Science, Philosophy, Architecture (1999) and Dom Hans van der
Loan, Modern Primitive (1994), and his translation of Van der Laan's
Architectonic Space appeared in 1983.
First Manifesto of De Stijl, 1918
1 There exist an old and a new consciousness of the age.

The old is directed towards the individual.
The new is directed towards the universal.
The struggle of the individual against the universal shows itself
in the world war as well as in today's art.
2 The war is destroying the old world together with its content:
the dominance of the individual in every field.
3 The new art has brought to the fore the content of the new
consciousness: equilibrium between the universal and the
individual.
4 The new consciousness is ready to realize itself in every field,
including exterior life.
5 Tradition, dogma and the dominance of the individual (the
natural) stand in the way of that realization.
6 We, the founders of the New Representation,* therefore call
upon all those who believe in the reform of art and culture to
destroy whatever impedes this development, just as we have
destroyed it by abolishing naturalistic form in the new repre-
sentational art. For naturalism hampers that pure expression
which is the ultimate consequence of every true artistic
conception.
7 Throughout the world, todays artists, driven by a shared
consciousness, engage in a world war fought out on the spiri-
tual plane against the dominance of individualism and arbi-
trariness. We therefore identify ourselves with all those who
struggle, either spiritually or materially, for the creation of
international unity in Life, Art and Culture.
8 For this purpose we have set up the journal De Stijl, the aim of
which is to bring to light the new philosophy of life. Everyone
can participate by:
9.1 Sending your (full) name, address and profession to the
editors as a token of support.
9.2 Contributing material (critical, philosophical, architectural,
scientific, literary, musical, etc., as well as illustrative) to the
monthly De Stijl.
9.3 Distributing and translating into other languages the ideas
published in De Stijl.
Signatures of the contributors: ANTONY KOK, poet

THEO VAN DOESBURG, painter PlET MONDRIAAN, painter * In Dutch, Nieuwe Beelding, literally 'new imaging'. Although the
ROBERT VANT HOFF, architect G. VANTONGERLOO, sculptor

published English version gives 'new plastic art', hence the generally
adopted term 'Neo-Plasticism', the author argues in Chapter 2 that
VlLMOS HUSZAR, painter JAN WlLS, architect 'new representation' is preferable.
Towards Universality
Le Corbusier, Mies and De Stijl
Richard Padovan
Routledge
ROUTLEDGE
Taylor &. Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK

This edition includes no reproduction of artists' original drawings.
The reproductions which are herein are the subject of the
author's interpretation.
First published 2002 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
Transferred to Digital Printing 2010
© 2002 Richard Padovan
The right of Richard Padovan to be identified as the Author of this Work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Typeset in Gill Sans by Bookcraft Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the
accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal
responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Padovan, Richard.
Towards universality: Le Corbusier, Mies, and De Stijl/Richard Padovan.
p. cm.
includes bibliographical references and index.
1. De Stijl (Art movement) – Influence. 2. Modern movement
(Architecture). 3. Le Corbusier, 1897–1965 – Criticism and interpretation.
4. Mies van de Rohe, Ludwig, 1886–1969 – Criticism and interpretation.
1.Title.
NAI 148.5.D42 P33 2001
7241'.6–dc21 20010191 19
ISBN 0–415-25962–2 (hbk)

ISBN 0–419-24030–6 (pbk)
Contents
List of figures vii

Preface X
1 The Open or the Closed De Stijl and Le Corbusier 1

1.1 De Stijl and architecture 1
1.2 An art of destruction 2
1.3 Mondrian: evolution from the individual-natural to the universal-abstract 4
1.4 Van Doesburg: the goal of history, and four-dimensionality 7
1.5 Giedion's 'authorized history' of the modern movement 1 1
1.6 Rietveld: architecture as the construction of reality 14
1.7 The Schröder house 16
1.8 The De Stijl house as a fragment of a continuous city 18
1.9 De Stijl openness versus the increasingly private future 19
1.10 Le Corbusier: spatial interpenetration and the new spirit 20
1.11 Le Corbusier's ordered compartmentation of space and time 24
1.12 The tree and the semi-lattice 26
1.13 Purist containment versus De Stijl continuity and multivalence 29
1.14 The role of the corner junction in architecture 33
2 De Stijl's Other Name 36

2.1 The meaning of words 36
2.2 'Chinese, Greek and German philosophy' 43
2.3 The way forward through architecture 47
2.4 The way forward through mathematics 52
2.5 The necessity of proportion 54
3 The Furniture of the Mind 59

3.1 Appearance and reality 59
3.2 Appearance, reality and representation 64
3.3 Representation as substitution 67
3.4 The abstraction of function 70
3.5 Van der Leck and Mondrian: abstract painting versus concrete architecture 72
3.6 Gerrit Rietveld, furniture maker 77
3.7 Donald Judd: both particular and general 82
4 The Pavilion and the Court 87

4.1 Encounters 87
4.2 Three house projects 88
4.3 Tent and pavilion 89
4.4 Romanticism and the pavilion system 90
4.5 Le Corbusier, classical architect 93
4.6 Van Doesburg's architectural programme 95
4.7 Standardization 96
4.8 The Schröder house, Utrecht, 1924 97
4.9 Mies van der Rohe and De Stijl 100
4.10 Le Corbusier's polychromy: La Roche-Jeanneret and Pessac 106
vi Contents
4.1 1 Poissy and Barcelona 109

4.12 The Barcelona Pavilion as a symbolic form 110
4.13 The end of the heroic period of modern architecture 1 13
4.14 Mies, Le Corbusier and Van Doesburg after 1929 1 14
4.15 It is necessary, not to adapt, but to create 1 17
5 Lauweriks, Van Doesburg and Le Corbusier 120

5.1 A gardener and a house in Germany 120
5.2 Viollet-le-Duc, Cuypers and Berlage 126
5.3 Düsseldorf and the Werkbund 131
5.4 Cosmic mathematics 134
5.5 Grids 139
5.6 The entire cosmos in a single image 144
6 Mies: The Correspondence of Thing and Intellect 146

6.1 Classical versus anti-classical 146
6.2 Mies, Aquinas, and the definition of truth 150
6.3 Art as a way to knowledge 153
6.4 The impact of expressionism and De Stijl 156
6.5 From Barcelona 1929 to Berlin 1962 163
6.6 The truth and its exposition 166
6.7 The house as machineà méditer 168
7 Figure and Ground 174

7.1 Neue Gestaltung and Gestalt psychology 174
7.2 Rasmussen and the Rubin vase 177
7.3 Dom van der Laan and architectonic space 183
7.4 Towards a deeper perspective 186
8 The Unchanging and the Changeable 192

8.1 Three kinds of simultaneity 192
8.2 An alternative manifesto 198
8.3 Particular functions and universal construction 201
8.4 The utilitarian support system 204
8.5 The habitable ruin (1): Rossi and Mies 212
8.6 The habitable ruin (2): Hertzberger and the necessity of differentiation 216
8.7 The necessary and the essential: Oud and Le Corbusier 219
8.8 Collage and contradiction 221
8.9 Both that which is unchangeable and that which is in change 224
Bibliography 229
Index 235
Credits 238
Figures
This edition includes no reproduction of artists' original drawings. The reproductions which are
herein have been redrawn by the author and are the subject of the author's interpretation.
1.1 C.-E. Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), Compositionàla guitare et à la lanterne, 1920 1

1.2 Gerrit Rietveld, Schröder house, Utrecht, 1924: upper floor plan 17
1.3 Le Corbusier, radiant city, 1929–30: plan 24
1.4 Simon Nicholson, abstract composition 28
1.5 The same painting with superimposed regular grid 28
1.6-1.1 1 Proportional analyses of C.-E. Jeanneret, Compositionà la guitare età la lanteme,
1920, showing recurrence of golden rectangles and squares 30
1.6 Vertical division of the whole canvas into two golden rectangles 30
1.7 The golden rectangles halved to produce four rectangles similar to the whole 30
1.8 Central superposition of a large square 30
1.9 Division of the square into four small squares separated by four golden rectangles,
with a still smaller square at the centre 30
1.10 Quadripartite division of each small square 30
1.11 Further subdivision giving the final grid composed of 80 squares and 40 double
golden rectangles which repeat the shape of the whole painting 30
1.12 Theo van Doesburg, Composition XVIII in three parts, 1920 31
1.13 Composition XVIII in three parts: proportional analysis of arrangement on wall 31
1.14 Piet Mondrian, Composition with two black lines, 1931 32
1.15 Piet Mondrian, Painting1:lozenge composition with four lines and grey, 1926 32
1.16 Lozenge composition with four lines and grey: indefinite extension of grid 33
1.17 Lozenge composition with four lines and grey: white and grey areas as figures 33
2.1 Theo van Doesburg, title design for the journal De Stijl, 1921 36
2.2 Theo van Doesburg, Rhythm of a Russian dance, 1918 47
2.3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, brick country house project, 1923-4: plan 48
2.4-2.7 Theo van Doesburg, Universal form II, originally 1926: proportional analyses
showing four stages of progression based on√ 2 53-8
3.1 Bart van der Leck, Leaving the factory (Composition 1917, no. 3) 59
3.2 Gerrit Rietveld, Red-Blue chair, 1918: vertical elements 79
3.3 Red-Blue chair: transverse elements 79
3.4 Red-Blue chair: longitudinal elements 79
3.5 Red-Blue chair: diagonal elements (seat and back) 79
3.6 Red-Blue chair: linear components assembled 79
3.7 Red-Blue chair: seat and back added 79
3.8 Red-Blue chair: the seventeen components before assembly 81
3.9 Piet Mondrian, Composition with two black lines, 1931 85
4.1 Theo van Doesburg, counter-construction based on private house project, 1923:
(a) the complete composition, (b) horizontal planes, (c) vertical planes,
(d) cubic volumes 87–8
4.2 Concave (centripetal) and convex (centrifugal) compositions contrasted
(after Van Doesburg) 95
4.3 C.-E. Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), Compositionà la guitare età la lanteme, 1920 96
4.4 Gerrit Rietveld, Schröder house, Utrecht, 1924: upper floor plan 97
viii Figures
4.5 Theo van Doesburg and Cor van Eesteren, private house project, 1923: plan 97
4.6 Private house plan showing containment within a square 98
4.7 Opbouw group with Van den Broek and Bakema, Rotterdam-Alexanderpolder, 1953 101
4.8 Bart van der Leck, Leaving the factory (Composition 1917, no. 3) 101
4.9 Theo van Doesburg, Rhythm of a Russian dance, 1918 101
4.10 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (or Hugo Häring), early plan for Weissenhofsiedlung,
Stuttgart, 1925 102
4.11 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, brick country house project, 1923–4: plan 104
4.12 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona Pavilion, 1929: plan 106
4.13 Le Corbusier, La Roche-Jeanneret houses, Auteuil, 1923–4: view of entrance hall 107
4.14 Le Corbusier, The 4 compositions, 1929 109
4.15 Barcelona Pavilion, analysis showing overlapping boundaries 1 12
4.16 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, IIT Campus, Chicago, 1940: plan 1 14
4.17 Theo van Doesburg, Universal form II, 1926 1 15
4.18 Ad Dekkers, Drawing, 1970 1 15
4.19 Ad Dekkers, Incised wood panel XXVII, 1973 1 15
5.1 Type of square modular grid based on inscribed and intersecting circles used by
J.L.M. Lauweriks 120
5.2 Rectangle based on diagonal of square, i.e.√ 2 122
5.3 Rectangle based on diameter of cube, i.e. √ 3 122
5.4 Rectangle based on diagonal of double square, i.e.√ 5 122
5.5 Rectangle based on diagonal of triple square, i.e. √ 10 122
5.6 Rectangle based on diagonal of quadruple square, i.e.√ 17 122
5.7 Meander design used by Lauweriks 123
5.8 Koch curve 123
5.9 J.L.M. Lauweriks, Thorn Prikker house, Hohenhagen, 1910: roof plan 123
5.10 J.L.M. Lauweriks, Thorn Prikker house: plan of dining room ceiling 123
5.11 J.L.M. Lauwerks, Stirnband, Hohenhagen, 1910–14 124
5.12 'Pythagorean' right-angled triangle 127
5.13 Equilateral triangle 128
5.14 Isosceles triangle formed by cross-section of pyramid 128
5.15 'Egyptian' triangle 128
5.16 H.P. Berlage, produce exchange, Amsterdam, 1898–1901: diagrammatic part
elevation showing use of 'Egyptian' triangle 130
5.17 Le Corbusier, Villa Stein, Garches, 1927: front and rear elevations with tracées
régulateurs based on Egyptian triangle 130
5.18 Villa Stein, Garches: front and rear elevations with tracées régulateurs based on
golden section 131
5.19 Walter Gropius, Bauhaus, Dessau, 1926: diagrammatic plan 132
5.20 J.L.M. Lauweriks, name-card for 191 1: proportional analysis showing use of square grid 135
5.21 J.J.P. Oud, monogram 135
5.22 J.J.P. Oud, monogram: proportional analysis showing use of square grid 135
5.23 Theo van Doesburg, Stained glass composition IX, 1918 140
5.24 Theo van Doesburg, part floor-tile design for vacation house 'De Vonk',
Noordwijkerhout, by J.J.P. Oud, 1918 140
5.25 J.L.M. Lauweriks, garden gate, Harmann house, Hohenhagen, 1911 140
5.26 J.L.M. Lauweriks, stained-glass window, Stein house, Göttingen, 1912 141
5.27 Le Corbusier, 'panel exercises' from The Modulor, 1950 141
5.28 Theo van Doesburg, Universal form II, 1926 143
ix Figures
5.29 Christian Bayer, church project, 1909: modular grid, first stage – circle inscribed on
six-by-six square grid 143
5.30 Christian Bayer, church project, 1909: modular grid, second stage – dodecagon
defined by intersecting half-circles 143
5.31-5.32 Typical Islamic tessellations based on dodecagons, squares and equilateral triangles 144
5.33 Christian Bayer, church project: basic motif 144
5.34 Christian Bayer, church project: plan 145
5.35 Christian Bayer, church project: site plan 145
6.1 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Friedrichstrasse competition project, 1921:
diagrammatic plan 146
6.2 Hugo Häring, Friedrichstrasse competition project, 1921: diagrammatic plan 157
6.3 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, glass skyscraper project, 1922: diagrammatic plan 157
6.4 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, National Gallery, Berlin, 1962–7: plan and elevation 158
6.5 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, 860 and 880 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, 1949–51:
plan details of typical column, corner column and mullion 158
6.6 Chartres Cathedral, 1 194–c. 1224: typical pier and corner pier 158
6.7 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, IIT Campus, Chicago, 1940: plan 160
6.8 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, brick country house project, 1923–4: plan 160
6.9 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Tugendhat house, Brno, 1928-30: block plan of upper
floor 161
6.10 Comparative plans of (a) Barcelona Pavilion (1929), (b) Farnsworth house (1946–51)
(c) Bacardi office project, Santiago de Cuba (1957) 165
7.1 Theo van Doesburg, counter-construction based on private house project, 1923 174
7.2 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Barcelona Pavilion, 1929: plan 176
7.3 Rubin vase: alternative figure–ground relation of vase and heads 177
7.4 Concave and convex forms contrasted (after Rasmussen) 178
7.5 Concave (centripetal) and convex (centrifugal) compositions contrasted (after
Van Doesburg) 178
7.6 Le Corbusier, La Roche-Jeanneret houses, Auteuil, 1923–4: view of entrance hall 179
7.7 Rubin vase redrawn so that profiles become a linear figure against a white ground 179
7.8 Dom Hans van der Laan: spatial form constituted by the 'neighbourhood' between
walls 185
7.9 Square space defined by four round forms 185
7.10 Square space defined by four square forms 185
7.1 1 White cross as figure against black ground 186
7.12 Linear figures against continuous white ground 186
7.13–7.16 Dom Hans van der Laan: examples of spaces generated by arrangements of three
forms in varying proportions 187
7.17 Theo van Doesburg, garden sculpture (flower vase), 1919 188
7.18 Mies van der Rohe, Federal Center, Chicago, 1959–73 188
8.1 Theo van Doesburg, 'circulation city', 1929: diagrammatic elevation and plan 192
8.2 'Circulation city': diagrammatic plan 208
8.3 'Circulation city': plan at same density on regular 31 m grid 208
8.4–8.7 'Circulation city': alternative layouts with regular grid 209
8.8 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, National Gallery, Berlin, 1962–7: plan and elevation 215
8.9 Le Corbusier, Quartiers Modernes Frugès, Pessac, 1925: house plan 219
8.10 J.J.P. Oud, Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart, 1927: house plan 219
Preface
The main protagonists of this book are Le Corbusier, Mies van der
Rohe and the De Stijl group. Its purpose is not to add to the already
vast literature on these three separate subjects; rather, it aims to
explore the relations between them, and especially the influence that
De Stijl exerted on Le Corbusier and Mies – as well as on several
other figures, such as Donald Judd. But while the relation of Le
Corbusier and Mies to De Stijl may reveal new aspects of these indi-
viduals, my principal objective is the converse: to locate De Stijl more
precisely through its relation to Le Corbusier, Mies and other artists.
For the De Stijl phenomenon is notoriously elusive. As soon as you
think you have finally managed to pin it down you discover that it has
changed its form, slipped from your grasp and reappeared in another
corner of the field.
In his book Painting as Model Yve-Alain Bois puts forward three
distinct though mutually overlapping definitions of the phenomenon
'De Stijl': as a journal, as a group of artists and as an idea. None of
these definitions is entirely satisfactory. The first is undermined, as he
points out, by the eclectic policy of the journal's editor, Theo van
Doesburg, who in 1927 not only listed among the 'main collabora-
tors' of De Stijl the dadaists Hugo Ball, Hans Arp and Hans Richter,
the futurist Gino Severini, the constructivist El Lissitzky and the
sculptor Constantin Brancusi, but added to them his own dadaist and
futurist aliases, I.K. Bonset and Aldo Camini. The second, more
common, identification of De Stijl with the original signatories of the
foundation manifesto is only slightly more accurate, however. Apart
from the fact that it leaves out three important architect members of
the group (J.J.P. Oud, Gerrit Rietveld and Cor van Eesteren) who
either refused or joined too late to sign, Bois points out that it fails to
take account of such things as 'van der Leck's defection from the
movement during its first year, or Wils's and van't Hoffs during the
second, Oud's during the fourth, Huszar's and Vantongerloo's during
the fifth, and finally that of Mondrian in 1925.'' He therefore favours
the third definition, which was that adopted by Van Doesburg
himself. Reviewing the first ten years of De Stijl in 1927, Van
Doesburg wrote: 'De Stijl as a movement developed gradually out of
De Stijl as an idea.'2
Not even this third definition will quite do, however. 'De Stijl as an
idea' is the vaguest of the three definitions, as Bois admits, and more-
1. Y.-A. Bois, Painting as Model, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.,
over there turn out to be as many 'De Stijl ideas' as there were
1993, p. 102.
participants in the movement. Although he argues that the concep- 2. T. van Doesburg, ' 10 jaren Stijl', in De Stijl, vol. VII, nos. 79/84,
tual nature of this definition makes it 'the most restrictive', and thus 1927, p. 5.
Preface XI
the most exact, Mondrian's, Van der Leck's and Oud's concepts of
the De Stijl idea differed fundamentally from Van Doesburg's. If
Rietveld, unlike these others, never found it necessary to distance
himself from the movement, it is only because he was not by nature
inclined to ideological dispute. Therefore, while the main concern of
this book is the ideology of De Stijl,I do not claim to be able to give
this a final definition.
It seems to me that the best way to approach the moving target of
De Stijl is not to try to locate it definitively – to fix it, so to speak, 'in
one place' – but to delimit a wider territory within which it can
occupy various positions.I have attempted to stake out this territory
by approaching it from several different, more or less independent
directions. Each of the eight chapters can be read as a separate essay,
and although a common thread of argument runs through them they
can be read in any order the reader prefers. They are intended as a
ring of marker posts; hidden somewhere between them the shy
animal known as De Stijl may be found moving around.
There is, however, one theme that is central to the whole book,
and which unites in my opinion all its protagonists: the striving for the
universal and the general, as opposed to the individual and the partic-
ular. This was,I believe, not only the essential 'De Stijl idea', but also
the 'Miesian idea' and (at least in the 1920s) the 'Corbusian idea'. It
was the glory, but ultimately also the downfall, of 1920s modernism.
So the final message of the book, contained in the last chapter, is that
a balance must be found between universality and individuality,
between permanence and change. At the end of that chapterI quote
Plato's remark from The Sophist that the philosopher 'must refuse t o
accept from the champions either of the One or the many Forms the
doctrine that all Reality is changeless; and he must turn a deaf ear to
the other party who represent Reality as everywhere changing. Like a
child begging for "both", he must declare that Reality or the sum of
things is both at once – all that is unchangeable and all that is in
change.'3
Cutting across this first theme, however, there is a second opposi-
tion: that between the open and the closed. The universality aimed at
by De Stijl artists like Van Doesburg and Mondrian resembled that of
the universe itself: it was boundless. Their paintings continued, in
theory, beyond the limits of the canvas; their architecture sought to
abolish the wall as the boundary between interior and exterior space.
But each of Le Corbusier's buildings and paintings was a self-
contained universe, held within a clear frame; in reaction to De Stijl,
he advocated 'the pure envelope which covers abundance with a 3. Plato, The Sophist', in F.M. Cornford, Plato's Theory of
mask of simplicity. Mies fluctuated between the two ideals: in the Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1960, p. 242.
Preface XII
1920s, in such designs as the brick country house and the Barcelona
Pavilion, he outdid even the De Stijl architects in openness, but in his
later work in America he reverted to the closed neoclassical box.
I am very grateful to my commissioning editor, Caroline Mallinder,
who has remained faithful to the project through five years of delay in
delivering the manuscript.I wish to thank the editors of The Architec-
tural Review and to the College of Architecture, Illinois Institute of
Technology, the original publishers of essays thatI have incorporated
into chapters four and six. Finally,I am indebted to the late Bruno
Zevi, whose pioneering book Poetico dell'architettura neoplastica4 first
opened my eyes to the fundamental importance of De Stijl in
modern architecture.
Richard Radovan
December 2000
4. B Zevi, Poetico dell'architettura neoplastica, Libreria Editrice

Politecnica Tamburini, Milan, 1953; revised edition, Giulio Einaudi,
Turin, 1974.
1
The Open or the Closed
De Stijl and Le Corbusier
I.I De Stijl and architecture
The phenomenon we call 'De Stijl' was not an organized movement

but a frequently changing collection of artists who rarely if ever met
each other and never exhibited together. What connected them and
gave them the semblance of a common direction was the magazine
De Stijl and the driving personality of its founder and editor, the
painter and writer Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931). Although the
group's greatest achievements were in the field of painting– above all
the work of Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) – Van Doesburg believed
that its ultimate field of activity must be architecture. Two years
before he died, looking back over the thirteen-year 'Struggle for the
New Style' in the pages of the Swiss journal Neuer Schweizer
Rundschau, he wrote:
F i g u r e I .I C.-E. Jeanneret (Le Corbusier),
Composition à lo guitare età la lanteme, 1920
It is unquestionably the architectonic character of the works of the
most radical painters that finally convinced the public of the seri-
ousness of their struggle, not merely to 'influence' architecture,
but to dictate its development towards a collective construction.
Although in 1917 there was as yet no question of such a collective
construction, certain painters attempted, in collaboration with
architects (van der Leck with Berlage,I with Oud, etc.) to transfer
systematically and coherently into architecture and into three
dimensional space the ideas they had developed through painting
on canvas. The germ of a universal style-idea was already latent in
this struggle to combine architecture with painting in an organic
whole.1
Consequently Van Doesburg was keen to involve architects as

well as painters in De Stijl, and three members of the founding group
were architects: Robert van't Hoff (1887–1979), J.J.P. Oud (1890–
1963) and Jan Wils (1891–1972). The furniture designer and archi-
tect Gerrit Rietveld (1888–1964) joined about a year later. Other
I. T. van Doesburg, 'Der Kampf um den neuen Stil', in Neuer
original members were the painters Bart van der Leck (1876–1958)
Schweizer Raundschau, 1929, 41–631; reproduced in Dutch and
and Vilmos Huszar (1884–1960) and the sculptor Georges English translation in De Stijl: De Nieuwe Bedding in de Architectuur/
Vantongerloo (1886–1965). Neo-Plasticism in Architecture, Delft University Press, Delft, 1983.
The Open or the Closed 2
Despite the inclusion of architects, De Stijl's direct impact on

architecture did not get much further than the sporadic collabora-
tions between painters and architects which Van Doesburg
mentions. If one excludes sculpture, the movement's total realization
in three-dimensional space was pitifully small: some furniture, one or
two small houses and a handful of short-lived interiors; the rest
remained on paper, as unrealized projects and manifestos. The gulf
between this minimal concrete achievement and the movement's
revolutionary aims – nothing less than the creation of a new life, a
new man and a new world – is either comical or tragic, according to
one's point of view. Certainly Van Doesburg, towards the end of his
life, saw it as tragic. Reacting to the public's rejection of his interiors
for the Cafe Aubette, Strasbourg, which he had struggled so hard to
create during 1926–8, he writes despairingly to Adolf Behne:
when the aubette was just finished, before its inauguration, it was
really good and significant as the first realization of a programme
which we had cherished for years: the total artistic design
[gesamtkunstwerk]. yet ... the public cannot leave its 'brown'
world, and it stubbornly rejects the new 'white' world, the public
wants to live in mire and shall perish in mire, let the architect
create for the public ... the artist creates beyond the public and
demands new conditions diametrically opposed to the old
conventions, and therefore every work of art contains a destruc-
tive power.2
1.2 An art of destruction
The claim that the aim of art is destruction occurs frequently in De

Stijl literature. But what was to be destroyed? In an article which
appeared in De Stijl in 1927, Van Doesburg calls for
the total destruction of traditional absolutism in any form (the

nonsense about a rigid opposition as between man and woman,
man and god, good and evil, etc.) The elementarist sees life as a
vast expanse in which there is a constant interchange between
these life factors.3
De Stijl's central goal was the abolition of all conventional bound-

aries, whether in painting, in architecture or in life. The world was 2. T. van Doesburg, letter to Adolf Behne, November 7, 1928,
q u o t e d in translation in N . T r o y , The De Stijl Environment, M I T Press,
seen as a continuum in which all the usually discrete categories
Cambridge, Mass., 1983, p. 176.
merged together: male and female, human and divine, good and evil, 3. T. van Doesburg, 'Schilderkunst en plastiek', in De Stijl, vol. VII,
inside and outside. In painting, the frame, conceived as the limit of the no. 7, 1927, p. 87.
composition, was abolished. What appeared on the canvas was

merely a fragment of a boundless continuity. Applying the same prin-
ciple to architecture, Van Doesburg declares in the eighth point of his
architectural manifesto (1924) that The new architecture has broken
through the wall, thus destroying the seporoteness of inside and
outside ... This gives rise t o a new, open plan, totally different from the
classical one, in that interior and exterior spaces interpenetrate.'4
The problems arising from De Stijl's aim of replacing the structur-
ally contained, enclosed spaces of traditional architecture with a
continuously flowing space in which there was no longer any fixed
boundary between inside and outside, or between one room and
another, will be explored further in Chapter 4. The purpose of all this
destruction – of categories, of confines, of walls – was to help bring
about the realization of what was seen as man's future (and inevi-
table) destiny: the absorption of the individual into the universal. This
aim, coupled with the necessity of destruction, appears most
famously in the opening words of the 'First Manifesto of "De Stijl",
1918:
1 There exist an old and a new consciousness of the age.

The old is directed towards the individual.
The new is directed towards the universal.
The struggle of the individual against the universal shows itself
in the world war as well as in today's art.
2 The war is destroying the old world together with its content:
the dominance of the individual in every field.5
It is important to realize, however, that when the De Stijl artists

talk about 'the individual' they do not only mean 'the individual
personality', still less 'the individual artist'. They sometimes mean both
of those, but they also mean 'the individual thing' in the sense of'the
particular thing'. The opposition that they speak of between the indi-
vidual and the universal is really that between the particular and the
universal, which is a fundamental concept in classical philosophy. For
some philosophers, particulars are primary, and universal are purely
mental derivations from particular instances (we derive the general
idea of 'red' from the experience of particular red things). But for
Plato, in contrast, the real world is the world of universal Ideas or
Forms, of which the particular things that we experience with our 4. T. van Doesburg, T o t een beeldende architectuur', in De Stijl,
senses are only the imperfect reflections. The latter concept is central vol. VI, no. 6/7, 1924, p. 80.
5. 'ManifestI van "De Stijl", 1918', in De Stijl, vol. II, no. I,
to De Stijl theory, where it stems not only from Plato but also from
November 1918, pp. 2–5, signed by Theo van Doesburg, Robt.
eastern thought (from theosophy in Mondrian's case) and from nine- van't Hoff, Vilmos Huszar, Anthony Kok, Piet Mondrian, Georges
teenth century German philosophy, particularly G.W.F. Hegel Vantongerloo and Jan Wils.
(1770–1831), whose influence was absorbed primarily from the

leading Dutch Hegelian of the time, G.J.P.J. Bolland. The opposition of
particulars and universal will recur throughout this book and is the
main subject of Chapters 2 and 3.
1.3 Mondrian: evolution from the individual-natural to

the universal-abstract
Humanity's need to transcend the individual in order to evolve

towards the universal is a constant theme of Mondrian's writings,
where the individual (i.e. the particular) is identified with the natural,
and the universal with the abstract. In this context Carel Blotkamp's
assessment of the centrality of the concept of evolution in Mondrian's
art and thought cannot be improved upon:
To Mondrian evolution was 'everything'. Not only are his theoret-

ical articles imbued with evolutionary thinking, this concept also
generated the process of change that characterized his work to
the very end of his life. In order to understand this, we must take
into account that in Mondrian's thinking evolution was closely
bound up with destruction. He did not view this as a negative
concept: on the contrary, the destruction of old forms was a
condition for the creation of new, higher forms. Initially this was
expressed in his choice of subject-matter, exemplified in the paint-
ings and drawings of flowers in states of decay. Later, in his Cubist
period, he came to the realization that abstraction, which implies
the destruction of the incidental, outward image of reality, could
be used to portray a purer image of that reality, and to represent a
higher stage in evolution. And finally, the principle of destruction
was applied to the means of expression themselves: his Neo-
plastic work is, in effect, the result of a whole series of destructive
actions.6
The most evident characteristics of De Stijl as style are a direct

consequence of this opposition of the universal-abstract to the indi-
vidual-natural: the straight line replaced the curve, the rectangular
plane replaced the solid form, and the six 'abstract' colours (red, blue,
yellow, white, grey and black) replaced 'natural' colour. Mondrian's
essay 'Neoplasticism in Painting' (De nieuwe beelding in de
schilderkunst), serialized in the first twelve issues of De Stijl, is the first,
and arguably the most complete, exposition of De Stijl theory. The
implications of the Dutch term nieuwe beelding (literally 'new imag- 6. C. Blotkamp, Mondrian: The Art of Destruction, Reaktion Books,
ing'), and the inadequacy of the usual translation 'neoplasticism', London, 1994, p.I 5.
which Mondrian himself introduced, will be discussed more fully in

Chapter 2. Meanwhile, except where 'plastic' occurs in a title too well
known in English translation t o be altered, beelding will generally be
translated here as 'representation' or 'plastic representation'. For
instance, instead of the now familiar 'Neoplasticism in Painting, the
meaning of 'De nieuwe beelding in de schilderkunst' might be better
conveyed by 'New Representation in Painting'. In the essay Mondrian
argues that
If we see human consciousness– in time– growing towards defini-

tion, if we see it– in time– developing from individual t o universal,
then it is for us logical that the new plastic representation can
never return to form– or to natural colour ... The new plastic
representation can be called abstract not only because it is the
direct representation of the universal, but also because that repre-
sentation excludes the individual (the natural-concrete)7 ...
Abstract-real painting can represent both aesthetically and mathe-
matically because it has an exact mathematical means of represen-
tation. The means t o achieve this is colour brought to definition. T o
make colour definite involves: first, reducing natural colour to
primary colour, second, reducing colour to the flat plane, and third,
delimiting colour-so that it appears as a unity of rectangular planes8
It might appear that the delimited coloured rectangle itself consti-

tutes a bounded figure, and thereby contradicts the De Stijl principle
of destroying all boundaries. But odd as it may seem, in Mondrian's
view it would be wrong to consider a rectangular plane as bounded
in the same sense as a solid 'corporeal' form contained within its
'rounded' surface:
Ordinary vision does not perceive colour in nature as plane; it

perceives things (colour) as corporeality, as roundness ... Extension –
an exteriorization of the active primal force – brings corporeal
form into being through growth, attachment, construction, etc.
Form results when extension is bounded ... [Now] if the time is
ripe, this boundedness of the individual in the representation of exten-
sion must be given up, for only then can extension be represented
in all its purity. If the bounding of form comes about through the
closed line (contour), then this must be tautened into the straight
7. P. Mondrian, 'De nieuwe beelding in de schilderkunst', in De Stijl,
line ... so that extension is realized without individual delimitation,
vol. I, no. 1, 1917, p. 5.
except insofar as this arises from the colour-differences of the 8. Mondrian, 'De nieuwe beelding', in De Stijl, vol. I, no. 3, 1918,
planes and through rectangular relations of lines or coloured p. 29.
planes. By means of rectangularity, colour is delimited without

being enclosed.9
Underlying all this striving for the most abstract possible form of
representation (for a nieuwe beelding) is a metaphysical – and in the
case of Mondrian, an avowedly theosophist and thus religious–belief
that history is moving inexorably towards a higher, supra-natural and
more spiritual level of human consciousness:
In abstract-real representation man has a contrast to the natural. By

opposing nature he can learn to know it, and so come to knowledge of
the spirit. In this way art becomes truly religious.10
The natural, earth-bound self-consciousness of the individual is

increasingly giving way to a universal spiritual awareness. In fact, for
Mondrian, a radically new kind of human being is in the process of
evolving out of the old with the help of the machine – a being who by
liberating himself from the external bonds of the material can turn his
attention increasingly inwards to the spiritual:
The new man must indeed be entirely 'different' from the old ...
He ... uses his physical being as a perfect machine ... without
himself becoming a machine. The difference lies precisely in this:
formerly man was himself a machine; now he uses the machine,
whether his own body or a machine of his own making. To the
latter he leaves so far as possible the heavy work, himself concen-
trating on the inward ...I posit this new man as a 'type' that is as
yet only partially realized ... but it is beginning to appear! And it is
quite logical that they who represent this new type are alien to the
former man, alien to his expression, to his art, and so on."
It is the task of the new art to represent and give expression to the
new universality, the new inwardness, the new spirituality. Only when
the entire human environment has been transformed by the new art
– that is, when the new art is no longer confined to the artist's studio
and the separate canvas but has permeated architecture – will the
new human type feel at home in the world. For:
why must universal beauty remain hidden in art, while in science 9. Mondrian, 'De nieuwe beelding', in De Stijl, vol. I, no. 4, 1918
for instance we strive for the greatest possible clarity? ... It is pp. 42–3.
10. Mondnan, 'De nieuwe beelding', in De Stijl, vol. I, no. 8
architecture's great task to make universal beauty clearly visible to
1918, p. 89.
us, and to that end work together as one whole with sculpture and 11. P. Mondrian, 'Natuurlijke en abstracte realiteit', in De Stijl, vol
painting ... Architecture has only to realize tangibly what painting III, no. 3, 1920, p. 28.
has demonstrated abstractly through the New Representation

[Nieuwe Beelding] ... For the present, w e still live in the midst of
the old! ... We live as strangers in another man's house, with
another man's furniture, carpets, utensils, paintings! If we go out
into the streets, they too are alien to us. If we go to the theatre,
the same. The cinema? With its antiquated morality and its
'nature'? Not even that is of our time.12
1.4 Van Doesburg: the goal of history, and

four-dimensionality
The equivalent inspiration for Van Doesburg's thought came not

from religion as such but, as has been said, from the nineteenth
century German philosophers, in particular from Hegel. Hegel argues
in his Philosophy of Art that the highest goal of fine art must be t o
become, together with religion and philosophy, a means for the liber-
ation and self-realization of the spirit, an inevitable evolution towards
an ever higher and more spiritual consciousness. The Philosophy of
History portrays history, not as merely a record of events and the
cross-connections between events, but as something that has a
purpose, a goal; and that goal is the evolution of the Spirit towards a
fuller consciousness of itself:
The History of the world is none other than the progress of the
consciousness of Freedom ... The destiny of the spiritual World,
and – since this is the substantial World, while the physical remains
subordinate t o it, or, in the language of speculation, has no truth as
against the spiritual – the final cause of the World at large, w e allege
t o be the consciousness of its o w n freedom on the part of Spirit,
and ipso facto, the reality of that freedom. 13
The broad parallels between this and Mondrian's theosophically

inspired concept of evolution are evident, and it is interesting that
Hegel's principal Dutch interpreter, G.J.P.J. Bolland, placed theosophy
in a direct line of descent from Hegel in his book Schelling, Hegel,
Fechner en de nieuwere theosophie (1910). 14
A second important ingredient of Van Doesburg's thought was
the idea of four-dimensionality. The time dimension, combined with
the three dimensions of Euclidian space, formed a new concept:
'space-time'. Pseudo-scientific, mystical or occultist theories about 12. Ibid, pp. 29–30.
13. G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, Dover Publications,
the possibilities of non-Euclidian space were much in vogue in the late
New York, 1956, p. 19.
nineteenth and early twentieth century: an example is Edwin E. 14. A. Doig, Theo van Doesburg, Cambridge University Press,
Abbott's fantasy Flatland (1884). The Dutch journal Eenheid, t o which Cambridge, 1986, p.I 3.
The Open or the Closed
Van Doesburg contributed from 1912 to 1916, was a typical vehicle

for such speculations.15 Four-dimensionality is a major theme of the
series of articles which the Italian ex-futurist Gino Severini contrib-
uted t o the early numbers of De Stijl. Severini introduces the topic in
the fourth issue, February 1918, declaring that 'to the ordinary three
dimensions [painters] strive to add a fourth dimension which incor-
porates them, and which is differently expressed, but which consti-
tutes the goal, so to speak, of the art of all epochs'.16
In the eighth number he resumes the argument, lending it a
spurious scientific legitimacy by citing the eminent French mathemati-
cian Henri Poincare (1854–1912), and concluding that the fourth
dimension
is nothing else than the identification of object and subject, of time

and space, of matter and energy. The parallelism of the 'physical
continuum', which for geometry is merely a hypothesis, is realized
through the miracle of art. This philosophical and aesthetic conclu-
sion is confirmed by Plato, Bacon, Gracian, and is further
supported by mathematics. For according to H. Poincare the
synthesis of ordinary space with time gives rise to a hyperspace of
four dimensions.17
Such verbal outpourings are relatively easy; the more difficult

problem that Van Doesburg and his fellow artists had to face was
how the dynamic dimension of time could be expressed in the inher-
ently static medium of painting. At first Van Doesburg tried to over-
come the problem by choosing subject-matter that itself implied
movement, as in his paintings Dancers (1916) and Rhythm of a Russian
dance (1918). But he increasingly realized that such an attempt could
at best produce an illusion of movement, and this realization was a
major reason for his growing preoccupation with architecture. For
whereas a painting can be regarded as something that can be seen as
a whole in a single glance, clearly architecture can be experienced
only in time, by moving through space.
A moment's reflection shows that this distinction is fallacious,
however. Time enters into one's perception of even the simplest
painting: one may start by looking at the composition as a whole, but
then the eye begins to move around the painting, considering the
details singly or as groups, studying the relations between one part 15. C. Blotkamp, Theo van Doesburg', in Blotkamp et al., De
and another, and so on. With sculpture in the round, the time Beginjaren van De Stijl 1917–1922, Reflex, Utrecht, 1982, p. 39.
16. G. Severini, 'La peinture d'avant-garde', in De Stijl, vol. I, no. 4,
element is still more essential, since only one side can be seen at any
1918, p. 44.
one time. In the case of architecture this need is more obvious (to see 17. Severini, 'La peinture d'avant-garde', in De Stijl, vol. I, no. 8,
all aspects of an architectural space, one must turn around and build 1918, p. 95.
up the total picture from the successive impressions) but not funda-
mentally different. Furthermore, all these 'four-dimensional' percep-
tions are inherent in the experience of traditional architecture,
sculpture and painting; no revolutionary new art is required.
Nevertheless, Van Doesburg relentlessly pursued his goal of 'trans-
ferring into architecture the ideas that the De Stijl painters had devel-
oped on canvas'. After initial, often frustrating, attempts to collaborate
on colour schemes with various architects – with Wils at Alkmaar
(1917), with Oud on the vacation house De Vonk (1918) and housing
at Spangen (1921), with Rietveld at Katwijk (1919), and with Cees
Rinks de Boer at Drachten (1921) – he at last found the ideal collabo-
rator in the young Cor van Eesteren (1897–1988). With him he
created a colour scheme for Van Eesteren's thesis project for a hall for
Amsterdam University (1922) and, the following year, the three house
projects for the Parisian gallery owner Léonce Rosenberg, which will
be discussed in Chapter 4. An important sequel to the Rosenberg
projects was the publication in 1924 of two architectural manifestos:
'Towards a Collective Construction' (Vers une construction collec-
tive') and Towards a Plastic Architecture' (Tot een beeldende
architectuur'). They contain the following absurdities:
We have examined the relation between space and time and

found that the plastic manifestation of these two elements by
means of colour gives rise to a new dimension.18
The space-composition projected in t w o dimensions, embedded

in a plan, will be replaced by an accurate constructional calculation,
a calculation by which the load-bearing capacity must be reduced
to the simplest but most resistant points of support. Euclidian
mathematics will no longer be of any use here, but it will be easily
solved by means of non-Euclidian calculations in four dimensions.19
Space and time. The new architecture reckons not only with space
but also with time. The unity of time and space gives the architec-
tural phenomenon a new and completely plastic aspect (four–
dimensional temporal and spatial plastic aspects).20
In contrast, Mondrian's few references to the fourth dimension as

a sign of the new Zeitgeist have a vagueness that suggests perhaps a 18. T. van Doesburg and C van Eesteren, Vers une construction
lesser interest or a lack of complete conviction: collective', point 4, in De Stijl, vol. VI, no. 6/7, 1924, p. 91.
19. Van Doesburg, T o t een beeldende architectuur', point 9, in
De Stijl, vol. VI, no. 6/7, 1924, p. 80.
It is truly an encouraging sign that recent painting manifests an 20. Van Doesburg, T o t een beeldende architectuur', point 10, in
increasingly conscious striving towards a pure and many-sided De Stijl, vol. VI, no. 6/7, 1924, p. 81.
representation of things, for this indicates a new, more conscious

spirit of the age that aspires to the universal with a greater determi-
nation. This new aspiration has been correctly attributed to a
greater awareness of four-dimensionality, and in fact the concept of
t h e f o u r d i m e n s i o n a l s h o w s itself in t h e n e w a r t as a partial or
complete destruction of three-dimensional, naturalistic representation
and the reconstruction of a new representation in accordance with a
less limited vision.21
Three years later, he alludes in an aside to the theory of relativity,

in connection with De Stijl's break with traditional one-point
perspective:
To see architecture as form-making is a traditionalist view. This is

the perspective visual schema, which belongs to the past. The
neoplastic concept gives this up ... Even before the rise of
neoplasticism, the new vision is not projected from a single fixed
v i e w p o i n t : it establishes its viewpoint everywhere, and is nowhere
fixed (this corresponds to relativity theory).22
Despite the reference to relativity, this statement reveals Mondrian's

essentially mystical and quasi-religious approach to the question, as
Carel Blotkamp has commented:
It is interesting that Mondrian here brings forward relativity theory

as an argument, but in my view it serves as a scientific cloak for a
purely esoteric way of thinking. One finds confirmation of this in a
letter to Van Doesburg, in which Mondrian says that 'in order to
arrive at a pure abstract representation (to see inwardly,I mean)
time, too, must be erased from the mind'.23
In a letter to Oud, Van Doesburg himself had earlier criticized

Mondrian's wish for a 'timeless' art and his consequent lack of
commitment to the 'third' dimension in painting (in Van Doesburg's
view painting should have no illusion of depth, so time constituted
not a fourth but a third dimension):
Since in his latest article Mondriaan completely denies the time

movement and wants to banish it from painting, forhim 3-dimen¬ 21. Mondrian, 'Natuurlijke', in De Stijl, vol. II, no. 12, 1919, p. 137.
sional painting (i.e., space-time painting) must be impossible. He 22. P. Mondrian, 'De realiseering van het neo-plasticisme in verre
toekomst en in de huidige architectuur', in De Stijl, vol. V, no. 5,
remains limited to the 2-dimensional canvas ... Mondriaan as a
1922, p. 68.
man is not modern because, in my opinion, although he has devel- 23. C Blotkamp, 'Mondriaan architectuur', in Wonen TABK,
oped psychically towards the new, spiritually he belongs to the nos. 4 & 5, March 1982, p. 41.
The O p e n o r t h e Closed 11
old. By thisI mean that he sees the spiritual as a conceptual

abstraction, in other words something like the theosophists. Of
life itself as reality he is in fact afraid. He thinks life, but he does
not live it.24
This attack indicates that for Van Doesburg four-dimensionality was

the key to the concrete realization of the new spirit in art and in
everyday life, without which it would remain merely a theoretical
conception. However, the conviction that history is governed by
discoverable laws of evolution, and the obsession with four–
dimensionality and non-Euclidian geometry, are not confined to De
Stijl.
1.5 Giedion's 'authorized history' of the modern

movement
The historical theory of the modern movement as a whole is derived

from, and continues, the nineteenth century project of converting art
history into a science (Kunstwissenschaft), a discipline aiming at the
same kind of objectivity expected of the natural sciences. In Hegel's
concept of a necessary process of historical evolution, and of art as a
medium of that evolution, can be found the germ of the idea of a
Kunstwollen, i n t r o d u c e d by A l o i s Riegl in his Stiifragen (1893) and
adopted by, among others, Wilhelm Worringer in Abstraction and
Empathy (1908) and Erwin Panofsky in 'Der Begriff des Kunstwollens'
(1920). 25 Riegl saw the Kunstwollen – variously translated as 'stylistic
intent',26 as 'will-to-form'27 or as 'that-which-wills-art',28 – as a telos,a
goal to which artistic development is drawn with the inevitability of a
natural law. He claims in his book Die Spätrömische Kunstindustrie
(1901) to have been 'the first to advocate a teleological conception
of art.'29
Panofsky interprets the Kunstwollen slightly differently from Riegl,30
but still as something outside and above the particular circumstances 24. T. van Doesburg, letter to J J P Oud, 12 September 1921,
quoted in Troy, De Stijl Environment, p. 70.
that surround the birth of a work of art: such things as the individual
25. M.A. Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History, Cornell
psychology of the artist or the influence upon him of other works. He University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1984, pp. 46–96.
compares it to an 'Archimedean point', which enables the historian to 26. O. Brendel, Prolegomena to the Study of Roman Art, New
'grasp the object of study with necessity and not merely historically'.31 Haven, 1953, p. 31.
27. E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion, Phaidon, London, 1959, p. 18.
This teleological conception can be discovered, moreover, at the
28. O. Pächt, 'Art historians and art critics –VI, Alois Riegl', in
very core of the theory of the modern movement in architecture, in Burlington Magazine no. 105, May 1962, p. 190.
the writings of its major historical interpreter, Sigfried Giedion 29. A. Riegl, DieSpätrömischeKunstindustrie (1901), Vienna, 1927,
p. 9.
(1888–1968), secretary of CIAM (Congrès International d'Archi–
30. Holly, Panofsky, p. 79.
tecture Moderne) from its foundation in 1928. A pupil of Heinrich 31. E. Panofsky, D e r Begriff des Kunstwollens', in Aufsätze zu
Wölfflin, Giedion was a direct heir t o the tradition of Kunstwissenschaft Gmndfragen der Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin, 1964, p. 33.
and the concept of the Kunstwollen. In his w o r k one finds repeatedly

the idea that it is the historian's task to separate within the flux of
phenomena those streams that are significant as expressions of the
will of the epoch from those that are not The most glaring examples
of this occur in his best known book, the 'official history', so to speak,
of the modern movement: Space, Time and Architecture (1941).
There he embraces unreservedly the Hegelian notion of history as a
process of evolution towards the greater self-awareness and self–
realization of the epoch. Giedion portrays history as a 'Being' with a
will and a consciousness of itself, even a somewhat mischievous char-
acter who may try coyly to conceal its true nature from the investi-
gating historian. It is the task of the historian to see through and strip
away these disguises:
We are looking for the reflection in architecture of the progress

our own period has made toward consciousness of itself ...
However much a period may try to disguise itself, its real nature
will show through in its architecture, whether this uses original
forms of expression or attempts to copy bygone epochs. We
recognize the character of the age as easily as w e identify a friend's
handwriting beneath attempted disguises.32
Like a graphologist, the historian must separate out the genuine

character traits from the artificial or superficial disguises. He must distin-
guish between 'constituent facts' and 'transitory facts': on one hand
'genuinely new trends ... which, when they are suppressed, inevitably
reappear' and on the other those 'more or less short-lived novelties'
that lack the stuff of permanence and fail to attach themselves to a
new tradition'.33 The historian is not only free, he argues, to make the
'not always obvious distinction' between these two kinds of facts, on his
own responsibility and using his own judgement; it is his duty to do so.34
Besides the iron-and-glass engineering tradition inherited from the
nineteenth century, the new constituent fact of the fully developed
modern architecture that arose in the second and third decades of
the twentieth century, in the works of Le Corbusier and others, is
according to Giedion the destruction of the perspective space that
had ruled since the renaissance, and its replacement by a four–
dimensional non-Euclidian space first developed in cubist painting.
This new artistic concept of space corresponds to, and coincides
with, the discovery of relativity by Albert Einstein:
32. S. Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1941, p. 19.
The three-dimensional space of the Renaissance is the space of 33. lbid, p. 18.
Euclidian geometry. But about 1830 a new sort of geometry was 34. lbid, p. 19.
created, one which differed from Euclid in employing more than

three dimensions ... Space in modern physics is conceived of as
relative to a moving point of reference, not as the absolute and
static entity of the baroque system of Newton. And in modern art,
for the first time since the Renaissance, a new conception of space
leads to a self-conscious enlargement of our ways of perceiving
space ... Cubism breaks with Renaissance perspective. It views
objects relatively: that is, from several points of view ... The poet
Guillaume Apollinaire was the first to recognize and express this
change, around 1911 ... The presentation of objects from several
points of view introduces a principle which is intimately bound up
with modern life – simultaneity. It is a temporal coincidence that
Einstein should have begun his famous work, Elektrodynamik
bewegter Körper, in 1905 with a careful definition of simultaneity.35
The use of the words 'temporal coincidence' is disingenuous.

Strictly speaking, it implies that there was no causal connection
between the writing of Einstein's paper in 1905 and the rise of cubism
about two years later. And given that Braque and Picasso are highly
unlikely to have read Einstein before producing their first cubist
works, this is literally true. But the whole passage is emptied of
meaning if it is interpreted as saying that the synchronicity of the
scientific and artistic discoveries was merely a coincidence. If
Giedion's argument – and with it, the whole argument of Space, Time
and Architecture – are t o signify anything at all, the passage must be
interpreted as meaning that while these simultaneous developments
were causally independent in the sense that one did not influence the
other, they were both driven by a common historical force or
Zeitgeist.
The idea is still widely held among architects that the discovery of
other geometries than the Euclidian – and the fact that one of these
geometries appears to conform to the observations that confirmed
Einstein's general theory of relativity – somehow invalidates parallel
straight lines and rectangles in modern architecture. This idea is sheer
mumbo-jumbo. As Bernard Cache writes in a recent essay:
The dismissal of Euclidian geometry by architects sounds rather

surprising when one notices how appreciated it is by contempo-
rary scientists, even by those who cannot be suspected of ortho-
doxy, such as Roger Penrose. In his The Emperor's New Mind:
Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics, Penrose
argues that Euclidian geometry comes first in the list of very few
theories which deserve the label 'superb' for their phenomenal 35. Ibid, pp. 356–7.
accuracy. Einstein's theory certainly teaches us that space (-time) is

actually 'curved' (i.e. not Euclidian) in the presence of a gravita-
tional field, but generally, one perceives this curvature only in the
case of bodies moving at speeds close to that of light. Hence the
very limited impact of Einstein's theory on technology. Normally,
'over a meter's range, deviation from Euclidian flatness is tiny
indeed, errors in treating the geometry as Euclidian amounting to
less than the diameter of an atom of hydrogen!' As those familiar
with the difficulties created at a building site by the 1/10 millimeter
accuracy of prefabricated components surely know, Euclidian
geometry is more than sufficient approximation of architectural
space.'36
Einstein himself repudiated any parallelism between cubism and

relativity. When in 1945, four years after the publication of Space,
Time and Architecture, he was asked t o comment on an essay by Paul
Laporte entitled 'Cubism and the Theory of Relativity', which put
forward a similar argument to Giedion's, he stated categorically: This
new "language" of art has nothing in common with the theory of rela-
tivity.'37
According to Picasso's biographer John Richardson, the poet
Apollinaire, and the so-called 'salon cubists' Albert Gleizes and Jean
Metzinger, who likewise sought to give cubism a fake 'scientific' legiti-
macy based on non-Euclidian geometry and four-dimensionality, had
all earlier been attached to the Abbaye de Créteil community. This
was
A principal breeding-ground of the theories that the Salon cubists

revered and Braque and Picasso loathed ... And the ultimate
expression of their theories is Du Cubisme, the book that Gleizes
and Metzinger published in 1912 ... Although the book pays lip
service to some of his achievements, Picasso dismissed Du
Cubisme as nonsense. Likewise Braque: 'Look at the daubs it
engendered,' he said.38
1.6 Rietveld: architecture as the construction of reality

36. B. Cache, 'A plea for Euclid', in ANY, no. 24, 1999, p. 54.
There is at least one great contributor to De Stijl, however, who was 37. P. Laporte, 'Cubism and relativity – with a letter of Albert
blessedly free of the tendency to metaphysical speculation that Einstein', in Art Journal, vol. XXV, no. 3, Spring 1966, pp. 246–8;
quoted in S. Georgiadis, Sigfried Gedion: An Intellectual Biography,
pervades the writings of Mondrian and Van Doesburg. Gerrit
Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1993, p. 123.
Rietveld believed that verbal rationalizations could never approach 38. J. Richardson, A Life of Picasso, v o l . II, Jonathan C a p e , L o n d o n , p.
the concrete realities they try to explain; therefore he wrote little, 215.
and destroyed much of the little that he wrote.39 He begins one of his
few published articles with a disclaimer:
To make a thing, it is in my opinion absolutely unnecessary to be

able first to explain or justify why it has to be just so. On the
contrary, the need to find expression in an outward form is dimin-
ished if one could have said it just as well in words.40
This is not to say that he was any less concerned than Van
Doesburg or Mondrian with the problems of spatial continuity or the
dissolution of boundaries, but that he thought about these things
rather more concretely. As a craftsman, his approach was more
matter-of-fact and practical. Instead of asserting dogmatically that 'the
new architecture has destroyed the separateness of inside and
outside', he recognized that complete openness was an impossibility.
An entirely unbounded space could not be perceived. To make a
continuous space it is not enough just to do away with walls, or to
produce an endless grid of modular coordinates. The space must be
given scansion; it must be punctuated in some way if its relative open-
ness is to be perceived. Some degree of delimitation is a necessity,
therefore, but it need not consist of enclosing walls:
The means of bringing an undefined space to a human scale can

consist of a line on a road, a floor, a low wall, a ceiling, a combina-
tion of vertical and horizontal planes, curved or flat, transparent or
solid. It is never a question of shutting off, but always one of
defining what is here and what is there, what is above and what is
below, what is between and what is around.41
More specifically, Rietveld draws attention to the role of opaque

wall surfaces in directing and reflecting light:
A large window has little effect if the light immediately escapes

again through a second window ... Only if there is a surface next
to or opposite the window, which reflects or conveys the light to
the other parts of the interior, does a window make sense as a
receiver of lightI have sometimes managed to improve the 39. T.M. Brown, The Work of G. Rietveld, Architect, A.W. Bruna &
Zoon, Utrecht, 1958, p. xi.
lighting in a house that was being renovated, or a room that was
40. G. Rietveld, 'Nut, constructie (schoonheid: kunst)', in i 10, vol. I,
too dark, by bricking up a window.42 no. 3, 1927, p. 89.
41. G. Rietveld, unreferenced remark quoted in G. Rietveld
Architect, exhibition catalogue, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1971
Secondly, in his more philosophical speculations, Rietveld does
and Hayward Gallery, London, 1972.
not assume that a new architecture is needed because a process of 42. G. Rietveld, Interiors', lecture, Rotterdam Academy of Fine
evolution or historical destiny is suddenly driving humanity towards Arts, March 1948.
an unprecedented state of universal spirituality, but rather that

people's psychological needs are fundamentally unchanging, and the
aim of the new architecture is simply to serve those needs a little
better. The basic purpose of making an architectural space, once the
practical needs of shelter and physical comfort have been satisfied, is
to help 'make the world real for us'. The following quotations illus-
trate this:
If for some purpose we divide off, stake out, delimit a piece of

what we customarily call universal, unbounded space, and so
shelter it from certain forces and bring it to a human scale, then (if
it is any good), a little bit of space has come into being which we
are able to experience as reality. Such a little piece of space has
then been absorbed into our human system. Was it then impos-
sible to experience the universal space as a reality? Not before
there was some kind of boundary: clouds, trees, or something else
that-gave it measure, and which reflected light and sound. In fact,
the concept 'universal space', which we presuppose as always
existing, can be manifested only as a continuation of that little
piece of realized space which has come into being by virtue of its
delimitation.43
And:
Delimitation is not an impoverishment, but on the contrary, the

necessary and the most human means to experience reality.44
The delimitation of a space is not, therefore, an ending but a

beginning. Martin Heidegger says something of the same kind when
he writes: The boundary is not that whereat something leaves off,
but on the contrary, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that
whereat something begins its real being.'45
1.7 The Schröder house
If one excludes interiors, exhibitions, works by architects who

happened, like Oud, to be associated with De StijI at the time but that
exhibit few or none of its characteristics, and later works that seem to
43. G. Rietveld, 'Levenshouding als achtergrond van mijn werk'
show such characteristics but which were built long after the move- ('Attitude to life as the background to my work'), in Brown, Work of
ment had come to an end, then the only true work of De StijI archi- G. Rietveld, p.I 63.
44. G. Rietveld, 1963, in Gerrit Rietveld: Texten, Impress, Utrecht,
tecture is the house that Rietveld designed with and for his friend
1979, p. 36.
Truus Schröder-Schräder (1889–1985) in the Prins Hendriklaan in 45. M. Heidegger, 'Bauen, wohnen, denken', in Vorträge und
Utrecht in 1924. There one finds all the characteristic elements Aufsätze, Gunther Neske Verlag, Pfullingen, 1954, pp. 145–62.
defined by Mondrian in 'Neoplasticism in Painting', by Van Doesburg

in Towards a Plastic Architecture', or in Rietveld's own rare surviving
statements: the straight line, the right angle and the rectangular plane
coloured red, blue, yellow, white or grey; walls, roofs and balconies
that instead of meeting at corners seem t o float o r slide past each
other, delimiting space without enclosing it; even, it can be argued, a
kind of four-dimensionality, thanks t o the sliding screens which can be
opened or shut at different times t o unite or subdivide the space
(Figure 1.2)
The importance of Truus Schröder's contribution t o the design is
increasingly recognized: Rietveld supplied the formal vocabulary–the
Figure 1.2 Gerrit Rietveld, Schröder house,
way the house was put together – but without the functional
Utrecht, 1924: upper floor plan
programme which she brought t o it, the result would have been very
different. For instance, according t o her recollections, both the
opening up of the main living and sleeping spaces and their subdivi-
sion by sliding screens were originally her ideas, o r at least originated
in response t o her suggestions (perhaps Rietveld, if he had outlived
her, might have told the story differently):
I can still hear myself asking, can those walls go, and that's how
w e ended up with one large space. ButI was still looking for the
possibility of also dividing up that space. That could be done with
sliding partitions.I think that was an idea of Rietveld's, though he
found it a shame ... He always regretted it, primarilyI think
because the space upstairs became considerably more compli-
cated with the placing of the partitions ... In his o w n house he
had one large area.46
Reacting against the stiff formality of the life in the rather grand
three-storey mansion she and her lawyer husband had lived in from
1911 until his death in 1923, she wanted so far as possible one large
space in which she and her three young children could share each
other's lives t o the full, a space where the children could learn from
the conversation of the many artists and intellectuals w h o came t o
visit:
I thought it was very good for the children t o live in an atmo-

sphere like that ... T o hear those conversations, including those
with people who disagreed. In fact, t o take part in the exchange of
46. T. Schröder, interviewed by L Müller and F den Oudsten, in
ideas...I wanted a real exchange of ideas in this house ...I wanted
Overy/Müller/Den Oudsten/Mulder, The Rietveld Schröder House,
t o have people here that you could discuss with. People with a Butterworth Architecture, 1988, p. 56.
critical attitude, all sorts of people.47 47. T. Schröder, interview, in RietveldSchröderHouse, pp. 93–6.
From the start, the Schroder house was intended not just as a
response to the particular needs of a given family, but as a social and
educational experiment in openness. It was to be a didactic demon-
stration of the richer and freer life that might result from the breaking
down of barriers: the barriers of age and sex that separate the indi-
viduals within each family, and the barriers of class and culture that
divide the family as a whole from the wider community.
1.8 The De Stijl house as a fragment of a continuous city
The Schroder house was a concrete and specific illustration of De

Stijl's more general vision of the house and the city as an architectural
and social continuum. In 1926 Mondrian would expound this vision in
an article which the following year he published in the first issue of the
Dutch avant-garde magazine ilo, with the title 'Neo-plasticisme: De
Woning – De Straat – De Stad' ('Neoplasticism: Dwelling – Street –
City):
Today as in the past, the dwelling is truly a human 'refuge' ... It is

entirely natural that the inequality of society should drive each
individual to flee the others. The reason is equally to be found in
the individual himself: so long as humanity remains a mass of indi-
viduals, it will be in no state to create a harmonious environment.
In the primitive era collective life was more possible because of
the greater equality of the mass of the people ... The people then
looked to the dwelling only as a shelter from inclement weather,
and lived for preference in the open. In the course of civilization
this situation changed, and the natural and logical instinct to feel
oneself part of a unity was obscured: the possibility of a collective
life ceased. And so people occupied themselves more and more
with the dwelling, and the 'outside' was reserved for traffic (the
street) or for taking the air (the park) ... Neoplasticism, however,
conceives the dwelling, not as a place in which to take refuge or
separate oneself from others, but as a port of the whole, a
constructive element of the city ... The interior of the dwelling
must no longer be an accumulation of rooms formed by four walls
with nothing but holes for doors and windows, but a construction
of coloured and colourless planes, combined with furniture and equip-
ment, which must be nothing in themselves but constituent elements
of the whole. In just the same way, the human being must be
nothing in himself, but only a part of the whole. Then, no longer
conscious of his individuality, he will be happy in this earthly para- 48. P. Mondrian, 'Neo-Plasticisme: De Woning– De Straat– De
dise that he has himself created.48 Stad', in ilo, vol. I, no. 1, 1927, pp. 12–18.
Just as, according to Alberti, the house must be like a little city and
the city like a great house, so too, in Mondrian's Utopian vision, house,
street and city must form a continuity – a continuity composed of
fractals, as it were. The neoplasticist city is to be one great open
house for the whole community, a continuous space, differentiated
here and there, much like the Schroder house, by free-standing
screens, but in which neither the separate room nor the private
dwelling has any place; conversely the house must be nothing but a
fragment or a microcosm of the city.
In Mondrian's view, until society is revolutionized in this way, no
true De Stijl architecture will be possible. Meanwhile, the De Stijl
artist should stick to painting. In an earlier essay, published in De Stijl in
1922, he had envisaged in the 'distant future' a fusion of all the plastic
arts into a single work of art, a total habitable environment. But for
the present this can only be hinted at in a fragmentary way, through
individual works of art:
Even the neoplastic work of art' (as yet more or less individual)
still expresses this, its own realization, imperfectly. It cannot repre-
sent directly the fullness and freedom of the future life. The
neoplastic conception will go far beyond art in its future realization ...
What was achieved in art must for the present remain restricted
to art. Our external environment cannot yet be realized as the
pure representation of harmony ... Art is partially disintegrating:
but its end now would be premature. Its reconstruction-as-life is not
yet possible, another art is still wanting, but the new cannot be
built with old material.49
1.9 De Stijl openness versus the increasingly

private future
The problem is that today not only are we no nearer to Mondrian's

vision of a society in which the economic, psychological and physical
boundaries between individuals melt away, we are moving rapidly
away from it. Martin Pawley's The Private Future (1973) 50 and Richard
Sennett's The Fall of Public Man (1977) 51 are prophetic analyses of a
phenomenon that has become more evident, and become so at an
accelerating pace, during the quarter-century since they wrote. The
loosening of family bonds, the widening gap between rich and poor 49. Mondrian, 'De realiseering', in De Stijl, vol. V, no. 3, 1922, pp.
and the rapid growth of electronic means of broadcasting and 44–7.
50. M. Pawley, The Private Future: Causes and consequences of
communication are three of the most obvious factors that increas-
community collapse in the West, Thames & Hudson, London, 1973.
ingly motivate each individual to seek a private space within the home 51. R. Sennett, The Fall of Public Man, Alfred A Knopf, New York,
and at the same time to engage less directly with the world outside. 1977.
Even in schools, the return to blackboard learning has reversed the

late 1960s trend towards open planning and revived the walled-off
classroom; but this phase itself is being superseded by the computer
screen, which isolates each pupil in a little private world of his or her
own. Already in the 1920s, with nothing but a radio to distract them,
the Schröder children themselves seem to have found the total
openness of the first-floor living space less congenial than their
mother hoped:
A low shelf along the wall in the main living area was intended to
be used as a desk where they could do their homework together;
in practice, the older children often found the privacy of the small
library on the ground floor more appealing.52
Can the De Stijl theorists have been entirely on the wrong track?
Chapter 4 will question whether the apparent harmony and socia-
bility of primitive communities are possible without a willing
surrender of individual liberty to the unquestioned customs of the
tribe. Are the members of a tribal group or peasant community –
such as that which Mondrian holds up as a model in 'Dwelling – Street
– City' – 'free' only in the sense that they are never made aware of
the unspoken conventions and limitations that govern their actions
and their thoughts? People of the sort that Truus Schroder wanted to
attract to her house – 'people who disagreed, people you could
discuss with, people with a critical attitude' – are too independent–
minded ever to submit to such parochial conformity.
Although powerfully affected by his encounter with De Stijl
around 1923–4, Le Corbusier always held to his own ideal of the
dwelling as something private and bounded: a 'cell'. Had he a more
realistic notion than the De Stijl theorists of what modern life was
destined to become – for better or worse?
1.10 Le Corbusier: spatial interpenetration and the

new spirit
In the crucial sixth part of early editions of Space, Time and Architec-
ture, the concept of'space-time in art, architecture, and construction'
is represented by just three men: one engineer, Robert Mai Hart, and
two architects, Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier (1887–1965).
Giedion is careful to stress the latter architect's affinity with the 'non–
Euclidian' space newly discovered by the cubist and futurist artists. In
this description, in which Le Corbusier appears very close to the prin- 52. A T . Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House,
ciples of Van Doesburg's architectural manifesto, Giedion virtually Harry N Abrams, New York, 1998, p. 77.
repeats the wording of Van Doesburg's eighth point, which demands

the destruction of the separateness of inside and outside and the
interpenetration of interior and exterior space:
The spirit of Le Corbusiers houses shows an absolute identity

with the spirit that animates modern painting ... Around 1910
Picasso and Braque, as the consequence of a new conception of
space, exhibited the interiors and exteriors of objects simulta-
neously. In architecture Le Corbusier developed, on the same
principle, the interpenetration of inner and outer space.53
Of Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye (1929–3 I) Giedion writes:
It is impossible to comprehend the Savoie house by a view from a

single point: quite literally, it is a construction in space-time. The
body of the house has been hollowed out in every direction: from
above and below, within and without. A cross section at any point
shows inner and outer space penetrating each other inextricably.54
However, while what Giedion says about the cross-section and

the hollowing out of the cube from above and below is certainly true,
the striking thing about the exterior of the Villa Savoye is precisely
that all these spatial effects are nevertheless contained and held in
check by the four-square frame of the walls. And Le Corbusier leaves
us in no doubt that this was his intention. Criticizing the centrifugal,
fragmented forms of the De Stijl projects exhibited in Paris in 1923-4
as 'arbitrary and tormented', he concludes that once the initial sensa-
tion has passed, one will realize the need to return to the discipline of
a 'shield of pure form'.55
How important it was that this shield should be unbroken is illus-
trated by the first design for the Villa Savoye, made in 1928. Although
somewhat larger, this was broadly similar to the executed design. It
included, however, an external staircase giving direct access from the
first floor terrace to the ground, and it is remarkable how much this
small interruption of the otherwise continuous façade would have
compromised its role as an unbroken conceptual boundary between
internal and external space. However complex the spatial
interpenetrations may be within this boundary, the most striking thing
about the exterior as built is its complete denial of that 'inextricable
penetration of inner and outer space' which Giedion extols.
53. Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, p. 408.
As regards 'the historic destiny of modern architecture', Le
54. lbid, p. 416.
Corbusier undeniably shared the then prevailing belief that humanity 55. Le Corbusier, 'L'exposition de I'Ecole spéciale d'architecture',
was entering a new industrial age, and that this age had an in L'Esprit Nouveau, no. 23, May 1924.
unstoppable momentum of its own: '... Industry, as formidable as a

natural force and overrunning everything like a flood that rolls on to
its destined end'.56
But it is worth noting that this 'industry' is hardly comparable to
Giedion's personified 'History', which is conscious of itself and has its
own innate character that it may even try purposely to disguise. Le
Corbusier may liken it metaphorically to a force of nature or a river in
spate, but it is clear from the context that it consists of nothing more
mysterious than the tendency of technologies to develop by a
process of learning and experience. Moreover, what for the present
holds backtechnological advance is not some perverse desire of the
'Age' to conceal its true nature, but simply the slowness of the mass
of people to recognize and adopt 'the new spirit': The right state of
mind does not exist.'57 A n d the reason for this, t o o , is quite under-
standable. Whereas 'tools in the past were always in man's hands,
today's tools – machines – are literally beyond his grasp. The
craftsman of the past owned his own handtools; when he needed
them, he simply took them off the shelf. The machine-minder is
forced t o sell his time t o the capitalist machine-owner. Instead of
the tool being harnessed to the man, the man is now harnessed to
the tool. Not unnaturally, he resists this, and fails to recognize its
benefits:
The human animal stands breathless and panting before the tool
that he cannot take hold of; progress appears to him as hateful as it
is praiseworthy; all is confusion within his mind; he feels himself to
be the slave of a frantic state of things and experiences no sense of
liberation or comfort or amelioration ... To pass this crisis we
must create the state of mind which can understand what is going
on; the human animal must learn to use his tools. When this
human animal has put on his new harness and knows the effort
that is expected from him, he will see that things have changed:
and changed for the better.58
Where the founders of De Stijl believed that the 'new conscious-

ness of the age' dictated the abolition of all separateness, all catego-
ries, all 'harnesses', Le Corbusier sees categories, boundaries and
hierarchies as permanent human necessities, essential to any ordered
society, to any civilized life, to any developed art. The advance of
mechanization is for him not an end in itself, but merely a more effi-
56. Le Corbusier, Towards a New Architecture, The Architectural
cient means of supplying the elementary and perennial human needs –
Press, London, 1946, p. 21 I.
above all, the one that had been conspicuously forgotten in the 57. Ibid, p. 211.
headlong rush to industrialization: a decent dwelling for everyone. 58. Ibid, pp. 211–12.
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Towards Universality

Le Corbusier, Mies and De Stijl

The central theme of this book is the striving for universality as

Richard Padovan has worked as an architect in various European

1 There exist an old and a new consciousness of the age.

Signatures of the contributors: ANTONY KOK, poet

ROBERT VANT HOFF, architect G. VANTONGERLOO, sculptor

Taylor &. Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2002 by Routledge

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

Transferred to Digital Printing 2010

© 2002 Richard Padovan

Typeset in Gill Sans by Bookcraft Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

ISBN 0–415-25962–2 (hbk)

List of figures vii

1 The Open or the Closed De Stijl and Le Corbusier 1

2 De Stijl's Other Name 36

3 The Furniture of the Mind 59

4 The Pavilion and the Court 87

4.1 1 Poissy and Barcelona 109

5 Lauweriks, Van Doesburg and Le Corbusier 120

6 Mies: The Correspondence of Thing and Intellect 146

7 Figure and Ground 174

8 The Unchanging and the Changeable 192

1.1 C.-E. Jeanneret (Le Corbusier), Compositionàla guitare et à la lanterne, 1920 1

4. B Zevi, Poetico dell'architettura neoplastica, Libreria Editrice

I.I De Stijl and architecture

The phenomenon we call 'De Stijl' was not an organized movement

Consequently Van Doesburg was keen to involve architects as

Despite the inclusion of architects, De Stijl's direct impact on

1.2 An art of destruction

The claim that the aim of art is destruction occurs frequently in De

the total destruction of traditional absolutism in any form (the

De Stijl's central goal was the abolition of all conventional bound-

composition, was abolished. What appeared on the canvas was

1 There exist an old and a new consciousness of the age.

It is important to realize, however, that when the De Stijl artists

(1770–1831), whose influence was absorbed primarily from the

1.3 Mondrian: evolution from the individual-natural to

Humanity's need to transcend the individual in order to evolve

To Mondrian evolution was 'everything'. Not only are his theoret-

The most evident characteristics of De Stijl as style are a direct

which Mondrian himself introduced, will be discussed more fully in

If we see human consciousness– in time– growing towards defini-

It might appear that the delimited coloured rectangle itself consti-

Ordinary vision does not perceive colour in nature as plane; it

planes. By means of rectangularity, colour is delimited without

In abstract-real representation man has a contrast to the natural. By

The natural, earth-bound self-consciousness of the individual is

has demonstrated abstractly through the New Representation

1.4 Van Doesburg: the goal of history, and

The equivalent inspiration for Van Doesburg's thought came not

The broad parallels between this and Mondrian's theosophically

Van Doesburg contributed from 1912 to 1916, was a typical vehicle

is nothing else than the identification of object and subject, of time