Reconfiguring four key '-isms' commonly used in architectural
theory.
by
Maurice Lagueux Université de Montréal1
It does not seem overstated to say that the concepts 'organicism', 'formalism', 'functionalism' and 'expressionism', when applied to architecture, are usually defined in such a loose way — if they are defined at all— that their meanings dramatically vary depending on the author who uses them. Even when two such concepts are taken as opposites in the common parlance of architects, they are in many cases assigned largely overlapping contents. Since they can hardly be considered technical tools of analysis, no real need to define them in a precise way seems to be felt, even for those who develop rigorous theories of architecture.2 It is true that they are mainly used to describe a particular kind of architecture associated with a limited period in a specific context and that, in such cases, they are illustrated by a range of buildings whose main features are supposed to exemplify their content. But even then, one can expect that the specific character of this content would be defined in a useful way, especially since they tend also to be used to name the normative and more or less philosophical views which are associated with these sorts of architecture. For those who express a preference for one of these categories or another, they can even be used to characterise what should be considered a valuable piece of architecture. Indeed, in spite of the fact that the meaning of these relatively abstract philosophical concepts remains loosely defined, the corresponding adjectives are frequently applied to buildings which are said to have an 'organic' or a 'formalist' quality by those who deem that they illustrate fairly well what
they mean by such concepts. Were these concepts consistently defined, and contrasts drawn between them, they could facilitate useful discussions about the various attitudes that they are taken to convey. Put otherwise, were these concepts consistently defined, the judgements which are so frequently made with their help would become precise enough to be fruitfully debatable. Given these circumstances, it seems worthwhile to explore how these concepts relate to one another and how they could be understood in a consistent way. This paper aims to accomplish this with the help of a matrix — in which two sets of criteria are interrelated — that enables one to avoid the overlaps and the equivocations that have resulted from the common manner of opposing any two of these concepts in a loosely antithetical fashion.
Wright's 'criteria'
Of the set of concepts in question, 'organicism' is probably the one which is the most in need of a clear definition. This is hardly surprising when one considers that it has typically been employed by architects who were in the business of promoting their own architecture by using it to highlight its qualities and to implicitly contrast these with the shortcomings of other types of architecture. In this context, any piece of architecture which is judged unfitting from their point of view is considered to fall within the scope of a vaguely but negatively defined opposite concept. With his campaign for his own concept of 'organicism', Frank Lloyd Wright is the paradigmatic case of an architect promoting his own architecture, which he openly associated with modern architecture in general. In his famous George Watson Chair Lectures delivered in London in 1939, Wright did not hesitate to say: 'Modern architecture — let us now say organic architecture — is a natural architecture: the architecture of nature, for nature'.3 While Wright's unsystematic and rather general considerations on organicism were never
developed as being a set of technical 'criteria', it will be useful to treat this idea of submission to nature (and to life considered as its manifestation) as a first Wrightian criterion of organicism in architecture. In contrast to organic architecture, inorganic architecture would attribute a primacy to art over life, as illustrated by 'classic' architecture which, according to Wright's rather harsh judgement, 'was more a mask for life to bear than an expression of life itself'.4 Be that as it may, to justify his organic analogy, Wright insisted that organic architecture, like a plant, develops itself from the inside out. This stands in contrast to architecture which would result from the imposition of a sculptural form to be seen from the outside without due consideration for the requirements of those living (or working) inside the building. Wright declared emphatically that he found this principle expressed perfectly by Lao Tze who, 'five hundreds years before Jesus', wrote that 'the reality of the building does not consist of walls and roof but in the space within to be lived in'.5 Wright was not the first to find this view quite congenial with organicism since, as underscored by Robert Venturi, the architectural interpretation of the idea of an organic growth from within had already been clearly emphasised by predecessors like Greenough, Thoreau and Sullivan.6 In any case, this development of the building from inside out can be considered a second Wrightian criterion of organicism. A third criterion derives more or less from the first two. Wright claims that organic architecture must be an interpretation of life because 'buildings are made for life, to be lived in and to be lived in happily, designed to contribute to that living, joy and living beauty'.7 According to Wright, organic architecture and people's happiness and satisfaction are even so closely related that 'we cannot have an organic architecture unless we achieve an organic society'.8 As emphasised by Bruno Zevi, such an organic view of architecture implies that houses should grow like plants with the 'progressively changing requirements' of their inhabitant.9 In this context, given that the
famous dictum 'form follows function' was formulated by Wright's Lieber Master, Louis Sullivan, when he was himself promoting organic architecture,10 it seems appropriate to consider that the primacy of function over form constitutes a third Wrightian criterion insofar as it echoes this alleged orientation of organic architecture towards the satisfaction of the most profound human and social needs. It is true that, in his holistic mood, Wright liked to complete Sullivan's 'abused slogan' with a dictum of his own: 'form and function are one'.11 To his mind, however, this was just another way to underscore that form should never be divorced from the requirements of function.
In any case, Wright was not the first to use the organic metaphor to illustrate what architecture should be. Alberti traced it back to the Ancients when he claimed that, since they considered 'that a building is very like an Animal', they thought it appropriate for architects to imitate Nature.12 Vasari, for his part, said about a building that it seemed 'not built, but born', a phrase which brought Geoffrey Scott to comment that architecture 'must appear organic like the body'.13 It was apparently the historian Jacob Burckhardt who first applied the term 'organic' to architecture14 before the notion of organic architecture as such was evoked by the French architect Viollet-le-Duc15 and, as just mentioned, by Louis Sullivan, Wright's mentor. Be that as it may, even though it is arguable that Wright's intuitions about organicism are powerfully illustrated by some of his most successful pieces of architecture, when it comes to characterising in a precise way the content of this concept, one may hesitate to adopt views which are so overtly self-promoting. It is tempting indeed to sympathise with William Lescaze's claim that 'Organic is the word which Frank Lloyd Wright uses to describe his own architecture.'16
Indeed, organicism is so favourably presented by Wright that, when adopting his view, it becomes problematic to fairly characterise inorganic architecture. If one were to look for an alternative to organicism, a candidate that would very likely come quickly to mind is functionalism. Indeed, so-called 'functionalist' architecture has been so frequently associated with the Modern Movement, the Bauhaus, the International Style and rationalism, which look clearly antithetical to Wright's organicism17 that it seems natural to look in this direction. This sounds however rather paradoxical given that Louis Sullivan is often considered as the founder of both organicism and functionalism and that the author of an important book devoted to functionalist theory has even presented organicism and functionalism as synonymous.18 Indeed, on the basis of our three Wrightian criteria, it is difficult to see any significant differences between organicism and functionalism. First, it is clear that the primacy of function over form is the central feature of functionalism and that the commitment to satisfy needs and even to improve life has always been associated with both functionalism and organicism. The way to satisfy these needs may differ significantly between organicism and functionalism, but, taken as such, Wright's third criterion (centred on function and needs satisfaction) would hardly be of great help in distinguishing one from the other. Furthermore, since the function of a building, just like the human needs to which it is devoted, is normally determined by what goes on inside it, it is hard to imagine that a functionalist would not agree with Lao Tze and Wright that the construction of a building has primarily to be determined by 'the space within to be lived in'. Consequently, the second Wrightian criterion does not seem to be any more helpful in our attempt to distinguish functionalism from organicism. Finally, given that functional adaptation is a key feature of living organisms as understood by biological science, it would sound odd to resort to the first Wrightian criterion and contrast functionalism with the smooth functioning of nature and
life. Bauhaus-founder Walter Gropius, who is often taken as representative of functionalism, not only promoted 'the social aim of improving the life of the community'19 with as much conviction as Wright, but early in his career characterised houses as 'coherent organisms'20 and later claimed that 'good architecture should be a
projection of life itself'21 and also that the Bauhaus Masters 'sought the vital spark of life behind life's ever-changing forms'.22 Finally, it is surely not Wright's insistence on associating his own cult of nature with integrity and truth23 that can distinguish his views from those of Gropius. For Gropius also invokes truth and honesty,24 and does so even in relation with the importance of organic proportions for architecture.25 Just like organicism, functionalism is a philosophical approach according to which architecture can be called modern by being an honest expression of life itself and by proceeding from inside out in its attempt to satisfy needs and therefrom to improve the happiness of individual people and of society on the whole. But, when two concepts in the critical vocabulary of a field which are perceived as opposites turn out to be characterised in the same terms, something is wrong with the criteria adopted in order to identifying them. Thus, it seems appropriate at this point to turn towards different criteria in order to characterise more properly what is meant by these two evasive concepts.
Three different criteria
Incidentally, very few relatively systematic attempts to characterise what organicism amounts to have been published. Bruno Zevi's short essay on organicism26 is one of the scarce exceptions to this rule. After a brief evocation of a few dicta about organicism, Zevi turns to an analysis of Modern Building, a book by historian of architecture Curt Behrendt which does not explicitly concern the question of organicism.27 Nonetheless, scanning Behrendt's book, Zevi finds no less than fifteen criteria according to which the
kind of architecture that he considers to be representative of organicism can be contrasted with unambiguously inorganic architecture. It would be unnecessarily fastidious to quote here the complete list of these criteria, but it might be useful to bring them under three main headings: (1) the role of intuition and imagination as contrasted with reason and analytic thought, (2) the valorisation of singularity, irregularity, individuality and dynamism in contrast with universality, regularity and immutability, and (3) the valorisation of complexity (in a sense akin to that given to this word by Robert Venturi in
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture) and multiformity in contrast with formal
simplicity and sobriety. One must admit that these criteria are much more instructive than those I have attributed to Wright when it comes to contrasting organicism and functionalism. Indeed, intuitive imagination, individuality and complexity can be associated with organicism whereas reason, universality and sobriety evokes functionalism reasonably well.
However, since Behrendt-Zevi's three criteria have little to do with Wright's, the relation between them remains unspecified. In this connection, a building which fulfils Behrendt-Zevi's criteria of organicism perfectly well could nonetheless be totally antithetical to what I have called Wright's three criteria for organicism. Thus, it would be odd to consider such a building as representative of organicism given its non-compliance with these last criteria. Let us consider, for example, Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam. The quite individualised and highly complex design of this building seems to be the fruit of intuition rather than being ruled by rational principles. Thus, according to each of Behrendt-Zevi's criteria, such a building would be the very antipode of an inorganic one and, at first glance, it could therefore qualify as a piece of organic architecture. Yet, it is a building which is clearly sculptural in character; moreover, its
form does not seem to have been dictated by its function and is more spontaneously associated with art than with nature. Consequently, such a building could not correctly be characterised as organicist since it contradicts each one of Wright's criteria. Conversely, satisfying Behrendt-Zevi's criteria of inorganic architecture is not sufficient to qualify a building as functionalist. Indeed, certain monumental piece of architecture, say, Aldo Rossi's cubic ossuary for the cemetery of Modena or even the Egyptian Pyramids, which were designed according to highly rational principles and which feature pure sober and
universal geometrical forms, would be clearly inorganic buildings according to these
criteria. But, given their relatively non-functional design28 adopted in order to convey a sculpturally impressive outward appearance without a special relation to the natural world, they could hardly be characterised as functionalist, at least if we agree with the above-mentioned idea that functionalist buildings are on the same side of Wright's criteria as organic ones. Naturally, no one would be surprised to observe that many buildings such as Mendelsohn' tower as well as Rossi's ossuary can be classified neither as organicist nor functionalist. Nonetheless, insofar as we consider it important to understand what one means when one classifies a building as belonging to either of these categories, it seems to be worthwhile to restructure in a more manageable fashion the two sets of criteria that we have considered up to now.
Restructuring the two sets of criteria
It is largely because, according to the criteria adopted, they can be considered either as opposites or as synonymus that categories like 'organicism' and 'functionalism' are often perceived as vague and confusing. However, the confusion is chiefly attributable to the fact that, in spite of their largely overlapping contents, it is widely held that they should
be contrasted in a binary fashion with allegedly homogeneous negative categories like 'inorganic' and 'non-functionalist' respectively. Matters become less confusing with the introduction of two complementary categories which allow us to restructure these oppositions. On the one hand, the sort of building exemplified by the Einstein Tower which is clearly neither functionalist, at least according to Behrendt-Zevi's criteria, nor organicist, at least according to Wright's criteria, is the very paragon of 'expressionist' architecture. While normally associated with Northern European architecture of the early twentieth century, the concept of expressionism is sometimes used to refer to some specific qualities of any piece of architecture. According to Dennis Sharp, this concept is 'largely retrospective' and has roots in late twentieth-century movements like National Romanticism and Art Nouveau.29 According to Wolfgang Pehnt, whose book suggests that expressionism is closely related to fantastic architecture,30 Henry Van de Velde even referred to 'the eccentric expressionism of Gothic or Indian architecture'.31 For Peter Collins, expressionism designates the trend to build symbolically-shaped buildings introduced by Ledoux in the eighteenth century.32 Thus, as illustrated by such judgements, this concept is frequently used to characterise a certain orientation of architecture which has to be more precisely specified.
On the other hand, buildings like Rossi's ossuary which are unequivocally inorganic, yet nonetheless non-functionalist, correspond typically enough to what is usually described as a 'formalist' piece of architecture. Even if, by contrast with our other three labels, what is called 'formalism' does not correspond to a relatively well-identified movement in the history of architecture, the term is commonly used in a sense which implies that a primacy is given to the shape (the form) of a building over its function.33 To describe this kind of architecture, it could have been equally possible to resort to the term
'rationalism' but, while there is good reason to disentangle rationalism from functionalism,34 the term 'rationalism' is still too frequently used in a sense which includes functionalism as well as formalism. It is true that this last term itself is not always clearly opposed to 'functionalism' 35 but both its etymology and the way these terms are ordinarily understood36 suggest that formalism should be opposed to functionalism just as form is opposed to function. In any case, the aim of the present paper is not as much to alter the scope of any of these concept as it is to describe their usual meaning with the help of a consistent set of criteria and, in this fashion, to contrast more clearly their respective connotations.
Thus, if we were to consider only the fact that both formalism and expressionism stand in opposition to the features which, according to Wright, characterise organicism, we should have trouble distinguishing between them. Indeed, with respect to 'formalism' and 'expressionism', it is reasonable to say that in contrast with organicism and functionalism (1) they are oriented towards the realisation of artistic aims rather than being submitted to the requirements of life and nature,37 (2) rather than with the inner development of space, they are associated with sculptural and often monumental forms which normally have to be appreciated from the outside38 and (3) they give to such forms a primacy over pure function insofar as such a primacy is possible in architecture.39 However, in spite of these common oppositions to what defines organicism (and indirectly functionalism) according to the Wrightian criteria, the fundamental differences between formalism and expressionism become clear when the Behrendt-Zevi's criteria are taken into consideration. Indeed, formalism is a way of thinking which is generally associated with reason, universality and sobriety whereas expressionism is associated with intuitive imagination, individuality and complexity. On the other hand, as we have seen, when it
comes to distinguishing either expressionism from organicism or formalism from functionalism, it is what I have called Wright's criteria that become illuminating.
The fourfold set of possibilities generated by such an application of these criteria can be presented in the form of a matrix which makes it evident that, strictly speaking, the antithesis of organicism is formalism40 whereas functionalism should be opposed to expressionism rather than to anything else.41
Wright's criteria Primacy of Primacy of N I F A O F a n u r u o t s n t t r u i c s m r d t i e e i d o e n B Intuition-imagination e
h Individuality ORGANICISM EXPRESSIONISM
r e Complexity n d t - Reason Z
e Universality FUNCTIONALISM FORMALISM v
i Simplicity (sobriety)
As mentioned earlier, the point of this restructuration is not to redefine these concepts. It is rather to provide a framework in which the features ordinarily associated with them become consistent and consequently more intelligible. It was confusing to oppose organicism and functionalism in a bipolar fashion, because these two views of architecture have too many features in common. Once located in this kind of matrix, however, they can be instructively related. Admittedly, what I have presented as criteria does not exhaust the conceptual content of these four views of architecture which, in any case, must not be understood as rigid and exclusive compartments. No building is purely sculptural or strictly non-functional. No piece of architecture is either purely intuitive or purely rational, and the opposition between art and life is surely not a hard and fast one. Consequently, no piece of architecture is purely organic, functionalist, formalist or expressionist. Nevertheless, this does not mean that these concepts should be loosely defined. Very few buildings fit exactly any one of them, but since these four categories are nonetheless currently used in order to make judgements about the characteristics of a building or about the philosophical orientation of its architect, this state of affairs is far from an objection to the relevance of characterising them in a relatively precise way. It is also true that the scope of each of these categories is normally restricted to the historical context with which they are associated in twentieth century architecture, but whether or not they are applied to a larger context, it is important to clarify what critics have in mind when they claim that one building has an organic quality or that another illustrates the formalist orientation of the architect. What the present proposal suggests is that such
clarification is facilitated when each of these categories is characterised in its relation of opposition to the other three.
Footnotes:
1 The author would like to thank Stéphan D'Amour, Yves Deschamps, Peter Jacobs, Irena Latek, Pierre La Rue, and Bruce Maxwell for their very useful comments on earlier versions of this paper and the SSHRC (Ottawa) and the Fonds FCAR (Québec) for financial support.
2 Christian Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 1965), for example, carefully defines many concepts which play a key role in his theory of architecture but does not care to define such rather philosophical concepts to which he refers rarely and only in a very elusive fashion.
3 Frank Lloyd Wright, An Organic Architecture; the Architecture of Democracy (henceforth OAAD) (London, 1939); reprinted as «An Organic Architecture» in Frank Lloyd Wright, The Future of Architecture (henceforth FoA) (New York: Horizon Press, 1953), p. 226.
4 Ibid., p. 225. 5 Ibid., p. 226
6 Robert Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966), p. 82; Venturi also quotes the following passage from Le Corbusier: 'The plan proceeds from within to without; the exterior is the result of an interior' Le Corbusier,Towards a New Architecture (London: The Architectural Press, 1927), p. 11 which seems to anticipate its author's subsequent reorientation towards a somewhat more organic kind of architecture. Peter Collins, Changing Ideals
in Modern Architecture (Montréal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1965) p. 152
also emphasise the significance of this criterion for Wright. 7 OAAD , p. 228.
8 Ibid., p. 230.
9 Bruno Zevi, Towards an Organic Architecture (henceforth TaOA) (London: Faber & Faber, 1950), pp. 71-72; emphasis added.
10 See p. 207-208 in Louis H. Sullivan, Kindergarten Chats an other writings (New York: George Wittenborn, 1947) which reproduced a 1896 article entitled 'The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered'; see also in the same book, pp. 47-48.
11 Wright , FoA, p. 322.
12 Leone Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in ten Books (translated by Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor), (Cambridge, Mass. The MIT Press, 1988), Book 9, p. 301. This passage was quoted on the front page of Philip, Steadman,
The Evolution of Design, Biological Analogy in Architecture and the Applied Arts
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) and was also referred to by Zevi,
TaOA, p. 68-69.
13 Geoffrey Scott, The Architecture of Humanism (New York: Norton & Co, 1974), p. 164. This Vasari's passage is also quoted by Zevi, TaOA, p. 68.
14 Quoted by Zevi, TaOA, p. 68 who himself quotes Walter Curt Behrendt, Modern
Building (London: Martin Hopkinson Ltd, 1938), without page references.
15 See the passages referred to in the entry 'Organicisme' of the 'Observations thématiques' in Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Le Dictionnaire d'architecture, Relevés et
observations, presented by Philippe Boudon and Philippe Deshayes (Liège: Mardaga,
1979).
16 William Lescaze,On Being an Architect (New York: G.P. Putnam's sons, 1942), p. 78.
17 Think, for example, of the way Henry-Russell Hitchcock contrasts Wright's achievements with the functionalism of the International Style in the foreword to the 1966 edition of Henry-Russell Hitchcock & Philip Johnson, The International Style (New York: Norton & Co, 1966), pp. vii-xiii. For a more dramatic opposition but much more controversial illustration of this point, see Tom Wolfe, From the Bauhaus
18 Edward Robert De Zurko, Origins of functionalist theory (New York, Columbia University Press, 1957), pp. 4 and 6.
19 Walter Gropius, Scope of Total Architecture (New York: Collier Book, 1943), p. 56. 20 Walter Gropius, 'Programme for the Establishment of a Company for the Provision of Housing on Aesthetically Consistent Principles', translated from German, in Tim and Charlotte Benton, eds., Form and Function, (London: Crosby, Lockwood Staples, 1975), p. 190.
21 Walter Gropius, Scope of Total Architecture (New York: Collier Book, 1943), p. 18. Gropius's emphasis. For an analysis, illustrated by various quotations, of the importance of the biological and organic conceptions of Gropius, see Stéphan D'Amour, ‘Architecture et rationalité: Walter Gropius’, Philosopher, Vol. 17 (1995), pp. 137-160.
22 Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 1965), p. 92).
23 Wright, OAAD, p. 231-232.
24 Walter Gropius, Scope of Total Architecture (New York: Collier Book, 1943), p. 59. 25 Walter Gropius, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (Cambridge, Mass, MIT
Press, 1965), p. 82. 26 Zevi, TaOA..
27 Walter Curt Behrendt, Modern Building (London: Martin Hopkinson Ltd, 1938). 28 Since any building, even a tomb, has some function, the functional character of a piece
of architecture is always relative, but in the so-called functionalist cases the function should have a clear primacy over form. One who agrees with Broadbent's negative evaluation of the functional character of Mies van der Rohe's Crown Hall at the I.I.T [Geoffrey Broadbent, ‘The Rational and the Functional’ in Sharp Dennis, ed., The
Rationalists, Theory and Design in the Modern Movement (London, Architectural
Press, 1978), p. 151-154], could have chosen this allegedly functionalist building as an example of a formalist one, just as well as Rossi's ossuary or the pyramid.
29 Dennis Sharp, Modern Architecture and Expressionism (London: Longmans, 1966), p. 21. See also Wolfgang Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (translated from the German) (henceforth EA) (London:Thames and Hudson, 1979), p. 54.
30 On this point, see also Charles Jencks, Modern Movements in Architecture (2d edition) (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1985), pp. 62ff.
31 Pehnt, EA, p. 9.
32 Peter Collins, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture (Montréal, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1965) p. pp. 24-25.
33 Collins, ibid., p. 78 and 226; Christian Norberg-Schulz, Intentions in Architecture (Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press, 1965), pp. 184-185.
34 See Broadbent, op. cit.
35 Alan Colquhoun, Essays in Architectural Criticism, Modern Architecture and
Architectural Change (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1985, first edition, 1981), p.
110.
36 Among many other examples, see Collins's and Norberg-Schulz's passages quoted above and Charles Jencks, Modern Movements in Architecture (2d edition) (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1985), p. 109ff and Björn Linn, 'The Modernity of Functionalism' in Maija Kärkkäinen, ed., Functionalism - Utopia or the Way Forward (Jyväskylä: Alvar Aalto Symposium, 1992), p. 141.
37 Since it 'emphasizes the autonomy or primacy of formal quality' [Robert Williams, entry 'Formalism' (vol. 11) in Jane Turner, ed., The Dictionalry of Art (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 315], the very idea of formalism also necessarily emphasises the importance of the aesthetic and artistic intervention which aims to achieve such formal qualities, whereas functionalism and organicism tend to minimise the significance of such an intervention in their common commitment to accentuate the role of natural forces. For the importance of this artistic dimension for expressionism, see Pehnt, EA, pp. 19-20. While expressionism has frequently developed forms inspired by natural formations (like rocks or stalactites), such a mimetic relation to nature has little to do with the idea that the building should in some way live with its users that Wright and
even Gropius present as the idealised representation of their respective commitment to nature. For a similar distinction in the case of organicism, see Zevi, TaOA, p. 75. 38 Since it is a manifestation of formal rather than functional qualities, monumentality is
linked with the very idea of formalism. About the close relation between expressionism and monumentality (associated to sculptural quality), see, for example, Pehnt, EA, pp. 19-21, 63-67, 192-193; Dennis Sharp, Modern Architecture and
Expressionism (London: Longmans, 1966), p. 26 and Roger Scruton, The Aesthetics of Architecture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 6-7. For Scruton,
'expressionism becomes plausible only as architecture approaches the ideal of sculpture' (Ibid., p. 189). Naturally, saying that expressionism in architecture is usually associated with a primacy given to the outside (or to monumentality) of the
building over its inner space is not incompatible with the crucial importance it accords
to the expression of the inner life of the artist.
39 For the meaning and the extent of this primacy of form in the case of expressionism, see Pehnt, EA, p. 20.
40 It was in this sense that Hugo Häring, who like Wright was too a promoter of organicism, systematically opposed organic architecture to an architecture based on geometric principles very similar to the one I refer to as 'formalist' (Hugo Häring, 'Approaches to Form' (1926), translated from German, in Tim and Charlotte Benton, eds., Form and Function (London: Crosby, Lockwood Staples, 1975), pp. 103-105 and Hugo Häring, 1932, 'The house as an organic structure' (translated from German) in Ulrich Conrads, 1964, Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-century Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press), pp. 126-127. Jencks seems equally to treat formalism as the antithesis of organicism (Jencks, op. cit., pp. 109-110 and p. 140)
41 It is expressionism that Jencks seems to take explicitly as the antithesis of functionalism (Jencks, op. cit., pp. 111-112ff).
London, Joseph Rykwert.
Behrendt, Walter Curt, 1938, Modern Building, London, Martin Hopkinson Ltd. Benton, Tim and Benton, Charlotte, eds. 1975, Form and Function, London, Crosby, Lockwood Staples.
Broadbent, Geoffrey, 1978, 'The Rational and the Functional' in Sharp, Dennis (ed.), 1978, The Rationalists, Theory and Design in the Modern Movement, London, Architectural Press.
Collins, Peter, 1965, Changing Ideals in Modern Architecture, Montréal, McGill-Queen's University Press.
Colquhoun, Alan, 1985, Essays in Architectural Criticism, Modern Architecture and
Architectural Change, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press (first edition, 1981).
D'Amour, Stéphan, 'Architecture et rationalité: Walter Gropius', Philosopher, 17, pp. 137-160.
De Zurko, Edward Robert, 1957, Origins of functionalist theory, New York, Columbia University Press.
Gropius, Walter, 1943, Scope of Total Architecture, New York, Collier Book.
Gropius, Walter, 1965, The New Architecture and the Bauhaus, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Gropius, Walter, 1910, 'Programme for the Establishment of a Company for the Provision of Housing on Aesthetically Consistent Principles', translated from German, in Benton (1975), pp. 188-190.
Häring, Hugo, 1926, 'Approaches to Form', translated from German, in Benton, 1975, pp. 103-105.
Häring, Hugo, 1932, 'The house as an organic structure', translated from German, in Conrads, Ulrich, 1964, Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-century
Architecture, Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, pp. 126-127
Hitchcock, Henry-Russell & Philip Johnson, 1966, The International Style, New York, Norton & Co.
Jencks, Charles, 1985, Modern Movements in Architecture (2d edition), Harmondsworth, Penguin Books.
Le Corbusier, 1927,Towards a New Architecture , London, The Architectural Press. Lescaze William, 1942,On Being an Architect, New York, G.P. Putnam's sons. Linn, Björn, 1992, 'The Modernity of Functionalism' in Kärkkäinen, Maija (ed.), 1992, Functionalism - Utopia or the Way Forward, Jyväskylä. Alvar Aalto Symposium.
Norberg-Schulz, Christian, 1965, Intentions in Architecture, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
Pehnt, Wolfgang, 1979, Expressionist Architecture, London, (translated from the German),Thames and Hudson (first English edition, 1973).
Scott, Geoffrey, 1974, The Architecture of Humanism, New York, Norton & Co. Scruton, Roger, 1979, The Aesthetics of Architecture, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Sharp, Dennis, 1966, Modern Architecture and Expressionism, London, Longmans. Steadman, Philip, 1979, The Evolution of Design, Biological Analogy in Architecture
and the Applied Arts, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Sullivan, Louis H., 1947, Kindergarten Chats an other writings, New York, George Wittenborn.
Venturi, Robert, 1966, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, New York, The Museum of Modern Art.
Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène, 1979, Le Dictionnaire d'architecture, Relevés et observations, presented by Philippe Boudon et Philippe Deshayes. Liège, Mardaga.
Williams, Robert, 1996, entry 'Formalism' (vol. 11) in Turner, Jane (ed), The Dictionalry
of Art, 1996. London, Macmillan.
Wolfe Tom, 1981, From the Bauhaus to our House, New York, Washington Square Press.
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1939, An Organic Architecture; the Architecture of Democracy, The Sir George Watson Chair Lectures of the Sulgrave Manor Board for 1939, London. Reprinted as «An Organic Architecture» pp. 221-293 in Wright, 1953. Wright, Frank Lloyd, 1953, The Future of Architecture, New York, Horizon Press. Zevi, Bruno, 1950, Towards an Organic Architecture, London, Faber & Faber.
