1st Edition

The Rationalist Reader Architecture and Rationalism in Western Europe 1920–1940 / 1960–1990

Edited By Andrew Peckham, Torsten Schmiedeknecht Copyright 2014
    408 Pages
    by Routledge

    408 Pages
    by Routledge

    The Rationalist Reader incorporates the first documentary collection of writing on rationalism in twentieth century architecture, providing an accessible introduction to the subject, direct insight into the thinking of individual architects and their critics, and a current re-evaluation of the context from which they emerged.

    Key texts, including new translations, are placed within a wider historical and philosophical context by Alan Colquhoun, and considered with particular reference to nineteenth century architectural theory by Charles Rattray. Two separate documentary sections address the thinking behind rationalist architecture within the Modern Movement and ‘Rational Architecture’ as its counterpart within Neo-rationalism. German architectural historian Thilo Hilpert and Dutch architect and critic Henk Engel, provide introductions to the two periods, while Cambridge historian Nicholas Bullock contributes a linking piece focused on French experience post-war. A postscript samples retrospective views.

    The two sets of ‘documents’, identified with the periods 1920–1940 and 1960–1990, are arranged under comparative headings, allowing the reader to establish correspondences between the key themes of rationalist architecture.

    When the ‘historical’ experience of many young architects is confined to ‘masters’ and ‘iconic buildings’ located within the general flux of modernity, here the trajectory of rationalism in twentieth century architecture is seen to veer between a scientific methodology identified with generic models, and a formal paradigm of typological consistency. With its immediate philosophical origins in Enlightenment culture, the development of rationalism in nineteenth century architecture prefaced the volatility of later interpretations of rationalist architecture outlined and documented in this book.

    Preface Andrew Peckham and Torsten Schmiedeknecht  Introduction The Rationalist Legacy: Complement and Contradiction Andrew Peckham and Torsten Schmiedeknecht  Rationalism: A Philosophical Concept in Architecture (1987) Alan Colquhoun  Rationalist Tendencies in Nineteenth-century Architecture Charles Rattray  Documents One 1920-1940  The Architects of Modernism and their Texts: An Introduction to the History of Modern Architecture 1922-1934 Thilo Hilpert  Rationalist Architecture: Type-Form and History  1. The Foundations and Development of Architecture (1908) H. P. Berlage  2. Architecture (1910) Adolf Loos  3. Toward an Architecture (1923) Le Corbusier  4. Regarding Economy (1924) Adolf Loos  5. Yes and No Confessions of an Architect (1925) J. J. P. Oud  6. Type-Needs Type-Furniture (1925) Le Corbusier  7. Architecture (1926) Gruppo 7  8. The Modern Museum (1929) August Perret  9. The Mirror of Rational Architecture (1931) Carlo Enrico Rava  10. An Architectural Programme (1933) Piero Bottoni  11. Collective Needs and Architecture (1935) August Perret  12. Rural Architecture in Italy (1936) Guiseppe Pagano and Guarniero Daniel  13. Architecture’s Relationship to Typification (1956) Hans Schmidt The New City  14. Die Grosstadt (1911) Otto Wagner  15. The City of Tomorrow and its Planning (1925) Le Corbusier  16. Großstadtarchitektur (1927) Ludwig Hilberseimer  17. From the Athens Charter (1933 CIAM / Le Corbusier  18. The Athens Charter: Conclusions (1933) CIAM / Le Corbusier  The Logic of Construction – Rationalization  19. Modern Architecture (1896) Otto Wagner  20. The Modern Functional Building (1923) Adolf Behne  21. Office Building (1923) Mies van der Rohe  22. Building (1923) Mies van der Rohe  23. Construction and Form (1924) Ludwig Hilberseimer  24. Five Points Towards a New Architecture (1926) Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret  25. Remarks on my Block of Flats (1927) Mies van der Rohe  26. La Sarraz Declaration (1928) CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne)  27. What would Concrete, What would Steel be Without Mirror Glass (1933) Mies van der Rohe  28. Structure and Architecture (1935) Giuseppe Pagano  29. The New Architecture and the Bauhaus (1935) Walter Gropius  Industrial Production and the Collective  30. Mass Produced Buildings (1924) Le Corbusier  31. Industrial Building (1924) Mies van der Rohe  32. Collective Design (1924) Mart Stam  33. Principles of Bauhaus Production Dessau (1926) Walter Gropius  34. The New World (1926) Hannes Meyer  35. Building (1928) Hannes Meyer  Rationalism in Retrospect  36. Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (1960) Reyner Banham  37. Modular Co-ordination in Architecture (1964) Hans Schmidt  38. The Fine Red Thread of Italian Rationalism (1978) Vittorio Gregotti  39. Building Modern Italy (1988) Dennis Doordan  40. Polemical Rationalism (1991) Richard Etlin  41. Rationalism, Mediterraneità, and the Vernacular (2010) Michelangelo Sabatino  42. Architecture for Barbarians – Ludwig Hilberseimer and the Rise of the Generic City (2011) Pier Vittorio Aureli  43. Everything in the State, Nothing against the State’: Corporative Urbanism and Rationalist Architecture in Fascist Italy (2012) David Rifkind  Addendum  Architecture, Rationalism and Reconstruction: The Example of France 1945-55 Nicholas Bullock  Documents Two 1960-1990  The Neo-rationalist Perspective Henk Engel  Neo-rationalism: Type and Typology  44. Architecture and Ideology (1957) Giulio Carlo Argan  45. On the Typology of Architecture (1962) Giulio Carlo Argan  46. The Question of Style (1969) Giorgio Grassi  47. The New Architecture and the Avantgarde (1973) Massimo Scolari  48. The Third Typology (1978) Anthony Vidler  49. Small Manifesto (1978) Bernard Huet  50. Introduction: Motives and Propositions (1979) Gianfranco Caniggia and Gian Luigi Maffei  51. Neo-Rationalism and Figuration (1984) Ignasi Sola-Morales  52. Premises for the Resumption of the Discussion of Typology (1986) Werner Oechslin  53. Typological Theories in Architectural Design (1993) Micha Bandini  54. Type and the Possibility of an Architectural Scholarship (1994) Guido Francescato  Architecture and the City  55. The Architecture of the City (1966) Aldo Rossi  56. The Reconstruction of the City (1978) Leon Krier  57. Typological and Morphological Elements of the Concept of Urban Space (1979) Rob Krier  58. Formal objectivity in urban design and architecture as an aspect of rational planning (1979) Carel Weeber  Logical Construction and Autonomy  59. The Logical Construction of Architecture (1967)Giorgio Grassi  60. Elements and Construction: A Note on the Architecture of Aldo Rossi (1970) Ezio Bonfanti  61. Introduction (1974) Aldo Rossi  62. Design Motivations (1975) Luigi Snozzi  63. Architecture as Craft (1979) Giorgio Grassi  64. Architecture’s Right to an Autonomous Language (1979) Oswald Mathias Ungers  65. The Necessity for Uselessness. Remarks on a Conversation. (1987) Livio Vacchini  66. The Myth of Construction and the Architectonic (1991) Hans Kollhoff  Reproduction and Tradition  67. What is Architecture? (1964) O M Ungers  68. Architecture for Museums (1966) Aldo Rossi  69. The Age of Reconstruction (1980) The Reconstruction of the European City (1980) Leon Krier  Neo-rationalism in Retrospect  70. History of Italian Architecture, 1944-1985 (1982) Manfredo Tafuri  71. A Return to Humanism in Architecture (2002) Fritz Neumeyer  72. The New Urban Scale in Italy – On Aldo Rossi’s L’architettura della città (2006) Mary Louise Lobsinger  73. Rossi: The Concept of the Locus as a Political Category of the City (2008) Pier Vittorio Aureli  74. The Socialist Perspective of the XV Triennale di Milano. Hans Schmidt’s Influence on Aldo Rossi (2010) Angelika Schnell  Postscript  The Heroism of Rationalism? Hans van der Heijden  Rationalism David Dunster  Tectonics  Hans Kollhoff  Rational Architecture Rationelle 1975-1978 Leon Krier

    Biography

    Andrew Peckham, Torsten Schmiedeknecht