Page 26 - Studio International - September October 1975
P. 26

form. Nevertheless these various projects
        of the twenties provide the clearest, most
        consistent and most uncompromised
        demonstrations of the development of the
        metaphysical and aesthetic ideals of
        De Stijl in three-dimensional form.
          His first models were produced by
        Bauhaus students in Weimar in 1922
        when he was running his subversive
        De Stijl course there. These 'architectonic
        sculptures,' as he called them, were
        obviously inspired by the work of
        Vantongerloo, but Van Doesburg
        intended that they should express
        architectural as well as sculptural
        qualities. For he described them, in the
        Weimer speech quoted earlier, as
        practical demonstrations of his
        convictions that inner space should be
        expressed through outer form; that no
        preference should be shown to any single
        facade; and that form should not be
        absorbed by or express the landscape.
        While only the anti-telluric
        preoccupations are specifically De Stijl,
        since the first two ideals are inherited
        from Berlage, the resulting forms —
        interpenetrating cubic blocks — marked a
        radical departure both from Van t'Hoff's
        Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired
        preoccupation with extension and
        horizontality, and from Gropius'
        concern, at that time, with standardization
        and repetition. Van Doesburg's
        deceptively simple models imply a
        revolution in the architects' conception
        of internal space, and initiate that
        concern for 'spatial contrasts, spatial
        dissonances and spatial
        supplementations'6 that was to preoccupy
        him for the rest of his career.
          Metaphysical considerations, therefore,
        were to stimulate Van Doesburg to    Theo van Doesburg and Cornelis van Eesteren
        conceive of more dynamic structures   Architectural Project 1923
        which were intended to express the
        triumph of the non-Euclidean         wrote in Towards a Plastic Architecture   Mondrian himself was expressing
        interpretation of nature, challenge the   (1924) 'is anti-cubic, which specifies that   concern about the compromises that
        forces of gravity, and demonstrate the   it does not attempt to combine all   might be involved in expressing abstract
        idea of matter, as Van Doesburg put it, as   functional space-cells into one closed   concepts in material form. 'The absolute
        a 'unit of Energy.' The opportunity to   cube, but projects the functional space-  is expressed in the straight,' he
        investigate these ideas came in 1923   cells (as well as overhanging planes, the   reiterated in 1922. 'Painting and
        when, in collaboration with Cornelis van   volumes of balconies and so on)   architecture in the new aesthetic are
        Eesteren and Rietveld, he produced   centrifugally, or from the core of the cube   consequent executions of the
        three remarkable models for an       outwards, thereby giving a completely   composition of the straight in self-
        exhibition of De Stijl architecture held at   new plastic expression in open space to   annihilating opposition : a multiple
        Léonce Rosenberg's art gallery in Paris.   the dimensions of height, width, depth   relationship.'8  duality of the constant rectangular
        The original commission which led to   and time. In this manner architecture
        these experiments was for a private house,   takes on a more or less hovering aspect   So that when Van Doesburg, after
        which Rosenberg had asked Oud to     (in so far as this is possible from the   much cogitation, introduced the
        design. Oud turned the job down      structural point of view, which is a   diagonal into both painting and
        because a site had not been found, and   problem for the engineer!); this aspect,   architecture, Mondrian had no alternative
        recommended that Van Doesburg be     so to speak, challenges the forces of   but to resign from the movement as well.
        approached. Van Doesburg, naturally   gravity in nature."                The diagonal, however, as far as Van
        enough, found the hypothetical nature of   Such architecture, as well as taxing the   Doesburg was concerned, symbolized
        the brief a stimulus rather than a   ingenuity of the engineer, made new   both spiritual and material energy,
        hindrance and the results demonstrated a   demands on the painter: 'The equilibrium   and the rejection of the static in favour
        radical development in his conception   of the architectural relationships   of both movement and tension.
        of architectural form; for these complex   becomes a visible reality only through the   `Elementarism,' he wrote, 'opposes to
        structures were made up of           use of colour. The task of the modern   the balanced relationship composition of
        interpenetrating, interlocking and   painter is to integrate colour into a   Neo-Plasticism : non-balanced counter-
        overlapping cubes and planes which were   harmonic whole (by placing it not on a   composition as a phenomenon of a
        defined by colour and hovered, seemingly   plane surface of two dimensions, but   time-space tension of colour, line or
        weightless, in space. The nature and   within the realm of space-time).' By this   plane, always in opposition to the
        implications of such an architecture,   time, however, the De Stijl group was   natural and architectural structure.'" And
        which defied tradition and replaced the   short of painters to share and demonstrate   he demonstrated these ideas in practice
        conventional box volumes with planes   this vision. Two of the original members   when, in redesigning the interiors of the
        that explored rather than enclosed   (Huszar as well as Van der Leck) had   Aubette restaurant in Strasbourg, he
        space, were duly described and       resigned, mainly because of what they   made colour, expressed in 'non-balanced
        defined in various articles and      felt was the increasingly subsidiary role   counter-composition,' destroy and
        manifestos. 'The new architecture,' he    painters were expected to play, and    recreate existing architectural space and

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