Page 25 - Studio International - September October 1975

These exercises, however, were to have
several important repercussions. For
they concentrated Van Doesburg's
attention on the kinetic nature of colour
and the relationship of colour and form
to architecture and encouraged him to
think in terms of three rather than two
dimensions, thereby anticipating his
remarkable architectural experiments of
1922 and 5923. To the other De Stijl
painters, however, this sort of
collaboration indicated compromise
rather than co-operation; for Mondrian
himself would never indulge in what he
called 'mural art', which he believed
Jan Wils destroyed rather than enhanced
Sketch for a country house with pre-cast concrete walls architectural form, while Van der Leck
resigned from the group almost as soon
as he had joined it because of the
was the instigator and high priest of the `struggled for the development of a new threatening and compromising presence
movement, acting as its law giver as well style,' but the true torch-bearers were the of architects as co-members.
as its interpreter, and since he was the painters who had destroyed their past and Before he resigned, however, Van der
only member of the group to work both transcended nature, convention and Leck had contributed an article to the
as an architect and as a painter, tradition in order to create a new and first issue of De Stijl magazine in which
consistently maintaining that architecture universal aesthetic. 'Only in our own he spelled out the differences, as he saw
should demonstrate the values inherent times,' he wrote, 'has painting, the most them, between painting and
in abstract art, it is worth considering his advanced form of art, shown the path architecture; and his 'contrasts' are worth
ideas and achievement in some detail. by which architecture might reach, like quoting in that they highlight the
He began his career as a self-taught painting and sculpture, the mechanical inadequacies he found in existing
painter, and first became preoccupied and disciplined realization in material architectural form when measured
with the metaphysical significance of art form of what the other arts have already against the transcendental ideals of
in the years immediately preceding the achieved in an imaginary (aesthetic) Neo-Plasticism.
first World War when he was writing for manner.' `Building,' he wrote, 'is clearly
Eenheid, an avant-garde magazine with The quotation is from a speech made something quite different from painting
faintly Hegelian overtones. In his at Weimar in 1922 in which Van and stands in a quite different relationship
capacity as art critic Van Doesburg read Doesburg demonstrated, by reference to to the infinite. We list below five ways in
Kandinsky, Marinetti and Boccioni; the the work of Mondrian, Van der Leck, which building differs from painting,
former confirmed his conviction that Wils, Oud, Van t'Hoff and Rietveld, from painting as, in the last analysis, it
`religion and art can only be understood the triumphant emergence of a new and really is.
by the spirit,' while the Futurists showed universal style which, inspired by the 1. Modern painting is destruction of
him that it was possible to convert precedent of the painters, would embrace naturalistic plastic expression as
dynamic theory into dynamic action. architecture, graphic and industrial against the naturalistic plastic
He also read Berlage, however, whose design, and express its functional and constructional character of
seminal Gedanken über Stil had been aesthetic purity in new forms as well as architecture.
published in 5905, and whose Studies in new materials. By that time, however, 2. Modern painting is open, in contrast
Architecture, Style and Community were divergencies and differences had already with the combining, closed nature
published in 1910. The experience of begun to emerge among his disciples, of architecture.
Berlage's writing, as well as of his for attempts to put the ideal into action 3. Modern painting is colour and
architecture, no doubt contributed to had pinpointed the differences between space-imparting, in contrast with
Van Doesburg's initial assumptions the architects' and painters' intentions, the colourless and plane [sic]
concerning the nature of style, the need their conceptions of space, form and surface character of architecture.
for style to express the spirit of the age, function. The architect members of the 4. Modern painting is plastic
and the role of the architect in group, as has already been pointed out, expression in spatial flatness :
determining as well as demonstrating were working within a tradition which extension, in contrast with the
that style. For Berlage's definition of did not admit the painter as form-giver, space-restricting flatness of
style as 'Unity in Plurality' had social as but reduced his role to that of form- architecture.
well as aesthetic connotations, and enhancer or interior designer — a role 5. Modern painting is plastic balance,
linked a Hegelian preoccupation with the which neither Mondrian nor Bart van as against the constructional balance
unity of form and content with a more der Leck could accept, but one which (load and support) of architecture.
pragmatic consideration of the role of Van Doesburg had already assumed in Modern painting reduces corporeality
architecture in a socialist society. And 1917 and 1918 when he designed stained to flatness and, through the space
Berlage's conviction, expressed in some glass windows, tiled floors and colour concept, arrives at the destruction of the
of his later writing, that a new style was schemes for work by Jan Wils and Oud. natural associated with the plane, and so
about to emerge that 'would be the at spatial relationship. Architecture
perfect expression of the whole of constructs organic corporeality in closed
modern life" no doubt confirmed Van relationships. The architectural plane
Doesburg's belief that he and his is the delimitation of light and space."
colleagues were completing an Over the next ten years, however,
inevitable historical process, and that Van Doesburg was to demonstrate
their search for a 'universal collective architectonic ideas which incorporated
manner of expression' would culminate all the qualities that Van der Leck
in a 'synthesis of art and life." attributed to painting, and he, of all the
Such a synthesis, however, in Van architectural members of the De Stijl
Doesburg's view, involved a complete group, came nearest to a consistent
and total break with the past, so that matching of ideal with achievement. On
there could be no precedent in one level it was, of course, easy for him
architectural form for the new Style. Theo van Doesburg to do so, since his projects (apart from the
Certain architects, he conceded, Tile floor in holiday residence, Aubette scheme in Strasbourg and the
including Berlage, Frank Lloyd Wright, Noordwijkerout 1917 house that he built for himself in Paris
Behrens, Saarinen and Perret had (In collaboration with J. J. P. Oud) just before he died) remained in model

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