I want to share what I believe to be the central theme from Le Corbusier's Towards a New Architecture (1924):
A great epoch has begun.
There exists a new spirit.
Industry, overwhelming us like a flood which rolls on toward its destined ends, has furnished us with new tools adapted to this new epoch, animated by this new spirit.
Economic law inevitably governs our acts and our thoughts.
The problem of the house is a problem of the epoch.
The equilibrium of society today depends upon it.
Architecture has for its first duty, in this period of renewal, that of bringing about a revision of values, a revision of the constituent elements of the house.
Mass production is based on analysis and experiment.
Industry on the grand scale must occupy itself with building and establish the elements of the house on a mass-production basis.
We must create the mass-production spirit,
The spirit of constructing mass-production houses.
The spirit of living in mass-production houses.
The spirit of conceiving mass-production houses.
If we eliminate from our hearts and minds all dead concepts in regard to the house, and look at the question from a critical and objective point of view, we shall arrive at the "House-Machine," the mass-production house, healthy (and morally so too) and beautiful in the same way that the working tools and instruments which accompany our existence are beautiful.
Beautiful also with all the animation that the artist's sensibility can add to severe and pure functioning elements.
Just read it a few times and realize that there is a significant body of architectural education that rests primarily upon this foundation. And yet there are those who would still insist that the state of architectural education in this country is not cultic in its abhorrence of anything daring to remember the past. I'll be working on a few posts based on this manifesto from Le Corbusier and I thought I would throw it out there prior to analyzing it to death.
Showing posts with label iconoclasm. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iconoclasm. Show all posts
23 December, 2008
26 October, 2007
The New Iconoclasts
After thinking about the last post for a while I came upon my real critique of contemporary Christianity: it is iconoclastic. The pictorial representations of our faith - the prayers wrought in many different materials - have become wasteful fancies in the post-modern world. Even the most simple and venerable cross has gone missing lately, displaced by the video screen.
In a rare occurrence, I’ll allow Mr. Luther himself to speak to the basic issue here:
“I am not of the opinion” said Luther, “that through the Gospel all the arts should be banished and driven away, as some zealots want to make us believe; but I wish to see them all, especially music, in the service of Him Who gave and created them.” Again he says: “I have myself heard those who oppose pictures, read from my German Bible. … But this contains many pictures of God, of the angels, of men, and of animals, especially in the Revelation of St. John, in the books of Moses, and in the book of Joshua. We therefore kindly beg these fanatics to permit us also to paint these pictures on the wall that they may be remembered and better understood, inasmuch as they can harm as little on the walls as in books. Would to God that I could persuade those who can afford it to paint the whole Bible on their houses, inside and outside, so that all might see; this would indeed be a Christian work. For I am convinced that it is God’s will that we should hear and learn what He has done, especially what Christ suffered. But when I hear these things and meditate upon them, I find it impossible not to picture them in my heart. Whether I want to or not, when I hear, of Christ, a human form hanging upon a cross rises up in my heart: just as I see my natural face reflected when I look into water. Now if it is not sinful for me to have Christ’s picture in my heart, why should it be sinful to have it before my eyes?”
Financial considerations aside, I agree wholeheartedly with Luther that the visual expression of the gospel is vital to the spread of the faith as well as the spiritual nourishment of the faithful. To put faith to image is to paint windows into heaven, just as sacred music accomplishes. Why then would we condemn the building to background when it can just as easily shout praise to God along with the choirs and instruments within? Why has music become the only widely acceptable artistic sacrifice, while sacred art and architecture languish in the realm of the unnecessary?
Even a simple shelter can offer praise to God. Money buys the materials and labor, it is the worshipful designer that arranges them to point to God. The house of the Church should always be a gospel in whatever material it consists of, regardless of the relative cost. This gospel is not ritualistic at heart, but symbolic. It is not a gospel for the rich and it’s not a gospel for the powerful. If I’m building one church for a million dollars or ten churches for a million dollars, I’m going to make sure that they all intrinsically point to God no matter what.
In a rare occurrence, I’ll allow Mr. Luther himself to speak to the basic issue here:
“I am not of the opinion” said Luther, “that through the Gospel all the arts should be banished and driven away, as some zealots want to make us believe; but I wish to see them all, especially music, in the service of Him Who gave and created them.” Again he says: “I have myself heard those who oppose pictures, read from my German Bible. … But this contains many pictures of God, of the angels, of men, and of animals, especially in the Revelation of St. John, in the books of Moses, and in the book of Joshua. We therefore kindly beg these fanatics to permit us also to paint these pictures on the wall that they may be remembered and better understood, inasmuch as they can harm as little on the walls as in books. Would to God that I could persuade those who can afford it to paint the whole Bible on their houses, inside and outside, so that all might see; this would indeed be a Christian work. For I am convinced that it is God’s will that we should hear and learn what He has done, especially what Christ suffered. But when I hear these things and meditate upon them, I find it impossible not to picture them in my heart. Whether I want to or not, when I hear, of Christ, a human form hanging upon a cross rises up in my heart: just as I see my natural face reflected when I look into water. Now if it is not sinful for me to have Christ’s picture in my heart, why should it be sinful to have it before my eyes?”
Financial considerations aside, I agree wholeheartedly with Luther that the visual expression of the gospel is vital to the spread of the faith as well as the spiritual nourishment of the faithful. To put faith to image is to paint windows into heaven, just as sacred music accomplishes. Why then would we condemn the building to background when it can just as easily shout praise to God along with the choirs and instruments within? Why has music become the only widely acceptable artistic sacrifice, while sacred art and architecture languish in the realm of the unnecessary?
Even a simple shelter can offer praise to God. Money buys the materials and labor, it is the worshipful designer that arranges them to point to God. The house of the Church should always be a gospel in whatever material it consists of, regardless of the relative cost. This gospel is not ritualistic at heart, but symbolic. It is not a gospel for the rich and it’s not a gospel for the powerful. If I’m building one church for a million dollars or ten churches for a million dollars, I’m going to make sure that they all intrinsically point to God no matter what.
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