On the Inexplicable and the Progressive in Modern Architecture

On the Inexplicable and the Progressive in Modern Architecture

Alfred Arvidsson

Does humanity have a soul? Something complex within us beyond the mechanical biological social creature that modernity tries to reduce us to? I for one believe that our species is ultimately a spiritual and complex being.

This is something that deeply characterises my view of most things in life, including architecture. Of course, it is both risky and difficult to link certain building styles to particular conceptions of what human beings are. But I have noticed one thing: those who believe that humanity is a simple mechanical creature tend, for some reason, to favour a certain kind of architecture.

The obvious example is the French architect Le Corbusier, who can rightly be called the leading theorist of modern architecture. He wanted to create a machine for living, in which all architecture and even the ways of life that had organically developed in the cities over the centuries were abruptly rejected. The areas in which we would live would be radically separated from the areas in which we consumed and the areas in which we worked. We would no longer even need to go outside to breathe fresh air!

In the spirit of Le Corbusier, the social engineers, who were a very powerful social force in Sweden in the 20th century, advocated the idea that human beings could easily be reduced to a set of simple social and biological needs. Almost without exception, these social engineers had a fierce belief in a minimalist and functionalist architecture that formed the stylistic architectural basis of the Swedish welfare state’s ambitious housing programme (Miljonprogrammet). And this has unfortunately continued into the present day, albeit with a slightly different stylistic flavour! In my old hometown of Umeå, the old generation of Social Democratic social engineers – a familiar type given the soubriquet of ‘concrete Social Democrat’ (betongsosse) – led by the grand old man of municipal populism, Lennart Holmlund (who, by the way, goes under the name V75-kungen on X/twitter), has entered into an extremely unholy alliance with the equally soulless consumer culture which, with its monstrous shopping areas, hotels, ‘cultural centres’ and ‘tasteful’ minimalist villas, is increasingly devouring the entire city. Umeå is becoming a kind of arctic Dubai where construction conglomerates are unabashedly pushing their architecture, which every year looks more and more like the Finland ferries that have traversed the Gulf of Bothnia for many years.

It is easy to be labelled as conservative, right-wing, and reactionary when attacking modern architecture and defending the old. But it doesn’t have to be that way. During the heyday of the left-wing counterculture movement in the 1960s and -70s, there was a large protest movement against demolition and the concrete society, which found expression in, among other things, the 1971 Battle of the Elms in Stockholm. Mikael Wiehe, a figurehead within the movement, wrote the following lines in the song ‘Trädet’ about Hjalmar Mehr, the mastermind behind the redevelopment scheme in Norrmalm that destroyed the Klara neighbourhood in Stockholm:

Det fanns en man en potentat // Jag säger inte mer // Men allt, han såg i Stockholms stad // Det skulle rivas ner.

(There was a man, a potentate // I say no more // But all he saw in Stockholm city // He would tear down.)

Modern architecture’s foundation in Western rationality could make it subject to postcolonial critique as well. During the conflict over the exhibition space ‘Vita havet’/’White Sea’ at the University of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Stockholm (Konstfack), one of the members of the artist collective Brown Island said that the often white-coloured modernism and minimalism are strongly linked to notions of white supremacy. An interesting statement, I think, even if I don’t always fully understand Brown Island’s thinking in this conflict. Perhaps the anonymous participant in Brown Island was thinking of the modernist pioneer Adolf Loos whose motto ‘Ornament ist verbrechen’ was deeply rooted in a racist mindset where ornamentation was seen as characteristic of the ‘inferior’ artistic style and design of non-white peoples. Functionalism is also often a colonial Western imposition when it has arisen in other parts of the world. For example, what exactly is so progressive about an old Swiss-French white guy, and an admirer of fascism to boot (I’m talking about Le Corbusier again, of course), building brutalism in Chandigarh, India, with no real sense of the local Indian culture and its marvellous building traditions?

Moreover, modern architecture’s link to social housing construction has increasingly disappeared over the years. Today, its expression is rather more closely linked to the powerful forces of capital. International capital loves neo-modernist skyscrapers! You can see this whether you are in Dubai, Singapore, Chicago or Umeå. In contrast, one can point to the 19th century English Arts and Crafts socialists who believed that all people should be able to live in aesthetically pleasing, ornamented environments.

Now, I am not trying to argue that modernist architecture is necessarily fascist, racist, or capitalist. Rather, I’m trying to trouble the all too unproblematic link between modern architecture and progressiveness, democracy, and equality, which its proponents insist on drawing.

However, I do not wish to conceal my belief that there is a connection between a denial of the inexplicable spiritual dimensions of humanity and the modernist tradition in architecture. After all, this denial is often the common thread connecting the powerful forces of urban development; the capitalists, the municipal officials and administrators, the 20th century social engineers and, not least, a fairly large part of the worldview of architects even today.

Dela detta: