Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture
ROBERT STEUTEVILLE OCT. 1, 2009
By Malcolm Millais
Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd, 2009, 296 pp., paperback, $29.95
If you want to know where all of the Modern Movement’s bodies are buried, this is the book. The title is apt. Millais doesn’t just chip away at modern architecture with a chisel; he uses dynamite —like the demolition engineers did for the Pruitt-Igoe project in St. Louis, which appears on the cover of this book.
This polemic would be harder to read if not for a biting humor in the captions and text. The chapters on modernist icons Le Corbusier and Buckminster Fuller are particularly amusing for the way he describes their cult-like followers and titanic egos. In describing the name change from Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris to Le Corbusier, Millais asks: “What did you call him to his face? Le? Monsieur Corbusier? Edouard?” The pseudonym allowed Le Corbusier to write about himself in the third person, “and he could use it as a protective mask, or means of self-dramatization, all part of his need for importance and fame.”
Millais devotes a lengthy chapter to the building of the Sydney Opera House, which has become the symbol of a city and a recognized masterpiece of modern architecture. Yet its construction was an extended fiasco, partly because the architect did not understand the structure and insisted on following Modern Movement tenets even when doing so was not the most practical solution. It ended up costing 14 times the original estimate.
Millais is an expert on structure, and this is where his greatest strength as a writer and critic lies. When modernist solutions are impractical from a structural standpoint, they often result in buildings that fail or cost enormous sums to build — usually being saved by heroic behind-the-scenes work of an engineer. Millais describes these failures in brilliant detail.
Toward the end of the book, Millais makes a point that new urbanists should pay attention to. He compares Art Deco architecture to Modern Movement architecture. Both have modern lines, but Art Deco is loved by ordinary people whereas Modern Movement architecture is usually not. Art Deco includes lavish ornament. It also doesn’t have to take odd, anti-urban forms to make up for the lack of overt decoration. Yet it is the rare urbanist that makes use of it today. Why not? It’s a style of modern architecture that might serve great purpose — if only as a starting point for a more practical and better-loved modernism.
Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd, 2009, 296 pp., paperback, $29.95
If you want to know where all of the Modern Movement’s bodies are buried, this is the book. The title is apt. Millais doesn’t just chip away at modern architecture with a chisel; he uses dynamite —like the demolition engineers did for the Pruitt-Igoe project in St. Louis, which appears on the cover of this book.
This polemic would be harder to read if not for a biting humor in the captions and text. The chapters on modernist icons Le Corbusier and Buckminster Fuller are particularly amusing for the way he describes their cult-like followers and titanic egos. In describing the name change from Charles-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris to Le Corbusier, Millais asks: “What did you call him to his face? Le? Monsieur Corbusier? Edouard?” The pseudonym allowed Le Corbusier to write about himself in the third person, “and he could use it as a protective mask, or means of self-dramatization, all part of his need for importance and fame.”
Millais devotes a lengthy chapter to the building of the Sydney Opera House, which has become the symbol of a city and a recognized masterpiece of modern architecture. Yet its construction was an extended fiasco, partly because the architect did not understand the structure and insisted on following Modern Movement tenets even when doing so was not the most practical solution. It ended up costing 14 times the original estimate.
Millais is an expert on structure, and this is where his greatest strength as a writer and critic lies. When modernist solutions are impractical from a structural standpoint, they often result in buildings that fail or cost enormous sums to build — usually being saved by heroic behind-the-scenes work of an engineer. Millais describes these failures in brilliant detail.
Toward the end of the book, Millais makes a point that new urbanists should pay attention to. He compares Art Deco architecture to Modern Movement architecture. Both have modern lines, but Art Deco is loved by ordinary people whereas Modern Movement architecture is usually not. Art Deco includes lavish ornament. It also doesn’t have to take odd, anti-urban forms to make up for the lack of overt decoration. Yet it is the rare urbanist that makes use of it today. Why not? It’s a style of modern architecture that might serve great purpose — if only as a starting point for a more practical and better-loved modernism.
