Page 34 - Studio International - April 1970

Some of Speer's ideas were, moreover, direct and persistent concern for morality.
cribs from modernism. Thus, Gabo's 1929 ...this contrast had never before been so striking as
project for a 'Light Festival' to illuminate a it was in Bergotte's time, because...in proportion
Berlin architectural site finds parallel in as society grew more corrupt, our notions of
Speer's 1938 light environment of fifty high- morality were increasingly exalted.
power searchlights, of which he wrote : 'The Proust, 1919.
Light Cathedral was an experiment in making The rejection of the voluptuously curvilinear
architecture with light. The refraction of light and the sensuously modelled in the abstract
from the searchlights circulated through the art of the 20s was substantiated by a philo-
clouds and merged fifteen kilometres up in sophy of high moral tone, disseminated by a
the sky. It was a fantastic thing, like a Gothic number of master propagandists who were as
cathedral'. Like the Cathedral of the Future much concerned with preaching the message
of the Bauhaus proclamation, one can't help of a renovated world as with actually con-
thinking. But though the ideology most structing it. Twenties abstraction was rhetori-
closely approximates to Expressionism, the cal and held an implicit reformist content.
style of Speer's work is a debased classicist The Great War had seemed to mark the end
one, tempered by 20s' influence. Thus, while of the old Europe, and in the revolutionary
the impact of buildings by Hitler's personal situations that followed artists strove for a new
architects is classical in detailing and in soziale Gedanke (social ideal) within which art
general image, the emphasis on the horizontal, would demonstrate its essential 'modernity'.
the use of 'blocky' elements, the relative The inheritance of these early years effected a
freedom from ornament and the abstract- revaluation of the artist's social function, and
aesthetic feeling for form relate them to the there emerged figures like Van Doesburg, El
immediate past. All this is part of Hitler's Lissitzky and Moholy-Nagy, as much in-
interpretation of sachlich: abstract forms given volved with the creation of a truly 'contem-
21
Adolf Ziegler, The four elements, c.1937. (Ziegler was a traditional context and blown-up to a porary' society as with a new art, who
Hitler's favourite painter and organized the
confiscations of 'degenerate art'. This painting once heroic scale; and of 'clarity' as expression of interpreted the artist's role as not merely
hung over Hitler's fireplace.) the 'truthful' order of art and state. reflecting the aims of society but as creating
22
A watercolour made by Hitler on the Western Front Hitler's projects were, however, a minority them. In some ways, art began to act as a
during the First World War.
of those commissioned; more truly practical persuasion technique towards the new society
left to the other party leaders). His conception schemes were the responsibility of individual or at least as a symbol of its proposed
of architecture is thus symbolic and didactic, ministries. Here, by and large, traditionalism character. The artists assumed they were
closer to that of Taut's Stadtkrone than to the prevailed; but modern types were constructed answering a call for spiritual renovation and
neue Sachlichkeit. Nevertheless, he defined his for departments with an up-to-date image or addressed themselves to a mass culture. This
architectural ideal (`German-ness') in quasi- where ideology was thought to be unimpor- in itself aided and abetted the reductivism of
sachlich terms: 'Deutsche sein heisst klar tant: on the one hand, Goering's airforce their theory: that the character of the audi-
sein'.15 But he denied the necessity of a commissions; on the other, industrial archi- ence defines the quality and intensity of the
radical style—art, he felt, should concern itself tecture and the autobahns. If the creation of message confirmed for them a simplistic and
with eternal values before period ones. This seemingly 'degenerate' architecture appears forceful art. Great pride was thus taken in
was his complaint about the whole idea of a perplexing, we must remember that once the methods of communication and presentation.
`modern' art: 'This is to reduce art to the level Nazis had achieved power there was less The fact that in the 20s typography became
of fashions in dress, with the motto "Every practical benefit to be had from pillorying an a main-stream art confirms this. While the
year something fresh" . . . These facile daub- ideologically unacceptable manner. 'Every ideology was one of social integration it was
ings in art are but the product of a day: case on its own merits' seems to have dictated animated by a concern for technique, the
yesterday, nonexistent: today, modern: to- most building more than ideological demands. creation of what we would now call a
morrow, out of date'. And yet his eternal Supporters of both 'rural' and 'revolutionary' corporate image. It has been suggested that
values were linked to modern ones. Like a schemes were thus allowed to go forward the Idealismus of the early revolutionary years
utopian modernist, Hitler in his last years within the limits of practical opportunity and was quickly compromised in the Realpolitik of
commissioned some improbable 'heroic' pro- reasonable discretion. In any case, the tradi- the mid-20s— the Bauhaus becoming increas-
jects including a party monument 750 ft high. tionalism and ruralism of Nazi Germany, the ingly concerned with a materialism against
And to achieve the eternal he did demand an modification of radicalism to compromise, is which abstractionist theory had originally
up-to-date expression of 'such a uniform also to be found in 30s' building in the demo- rebelled.17 Be this as it may, there was
character that in coming centuries one can cracies, and the reduced popular attraction certainly the strange situation of artists whose
easily recognize it as a work of the German of urban themes due to the depression should work owed its very character to a tension,
people and of this our epoch', and an up-to- not be forgotten. It is thus difficult to deduce even hostility, towards their society taking
date technique, and scale: 'We must build as an idea of Nazi art policy on its products upon themselves missionary roles for an ideal
large as today's technical possibilities permit; alone. All one can perhaps do is to recognize which if reached would dissolve their very
we must build for eternity'. a basic dichotomy of wishing to consolidate existence. Dissenters becoming reformists is
Hitler's willing acceptance of the 'Master the vision and spirit of Gemeinschaft with the an ambivalence at once desperate and idealist.
Builder' image reflects expressionist utopian- efficiency of Gesellschaft. In architectural terms The abstract artists and designers of Weimar
ism as did his advocation of city networks of this means the contradiction between Hitler's seemed concerned to establish a total art as an
gigantic proportions. The vast complex at own commissions representing the power- educational force; an awareness of mass
Nuremburg, planned by Hitler's personal dictator ideal, and the rural housing and democracy had suggested an appeal to larger
architect, Albert Speer,16 was intended to labour schemes suggestive of the decentralized and larger groups. But the basic social prob-
accommodate over 100,000 people and was a state which didn't exist. But that which forms lem remained: how to unify aestheticism and
powerful dramatic arena of abstract-formal the link between these, and which was also an utilitarianism, how to resolve artistic freedom
character surrounded by symbolic images. important aspect of 20s' art, is a continual and governmental regulation.