Page 34 - Studio International - March 1969

follow up to this momentous start-his firsl Van Doesburg knew that we arc able to in­ obsolete and must be replaced by Beeldende.)
archiLcctural statement and the most success­ Auence change. One twentieth-century sick­ It has demonstrated that everything i · re­
ful construction embodying the space/time ness is our inability to accept this. Most lationship, relationship of the one to the other.
concept. architects and artist have failed to understand The 'new architecture' has broken through
While Rietvcld was making the Schroder the fundamental implications of his concept the wall and in so doing has completely
House, van Docsburg was putting into words of space/time because they do not understand eliminated the divorce or inside and outside.
his own architectural ideas in 'Towards a space. His inLenLions arc vital for today. The two-dimensionally projected spatial com­
Plastic (Beeldende) Architecture' of 1924·. In The reconstruction of Lwo rooms in the Cafe position, fixed in a ground plan, shall be
'Composition with three paintings' 1920, the Aubelte in Strasbourg in 1926-8 was van replaced by an exact calculation of the con­
work suggests an infinite number of possibili­ Doesburg's first practical work in a human struction. For this purpose our Euclidian
ties with a set of given colour-form units. This scale. In such works as Composition no. 7 191 7, mathematics will no longer serve.
idea is used in his concept of an architectural he had treated the canvas as the equivalent of The 'new architecture' reckons not only with
language, a basic language flexible enough to a spatial void. Vertical and horizontal colour space but also with Lime as one of its charac­
be applied in many ways. His ideal was that elements arc related to make the space be­ teristics. The unity of space and time gives the
the reality of space/time should become the tween dynamic. Realizing that the canvas was architectonic appearance a new and com­
reality of 'new architecture', a formless in physical reality a plane, van Doesburg used pletely plastic aspect.
architecture with a working language, disci­ the diagonal to oppose its static nature. For The 'new architecture' is anti-cubic. And
plined yet free. This was the challenge in the same reasons he needed the diagonal to through the means of height, width and
the 1920s, a period of fertile crcaLivc actitivity. oppose the static box form of the existing depth, pi us time, approaches a totally new
He was wo1-king out these revolutionary architecture of the Cafe Aubette to create a plastic expression in open spaces. In this way
concepts. He was in closer contacts with the dynamic visual entity. architecture gets a more m- lcss Aoating aspect
major movements (Cubism, Futurism, Bau­ Had he worked directly in the void of space, that works against the gravatational forces of'
hau ·, Dada, Constructivism) than any other in three dimensions, he would have used the nature.
artist, and a relentless propagandist for any vertical-horizontal means of the space/time A complex is a. much a whole as the indepen­
ideas altempling a ocial and artistic break­ construction diagrams to make the space itself dent house. The same laws arc required for
through, travelling all over Europe, spending dynamic by implying organic movements in the complex and for the city as for the indepen­
time in Holland, France and Germany, and space and time. Unfortunately, however, the dent house. The 'new architecture' instead of'
in 1920-22 teaching at the Bauhaus. 'I have Cafe Aubette was not reconstructed in terms using symmetry, establishes a balanced
radically turned everything upside-down at of his space/time concept. Instead, he ex­ relationship of' dissimilar parts. In contra t
Weimar,' he wrote. 'The "style" will shortly tended painting into architecture by working to the frontality which results from a fixed
appear again, more radical. I have any in the Renaissance sense of embellishing a static outlook, the 'new architecture' offers a
amount of energy and I now know that our building. In doing this he realized his personal plastic richness of multi-sided, time/space
ideas will triumph, above all and everything.' need to work as a public artist. activity. The 'new a1-chitccturc' absorbs
(Letter to Antonie Kok, 1919.) A year later he attempted architecture by colour organically into itself as an immediate
Lack of direction has led to the inhuman mess building his own studio-house at Meudon; it cxpressional clement of its relationship in time
of all twentieth-century domestic architecture. turned out to be an ordinary building, far less and space. vVithout colour these relationships
Those associates of van Docsburg who arc exciting than the earlier 'House for an artist' arr not a living reality.
now called 'fathers' or modern archiLecture model. In a further stage of development these
(Oud, Gropius, Breuer, Mies van cler Rohe But the Cafc Aubctte remains an outstanding colours will be replaced by synthetic material
and Co.) and f om whom most 'new' architec­ achievement, both bold and original. It was having its own colour. This can be accompli­
r
ture clcsccncls, agreed with the social aims of treated as a complete whole, an 'environmen­ shed only v,·hen practical demands require the
van Doc burg's concept, but initially used his tal' situation. Van Doesburg worked as a material.
his spaLial language in a most superficial way, painter, not a a space constructor. Jn the The 'new architecture' is anti-decorative.
and subsequently gave up all idea· of space. cinema room the use or colour and drawing Colour has become not a decorative or
In his 'new architecture' van Docsburg was on the fixed surfaces of walls and ceilings is ornamental factor but rather an organic,
concerned with developing a spatial Aow dynamic, and the t1-catmcnt ant1c1patcs exp1-essivc architectural clement. Architecture
between outside and inside. He suggested modern synthetic coloured materials. In the as the synthesis of the new plasticity (Beelding).
articulating separate elemenls to define space, dance room light is used as a positive visual Jn the 'new architecture' building is under­
which when used never formed enclosu1es. clement, considerrd equally with the coloured stood as a part, the summation of all the arls
These 'fathers', however, made boxes-and panels as an integral part of the design. The in their most elementary manifestation. It
large boxes sub-divided into smaller boxes and way light was used suggests light-cmilling presents the possibility of thinking in four
displaced still remain boxes; the most elegant surfaces, vvhich have yet to be invented. dimensions, i.e., the plastic architect, of which
box is still a box. In doing this they betrayed In the Cafe he enforced the original de Stijl I count the painter, must construct in the new
van Docsburg·s concept and missed the chance idea by making the general public aware or sphere or space/time.
of developing a new human architecture. what the artist can do. He created a place for As the 'new architecture' permits no separate
The generation of today want to fulfil their people. It functioned as cafe, cinema, dance painting or sculpture, its intention is to employ
needs a individuals, not as pre-conceived area, meeting place-a multi-purpose space. all the essential means to create an harmonic
mass-produced human beings. They do not Niost important, it created a nrw 1-calization whole.
wanl Lo fit inLo the conlainers architecls de­ between art and society. D
sign for them. What are necessary arc flexible ['New architecture' must not be confused with
buildings which can be changed according to Extracts from To:.vard a plastic ( Bee/drnde) what is cuncntly meant by the word 'archi­
needs and moods; sets of bu i I ding parts tech­ Architecture, 1924 tecture'. Van Docsburg invented a new word­
nically up-to-date and Acxible enough to be The 'nc\,· architecture' is formless yet definite, Beeldmde-of' \\'hicli there is no exact transla­
assembled in many different ways so that we it ignorrs a prcco;1ccived aesthetic formula, a tion. Thi, word suggcst1. 'encl or object', i.e.,
can shape our own environment and avoid the mold. single building or painting or sculptur·e-and
prcdclermincd package Lhat architects impose The 'ne\\' architecture' has removed the notion implies the constructing of relationships to/of
on us. of monumental (the wo1-d monumental is /in space and time for a living purpose.J
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