Rationalism (architecture)
Encyclopedia
Vitruvius
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....
had already established in his work De Architectura
De architectura
' is a treatise on architecture written by the Roman architect Vitruvius and dedicated to his patron, the emperor Caesar Augustus, as a guide for building projects...
that architecture is a science that can be comprehended rationally. This formulation was taken up and further developed in the architectural treatises of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. Progressive art theory of the 18th-century opposed the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
beauty of illusionism with the classic beauty of truth and reason.
Twentieth-century rationalism derived less from a special, unified theoretical work than from a common belief that the most varied problems posed by the real world could be resolved by reason. In that respect it represented a reaction to historicism
Historicism (art)
Historicism refers to artistic styles that draw their inspiration from copying historic styles or artisans. After neo-classicism, which could itself be considered a historicist movement, the 19th century saw a new historicist phase marked by a return to a more ancient classicism, in particular in...
and a contrast to Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
and Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
.
Enlightenment rationalism
Structural rationalism is a retroactively-applied name given to a movement in architectureArchitecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
that came about during the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
(more specifically, neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
), arguing that architecture's intellectual base is primarily in science as opposed to reverence for and emulation of archaic traditions and beliefs. Rational architects, following the philosophy of René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
(1596–1650) emphasized geometric forms and ideal proportions.
The French Louis XVI style (better known as Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
) emerged in the mid-18th century with its roots in the waning interest of the Baroque period. The architectural notions of the time gravitated more and more to the belief that reason and natural forms are tied closely together, and that the rationality of science should serve as the basis for where structural members should be placed. Towards the end of the 18th century, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand
Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand
Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand was a French author, teacher and architect. He was an important figure in Neoclassicism, and his system of design using simple modular elements anticipated modern industrialized building components...
, a teacher at the influential École Polytechnique in Paris at the time, argued that architecture in its entirety was based in science.
Other architectural theorists of the period who advanced rationalist ideas include Abbé Jean-Louis de Cordemoy (1631–1713), the Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
Carlo Lodoli
Carlo Lodoli
Carlo Lodoli was an Italian architectural theorist, Franciscan priest, mathematician and teacher, his work anticipated modernist notions of functionalism and truth to materials. He claimed that architectural forms and proportions should be derived from the abilities of the material being used...
(1690–1761), Abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier
Marc-Antoine Laugier
The abbé Marc-Antoine Laugier was a Jesuit priest and architectural theorist. Laugier is best known for his Essay on Architecture published in 1753. In 1755 he published the second edition with a famous, often reproduced illustration of a primitive hut...
(1713–1769) and Quatremère de Quincy
Quatremère de Quincy
Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy was a French armchair archaeologist and architectural theorist, a Freemason, and an effective arts administrator and influential writer on art....
(1755–1849).
The architecture of Claude Nicholas Ledoux (1736–1806) and Étienne-Louis Boullée
Étienne-Louis Boullée
Étienne-Louis Boullée was a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects and is still influential today.- Life :...
(1728–99) typify Enlightenment rationalism, with their use of pure geometric forms, including spheres, squares, and cylinders.
Early 20th-century rationalism
Henri Labrouste
Pierre François Henri Labrouste was a French architect from the famous École des Beaux Arts school of architecture. After a six year stay in Rome, Labrouste opened an architectural training workshop, which quickly became the center of the Rationalist view...
and Auguste Perret
Auguste Perret
Auguste Perret was a French architect and a world leader and specialist in reinforced concrete construction. In 2005 his post-WWII reconstruction of Le Havre was declared by UNESCO one of the World Heritage Sites....
incorporated the virtues of structural rationalism throughout the 19th century in their buildings. By the early 20th century, architects such as Hendrik Petrus Berlage
Hendrik Petrus Berlage
thumb|120px|left|BerlageHendrik Petrus Berlage, Amsterdam, 21 February 1856 — The Hague 12 August 1934, was a prominent Dutch architect.-Overview:...
were exploring the idea that structure itself could create space without the need for decoration. This gave rise to modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
, which further explored this concept. More specifically, the Soviet Modernist group ASNOVA
ASNOVA
ASNOVA was an Avant-Garde architectural association in the Soviet Union, which was active in the 1920s and early 1930s, commonly called 'the Rationalists'....
were known as 'the Rationalists'.
Rational Architecture (l'Architettura Razionale) thrived in Italy from the 1920s to the 1940s. In 1926, a group of young architects – Sebastiano Larco, Guido Frette, Carlo Enrico Rava, Adalberto Libera
Adalberto Libera
Adalberto Libera is one of the most representative architects of the Italian Modern movement, which should not be confused with the Italian Rationalist movement, with which he only had a short-lived relationship....
, Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini
Gino Pollini
Gino Pollini was an Italian architect. He was the father of classical pianist Maurizio Pollini. Pollini worked together with Luigi Figini since 1929. He also taught architecture in Milan and Palermo....
, and Giuseppe Terragni
Giuseppe Terragni
Giuseppe Terragni was an Italian architect who worked primarily under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini and pioneered the Italian modern movement under the rubric of Rationalism...
(1904–43) declared themselves 'Gruppo 7
Gruppo 7
Gruppo 7 was a group of Italian architects who wanted to reform architecture by the adoption of rationalism. It was formed in 1926 by Luigi Figini, Guido Frette, Sebastiano Larco, Giuseppe Pagano, Gino Pollini, Carlo Enrico Rava, Giuseppe Terragni and Ubaldo Castagnola, replaced the following year...
', and published their 'Note' in Rassegna Italiana. They declared their intent to strike a middle ground between the classicism of the Novecento Italiano
Novecento Italiano
Novecento Italiano was an Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 by Anselmo Bucci , Leonardo Dudreville , Achille Funi, Gian Emilio Malerba , Piero Marussig, Ubaldo Oppi and Mario Sironi...
movement and the industrially-inspired architecture of Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
.
The hallmark of the earlier avant garde was a contrived impetus and a vain, destructive fury, mingling good and bad elements: the hallmark of today's youth is a desire for lucidity and wisdom...This must be clear...we do not intend to break with tradition...The new architecture, the true architecture, should be the result of a close association between logic and rationality.
Gruppo 7 mounted three exhibitions between 1926 and 1931, and the movement constituted itself as an official body, the Movimento Italiano per l'Architettura Razionale (MIAR), in 1930. Exemplary works include Giuseppe Terragni's Casa del Fascio
Casa del Fascio (Como)
The Casa del Fascio is a building located in Como, northern Italy, a work of Italian rationalist architect Giuseppe Terragni.Started in 1932 and completed in 1936 under the regime of Benito Mussolini, this municipal administration building was originally constructed with a primary view of...
(now the Casa del Popolo) in Como (1932–36), The Medaglia d'Oro room at the Italian Aeronautical Show in Milan (1934) by Giuseppe Pagano
Giuseppe Pagano
Giuseppe Pagano was an Italian architect, notable for his involvement in the movement of rationalist architecture in Italy up to the end of the Second World War....
and Marcello Nizzoli
Marcello Nizzoli
Marcello Nizzoli was an Italian artist, architect, industrial and graphic designer. He was the chief designer for Olivetti for many years and was responsible notably for the iconic Lettera 22 portable typewriters in 1950....
, and the Fascist Trades Union Building in Como (1938–43), designed by Cesare Cattaneo, Pietro Lingeri, Augusto Magnani, L. Origoni, and Mario Terragni.
Giuseppe Pagano (1896–1945) became editor of Casabella
Casabella
Casabella is an Italian architectural and product design magazine with a focus on modern, radical design. It includes interviews with the world's most prominent architects....
in 1933 together with Edoardo Persico. Pagano and Persico featured the work of the rationalists in the magazine, and its editorials urged the Italian state to adopt rationalism as its official style. The Rationalists enjoyed some official commissions from the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini, but the state tended to favor the more classically-inspired work of the National Union of Architects. Architects associated with the movement collaborated on large official projects of the Mussolini regime, including the University of Rome (begun in 1932) and the Esposizione Universale Roma
Esposizione Universale Roma
EUR is a residential and business district in Rome, Italy, located south of the city center. The area was originally chosen in 1930s as the site for the 1942 world's fair which Benito Mussolini planned to open to celebrate twenty years of Fascism. EUR was also designed to direct the expansion of...
(EUR) south of Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
(begun in 1936). The EUR features monumental buildings, many of which evocative of ancient Roman architecture, but absent ornament, revealing strong geometric forms.
Neo-rationalism
In the late 1960s, a new rationalist movement emerged in architecture, claiming inspiration from both the Enlightenment and early-20th century rationalists. Like the earlier rationalists, the movement, known as the Tendenza, was centered in Italy. Practitioners include Carlo AymoninoCarlo Aymonino
Carlo Aymonino was an Italian architect and urban planner best known for the Gallaretese housing complex in Milan.-Early life:Born in Rome, he studied at the University of Rome, obtaining his degree in 1950...
(b. 1926), Aldo Rossi
Aldo Rossi
Aldo Rossi was an Italian architect and designer who accomplished the unusual feat of achieving international recognition in four distinct areas: theory, drawing, architecture and product design.-Early life:...
(1931–97), and Giorgio Grassi
Giorgio Grassi
Giorgio Grassi , is one of Italy's most important architects. Much influenced by Ludwig Hilberseimer, Heinrich Tessenow and Adolf Loos, his extremely formal work is predicated on absolute simplicity, clarity, and honesty without ingratiation, rhetoric, or spectacular shape-making; it refers to...
(b. 1935). The Italian design magazine Casabella
Casabella
Casabella is an Italian architectural and product design magazine with a focus on modern, radical design. It includes interviews with the world's most prominent architects....
featured the work of these architects and theorists. The work of architectural historian Manfredo Tafuri
Manfredo Tafuri
Manfredo Tafuri , an Italian architect, historian, theoretician, critic and academic, was arguably the world's most important architectural historian of the past fifty years...
influenced the movement, and the University Iuav of Venice
University Iuav of Venice
Iuav University of Venice is a university located in Venice, northern Italy. It was founded in 1926 and is organized in 3 faculties....
emerged as a center of the Tendenza after Tafuri became chair of Architecture History in 1968.
Rossi's book L'Architettura della Città published in 1966, and translated into English as The Architecture of the City in 1982, explored several of the ideas that inform Neo-rationalism. In seeking to develop an understanding of the city beyond simple functionalism, Rossi revives the idea of typology
Typology (urban planning and architecture)
Typology is the taxonomic classification of characteristics commonly found in buildings and urban places, according to their association with different categories, such as intensity of development , degrees of formality, and school of thought...
, following from Quatremère de Quincy, as a method for understanding buildings, as well as the larger city. He also writes of the importance of monuments as expressions of the collective memory of the city, and the idea of place as an expression of both physical reality and history.
Architects, such as Leon Krier
Léon Krier
Léon Krier is an architect, architectural theorist and urban planner. From the late 1970s onwards Krier has been one of the most influential neo-traditional architects and planners...
, Maurice Culot, and Demetri Porphyrios
Demetri Porphyrios
Demetri Porphyrios is a Greek architect and author who currently practises architecture in London as principal of the firm Porphyrios Associates. In addition to practice and writing, Porphyrios has held a number of teaching positions in the United States, the United Kingdom and Greece. He is...
, took Rossi's ideas to their logical conclusion with a revival of Classical Architecture and Traditional Urbanism. Krier's witty critique of Modernism, often in the form of cartoons, and Porphyrios's well crafted philosophical arguments, such as "Classicism is not a Style", won over a small but talented group of architects to the classical point of view. Organizations such as the Traditional Architecture Group at the RIBA
Riba
Riba means one of the senses of "usury" . Riba is forbidden in Islamic economic jurisprudence fiqh and considered as a major sin...
, and the Institute of Classical Architecture attest to their growing number, but mask the Rationalist origins.
A Tendenza exhibition was organized for the 1973 Milan Triennale.
In Germany, Oswald Mathias Ungers
Oswald Mathias Ungers
Oswald Mathias Ungers was a German architect and architectural theorist, known for his rationalist designs and the use of cubic forms. Among his notable projects are museums in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Cologne....
(1926-2007) became the leading practitioner of German rationalism from the mid-1960s. Ungers influenced a younger generation of German architects, including Hans Kollhoff
Hans Kollhoff
Hans Kollhoff is a German architect and professor.He studied architecture from 1968 to 1973 at the University of Karlsruhe with Egon Eiermann and studied abroad in 1974 at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. He received his diploma in 1975 in Karlsruhe...
, Max Dudler
Max Dudler
Max Dudler is an architect born in Altenrhein, Switzerland. He studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and later at the Academy of Arts in Berlin with Ludwig Leo. Early on he worked with Oswald Mathias Ungers. He has held teaching positions and had exhibitions both in Germany and Italy...
, and Christoph Mäckler.