Eduard Führ (Cottbus)

Eduard Führ (Cottbus)

"I shall eat roastbeef"

Ornament and practical aesthetics in Modern Architecture

"No, my dear mr. professor from the school of arts and crafts, I shall not castigate myself! It tastes better to me this way. The showy dishes of previous centuries, all of which display ornaments in order to make the peacocks, pheasants and lobsters appear tastier, achieve in my case the opposite effect. In walking through the culinary arts exhibit, I am horrified by the thought that I should have to eat these stuffed animal corpses. I shall eat roastbeef."

Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime,1908)

Contents:

0. Introduction

I. The formation of the problem

1. The decline of architecture and redemption in the production of ornaments.

2. The theoretization of the disaster of architecture.

2.1. Ornament as the redemption of life and humanity.

2.2. Ornament as life aimed at overcoming cold rationality.

2.3. Ornament as art aimed at overcoming false life.

II. Theory of architecture, function and ornament in the architectural treatises of modernity

1. Poetry of being

2. Practical aesthetics.

0. Introduction

The history of the relationship of ornament and function in modern architecture (and back beyond this period of time as well) was produced in the 60's and 70's of our century. If one wants to address the question of ornament once again, it is necessary that one be aware of this fact and that one examine critically the extent to which our contemporary attitude toward ornament is shaped by it. This was the time during which all of us began to devote ourselves to architecture or to study a similar discipline. Thus, when we address the problem of ornament, we should make us a problem of ourselves as well.

Hilberseimer's city concept of 1927 is always presented as an ideal example.

It is seen as the cold anti-ornamental, rational, humanity-despising attitude of modernity illustrated in purest form. Yet if one reads Hilberseimer to see how his concept was meant, one remarks that there was nothing he intended less than the realization of such cities.

These suggestions are intended to be neither blueprints of cities nor attempts to standardize such blueprints. Both would be impossible, for there is no city in itself. Cities should be individualities, whose physiognomy is dependent upon the character of their landscape and inhabitants and upon their function in economic and political life.

These are merely theoretical investigations and a schematic application of the elements out of which a city is composed. (Hilberseimer 1927, p. 20)

Thus the illustrations are abstract planning and functional schemata; they are precisely not the concrete blueprints of a city as which they have been understood.

When one mistakes an abstract planning scheme for concretely formed architecture, it is hardly surprising that one sees in it unconcrete, empty and misanthropic architecture. Thus obvious misunderstandings exist; they should lead us back to the analysis of theories of modern architecture. That is my aim in what follows; and here I should like--since the discussion concerning ornament always deals with the differentiation from or the relation to function--to discuss also the concept of function, and hence the concept of architecture as well.

I. The formation of the problem of "ornament."

The subject of "ornament" arose and was developed prior to the First World War in connection with Art Nouveau and the criticism of Art Nouveau. It was treated theoretically by Sullivan, van de Velde and others.

In Modern Architecture prior to and after the First World War, the subject was a matter of attention for Adolf Loos, who criticized ornament in a nearly manic fashion, and for Bruno Taut, who in 1924 devoted a whole work ("The new dwelling. The woman as creator"), to overcoming "rubbish." In the writings of other authors of Modern Architecture, it remains an incidental or marginal subject.

The moderns were scolded by those opposed to Modern Architecture during the first half of this century less for their theory of ornament and their practice of ornamentlessness than for their new techniques and construction materials, for their violation of common conceptions of comfortable dwelling and of traditional aesthetic and typological norms, and for the lack of historical and topographic references in their architecture.

Thus a broad public discourse on the ornamentlessness of Modern Architecture, one in which not only expert circles were involved, emerged first in the 1960s. It was held upon two distinct fields:

1. in the production of architecture and

2. in the theory of architecture.

1. The decline of architecture and redemption in the production of ornaments

There was a direct decline of architecture in the architectural production of the Federal Republic during the 1950's and 1960's, which the critics of the time and the architects of today, in order to exonerate their profession, described as the "functionalism of the construction business." In fact, this architecture was nothing

else than the blueprint results of a number of bad architects, who had neither grasped the aesthetic and practical objective of `Modern Architecture' nor were able to attain or to follow in the footsteps of the aesthetic quality, for instance, of Mies van der Rohes' buildings.

In the GDR, the production of panel buildings (`Plattenbauten') was begun as a result of economic and reflected sociological considerations regarding the sphere of production and the unmastered technical and social demands upon the production sphere.

Thought the architecture produced thereby was still highly esteemed on both sides of the Wall in the early 60's, for instance because dwelling space per se was at least provided, or because of the availability of central heating, its threadbare quality was clearly visible by the end of the 60's in the west and by the end of the 70's in the east. A yearning for something different and alternative emerged.

It was attempted to overcome the real deficiency in quality of life wherever possible. For those living in rented dwellings, this was possible only adherently, by attachments to the rented space, hence by means of ornament.

Wherever the relevant needs and the market exist, the professionals are not far behind:

2. The theoretization of the disaster of architecture.

2.1. Ornament as redemption of life and humanity.

Perhaps the first massive criticism of modern architecture stems from 1958, from the young artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. In a "Molding Manifesto," he took up opposition to the "godless and immoral straight line," to a "pathologically sterile" functionalism of "brainless ants lusting after comfortability." In place of this he aimed--though only as a necessary stop on the way to the true architecture--at an "impractical, useless and in the final analysis undwellable architecture." He wanted to achieve this by means of superfluous structuring and destructive ornaments such as rust, mold, moss, microbes and fungi.

Modern Architecture was classified as a stronghold for brainless ants; in this historical situation, architecture fit for human dignity could emerge only by means of the-- organic--ornament.

Another early and very popular statement against ornamentless architecture, which had great influence in expert circles, were the articles collected in the volume, The Murdered City. by Wolf Jobst Siedler, with photographs by Elisabeth Niggemeyer. These authors too wanted to campaign for a renewal of urban life, under the presuppositon of a concept of the city as the small, easily comprehensible and cognitively graspable sphere of life, hence in essence as the small city, in which everyone knows each other and all the inhabitants spend their free time together in direct communication and personal interaction in the public or communal space of their dwelling quarters. This sort of city, so the authors, had been destroyed by Modern Architecture. The aim now had to be its restoration.

The book The Murdered City achieved its effect less though its text than through its illustrations.

The pictures still clearly show today that Siedler and Niggemeyer lamented the loss of the humane dimension (`des Menschelnden'). Functionalism, in their view, meant mass scale, meant a loss of individual qualities and of the human individual. The lack of ornament showed the loss of individual humanity and urbanity.


Siedler/Niggemeyer: Turn of the century	Siedler/Niggemeyer: Sixties

"No medieval town was as empty at midnight as Dallas and Wolfsburg. The squares in town centers were built for the assembly of the inhabitants; highways are meant to make escape possible. It is hardly surprising that cities today are praised above all because it possible to depart from them so quickly. Stuttgart commends itself because of its vicinity to Strasbourg, Zürich and Salzburg; Frankfurt is praised because Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris are easily reachable. The city points out that one need not live in it. At the end await us the bomb crater and the highway tunnel. ... It took this century fifty years to forget the Belle Epoque and Fin de Siecle. At midnight it matters not at all whether one is standing between the skyscrapers of Houston or the ruins of Berlin. ... The spirit of the age has attained upon two paths its goal: emptiness."

(p. 80)

Siedler/Niggemeyer:

Doorbell, turn of the century

Siedler/Niggemeyer:

Doorbell, sixties

The ornament was not conceived as a complement to the function, rather for Siedler and Niggemeyer just the opposite was true, namely that the useful, rational and functional destroyed individual humanity and the urban community which realized itself through and in ornament.

"The city functions as a city only when it no longer functions."

(Siedler/Niggemeyer 1961, p. 79)

2.2 Ornament as life aimed at overcoming cold rationality.

The most popular critique of predominantly existing architecture stemmed

from psychoanalysis. More than all others, Alexander Mitscherlich expressed the feelings of many with his book, The Inhospitableness of the Cities ( 1965), especially in the section on the `Witness for the intimate world,' in which he wished to make clear that "home is a piece of the world gradually wrested away from the uncanny (das Unheimliche)." (Mitscherlich 1965, p. 136.) For Mitscherlich, home meant unconditionally the inward (das Heimliche). Modern architecture, the "monotonous dwelling silo" (Mitscherlich 1965, p. 128), represented in his view the attempt "to gain happiness out of cleanliness and order." (Mitscherlich 1965, p. 130.) Yet it led solely to a "national-pathological" "dwelling-fetishism'` (Mitscherlich 1965, p. 129), to "lifelessly cleansed rooms with rows of pillows on the couch, indented on the upper edge by an exact punch.'` (Mitscherlich 1965, p. 129.) This perverse order and cleanliness led, in his view, with certain logic to Fascism.

Can anyone be genuinely surprised that recently a former SS member (it was Eichmann; E.F.) drew for us, as a representation of the concentration camp in which he had been occupied, a picture of evenly raked garden paths with herbaceous borders? I am convinced that he was nor lying, and that it was as a result of their childhood training that men devoted themselves with sincere affection to the flourishing of neatly sorted flowers in Auschwitz or Treblinka.

(Mitscherlich 1965, p. 131.)

For Mitscherlich, home was a process of individual realization that had to

be carried forward through one's own activity, inwardly, i.e. apart from social control,

out of the uncanny, i.e. out of the subordinate and hence out of an offence against the

previously ordained.

Mitscherlich did not speak of ornament in the text itself; rather he took the part more generally of fantasy and the superfluous elements in the process of formation, which could lead to an emotional identification. But in connection with the prevailing discourse--hence also in connection with Siedler/Niggemeyer--his remarks were brought to bear upon ornament as well.

Mitscherlich made it quite clear in his book that his goal was in the final analysis "a higher cerebralization," "more intellectuality, a freer mode, more under the control of consciousness, of relating to drive nature." (Mitscherlich 1965, p. 27.)

2.3. Ornament as art aimed at overcoming false life

Massive critique of Modern Architecture also came in the 1960's from a socio - critical perspective.

One would have to mention in this context Ernst Bloch, who had already

complained about the "washability of recent architecture," in 1918, hence at a moment at which there was little reason to do so, and who remained a permanent presence in the discussions with his statement, "An obstetrician's forceps must be smooth, but by no means do sugar tongs have to be"; Herbert Marcuse would also merit mention with his analysis of the "One-Dimensional Man" (1964).

All these various approaches shared the premise that rationality, as it was

realized in the capitalistic economy, in everyday life and also in architecture, was shaped by the irrational principles of the suppression of freedom, exploitation, and the repression of human drive structures. Rationality and rationalization were merely means and procedures for the comprehensive realization of these irrational principles and for their simultaneous fusion in such a way that an objective change would no longer be possible and would subjectively no longer even be desired. In order to prevent possible change, subversive processes or revolutionary restructuring, everything non-rationalized, superfluous, and indefinite, everything shadowy and dreamlike, had been eliminated and the pure `objectivity' of rationality had been propagated.

In order to bring this position to a pithy expression--and also for reasons of time--I should like to refer here to Adorno and to consider only his essay on functionalism.

Theodor W. Adorno consistently underlined the aesthetic-political

function of ornament. His position becomes particularly succinct in the lecture, `Functionalism Today,' which he held in October, 1965 upon invitation of the Werkbund, and in which he confronts intensively the work of Adolf Loos (Adorno 1965).

At the onset of his lecture, Adorno seconded Loos' delimitation with respect to the `Arts and Crafts' movement (Ruskin, Morris), which had involved the idea that "one should bring art into life in order to elevate the latter." (Adorno 1965, p. 107.)

Art as "the unperturbed protest against the mastery of purposes over humans" led in fact only to a despicable "art-foreign artification of practical things." (Ibid.)

However, Loos had tried then to execute a chemically pure separation of

purposiveness and aesthetics (Adorno 1965, p. 108), at which point Adorno, in the 1965 text, no longer wanted to follow his path. Beyond this, he called into question Loos' concepts of function and ornament, and took issue with the "puritanical" (Adorno 1965, p. 110) "asceticism'` (Adorno 1965, p. 120) of a positivistic praxis of ,.functionalism," which he also imputed to Loos.

Adorno found himself hindered above all by his own understanding of art from accepting the conception of ornament and function and their relation to one another that he read into Loos.

For Adorno, art had to be--and here I would like simply to sketch his (at any rate well-known) position for the sake of further understanding, and to leave aside the question of its validity--autonomous, since otherwise it would subordinate itself to a false existence. (Adorno 1965, p. 121.) Yet it could not enclose itself undialectically as a nature reserve (Adorno 1965, p. 108); rather it had to contain constitutively within itself that against which it defended itself. (Adorno 1965,p.122.) Only thus, in a dialectic of art and function, could it fulfill its task of bearing out contradictions. (Adorno 1965, p. 127.)

What is important to me here--and I'd like to underline these points somewhat more extensively--is how Adorno, in his attempt to lay out his conception of art, imputes certain formulations of function and ornament to Adolf Loos. Since for Adorno they mutually determine one another, one may begin with `function:'

In the false society, i.e., in Adorno's neo-Marxistic perspective, in a society in which humans are deformed though the development of the productive forces of obsolete bourgeois relations of production, the purposeful could only consist in the purposiveness of deformation, the practical could only be the realization of irrationality. There could be no true life in a bourgeois society. What purports to be rational is in fact the positivistic affirmation of the false life, "a culture of the merely existent, which would be mistaken for aesthetic truth." (Adorno 1965, p. 110.) The pure purposive forms reveal "the monotonous, impoverished, narrow-mindedly practical." (Adorno 1965, p. 114.) And everyone experiences painfully upon his own body this "impracticality of the mercilessly practical," "sharp edges" and "meagerly calculated rooms." (Adorno 1965, p. 111.)

In Adorno's lecture, ornament was based upon the understanding of function, and was a phenomenon that could be understood only historically. It emerged upon a functional basis and with a symbolic meaning (Adorno 1965, p. 106), but could lose both in the subsequent development toward new technologies and new meanings, and could become independent in its form. Ornaments were for Adorno "scars of obsolete forms of production on the things." (Adorno 1965, p. 107.)

Ornament was also for Adorno that "which in material and form is more than material and form." (Adorno 1965, p. 118). This more was the stored-up history and stored-up spirit, which could alone be awakened through the fantasy of the ornament.

In addition, ornament meant pleasure and sensuality (Adorno 1965, p. 112). Here Adorno referred to a passage in Loos--as far as I can see the only one in which ornament and sexuality are brought into conjunction with one another--that elucidates the symbolic meaning of ornament through the example of the `crucifix'.

At the same time, ornament is for Adorno symbol, the sign of a higher meaning. (Adorno 1965, p. 111.)

This conception of ornament led Adorno to equate the rejection of ornament with antipathy to pleasure, with the loss of meaning and disrespect for art. His reading of Adolf Loos' architecture-theoretical remarks led him to perceive in

Loos a principled rejection of ornament, hence of fantasy and thereby art, which on Adorno's understanding of art led to a fundamental destruction of the very possibility of a dialectical force of resistance in the sphere of art and to an affirmation of the false

(bourgeois) life. "The difference between the necessary and the superfluous is immanent to the constructions." (Adorno 1965, p. 106). Loos, however, separated them on Adorno's view by fiat.

For Adorno, the ornament was a small and alien remnant in the false life, which was alone capable of resistance. Adorno's celebration of ornament is accompanied by a complete disqualification and a total ethical (i.e., in Adorno's case, political-historical) devaluation of everyday life.

Summary of the positions of the 60's.

A fair amount is arrayed here against functionalism and the anti

ornamental character of Modern Architecture. Despite their differences, indeed their at times diametrically opposed aesthetic positions, all these authors shared the conviction that Modern Architecture was at the very least partially, if not solely responsible (since through its functionalism it became the accomplice of an inhumane and exploitative capitalism), for the fact that the current form of life had become inhumane, asocial and apolitical down to its very foundations. Humans were but the empty shells of themselves, perfectly adapted to the machinery and reduced to mere functioning.

Modern architecture had wrought this state of affairs both through its functionalism and through the expulsion of the ornament.

In the estimations of the 1960's, Modern Architecture was--to exaggerate once again the description--either an accurate illustration of dehumanization in modernity, or indeed itself responsible for this dehumanization. This was due to the fact that sensuality, aesthetics, art had been driven out of personal, social and political life and that the remaining impoverished and animalic residue had been optimized in its mechanistic functioning; that in turn led to a totalitarian society in which there was no longer a place for delicate attempts at the re-realization of humanity.

To turn now to my evaluation of this estimation:

I think that there was in fact--within the context of the general increase of

standards of living--both a quantitative increase and a qualitative expansion of dwelling needs in the 60's and 70's, in conjunction with an objective deterioration of the architectonic and aesthetic qualities of new constructions. To that extent, reflection upon the future of architecture is legitimate.

Yet clearing up the misunderstanding of Hilberseimer should sensibilize us sufficiently that it becomes necessary to examine whether the view of the 1920's taken by the theorists of the 60's is really accurate. If one wants at all to talk about ornament in Modern Architecture, it becomes necessary to examine what relationship ornament has to the function that is at the base of everything in Modern Architecture; it will be equally necessary to find out what `the functional' is really all about.

Yet I don't want to turn the tables completely, transforming the bad guys into good guys, and absolutely bad architecture into unconditionally good architecture. On my view, modernity is fairly incomplete.

II. Theory of Architecture, Function and Ornament in the Architectural Treatises of Modernity.

1. Poetry of Being.

The core principle of Modern Architecture, "form follows function," stems from Louis Sullivan (though it can be traced further back). "Form follows function" was formulated in a short essay in 1896:

"Yet to the steadfast eye of one standing upon the shore of things, looking chiefly and most lovingly upon that side on which the sun shines and that we feel joyously to be life, the heart is ever gladdened by the beauty, the exquisite spontaneity, with which life seeks and takes on its forms in an accord perfectly responsive to its needs. It seems ever as though the life and the form were absolutely one and inseparable, so adequate is the sense of fulfillment..

Whether it be the sweeping eagle in his flight or the open apple-blossom, the toiling work-horse, the blithe swan, the branching oak, the winding stream at its base, the drifting clouds, over all the coursing sun, form ever follows function, and this is the law. Where function does not change form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages; the lightning lives, comes into shape, and dies in a twinkling.

It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.

(Sullivan in Paul 1963, p. 148)

What is the meaning of 'function' here?

Function is equated with `life'. `Life' in turn is not meant biologically; though the eagle and the apple blossom are named, so too are the river, clouds and the sun. Where organisms are named, they are not presented from a biological perspective: the eagle does not eat, copulate, or raise its young. Nor is the eagle addressed in the sense of biological science of the time, for instance as a bird of prey with a wing span of 180 cm.

'The sweeping eagle in its flight, ' `the toiling work-horse, ' `the coursing sun. ' Life--so Sullivan further--is recognizable in its expression. This sentence, if it is to be understood as more than the tautology that life and the appearance of life are always identical, can only have meaning if it is understood to mean that particular forms or moments of the appearance of the things expresses their authentic life.

But what does this mean for Sullivan?

I must admit that I find it difficult to put by name. The verbalized situations--for instance the eagle's sweeping--are poetic. Yet they are not poetic in the sense that it makes for tension between the representation of the object and its known identity. Perhaps poetry has here more the meaning of a metaphysical human view upon the things; the sweeping eagle shows the person observing him by means of his sweeping something of the endlessness and at the same time something of the lightness of being. Yet Sullivan is no Romantic in the strict sense; he thematizes neither the height of the sweeping eagle's flight nor its relation to the distant horizon. The sun neither sets nor rises, it simply shines; the work-horse toils and does not stand still after the day's work, to be understood as a metaphor for the laboring human being, exhausted yet resting satisfied in the haven of the stable.

But neither is life for Sullivan everyday life; the work-horse toils, yet the swan and the eagle oppose this classification. Something takes place in almost all the situations cited, the subjects of the sentences carry forward activities, the eagles sweeps, the horse toils, even the sun courses. And perhaps the apple blossoms in the demonstration of their openness and the swan in the presentation of its blitheness are meant as activities.

Humans, Sullivan says, are genuinely capable of perceiving and taking the opportunities of this life only when they themselves steadfastly and lovingly develop a certain emphatic activity, and when they develop love. Indeed, but what is the meaning of 'love' here?

I shall leave that too open and indeterminate! At any rate, perceiving the life of things requires attention and activity, and these cannot consist of hate or indifference. The function of ornament for Sullivan becomes understandable though his theory of life, that is to say, of `function.' Ornament and `function' are both directed toward comprehending and articulating life. Art, whether two- or three-dimensional, architecture or ornament, must express `life.' Architecture and ornament are, as art, identical, they are different only as media. Yet they can be made use of together in order, so to speak, to express life. Finally, Sullivan conceives of `function' and `ornament' in Modern Architecture just as the critics of Modern Architecture had yearned for in the 1960's as a salvation from the misery they perceived in Modern Architecture.

Now perhaps the critics will say: "o.k., Sullivan! He is an exception!"

For this reason, I should like to turn my attention now to Modern Architecture in Central Europe- But we shall see that `our' architects too--expressly including Loos--have more in common with Sullivan than the critics of the 1960's realized.

I won't deal here in particular with Henry van de Velde, since there is a great similarity between his theories of function and ornament and those of Sullivan, though van de Velde concentrated more upon the constructive identity of the things. Nor shall I go into Walter Gropius in detail, but I shall nonetheless- since nothing less is expected from a treatment of the subject--present a citation directly from his neo-Kantian-founded and aesthetically understood functionalism, in order to bring into view here as well the inappropriateness of the evaluation in the 1960's. For Gropius, 'function' means 'aesthetically ordered being.' Research into function is research into the essence, which, for the determination of the form of a building, is tied to the boundaries of technical regularities just as to the laws of proportion. Proportion is a matter of the spiritual world, matter and construction are its bearers. It is bound to the function of the building, it expresses in its particular language the building's essence and grants it its own spiritual life above and beyond its utility value. (Gropius 1927b, p. 909)

But I don't want to provide here a summary view of the conceptions of ornament, function and architecture within Modern Architecture, but rather to concentrate upon one particular aspect--one that I find the most interesting--namely, the development of a `practical aesthetics.' In this context, I shall turn my attention in more detail to Loos and Bruno Taut, two notorious opponents of ornament.

2. Practical Aesthetics

In the case of the oft-attacked Adolf Loos, the concepts of ornament and function are thought through in a much more differentiated fashion than the critics of the 1960's wished to give him credit for. Above all, Adolf Loos is not (!!!) opposed to ornament and form per se, he is merely opposed to certain ornaments. Loos' theory of ornament is closely tied to his understanding of function and practice. Here he allies himself with Sullivan and points to Bruno Taut, who I should like to present subsequently.

Before considering what structural functions Adolf Loos allocates to ornament in his theory of architecture and how he evaluates it ethically, I should like to call to mind the way in which he sees the phenomenon of 'ornament' substantially. Ornament is, to be sure, also lineament for him, yet he thinks of this above all in terms of realistically illustrative or abstracting illusions or imitations applied to the things or the architecture. Loos takes issue with cabinets ornamented as `the rich draught of fishes' or 'the enchanted princess.' When he speaks of the first ornament, the crucifix, he makes it clear that he conceives of it too as an abstracting illustration of an act of intercourse.

Loos is vehemently opposed to this sort of ornament, and I need not repeat his arguments and descriptions, though they are amusing and vicious; they are sufficiently well-known to all present.

I would prefer to use my time to cite his arguments for ornament and form and to emphasize the way in which they are bound together with function.

Loos says (1924):

Twenty-six years ago I claimed that in the course of the development of humankind the ornament as an object of use would disappear, a development which is incessant and progresses rigorously and which is as natural as the disappearance of vowels in the final syllables of colloquial language. But I never intended thereby what the purists have driven ad absurdum, namely, that ornament was systematically and rigorously to be abolished.

(Loos 1924, p. 177.)

Loos considers himself as very much a theorist of lining. An ornament is legitimate if and when it is clearly and distinctly lining and not to be confused `with the lined material'; "with respect to stucco, the principle of lining would be as follows: stucco can contain any ornament save one--the brick frame." (Loos 1898, p. 144.)

Pointing to Semper, he observes that lining by means of carpets serves here as a starting point of the architecture, which is then followed by the frame needed in order to attach them to it. The lining serves to fulfill the principle function of the architecture, namely, 'to produce a warm, comfortable room.' (Loos 1898, p.139.)

Lining--which Loos equates with ornament--is aesthetically meaningful when it neither replaces nor imitates nor conceals the form, thus when it neither surrogate, nor imitation, nor illusion.

Adolf Loos makes a basic distinction between `form' and `ornament.' `Form' is the realization and presentation of an inner order of the object's cultural meaning, whereas `ornament' is an illustrating, abstracting, or goemetric application. Form creates order and expresses the meaning of the building within the building itself. Loos demonstrates, again in reference to Semper, his conception of form by pointing to the differences between an Egyptian and a Greek earthenware vessel. The distinct forms result in his view on the one hand from the different topographical circumstances (in Egpyt water from the river, in Greece from springs), and on the other hand from the respective everyday manners of carrying the water (in Egypt by a handle, in Greece on the head); "...these magnificent Greek vases with their perfected forms, forms which appear to have been created alone to tell of the Hellenic people's drive to beauty, [owe] their form only to mere utility." (Loos 1898, p. 89.)

Functions result from practical demands and cultural contexts. The beauty of an object results from the optimization of its use, the beautiful object optimizes the use.

Yet I should like to call to mind that the ancient Greeks also understood something of beauty. And they worked solely practically, without thinking of beauty in the least, without desiring to satisfy an aesthetic need. And when an object was then so practical that it could be made no more practical, they called it beautiful.

(Loos, 1989, pp. 89-90)

These few citations that I am able to cite present here show that Loos has a particular concept of architecture, and, preceding from that basis, also a particular concept of art. Loos is no longer concerned with architecture as an objective object; it is neither construction, nor plastic art. nor space. Art or beauty are no longer objective or visual order in accordance with Pythagorean proportions, elaborated mathematical rationality, subjective aesthetic sensibility, or normative rules of art.

Architecture is made up of objects of use in a cultural and practical context; the aesthetic quality lies in the optimalization, the orderliness and the recognizability of this use. This conception is, from a historical point of view, not a novelty; I would point merely to the understanding of architecture in Justus Möser's description of the Osnabrück farmhouse (17).

However, architecture as a theory of science in the l9th century had on the one hand taken up the part of technology, which is of no great interest to us at the moment; and had on the other hand integrated itself into the constituating history of art and thereby excluded all attempts at an understanding from the perspective of cultural theory.

Loos expanded the art-historical scientific conception of architecture through his ideas on architecture as use and on aesthetic quality as beautiful use. The extent to which Loos' conception of architecture was concerned with the freedom to use is evident in his really quite lovely story "of a poor rich man." ( 1900). It is the story of a rich man who in his old age has finally had an artistically perfect house built by a fin-de-siecle architect.

He was a powerful man, and he carried through with great energy whatever he took on. ... And so on the very same day he went to the famous architect and said to him: Bring me art, the art in my four walls. The price is unimportant.

(Loos 1900, p. 198)

The architect was indeed perfect and forgot nothing, and the proprietor moved in as soon as the construction was complete.

From now on, he devoted a great deal of his time to studying his dwelling. For everything had to be learned; he saw this soon enough. There was much to be noted. Each appliance had its own definite place. The architect had done his best for him. He had thought of everything in advance. There was a definite place for even the very smallest case, made just especially for it.

Of course the new proprietor made a few mistakes and occasionally had to look at the blueprints to see where he should put down a matchbox after using it. Then one day it was his birthday, and one of his little grandsons gave him a little picture, so that he had to go promptly to the architect to ask where he should hang it up.

The architect's face became visibly longer. Then he let loose:

"How dare you presume to receive presents?! Didn't I draw everything up for you? Haven't I taken care of everything? You need nothing more. You are complete! ... Thereupon a transformation took place within the rich man. The happy man felt suddenly deeply, deeply unhappy, and he saw his future life. No one would be allowed to grant him joy... For him nothing more would be created. None of his loved ones would be allowed to give him a portrait, for him there could be no more painters, no artists, no craftsmen. He was shut out of the future life and its strivings, its becoming and desires. He felt: Now is the time to learn to walk about with one's own corpse. Indeed! He is finished. He is complete!"

(Loos 1900, pp. 202-203)

Bruno Taut expands the conception of architecture yet further. And he too does this in the framework of a confrontation with `ornament' and `form'. Like Loos, he is in principle an opponent of ornament.

Ornament is observed with great care, one could even say with reverence, for we know today that ornament must be a symbolic language, in a certain sense a holy script. This cannot be devised or invented, it is always the creation of a human community which in ornament creates for itself a universal and universally comprehensible language. (Taut 1924, p. 33)

Ornament was not to come from outside and be applied to architecture; the new ornament, the new symbolism was to come out of architecture itself (p. 52). Like Loos, Taut takes issue with false ornaments, with false decoration. `rubbish' and `odds and ends'. In place of the `dwelling model of the l9th century,' the object of his criticism, he propagates Japanese space.


Comparison of interior design	Comparison of interior design

Taut wants to leave behind the mental tie to the obsolete world of things of the l9th century and all hindrances upon the freedom to act. Dwelling decorations have in his view a fetish character, in which the fetishes have lost their function and meaning, yet must be present and thereby attain an endless power in their sheer substanceless and senseless existence:

A fetishism with the objects is carried on, one is superstitious about destroying them, and gives them thereby the power and the rule, subjects oneself to the tyranny of the lifeless, instead of being the unchallenged ruler in one's own house.

(Taut 1924, p. 10 f. )

Abolishing the old rubbish is not an end in itself Its objective is to reveal the authentic aesthetic qualities of the architecture:

Curtains, shutters, drapes. all curtains that in quantity and scope go above and beyond the purpose of curtains, and in addition everything that destroys the character of the wall, in particular paintings, mirrors and plastic or otherwise affixed or attached decoration. Wallpaper with its embroidered trimmings is to be looked upon quite sceptically, since it is barbaric to cut out arbitrarily some form, which is inevitable in the process of attaching wallpaper; and because each wall in the room has its own particular determination with regard to light, to the door, and in accordance with its construction in general, so that a systematic attachment of the same wallpaper and the same trimmings is impossible. The typical wallpaper with a white ceiling above the trimming appears approximately like a circular fence.

(Taut 1924, p. 32 f.)

This very citation demonstrates that the elimination of the l9th-century-ornament took place out of a sensitivity for aesthetic effects, and not because of insensitivity on the part of the architect.

Taut does not however remain content with revealing the aesthetic qualities of the architecture. His main interest lies in the organization of the ground plan.

The interiors, then, are to look like this:

The aim in the forming of the rooms is, for Taut, to release humans from their "self imposed slavery through the things ... in order to [grant] them freedom for the unfolding of the personality" (Taut 1924, pp. 74-5), " free space for the realization of all personal inclinations`` (Taut 1924, p. 32).

In Taut's view, the identity of the human person arises through carrying out actions and not through identification with the objects.

The ideal dwelling has as little to do with aesthetics as the previous things; yet it has just as much to do with aesthetics as do these things. The same holds true for everything practical; this too is either not present at all or it is present in its perfection, so that it is at the same time more than practical, that is to say, it is aesthetic and ethical as well. ...

The practical and the aesthetic as a unity; hence the ideal dwelling is totally beautiful. A shell of the human person, his protection, his vessel of the first and last thoughts, words and deeds, his `nest'. ...Nothing of touching sentimentality, nothing of the romantic idyll, nothing of dream intoxication..."

For Bruno Taut, the "intimacy of the most private, personal, human life" (ibid.) can be carried out in the new dwelling. it can realize a dream "as an extension of internal and not yet suffiicient clarity, the housing. the 'four walls' so simple and yet so little banal and schematic in color and material, that the dream, the thought of the future is expanded by it and expands itself in turn." (Taut 1924, p. 95 f.)

Bruno Taut's real aim is not the organisation of ground plans, it is the ordering of dwelling, the ordering of everyday life. He deals with this in different contexts, which reach from plans for the building up the entirety of the Alps (`Alpine Architecture') with glass architecture to the improvement of the dwelling's ground plan by the "woman as creator."

Yet for all the heterogeneity of the object, his conception of architecture remains consistently the same.

Architecture is for him not a thing but a field of action--in building just as in dwelling, in the construction just as in the use of architecture.

Thus, after the First World War, he wants to build in place of a memorial to the fallen, "which typically looks similar to a paperweight" (Taut 1919a, p. 61), a reading hall in which it will be possible to come to terms with the war through reading communally with others. The `Alpine Architecture,' a concept for the complete building development of the Alps with glass architecture, should in his view be taken up, not because of its objective final result, but rather because of the immense challenge faced by humanity, which in particular after the First World War forces the previously opposed powers into cooperation and thus to reconciliation between peoples and of humanity; and because of the continuous activities this would require. A completion of the building development would be tantamount to the cessation of the activities; the success of the building would be the destruction of the process of building. For this reason too the Alps are selected, since Taut considers their development an endless task.

In contrast to Gropius, who revised Taut's architectural program in accordance with the Bauhaus manifesto, it is the process of building and not the building itself, the social activity and not the thing that results from it, which should be the primary goal of architecture.

Taut understands the appropriation of architecture as dwelling, i.e. as a complex structure of actions, and not as a view upon objects. His concern is the production of a unity of praxis and aesthetics, for him there is no division between a `merely practical' and a `merely beautiful' (Taut 1924, p. 31 ); his aim is the realization of the aesthetics of the practical.

Conclusion

Practical aesthetics in architecture, which looks back upon a long tradition from Camillo Sitte to Semper, Adam Müller and Shaftesbury, takes the materially equipped field of action of architecture as the foundation of reflection in the theory of architecture, and not the thing architecture.

Architecture becomes thereby an independent aesthetic medium, which distances itself fundamentally from painting and sculpture and can be classified neither among the methods appropriate in these fields or in norms of production and laws of art in production, nor among the interpretive approaches in appropriation and interpretation.

Architecture that is conceived of as a field of action approaches the medium of dance when it deals with meaningful movement; it approaches drama when it deals with the meaning and carrying through of life; and it approaches the stage set when it deals with the material fitting. Yet it does not collapse into any of these fields. Modern architecture is no enemy of art because of the renunciation of the applied ornament. Rather, an independent concept of art needs to be developed for an independent medium. Here the suggestion has been for Modern Architecture a concept of the 'architectonic field of action' as a specific art concept of the medium: optimizing the field of action and the action, ordering and formation of both spheres and the presentation and representation of intentions, purposes, attitudes and meanings.

To return at the very end to the beginning: Adolf Loos made his choice for roast beef, not for pork chops or pheasant nor for fasting or diet. And he made clear that, when food is in question, it all depends on the `eating.'

To put it in closing and in a surreal fashion along with Popper:

The proof of the architecture is in the eating.

I eat,

roastbeef